Build a Foundation

The internet age is wonderful because it provides us with a wide variety of information at the click of a mouse that in the past would have taken hours or days to research.  The downside to this wealth of information is our brains do not know how to process and filter it.  This is true for medical studies, politics, and even strength and conditioning.  For example, look up your favorite athlete in Google or on YouTube and you can probably find one of their workouts for a given period.  The problem with this is the information is taken out of context.  In order to develop a well-rounded athlete or even just be fit and healthy, the first step should be to develop a base of strength, body awareness, balance, flexibility, mobility, aerobic and anaerobic capacity before lifting heavy weights, sprint training, advanced plyometrics, or any kind of specialized training.

When you see a professional athlete, you are seeing a finished product, not the process that created it.  Often times, these athletes have been working out since they were young developing work capacity.  They also played a variety of different sports until the college level.  For example, Vikings running back Adrian Peterson played basketball, track, and football at his high school.  When you see interviews with athletes about how they conditioned themselves early on, many of them did things like push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, run, and jump rope.

Specialized training has its place and that place is well after a foundation has been laid.  If you try to teach a student algebra or statistics who does not understand multiplication, division, or exponents, you will not get very far.  That student may understand order of operations, but they will not be able to actually apply what they have learned to real life.  The same is true of strength and conditioning.  If I have a trainee who cannot complete 10 good pushups, but I teach them to bench press, will they get better at the bench press?  Sure. But what good does that actually do them?  They have not developed the tendon strength or the surrounding musculature to guard against injuries or even progress past a certain point on the bench press.

Body-weight training is beneficial for several reasons:

1. The majority of body-weight exercises are closed chain meaning the entire body has to be engaged in order to provide stability in the movement.  For example:  In the push up, the triceps, deltoids, and pectorals are the prime movers, but contractions of the lats, trapezius, abdominals, spinae erectors, glutes, quadriceps, and hamstrings stabilize to make that movement possible.  This not only helps the trainee get stronger, but also to learn body awareness.
2. Body-weight training relies on moving the body against gravity which is precisely what we do in everyday life and for the most part what is done in sports.  What good is being able to move external weight if you have difficulty moving your body through space effectively?
3. The body is smart.  If you are preforming a push up repeatedly and more muscle is needed in your triceps, your body will build more muscle in the triceps.  On the same note, if you are carrying around unneeded weight, the body will get rid of it to make the pushups easier.
4. This type of training is cheap and can be done anywhere.

Now, do not let the above make you think I am anti-weights.  I am not.  In fact, I am not even entirely against them for some beginners.  For some trainees it can be difficult to activate certain muscles, like using the back muscles during a pull-up.  For these trainees it is fine to use dumbbells, bands, cables, etc. to help activate the muscles (although it is usually not necessary).  I am simply saying that it is better to gain proficiency in movements, develop baseline strength, and create awareness of how the body moves before you add an external load or start isolating muscles.

Why do I say this?  Well, once you add an external load the focus becomes on moving the load.  This is fine, but if awareness has not been developed,  the desired effect is less likely to be achieved.  In other words, we lift to get stronger and to develop muscles, but where we get stronger and develop muscles is important.  If you squat with weight on your back, you will find a way to lift the weight.  The issue is entire muscle groups might be "asleep".  Developing form and making sure muscles are firing is the first priority. 

An underused philosophy in strength and conditioning is “do as little as possible to achieve the desired result".  This isn't to say do not have difficult workouts, but if there is ground to be gained without adding an external load, then why add an external load?  Ultimately, gains can only be gained so fast.  Why not have something else to try when what you are doing is no longer working?  Too much, too soon will make it difficult to narrow down what works and what does not.

So where do you start? Jumping rope, skipping, hip thrusts, glute bridges, sit-ups, crunches, planks, jumping jacks, lunges, squats, hop scotch, distance running up to 30 minutes, shorter more intense intervals of running 200-800 meters, running up hills, running up stairs, dodge ball, back extensions, supermans, squat jumps, lunges, split squats, running in sand, high knees, body rows, fartlek runs, pull-ups, squat thrusts, pushups, dips, leg lifts, monkey bars, balance beams, slack ropes, burpees, medicine ball throws, ect.  That is an extensive and incomplete list, but it is a good place to start.  After proficiency is achieved, look to increase difficulty a little bit at a time.  The pace of progress will vary by individual and so may the point at which you decide to add weight or otherwise increase difficulty.  One thing is for sure though, if the trainee cannot do the above things listed (specific injuries notwithstanding), then there is no reason for them to be doing advanced speed training, heavy weight lifting, advanced plyometrics, or Olympic style lifts.

What is proficiency?  Other people might disagree with me, but I would say if you could do the strength movements continuously, with good form, for more than 30 seconds then proficiency has been achieved.  After 60 seconds, the trainee should progress in difficulty, unless some kind of specific training effect is desired.  As a trainee advances, this will not be the criteria used to progress, but again this is a starting point.

Never be afraid to resort back to the basics.  When I am injured or burned out on heavy weights and intense training, I revert to calisthenics, lighter weights, and fundamental things.  Although I may lose some maximum strength, it can be gained back easily and I will feel much better.

Getting better at something is a long process.  Dedicate a little time to the basics now and reap the benefits for years to come.

A Great Sports Nutrition Infographic

A great graphic courtesy of http://greatist.com.  I'm always down for OPG (other people's graphics).

Importance of Exercise

In the above video, Dr. Mike Evans talks about the benefit of exercise as medicine.  I don't deny the value of modern medicine, but there is no substitute for positive lifestyle changes.

An Incomplete List of Strength Training Rules

• Warm-up.  A good guideline is to do about 5-10 minutes of aerobic exercise and then a short calisthenic circuit (push-ups, body squats, lunges, bicycle crunches, ect.).  The more reps in a set the shorter the warm-up needs to be, the heavier and more intense the set, the longer the warm-up.
• Work the entire body.  I often see women doing endless crunches, and men doing nothing but bench press and curls.  If this is done for an extended period of time it may be worse than doing nothing.  Not working other muscle groups is not only ineffective, but will ultimately lead to injury.
• Your workout should focus on major compound exercises (exercises that use multiple muscle groups). Big muscles and big movements first.
• The five best exercise for strength development:  Variations of push-ups, pull-ups, dips, squats, and dead-lifts.
• There are no bad exercises, just bad application.
• Over time vary reps, weight, sets, exercises, and the order of exercises.
• If you can lift a weight for more than a minute straight you are not using enough weight.
• Push yourself.  You can't spell workout without work.  For the first six months of training you should be adding weight and/or reps almost every workout.
• Rest is an important part of working out.  Muscles repair themselves and grow at rest, not while you're working out.  Listen to your body and take time to rest your stressed muscles.
• Every exercise should have a purpose.
• Ladies:  Don't worry about bulking up into the incredible hulk.  Gaining muscle mass is influenced by several factors other than lifting, among them:  testosterone and diet.  Any given man will have at least 10 times the testosterone of any given woman.  Female body builders train a lot, diet specifically to gain mass, cut down to little body fat, and take as many, if not more steroids then the men.  Also, it takes time to gain significant muscle mass.  Logic states that if you thought you were gaining too much mass, all you would have to do is stop and so would the gains to mass.  Finally, muscle burns fat and chances are, if you weren't gaining muscle, you'd be gaining fat instead.
• Keep a log of exercises sets, weight, reps, how you're feeling, etc.
• Train your weaknesses.
• Don't over-complicate working out.  Just remember to work opposing muscle groups.
• Something is always better than nothing.
• Learn the exercises, check and re-check form, make sure you can feel the targeted muscle working.

Good luck and keep training.

The Really Long-Run Continued...

So, a while back I wrote about my experimentation with a long runs of 25 and 30 miles as opposed to the recommended long runs of most plans maxing out at 20 miles.  I promised to report results so here they are:  This year I ran the marathon in 3:58:59 unofficially (officially, they fucked up my time).  That is an improvement of four minutes and 29 seconds from last year.  Now on the surface this improvement is probably less than can be expected normally running your second marathon, however there were a number of other factors at play:

• The race was wet and windy this year.
• The race was bigger and I started further back contributing to a slower start.
• The base of running mileage was much less this year.  During the first week of April in 2010, I was able to run a 12-mile long run and about 22 miles for the week.  This year, I was only able to run about five miles at a time and a total of around 15 for the week.
• I wasn't any better running this race tactically than last year.  Last year, I picked up the pace in the middle of the race, this year I did the exact same thing.
• Because of injury and missed weeks of training, I aimed to run only slightly faster than last year.  If you don't intend on running significantly faster in a marathon it won't happen.

Gravity is Your Friend

Simple training is often the best training and there is little simpler then running up a hill or a set of steps.  This kind of "upward"  training can build stamina, strength, improve running form, increase leg-drive, coordination, promote fat loss, and increase mental conditioning.  Running up hills or stairs also reduces impact and will increase lower body strength without having to load your back with heavy weight.

Hills and steps are similar but each method has it's own set of distinct benefits:

Hills:

• Allow for maximum effort.  You don't have to worry about tripping and knocking your teeth out on a step.
• Usually allow for  easier access to a variety of lengths and inclines.
• You can run up backwards to emphasize your quads and improve backwards running ability for sports.

Steps:

• Forces coordination to hit each step.
• Forces quick feet and knees up style running.
• Allows for plyometric (jumping) exercises and emphasizing the eccentric (negative) muscle contraction.

Now I'm going to outline some methods of training for specific goals.  Don't get caught up too much in the details.  The reality is that regardless of your goal, running hills or steps with a hard effort will increase stamina, aerobic and anaerobic capacity, strength, power, and coordination.

The Physiological Effects of Caffeine

The Physiological Effects of Caffeine

Introduction: 

Caffeine is the most consumed psychoactive compound in the world. It is present in many foods, beverages, medicines and supplements. Caffeine containing foods and beverages have been consumed for a perhaps as long as 700,000 years (Snyder 20). Caffeine is a highly effective stimulant that has been shown to enhance mood, cognitive capability, alertness, and enhance athletic performance. When ingested, caffeine produces a number of effects on the central nervous, muscular, digestive, respiratory, and cardiovascular systems of the body.

Metabolism of caffeine: 

Caffeine is a water soluble compound and therefore spreads through the body rapidly to anywhere there is water. Additionally, caffeine easily passes through cell membranes. These properties allow caffeine to rapidly enter the blood stream where it is then cycled through the liver (60 Snyder). In the liver the P45 enzyme system produces a number of metabolites (Ruxton 16). This process happens over and over until all the caffeine has been metabolized (60 Snyder). Less than six percent of caffeine is expelled in urine and most of the drug is removed from the body in about 12 hours following consumption (Ruxton, 15). The rate caffeine metabolism can be altered by a number of other factors including liver disease or use of other drugs (Snyder 61).

The Really Long Run

Marathon training programs typically rely on several things: A lot of miles, long runs, threshold runs, and a small amount of speed work. The accumulation of miles is designed to develop the aerobic energy system and among other things, get you used to running. The long run is typically what most programs are built around. They are designed to force your body to adapt to long distance efforts, further develop the aerobic energy system, force the body to use more body fat rather than glycogen for energy, and prepare your body to go 26.2 miles. Threshold runs are run at a "comfortably hard" pace and are designed to raise your lactate threshold so you can hold speed for longer durations. Finally, speed work is designed to increase efficiency in movement, enhance lactic acid buffering, and improve "fast twitch" muscle fibers.

Normally, the most important workout is the long run because it most closely simulates the marathon. The least important for most people (except the most experienced runners), is speed work because there is both an increased risk of injury and the conditioning element is of minimal utility for most marathoners. Ideally, you have all of these elements in your training plan. Unfortunately, life is seldom ideal.