Flying into Halifax in T-9 hours!

It’s Friday.  You know what that means?  Milk challenge. 

I’m 60mins from my projected finish of the 20K time trial after doing 90 minutes (90!) of 90/80/70 percent efforts plus a V02 Max!  All on a couple of eggs and juice.

My legs are shattered.  I have knots in three points that are [...]]]>

It’s Friday.  You know what that means?  Milk challenge. 

I’m 60mins from my projected finish of the 20K time trial after doing 90 minutes (90!) of 90/80/70 percent efforts plus a V02 Max!  All on a couple of eggs and juice.

My legs are shattered.  I have knots in three points that are killing me.  I have had two bad charlie horses..  And I’m hungry.

So how the heck do you force yourself into doing a 20k TT?

The key is to break it up into manageable goals.  For me, I actually sing to myself (in hy head!).  Since there is no music you have to give yourself something to focus on.  Last week:

Semi charmed life by Third Eye Blind

I want it that way by BSB (still know all the words!)

Hello by some weird name band. 

This week I have some OLP to focus on!

To be honest, I don’t what inside you summons the strength to perform.  All I know is that I try not to think about it!  Oh, it’s game time.  Wish me luck

I found this gem in the stacks of UWO.  I’ve been on the look out for swim workouts.  Generally I don’t find it hard to make up sessions but sometimes it’s nice to have a few go to lesson plans.  This book: Swimming Going for Strength and Stamina, has 60 workouts!  Thats over a years [...]]]>

I found this gem in the stacks of UWO.  I’ve been on the look out for swim workouts.  Generally I don’t find it hard to make up sessions but sometimes it’s nice to have a few go to lesson plans.  This book: Swimming Going for Strength and Stamina, has 60 workouts!  Thats over a years worth of black line staring!

The book is a general overview of swimming.  I read through it briefly.  It has the usual stroke basics, how to setup your season, and it covers all four strokes.  Honestly, there are much better books out there that talk about these topics!

Bottom Line

What Swimming Going for Strength and Stamina does well is setting up manageable, easily to reproduce, workouts.  It’s an old book, published in 1988 so that means you can find a cheap copy on amazon.

Actually I’ve been interested in the decathlon; what sort of training for it requires.  I find it hard to balance 3 sports let alone 10!  I’m [...]]]> Yes it feels like my life right now: the decathlon.  School, work, swim, work, gym, work, bike, write, run, feed dog, feed me, run…  You get the point.

Actually I’ve been interested in the decathlon; what sort of training for it requires.  I find it hard to balance 3 sports let alone 10!  I’m pondering doing some reading to see how one trains for all these events.  It must either be a crazy day (week) with a lot of thoughtful thinking behind the process.

Maybe decathletes hold the secret to a balanced life?  Or no life….

Sports Fitness Advisor: If you want any information with exercise, checkout this site!  They have piles or workouts and great scientific backround on many [...]]]> Jonathan Wyatt: When it comes to mountain running, Wyatt is a name feared among other runners.  If your finish, 10 behind Wyatt (10mins behind him) you are considered an excellent runner!

Sports Fitness Advisor: If you want any information with exercise, checkout this site!  They have piles or workouts and great scientific backround on many sports.

Cheap Healthy Good Blog: Excellent meal creations at the fraction of a price!  The only thing is, it’s American, so getting the ‘deals’ won’t be exactly the same. 

Go Swim: Just found this one recently, great video analysis of swimming!

In the previous two sections (Part 1 and Part 2) I have established what methods and some warning signs to keep you on the road of injury prevention.  Nutrition is my final topic for the recovery trilogy.

Nutrition in my house analogy is hard to quantify.  It not only determines the height and width [...]]]>

In the previous two sections (Part 1 and Part 2) I have established what methods and some warning signs to keep you on the road of injury prevention.  Nutrition is my final topic for the recovery trilogy.

Nutrition in my house analogy is hard to quantify.  It not only determines the height and width of the house but it is also in the materials that make it.  It’s in my own opinion that I think nutrition can contribute a 20% increase in performance.  The worst you eat (daily and yearly), the better your chance of increasing your potential if you improve your diet.  After making the initial “cuts” like, fast food, processed food, and junk food (chips and candy) to name a few, the gains to be made are harder to achieve.  Optimization the diet becomes more about timing than it is about what your eating (assuming the food you eat is “healthy”).

Most endurance athletes go down the road of eating like crap and then slowly make a change over to the healthier side.  Why?  Because the food you eat becomes the fuel you have to truly have to keep you going.  If you consume poor quality foods then your efforts can show this.  The energy you have will be in quick but sub maximal efforts.  Not great for endurance!

Here is a list of things to consider when taking your nutrition to the next level.

1. At the grocery store, stay away from the middle aisles or packaged goods section.  Consider stocking up on fruits, vegetables, eggs and meats instead of products have a long shelf life (chips, cookies, cereals).  Baking needs are ok! 
2. Purchase foods at a local market instead of the grocery store as you can get produce and meats sooner (i.e. fresher).  Buying local will help support the farmers around you.
3. Learn to time your foods for different workouts.  Workouts shorter than an hour, don’t require eating 3 hours before to get the benefits.  Read this for more info: http://www.livemultisport.com/2010/08/nutrition-questions-unanswered/
4. The key for doing any exercise is to find out your metabolic rate (MBR).  This little number tells you how much energy you need for the day.  From here, you can start to find out how much you need in your workouts (either calculated or estimated based on hunger).  There are a few ways to find the MBR: you can do it through a digital scale such as a Tanita (not very accurate).  The next step is getting measured by electrical impedance through both your arms and legs (same premise as the Tanita).  This gives a better understanding.  Lastly is the Dexa machine which is an x ray-like machine that can scan your body for muscle density.  This is one of the most accurate devices but you’ll have to go to a hospital to use it.
5. Hydration, hydration and hydration!  
6. Trying to replace all the calories you lost during exercise is pointless.  You’ll probably end up cramping especially if the intensity is high.  Your body has plenty of stores of fat to be converted to fuel.  They key is to replace carbohydrates at a steady rate (200-300cals/hr) if your working for long durations.

Nutrition is building blocks for your body or house.  Unlike muscle strength which takes a long time to form; the food you eat can help you perform better tomorrow.  Hopefully you have a better understanding of how nutrition plays a vital role in your exercise regime.

In the first section of recovery I reviewed the different techniques to keep you “playing”.  Now I’d like to talk about [...]]]> ***Instead of having a huge explanation, I’m going to try to keep it short and simple.  My time seems to be slipping away so I figure more frequent posts will be better for LiveMultiSport.***

In the first section of recovery I reviewed the different techniques to keep you “playing”.  Now I’d like to talk about learning the warning signs your body sends to say “take a break“.  Recovery is the key for growth in endurance, power, strength, you name it.  Knowing the warning signs your body tells you to take a break can save you time from sitting on the side lines.  If you need ways to help you recover, check the last post out.

Using my house analogy, recovery is in every piece of the building from the foundation straight to the roof.  It is often overlooked in training programs either too little (burnout or over-training) or equally as bad, too much (ie: never getting off the couch in the first place!).  So what is the balance?

Realistically most people, at least the ones that would read this site, tend to overdue it.  So here are some key signs to pick up on to hold you back from going overboard:

1. If you can’t get out of bed in the morning because you’re too tired.
2. No enjoyment in the workout.
3. Stress starts early on in the day for no apparent reason.
4. Sugar cravings.
5. Low libido.
6. Waking up in the middle of the night to go pee.
7. Thirsty all the time (probably has something to do with 6!).
8. Selfishness increases.

These aren’t in any specific order however in my case, 1 and 4 are some of the early warning signs of pushing the limits.  My motto for exercise is simple: apply a stimulus, let it recover and repeat.  Knowing how big to a apply a stimulus and how long to let it recover is… well, complicated.  This can almost seem overwhelming, especially if you’re new to a sport.  Learning, however, is a part of doing.  Mistakes are also allowed, just don’t do it twice!  Get to know your warning signs and keep your foundation intact.

This is a part of the Building the House Series.

It’s been a decent year and one that I won’t soon forget!  Currently I’m working on putting together “Building the House” which will showcase how to put together your season.  I’ve got the ideas in my head and now need sometime to put them on paper.  Stick around because I think you will [...]]]>

It’s been a decent year and one that I won’t soon forget!  Currently I’m working on putting together “Building the House” which will showcase how to put together your season.  I’ve got the ideas in my head and now need sometime to put them on paper.  Stick around because I think you will enjoy them!

One thing that annoys me with most books is they put the recovery and nutrition chapters last.  After you’ve read through the should dos, the shouldn’t dos, the could dos, and would dos; you put the book down and probably stop reading altogether!  You’ve missed [...]]]> This is the second part in “Building the House“ compilation.

One thing that annoys me with most books is they put the recovery and nutrition chapters last.  After you’ve read through the should dos, the shouldn’t dos, the could dos, and would dos; you put the book down and probably stop reading altogether!  You’ve missed two huge issues that need some attention.  First I’m going to cover the controversial topic of recovery and then nutrition.

Without recovery, your body will never be able to adapt to the stress you put on it.  Using my house analogy, if you don’t take the time to patch up the leaks in the foundation, your home is going to crumble. If you think of your day as 24 hours, you may spend what, 1-4 hours training?  So maybe at the most 1/6?  Even a long day, like 8 hours is still only 1/4 of the time.  That leaves the majority of the day to do other things, rest, hopefully being one of them.

It’s difficult to measure rest as compared to the other training parameters  My running race pace is XX:XX min/k.  I can swim at X:XX per 100ms and my resting is….  well…  what is it?  Outside of sleep, it’s hard to quantify relaxation.   There are ways of course but it requires a lab to study the electric pulses in your body.  Unfortunately, this isn’t really meant as a home recovery system.   Resting heart rate is another but hard to capture for the working individual.

What I think would be great is to invent a way to measure the ionic capacity of the muscle, maybe using a simple “battery indicator”.  A relaxing muscle should show very little output where as a damaged muscle (ie. post workout) will show more.  This could give a green light as to when to return to training.  There may be ways to do this but I haven’t come across them.

Ok so outside my made up technology and a device that you can’t use what other ways can you help recovery?

Stretching is the first one.  There are a plethora of  science papers exploring the world of stretching.  There seems to be a conflict between if it works and if it doesn’t.  Most of the papers that claim stretching isn’t effective are done with short term studies (8-12 weeks).  If you read the previous post, your body hasn’t even had time to build any strength from the workouts in 8 weeks.  So I can see why stretching in a short term wouldn’t work.  Longer durations, ie. years, needs to be completed before the book can be truly closed on stretching.

Does stretching work?  I think it does.  My reasoning is this: a lengthened muscle can move faster or has the potential too than a short cramped one.  If you think of a stretched elastic band, the second the tension is released it moves super fast.  The same can be said about your muscle.  The only problem with a really stretched out muscle is that it has a problem generating force.  Take that same elastic band example and instead of a single loop outstretched, wrap it around twice.  The force will be increased but the velocity will be a bit less.  So for the muscle, there is a happy medium between being able to generate force and velocity.  Stretching is a good way to stay limber as exercise tends to shorten the elasticity of the muscle.

A few other ideas, again all controversial, are hot/cold (saunas/ice baths), legs over the head and the compression socks.  Lets start with compression socks.

Compression socks work by pushing/compressing the blood out of your calves and thus creating a vacuum pressure which is replaced by fresh blood.  The science seems like it would work but do they?  A paper studying the effects of post workout fatigue with athletes wearing the socks and without found that there was no harm done.  In the science world that means it is plausible they could help.  From experience, they work if you have the right compression (ie. not loose fit).

Legs over the head has been around since…  Adam and Eve I guess.  The idea is the same as the compression socks; by holding your legs over the head the blood flows out and is returned once your legs are back below your heart.  This one is a little harder to do at the office…  You may be called into see the boss man if your doing the computer reports upside down.  Performance gains from this are unknown.

Lastly the ice batch and sauna.  Let’s tackle the sauna.  The thought is that you sweat out your impurities.  For a cold or flu this maybe true (however it hasn’t been fully proven), however my thought is if your already dehydrated and you enter a spot to sweat more…  how is this helping?  Your asking the body to work harder to help cool the circulatory system.  You may want to save the sauna for the warm up.

If you have ever tried an ice bath you know what a shocker it is to the muscles; especially on cold winter days!  The thought process behind the ice bath is again like the socks and legs over the head: pressure differential causes blood to flow in and out of the legs/back/body.  After being immersed in cold water the fibers begin to constrict as the blood flows out.  But throw some hot water on and they begin to stretch out as the fluids come rushing back.  Science again isn’t a fan of this technique.  However, I personally feel it does work.  There are days when an ice bath helps me relax more than a stretching session.

So we got the recovery techniques covered.  These should help aid in keeping your house together.  Next up is learning the signs of your body to tell when it is breaking down (crucial for making any gains).