IronDoxy

The countdown has started.  I can now start marking my time until I leave by the amount of malaria medication I have remaining.  It truly is a love-hate relationship with that little pink pill.  If you don’t take it and one of those nasty little mosquitoes gets you then look out.  If you do take it, but on an empty stomach…look out!  All in all I will take the upset stomach over the shivers any day.  It is the price of coexisting in Africa with the camels, goats, skinny cows, and occasional sheep.

The time ticks away…tick tock.  This week will mark 3 months away from home with only 2 months-ish left.  The temperature and humidity continues to rise as we march steadily towards summer.  I count myself fortunate that I get the distinct pleasure to experience Africa hotness in its full July glory prior to heading home.  Yes!  Yes!  Yes!

Training is accelerating at a breathtaking pace.  Fitness and strength are both improving.  Mobility still needs some work.  Body comp is in progress.  My training partner (the ever illustrious Marine Master Sergeant or MB) and I are always looking for new ways to push the limit just a little more.  He kills me on the run and then I get to return the favor on the squat rack.  It really is a symbiotic relationship that is built upon fear, intimidation, and ridicule.   Today was a 1000-meter swim, followed with a 25-mile bike, and then a 5-mile run.  Not too shabby for two old guys.

During the time away from home I have also spent a ton of time reading and researching for a methodology of fitness that moves past event based fitness and more towards a holistic, sustainable program.  I have been looking for programming that makes life outside of the gym easier.   One of the pitfalls of being an aging athlete is that as fitness becomes harder to maintain…weight gain is easier, mobility starts to suffer and chronic injuries manifest themselves.  For programming to be sustainable it has to address and solve all of these issues. 

I stumbled upon an article that had a statement that was so profound that it changed my entire view on fitness, health, and training.  (Fitness and Health are not always related) It said, “Treat yourself as a professional athlete.”  Bang!  The context of the article is for the tactical military guy (i.e. spec ops dude), but if you really think about that statement you can see how it transfers to the everyday person or everyday athlete.  Treat yourself as a professional athlete (minus the entourage, hookers, and blow)! More simply, train and take care of your body as if your livelihood depended upon it….because it actually does.   If you need any examples please ask me and I will give you some.

In form athletes don’t eat fruit loops for breakfast, stop at Burger King for lunch, and then eat chicken fingers for dinner because they are tired and the kids are hungry.   They don’t drink gallons of soda (or diet soda) and eat mountains of candy. They also don’t go to the gym and frantically cram in 40 minutes on the elliptical machine, chase it down with a double latte frappe on their way back to work and then wonder why they are fat.  (They still drink Sierra Nevada…its my article and I get to say what I want to).  

In Dan John’s book Intervention he argues that strength is the foundation for all fitness.  It is strength that brings everything together.  He lists a series of standards that everyone should achieve.  In the article Fitness, Not Mobility, Is Durability, Jordan Smothermon goes one step further and states, “We believe strength is king.”  He also uses the durability formula  “Durability = 80% Strength + 10% Proper (Functional) Movement + 10% Mobility” For the aging athlete this is the recipe for continued success or even possibly the course correction needed to find lost fitness. 

The current fitness craze focuses too much on endurance sports as the ultimate achievement of athleticism.  It does have its place, but should not be the focus of what is achieved.  Endurance races (marathons, triathlons, ultras, centuries) are nothing more than expressions of fitness.   The issue is not with these events, it is more with how we train for these events.  It not uncommon to see endurance athletes hurt for large stretches of time….especially the weekend warrior sort.  A marathon as an expression of fitness does you no good if you cannot climb a fence to get your kid's ball out of the neighbor's yard or you are so functionally stiff that you cannot bend over and pick up a bag of groceries without straining your back.  I will argue that fitness must have a direct application to life and be able to be expressed as such.  Remember…strength + movement + mobility.

My focus for the past three months has been on all three of these.  Strength has dominated, but all three are worked throughout the training cycle.   This week I am starting my second block of strength programming with the LBEB 12 week program.  I also swim, bike, run, do BJJ and martial arts (MCMAP)…but the real laser focus is on strength.  There is a lot of work left to do and I am still learning what it takes to treat myself as a professional athlete, but I know for sure it was not what I was doing in the past.   The diet still could use some work (I love ice cream) and I really dislike stretching.  After Beach 2 Battleship I will be changing my overall programming to something that looks like what Mountain Athlete offers….tough, functional training with mobility mixed in.  That sounds like a recipe for success.