The purpose of
this article is to put all my thoughts regarding fitness and training onto a
single document for ease of reference and future editing. Disclaimer up front… I am not a scientific researcher and I do not
own a lab. Instead I spend a ton of time reading and listening to fitness
professionals. None of the data I
present here is original to me, but is pulled from many sources. I will cite as much as I can to the original
source of the data.
My training
philosophy is my basic living philosophy.
There is no doubt that I am passionate about fitness and the expression
of fitness (sport). Sometimes it can be
quite overwhelming and this has forced me on several occasions to take a step
back and really look at what I am trying to accomplish. During one of those breaks I took the time to
drill down why fitness, and ultimately healthy living, is important to me. Over the course of my lifetime I have watched
poor health habits impact the people I care the most for. Some of these habits were from ignorance and
being the victim of relentless societal pressures and others were purely from
severely poor choices. In the end, both
have taken their toll and have influenced my current thoughts on the subject.
I take the
fitness is health and health is fitness approach to training. There is no doubt that fitness can be
counter-productive to health and thus needs to be snapped back to center. There are definite times when it is okay for
fitness to come at the expense of health but that is for the purpose of an
event and not where the average person needs to stay. For instance, it is a fact that participating
in a full Ironman distance race is bad for your health. There have been documented studies of blood
work post race that shows elevated markers comparable to a heart attack. Does this mean you should not participate in
an Ironman? Absolutely not! It just means that you need be aware of this
and balance your training.
An event is
nothing more than an expression of your fitness. This expression is not exclusively reserved
to paying $80 to run a road race. Your
fitness can be expressed by a hike with your family, an outdoor challenge you
have always wanted to do, or even a day kicking a soccer ball with your kids. You define what that expression looks like.
My daily goal is
to find balance in what I do. No, it
doesn’t always happen but it is what I am aiming for. Brooks Pritchett, dietician and owner of
LegitFit Nutrition, LLC, strives to have her clients follow an 80/20 rule. 80% of the time you should eat very clean,
but you need the 20% to keep your sanity.
Fitness has to fit into a holistic approach to health and cannot be the
dominant domain. I am of the opinion that everyone needs a coach...here is mine. You need someone to help you navigate the
Why should you
listen to me? Well, the beauty of it is
that you don’t have to. I am “bigger” guy
that runs kinda slow and will probably never be on the podium at a race finish. Definitely not the ideal image of a coach
that you would see on the front of I Am
Super Coach magazine, but what it means is that I also struggle to keeps
things in balance and truly understand the needs/wants/desires of the average
age group athlete.
Okay…. let’s get
to it.
Food and Nutrition
Food is what
affects us the most. In Matt Fitzgerald
book, Diet Cults, he discusses the
pros and cons of different “cultic” methods of eating. Cultic thinking is defining how we eat and it
is just not working. In the media you
often hear labels like, Paleo, Vegan, Ancestral, Raw Food, etc.… In reality, we should just eat a balanced
diet based upon sound principles. In
Michael Greger’s book, How Not To Die,
he uses scientific data to come up with a “Daily Dozen” list of food we should
eat on an everyday bases. The key point
is that it is plant based and diverse.
Yes, you can eat meat but the vast majority of your daily calories
should come from whole food and plant-based sources. Also, eating probiotic rich food or taking a daily
over the counter probiotic is a great way to keep the pipes in good repair. This is the sauerkraut recipe I use.
The other key to
successful eating is to keep in mind what you are eating for and the quality of
your food. The food you eat is for
fueling your body for activity. If you
are exercising then you need to eat more.
If you are not exercising then you need to eat less. We live in a culture that celebrates excess
and this has taken its toll. Also, you
should eat the highest quality food you can afford. Ultimately, if you can afford eating 100%
organic food with grass fed beef, free-range poultry, and wild caught fish then
that would be the gold standard. Not all
of us can afford that and we have to work with what we have. Dr. Andrew Weil has a list titled “DirtyDozen Plus.” In his opinion these are
the foods that you should always buy organic due to the high amount of
pesticide used on them.
In theory, if
you eat a plant based/whole foods diet that is balanced then your need for
supplements is pretty low. I do
recommend taking a daily vitamin to round things out. I like MegaFood vitamins .
I use a high quality fish oil to aid with general cardiovascular health
and inflammation. There is evidence on
both sides of the aisle. I just listened
to Rich Roll’s interview with Darin Olien.
I found it absolutely fascinating and plan to incorporate some of the
superfoods he talked about into my recovery protocol. Bottom line is that you
have to find what works for you and what your body can tolerate.
Fitness
If you are a
triathlete then you need to exercise across all three systems. If you are runner then the majority of your
training has to be running. If you are
the average age group athlete that works, has 2.5 kids, is involved with the
PTA, etc.… then you can benefit from a balanced training regime that looks very
much like how a triathlete trains. In my
opinion, cross training provides balance and can be a successful in minimizing
injury. Another type of training is
using the MAF method to build an aerobic base.
The current fitness trend is to
blast yourself with the hardest workout possible on as many days as
possible. This may be sustainable for
the professional athlete but if you resemble the person described earlier in
this paragraph then this will not work for you.
You will eventually become hurt, bored, burnt out, etc.… Instead, slow it down. Matt Fitzgerald in his book 80/20 Running: Run Stronger and Race Fasterby Training Slower states that we should be running about 80% of our
efforts at a slower more sustainable pace.
In fact, Phil Maffetone, creator of the MAF method, uses a heart rate
formula of 180-your age to come up with a maximum training HR. Bottom line is you need to slow down to get
stronger.
I will say that
lifting weights definitely has a place in your training. Being stronger for doing human stuff should
be a part of your holistic training approach.
I like this Elite FTS article as basic approach to strength training for
endurance. There are many out there just
like it and you have to pick what is right for you.
I spend a lot of
time traveling and in international hotels that may or may not have a fitness
center or even a place to run. This
requires thinking outside the box and working with what is available. Here is a list of workouts that you can do
with little or no equipment. Yes, they
are labeled “CrossFit” but they mostly all use your bodyweight and are a ton
safer than throwing a bunch of weight around for time.
One of the most
influential articles I have come across was this article about daily habits for
a CrossFit athlete. Yes, again we are
talking about CrossFit. This article
could easily be substituted with 50 ways to become a better endurance
athlete. A lot of the suggestions cross
over into what we do, but really the bottom line (and reason I like the
article) is that it boils down to discipline.
It takes discipline to work on the things you suck at in order to get
better. It takes discipline to eat to
fuel your workouts when you are out on the town with your friends. It takes discipline to be the person and
athlete you want to be.
Life
Drinking enough
water and getting 8-10 hours of sleep every single day are two of the most
important hacks to your training/recovery.
It is important to build a strategy to ensure you do both. Drinking enough water has to be something you
think about throughout the day. Getting
enough sleep needs to become a ritual.
Without either you are just spinning your wheels and will not achieve
your potential.
Speaking of
water, you need to drink the cleanest water you can. I personally use a Berkey water filter with
an attached fluoride filter. I just want
to drink water without all the extra chemicals.
For the average
athlete, and especially the aging athlete, recovery is of critical
importance. Sleep has to be a
priority! I measure my sleep with my
Garmin watch and also use a HRV app with heart rate strap first thing in the
morning to measure my resting HR, HRV, and Stress. These numbers give me a peek into how my body
is feeling and I can use this data to tailor my workouts. One bad day of numbers isn’t the end of the
world, but if I see multiple days then I know something is awry. I can often tell if I am coming down with a
cold by my HRV numbers.
There are many
recovery techniques out there. I like Mark Sisson’s article and believe he
hits the target right on. Active
recovery, mobility work, proper nutrition, and sleep need to be the pillars of
your recovery.
In reading Mark
Twight’s book, Extreme Alpinism: Climbing
Light, Fast and High, he recommends the use of contrasting showers to
hasten recovery. They are a dreadful as
it sounds but I have noticed a marked improvement in recovery. I use the 2.5 minutes of hot and then 30
seconds of cold X a couple of times. At
first it is miserable but now it really is no big deal and actually helps to
reinvigorate me after a hard session.
Mobility work is
all the rage these days. Practicing yoga
has incredible benefits for both strength and flexibility. If you like yoga then make it a part of your
training week. 1 to 2 times a week
should do the trick and won’t over tax your rapidly shrinking free time. If you do not like mobility then take the
time to work on your hamstrings, quadriceps, hip flexors, back and
shoulders. A coach of mine told me I
should sit in a full squat for 10 minutes everyday to open up my hip
flexors. With commuting an hour to work
each way every day this has impacted my flexibility and has caused lower back
issues. When I stay on top of my
mobility work everything becomes a lot more manageable.
