Own Your Training

I may be a bit of a problem to my clients and students.

It's not my jokes.

.....Okay it's not JUST my jokes.

The problem is I really love what I do. To me there is no other career path that even comes remotely close.

The problem with being infatuated with your profession is you think everyone else feels the same. Maybe I should restate that just a bit. You KNOW everyone feels the same, it's just that THEY don't know it yet.

Why is that a problem?

Because a robot that follows along, does blindly what it's told or programmed to do does NOT care, not even one whit, about what it's doing.

This is not saying anything bad about robots or even androids or cyborgs (yes I am a geek in more than one way).

I am a problem to my clients and students because I want them to understand why. I don't want them going through the motions. Even if they are pushing themselves to the limits physically, I want them engaged mentally. I want them to be as captivated by the WHY as much as they are challenged and inspired by the what.

So I explain. My people know you can't out train a bad diet, they have all heard how one soda will undo the caloric deficit of 45 minutes of work, and, if they stay tuned (not guaranteed by any means) they hear why the calories in that soda are less detrimental that the mode of delivery.

Through the breathing and recovery between Tabata training sets they might get a few words about Elevated Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC), and what it means to their TIME and their goals.

Do they listen? Some do, some don't, and sometimes it's a matter of repetition, or delivery (I know if I open with a knock knock joke they usually tune me out right away) but I keep the information flowing, even if they look at me glassy eyed and on one occasion beg me to stop (okay actually I was training my wife that day).

Where am I going with all this?

We have heard it often enough, Information is power. That's what I want for my people, that's what I want you to want for yourselves.

Until next time true believers.

Steve

Getting along swimmingly

What recovery means

Imagine you are playing a game, diving to the bottom of a pool, starting in the shallow end and each successive time you dive in you move further and further into the deep end.

                As you begin, not having to go very deep at all you only take a small inhale.  Why load up on air if you don’t need to?

                As you progress though, you will have to take deeper breaths to make sure you have enough to last you all the way to the bottom and back up.

                Now Imagine not coming up for air, or taking equally short breaths in the deeper end as you did in the shallow? How far would you get?  How hard would it be?  Could you even keep it up?

                So here is how the metaphor breaks down. The dive is your workout; the coming up for air is your recovery.

                Without recovery you will not be training very hard (depth) or very long (repeated dives).

                The second aspect of this metaphor is about the time above the water breathing.  The deeper you go, meaning the harder you training, the longer your recovery time. If you try to keep the same recovery time even as you get into your training groove and find the  power to go harder, bad things will happen (hopefully not brain damage).  The harder you train the more critical recovery.

                There is one more twist we can throw in here. While you are recovering are you treading water, or have you learned and practice the skills to float.  Which uses up more energy?  And which will let you recover sooner and get back to diving deeper?   This is to say not all recovery is the same.  Just taking a day off is not the same as doing some stretching or very light (walking) cardio.

                More things to plug into your internal vetting machine as you move through the potential maze of training.

                Stay on course True Believers.

Why We Do What We Do Part I

Asking the right questions

The Hatter was the first to break the silence. `What day of the month is it?' he said, turning to Alice: he had taken his watch out of his pocket, and was looking at it uneasily, shaking it every now and then, and holding it to his ear.

Alice considered a little, and then said `The fourth.'

`Two days wrong!' sighed the Hatter. `I told you butter wouldn't suit the works!' he added looking angrily at the March Hare.

`It was the best butter,' the March Hare meekly replied.

`Yes, but some crumbs must have got in as well,' the Hatter grumbled: `you shouldn't have put it in with the bread-knife.'

The March Hare took the watch and looked at it gloomily: then he dipped it into his cup of tea, and looked at it again: but he could think of nothing better to say than his first remark, `It was the best butter, you know.'

 So why am I beginning a blog post with an excerpt from Lewis Carroll Alice in wonderland?

First of all I must say don’t get me started on it being a kid’s book.  There was a lot of subtext. Even the “simple” act of going down the rabbit hole can be an earthshaking metaphor.

So let’s stick with what is at hand.

It’s nearly as obvious as the right tool for the right job. The Mad Hatter and March Hare just put a very fine point on it.  The very best butter will do wonders for toast and scones, but, we can say, will not benefit a watch at all.  We can get to bread crumbs and bread knife on the next post.

In here I want to explore matching the right tool to the job.  Does a volleyball player need to bench press? Does an avid gardener need to do bent or rows or lat pull downs?

            To match the right tools for the right job we have to ask the right questions.  Questions like:

            What do you do?

What do you want to do better at? 

            What are the weaknesses I have to shore up?

            What are the strengths I want to capitalize on?

This is just an obvious sample.  Easily a dozen more could be added as we start to hone down on the nuts and bolts of our personal agenda.

So your take away lesson here is not to ask is it good, I am constantly learning great new training techniques but is it butter to my watch?

Until next time true believers,

Steve O’Neill

ACSM CPT