Are You Training, or Just Exercising?

Training is a results-based process. It all starts with a goal. What is it that you are looking to achieve? Do you want to run a 5k trail race or a marathon? Do you want to complete a century on your bicycle or maybe become a competitive racer? Do you want to play Division 1 college hockey or football? Maybe you're not interested in competition and your goal is simply to be strong, lean, fit, and energetic. Once the goal is in place, achieving that goal comes down to planning and execution. This is true for anything in life. Without planning and execution any "goal" simply becomes a "wish" and like a friend of mine used to say, "Wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which one fills up first.".

Most of the people, if not all them, that come to Dynamic or read my blogs, know that I race cyclocross. My goal is to be one of the top masters racers in the country. I have a singular, year round focus on achieving that goal. I do off-season strength training when the cross season ends. I work with a coach year round who designs a program for me. I have a race schedule that starts with road races in the Spring, mountain bike and road races through the Summer, and the cyclocross season starts in September. Everything that I do from January through August is in preparation for my cx season from September through December. This is my 4th season of cross and I have improved each year to the point where I am now challenging for top 10 spots in the most competitive series in New England, arguably the most competitive in the country. This is not a fluke and it is not because I exercise and eat well. It's because I have a goal, I have a plan, and I execute.

planning and execution has led to my best season yet

So what does this mean to the average person who has no competitive aspirations, rather, their goal is a bit more ambiguous? For many, the goal is "I want to be strong, lean, fit, and energetic.". This goal can mean many things, but in all honesty, if it's important enough to you then it should mean that you want to get in the best shape possible. To get in the best shape possible requires being involved in a comprehensive, well designed, strength and conditioning program that allows you to consistently continue to get stronger, more powerful, and better conditioned. Whether you are training in a program at Dynamic with our professional coaches, or if you are sweating over a barbell in your basement with a program from a trainer, or strength coach that you diligently follow on your own. If you are not in a program, then you are not training, you are merely exercising. Training is the proper path to excellence, exercising is the proper path to mediocrity.

This isn't meant to sound harsh, it's more of a reality check. Look at it this way.. The human body was designed for activity. Most people today are slightly active at best, sedentary and morbidly obese at worst. To even achieve an average level of fitness, which could be considered the fitness level of the modern day manual laborer who is using the body in a way it was designed to be used, most people need to significantly increase their level of activity from what has become the norm. For many, the path to this level of fitness is through conditioning based, bootcamp-style workouts with lots of variety, no progression, no structure, and no programming. That is not training, it's exercising. This will get you fit, sure, but you will only ever achieve a level of fitness that is average at best. To the sedentary or morbidly obese person, this level of fitness would be an astounding, even life saving achievement. Regardless, it's only gotten you to "average". So now what?

Now you have to decide if average is good enough for you. Let's take a quick test. At your job, do you strive to get "met expectations" on your review? When your son comes home with a report card that has all C's on it, do you run out and buy that bumper sticker that says "My son is an average student at Union Middle School!"? When you head out to climb that 4000'er in the Whites, do you get halfway up and say, "This is good enough, I'm heading back."? If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, then please stop reading this and get your fat ass down to McDonalds before the McRib sells out. If you're still reading, then obviously you are not one who strives for mediocrity, so why should something as important as your health and fitness be different?

With respect to your health and fitness, here's what I feel is the most important thing about having a specific training goal and being involved in a training program to achieve that goal. Simply, it puts a much higher priority on it when you deeply invest yourself in it. When that happens, it becomes so much more than just training for a goal, it becomes a lifestyle. Almost everything you do and the choices you make are weighed in a different context as you start to look at things from the perspective of how it will affect your ability to achieve your goals. You adopt a lifestyle that is conducive to achieving the goals that are important to you. You eat better, you try to get more sleep, you watch less tv, you don't waste a second of time or energy on things that are going to take away from your ability to achieve your goals. If you're just exercising, then it's really just part of a routine. You get up, you workout, you go to work, you eat like crap, you go home, you watch tv, you go to bed. You get up and do it again. Your swinging the same kettlebell today as you did two years ago. You run 30 minutes in the treadmill at 6.0 pace and you can't remember when it wasn't that way... When you don't feel good or things get a little tight, you blow off your workout because, "what's the difference, it's not like I'm training for anything...".

When you're training, you keep track of your progress towards your goal. You continue to get stronger and faster. You plan your meals for the week, especially when you know your schedule is going to be crazy because you know that eating like crap is not an option, (I've been eating dinner out of tupperware for 3 years now and I am in better shape, faster, stronger than I have ever been at any point in my life.). You haven't a clue who is on "Dancing with the Stars" because you're in bed getting the proper amount of sleep so you can recover properly and continue to make progress towards your goals. You are not satisfied by mediocrity, you are achieving excellence, and when you're 75 people will be shocked that you're a day over 60.

So yeah, that's the difference between training and exercising. If it's not important to you, then keep renting space on that treadmill or doing your "muscle confusion" bullshit with the latest greatest Shaun T dvd set from that late night infomercial. Enjoy average. If it is important to you then TRAIN for it and achieve EXCELLENCE!

Evolving...

We're coming up on our 3rd Anniversary from the day we opened up in a small space in an old mill building at 100 Factory St. We had about 1600 sf of workout space in the mill and I would say we made the best use of it that we could. As our training programs evolved it became very apparent how limited we were in a space that small which prompted our move into our current facility with over 7000sf of workout area. In business, just like in life, if you don't evolve you die. Dynamic is in a constant state of evolution, consistently improving our offerings and really dialing in the things that we specialize in.

Jake has been at the gym every day since Day 1!

Looking back at when we first opened we were completely focused on high intensity interval training. Circuit based, metabolic conditioning workouts with a focus on bodyweight exercise and kettlebells. Nobody else in the area was doing it like we were at the time. Sure there were a couple "bootcamps" out there, but nobody had a facility dedicated to the type of training we were doing, and to this day, nobody has the level of kettlebell training expertise that we provide.  The workouts had high energy, people were getting in great shape, and they were having fun working out. Finally there was a gym that provided another option to the globo gym where every member is merely a number and you rent their outdated machines for as little as $9.99 a month. People that came to us worked their asses off, got results, and had fun doing it. Even more importantly, most of our members would adopt a new healthy lifestyle that made an impact on their quality of life that went far beyond just the workouts at Dynamic. 

As time went on, the inherent limitations of our programming, or lack thereof, started to show. The underlying problem was the lack of structure in the training. People loved the variety of the workouts and the fact that they never did the same workout twice, but the problem with this is that eventually everybody hits a plateau that is very difficult to break through without added structure to the program. Additionally, if all you ever do is conditioning work, then all you will ever get is conditioned. This may be the goal for some people, but in most cases people want to get stronger, more powerful, and increase their lean body mass. If you want to get stronger, more powerful, and increase your lean body mass, then you need to do progressive resistance-based strength and power work. So we added the Dynamic Performance program which added progressive strength and power training, primarily using kettlebells and bodyweight exercise. Due to the space limitations of the old mill space we were in we were pretty much limited to these modalities. These programs were a step in the right direction and people definitely increased their strength, power, power endurance, and lean body mass much more than they did in the old format of the drop-in based interval training. But once again, there were limitations to our programs. The primary problem was that we were trying to do everything with kettlebells and bodyweight. The fact is, while both have their advantages for certain aspects of performance enhancements, there are better ways to solve some problems. To paraphrase Maslow's Hammer, "if all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail". So it was time to expand our toolbox.

In January of this year we opened our current facility. With 3000 sf of artificial turf we were now able to add sprinting, plyometrics, agility, and sled work. With another 4000 sf of open workout area we were able to add dumbells, barbells, squat racks, and power racks. We still had plenty of room to do all of the kettlebell and bodyweight exercise that we had been doing. Now, we are a premier strength and conditioning facility that is better equipped than most colleges in the country. The best part about the move was that the new space really allowed us to put our expertise to use with comprehensive strength and conditioning programs for athletes of all ages and levels, the weekend warrior, and the general population.

In addition to the comprehensive strength and conditioning programs we offer, we are now integrating a Functional Movement Screen into our clients programs as a way to detect asymmetries, imbalances, and weaknesses that need to be addressed with some form of corrective exercise. We feel strongly that it is wrong to try to build strength onto dysfunction. In order to maximize performance, the whole body must be functioning properly. The FMS gives us the means to identify and resolve any weak links in our clients' fundamental movement patterns. This is just another example of the level of service that sets Dynamic apart from the competition. 

Far and away the most popular programs that we started this year were the small group training programs and the athlete programs. The small group training programs allowed people with similar goals to receive a comprehensive strength and conditioning program that includes speed and agility, strength, power, power endurance, and high intensity anaerobic conditioning, effectively training them just like an elite level athlete would train. Members of these programs are in a structured program with progressive resistance strength and power training that enable everybody to continue to make gains on a consistent basis. The results have been outstanding. People sometimes question, "why would I need to train like an athlete?". The answer is because our bodies are built for performance and should be trained that way. And face it, when you step into the gym you have an ideal in mind that you are trying to achieve. That ideal is not the fat dude stuffing Big Macs down his throat at McDonald's, it's the person that is strong, lean, and powerful with an athletic build. If that's what your ideal is, then you need to train like an athlete. 

Just recently we started to evolve our programs again based on what we've seen with our athlete programs. When we started our athlete programs earlier this year we found that most of the kids coming to us had never had any structured strength and conditioning program in the past. I wrote about this here. Due to our athletes relatively young "training age", (the length of time the athlete has spent strength training), we found that they all responded well to a general strength and conditioning program with a relatively broad focus, regardless of the sport they were in. In fact, this is exactly what they needed. As time went on and our athletes got stronger and faster, we were able to start customizing programs for the athletes on an individual basis depending on their needs, goals, and the requirements of their sport. Now, there is a wide range of athletes coming to us, all at different training levels, playing a multitude of sports. No longer are we putting a workout up on the white board for all the athletes to do when they come in because, in most cases, they are no longer in a position where they will get the best results from the same program that another athlete is doing. Now, every athlete that comes to us gets a Functional Movement Screen and a customized strength and conditioning program focused specifically on their goals, needs, and the requirements of their sport.

Armond McRae spent his offseason with us and has gone on to post amazing numbers this season for Nashua South. Armond is currently the 2nd ranked football player in the state by ESPN!

This has had a direct carryover into our programs for the general population. We are now offering semi-private personal training programs where you receive a Functional Movement Screen and a complete custom strength and conditioning program based specifically on your goals and needs. We can offer this at a much lower price point than 1 on 1 personal training because we can effectively coach up to 3 people per coach in this setting where everybody has a custom program and still gets all the attention and motivation they could ever need from the coach.

We still feel that the small group training programs of 8 people or less to a coach with a general strength and conditioning program is an excellent option, and the most cost effective means of getting a true personal training program. I am always improving upon these programs as well, and in the next 8 week block which starts in a couple weeks I am adding new programming to allow for people at different strength levels to get a more targeted routine based on the level they are at. These levels will also serve as benchmarks for others to aspire to. I know of no other training facility that provides anything close to the level of structured strength and conditioning programming that we offer in a small group setting, and we continue to make it better on a regular basis.

One of our new athletes last week asked me "How bad can it be, it's just an exercise bike?". She won't ask that again....

We have also recently introduced the Dynamic Foundations program which is a low cost, 30 day trial period for new members to check out the small group training with absolutely no commitment. And for those in the small group program who have a specific goal they would like to train for, but enjoy the camaraderie of the small group, we are offering a semi-customization option. Basically, we'll slightly modify your workouts to work on your specific goal within the framework of the general strength and conditioning program that the small group receives. For a higher level of customization you would want to do the semi-private training. Of course we still offer 1 on 1 personal training as well. 

Our strength lies in our ability to design and provide a premium level of comprehensive, customized, strength and conditioning program for everybody from the general population to the elite professional athlete. On a daily basis we are expanding our knowledge base and skillset, looking to improve our services and programs with the singular goal of developing into the top strength and conditioning facility in the country. 

To all of our members who have been with us over the years I can't thank you enough. My promise to you going forward is that when you train at Dynamic you are guaranteed to get the best we have to offer with a commitment that we will continue to evolve so that you may continue to evolve.

What Every Athlete Needs

1976 was a great year for sports movies, featuring the first Rocky movie and the original Bad News Bears. The Bad News Bears enhanced my expansive vocabulary while the Rocky movie made me want to "eat lighting and crap thunder", as Rocky's legendary trainer Mickey put it. We'll get back to the impact Rocky had on me in a moment... When we were kids we played every sport, mostly on our own, and once we got older we would play organized sports. We had tryouts, not "evaluations", and if we weren't good enough we got cut. If our team didn't come in first we didn't get a trophy. I remember in the Fall after football season was over, before the ponds froze for hockey (and before "chauffeur" was added to every mother's resume), I'd ride my bike over to my buddy Paul's house and we would play basketball all afternoon. About 3 or 4 times a week we would lift weights. This is when we were 10! He had his brother's set of those old plastic encased concrete weights and I had my father's set of barbells, dumbells, and a bench. I remember one afternoon in my basement lifting weights by myself when I got the idea that I would drink some raw eggs, because if it would help Rocky go the distance with Apollo, then it would no doubt help me dominate on my Pop Warner football team (the Pepperell Tigers!). I cracked 4 eggs into a glass and just stared at it for a good 3 minutes, similar to standing on the 40' cliff at Mason quarry looking down at the water trying to get the balls up to jump. Finally, I got up the nerve to drink it, took a couple big swallows and immediately chucked them up across the basement. I decided Rocky was tougher than me, and I really didn't need to go the distance with Apollo anyway. 

If I had only known then what I know now about how Rocky got so strong I could have saved myself having to clean up raw eggs off the cellar floor. 

Regardless, the point of this story is that I was 10 and I was lifting weights so that I could get stronger, because I knew that if I was stronger, then I would be better at the sports I liked to play. At 10 years old I knew one of the most fundamental aspects of what it takes to excel at sports. For some reason this has changed and now kids are encouraged to play their sport year round and maybe go for a few runs once in a while for "cardio", instead of spend any time in a true strength and conditioning program.. I don't know why that is. Let me ponder that for a second as I watch the founder of one of those residential lacrosse camps hook his boat trailer up to his Cadillac Escalade....

The building blocks to elite athletic performance and reaching your maximum potential are, in order, General Physical Preparedness (GPP), Specific Physical Preparedness (SPP), Sports-Specific Preparedness (SSP), and Mental/Emotional Preparedness. Each block is a foundation for the subsequent building block, like in a pyramid. GPP is the foundation of general strength and conditioning that translates to all sports. In the GPP phase, the athlete works on absolute strength, speed, conditioning as well as joint mobility and flexibility. Power and speed are expressions of strength and are required in all sports. Not having met certain standards of strength, insufficient power and speed will be developed which leaves the athlete not only well short of his or her potential, but also at an elevated risk of injury. It is vitally important to understand that playing your sport does not make you stronger, it makes you more skilled at your sport. Doing strength work makes you stronger. 

With a solid foundation in GPP developed, the athlete will benefit from SPP training. SPP is strength and conditioning training that is specific to the athlete's sport, essentially preparing the athlete to perform the specific movements of their sport with more precision, power, and speed. This leads to SSP, which is sports-specific skill training, essentially practicing and playing the sport. The top of the pyramid is the mental and emotional preparedness. As important as an athlete's conditioning and skill levels are, it is often an athlete's mental toughness that will determine the outcome at crucial moments in competition.

It is no coincidence that a pyramid is chosen to illustrate the building blocks. The lower the point on the pyramid, the bigger part it plays in providing a solid foundation for everything above it. The weaker the athlete is at any point in the pyramid, then the building blocks above it will also be limited by that weakness. 

An athlete with an inadequate amount of General Physical Preparedness will never reach his or her true potential.

An athlete that spends all her time playing the sport and no time on the strength and conditioning falls far short of her true potential and sets herself up for a higher risk of overuse injuries. Each of the building blocks in the pyramid are essential for an athlete to reach maximum athletic potential. None of the building blocks are stand-alone entities and there is overlap depending on which training phase the athlete is in. For example, an off-season strength and conditioning program will be heavy on GPP. As the athlete moves into pre-season, the volume of GPP is reduced and the SPP is increased while also introducing the SSP. Even during the competitive season there is a maintenance level of GPP strength and conditioning work in an athlete's program to maintain strength levels during the season and set them up for long term strength gains in subsequent training phases.

The biggest problem we have today in the era of the year round competitive athlete is that they either spend little or no time on GPP, or they just flat out do it wrong. If you are doing a bodybuilding routine, or some program focused primarily on conditioning whose specificity is that it lacks specificity like P90X, Insanity, or Crossfit, then I am talking to you. GPP is a comprehensive strength and conditioning program with progressive overload and structured programming with the singular purpose of increasing all strength and conditioning qualities needed to achieve your goals. It is not 20 muscle-ups, 40 handstand pushups on rings, 100 kipping pullups, run 400m, do 30 thrusters with an 85# barbell, puke in a bucket, and writhe around on the floor because you just worked so hard for 13 minutes.

If you look like this at the end of your workout then you need to get on a better strength and conditioning program, and more importantly, stop being a drama queen and act like it's not the first time you've worked hard.

If you are a competitive athlete or if your son/daughter is a competitive athlete, it can't be stressed enough how important a solid strength and conditioning program is to performing at maximum potential. At Dynamic Strength and Conditioning we develop individualized training programs for every athlete. Every athlete that trains with us receives a comprehensive Functional Movement Screen and a customized training program focused on their goals, needs, and the requirements of their sport. We will create a program with exactly the right level of volume and intensity depending on the training age of the athlete and the time of year relative to their competitive season, whether it's in-season, pre-season, or off-season. Check out DSC Athletics for more info on our Athletic Development programs. If you (or your son or daughter) are serious about being the best you can be, then Dynamic is THE place to train. 

Your Best Will Never Let You Down

In a previous post I offered 3 principles that I live my life by. The first, and the topic of my previous post, is "do what you say you're going to do". The second one is "do your best". Your best will never let you down. It can't possibly let you down, because if your effort is truly your best effort, then, win, lose, pass or fail, you gave it your best shot, and that is something that will always make you better and it is something that you can always be proud of. Similar to "do what you say you're going to do", "do your best" also seems like a no-brainer, right? Why wouldn't you do your best? But in all honesty, do you always do your best? How often do your best intentions become just good enough? 

Your best effort is going to be doing the task at hand to the absolute best of your ability with the singular purpose of advancing closer to achievement of your goal. When it comes to training, don't make the mistake of equating "best" to "hardest". Granted, some days a max effort may be exactly what's required, but in most cases it is some other level of intensity that is going to best help you achieve your goals. Whatever the level of intensity that is prescribed by your program, the key is to do your best to meet the required level of intensity. Additionally, when talking about exercise, doing your best means achieving perfect form every rep for the prescribed number of reps, or the amount of time in a timed set. Every rep you cheat on your form is holding you back from achieving your goal. Here's a common example that I see almost every time we have pushups in our workouts at Dynamic Strength and Conditioning. I'll use a fictional character here as not to call anybody out specifically. I tell Conor Nordengren to keep a solid plank position during his pushups, elbows in, lower the chest to a couple inches from the ground and extend fully at the top. But Conor drops his head, flares his elbows out, sags at the lower back, and only gets halfway to the ground because his ego won't allow him to regress the exercise to a simpler modification that he can do with perfect form. I correct his form, offer him a simpler modification so that he can progress at the level he's at. Once I turn around Conor goes right back to the way he was doing it because, again, his ego won't let him do pushups from his knees. Does he really think cheating his form is going to get him closer to perfect form? Is it going to help him achieve his goal better than perfect reps at a slight regression of the same exercise? In reality, he is probably well on his way to requiring PT for a shoulder impingement. 

With perfect practice, Conor, someday you too will be able to pull off the headband and knee-high striped tube sock look.

I have coached hundreds of athletes and adults over the past 20 years and in every case, whether it's in the weight room or on the field, the person who checks their ego and practices perfect form achieves at the highest levels. The saying, "Practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect" applies.

Consistently doing your best takes a lot of practice, concentration, and dedication. It is easy to not do your best. It is easy to settle for "good enough". For me, it is constantly at the front of my mind. I am always asking myself "are you doing your best". I am not lying when I say that I do this at least 10 times per day. When I am on my bike and my training session calls for hard efforts I continually ask myself if I can go harder. If the answer is yes, then I pedal harder. If the answer is no, then I keep going at the pace I'm going. The other day I had 13:00 threshold intervals and I asked myself this question at least a dozen times. It's easy to let yourself back off as the pain tends to take over and the brain is telling you to let up a little. Asking myself if I'm doing my best keeps me in the moment and keeps me focused on doing the task to the best of my ability. In the gym, when I'm doing pushups, pullups, squats, deadlifts, kettlebell swings, every one is perfect. I refuse to cheat a rep and it's because I always have the self-awareness of whether I am doing my best or not. I ask myself the question, and if the answer is no then I immediately make the adjustment. This is the only way that I will continue to improve.

But this goes well beyond what I do on the bike or in the gym. Doing my best is paramount to my success as a coach. When I am running sessions at the gym I am constantly aware of whether I could be doing a better job, providing better instruction and feedback, paying proper attention to form. When I'm designing programs I am always striving to put the best program in place to to give our clients the absolute best training experience possible. In my research I read the books and attend the seminars that I feel will help me become the best coach I can be. 

I find that how I approach training in the gym or on the bike translates very well to how I approach things in life. I believe this is probably true for most people. In training you are in the perfect environment to do your best and be rewarded with qualitative results. If you don't do your best, you don't get the results. Same in the gym as it is in the real world. When I coach soccer teams I have always told them that their goal for each time they step on the field is to step off a better player than they were when they stepped on. Each and every time. If you approach everything you do with this attitude there is no question that you will achieve at the highest levels. I approach everything in life on a personal and professional basis with this simple principle. Do your best. I have learned from years and years of experience that my best has never let me down.

Every once in a while your best may actually be THE best!

Do What You Say You're Going To Do

If you really want to make a better life for yourself then I believe there are 3 keys to achieving that. These are principles that I live my life by and they never let me down. I'll call them "The 3 Do's".

1. Do what you say you're going to do.

2. Do your best.

3. Do unto others as you would have done to you. Or in modern lingo, "don't be a douche". 

Not sure how much of this I'll get through in this entry, but I'll at least get through the first one.

Do what you say you're going to do. This isn't original. Google that exact phrase and it gets over 58 million hits. Sounds simple and common sensical, but take a deep look inside and ask yourself if you really do what you say you're going to do. If you say you're going to lose 20 pounds, do you? If you say you're going to get that promotion, do you do what it takes? How about taking that vacation, reading that book, taking that cooking class, spending more time with your kids? Every time you say you are going to do something, no matter how big or how small, you have made a commitment to yourself and others. But how many times do we not come through on what we said we were going to do? I know stuff happens and other, more important things can get in the way. If you tell your kids you're going to take them to Disney and then you lose your job, well, Disney has to wait, doesn't it? But a lot of times we say we're going to do something and then we just don't, maybe we just thought it wasn't that important. Like when somebody tells me they're going to come to all 3 of their workouts next week and they show up for 1 or 2. What's the big deal, right? Here's the deal. Every time we don't do what we said we were going to do it costs us self-respect, integrity, and the respect of others. From a purely psychological standpoint, not coming through on commitments can result in a defeatist, "can't do" attitude that pervades your entire life. And face it, if we don't come through on the small stuff we commit to then how are we ever going to have the guts to come through on the big stuff?

The reason I'm writing about this is because as a coach, my goal is to help people set goals and achieve them. My goal is to help people achieve a lifestyle where they are healthy and fit, confident and happy, and eager to take on new challenges. To be role models to their friends and family and to have a positive impact on the people they interact with and the environment they live in. To commit to making positive changes in their lives and the lives of others. In my experience, the people who do what they say they are going to do are far better off than those who don't. 

In my own personal experience I have also found that in 100% of the instances where I did what I said I would do, the affect was always profoundly more positive than if I had let myself and others down by not coming through. And every time I set another goal or make another commitment, it becomes that much easier for me to stay the course because I am more confident in my abilities and I am more driven to succeed. I'll give you a perfect example that literally changed my life and laid the foundation for who I am today. 

I've mentioned this in the past and many of those who have known me for a long time know that the worst time of my life was when my marriage exploded like that Mikey kid's head after he chased a handful of Pop Rocks with a Coke. I was out on my own in a shitty apartment feeling really sorry for myself, drinking too much and eating like crap. There were a few months where, emotionally and physically, I was a mess. I had recently bought a new carbon fiber Orbea Orca because I needed a light, fast bike to race up Mt Washington with my buddy Bill. Bill had talked me into doing it, he told me how setting an aggressive goal like that would keep me focused and positive. Looking back on it today it's a no brainer. It was brilliant. A couple months went by and Bill was training and I really wasn't. I was lucky if I was getting in 40 miles a week and he was getting in about 250! He'd call me to ask how my training was going, telling me I better get ready because it was really going to suck, even if I was in shape for it. This went on until we were 10 weeks out. This was a personal deadline I had set for myself. I either had to get my shit together 10 weeks out or I had to tell Bill I was out. I would have had to tell him I wasn't going to do what I said I would do. I decided that the last thing I was going to do was to let myself or Bill down. I started eating right, I stopped drinking, I trained like an animal. Actually, I overtrained and ended up losing 10 days to a nasty chest infection, but I meant well.. By the time the race came around I was as ready as I could have possibly been. Bill crushed it in 1:11 and I ended up at 1:24 which was 4 minutes slower than my goal. But I was there and I did what I said I was going to do. I often think of what might have happened if I had gone the other direction and had bailed on Bill and the Mt Washington race. It was definitely a crossroads for me and I went the right way. I can't think of a single instance since then that I haven't come through on my commitments and my life just keeps getting better. I set racing goals, I set professional goals, I set personal goals and I stick to every one of them. If I tell you I am going to do something you can take it to the bank. It sets me up for success in everything I do.

Doing what I said I was going to do.

At Dynamic we have created an atmosphere that is conducive to setting goals, training for them, and achieving them. There is a camaraderie, we are like family. We know what each other's goals are. We count on each other to show up, train hard, and support each other. If you tell us what you are going to do we completely expect you to do it, and if we think you need a push once in a while you're going to get it.

Everybody has a goal. Every goal starts with you saying what you're going to do. Now get out there and do it. I'm counting on you.

Where did you go, Bo?

Remember Bo Jackson? Easily the greatest multi-sport athlete of my generation, and if not for a career ending hip injury, may have become the greatest of all time. Jackson was running for touchdowns for the Raiders on Sunday and hitting home runs for the Royals on Monday. How about Jim Brown? Best multi-sport athlete of any generation? Brown is always brought up in the "who was the best football player of all time" argument, but he is also one of the top lacrosse players of all time. I only wish I could have been around to see him play. What about Jim Thorpe? In the 1912 Olympics he won gold in the pentathlon and decathlon, and then went on to play professional baseball, football and basketball! These days a multi-sport athlete is a kid who plays 11v11 soccer in the fall and spring, 4v4 tournaments in the Summer, and indoor soccer in the Winter. Every sport has year round access and the pressure from clubs is ridiculous to get the kids to specialize early. I wonder why that is..... Hmmm, let me think about that for a second as I watch this soccer academy director speed away in his Porsche GT3 RSR... 

I know he's 8, but this is the "window". He needs to specialize. That will be $1000 for the season, another $600 for tournaments, and $300 for uniforms. Thanks :)

Youth sport specialization is a major problem today for two reasons. The first is burnout. Studies have shown that by age 14, 70% of youth athletes have stopped playing competitive sports. This can be attributed to bad coaching, bad experiences, high pressure from coaches and parents, and a host of other reasons. Essentially the kid stops having fun and doesn't want to do it anymore. Is it any wonder that Johnny is pretty much sick of soccer by the time he's 13 when he's been through over a thousand organized practices, games and tournaments in soccer starting when he was 4 and that he's actually been playing year round since he was 8? 

The second problem I see, and the one that I think is even more damaging, is that when a kid specializes too early (like before they are in college), they never completely develop as an athlete. Every sport has different neurological and physical demands on the body and causes different adaptations. In order to completely develop as an athlete you have to be exposed to as many different sports and physical challenges as possible. With early sports specialization, you get a one dimensional athlete that is injury prone because the athlete's body has only adapted to the stressors of one particular sport.

If you think I'm being subjective, here's a little objectivity from my experience of coaching athletes for the last 20 years. My best player is always my best athlete and my best player always plays more than one sport. Key word here is "always".. It's not sometimes. Not mostly. ALWAYS. 

Here's more objectivity. When I was in high school, the best player on the football team also starred on the hockey team and played baseball in the Spring. The best player on the basketball team also played football and baseball. The best baseball player was a standout hockey player and also played on the football team. To be perfectly honest I can't remember a single varsity player that didn't play at least one other sport at the varsity level. And back in those days, which was only 25 years ago, nobody even knew what the hell an ACL was. What does that tell you about how multi-sport athletes are better conditioned, stronger, and less injury prone?

Let's look at it from another perspective. One of the best analogies I've ever heard on the topic was this. Your son, Brad, is 8. He gets all "A's" in math. He loves math. He knows his times tables and can even do a little long division and he's only in the second grade! You decide, "That's it. From now on it's only math for Brad! No more English, no more spelling, no more Social Studies. Just math.". 

You're chuckling because it's so ridiculous to even think it. As far as our education goes we don't specialize until we are in Grad school. Half our credits in a college undergrad program are liberal arts. Why? Because learning as much as you can about as many different topics as you can makes you smarter, teaches you to think critically in a number of different capacities, and could possibly qualify you as the most interesting man at the company Christmas party, especially if you were a multi-sport athlete, because you can do a handstand, carry on a conversation about Plato's Republic, and thank the hostess in Flemish.

When we were kids we played football in the Fall, basketball and hockey in the Winter, baseball in the Summer, none of it was organized. We played kill the man with the ball. We played 500 (guarantee you there isn't a single kid today that knows what that is). We rode our bikes EVERYWHERE. We climbed trees and fell out of them and didn't get hurt. We started playing organized baseball only when there were kids who could pitch a ball and we didn't have to hit it off a tee. Tee ball is an abomination and I can't believe there is a 5 year old alive who goes on to continue with baseball after being subjected to Tee Ball. As a 5 year old I would have rather gone to the dentist then to sit through a 2 hr tee ball game swatting mosquitos and playing in the infield sand waiting for everybody on the other team to hit the ball off a stick so that I could get up and have a chance to hit once every 45 minutes. Oh yeah, and the score always ended in a 36-36 tie!

Know what else we did? We lifted weights! But that is for another post....

We were multi sport athletes. We were good at everything. We didn't get injured. And in many cases we continued playing and enjoying competitive sports well into our older years. I still compete and I love it. If your argument is "but there's a window when a kid has to specialize" just remember who you're hearing that from as you're writing them the next $1000 check for the 2012 soccer season.. When it's time to specialize, a college scout will tell you. Until then, play everything, play hard, and have fun doing it.

It's Just a Drink Away...

I have written about recovery in the past, you can read that here. Right now I would like to talk about post workout recovery nutrition. I would argue that the most important meal of the day for everybody is breakfast. If you're not eating breakfast then you can forget about your performance gains, ability to perform at a high level, or even your fat loss goals. The second most important thing you eat (or drink) all day is going to be what you take in immediately after your workout. But when I ask most of the people I work with what they use for a recovery drink, from general fitness clients to elite level athletes, I get no answer. In many cases, though, that's because people just don't know what they should be doing.. So here's a quick tutorial......

"Eest good for recover, da?".... Umm, not really.

I have done tons of research on the topic and I have experimented with my own post workout nutrition a lot. I'm not going to go into the science behind it because, well, I'm not a scientist. I'm simply going to give you a summary of what's going on after a workout and what you need to do to recover as quickly as possible based on research I've done written by people much smarter than me.

Workouts beat you up and break you down. Whether they are long endurance sessions, interval sessions, or short, intense resistance sessions. Your muscle glycogen is depleted (glycogen is what your muscles use for energy) and your body is put in a catabolic state (muscle breaks down). If you do nothing to reverse this, the result is any or all of the following:

- prolonged muscle soreness and fatigue

- poor subsequent performance

- overtraining syndrome, or at the very least "over-reaching"

- minimal gains in muscle mass or even losses in muscle mass (especially in endurance athletes)

- a lowering of your metabolic rate (essentially the rate at which you burn calories)

Here's what the smart guys say:

"Failure to consume carbohydrates after exercise results in higher than necessary level of muscle breakdown, thereby reducing the benefit that might be derived from resistance training" - Dr. Dan Benardot

"Rapid replenishement of muscle glycogen stores has a favorable impact on the prevention of muscle protein catabolism, on cellular rehydration, and on subsequent exercise performances within the same day or on subsequent days. Basically, if you don't replenish glycogen rapidly, your performance will suffer next time you train and you may even lose some muscle along the way." Dr. John Berardi

Here's what I say.... To reverse this process, it is crucial that you take in the right balance of carbohydrates and protein post-workout. Not only that, but there is a window of opportunity following a workout when your muscles are super sensitive and receptive to these nutrients. The research shows that within 30 minutes of a workout, glycogen synthesis is 3x higher than just 2 hours later. What this means is faster recovery times. The key macronutrient is carbohydrates. You want between 0.8g -1.0g of carbs per kilogram of bodyweight. The longer and more intense the workout session, the closer to 1g/kg you would want to be.. For most people, the 0.8g/kg is a good target. So for a 150 lb person (68 kilos), that's 54g of carbs. The research shows that the optimum ratio of carbs to protein is anywhere from 2:1 to 4:1, trending towards the higher ratio of 4:1 for endurance athletes and 2:1 for strength/power athletes. Don't get caught up in the numbers here so much. Just make sure you're getting about 50-60g of carbs and about 15-25g of protein and you'll be fine. Liquid form is best since it gets into your system the quickest. You want a type of sugar that triggers the quickest insulin response and a type of protein that is absorbed the quickest. Maltodextrin or dextrose are the fastest sugars to be converted to glycogen, whey protein is absorbed the quickest. The protein source should also contain all the essential amino acids, particularly leucine, and studies have also shown that supplementing with the non-essential amino acid, Glutamine, also helps recovery and muscle protein synthesis.

OK, so now you're thinking, "thanks, Coach, can't wait to mix me up some of that dextrose and whey.". 

Can you say Mmmmmaltodextrin!

Here's a couple easy suggestions. You've heard before that chocolate milk is a good recovery drink, (or maybe you haven't..) Well, it's OK. Unless you're lactose intolerant. Mix the powder (not the high-fructose corn syrup!) with fat-free milk and you'll get a recovery drink with about a 3:1 CHO:PRO ratio. Milk also contains all the essential amino acids. Read labels and use the right amounts of milk and powder to get the right amount of carbs and proteins.. Carnation Instant Breakfast is another one. Again, use fat-free milk. Fat just slows down the whole process of getting the carbs working their magic with your insulin response and you don't want to do anything to slow that process down. 

Or you can do what I do. I drink Ultragen from First Endurance. It mixes great with water, it tastes good, they use the best ingredients for fast absorption into the system and it just flat out works. I've been using it for over a year now and it has been awesome for my recovery. Today I was out for 2 hours on the bike in the 90+ degree humid weather doing threshold intervals. Hammering out 3x9:00 intervals in this kind of heat at heart rates over 95% max were crushing. I was spent when I got home and I'm not kidding when I say that within a couple minutes of drinking the recovery drink I already started to feel better. There's no doubt in my mind that the stuff works. If it didn't I wouldn't recommend it. I also believe in it enough that it is the only recovery drink that I am selling at the gym. If you are interested in some, let me know. Read here if you're interested in the research behind the product.

If you're not doing the post-workout recovery nutrition right then you are wasting a huge opportunity to get the most out of your training. And you are literally one drink away from fixing it.

When Are We Going to Do Cardio?

I get this question on a fairly regular basis. Usually, I respond with a blank stare in anticipation of the punch line as if I'm being told a joke. You know, like, "How many strength coaches does it take to figure out what my 80% 1RM is?". Most people who ask this question are the ones who are most interested in weight loss. The reason this question is asked is because for some reason people have been led to believe that 30 minutes per day of "cardio" in the form of exercise that increases your heart rate into the "aerobic zone" (I think that's the green one on the treadmill chart) will keep you fit and healthy. Activities that qualify, according to these same experts, range from gardening to shooting a few baskets with your grandmother. If I had to bet, I would put my money on this info coming from the same people who came up with the food pyramid that had us eating 8-11 servings of bread and grains per day for "health". But here's the problem, once it's out there and people start believing it, it takes a lot to re-educate. For example, when the "food pyramid" came into play everybody started eating a high carb, low-fat diet. The result has been that our country has gotten fatter and died of more preventable diseases in the past 40 years than at any other time in history, most of which have been directly attributed to a "Western" diet. Now the research is everywhere showing the error in our ways and of course there is a knee-jerk reaction going the opposite direction. Carbs are evil! Eat like a caveman! Oh, and I'd like to just say this about the Paleo Diet and eating like a caveman, if you're not eating bugs and tree bark in the Winter while you're sleeping 16 hours a day because there's only 8 hours of sunlight, then please shut the fuck up about how Paleo you are. You're not. Have a bowl of oatmeal and get over yourself.

Oatmeal?

Weight loss is a tricky topic because at some level, something different will work for different people. But there's certain rules that apply to everybody. The most significant factor in weight loss is going to be what you're eating, when you're eating it, and how much of it you're eating. To steal lines from Michael Pollan, "eat real food", "if it wasn't food 100 years ago, it's not food today", "if it's handed to you in a bag through the window of your car, it's not food". Everybody reading this will be nodding their heads in agreement. So why does everybody spend so much time on the inner aisles of the supermarket? Because that's where all the quick-to-prepare, sugary, salty, yummy stuff is! You want to lose weight? Take a quick check of an obese person's shopping cart and don't buy any of that shit. If you are overweight and want to lose weight, but think adding three hours of exercise a week is going to fix it for you while you continue to eat the crap that made you overweight, you're mistaken. Here's what I know. Every weight loss client I have worked with that makes the change to getting most (at least 80%) of their carbs from fruits and vegetables; their proteins and fats from fish, meat and nuts; eats them in the right amounts at the right times of the day; loses weight. And here's the kicker, they will lose weight regardless of what they're doing for activities. You get the nutrition right and you will get lean. You get the exercise right and it will make you stronger, faster, more athletic, and like Dan John says, "you'll look good nekkid". But my blog on nutrition is coming later, this one is on "cardio".

Cardio. I hate the term because it doesn't mean anything. I need to do cardio. What the hell is that? It's like when I ask somebody what their goal is and they respond, "I want to be more fit". Great goal. Hmm, let's see, how about we have you do some cardio.. Like I mentioned before, for most people, (many of whom are interested in weight loss), cardio means long, slow, endurance type work. Here's a test for you. Go to your local Planet Fatness, walk in the door and be greeted by the plastic smile, "Hello, member 3758, welcome to the non-intimidation zone, where people who hate working out come to hang out and get a complimentary bagel on the way out the door so they can get closer to their 8-11 recommended servings of grains for the day". Then walk over to the row of treadmills and look at the people doing their 30 minutes of cardio. Now take a picture of each of those people that you want to look like. Hang those pictures on your fridge so that you can see them all the time as motivation towards achieving the body that you want. You won't need a very large space on the fridge, in fact, I'm guessing you won't even need a camera. Know why? Because it doesn't work. If you want to have an impact on your weight by jogging, then you will have to jog at least 12 hours a week just to burn enough calories to burn about a pound and a half of fat. But chances are you're going to eat a lot more than normal because you feel that since you ran 12 hours you deserve it and then you won't lose any weight, except for the muscle loss that comes from long slow endurance types of efforts as all your Type II fibers become Type I fibers (think of the difference between what a sprinter looks like vs a marathoner). Also, if you're overweight, and you're running 12 hours a week, I know a great physical therapist I will recommend to you for the damage you will do to your joints, tendons, and ligaments.

Sprinters are strong, lean, powerful and look it. The guy on the left just looks really, really hungry. 

Let's just bag the term cardio now, OK? If your goal is fat loss you need to work out in such a way that it will increase your metabolism. The best way towards an increased metabolism is increasing your muscle mass. Muscle burns calories. Additionally, high intensity anaerobic conditioning recruits more muscles, works the cardio-respiratory system harder than aerobic conditioning, and can take 24-48 hours to recover from, which puts your body in an elevated calorie-burning state. Strength and power work increase your metabolism. High intensity anaerobic intervals done at 85-100% intensity increase your metabolism. The training programs at Dynamic are structured around these principles. If you are working the program that I am giving you, and you set your nutrition according to your goal, you will achieve the body mass you desire, you will get stronger, more powerful, and faster, your energy levels will increase, and you will look good nekkid. But remember, if you don't do the nutrition part right, then you will not achieve the body mass you desire. (There's also a big post-workout recovery, sleep and stress management component to it, but that will also have to wait till I'm not writing about "cardio")

Work your muscles hard. Do strength work and lift heavy weights. Do conditioning at high intensity. Sprint... As for long, slow, endurance type running, I'll leave you with a comment from top trainer and strength coach Alwyn Cosgrove, and you need to read this with his Scottish accent and understand the sense of humor it is delivered with, "If you run because you love running, then by all means, run your bloody heart out. But if you're running to lose weight, then you're a fuckin idiot."