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.