Enjoying My Coffee

A few months back we were treated to a study showing excessive coffee drinkers were at a much lower risk for prostate cancer. Now we’re seeing stats telling us it can ward off type 2 diabetes.

Although it is sometimes referred to as "the devil's brew," coffee contains several nutrients (eg, calcium) as well as hundreds of potentially biologically active compounds (eg, polyphenols) that may promote health. For instance, observational studies have suggested a beneficial link between coffee consumption and type 2 diabetes.

The article goes on to lend credence to the “emerging health benefits of coffee.” Seriously?

Coffee’s been consumed a lot longer than we’ve been recording history and spent most of that time as a coveted elixir. It's benefits are hardly emerging. Only recently has it come under scrutiny as being something unhealthy and, frankly, I feel this stems from our tit for tat mentality where when people get their favorite vices targeted (sugar, alcohol, tobacco, prescription drugs et al) the want to fire back with something. Coffee and tea, both having addictive qualities, are the low hanging fruit for this reactionary behavior.

But study after study show that what we put into coffee (see Triple Vanilla Macchiato Buzz Bomb) is doing far more harm than the coffee itself. In fact, there have more than 20,000 studies done on coffee, tea, and caffeine and they are almost unanimously positive. Not only that, coffee is chocked full of nutrients and lacks calories, a paradigm shift from the recent trend in nutrition--that of lots of calories with very little nutrition--that’s led to our obesity epidemic.

I’m stayin’. I’m finishing my coffee. Enjoying my coffee.

Synergy & P90X Plus

I’ve been doing a combination of P90X Plus along with riding, running, and climbing to try and bring my training back into focus. All the hubbub surrounding the Mexico trip, along with the small injury I suffered beforehand, put a kink into the schedule. With a month before a planned trip to Europe I’m trying to round out my overall fitness prior to departure, which will complete my base training for a planned big year ahead.

This is slightly different than the plan I drew up and began in December. But as I said then, it’s almost never the right course of action to complete a training program without some alteration. What happened, besides the slight injury that altered my climbing training, was that I began putting so many miles into running that my other fitness suffered. The main problem was lack of consistent sleep. With my aging dog requiring a lot of attention it’s been rare to get more than a few uninterrupted hours of sleep over the last few months. This kind of thing can wreak havoc with recover and training, especially volume, needs to get adjusted as necessary when it occurs.

The key to regaining lost fitness and keeping what I’ve gained in other areas is synergy; finding a training schedule that concurrently taxed many energy systems at once. For this I’ve been using the 90X Plus workouts. Sometimes it’s best to training energy systems separately because it builds strength more efficiently. The down side with this approach is that you then need some time to integrate this fitness together. When you have less time training synergistically, where you train across styles and energy systems, is more apropos. Crossfit follows this model, as does P90X Plus.

The downside to X Plus is also its upside: synergy. Because you train a lot of systems at once, including the kinetic chain, it’s a very efficient system for getting overall body fitness quickly. But because it’s training so many things together the workouts don’t plug into the 90X schedule very well, making it harder to use to affect targeted body composition changes, especially where hypertrophy (size) is concerned.

This style of synergistic training creates, as one of my bodybuilding friends put it, “skinny fit guys”—a club he has no interest in being a member of. I, however, am a poster child for the skinny fit guy club as I feel fat no matter how fit I am because nothing improves your strength for gravity sports as much as losing weight. Right now, my goal is to get as skinny and as fit as I can in three weeks time.
pic: romney showing the advantages of strength to weight ratio gained by training many systems at once.

Family First

I would be on my way back from the Copper Canyon Ultramarathon right now if life had not interfered. As it was, I had a little road trip adventure and got enough of a taste that it’s definitely on the schedule again next year.

I flew down to Phoenix where I was to rendezvous with a group of runners for a road trip. Our crew turned out to be an interesting cross section of ultra running. On one side we had Mark and Alexa. Young, fairly new to the sport, and very competitive; they had just returned from a six-day race in Costa Rica where they’d both finished in the money. On the other side was Chris, who's been running ultras since long before they were called ultras and finished more than most of us had heard of. In between were the Coury brothers. Grizzled veterans but still only in their early 20’s, they embody the future of a sport once dominated by retirees. Not only were they highly competitive, both having won races and run a hundred miles in less than 18 hours, but they also organize races and their lives revolve around promoting ultra running “for as long as we can pull it off.” I was the outsider, having only competed in one official ultra, my longest runs were mainly done alone in the mountains.

I was planning on getting a hotel, as crashing at the Coury’s undergrad pad with six dudes seemed pretty hectic. Their house, however, was slightly different then the places that I hung out in college. It was more like the Real World of ultra running. I ended up staying up late talking training and nutrition theory with the brothers, who were like test pilots for the nutrient limits of the human body. Nick did his ultras sans “race food”, instead relying on things like gummy candies. This made sense, sports foods being mainly sugar, but he also eschewed salt. Salt is a coveted by endurance athletes like diamonds are to socialites. It’s the stuff dreams are made of. Yet, somehow, Nick is not only finishing, but winning races using hardly any salt. His theory is that if you don’t have salt in your daily diet you don’t need it during sports. This bucks most experts’ opinions but it’s hard to argue with his results. Jamil’s diet consists of mainly raw fruit and a little beer. It’s a recent change and he plans to put it to the test down in the canyon. In short, they are my kind of people.

In the morning our group piled into the Coury’s parents Suburban and we headed south. We took comfort in the fact that with our tinted windows we looked like drug cartel henchman. Of course, this could work against us should we look like rival henchman. It seemed that everyone we know was worried about the border except for us. Indeed, it’s been the scene of some craziness lately but I wasn’t worried. I love Mexico; the people, the food, the culture. Nothing bad can happen to me down there. Sure enough, we breezed through the border towns without a hiccup and a few hours later were tickling the northern Sierra Madre.

The next afternoon we arrived in Creel, the town where El Oso, author of Born To Run, finally tracked down Caballo Blanco. We checked in to the actual hotel/hostel where this meeting took place and went out to explore one of the trails in the book. We were now officially in Tarahumara land. Indeed, there were Raramuri everywhere.

Creel is a highland village. Situated at the top of the canyon, at nearly 3,000 meters, it’s a mountain town. The ensuing days would see us make our way down into the Barrancas del Cobre to Urique. At only a few hundred meters above sea level the scene is as different as the weather. “It’s tropical,” is how one resident of Creel put it.

We didn’t see any runners but, apparently, Creel with its hotels and El Chepe (the train) is a tourist town. The true Raramuri lived in places no roads penetrated. According to Caballo Blanco the highland Raramuri were training hard to unseat those from the deep canyon, who’d been made somewhat famous by the book and had more-or-less dominated the race. While some of us had race ambitions we were mainly there to experience the rivalry first hand, and all else that goes with it.

Unfortunately, while nothing bad happens to me in Mexico it doesn’t mean they don’t happen elsewhere. Back at home Romney was dealing with Tuco not moving, eating, or drinking. The vet wasn’t sure if he’d had a stroke or not but the day I left he’d been hiking and running like normal and now he couldn’t get up and refused to eat or drink. Since he’s very old this was inevitable but his rapid deterioration took us by surprise. There was nothing I could do but he was breathing well and wasn’t going very quickly. If he wanted to die being “the fittest animal on the planet” most of his life wasn’t doing him any favors.

Bob, who provides Tuc’s summer home, flew out to see him. I decided that if he improved at all I’d come home, too. The first note I got wasn’t too encouraging. “I think he’s over it,” it read. But a short while later he drank, and soon after that he ate some bacon, by which time I’d already plotted a course to get back. The race will be here next year. Tuc probably won’t. And even though, as my friend Binky put it, “he left it all on the floor,” I felt I should say good-bye.

Traveling out of the Copper Canyons is not simple. I tried to catch El Chepe but missed the final train of the day. Two bus rides, a taxi, and three flights later (that included a 40 minutes transfer where I had to clear customs and run across LAX through three terminals, at least putting all this race training to some use) and 25 hours later I was back with my buddy.

Postscript: Though he couldn’t get up when I got here Tuc’s been doing better each day. At first he was so uncomfortable he could only sleep a couple of hours at a time (meaning so could I), but now he’s getting up on his own and sleeping through the night. Yesterday he even ran about 50 meters. The big adios is currently on the back burner.

More than 50 gringos made the trip south, a record by far, to compete with hundreds of Raramuri. The highland Raramuri dominated the race, getting 7 of the top 10 spots. "They could compete with anyone, anywhere" - CB. Juan Quimare, relative of Arnulfo who was made famous in the book, was the top deep canyon finisher in 4th. Nick was the highest placed gringo, coming in 6th. By all accounts it was an amazing experience for everyone.

pics: thanks to brooke cantor for the pics of the canyons and the race. the other shots are our crew in creel. you can see more pics and read more about the raramuri and the canyons at his web site, http://www.norawas.org/

Indoor vs Outdoor Training

“A real man likes the feeling of nature against his face.”
- Wang

“And a wise man has the sense to get out of the rain.”
- Egg Shen

Not my favorite author Gina Kolata has penned another not so interesting article for the New York Times. Unlike some of her other work, however, I won’t call this one bad journalism. It’s actually reasonable research. It’s just not complete. I’m also just not sure who doesn’t already know the answers as to which is more effective, indoor or outdoor training for outdoor sports.

As she states:

The most obvious difference with indoor exercise is a lack of wind resistance, Dr. Cavanagh said.

“The important variable here is speed relative to the air,” he said. For example, if you are running at 8 miles per hour into a 10-m.p.h. headwind, your speed relative to the air is 18 m.p.h. Dr. Cavanagh explained in an e-mail message: “Work done against air resistance can be extremely costly because the ‘drag force’ (force caused by air resistance) is proportional to the square of speed and the power required to overcome drag force is proportional to the cube of speed.”

Hmm, yes. Obvious. It then moves into not-so-much-more shocking,

“If you run all the time on a smooth surface you are not training all muscles in your legs and feet that you need to run on the road,” Dr. Cavanagh said. “If you are going to race under certain conditions, you might as well train there.”

The article proceeds with further testimonials from experts as why it’s better to run, ride, or row outdoors While for me this should be preaching to the choir I can’t help nitpick the lack of objectivity. As usual, Kolata misses out in addressing the benefits of indoor training (to be fair she does state it’s safer). But the real advantages are that you can isolate systems from outside influence where great performance gains can be made. You then need to integrate these gains back into the sport of choice but it is an advantage you have when choosing to train indoors.

Okay, so none of this is groundbreaking info. So why is it here? Mainly as an excuse to show this friggin’ cool mtn biking video. When someone can figure out how I can do this stuff inside of my house I might actually considering not going outside so much.

Taking Back Our Lives

I don’t generally re-post but I was doing some research for an article and came across this old rant that seems as relevant now as ever.

The Fattening Of America

Back then my blog had fewer readers and, frankly, less focus as I was testing the waters as to what type of information it should contain. So my guess is that a lot of my current readership hasn’t seen it. It’s, essentially, akin to the film Fresh in that it’s about getting proactive and doing something about our personal situation when it comes to our health. Some topics never seem to age, though it’d be nice if this one did. Here is the closing:

All this apathy towards things that really matter allows our corporations to have their way with us. We’ll work longer hours, for less money, with no health care, and no vacation plan, for little retirement, just so long as the Yankees can win another pennant. During the time Roger Clemens has been pitching, we’ve seen the discrepancy between rich on poor in our country widen to the point that we’re, statistically, a third world nation. Our minimum wage has only raised a fraction and is current half of all other first world countries. Our president told a woman who spoke of working three jobs in order to just feed her kids that her situation was “uniquely American”. We’re grown too tired, too busy, too broke, too distracted to even bother with the basic things that we know keep us healthy. When did this happen? It’s not the America I grew up in.

But the real problem isn’t George Bush, the media, or the Enron’s of the world. The problem is us. As a society, we just don’t care enough anymore about what really matters. We need to wake up and take back our lives.

And, literally, that’s all it will take. Sure, the corporate stranglehold and statistical disadvantages won’t change over night. But your health will. And no matter how broke or busy we are become no can still eat better food and find thirty minutes a day to exercise. It’s really as simple as watching less baseball.

Fresh

Fresh is in my mind the best of all the recent food movies. If we could make this film required viewing in our schools it would change the world, and along the way take the biggest single bite out of our obesity epidemic of any movement so far. The reason is that instead of dwelling on the problems that mass food production is causing, it focuses on the solution. And the cool thing is that it’s a lot easier than most of us think.

The problem with all the Fright Club style films is that they make us think the problem of the world are too vast to do anything about. Sure, they get you mad. Maybe they even inspire you to activism. But that’s a tough road to hoe for most of us. Fresh addresses the problems but its focus is on the solution, using examples of the individuals that are doing something about it and how effective they are.

Here are some hopefully statistics:

- One farmer makes a living on 3 intercity acres in Milwaukee.

- Another, on a small spread in Virginia, practices holistic ranching by moving his animals around the farm to complete a natural cycle so he doesn’t need to use any fertilizers or pesticides or even plant crops. He gets the highest yield possible out of his acreage, which stays exceedingly healthy, and brings in $3,000 per acre, compared to the $150 per acre that our subsidized industrial farms yield.

- Another quit using the “recommended” pesticides and antibiotics and now saves $14,000 dollars per year and has healthier animals.

- Food from mass production farms and ranches yields 40% less nutrients, which has been reflected on the labels and, for some reason, isn’t causing a national outcry (this is the obesity epidemic by itself, as well as adding to other aspects of our health care load. It’s not tricky math. If you need to consume 40% more calories to get 100% of your needed nutrients there is no other possibility than becoming obese.)

The film brings to light the fact that food production isn’t the complicated quagmire we're led to believe. We can all produce food in our own homes. Local co-op farms can feed entire communities. In exactly the same manner that we can turn our homes into generating plants that can meet our energy needs, we can grow food locally that meets our nutritional needs. And the result will not only mean a healthier world but a more economically sound one. The stats are unequivocally one sided. We can feed ourselves better than any big corporation.

There’s a line in the film where someone says “the only thing Americans fear is inconvenience.” To change this we don’t need revolution. We don’t need any great leaders. And we certainly don’t need a bunch of corporations telling us what to do. All we need is some very simple grass roots education and we’ll do it ourselves.

To start, bookmark the Fresh site and sign up for their newsletter.

The film is only available for screenings. Though you can purchase a private screening it would be more fun to attend a public one. If it's not playing in your community you can organize a screening yourself, which they will help you organize. Go here for details.

Analyzing Dairy Claims

It's high time to again pimp The Real Fitness Nerd, one of the publications where I occasionally scribe. The credit goes to Denis Faye in this instance for his straight dope attack on dairy claims.

Having a cow over cheesy dairy claims

Instead of summarizing I'm going to suggest you go and read it. If you like, subscribe to the Nerd as your critical eye to what's happening in the fitness and nutrition world.

I've cast doubt on the dairy industry's integrity myself (search my articles and mailbag). This inevitably motivates an attack from the uninformed masses that are led to believe that humans can't exist without dairy. No exception here, where one reader tries to defend the industry's claim that milk is an important source of vitamin D. Nice to see Denis ferret out the bullshit.