Mom of 4 FA’s 14b

Jacinda Hunter: Driving Force from Prana Living on Vimeo.

Today the psyche series spotlights Jacinda Hunter. The mother of four, who also has a full-time career, recently did the first ascent of a 5.14b (if you don’t know climbing this is one of the hardest female first ascents in history). The next time you think you’re too busy to follow your dreams think of her.

Thanks to Mike Call for the vid, Ryan Wedemayer for the pic, Prana for their athlete’s blog, Deadpoint Mag for the article on staying motivated in the winter (highlighted below), and Jacinda for the psyche. I’m off to go train now.





“The “project” is something I had been working for months. Just before all the snow, I actually fell off the very last move on the route. It was heartbreaking to be so close and then have to take a break from it. But I figure it's not going anywhere so I hope to get back there in a few weeks. That route is very different climbing because it is steep. It has small holds for the angle and once you pull on, there is no rest. I have to just power through right till the end. It’s a total power endurance fest climbing out the cave

It's pretty fun because I’ll go to the gym just to do a couple warms ups. When people ask what we’re up to and we tell them were about to head outside and just warming up, they look at us like were crazy! I would so much rather spend my time freezing my ass off on some heinous project outside then climb all day in the gym.”

Transition Phases

There aren’t transition phases built into the Workout From Hell. That’s not a mistake though, to be sure, periodizational training wasn’t as common in the 80s as it is today. When each phase of a program follows a straightforward progressive overload principle transition phases aren’t as necessary. Let’s take a brief overview as why you sometimes want to transition between phases and other times you don’t.

In its simplest sense it depends on the total intensity of the program you’re doing. In P90x, for example, you’re simultaneously training across various energy systems to your maximum. Your body is stressed in many various ways so that there is a pretty short window of opportunity for improvement before hits a plateau from simply overstressing itself. Another modern program, Turbo Fire, combines HIIT (high intensity) training with more traditional cardio (low intensity) and bases its transitions (recovery phases) on the overall intensity of the phases so the amount of time between transitions varies throughout the program.

Because the WFH only targets one energy system in each phase, which changes every three weeks, you don’t need a week of doing something different in between to adjust (like 90x). You will find, however, that your body can’t react right away and this provides you with a self-induced transition phase. When you drop your repetitions the first workout or two are a learning experience. Your body has become accustomed to doing a higher number of reps (time) and there is an adjustment period as it tries to recruit higher threshold muscle cell motor units (intensity).

To aid your body’s transition I recommend beginning the first few workouts in a phase with exaggeratedly slow movements. In the WFH you shouldn’t be moving fast anyway but, in almost any program, when you begin a new phase you should concentrate on technique first. Only when technique is mastered do you want to begin to push intensity (weight, speed, etc).

Keep in mind that intensity doesn’t equal hard in your mind. Intensity is defined by how stressful an individual exercise is on your body, not how hard it feels. Low intensity workouts can be very hard and painful. Try riding your bike for 8 hours, or doing one of Debbie Siebers’ Slim Series workouts. There are no hard movements it still hurts. Conversely the most intense exercises might not hurt much at all (unless you get injured). A box jump wearing a 40lb weight vest won’t tire you out but it will put incredible stresses on your body. This is why there are times, especially in a complex program like P90X, where your recovery weeks can feel harder than the rest of your program.

pic: for your retro viewing pleasure, more catherine destivelle

Shatner is such a vegetarian, he even loves his ladies green.

Denis over at The Real Fitness Nerd has outdone himself. He had some help, mainly in the form of an old--an amazingly prescient--documentary on vegetarianism hosted by William Shatner. From the Nerd:

Today, I'm going to let a true master do the talking. Pour yourself a cup of coffee, pull up a chair, and enjoy Vegetarian World, starring William Shatner.

I'm not going to bother posting this video here. Instead I emplore you to visit his site and check it out.

This documentary is fascinating on so many levels. First and foremost, Denny Crane, I mean William Shatner, is positively riveting from his bad jogging suit to his love for eggplant parmigiana. What also makes this 1982 vegetarian rant interesting is that it's 30 years ahead of its time...

Supplement Strategies

I’ve been asked to blog more about supplements so I’ll start with a post on what I take and why. As many of you know, I’m referred to as Beachbody’s white mouse; meaning everything we make gets tested on me first. But I don’t just test what we make. A lot of what I test ends up on the cutting room (or is it bathroom?) floor.

Over the years I’ve tried hundreds, if not thousands, of supplements. My impression is that supplements are over-hyped and most are a waste of money. There are, however, cornerstones that I use as part of my daily diet and an occasional supplement I find vital for max performance in a given situation. The problem with supplements is that we hype them the same way we do drugs. They are not drugs. The upside to this is that it’s VERY hard to hurt yourself with supplements. The down side is that our expectations tend to be too high.

Supplements are food, or condensed food. Most can be consumed in their natural state and, if we ate well, many would be unnecessary. While this means they tend to be safe it also means we don’t “need” them. However, using proper supplementation strategy can help us live healthier and perform better, especially when we train hard and even more importantly when we’re dieting and exercising.

I break my supplements into basics and situational. Basic supplements are things I take pretty much all the time. Situational are those I use depending on what I’m doing. Let’s look at these first. In the same way that your diet should reflect what you are doing, so should the supplements you take.

For example, two of the most proven supplements in history are creatine monohydrate and 4 parts carb to one part protein recovery formulations. Neither are daily tonics. They are for given situations. Creatine is useful when you’re training hard and trying to build muscle or anaerobic strength. If those are not your goals it’s not only a waste but can interfere with your diet by encouraging your body to retain water to increase cell volume. Recovery formulations are only for when your glycogen stores are extinguished which takes hard exercise or starvation. No one eating well and exercising 30 minutes a day or less would ever need a recovery formulation. In fact, it would be terrible for you. However, when your training hard, eating lean, and using up your body’s limited glycogen stores the stuff is more valuable than gold.

Basics are things you should take everyday, like food. Since it came out Shakeology is on the top of my list. It’s like a healthy insurance policy in a glass.

I begin every morning with three Joint Support Formula capsules, one Core Cal Mag, two Omegas, and an Activit tablet. At night I take another Cal/Mag tablet and a vitamin with my Shake. I look at this group of supplements as part of my diet and nothing more.

Besides situational supplements that I know work I’m often playing my white mouse role by experimenting with something new or different. Currently it’s this protocol, and the jury is still out on what I think of it. My next block of training (experimenting with The Workout From Hell) is going to include something different, which I’ll report on if it’s effective. I’m also playing around with coconut oil and chia seeds. The latter is just a food but hasn’t become a staple yet. I think it will become so. I’m not yet as sure about coconut oil’s status as medium chain triglyceride. As fall rolls around and I begin to care more about my performance I’ll stop experimenting and revert back to proven supplements that work for whatever my goals are.

Cortisol & Your Exercise Program

Since I just finished another pump-inducing WFH workout it seemed like a good time to post on cortisol. Back in the 80s it wasn’t a big topic. Well, it actually was a big topic but marketers had yet to catch wind of it so no one talked about it. But, if you’ll recall the no-fat phase that ran from the late 80s to early 90s, cortisol was a big reason behind what was going on.

First off I should explain what cortisol is. But I’m not going to. Denis Faye of The Real Fitness Nerd has done a perfectly good job in an article archived at Beachbody. Click on this paragraph if you’d like to know more about it and what you can do about it.

Cortisol has various tasks. It's instrumental in controlling blood pressure, and it also supplies emergency energy to the body. It does this by decreasing insulin sensitivity and stimulating something called gluconeogenesis, the creation of new glucose from amino acids. Unfortunately, these amino acids come from the breakdown of body proteins through a process known as catabolism. In other words, during times of stress, cortisol aids in breaking down muscle mass for use as energy.

Most of you have only heard of cortisol due to marketing hype, which Faye also covers,

A few years ago, a wave of supplements hit the market vilifying the stress hormone cortisol, claiming that it caused an accumulation of excess fat. While this "fact" helped companies like CortiSlim® sell plenty "cortisol blockers," there was a tiny problem. It's complete hogwash. So let's set the record straight, shall we?

What I’m going to discuss today, which the article doesn’t go into, is the bird’s eye view of cortisol and how it affects your workouts and your results. I mentioned it in a 80s post because one of the no-fat era’s poster ailments was anorexia. Most of you know what it is, I’m sure, and cortisol is a big part of it because when you don’t eat your body releases excessive cortisol in an emergency response to lack of calories. When this happens regularly you get into a vicious circle of chronic cortisol release, which keeps catabolizing your muscle tissue, not to mention throwing your body’s hormonal cycles off which can lead to major illness over time.

But cortisol issues don’t just happen to anorexics. Everybody beginning a new training program goes through a period where they produce excessive cortisol. One of the things that happens with excess cortisol is released is water retention. When we retain water we feel bloated and this bloated feeling can lead us into another Catch-22 situation where we either stop eating or stop training hard. It’s vital that you do neither.

Cortisol is somewhat of an emergency hormone. You are supposed to get more of it when you’re under stress because it enhances your performance (it’s a banned PED in sports). When you are training you release more in the adaptive phase of a program. As long as you stick to your diet and exercise program (assuming it’s of sound design) your body will adjust. You’ll stop retaining water and your performance will increase as will your results.

What often happens is that we react to this temporary weight gain and exacerbate the problem. Women often mistake this as building muscle mass and quit pushing their weight workouts or quit the program they’re on. This always infuriates men who only wish muscle could be gained in a matter of days! Men, however, especially fit men trying to gain some mass, sabotage their programs by getting scared about losing their ripped abs and stop eating at a time when your body needs more calories than normal.

So I guess the whole point of this post is to tell you to see your program through to its end. By cutting it off early you don’t give it a chance to work as it’s designed. It’s also an excuse to post a pic of some more great 80s fashion.

Life Without A Shirt

“When you haven’t been laid in three months there are more important things than climbing. This spring I'm wearing tank tops to school everyday.” – semi-famous climber to me (loudly) while doing curls and eyeing a hot girl in a gym



My workouts in the WFH aren’t 100% about climbing. I’m also a cyclist and runner and, though injured, I’m not willing to let the muscle groups that support these activities slide much in order to climb harder. I once made this sacrifice. I’ll go into depth on how during the power phase of this program. Today I’m just going to address what I’m doing that doesn’t facilitate my climbing endeavors, mainly because I’ve been asked about leg work during the program.



While they need to be functional, legs are little more than dead weight for a climber. It’s funny that so many climbers are also cyclists because the body type needed for maximum performance in each is 180 degrees opposite. Cyclists have massive strong legs and try and keep their upper body muscle to an absolute minimum. Conversely, climbers build their bodies to resemble apes. Since I want to do both at a reasonably-high level I need to compromise.



My WFH journey mainly started with an injury to my back that didn’t allow me to either run or ride. Now that I can do these a little I’m slowly bringing them back up to speed. Day 2 on the schedule includes legs, which are done at the end of the workouts. And at least two days a week are devoted to some “track” drills for running, usually done as my warm-up for the day’s workout. These are day to day activities. What I do is simply what I can do. Right now it ain’t much.

Because this is climbing-specific journal the details are not important. I just wanted to point out I was doing more exercise than listed. Most of us have some other interests in life. Whether those interests are sports specific, wearing tank tops to school, or looking good naked it’s important to note that this program can still accommodate your interests.



vids: in the 80s, no one exemplified the important aspects beyond the climbing lifestyle like patrick ‘the dream maker’ edlinger. note the subtle differences in the original version and the more straightforward parody. after all, when it comes right down to it, none of us can dispute the importance of german techno music about robots.

Why Short Intense Exercise Is Best

I was asked to critique Dr. Mercola’s critique (like the show we once wanted to do where we came on after Sneak Previews and critiqued Siskel and Ebert’s movie reviews) of a USA Today article on how short, intense exercise is better than long, easy aerobic exercise. We’ll begin right after this word from our sponsors.

Mercola can be sort of fringe in his thinking. I don’t always agree with him as he’s got an even more skeptical view of mainstream nutrition thought than I do. He also spends a lot of time pitching his products but, hey, a guy’s got to make a living. Anyway, he rarely discusses exercise and in this article he goes into quite a bit of depth. Of course, as a nutritionist that is the line he tackles first:

I actually view exercise as a drug with regard to being properly prescribed and having proper dosage, And it's one that you can readily substitute for some of the most common drugs used today for things like diabetes, heart disease and depression. All of these conditions will improve with exercise and with the help of an experienced natural health care clinician.

Nearly one in four people in the US have type 2 diabetes or pre-diabetes and it is my experience that most of them could be reversed with the appropriate diet and exercise regimen -- exercise being the crucial key.

This article is definitely worth a read and my only critiques are about its hyperbolic nature. The idea that short and intense exercise is better is not new, as he states. Those in the business have always known it. Granted, it isn’t the way mainstream health clubs or the medical community has spun things but, as I’ve stated before, this has a lot to do with liability. Many professionals are afraid to prescribe intense exercise because of lawsuits. It’s much safer to advise walking around the block.

If you look at our Beachbody products we’ve always used intense exercise done in an interval format. This goes back 12 years but we’re playing on principles that have been around all of my life. Sports trainers and coaches have always known (I would submit the Greek’s knew this) that for maximal performance you need to train every energy system and stress the muscle fiber types that are specific for performance. We are pitching HIIT training with the new Turbo Fire program but, remember, our very first products (Great Body Guaranteed) were intense 10-minute workouts.

And the powerful link between diet and exercise he addresses is, indeed, the cornerstone of our company. We don’t just provide exercise programs, diets, or supplements. We sell the entire package. So, again, there is nothing new there from our perspective. I mean, he’s even teaming up with Kathy Smith and she is one of our trainers!

He also fails to mention the importance of not training the same way all the time or how longer more intense exercise can yield even more benefits. There is benefit of training all other systems, and even that walk around the block is not a waste of time. But I’m going to let him slide here because it’s not the article’s premise to discuss all aspects of training. His point is the easy aerobic cardio is not a very efficient way to change your body, which is true.

Where there is some confusion amongst Beachbody-ites is in his dietary guidelines where he recommends not eating, especially sugar, after your workouts. He’s not wrong here because the entire article is addressing 10 minute workouts only. I will, however, take exception with the growth hormone spike window being up to a couple of hour when the research I’ve seen shows this happening within about 20 minutes. But, more importantly, in 10 minutes you cannot extinguish your body’s glycogen stores. When they are exhausted, however, your nutritional needs change and sugar becomes vital because the longer it takes to recharge those stores the more damage is done to your muscle tissue. This is why we recommend Recovery Formula with our longer workouts like P90X and Insanity programs only—and with Turbo Fire in it’s later stages—and not with programs like Ten Minute Trainer. Different situations call for different nutritional strategies. And that’s nothing new for us either.

But do give the article a read. Mercola makes you sign up for a free account and sends you newsletters daily. And while I wouldn’t blindly believe everything he says it’s probably a lot more valuable than watching Fox News. The Straight Dope says two thumbs up for Dr. Mercola's critique of USA Today.