Speed Month

The World Championships is a short race and I’ve spent most of the last decade doing ultra events. I need to be faster, so July is going to target power and explosiveness, which equal speed. Hello postactivation potention.

Pure speed is one of the harder elements to improve because it takes more than simply getting into shape. You need to train both your musculature and your nervous system to respond differently to stimulus. Getting fit is a natural extension of exercising but getting fast takes targeted training, which is not always as much fun.

But I recently did a short mountain bike race, our state championships, to qualify for nationals and got my ass handed to me in spectacular fashion. I qualified but lost nearly a minute per mile to the winner. Ouch! Speed has always been an allies (I was a sprinter in high school) but the last decade of going long and slow has retrained my body so it no longer knows how to be fast. In order to be competitive in Spain some major reprogramming is in order.

summer transformation goal

I do actually find this training fun. The downside is less time playing with my friends. Now instead of going out for a ride, run, or climb being a focal point of my training it’s what I do on rest days. Training consists of drills, intervals, and PAP.

The latter is the key. If you follow TSD you know what this is, and why it comprises the third phase of P90X2. If not read this. And this. And if you’re very curious dig though all of these posts.

Essentially my schedule looks like the third training bock of P90X2, with some sports specific stuff added. This form of PAP—that the general public is about to get a taste of—is the epitome of applied science for athletes. And though I’ve already done some experiments with PAP complexing I’ve never been focused on improving my speed. Basically I’m headed back into the lab and it’ll be interesting to see how the experiments shake out.

Vitamin D, Sunscreen, and Healthy Skin

Since it’s finally looking like summer outside it seems like a good time to discuss the topic of sunlight and what you should be doing about it. Two popular subjects in the health world are vitamin D and sunscreen, neither of which is very well understood by the general public. After reading today’s post you can stop reading those headlines because the solutions are very simple.

Vitamin D.
Not really a vitamin, exactly, it’s actually a hormone and is produced by your body. Its effects are so important it’s not even worth mentioning all the pluses. Just know that if you lack vitamin D life is going to get unpleasant very quickly. The good news is that our bodies make it when our skin is exposed to sunlight. You don’t even need very much sun exposure, and your body stores it so it will hang around when the weather turns gray, even for months. Yet numerous studies show many people are drastically low in vitamin D. So what’s the deal?

We’re obviously not getting outside enough but that’s not the entire story because we might be. We’re just using too much sunscreen when we do. Vitamin D is present in very few foods. We can supplement it but we don’t want too much of it because our bodies store it, and too much can be stored (when it can become toxic). Natural exposure is both the safest and most effective way to get it.

Sunscreen.
It seems that almost everyone now knows that overexposure to sunlight can cause skin cancer and that sunscreen can help prevent it. Unfortunately health officials—and marketing divisions—find it’s easier to sell the public on black and white rather than bother with subtleties like, oh, the fact our bodies needs some sunlight for health and skin cancer, while a very real threat, takes a lot of sun exposure to get. So the powers that inform have been telling us to slather on sunscreen anytime we step out of the house and, apparently, we’ve chosen this one piece of advice (as opposed to “exercise more”, “eat fruits and veggies”, “drink plain water”, “watch less TV” etc) to take to heart, resulting in a widespread problem with vitamin D deficiency.

In fact, so disinterested have these powers been with subtleties that sunscreens have been blocking the wrong rays for years. We’re finally starting for hear about the difference in UVA and UVB rays. Until recently sunscreens only targeted the latter, which incidentally are also the rays we use to make vitamin D. Now it turns out the UVA rays we’ve been letting through can cause skin cancer too, so all our protective measures have not only been leaving us exposed to possible skin cancer but lowering our immune system at the same time. Oops.

Many of the sunscreen companies are now choosing to block UVA rays and inform you about this on their label, but they’re still not too forthcoming about the importance of getting some UVB because, well, it probably doesn’t seem like good business (even though a new study shows vitamin D helps stave off skin cancer). They also don’t tell you that unless you get an awful lot of sun exposure you’re not very likely at all to develop skin cancer or have any damaging effects from the sun at all. The fact is that we not only don’t need, but should not have, sunscreen covering our exposed skin areas all the time.

The simple solution.
The media makes this subject appear complicated but the solution simply is not. We should get outside during the middle of the day on sunny days whenever we can. Not for long; a stroll through the park at lunch on a sunny day is likely plenty of exposure as long as you’re not completely covered up (the AMA recommends 15 minutes of exposure a “few times” per week). You don’t need to be in a bathing suit but wearing shorts and jogging around the park on occasion wouldn’t hurt. We just shouldn’t live like vampires, no matter how cool their lives seem on True Blood.

On the flip side no one needs to lie out at the beach. Fake tanning is still seems like the safest way to mimic an 80s sex symbol. Once you feel your skin get warm you’ve had more exposure than you need. For those of you that do spend a lot of time outdoors, make sure your sunscreen blocks both UVA and UVB rays. And if you’re addicted to sunlight wear a hat. The skin on your face and neck, especially around your eyes, is very susceptible to the raisin effect.

Supplementing vitamin D has been shown to be effective but, unless you never get outside, a base amount is sufficient. Whatever is in your multivitamin is likely fine (The RDAs 400IU is “100%” but not really 100% so don’t worry about it--subject for another day). Also, make sure to try and eat plenty of non-cooked omega 3 and 6s in your diet. These fatty acids protect your skin from sun damage and keep it looking young.

Trying to get too involved in the numbers of this subject will just confuse you. “Nobody really knows how much sunlight you need for optimal vitamin D synthesis versus too much sunlight,” say Jean Tang, dermatologist and lead author of a government study that followed 36,000 women ages 50 to 79 for an average of seven years. And if someone like Tang doesn’t know the math, there’s no reason for you bother with it either.

Further reading and opinions:

http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/vitamind/

http://www.baycitizen.org/blogs/quality-of-life/study-vitamin-d-and-calcium-ward-high/

http://www.skincancer.org/understanding-uva-and-uvb.html

http://www.newsok.com/new-sunscreen-label-rules-will-be-simpler-safer/article/3580421?custom_click=pod_headline_health

http://products.mercola.com/summer-survival-kit/?source=nl

Gettin' Real In The Whole Foods Parking Lot

For those of you having a case of the Mundays.

A Tour Divide Fundraiser

This week’s psyche has a fundraising aspect. Buy a copy of the just-released book on the Tour Divide (“the world’s toughest bike race”) and you’ll help support the daughter of a racer who died during the 2010 challenge. The TD is a fully self-supported 2,700 mile dirt adventure along the Continental Divide from Banff, Alberta to the Mexican border. The Cordillera will no doubt become a requirement for any true adventurer’s bookcase. From the bikepacking web site:

For those of you who have missed it the Cordillera is an anthology of the best Divide Racing art, literature and poetry out there. It is a book about ultra-racing along the Divide and I'm sure that everyone who visits Bikepacking.net will find it fascinating.

The Cordillera Volume 2 is a professionally bound soft-cover book with work by Jon Billman (Outside Magazine), Paul Howard (Two Wheels on my Wagon / Eat, Sleep, Ride), Dan Koeppell (New York Times), Eddie Clark (Mountain Flyer) and many others. We also have pictures from Aaron Teasdale and original artwork by Trevor Browne in this year's book.

We have a great story and interview of Kurt Refsnider this year which details the incredible discovery he made on Baffin Island of the bikes and gear left by Divide bicycling pioneers Mike and Dan Moe. It's a story that you'll never forget and there's more information about it in the Cordillera than anywhere else.

The Cordillera is a non-profit effort. All proceeds benefit worthy bikepacking causes and last year we raised over $1,000 for the Adventure Cycling Association. This year all proceeds go directly to the college savings plan for Linnaea Blumenthal. Linnaea is the four year old daughter of Dave Blumenthal who died after a crash in the 2010 Tour Divide race. Purchasing a copy of the Cordillera is a great and tangible way for the bike-packing community to show support for a fallen racer's daughter.
The Cordillera will be available on Amazon.com next month but if you purchase it directly from the printer you'll get it in a few days and twice as much money will be donated to Linnaea's college fund. Here's the link:

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-cordillera/15659154?productTrackingContext=search_results/search_shelf/center/1

To follow this year’s tour check out the Tour Tracker here.
Here’s a link to the main Tour Divide Page. Here are some photos of the course.

The Development Of P90X2

It’s official; P90X mc2 is P90X2 since its unveiling at Beachbody’s annual Summit meeting last weekend. I know many coaches have been aware of this for ages but that’s one of your perks. Officially mum has been the word. This means that, among other things, I can wear the X2 hoodie that’s been buried in my closet for months out in public.

Tony, Jon, Carl and me in Tony's apartment; brainstorming about a sequel to Power 90 tentatively called P90X.

For those of you just joining us, today I’ll provide a recap of P90X2’s development. Beachbody’s old guard undoubtedly remembers Ned Farr’s serial about the making of P90X. For X2 we didn’t go to such production lengths. Instead, you got Tony’s One on One workouts (with Mason’s b roll segments—you all watched those, right?) and my blog. Here are a few of the more important posts, in chronological order. I changed the titles to reflect X2 but leaving all the X Next/mc2 et al references in for posterity.

Post-activation Potentiation

Going, Going, Gone!

I Hate It! But I Love It!

Feelin’ Springy

The Science Behind P90X2

Previewing P90X2

Buying Into The System

P90X2 Core: The Opening Engagement

Plyocide: Up Close and Personal

P90X: Muscle Confusion Two

P90X2 Rehearsals

The Stuff Of P90X2

It's a Wrap!

If you want to read the entire series click here and scroll down.

7AM, Day 3, 2011 Summit: 2,000 people get ready to workout with the Beachbody trainers in front of the Staples Center, minus some whom were skipping it because they’d done Tony’s PAP workout the day prior. “My legs are destroyed,” was a sentiment heard regularly.

Solo Across The Atlantic

Very busy week for me, with Beachbody’s annual Summit happening, but I wanted to get a psyche post up regardless. Seems like a good week for an adventure that’s the antithesis of social festivities here in LA; a solo row boat crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. I happened upon this blog while following my friend Russ, who’s doing the Tour Divide this year. I’ll have more on that “race” later but, today, check out an experience of being alone with a boat, some oars, and whatever marine creatures decide to make friends with you for a few months. Here are a few highlights from Paul Attalla’s “life changing” journey.

December 4 2007
And the race begins. The Spirit of Fernie is complete. Thank you so much to Andy the German boatbuilder and his countless hours completing the finishing touches, Brett, Sean and Mike for all of the final errands and fixing up touches, and to the Richard and Bette for a wonderful post meal ´Pallea¨, champagne, salad and cake and Nic and the girls for decorating my cabin so beautifully with finger paint and glitter glue. Puppy and I will be very cozy. We had a lovely sticker posting party to place all of my guestbook entries onto the boat. The hardest thing I´ve ever done. An extremely emotional morning but thanks to Joy´s fantastic 2 year old inquisitiveness she brought tears of laughter to the morning with her comments. Daddy where you pee pee?

December 8 2007
Paul phoned home on his satellite phone. He has had a tough week at sea. He has been very nauseated but this is improving. The waves and wind have made living difficult. It's been too rough to light the stove and water making is difficult also. We could hear the waves splashing over the boat. Paul said "this is not about a race this is about survival"but followed this up with "how many are behind me". Dolphins are following along and a sea turtle has taken a liking to his cleaning brush.

December 13 2007
I can't explain how hard it is to try and repair the leak. I have to shift my gear constantly to get into tiny compartments. Today I heard what sounded like plastic bags popping while on the phone with Nic. At first I thought it was dolphins but I had to go and check to make sure it wasn't something on the boat. To my surprise what I found was ...

December 14 2007
I look at my "seame" light and it is blinking fast which means something is very near. I turn around and see this ship bearing down on me fast. I freak out and spring into action. The ship is going to hit me 1 - 2 minutes - it is coming directly at me. I leap into my cabin grab the radio and attempt to make contact while getting a flare ready with the other hand. I drop the radio thinking that they would not be able to avoid me even if they tried put my life jacket around my neck , free my life raft and grab bag and shot the flare AT the ship.

December 20 2007
I've had a terrible 24 hour period with very rare west west north west winds- watching hard earned miles slip by. The chances of getting wind in that direction at 20-knots for this month of the year is very rare. I had to use my para-anchor which is the equivalent of an underwater parachute 6 feet by 6 feet. It is attached to 50 metres of line with a separate 80 metre floating TRIP LINE. ROPE CITY. If you screw-up the deployment of the para-anchor bad things can happen. It is a scary and very powerful piece of gear. I hope I do not have use too many more times.

I miss my family very much and the bad weather luck for some reason has highlighted loneliness. I gave my self a classic Paul Attalla pep talk this am " Come on you have this rare opportunity in front of you, it will not always go your way, you have to flow with the circumstances, it is easy to be calm and cool and happy when things are going well but it how we take on the bad times that define our grit and strength, you can not change the weather, worry about things that you can change like your attitude; Missing the family is a fact of the race. It is only threeish months from many years of togetherness".

December 21 2007
Today I saw my first pod of pilot whales. I had no idea some of them could be so huge, up to 20 ft. Yesterday I was in 6-8 metre swell, talk about adventure. I felt under the weather yesterday after eating some curry chicken but it seems to have passed. I look forward to opening my daily supplies. I get really excited if there are wine gums, sweet and sour chicken and chicken noodle soup. I am rowing as hard as I can. I figure if I keep this pace I will have only 40-50 more days at sea.

December 22 2007
I awoke this morning to the sounds of dolphins playing, squealing and shooting water out of their blowholes. Joy would love it!

January 3 2008
I am making some good distance today, but a storm and I mean a storm has set in. It is so rough I tipped sideways and it took about 5 seconds to self-right. I am happy I have the boat that I do. It is so rough I had to put out my drogue. It was very scary attaching the lines out of my hatch. I had to go over it in my head 5-6 times of how I would so quickly open my hatch, leash up, get on the deck, set it up and then get back inside my cabin again, so not to be bombarded by a wave. It happened anyways, huge soaker but I was alright and made it back in. A stormy night and some seasickness is inevitable. The blood is rushing now and adrenalin firing for sure!

January 5 2008
This will be the second time I was attempting to go underneath and have a look at the growth underneath, and the hole (it's getting worse again). I am not kidding when I say I had my mask and snorkel on and was nearing the edge to jump in, and suddenly I saw a flock of seagulls. So, I stopped to admire them ( don't see them often all the way out here) and they flew right down to the water just above a sharks dorsal fin. The shark then swam up to the boat and under my paddle then disappeared. I am not sure how big it was as it all happened fast. I was taken back at how big the tail was and by the girth.

January 21 2008
A rough day today as I woke up and cut my heel on a hose clamp (bad spot to have it) and was bitten by a school of fish under my boat. I guess it serves me right for throwing my leftover meal overboard, but it hurt and I have two puncture marks to show. I paddled hard sideways all day and was soaked by big waves as I struggled NOT to go to Brazil (no offense Thays - Terry my locum's wife), I'm sure it is beautiful. As a result my bottom is extremely sore from the gritty salt chafing.

January 28, 2008
Complete magic today as a pod of 50+ dolphins splashed and played all around me. They would jump 3-4 at a time in unison. Some had black spots on them. It was so beautiful. I have not seen them for over a month and this many at once was awesome!

February 7 2008
The last two days have been the most memorable of the journey so far.
Yesterday it was a whale, and today it was large swell in the morning. As
the sun was rising so was the wind and the swell with both moving West. The Spirit of Fernie was moving the fastest she has been. The swell was breaking but in such a way that the waves more or less crumbled from the top and flattened the sea...

February 9 2008
Today was a jackpot day! I owe it to BP (Brett Price) . After surviving 71 days without coffee, I found the only small packet on the boat of - liquid gold - COFFEE! I will treat myself tommorrow morning. I don't even know if I'll be able to sleep tonight I am so excited.

February 11 2008
Another night full of excitement as I was almost hit straight on by a Russian freighter. Once again I let the ship know that I was a VERY SMALL OCEAN ROW BOAT: only to hear their groggy replies " clear the way". Eventually they sensed my panic and WOKE UP!

The whale is still with me. It is quite shy but meanders back and forth between half a kilometre and 200 metres bobbing up and down behind the boat. Coincidentally or not, I have sad news that I have not seen Moby in about four days. My little buddy Chirp still visits 4-5 times a day and he/she always puts a smile on my face.

Trust Your Training Program

Periodizational training can be a hard sell because each time you change training blocks you take a small step backwards. But these steps “back” are there for a reason and, eventually, you lose less strength during each transition leading to larger cumulative gains near the end of your program. If you alter your program so that you never regress you hamper to ability to ultimately improve. This requires trust.

Every 90-day (or longer) Beachbody program comes with a periodizational strategy designed to do this. As you’ll see if you click here, mutiny is a rational consideration when you aren’t moving towards your goals. But you should trust these schedules because they work, which I know because I’ve spent the last 30 or so years of my life trying to perfect them.

And while I know how to set up periodizational schedules for a broad demographic my own personal plans are more of a crap shoot because I’m always tweaking, or experimenting, with something theoretical. Each time I set up a new scenario I’m never 100% certain it’s a good idea.

Yesterday my training took me back into the gym (well, garage) for the first time in six weeks, where I was somewhat surprised, and quite happy, to find I’d lost little, if any, strength doing Asylum Strength. I say surprised because six weeks is about the outside of time you can hang onto strength gains. It’s not like I’ve been doing nothing, far from it, but outdoor sports don’t usually allow you to keep strength gains made in the gym. This is a sign that my training plans are going according to plan.

I began this schedule back in January. Back then transitions weren’t so smooth. In the deep off season you should focus on areas of weakness. This means your strengths will suffer, which is fine, since you know (or should know) that you can get them back. But it’s still hard to wrap you head around the fact that you might be training harder than ever before only to be getting worse at your main objectives then you would be if you didn’t train at all.

Closer to your objectives these peaks and valleys merge. You don’t take big steps back during transitions and each step of your training leads to a little peak. Eventually, if you get it right, it all cumulates with a major peak in fitness.

The lesson of the day is to trust your program and let it work. We get tons of mail (literally if it weren’t electronic) from people wanting to alter their program, or quit, as soon as they get weaker, gain weight, feel tired, or hungry, or anything that’s not what they consider to be the direction they want to be going. But you’ve got to trust us; those steps back are going to lead to improvements that you never would have believed to be possible.