Category: Makes You Think

This category covers things that relate probably require some reflection and some time to allow your brain to process more completely. It will be the largest category because the aim of this site is to get people to shift their thinking in some way and to create a new “normal” state. It is safe to say that any post that is included in this category will probably present you with a new piece of information, a new way of looking at something, or a different take on what is already considered common sense or common knowledge.

What’s My Motivation For Lifting Weights?

On my Facebook wall, Tony asked me what my motivation was. It was a follow-up to a conversation we had on the weekend about lifting weights. I mentioned to him that one day I would like to dead lift 500 lbs to which he said “good for you” followed quickly with “why?” He made the accurate claim that there was no practical reason for me to ever need to lift 500 lbs.

Sure it helps my cycling – the stronger I am, the faster I will be able to climb hills. Being strong now is also going to help me age more gracefully – provided I do no harm to my body. I like that lifting weights burns calories so I stay lean, and I also like the muscle development that it promotes. These are all good reasons and if I lifted for just one of these, I think I’d have my motivation.

My primary reasons now are about personal integrity and optics.

I coach athletes of different ages and levels now and it is no longer enough to simply know what I’m talking about. I need to LOOK like I know what I’m talking about. We’ve all seen the fat personal trainer, the skinny strength coach, the gym at the gym with internally rotated shoulders who’s telling everyone what they are doing wrong – basically the people who consider themselves experts in something that they don’t look anything like – they may know what are talking about, they just look like they don’t follow their own advice so it’s tough to take them seriously. Given that I work with a lot of young people who couldn’t possible know if I’m knowledgeable, I strive to LOOK like I am knowledgeable. That’s the optics component, I try to make the visual impression that says to those who do not know that I do know.

The personal integrity component is more critical from my point of view. As much as I love coaching I need to be a sales man – if I can’t sell my services I’ll have no one to coach. I also need to sell my clients on my advice / programs. I know from my past experience that I have extreme difficultly selling things I do not believe in. Being an extremely passionate person, I can be very convincing. However, using this passion to convince someone to comply with a suggestion I know nothing about leaves me feeling kind of greasy, so greasy in fact that I have a tough time letting go of the interaction later. Basically, I’m blessed with the ability to convince others of things but feel good about myself only when I believe in what I’ve convinced them to do. This pairing means that I’m not going to be selling cars, sofas or cell phones.

Experience separates wisdom from knowledge. This is what is critical for me. Until I actually dead lifted twice my body weight, I had no idea what it was like. Once I did, I realized a lot of things about myself, the movement and the potential for injury and progress. Having had these lessons, I’m in a much better position to coach others on how they should lift very heavy weight. I’m also in a position to speak with authority about the carryover benefits of lifting heavy – you’ll be faster, your other lifts will go up, you’ll enjoy going to the gym more, life will be a little easier than it was before.

It is only through doing that I can honestly coach other people on how to and why they should. Coaching from a place of no experience isn’t doing a service to your athletes, clients or yourself, so get out there and practice what you preach!

Body Composition And Taste Buds

I believe that our taste buds serve one function when it comes to body composition – to help us be as fat as possible.

Those living on the planet now represent the best of the best when it comes to surviving on it. If they possess a trait it is because the trait helped them survive. Any traits we possess have been passed along to us through our ancestors for thousands of years. Human beings have biological tendencies towards certain behaviors and the expression of these behaviors is often unconscious.

Why humans eat fat and sugar: The basic reason is that these nutrients help us store fat in preparation for the next famine / winter. That is it. Our species used to need to have large fat store to get us through the tough times and having favoring eating the things that make use fat would help us survive.

Eating disorders (at least binge eating) are a survival mechanism. Okay, I’m probably going to get blasted for that but I believe it is true. I have spoken to a number of people who suffer from compulsive eating and almost all of them describe their binges in exactly the same terms I would use to describe my binge eating. Initially, there’s an awareness of the food. The cookies call to me, the cake makes noises in the fridge to remind me that it is there, the chocolate bar dances in my peripheral vision taunting me. If I’m able to ignore them, I am fine. The craving or awareness will go away and my day will continue.

However, if I eat a cookie, have a sliver of cake or sample a piece of chocolate, something very unusual happens. I have a sensation that I can only describe as an out of body experience. I watch, in almost horror, my hands grabbing the food and putting it into my mouth. I am only marginally aware of the sensation of eating, chewing and swallowing. Basically, I sit back and watch while my body just rips its way through the food. Through out the session I will think that maybe I should stop, that maybe 20 cookies is enough, but these are just thoughts that have no impact on the behaviour of the thing I become. I roll through the food, ALL of the food, regardless of any feelings of fullness. Even the crumbs get eaten and my fingers get licked clear to make sure nothing is wasted.

Others who gorge or binge report the same sort of feeling – like they are watching something unfold and are powerless to do anything other than watch. In fact, the reports are so similar that I am left with no option but to say that this gorging behaviour is a part of our genetic code and it is a trait that was critical for the survival of our ancestors.

Why the need to gorge? Simply put, if we stopped eating when we were full, we`d be much less likely to overeat and store fat. Everyone would be their ideal weight. However, when the seasons changed and food became scarce, we would have very little stored fat to help bridge the gap between the end of harvest season and the start of the growing season in the spring. This survival trait is antiquated in modern farming times given that there is never an interruption in the food supply. However, the consequences of the expression of this trait is becoming more and more common as high sugar and high fat foods become readily available to everyone.

I have talked to 100’s of people about the food they buy and I have yet to hear any of them convincingly tell me that they do not know what they should be eating. Without fail, they all say they should be eating more vegetables and less candy or junk food. They know that fresh foods that will rot quickly are better for them than anything they buy in a package yet their buying decisions indicate everything BUT good food awareness. Logic, it seems, has little impact on many people when it comes to what they eat.

I liken this to choosing relationship partners in that most people cannot tell you exactly why they fell in love with their significant others. Everyone is looking for something, they just don’t know what it is until they see it and they don’t know why they found it when they find, just that they knew. When I fell for Rachel, there were a number of logical reason why I shouldn’t pursue her which just didn’t factor into the decision making process. She matched what I was looking for even if I didn’t know what I was looking for and I was powerless to stop myself from falling in love.

I think of food in the same way. We are drawn to it for reasons other than logic given that most do not eat the perfect foods or eat the right amount of food for their needs. We eat that which makes us fat because we’re programmed to eat it.

What Can Aerobic Athletes Learn from Strength Athletes?

For too long, many people have been unwilling to bridge the gap between how aerobic athletes and strength athletes train. It is as though they are on different sides of the training fence and anyone who suggests that there should be similarities in the way these two groups train is considered an outcast. But recently, research shows that things have started to change; at least in terms of what an aerobic athlete can gain from training like a strength athlete. There are so many obvious benefits, that we now know it is not wise for an aerobic athlete to hold onto the notion that strength training isn’t useful for their purposes.

Here are some of the benefits of strength training for aerobic athletes:

Strength training will help avoid injuries

There is a popular saying that if you repeat one movement too often, you’re going to sustain an injury in the overworked area. This is true because, while the body can adapt to becoming very good at the one thing, it starts to become very poor at the things that are not being tended to. Long distance runners, for example, tend to end up with bad knees. Some believe that this is because of the impact running causes to the leg and hip joints.  But this isn’t necessarily the case, because the body eventually adapts to the impact sustained. The actual reason why the knees end up hurting is because the work of running results in an imbalance in the muscles of the upper leg. Distance running doesn’t require a lot of hamstring strength and as a consequence, the hamstrings do not develop well enough to hold the knee in a safe manner. This lack of development decreases the structural strength of the knee and therefore increases the risk of injury.

Strength training will help to eliminate pain caused by muscle imbalances

Many cyclists suffer from knee pain because their IT bands are extremely tight which causes their knee caps to track incorrectly during peddling. (IT Bands – iliotibial – are a tough group of fibres that run along the outside of the thigh.  They function primarily as stabilizers.) This IT Band pain can be avoided if the muscles that pull the knee cap in the other direction are strong enough to hold the knee cap in line. Strength training is the only way to correct this weakness and allow for pain-free riding.

Because strength training improves the body overall, aerobic exercise will seem easier

In almost all sports, performance improves if the athlete is able to generate more relative force from their muscles. The easiest way to increase relative force is to get rid of extra body fat and increase muscle mass. Contrary to popular belief, strength training is much more effective at reducing body fat than performing aerobic exercise. In fact, there is growing evidence that aerobic exercise stops being an effective method for fat loss after about 8 weeks as the body adapts to the demands of the movement. Once this happens, fat loss tapers off and the body stays the same. More often than not, if food intake is not reduced to adjust for this decrease in calorie-burn fat will begin to accumulate and the athlete will be LESS powerful.

Strength training will help make the muscles more powerful, thus increasing relative strength

Making the muscles stronger will boost relative strength. From a practical stand point, a muscle that produces more force will propel an athlete further with each movement when compared to muscle that is weaker. Imagine an athlete who is able to add an inch to stride length because of strength training. Given that stride rate tends to remain stable over the course of a 24 mile marathon, that extra inch is going to mean fewer strides are needed to complete the run, so a runners time will decrease by a significant amount. Even if the stride length only increases by 1 cm, the improvement is going to be dramatic.

Strength training will make the body more efficient at recruiting muscle fibres

The nervous system adapts to the needs of strength training and it becomes more efficient at recruiting more muscle fibres. This improved coordination of firing will result in a further increase in force production. This is different from increasing the strength of the muscle in that a weaker muscle can produce the same amount of force as a stronger muscle if more muscle fibres are recruited, but the outcome is improved stride length and increased force production.

The diet of strength training athletes is very close to the ideal diet for aerobic athletes

Contrary to popular belief, aerobic athletes do not need to consume massive amounts of carbohydrate. However, it must be said, that they need more carbs than the average under-active person.  They should take in similar amounts of protein and good fat as the strength training athlete consumes. The type of carbohydrate consumed should include slowly digested carbohydrates, like oatmeal or sweet potatoes, as well as carbohydrates that are immediately available for energy, quickly digested carbohydrates such as Gatorade, dextrose, maltodextrin, etc… at the time of greatest physical exertion. This is exactly the same way strength training athletes eat. It ensures they get enough energy to fuel their workout and enough protein and fat for body repair.

Strength Training For Figure Skaters

Figure skating is one of the most demanding sports in the world because it is the combination of the requirements for middle distance running (programs last between three and five minutes), Olympic lifting (extremely explosive movements), gymnastics (holding difficult positions for 10-15 seconds) and the hitting aspects of hockey or football (the sudden impact with the ice when a jump doesn’t go according to plan). For this reason, it is important that figure skaters train for all of these events. If you are a parent of a figure skater, you should consider the 5 facts below when making the decision whether or not to have them strength train.

1) Your child is going to have muscle imbalances that are hurting their on-ice performance.

Figuring skating is a very repetitive sport that places a disproportionate amount of demand on landing leg. Most of the skaters I have worked with tend to have well balanced landing legs due to the sheer number of jumps and landings they perform during their practices – 100’s of reps per week. The other legs however do not function as well. Their knees tend to buckle during testing which is a good indication of a weakness in one of the muscle responsible for straightening the leg {most skaters tend to have a weakness in the vastus medialis obliquus which is the tear drop shaped muscle on the front of the leg to the inside of the knee.} It is important to correct this imbalance and doing so will improve the skaters’ performance.

2) Your child would be safer and more resistant to injury if they where stronger.

Figure skating can be a contact sport, particularly when learning a new jump. Falling is inevitable so it makes sense to build up the body to help absorb the impact. You can also help to prevent knee injuries by training the hamstring muscles given that they play an important role in knee stability – if the knee doesn’t twist ACL injuries will be avoided. Figure skaters tend to have weak ankle stabilizers because their skates are fairly ridged and this also puts them at an increased risk of injury.

3) Your child is going to need to get stronger to progress at their sport.

To advance from doubles to triples a skater is going to need to jump higher and rotate faster and this is only possible if they get stronger. The strength required to make this leap will come with lots of practice but if they strength train a skater will achieve these gains more quickly. This could save them a lot of time and move them through the ranks faster than their non-training competition.

4) Your child should have a good sense of body awareness.

Skaters need to have a very good sense of where they are in relation to the ice and the rest of their body. This sense develops over time and is enhanced with completion of all types of movements. Strength training that takes a joint through the complete range of motion is going to enhance body awareness because it puts the body into all types of positions. It will also be enhanced by performing movements were the skater holds a position so they can feel the muscle contract e.g. a front plank or a superman hold. These movements, called isometric holds, help to establish the mind/body connection that is critical for improving body awareness.

5) Your child’s brain is going to develop to be better at the things it does more frequently.

One of the marvelous things about the human brain is its ability to devote greater portions of itself to the things that happen more often. This means is we get more brain power to do something the more we do it – the more we move the better we get at moving. By incorporating strength movements into a training regime, we increase a skater’s ability at controlling their movement. While there may be no direct carry-over from split squats to triple axels, performing splits squats will cause changes to the nervous system that WILL help the skater’s movement.

When it comes to strength training for figure skaters, there are really no reasons for them NOT to do it – provided they are trained by a strength coach who understands the needs of the athlete and the demands of the sport. Assuming their coach knows what they are doing it’s only going to make the skater more athletic and improve their chances of winning and avoiding injury.

Too Young To Appreciate The Lessons

I was at my parents house last week for my dad’s birthday. While I was there I decided to pick up some of my books so I could reread them – in this case I picked up Speed Trap: Inside the Biggest Scandal in Olympic History by Charlie Francis. {Check out My Top 10 Books post for some information about this and my other favorite books}

What is funny about this book now is just how much sense it makes – I’ve had plenty of time to assimilate the lessons it teaches given the almost 20 years that have past since I first read it. But equally shocking is just how little I did with the information between the time I first acquired it and very recently. Frankly, I’m a little concerned at the latency. It’s making me wonder what other lessons I have had that I have yet to action on?

Charlie talks about two types of fatigue – muscular and neurological. Muscle fatigue is easy to understand because there is a physical symptom associated with it – delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) is the result of the muscle fatigue – okay, they are not exactly sure why people get DOMS but given that it only shows up after someone has used their muscles fairly intensely we know it is related to muscle fatigue. Basically, after intense or prolonged use, muscle are damaged and need time to recover. Provided you give them enough nutrients, water and rest, they will be good to go again fairly quickly.

Neurological fatigue is more difficult to understand because there is no pain to indicate that it is there. In fact, you can only tell that you have it if you compare your performance to a previous performance and notice a decline in intensity. For example, you lift 20 lbs LESS for the same number of reps, you do fewer reps with the same amount of weight, you move the bar or run slower. These decreases in performance occur REGARDLESS of how well rested or pain-free your muscles feel. Nervous system recover takes much longer than muscle recovery for reasons that are well outside the scope of this post but it is fair to say that for a very intense workout – one that demanded repeated all out efforts – it can take 3 – 5 days or more to get back to normal. Also consider that training age factors into the neurological recovery – given that highly trained people have better recruitment patterns than untrained people. It would be safe to say that someone who is just starting to workout will suffer muscle fatigue much more frequently than neurological fatigue and that their training frequency can be much higher because of this.

It isn’t surprising that I missed the lesson the first time I read the book – I wasn’t a speed athlete and I was so new to weight lifting that I didn’t realize that I was always in a state of neurological and muscular fatigue. Back then some of my lifting numbers didn’t go up for months and the only time I grew was when I stopped training in the summer. Looking back with the knowledge and years of experience I now have, it’s very clear what was going on. I wasted a lot of time training when I should have been resting. I didn’t realize that my nervous system was so fatigued that it couldn’t fire a signal to recruit a sufficient number of fibers to help me move a heavier load. The outcome of this lack of recruitment was a lack of progress because I wasn’t able to overload my muscles.

But back then I knew everything and was doing it all by the book. Ah the wisdom of youth!

Today, depending upon how I am training, I use a variety of ways to make the decision about my readiness to workout out. I use time since last workout, muscle pain and heart rate to help me decide if I am ready to go. For example, I try to wait 2-4 days between workouts for the same body part – 4 days if the last workout was very intense in terms of percentage of 1 rep max, 2 days if it was a lower intensity workout. I will take a day off or train with less intensity if the muscle group I am supposed to train is still sore. When it comes to cycling, if I am having difficulty getting my heart rate up to 155-160, I will cut a ride short, or I will treat it as an active recovery ride and aim to keep my heart rate between 135 and 145.

The saying goes “better late than never” and I suppose that is true. It is just kind of sad to think about the potential gains I squandered because I did not hold on to the lessons of my youth. I guess this plays a big part in why I work as a strength coach because I am hoping I am able to help someone avoid the pitfalls I made.

The Bad Apple: Group Poison

Jeff Atwood from Coding Horror wrote this piece to discuss Will Felps’ findings about the impact of individuals on group behavior. Basically a negative individual can and does have a greater negative impact on a group of positive individuals than they do on him. It’s an interesting piece that I can relate to very well given some of the jobs that I have previously held.

The warehouse lifer – as a student I worked a number of different industrial jobs during the summer. These jobs were tough, dirty and they didn’t pay very well but I didn’t care, I was able to make some money for school and regardless of everything, I was going back to school in September. There was a common trend in almost all of these jobs, the full timers were miserable and the summer students were positive for the first few weeks or months of the job. But inevitably my attitude about the job would change and I would come to hate it mid way through the summer. It was weird to me because the full timers were making at least 2 times the money of the summer workers, they were given the best jobs to do and they had the protection of the union to prevent them from having to do the dirty crappy jobs. However, over time their poor attitude would rub off on me and I would start to emulate their behaviour.

The lifter turned fitness professional – I have worked with many people who love lifting and working out but who make the bad call that since they love working out they would love working at a gym. While I can see why they make this connection, the two things are not very similar. When you are working out, you are doing exactly what you want to do and you basically own your time. When you are working for someone else, they own your time and you do whatever they tell you to do. One of these individuals can drive down the morale and ambition of a training team very quickly. They complain about the owners and management, they complain about the systems that are in place and they know more about how to run a business than anyone else around them. The problem is, they don’t run their own gym and they don’t bring anything to the table in terms of solving the problems they see.

Clients at the gym – calling clients bad apples isn’t entirely fair because they get trainers because they know they cannot do it on their own. The problem with these types of clients is that they never change their attitude about working out and come to the gym believing that the trainer will be able to make them successful at something they hate doing. Unless the trainer is very strong willed and able to let their clients negativity just roll off of them, they are going to impacted by the bad attitude and eventually give up on believing that the client can do it.

Will Felps’ research revealed that the negative impact of a bad apple was mitigated by a good leader; a person who was able to frame the negativity with conversation and questions about the validity of the beliefs. Doing this tends to prevent the other members of the group from buying into the pessimism and it can often give the bad apple the opportunity they need to actually make decent contributions to the group.

Shelley, my first boss at GoodLife was one of these people. She was able to challenge people’s beliefs about things in such a way as to uncover possible solutions to the problems. She understood the culture of the job but also the critical aspects our roles and was able to help us generate solutions that improved staff buy-in. The outcome was that our club did very well in terms of morale, staff and member satisfaction, and she was able to build a strong community within the Milton club.

It’s an interesting piece that I recommend reading. And if you are a fan of irony, read through some of the comments.

When Do You Change Your Workout Routine? Part 1

A common question I hear from trainees, athletes and clients is “how do I know when it’s time to change my workout?” The traditional answer has been “when it stops working for you.” Recently I’ve come to realise just how useless this answer is because when all is said and done almost every workout will continue to give you some results if you do it consistently. The answer I prefer now is when the rate of adaption to the program slows to a critical rate.

To fully understand the implications of this you need to keep in mind that the body responds to physical work by adapting in two key areas (there are changes in many areas, but to know when it’s time to change a program we need to be concerned with only two areas) – the nervous system and muscular system. The nervous system is concerned with coordinating and transporting the commands that fire the muscle fibers. The muscular system is concerned with the changes within the muscle fibers themselves.

When we first start doing a program the specific demands of the workout are completely new to the body. For example, the rest pause training approach has a trainee perform a set in 3 segments with 15-20 seconds between each segment and 60-180 seconds of rest between sets. The goal is to complete the same predetermined number of reps during each segment. There are very few activities in the real world that mimic this training method so it is an effective way of boosting intensity, work capacity and time under tension.

During the first workout the body is very inefficient that coordinating the required muscle impulses needed to move the load as the workout requires. As a consequence the number of reps that is performed during each segment drops dramatically. When I first did this with behind the neck barbell press I was able to move 115 for 8 reps in the first segment, 5 reps in the second segment and 4 reps in the 3rd segment. With set two I did 105 7 times, 5 times, 4. Set 3 was 105 for 6, 4 and 4. My performance was basically the same for all other body parts, diminishing rep numbers after each pause and lower weight for each set. But it doesn’t take the nervous system long to adapt to the program and after about 3 weeks the behind the neck shoulder press numbers were 125 for 8, 6,5, 115 for 8,7,5 and 115 for 7,5,5.

Lets compare the first workout to the week 3 workout. My max weight I lifted went up from 115 to 125 for 8 reps. The lightest weight I lifted increase to 115 from 105 and the total number of reps I did for this exercise increased from 47 to 56. Overall the amount of work I did (assuming the time under tension remained constant for every rep) increased from 5105 units to 6630 units or about a 30% increase. NOTE: the units are an arbitrary measure that represents the weight multiplied by the number of reps.

So getting back to the CNS and muscle adaption, both contribute to the increase in work capacity and max weight lifted. How do we figure out what is responsible for the increase? My belief is that the improvement in the first segment of each set is the result primarily of muscle adaption while the increase in the second and third segments is the result of CNS adaption. My rational for this is that right before I was did rest pause I was doing push / pull sets and was able to lift 115 for 8 reps. The reason I say the CNS was primarily responsible for the increase in work ability in the 2nd and 3rd segments is that I had the muscle capacity to lift the weight (as indicated by the first segment), I simply didn’t have the capacity to get the muscle fibers to fire. After a few weeks, my CNS has developed the ability to recruit the muscle fibers needed to make the weight.

So how do we use this to figure out when it’s time to change a program? First off, the CNS will adapt much faster than the muscles do so we can use this as an indicator that we’re getting close. With rest pause, we would know that the CNS has adapted when we’re able to do the same number of reps with each set and segment for example, when set 1 and set 3 are made up of 8,6,5 reps each. CNS adaption is not complete, but it has reached what I would consider a critical level. Once you’re able to do that, you know that a program change is getting near.

Check back soon for Part 2 where I will outline how to identify the changes in the muscle system that indicate a program change is needed.

The Testosterone Guide to Happiness – T-nation Article

The Testosterone Guide to Happiness T-nation’s TC contains a few important and frequently forgotten lessons about getting and remaining happy. It’s a nice change from his crass and usually accurate accounts of the world or some of its people.

It’s a good list and his suggested actions are fairly effective at addressing some causes. Below are key things I take out of the article:

Happiness barrier #1 – Complexity

Solution – Simplify

Do you know why monks and some nuns shave their heads? It simplifies their lives. They don’t have to worry about straightening out that nasty cowlick, or whether they need Vidal Sassoon mousse with pro-vitamins to add luster or whether their bed head makes them look like a deranged squirrel.

This one works. I need my car so I can work so I view it as a necessity, but after it, my most expensive possession is my bike which I ride almost every day when the weather is nice; I’m on it more than 200 times a year. After that it would be my other bike and then my watch – it has a heart rate monitor on it that I need when I ride. My clothes are functional, our TV is old, and if we were given the chance to move to a different country I think it would take Rachel and me about $2000 to get our standard of living back to what it is now – assuming I brought my bikes and heart rate monitor and Rachel brought her most important items (probably her text books and her AT treatment kit).

Happiness barrier # 3 – Negativity

Solution – Let Go

“Your prison is nothing in comparison with the inner prison of ordinary people: the prison of attachment, the prison of anger, the prison of depression, the prison of pride.”

The Buddhist view is that happiness is achieved by giving up these neurotic obsessions. Rather than obsess on these toxic thoughts, we should observe these emotions “with compassion” and ask ourselves, “What can I do about this?”

This one works too. Rachel is extremely  positive and it’s something that has really started to rub off on me. Simply put, the one thing everyone can control is their attitude and if you choose to be happy, you become happy. At 35 I know that there are ups and downs in life and that neither is lasting. Since meeting her, I’ve noticed that I’m able to let things go a lot quicker than I used to. The peaks are not as high and the valleys are not as deep. This is one area in my life that the middle ground is a good thing.

Check out the article for more of TC’s solutions.

Speed Training – Uncovering Imbalances

SST is running their Lightening Speed Camp again and the coaches have been getting ready for it by working their way through the drills to make sure we know what we’re doing and to make sure things do smoothly when we’re working with the athletes.

I have never done any speed training for running before. My speed training is for the bike and it focuses on getting me up a hill or around another rider quickly. Most of my power comes from my quads and glutes for the passing and from my quads and hamstrings for the hill climbing. When I started doing the drills for the speed training I was anticipating that they would be a piece of cake given my level of fitness and relative strength, but I was wrong. Boy was I wrong. Turns out that I have a few imbalances or recruitment issues what make sprinting efficiently fairly difficult for me. Worse than this is that these issues have been having a negative impact on my cycling power as well.

Below is a list of the issues I uncovered, how they impact my riding and what I need to do to correct them:

Hip flexors are weak on both sides and I have a recruitment issue with my left side. My tensor fasciae latae was KILLING me on both sides for a few days after the training. This came primarily from the wall knee drives. It’s safe to say that the other muscles that flex the hips are also weak – psoas and illacus. These impact my riding because the hips do flex when pulling the pedals from the 9 o’clock position to the 1 o’clock position. I’ll address these issues by doing more knee ups, a hanging leg cycling movement and hanging leg raises with my toes facing out. I’ll also benefit from doing more sprinting. My goal is not to add a lot of strength to them. Instead I will focus on improving muscle recruitment.

The bottoms of my feet were really sore in the days after. This makes sense because I lift with my feel flat on the floor and when I ride, my shoes have a stiff sole meaning that the muscles in the foot do not have to do very much. I’m losing a little big of power by having loose feet although it isn’t that much. I’ll address this one by doing more running – particular starts and starting to use the power runner machine we have at SST.

My VMO’s were sore. I know I have some recruitment issues with my vastus medialus because my knees sometimes get sore after riding a lot. I’ve been working on this by doing Poliquin step-ups, hack squats with my heal on a step and lots of split squats. The VMO is active mainly when in the first and last 20-30 degrees of knee extension so the alternating wall knee-ups with complete knee extension of the lower leg caused the pain. This issue impacts my riding because I’m not firing these muscles when I need to when the front foot is between 3-6 o’clock in the peddle stroke.

My calf muscles were killing (primarily the gastrocnemius and not so much with the soleus). This one shocked me a little because I have good calf development and I do a lot of movements that use them. However, I haven’t been training them with heavy loads very often because I figured I was getting enough work with the riding. I was wrong. I’ve been losing power with the 4-6 o’clock position of the peddle stroke because of this. To address this I have a variety of options. Lots of standing ankle extension (gastrocnemius), some seated ankle extensions (soleus), back squats with ankle extensions at the end, and forward sled dragging.

The front of my lower leg was somewhat sore but it should have been killing. This indicates a recruitment issue with my tibialis anterior and a possible (very likely) flexibility issue with the antagonist muscles on the back of my lower leg (gastrocnemius and soleus). These issues would impact the 6-11 o’clock position of the peddle stroke as I pull from the very bottom to the top. I’ll address the flexibility issue by doing more stretching of the lower leg. I’ll fix the recruitment issue by doing toe raises, focusing on lifting the front part of the lead foot when doing split squats and by doing some ankle flexion work with band.

All in all I’m losing a fair amount of power that I wasn’t aware of. What’s funny is that I wouldn’t have become aware of it had I not tried the running speed drills. The lesson here is one about diversifying my training and not doing the same thing all the time. I’m fairly sure that if I tried cross country skiing I would uncover more information about how my body is functioning that would make me a better rider.

Another Case For HIIT

In the debate of steady state cardio vs. high intensity interval training (HIIT) I am torn. I hedge my bets by doing both; mainly because mountain bike riding and RPM are HIIT and road riding is more steady state cardio. But fence sitters tend to annoy binary thinkers so my lack of endorsement or a condemnation for one doesn’t sit well with many people. The long and the short of it is that the body will adapt to whatever you throw at it so you need to keep changing things up to make sure you are getting the full benefit from exercise.

But the evidence for in support of HIIT is starting to grow. Short Bursts Of Exercise May Fend Off Disease by the Globe And Mails Paul Taylor reports on a study that tested the impact of HIIT on insulin sensitivity.

The body releases insulin in response to an elevated blood sugar level and this hormone will help facilitate the transport of sugar into the body tissue (fat cells when the muscles do not need it or into the muscles when their levels are diminished. With people who have normal insulin sensitivity, the amount the body releases is appropriate and blood sugar returns to normal levels quickly. However, obese people and type II diabetics are not as sensitive to insulin so their blood sugar levels do not drop as quickly as they should so the body releases more insulin. Blood glucose in high levels is very damaging to the body so being insulin resistant is a long term health risk.

The study revealed that 4 blocks of 30 second intervals of high intensity effort followed by 4 minutes rest was enough to improve insulin sensitivity by 23% in health but sedentary males. These improvements were seen after two weeks of 2-3 sessions per week. The reason for the improvement is that the efforts were high enough to spend most of the stored glycogen in the muscles therefore increasing the need to sugar transfer into the muscles.

The author of the article draws some conclusions about HIIT being better than traditional gym work for lowering heart disease risk that may not be accurate given that insulin resistance is only one of the factors associated with heart disease. The conclusion also fails to consider the positive cardiovascular impact of longer duration exercise.

However, this study is good news for the pro HIIT crowd and anyone who has only less than 60 minutes to workout per week. And it’s more evidence for my belief that intensity is the key component to any exercise routine.