My Most Challenging Training Year was also the Most Important One

If you’ve read a previous blog (Great Family, Great Coaches=Great Accomplishments: Why 2014 was My Greatest Training Year), you already know I had an incredible 2014 in my personal and professional fitness goals. Everything seemed to point toward a better year in 2015 and I was primed to pick up where I left off in 2014. Unfortunately, I had some setbacks early in 2015 that taught me some valuable lessons. Because of my competitive nature, 2015 was my harsh reality check...I'm older (seriously, when did that happen) and that meant:

• I needed to realize my training mortality
• And I needed to find and embrace a balance away from athletic pursuits to allow my body to rest and recover

With age comes wisdom...and I know better than to
wear that outfit in the gym.

There’s a scene at the end of Rocky III between Rocky and his former rival turned mentor and friend, Apollo Creed about getting old. “Just keep punching Apollo”. It's a simple (somewhat cheesy) outlook given the stakes but it's something we can all relate to. I can't be as ignorant about exercise as I was in my early 20s. Luckily, with age comes knowledge and experience. The trade-off of placing an importance of gaining knowledge in health and fitness has been improvement in movement, strength and my physique. I can do things now that I couldn't do when I was in my early 20s. Learn from past experiences to make improvements and prioritize things better.

And I get it, it’s easy to look at a setback with self-pity (all I can think of is Nancy Kerrigan blubbering, “Why” over and over in my head). I’ve never had a training injury until this year. I was fortunate because my injury was minor and happened when I wasn’t prepping for anything special. I’m very thankful that:

• No surgery was required
• No long-term rehabilitation was needed
• No emotional letdown from bailing on any goals

I’ll put all of those in the win category.

Look, if this is the worse thing I experience in my training, I’m a very lucky man. I’ve had better years and greater successes but I believe that teaching and learning moments are invaluable. We rarely learn very much from our successes. It’s our failures and setbacks that define us and give us the greatest ability to learn, evolve and come back better and stronger than before. 2015 may not have been a fun year for me, but regardless, it was my most important one to date. Be smarter, be safe and best of luck in your training!

Can You Go?

It’s 4:30pm, and you’ve got:

·      Your best guns out t-shirt

·      Your gallon of water and mass “gainz” shake

·      Your IPod is set to crank some pump inspiring anthems

It’s training day and you are headed to the gym to meet up with your posse. But a funny thing happens when you get there, you don’t have it in you to train. You can’t go. This is an all too familiar situation for most people. When is it appropriate to push the “Go” button and when to push the “Stop”.

World renown strength coach, Dan John, wrote a book, Can You Go?  And to paraphrase, it’s simply the notion of being ready to train or compete that day. It inspired me to think about how I go about my training process. I’ve always believed in listening to my body. I don’t want to fall into the robotic process of, “this is my training day, I HAVE to train”! And I also don’t want to bail on a session every time I feel tired, because if that were the case, I might never train. And to be honest, I’ve had my best sessions when I felt I couldn’t go. So determining when you feel you should train vs. packing it up and training the next day is tricky.

Is the body willing and the mind isn't or is it a case of the mind is willing and the body isn't? First decide if it’s a mental or physical roadblock holding you back.

If it’s a mental, my trick is my warm-up. I take 10 Crocodile breaths, do some myofascial work, some light movements, check my balance by standing on one-leg and see what happens (And yes, I am serious about breathing and standing on one-leg. If I can’t do those simple things, how can I expect my body to do something more demanding)? Can I go? If I feel better from that, training is a go. If breathing was a chore and I had trouble doing bird-dog, then I know I would be in trouble if I tried lifting or got under a loaded bar.

Is it physical? By this I mean am I experiencing an achy body part, muscle soreness, or stiffness? Basically, is it something that some basic re-set movements will fix and I just need to get the body moving and the blood circulating? As long as I am not experiencing pain, and I start to feel better, I can go. 

Is it more of an internal physical nature? Did I recover from my previous training session or activity? This can be tricky because this requires you to be in tune with your body. But if I feel overly stimulated, like I had a few too many cups of coffee, I back off from training that day. A safe and quick way to check is to get your 1 minute resting heart rate. On average, mine can range from 50-60 beats/minute. If it’s higher than the norm, I back off and rest. Rinse and repeat. If it lasts for more than a few days, I'd suggest getting it checked out.

Note: Check your resting heart rate regularly and first thing in the morning. You don’t want to have your cup of coffee or engage in anything too strenuous before taking this measurement. This ensures you have a baseline to compare. Some elite athletes are known to be in the 30’s!

In the event it’s both mental and physical, take the day off.

I’ve walked into the gym with every intention of training, only to go through my little assessment and decide instead to hit the sauna for 15-20 minutes and leave. I’m not interested in impressing anyone. I couldn’t go that day and there’s no shame in that. If there’s a consistency in training, another day of rest and recovery is never a bad thing. No one can tell me how my body feels. More importantly, I live to train another day. Remember, there’s nothing written in stone you have to train that day or train what you were planning to do. Can you go? Be safe and be smart. Best of luck in your training!

6 Tips for Injury Reduction

I wasn’t blessed with the foresight of predicting the future. I know, shocking! But if I did, I probably wouldn’t be a Personal Trainer (I wish I could say I’d use my powers for only the greater good of mankind but I’d probably use them to impress the ladies and make a killing in the stock market. Yup, don’t really care what Back to the Future or the Butterfly Effect taught us about altering the future). However; injuries are a very real possibility in training and in sports. Unfortunately, this is unavoidable because there is no such thing as injury prevention. However, this does not mean you can’t drastically reduce the possibility of injury. Here are 6 tips to help keep you from losing important training time.

1)   Warming-up: Spend some time and choose exercises that reflect the exercises in your program or sport that will prime the body for those movements. Assess how the body feels, don’t go into your training session with a cranky body!

2)   If you have a goal, have a plan: For example, if your goal is to lift heavy weight, understand the basic body mechanics. You’ll learn valuable information from researching and being able to apply the information (and this means books! If you find a credible blogger you like, they will no doubt have lots of literature on the subject from some of the greats). 

3)   Learn to use your body properly: Exercise isn’t a right, it’s a privilege. For example, poor running mechanics will lead to poor running habits. Over time this will lead to a compensatory pattern with nagging aches and pains (and potentially missed training time from injuries). Take the time to learn how to do things well.

4)   Listening to your body: Be responsible by becoming in tune with your body. If something doesn’t feel right, STOP. If there’s pain, please consult your physician.

5)   Massage: We abuse our bodies in training, in sports and in our daily movements (or lack thereof). Be kind and treat your body to some TLC. The right kind of massage has many wonderful restorative qualities such as: increase in blood flow, reduction in inflammation, alleviating muscle tension and helping muscles to relax, reducing mental stress, etc. Notice how your body responds with improvement in how it feels and moves (and I mean Deep Tissue or therapeutic massage)

6)   Rest: Allow your body to heal and recover from the training session or sport. This includes a nutrition plan, drinking water and getting 6-8 hours of sleep (late night binges will seriously hinder the body’s ability to recover).

The future will be the present sooner than you realize, so don’t pay for the sins of your past when you could have done something about it now. These simple tips will help to ensure a healthier relationship with training, sports, and more importantly, the demands of daily life stresses.  Whether it’s in the weight room, the field or court, improve your performance and reduce the potential for injury and missed training time. Best of luck in your training!