Yesterday I had a conversation with a Type-A motivated and driven runner who says running hasn’t been very much fun lately. This competitive athlete is vexed by self-imposed pressure in the drive for splits and PRs, heart rate measurements and getting in time at the track and gym.

Often, for the Type A competitive athlete, this is just burnout from overtraining, or more accurately, not getting enough recovery and sleep. It is amazing what a few days of total rest away from their primary training mode will do for these people. For all of us who train, really. Doing something else or nothing at all and staying away long enough until we are energized and rejuvenated about getting back into training and competing works wonders.

Most of the time, I think, that rest and doing something entirely different…and fun, is all that takes to put things back into a realistic perspective. The time for rest isn’t just when you are injured.

I am no longer competing at anything (and when I did, I took myself too seriously)!  I do consider myself to be a non-competitive athlete. When I am overloaded with training, which at my age, happens more often than I like, I have no problem taking the time off. Never have. Then again, I am no Type A!

In the past, I competed at inline speedskating and as much as I liked the racing, I was happier with the training. Prior to that, I too was a runner and had raced distances from the 5K to the marathon. I was a middle-of the-pack hacker and was generally fine with it, except when a had a finishing time goal I had to attain or someone I needed to “crush”.

Between reading books and magazines on training theory, I read some of George Sheehan’s work, especially “Running and Being”. Considered the “runners’ guru”, Sheehan brought a different perspective to running which included philosophical elements as well as the fun component. (I admit at the time, the philosophical aspect he wrote about was a little over the top for my twenty-something mindset). I do to this day, still recommend the book to runners and non-runners alike. George sums it up best when he said,

“Fitness has to be fun. If it is not play, there will be no fitness. Play, you see, is the process.
Fitness is merely the product.”

Right on cue with our discussion, Ross Enamait posted an excellent article on his blog titled “Training For the Fun of It”. You should take a moment and read it.

After the wins and losses, the PRs and the misses, there has to be a greater reason for training. Do you know yours?

Prior to an athletic competition, a man’s testosterone level will increase as they get ready to “do battle”. Interestingly, those levels increase or decrease depending on their fortunes during the game. In this video, two evenly matched rugby teams had their T levels tested before, during and after their match. (Hint, the winning team had more).

In another video, powerlifter Kieran Kidder talks about his steroid use which he believes are “widely misunderstood”. You decide. The animation on muscle growth is interesting.

If you have ever used a foam roller or The Stick for post-workout restoration, Mike Robertson of Robertson Training Systems has put up an excellent FREEbie, Self-Myofascial Release: Purpose, Methods and Techniques.

This is an exceptionally well done work and breaks it down to the anatomy, function, treatments, modalities and more, muscle by muscle. This will add to your knowledge of anatomy but mostly how to take care of your body after your punishing workouts. 

There is a lot of great information here and it comes at a great time for me; perhaps for you too.

Mike Robertson, MS, CSCS, USAW, is the President of Robertson Training Systems and co-owner of Indianapolis Fitness and Sports Training (I-FAST) in Indianapolis, Indiana. Mike received his master’s degree in Sports Biomechanics from the Human Performance Lab at Ball State University. Mike is an accomplished athlete and coach in the sport of powerlifting. A widely published writer and invited speaker, Mike has rapidly emerged as an industry leader in the world of performance enhancement and injury prevention and rehabilitation. To learn more about Mike, visit his website at www.RobertsonTrainingSystems.com.

Are you tired of all the ads for “male enhancement” and ED (erectile dysfunction) products that pop up everywhere on tv (and in this blog’s comments spam)? Now that the NFL season is upon upon us, we will soon be subjected to another onslaught of these ads. What are these people thinking? When it’s football season, we don’t care about ED, we want to see the opposing quarterback sacked and the defensive line stiffen up and our own team rise to the occasion.

The little blue pill that started it all, Viagra, may have another use and that is in the athletic arena. Yes, that’s right, performance enhancement on the playing field.

Some studies have shown improvement in cardiac output of Italian cyclists riding at altitude. The improved blood flow that helps a guy’s hydraulics may actually translate into benefits that improve athletic performance. You can read the article from EliteFTS, by Kristin A. Yukness and raise your own issues with its athletic use potential.

Apparently a lot of athletes are and have been using Viagra and claiming benefits, including drug user in-denial, pitcher Roger Clemens. Never mind that the science does not fully support the alleged performance enhancing claims. When did that stop anybody? The whole supplement industry is rife with fraudulent nutritional and ergogenic claims for their products. Why can’t can’t Viagra get on that bandwagon?

Even if I wasn’t opposed to trying it, no way I’m taking that pill and walking into my gym. Not gonna happen!

Just remember the disclaimer about the possibility of a 4 hour woody!

We go to the gym and lift heavy to get strong and our favorite hormones include HGH and testosterone. Ori Hofmekler as written extensively on estrogen moving in on our T production and even has the Anti-Estrogenic Diet to combat the effects of too much estrogen and not enough testosterone. His words aren’t very encouraging.

“As a species, we’re on a fast track to extinction,” says Ori Hofmekler, author of The Anti-Estrogenic Diet. “In the past few decades, men have lost 50% of their sperm count and within only one generation, the average man’s sperm count and testosterone have dropped by 20%. Women are no better. Staggering figures show that most women today are suffering from female disorders and three out of ten women between the ages of 35 to 60 will develop breast cancer.

We also know smoking weed lowers “test” And now this…

Anti-Bacterial Soap Inhibits Testosterone Production

I am convinced that testosterone is the most valuable chemical on the planet and I want to keep mine as long as possible, thank you very much!

**UPDATE: Ori Hofmekler will speak on the topic, “Testosterone Dominance, Power & Potency” on his internet radio show, Wednesday June 4th, 9:00 am Pacific. If you miss it, it will still be at the site.

Maybe it was because I woke up this morning tired, achy and a little cranky that I come across the topic of overtraining. I have been guilty of this and good things don’t come of it. I don’t have that and I am not aware of any other syndrome going on at the moment and yes, I realize denial is the first sign. By the way, when did we start having all these new maladies called “syndromes” and then broken down to their initials, like CFS?

Overtraining can happen to elite athletes and to the exercise-obsessive rest of us. I have had it as a runner and a skater and bordered on it at times doing Crossfit, though never to the degree examined in this article on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

The article is from Active.com where they primarily cater to runners, cyclists and triathletes, who coincidentally are the folks most likely to overtrain in the first place.

I have discovered I’ve been taking a legal muscle enhancer for a while and never even knew that was one of it’s functions. Now that I know, I guess I am not taking enough!

What am I talking about? Well it seems taking daily recommended dosages of ibuprofren or acetominophen for pain and inflammation has an effect on building muscle mass…legally. Here is the study, done at Ball State’s Human Performance Laboratory, with implications for the adaptation to old folks to exercise and astronauts exposed to long-term weightlessness.

Ibuprofen or acetaminophen in long-term resistance training increases muscle mass/strength

What a bonus! I was happy enough the ibuprofren was reducing the inflammation; (I don’t think acetominophen is anti-inflammatory, though).

With the books closing on 2007, I don’t expect to be setting any PR’s but in that respect, I had a good year of increasing totals and lowering times, most notably in the deadlifts. More on that later.

I had injuries heal and got new ones to replace them. My right scapula is now good, but the left is kind of wobbly from overdoing sets of barbell snatches. I have tendonitis in the right elbow from either an errant kettlebell swing or a barbell clean that got too far away from me. I stayed pretty healthy with only a couple of bouts with allergens during the Santa Ana winds recently.

I found myself skating less, but swinging kettlebells more. In August, Val bought me my first KB, a 20 kg hunk of metal with a handle. Previously, I used a kettlebell only as part of a Crossfit WOD. Now I have four different weights and Val bought me instruction with a RKC trainer as a Christmas present and can do swings and snatches with the 24 kg kettlebell.

I have continued to mix up my workouts like the Crossfit programming model. Gone are the days of single activities such as speedskating, running and mountain bike riding, all of which I did largely at the exclusion of much of anything else, save an occasional trip to the gym.

Speaking of Crossfit, while I still enjoy doing their WODs and subscribe to their journal, I am no longer a “Kool-Aid drinker”. I never was someone who was attracted to cult-like organizations and their zealots, but I do continue to learn much about fitness from Crossfit.

My interest has steadily grown in powerlifting and Olympic style weightlifting and will get quality training wherever and whenever I can find it. I am even sticking my toe back in the water, so to speak with running, an activity I gave up years ago. I have no intention to ever be a big mileage guy, though.

I am enjoying the complexities of learning the Olympic lifts and I benefit greatly from the simplicity of bodyweight exercises I get from Ross Enamait of rosstraining.com and Crossfit. Mixing up workouts has been the best thing to happen to my physical training and I credit Crossfit for that and Crossfit Marina, with the Serranos as trainers and Brent O as a competitive foil for my sessions.

I have been more consistent in going to the gym than I have in many years and almost always look forward to my sessions there. I also like training at home or in a park. To that end, I have been buying useful fitness “toys” like Elite rings, fitness bands, weighted vest, weightlifting shoes, racing flats, jump ropes, chalk, a stopwatch, an Ab Mat and a kick butt ab roller from Lifeline. There are more things I will be getting in ‘08, but training at home is a now a viable alternative.

In ‘07, my diet largely went to crap and my weight crept up. That will change in 2008. ‘Nuff said about that.

I made some modest gains lifting over the year, and in all cases form has improved but much needs to improve in that area over the next year. At the beginning of the year I could clean 145 as a 1RM and the last time I tried, I was doing 175 lbs, but I am certain I can beat that right now. It will just have to wait! The Crossfit Total, (CFT) consisting of the best lifts in the squat, overhead press and deadlift was 760 lbs in January and is now 910, with the biggest increase coming with a 415 lb max deadlift, which increased by 75#. My overhead press increased by 25 lbs to 185 and my squat went up by 45#, a bit of a disappointment. My 5K run time at the beginning of the year sucked and stills sucks with no improvement to speak of at 28 minutes.

This year saw, what I believe were growth changes to the Barbarian Blog and I will continue to tweak it next year.

There were a lot of “Good times” in 2007 as Brent was fond of saying, (where have you been dude?) and more to come next year. Stay tuned.

Check below for a couple of workouts done this weekend…

Saturday:

Kind of an active rest day and ran around the block a couple of times which took all of 19 minutes for just under two miles.

Sunday:

Ran 2 x 800 meters

Sit-ups: 50/40/30

Push-ups: 50/40/30

Overhead Squats: 50/40/30

Back Extensions: 50/40/30

One arm Overhead Squats: 25# overhead, holding 53# with the other hanging arm x 12 and again x 20. 18/25#, 2 x 20.

Kettlebell Swings, 24 kg: 10/10/10/10/10

Kettlebell Snatches, 24 kg: 10/20/20

My favorite diet strategy while I train has been the Warrior Diet. In early 2006, I got started on the Warrior Diet and shortly thereafter, Crossfit. My body comp changed significantly and some health issues cleared up by eating the way Ori teaches.

This time of year, eating sweets is a problem. Ori has an audio clip that you may find to be helpful. There are additional resources and downloads here to help you learn the advantages of a better way of eating and living.

In a nutshell, (he also talks about peanuts). The three Warrior Diet principles are:

1. Eat one main meal at night.
2. Eat low on the food chain.
3. Exercise while undereating.

In his blog posting, Proof of Concept, Art De Vany, at age 70 smashes some long-held misconceptions about aging. I love to start out the week with good news!