Each year, many of us spend hundreds of dollars on vitamin supplements in the quest for better health, an athletic advantage or as a silver bullet to “scare off” disease and hold aging at bay. Could it be possible we are wasting our money and doing more harm than good in the process?

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A couple of months ago, I had the unexpected pleasure of meeting life extension/enhancement scientist, Durk Pearson and of course the topic turned to supplements that are important for athletes and those of us who just train hard.

He began talking of a new product they are bringing to market called potassium bicarbonate. (You have heard of sodium bicarbonate, right? Baking soda).

Most Americans get plenty of sodium (Na) and not enough potassium (K) in their diet but here is what you get when you do get enough potassium:

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Smile, Durk!

This weekend I had the good fortune to rendezvous with some very interesting movers and shakers of varied and diverse fields and much to my surprise and sitting at my table was world-renown life extension and life enhancement scientist and visionary, Durk Pearson. You may recall Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw and their seminal 1982 book, “Life Extension: A Practical Scientific Approach“, which dicussed the six causes of aging and how to slow down five of them.

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In another guest post by Scott Brengel, C.S.C.S., Scott answers questions about injury rates in strongman training, Crossfit and strength training in general. I believe you will find Scott’s insights interesting and better, helpful to your own training, whatever that is.

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This has been an unusually stress-filled week for me and it sure messed up my workouts and my desire to even workout at all on some occasions. But that’s life and you have to learn to manage that stress and it is more important than the workout, which is a stress unto itself and a major one at that. Sometimes, stress manifests in the physical and it is easy to see in someone.

Stress manifests itself in the body in so many different ways like increased blood pressure, a vulnerable immune system, higher cortisol levels, anxiety, depression, fatigue, lack of desire and focus, higher heart rate, crappy sleep and a lack of motivation to name just a few. (I usually watch the Sci-Fi channel when the motivation to do anything meaningful goes away).

I added to the already-present stress by doing a WOD that on paper looked easy and probably was under better circumstances, and would not have been as nasty as it was today.

I took my time doing three sets of the Crossfit warm-up and my motivation for doing even that was lacking; not a good sign.

The WOD was to do three rounds for time of 100″ lunges, 25 back extensions and 50 squats. The lunges were at best ok and the back extensions were decent , but the squats sucked ass. I am usually fairly strong at these, but I had so many breaks doing these that I was doing 5 or 6 in a row on average before taking a short break. After I finished the third set of back extensions, I thought I was going to have an out of body experience. I was going wobbly so I stayed put until I got my pins set under me and somewhat back to normal. I didn’t need a heart rate monitor to tell me that I was seriously red-lining. I was actually worried about rhadbo for a while but then I returned to my “happy place” or at least a better one than what I had just left from. That stressful workout was over in 12:31. Thank God!

After about a 15 minute break, I did a different WOD which were Push Presses. I did not know what the WOD wanted in reps so I did 5 reps over 5 sets. 95/115/135/135/145. That went much better than the metabolic workout. The previous day, I did my 6 sets of sit-ups and they were considerably harder than they have been and I had to struggle to get 209 reps in.

So, find a way to diminish the harmful stress in your life or it will kill you or at least screw with your endocrine system and other vitals. When the stress comes from a grouping of very taxing workouts, get plenty of rest as your body will need an extended period to recover and take your time coming back. With that, I am bonking, so it is time for sleep! Mark out!