If Arnold Schwarzenegger can do Ballet so can I.

Actually Arnold was also on a huge amount of steroids, so the application of "if he can do it, so can I" may not apply in this case!

Ballet; Why, how, what.... and every other permutation of the question of why I would do this to myself is probably relevant. The last time I did ballet I was 5, but I was inspired by Arnold rocking his poses in his 1980's documentary "Pumping Iron."

I wanted to undertake a couple of ballet classes i) for posing skills for my fitness/figure contest (project 2) and ii) for application of skills to the young sprinters I work with.

Let me explain. Training adolescents can be a bit tricky because text book strength and conditioning guidelines doesn't always work. They get bored. The idea of using dance moves to "trick" them into doing stabilization training seems like quite a good idea. So I was thinking ballet and krumping.....think body popping and locking. The South Koreans b-boys have nailed this. I however have not, and my attempt at break dancing was more like watching a stag beetle that has unfortunately landed on its back and can't get up.

Ballet and other dance training teaches movement skills, body awareness, strength, coordination and all manner of other skills and is basically quite fun. Foot strength in ballet is also something that I had overseen and became very obvious after doing this class. This is important for sprinters as the precision of foot contact is essential to speed and power. Running at maximal velocity relies on applying maximum vertical force into the ground. The rate of force development (RFD) refers to the amount of force that can occur with each foot strike, bearing in mind for an elite sprinter that can be less than 0.1s. A lot of force in a short amount of time. The greater the RFD the faster the athlete and this correlates with a foot that is both strong and "stiff" as less energy will dissipate. It facilitates the stretch-shortening cycle, hence why 100m sprinters wear spikes with a hard plate on the mid-foot.

Sprinting mechanics and maximum velocity is based around creating vertical height to move forward, similar to skimming stones on water. Recent advances in sprint mechanics were in fact inspired by the physics of creating the bomb in the classic film "Dambusters", based on the stone skimming principle.
Vertical height to create horizontal velocity.

So that is the rationale for putting myself through this experience on a Friday.
Let me elaborate.

Friday 3pm at Pineapple Studios.
On arrival I'm told this is not a beginners class - Rrrrrright. Ok. Next hurdle. Walking into a room of very "ballet" looking ladies, think a lot of pastel pink nylon skirts and leg warmers. I'm wearing a black Helly Hanson and black tracksuit bottoms but yes I do have my pink ballet shoes, so I guess that's ok. I was very happy to see the chap playing the piano was also sporting a Helly Hanson and I did spot another lady wearing a pair of "umbro" football shorts and an arsenal top so I didn't feel completely out of place.

Bar work at Pineapple

Trying to "freestyle" some ballet flexibility on my kitchen stove

My ability to learn choreography is not good, suffice to say when everybody moves left I go right, so for the safety of others, I sat the last "free style" bit out.
The warm up drills and bar work (as in "bar" in photo above, not as in pub) was excellent and put me in positions I only experience when basically falling down the stairs. The emphasis was on control, flexibility, posture, elongation, isometric contractions to name just a few things that became apparent.
Definitely food for thought for training ideas.

Krumping next......

Fighting fatigue with fatigue

Ah yes Fatigue.......the need to basically just lie down....anywhere, oftentimes striking at the most inappropriate of moments. A word that describes a multitude of very undignified states, many of which I have found myself in.

This post is about "perceived fatigue" which just like pain is about personal perception. What is now termed the psychobiological model of fatigue suggests that perception of effort is the ultimate determinant of performance, because this state is reached far earlier than actual physiological fatigue. Hence, the ability to sprint for the finish line after being seemingly at deaths door for the most part of the race.
This phenomenon has been shown time again to affect performance by experiments which have tricked people's perception of reality, such as rigging false room thermometers and giving incorrect time or distance feedback.

Central Fatigue Theory

This disparity between perceived fatigue and real physiological limits was coined "the central fatigue theory" by Tim Noakes, which he described in his book "The lore of Running".

The theory suggests that physiological parameters such as lactate accumulation and oxygen shortages are not the limiting factors to slowing you down but rather the brain's perception of these signals. In other words, fatigue is a psychological construct and the goal of feeling fatigued is a protective mechanism to make sure you don't actually reach those physiological limits and then literally kill youself.

Mental Fatigue

Mental fatigue which can occur from concentrating, studying, lack of sleep or working long hours is one such contributor to perceived effort. I think I may have experienced this trying to read Stephen Hawkins "A brief history of Time". I then ordered the children's version, which made no difference at all!

Samuele Marcora, an Italian exercise scientist primarily works on perception of effort and performance in endurance athletes. There is an interesting article in Runners World based around his research.

http://www.runnersworld.com/race-training/how-to-build-mental-muscle?page=single

He has shown repeatedly that mental fatigue affects physical performance. In one study, subjects spent 90 minutes either i) watching a film or ii) performing a cognitively challenging task. When both groups performed an exhaustive cycling test, those performing the task found the exercise harder and reached exhaustion 15% quicker.

Most of us will be suffering some form of mental fatigue at any one time, so what to do about it and can it be used as a training advantage?

As is the case for physiological systems, you overload (stress) and then get adaptation (compensation), the same applies for the brain. By becoming more resistant to mental fatigue, this should lower perceived effort. The classic book "The Stress of life"  by Hans Selye elaborates on this really well.


Enter the era of brain training in Sport......

Endurance events require a submaximal effort for a (long!) sustained period of time. Tolerating fatigue and sustaining effort are therefore a huge part of this. Like most things physical which can be trained, this "grit" state can also be trained. I really do believe this although motivation plays a big part!

Training the brain to override these signals is essentially the essence of what is required to narrow the gap between perceived effort level and real physiological fatigue and like most things revolves around focus.

There are two ideas here:

1. To actually increase the threshold to fatigue, so it takes more before you feel it.
2. To learn to tolerate fatigue

Marcora is investigating the use of computer based cognitive skill games to facilitate brain training, to basically help grow neural networks through focused attention. Results of his first study, after 6 weeks of brain-endurance training, subjects had improved performance on a time-exhaustion cycling test by 23%.
The scientific hypothesis for this is mental exertion produces adenosine which gives us that tired feeling. By producing more adenosine, the bodies neural networks adapt and compensate, therefore increasing resistance. Caffeine is thought to work because it blocks adenosine.

The science bit

I am certainly not going to profess my competence in neuroscience and I do know the whole is greater than the sum of the parts! but the part of your brain needed for learning and memory is mainly in the hippocampus and is only active during uninterrupted focus. This interruption interferes with learning because focused attention is needed to grow neural connections in the hippocampus and build grey matter.
Neurophysiologists from Germany's Ruhr University Bochum (RUB) used MRI scans to look at the brains of 26 high performance athletes; half competed in judo or karate and half competed in marathon or triathlete. It was found there was more grey matter in the supplementary motor area (SMA) and the hippocampus in the athletes compared to non-athletes. You can't deduce cause or effect, i.e whether they started with that level or acquired it through training but it would seem to be important for performance.


What to do about it

Marcora advocates running once a week when you don't want to i.e when you are tired or after a gruelling work day. Because absolute speed are not so important to endurance running, the gains you make from training fatigue resistance are really relevant and done occasionally may outweigh the potential dangers of training tired.

Endurance athletes have often toyed with training in a fasted state or on tired legs to replicate this.
If you know why you are doing it and embrace that it will feel harder then perhaps the goal is appropriate, but I do feel it is one sure way to hate training - so to be done in small doses!
I have experienced often times a broken spirit doing this!! Not good for morale. I feel a better way of training "effort" is to learn to apply that focus whilst training.

Tolerance of fatigue

The ability to focus on the task at hand, without attachment to the "emotion" of fatigue is what I am talking about here. So this is where you are definitely are up there on the scale of perceived effort but you can learn to manage the sensation. Call it what you will, mindfulness, meditation, concentration etc.

Meditation and mindfulness are excellent ways of focusing the mind, but telling a complete beginner to sit cross legged and "try" to still the mind is a recipe for disaster and mental angst. Thoughts are of course inevitable and it is not the suppression of thoughts but the management that is the key. Allowing thoughts to happen but also to pass without trying to infer meaning to them is part of the skill of learning how to tolerate the discomfort of high effort. Thoughts are not facts in other words.

Usually concentrating on the physical senses is a good way of pacifying the mind. Senses such as breathing, sight, hearing, taste or sensation are examples and just choosing one to focus on in 5 minute blocks, I have found as a huge help to not engaging too much with pain/effort. It seems to be weather dependent though. In the rain and cold, the only pacifying thing for me will be stopping and a cup of tea....just saying.

Other things that have shown to improve tolerance of effort is motivational self talking and self hypnosis. One such study referenced below, involved a 2 week motivational self talk intervention in 24 subjects, this showed a significant decrease in rate of perceived exertion for the test subjects compared to those you didn't do it.

So there you go... although you can't argue with genetics and what you were given, so much of physiology can be trained. Our environment and behaviour can make a huge difference to how those genes are expressed. Practice, practice, practice not just physical skills but mental skills is essentially what it is all about, to grow and establish new neural connections. It's never easy is it!
Or just have a giant cup of coffee.

References:

Blanchfield, A.W., Hardy, J., de Moree, H.M., Staiano, W. Marcora, S.M. (2013). Talking yourself out of Exhaustion: The effects of self-talk on Endurance Performance. Med Sci Sports Exercise. Epub ahead of print.

Marcora, S.M., Staiano, W. (2010). The limit to exercise tolerance in humans: mind over muscle?
European Journal of Applied Physiology. 109 (4): 763-70.

A stiff upper lip

Very rarely do I read a book and get quite a dramatic shift in opinion but it is very nice when you do.
I just finished reading "The Gold Mine" effect by Rasmus Ankerson. It is yet another book about talent, what constitutes talent, how to identify it and how you get there but there was a couple of very interesting ways to look at things.

Creating the right training environment and the illusion that you have to enjoy what you do. It helps but it is not necessary. 

I am a big fan of Stephen Francis, creator of the "MVP" track club in Kingston and coach to the Jamaican elite. I have posted the link of a interview where he talks about training environment but essentially the following quotes sum it up nicely.

http://mvptrackclub.com/gallery_Highlights.html

"The road to success is largely uncomfortable, if you are enjoying yourself too much, you probably are not going to reach where you want to go. 80% of the time you must be wishing you were somewhere else"
backed up by Muhammad Ali's famous quote " I hated every minute of training"

Of course, these statements are based around the very small % that will become the world's best athletes. For most people who can't and don't want to compete at that level, the rules can be loosened a tad but it is interesting to understand the process of what and how talent is created.

Perseverance and struggle creates competence, enjoyment and motivation, not the other way round

The author of this book talks about motivation and enjoyment being the outcome rather than the facilitator to train. Children and adults generally like to be good at something and being good at something creates confidence. If you think of flipping the scenario on its head, the starting point is perseverance and struggle then competence, enjoyment and motivation in some sort of continuum but where complacency is never obtained.
So..guiding athletes through that phase of perseverance and perhaps even non-enjoyment is really important to fuelling enjoyment. Most of the time, sports are self selecting and children/adults will take up sports they have a natural flair for but competence can also be created from nothing, if a coach or parent has the foresight to see how to navigate through it.

I do remember up until secondary school being terrible at academic work. I used to have a friend who I would copy off and somehow managed to get my homework and exams done but credit must be passed onto her! In the end the fear of my teachers and being found out however was such a driving force to work. It was a major battle and graft to understand pretty much all subjects, but eventually the work paid off, understanding and grades came and then motivation and confidence, so actually I believe there is some truth to that.
Which leads to the next point he mentions that "not pushing your kids is irresponsible" which follows on from this idea of you learn to love what you are good at. Possibly true, possibly not.
The success of tennis players from Russia has been attributed to the pushy parenting and example upon example can be shown where this is the case but would that formula work in a western environment where we have so much more choice? Andy Murray's mum is an example of a pushy tennis parent but she has used a bit more cunning and guise in creating direction. She says there is a difference between "pushing your kids" and "pushing to make things happen for your kids". There has to be some sort of harmony where the child does see some benefit to the system. I am however not an authority on this, but we all have our unique childhood experience and lessons learnt from friends and their parents so it is purely observation.

Eliminate Choice

I'm going to refrain from getting into British Politics! but we are lucky in that we have a good health and welfare system in place, where people are on the whole looked after. This system therefore creates much more choice compared to other societies. In Kenya for example, the prize money from winning running competitions is such a strong motivator for escape from poverty and being able to support a family. Psychology textbooks will refer to "intrinsic" and "extrinsic" motivation. Intrinsic motivation is fuelled by a personal enjoyment of the task and extrinsic motivation is more about a desire for reward e.g prize money. It was thought motivation which lies on the spectrum more toward an intrinsic nature is more sustainable and better than extrinsic but if we look at the Kenyan runners and Russian Tennis players money is a huge driving force. When I spoke to some Kenyan athletes, there were certainly some who said they wouldn't train unless they felt they had to and didn't have another option.

When training gets hard, that motivation whether it is extrinsic or intrinsic - the "why" needs to be absolutely solid in your head and in some respects it becomes easier  to answer the more desperate the alternative of not doing it is. If life is comfortable, perseverance, grit and complete commitment to a choice and the sacrifice that comes with it may not be such an easy choice. In other environments, that choice maybe easier to make.

Just a thought.

Project 1: Prancing up the Fan Dance

"Prance" - To walk or move about spiritedly; strut.

This is a fairly apt description as movement up Pen Y Fan at pace is most definitely not a run and it is most definitely not a walk. Tab, jog, prance whatever you want to call it, it's a good one for the Heart rate.

I decided to put the "kenyan" marathon training concept from my last post into practice for this event, as duration wise they are not completely dissimilar.

The goal was to "prance" as much of the route at goal pace or slightly above. In this case, I was going to do half of the route, 12km just to the turn around with 10kg of weight.

I have to say it was hard but I did like this as a training run. I did half of the route in 1hr 41 and finished it with a certainty that I was not going to go back up the hill again.... so what to do in this instance, but BREW up some coffee and walk on to the nearest YHA for a Guinness and a sleep. Unfortunately night nav got the better of me and turned my "short" recovery amble into another 30km.

Bergen weight allowance: espresso maker

LOST AGAIN

A collection of brecon moments (top left, clockwise). Clag, happy, sun and bog!

I find when training for any running endurance event, lots of slow long distance running becomes very injuring. Walking is a mechanical action which relies more on muscular action, whereas fast running/sprinting at the other end of the spectrum becomes more reactive and plyometric where a larger contribution comes from stored energy in the tendons. Depending on where your running speed falls on this spectrum, tendon vs muscle action will be used to varying degrees. 

This very simplistic explanation may help explain why slow running where you are spending a relatively long amount of time on foot, can make muscles sore, especially quadriceps and hip muscles. 

You can't get away from the fact that load bearing marches therefore require a huge amount of strength, because not only is the pace relatively slower to running but you are carrying (+kg) of weight. 

Training I have found useful

Weight training

I have found weight training 4-5 times a week (4 sets of 12-15 reps), with whole body compound movements and a simulation of the Fan Dance (various distance and weight) every couple of weeks has helped enormously. The strength built in my VMO (vastus medialis obliquus) has also prevented any knee issues occurring.... so hooray to bodybuilding training. 

Below is a short snippet of examples of exercises I might do. 

Don't train the event distance

Clarence Callender, the sprint coach who trains the 7 elite boys at Track Academy, where I do my work placement never trains the distance the boys will compete in. He will train them in anything up to and over 100m but never 100m. I quite like this idea, as that distance then becomes something special, reserved only for race day. They need to have that hunger for that distance and not be bored of it. I think the same applies with this event. It's important to keep the motivation and drive to do that distance and event. 

Train at goal race pace

Try and maintain the pace you want to obtain for a set distance and try and maintain that. If you fall off the pace, walk for a few minutes and go again. Jeff Galloway, a running coach was a proponent of walking in running training. For most runners it is the cardinal sin, but actually it makes perfect sense and allows you to maintain goal pace for much longer. 

Running with Kenyans vs Running with the Welsh

My nocturnal reading of a book called "The Sports Gene" by David Epstein, prompted this post. I recommend it, a good read. The particular chapter was called - The world's greatest accidental (Altitudinous) talent sieve, which talks about the number of elite runners that come from the Kalenjin tribe in the African Rift Valley. 

I was lucky enough in the lead up to the London Olympics 2012 to have spent two 6 week blocks at the High Altitude Training Centre (HATC) in Iten, Kenya, training for my own Belize marathon qualification. Team: 1 person. Coach: 0. 
I am however probably the only person to have gone out there, trained intensively and gotten slower.
I used to do my track session at night, so 1) I wouldn't get run over by 100 kenyans which was similar to running alongside a stampede of buffalo and 2) to avoid the indignity of being so appallingly slow. My fellow nocturnal companions consisted of 3 drunk policeman cheering me on, 5 cows and several sheep that weren't going to move. I felt better after reading they didn't move for Mo either, so I don't take that personally. 

Kamariny Stadium and the local track

Two years later I can finally immerse from the trauma, breathe the oxygen and reflect! 

In this small rural village, based at an altitude of 2400m, the standard of running is phenomenal, home to the best Kenyan elite marathoners and attracting the best international distance runners. My room at the training facility neighboured Mo Farah and Paula Radcliffe and so many an evening was spent washing spandex in a bucket next to Mo. All quite surreal. Had I not have been so hypoxic, I might have been really star struck. 

Mo Farah and Paula Radcliffe

The children all ran faster than I did!

Some sources quote the number of sub 2:10 marathon runners in Iten around 150. In reality this may well be more, as many of these runners don't have enough money to go to races at sea level to actually log a time. This phenomenon where talent emerges from small global pockets is not unusual and you see it time and time again, where a number of very good athletes come from a very small demographic. I wonder if this is another example of the pareto principle commonly known as the 80/20 or law of the vital few states that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. 

The theories of why the high altitude Kenyan runners are so good are vast and is a much debated issue. I can't answer that, but I expect it is a combination of socio-economic factors contributing to motivation, physiology, training environment, the fact that the pool of elite runners is so big and a million other reasons. Some will say "ugali".....hmmmmm that was not a treat. Boiled maize, which makes the staple of their diet. The belief system amongst the Kenyan runners is also second to none. 
They believe unequivocally that if you are from the high altitude kalenjin tribe (close to 5 million people), you are or can be a good runner. The proof is all around them. If person A can do it, then absolutely they can. 

In terms of marathon training what struck me is the training is hard. Long runs are not steady conversational paced affairs, they are fast! The terrain is also very hilly which is another onslaught to the senses. I think it's almost fair to say there is NO flat terrain in Iten and the surrounding area and I never had an easy run. Hills in 15% oxygen, even walking feels like hard work!
On the opposite side of the spectrum, when a kenyan runs slow, they run REALLY slow. This is their recovery runs. 

One coach who I feel huge respect for having seen him in action is the Italian Coach Renato Canova, renowned for his application of sports science and making the good athlete, really good. Speaking in an almost incomprehensibly thick Italian accent and wearing shellsuit track-side fashion, he is passionate, knowledgeable and intuitive. He will say things like "when you stop learning, you are dead".  

Canova lives and trains a small group of elite runners in Iten, but they come to him already seasoned. These are the best of the best elite Kenyan runners but the Canova methodology is to be feared. 
There is a great quote by him where he says "the coach like the athlete needs to have the mentality of an explorer. He needs to be able to go into a dark area, just a little bit, so if he's wrong you can come back immediately" He is taking about intensity. "when you prepare an athlete for top shape, you are always on the border, if you don't go to 99% border of what you can do, it is not enough for winning but if you make a small mistake and go at 101% you are no longer able to continue for 6 months". 
His take on the dark area, is the blackest of black of intensity. A place I am always curious about but somewhere to go with caution. 

Below are the principles by which he trains the elite:


Pace is more important than distance

Canova advocates the importance of Intensity and Extension. Increasing the distance you can run at goal pace. He believes in the western training systems, too much emphasis is spent on building the aerobic system and that there is not enough development from this. The aerobic base is essential, but the % of higher intensity training is too low from traditional US/UK training systems. I expect probably about 30% of pre-season training is high intensity under his system. 

"when you move to the marathon, the base of everything is mileage, but the base is the base - it is the basic situation for developing what will happen after. Instead (in the US) there is not development. The base remains the base. This is the mentality for an amateur"

He believes long runs much slower than marathon pace don't have the specificity to the race for the elite runner.

"What does a 2 hour easy run have to do with the marathon? -nothing. You must practice running at or around goal race place for long periods of time"

Traditional Periodization vs Canova's take on it 

Pre-season training or the Global period

Traditionally the annual training plan, revolved around a long "base building phase" favoured by the New Zealand coach Arthur Lydiard. A period of several months of high volume, low intensity mileage.

A different "Canova" approach is to focus on short speed and strength, then gradually increase the distance and decrease the speed through the training program. The three main components being:

• Hills - To develop Strength, power and recruitment of muscle fibers.

• Circuits - For explosiveness. Mixing plyometrics with moderately paced intervals. An example session could be 5 * 400m (half marathon pace), with 20-30s of jumping exercises performed in between each lap. 3-5 sets with long rest intervals in between each set. 

• Short intervals e.g 25* 400m at 10k pace or 6 *1000m at 5K pace. 

Specific Competition phase


The emphasis on:

• Fast Long runs e.g 17-24 mile runs at 95% goal marathon pace

• Marathon pace intervals with moderate rest. 3k-7k run at slightly above marathon pace but the recovery is perhaps only 1k at 30s per km slower than the intervals. 

• High volume intervals. These intervals need to have benefits that are transferrable to the marathon so total distance is almost always 16K or above at 110% of marathon pace (10-15k pace). E.g (10 x 1600m @ 15K pace) or continuous intervals (20K of 1K at 15K pace/1K moderate)

High intensity training has the goal of improving Lactic Capacity and Lactic resistance

What really seemed apparent was when the session is hard it is REALLY hard, but the recovery periods are also long, so these sessions may only occur every 5-6 days. 
This block of intensity however, is built on a very solid aerobic base and he only trains very experienced runners who can tolerate that kind of intensity and can motivate themselves to go into the "dark area".

These are the blocks/phases that will feature in the annual plan 

General resistance
Aerobic resistance
Basic aerobic endurance
Special aerobic endurance
Aerobic power
Lactic resistance
Lactic capacity
Lactic power
Speed

Lactic resistance and capacity often quoted in physiology text books as being the same, are however different because the final physiological goal is different. With lactic capacity, the goal is to stimulate a lot of lactic acid in a short time. With lactic resistance, the goal is to teach the body how to work with high accumulation. 20% of lactic acid can be used as an energy substrate, so if you produce more but you can also remove more, what remains can be used like energy. 

Transferable learning and application to the non-kenyan load bearing athlete in the Brecon Beacons. 

Whilst the average person would probably have an MI (heart attack), after attempting Canova's training there are some principles that can be applied for the non-elite kenyan in us.  
Remember these kenyan runners have more than likely had a lifetime of building an endurance base before they get anywhere near Canova. 

One of the take home messages I like about training for distance events is to stay as true as possible to the laws of specificity. In terms of the Fan Dance training, my particular goal is 3hr 45 for this 24km route so the value of doing high mileage at slower than goal pace is probably minimal. The trick is finding out how much high intensity training a person can tolerate and recover from and to truly ask if it is high intensity. 

Looks like a balls out effort into the dark area then!!

References:

TANSER, T. (2008). More Fire: How to run the Kenyan Way. Yardley: Westholme Publishing. 

WIRZ, J. (2006). Run to Win: The training secret of the kenyan runners. Oxford: Meyer and Meyer Sport. 

Project 2: Bodybuilding goes glam

My saturday night was spent watching half naked men and women on stage at the WBFF (World Beauty Fitness and Fashion) show at the 02 in greenwich, part for research for my show and part support for Tirell, my trainer who was competing (Top 5 finish, amazing!).
This is bodybuilding at it's most glamorous. The categories for women include; Diva bikini model, Diva fitness model and figure. The categories for men include; fitness model, muscle model and bodybuilding.

The words I can probably think of to describe the stage actions go way beyond just posing. There was definitely some jostling going on and so by the end of the night I think my new opinion of this activity is it is most certainly a sport.....a blood sport and these men and women are most definitely athletes.

My plan is to compete in one of these shows next year in the category - figure. I have to admit my knowledge is still fairly poor but I think the fitness model category have to perform a gymnastic act.....er no. I can already hear the sound of my hamstrings snapping. Posing half naked in diamante will be enough of a humbling experience for me.

I'm slightly annoyed because all my preconceptions and prejudices about bodybuilding are wearing thin and don't really stand up to rigorous testing now. Of course, this comes from lack of understanding or perhaps lack of will to understand. Training for aesthetics has never really occurred to me so it puts me in a whole new different frame of mind. There are many layers to people and so you can choose what you want to, but when you really try to see it all, actually there are some very very impressive things about the men and women that compete in these shows.

• Firstly, you have to "strut" in very little and be open to a huge amount of scrutiny about your body. So confidence is a most or perhaps should I say resilience. You can run but you can't hide! I won't be running anywhere in those shoes....

• Obtaining the body is one thing and then you need to be able to show it off, so walking well, learning to pose (a lot of isometric muscle action going on) and the fake tan! I was very happy to see the 2013 version of this is a lot more natural and acceptable than what I remember of watching Arnie in pumping iron. 

• It's evident that you can't cheat being on that stage. Physically or mentally it is totally unforgiving. You can't fake being in great shape and you can't fake the confidence required to be up there. There is NO escape from just plain graft in the gym and the kitchen. 

Andreia Brazier: Pro fitness model. Do I get sympathy about the heels now!

Me: The same but different! I'll get there. 

I'm lucky enough to work and train around some really good fitness models in the industry and actually they are just really nice, confident, not arrogant, with a good work ethic and approach to training and people. Anyone that gets up on a stage or in a boxing ring or equivalent, you lose that arrogance because as soon as you step in, you are about to get an onslaught of judgement and yes possibly hurt, both in ego and physically. I think the "punch" equivalent in a show is a face plant wearing a themed outfit.
So, I am the one that eats humble pie... and I swallow my words and judgement! Actually for the next 6 months I don't think I'll be eating any pie!

I was really impressed by the number of amazing looking men and women that had worked really really hard. WBFF is quite a glamorous show, think bling, bling bling. The women I thought looked strong, fit, sexy and feminine. I think that is a great advert for women's fitness so on that note I shall get onboard. Work outfit now to include, spandex and clear plastic 6" heels and not trainers  "Strong"!!

Is it possible to self-coach yourself to greatness?

How easy is it to self-coach? The lessons learnt from being both a coach and an athlete.

Of all the great athletes today, how many are without a coach? I would love comments on this as I can only think of a very few. Ryan Hall the USA marathon runner first comes to mind. He opts for more of a "faith" based approach. Hey...whatever works! But the majority of successful athletes that dominate top level sport today, not only have a coach but a whole entourage of support. That is because it is very difficult without the right person. (It's also very difficult with wrong person)!

I was pondering about the above problem after a particularly frustrating discussion with someone about not overtraining and reflecting about my own difficulties of overtraining and injury, something I still battle with. Observation of enough athletes does often make me wonder why it is so easy to override seemingly very simple information about overtraining and injury. The number of really talented athletes I have seen that have sabotaged success because they couldn't control effort level does really make me sad, perhaps because it is so avoidable and I can empathise!

When we don’t learn from mistakes.

It's important to make mistakes for learning. Making mistakes once is a good thing, but replicating that same mistake, not so good. I’m talking about training mistakes, not skill acquisition. I have seen many athletes who know all this and should know better, fall by the wayside because of overtraining and injury and is a huge problem in the "self-coached”, because that "drive" is a function of personality rather than just not knowing.
In endurance athletes particularly, the instinct to train high volume at an "almost always hard" effort level (very little "extremely hard" and very little "easy") and to keep going at all costs is a major mental factor to success but it is also the very attribute that can destroy if not managed appropriately. Learning to self-direct that energy appropriately is certainly possible but I believe it is hard and requires a huge amount of self-discipline, the ability to be objective and at times override your own personality.

I talk a lot here about the overly “driven” and self –motivated athlete but of course there is the reverse, where someone needs a good kick up the backside. Past a certain sporting level, I don’t see this very often though.

Presently, I spend my time switching from coach to athlete, not ideal but I do find the switch easier and easier to make the more I understand. Being a coach and learning to be a better one, is quite a humbling experience and actually it’s only taken 34 years, but I’m finally starting to listen to my own advice and getting some very nice results. Perhaps a personality lobotomy thrown is as well.

I view my role as a coach to get the best out my athlete, both physically and mentally.
From the moment they walk through the door, you observe and watch them, from putting down their bag and warming up to the end of session. This allows me to sum up their physical and mental state, especially when they don't think I'm watching! You then have to be able to cherry pick bits of information that are relevant to that person and communicate it to them simply! Then, adapt, adapt, adapt throughout the session. So, of course the knowledge base has to be vast in terms of sports science but also human psychology and the theory of learning. The more you know, the larger the pool from which you can extract. Oh yes and TRANSLATION skills!!

I’m becoming more familiar with the “unspoken” language of human! Learning to decipher what people say or don’t say, as more often than not, people do not always say what they mean.

E.g

“I’m fine” means “I feel like I’ve been run over by a bus”

Conversely for another person

“I feel like I’ve been run over by a bus” means “I’m fine” 

 So…..a good coach (I still have a long way to go), has a lot to process. Self-reflection that is necessary for performing is essential for any athlete, but the deconstruction of self sometimes needed for changing behaviour is often too much for most and would be counterproductive. Using someone to redirect the energy associated with those personality traits that are needed for success in a given sport then becomes a necessity. If you can offload the responsibility of sifting through the maelstrom of sports science and program design to the right person, you free up an enormous amount of energy.
My current bodybuilding (fitness model) training program has been outsourced to someone I trust and have to say it is a real luxury.  I don’t have to think about anything, other than lifting tin! I think it is fair to say, the only time I felt I achieved any kind of sporting success was when I had a coach, whose main role was actually to hold me back, and protect me from myself!!

I'd be very interested to hear about those of you that have managed to coach yourself to a high level and what worked and didn't. Comments very welcome.

Project 1: Overloading on overload

Attempt no. 2 on the Fan Dance route. 
Weight carried: 14kg made up of water bottles and dumbbells 
Pack: 45L Daysack

The only downside of wearing a slightly smaller, more appropriate sized backpack was it looks considerably unimpressive for the amount of weight I felt I had to lug up Pen y Fan. There was a LOT of huffing and puffing and swearing and dry retching, because I had eaten a full english breakfast slightly too late in the morning.

I wish I hadn't eaten eggs and bacon for breakfast

Are we there yet?

I wanted to trial the route with "overload". The Fan dance load for women is 25lb (11.3kg), so I decided to do the route with 32lb (14.5kg). The rationale being that training should be done both with heavier and lighter loads at different training intensities and volumes.

The conclusion: It is hard and not my greatest idea.

In terms of metabolic cost of carrying extra load, one review on the physiological strain of load carrying showed during weight carrying showed the average energy cost per kg load at first decreased (1.1 W'kg-1 for the first 5.4 kg load) but then increased (6.3 W, kg-1 for the next 5 kg load) with increasing loads. The average energy cost per kg load for the first 5 kg was surprisingly lower than for a kg of body mass, but increased with increasing loads. It is no surprise that energy cost increases with increasing load but the anomaly of data for the first 5kg and decreasing energy cost remains unclear. I can see the use of training with "overload" for these events but the time frame for carrying the extra load needs to be adjusted as physiologically and muscularly it is much more demanding! Possibly I didn't adjust the backpack very well and I am a true advert for why packing properly and offloading the weight round the hips is recommended! There was definitely trapezius DOMS the day after, explained by walking kinematics 101; When walking, the shoulder opposite to the leg striking the ground is lifted and rotated forward, in line with natural pelvic rotation that occurs during walking. With extra load being carried on the shoulders, the trapezius then has to work "with resistance" to lift the shoulder through every stride. Essentially it is like doing "shrugs" for 4 hours! I can concur! In this particular study I have referenced below, for a weight of 5.4kg and 10.4kg using a military pack with no waist strap the extra absolute force level was 8.4N and 17N respectively. Force level of the descending trapezius therefore effectively doubled with doubling of load. The force level during load carrying using a backpack with waist strap was not significantly influenced by the load, showing that most of this weight had been transferred to the hips, leaving on the shoulder only a constant load needed for stabilisation.

CONCLUSION: Get a good backpack and pack it well. If you can tolerate carrying heavier weight do so, but for shorter durations of time to avoid injury.

Other things of note:

• My knowledge level of "how to pack a rucksack with water bottles" goes up in tandem with that of the m4 services.  

• A Chunky Kitkat and Storey Arms Burger van Welsh teacakes is good for energy and morale. 

• Helly Hanson or similar Base layer and waterproof outershell make a good "competition" day outfit. Anything more is akin to "boil in the bag" scenario.                                                      

All in all however, another good run. It really drums home how difficult it is to replicate this route. The weather, the terrain, the route, time on feet, wearing good kit and pack admin all make such a difference. In an ideal world, one would be hitting these hill all the time but in the absence of that...... creativity of good substitutes will have to make do. 

References:

 Holewjin, M. and Meeuwsen, T. (1990). Physiological Strain During Load Carrying: Effects of Mass and Type of Backpack. Eur J Appl Physiol Occup Physiol. 61 (3-4), 237-245.

Subtlety of Movement

This post was inspired by my new "bodybuilding" program which has provided me not only with new information and knowledge but a whole new insight into DOMS! (delayed onset muscle soreness).

Competing in a fitness show is obviously aesthetic, so obtaining muscular symmetry is a primary goal. Meaning, I will have to readdress muscle imbalances and motor patterns built up over years of doing sport. This is going to be no easy feat which I realised was going to take a bit more focus and thought than just going through the motions and tuning into my ipod. For most of the exercises in my program, the eccentric portion is performed to a fairly slow tempo to increase time under tension of muscle. This slower tempo of training is very different to my default and love of doing high speed training. It was quite novel to me but being mindful of small adjustments and manipulations of body positions make a real difference to muscle recruitment and where you feel a muscle being worked. There are numerous examples of this, but one familiar to most is the toes over knees argument in squatting and lunge patterns. In one such study, a comparison of performing a squat either restricted (knees in line with toes) or unrestricted (allowing freedom of knees to move past toes) showed the restricted pattern reduced the knee torque but significantly increased hip angle torque, showing that force has to go somewhere i.e into hip and lumbar spine regions (Fry et al, 2003).

There is also a nice article called "The myth of core stability" that debunks a few assumptions about how we view core stability. One good point made through example is, for instance if you want to get food to mouth, it doesn't occur by consciously instructing each muscle to activate from hand to forearm to bicep etc, the central nervous system recruits an unconscious pattern of recruitment that makes that happen. Most unconscious movement occurs in this way and not in a muscle-by-muscle recruitment pattern. The question then is can you offset that motor pattern (engram) by making that movement more conscious or "pre-tensing" muscle groups that you want to work. In fact an age old trick used by body builders is to pre tense muscle groups before lifting. Whether that translates to high velocity movement patterns like the clean or the snatch, in all honesty I'm unsure of. So, by being conscious and slowing down tempo, is it easier to re-learn new motor patterns and therefore address muscle imbalances. We'll see!

There are many ways to re-learn movement depending on the goal. In my observations of runners and coaching running efficiency, I believe there are many components to this, but one which seems to resonate with me and just make sense is to put the individual in the optimum biomechanical position for them to take advantage of natural reflexes in the body such as the stumble reflex and inversion-extension reflex. In addition to taking advantage of reflexes, making running more elastic by training the musculo-tendinous unit (MTU), also makes sense. Tendon research is a whole other area but effectively understanding tendons, energy dissipation and hysteresis (energy lost between stretch and recoil), muscles and the joints they work around and how that applies to the chosen sport is a starting point for designing any good S&C program. A lot of my understanding of tendons has come from reading Ralph Brandon's work. For example, in high speed running or hill running, the hip goes from about -20deg at toe off to +95deg at point of greatest hip flexion. This large range of motion requires a compliant tendon. A compliant tendon means it can be stretched easily with little force but of course it also recoils with less force. If the tendon is too compliant relative to muscle, it will also end up doing more "work" because that is the component that will stretch more relative to the muscle, hence the risk of developing high hamstring issues, something I understand very well! The point of all this...... is subtle manipulations of body parts can really emphasise or de-emphasise different patterns of muscle recruitment as I am finding out.

Again to use running as an example, pelvic movement follows an oscillation pattern, where movement will occur in both the frontal and the transverse planes. The pelvis acts like a lever, moving according to the contraction of muscle groups that attach to it. To eliminate confusion by lack of diagrams!! I shall summarise by saying that this lever action allows a certain degree of pre-tension to build up in muscles that attach to it such as the hamstrings thus allowing an individual to take advantage of reflexes and stretch shortening cycle (SSC) and therefore efficiency of movement. So in this way, very subtle manipulations of muscles and joints can reorganise muscle recruitment and whole body movements. Just a thought.......


References: 

Bosch. F and Klomp, R. (2005). Running: Biomechanics and Exercise Physiology applied in Practice. Philadelphia: Elsevier Churchill Livingstone.

Fry, A.C., Smith. J.C and Schilling, B.K. (2003). Effect of knee position on hip and knee torques during the barbell squat. Journal strength and Conditioning Research. 17(4). pp 629-633.

Lederman., E (2010). The myth of Core stability. Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies, 14, pp84-98.

Tendon Strength Training: Performance benefits of optimising both components of your muscle tendon units, 2003. Raphael Brandon, available at: http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/tendon-strength-training-7