Becoming an Athlete

 That's my mantra for 2023. I've reached a new chapter in life.  I'm married.  My kids are grown and living their own lives.  My career is meaningful but not consuming me 24 hours a day.  I have time to pursue excellence. My pursuit of excellence has led me to activities I never enjoyed before.  I never enjoyed low intensity cardio.  I never enjoyed treadmills.  I never enjoyed group workouts / cardio classes. I never wanted a TV in my garage gym. All of those things are part of my daily routine now. I am lifting 6sixdays a week (Legs, Push, Pull, Legs, Push, Pull). I am doing 30 minute group workouts from Beachbody On Demand six days a week (Pilates, bootcamp, yoga). I am doing 30 minutes of steady state treadmill walking every night. None of this alone is particularly interesting.  What is interesting to me is that by lowering my intensity I am able to get in 3 exercise sessions six days a week and still have time for big outdoor adventures on Saturday or Sunday. My daily

The pursuit of strength and health have taught me that consistent and sustainable efforts beat inconsistent heroic efforts every time.  The last 2 years especially have been a game of progressing by inches instead of miles, but I have covered many miles none the less. It has taken me 18 months to fully recover from donating a kidney, concurrently with 13 months to recover from major knee surgery.  I have found the following to be the safest and most consistent way to build durability, strength, work capacity, and mobility. Principles of Optimal Progress Durability: You need repeated exposure to a specific load to build up your connective tissue.  Your tendons, ligaments, and cartilage strength more slowly than your muscles Work on stabilization: targeted core exercises help some. Controlling the rep speed and movement quality helps most Strength: Double progression is all you need to avoid plateauing for many years.  My favorite approach is Volume Accumulation.  The example below seems

My fitness methods have become pretty simplified in principle, but varied in execution. Building Strength: Use the 5-3-1 Method.  It always works Build Mass: The Volume Accumulation.  Use timed sets (2 minutes is a good place to start) to take a given weight from 5 sets of 5 reps and grind till you can do to 5 sets of 10 reps.  Add more weight and repeat.  This could as easily be 4x8 to 4x15.  It doesn't matter.  What matters is doing more reps in a given timed set with a given weight. Conditioning: It's hard to mess up conditioning.  When it comes to elevating heart rate, burning more fuel, and becoming a leaner more energy efficient athlete, variety of movement is a good thing.  The more static your exercise selection or work/rest ratios, the faster you'll make neural adaptations. That said, one of the work/rest frameworks I use frequently is the boxer's bout.  Start with 4 rounds of 3min work and 1 min rest.  During the 3 minute work period, you'll probably take

 2020 was such a tough year for everyone.  I don't need to rehash the global level stuff.  Compounding it on a micro-level, I had to get through two major surgeries.  The first was kidney donation.  That was a tough one.  I've never been so fatigued in my life.  I tried getting back to exercise after a few weeks but could only sustain maybe 2 minutes of effort. It was humbling.  Then in October I had 60% of the meniscus in my right knee removed.  This has proven to be even more limiting than losing a kidney. But after shifting my focus to movement quality, mobility, and of course rehab, I'm back to normal energy levels and near normal ranges of motion in my right leg. One realization is that as I get stronger, I'm able to increase my mobility, so I've started training "heavy" again.  Keep in mind heavy is a relative term. I am using timed sets in a circuit to create a nice 1-2 punch of strength and conditioning.  Each set is 90 seconds - no extra rest peri

An alternate title could be: Reasons To Go Retro With HIT I donated a kidney to a very close friend of mine on 5/26/2020.  It was supposed to be in March, but COVID-19 pandemic exploded, and everyone's plans were derailed.  I was genuinely afraid my friend would die while we waited for the hospital to give us the green light for surgery.  It was scary enough giving up an organ for a friend, but even scarier to be in a hospital with no visitors allowed because of COVID.  I was quarantined in my room for 2 days.  She was there, totally alone, for 12 days.  We are nearly 2 months since our surgery and both recovering well.  Her health is better than it has ever been since I've known her.  We were part of a genuine miracle. After a few weeks of doing nothing, and sleeping constantly, I finally tried to get back to normal life.  I radically overestimated my ability to sustain physical effort.  I thought I could just lower the weights and still do moderate volume workouts.  I was

Man, so much has happened since I last posted. COVID pandemic was a huge one.  I made changes to keep systemic fatigue low so I could train almost every day.  Sometimes I could go 8 days with no rest days.  Sometimes only 3 days. The key for me has been to move to push/pull splits, and to manage fatigue with ladders.  Here is a simple framework you can follow. Add rest days between sessions whenever you need it. Day 1: Push 1 Compound circuit a. Overhead press: 5 x 5 b. Kettlebell swing: 5 x 10 Isolation circuit: Ladders a. Incline lateral raise: 3 x 3-5-7 b. Kettlebell swing: 3 x 5-10-15 Day 2: Pull 1 Compound circuit a. Ring row: 5 x 5 b. 1-arm swing: 5 x 5+5 Isolation circuit: Ladders a. Supinating dumbbell curl: 3 x 3-5-7 b. Kettlebell swing: 3 x 5-10-15 Day 3: Push 2 Compound circuit a. Pushups: 5 x 15 b. Kettlebell swing: 5 x 10 Isolation circuit: Ladders a. Skull crushers: 3 x 3-5-7 b. Kettlebell swing: 3 x 5-10-15 Day 4: Pull 2 Compou