Making the Hard Decision

Every day in life we make decisions. Decisions can be small, big, horrible, smart, life changing .. As living breathing humans we have to understand that they come in a lot of different shapes and sizes. This week marks my last week officially as the Fitness Director at Hilton Head Health just recently voted #1 Weight Loss Spa in the Country by Fox News. I never thought this week would come, but what I do know is that this decision was not only the biggest of my life, but the toughest and life changing for many reasons.

The guests I've Coached and Trained - its incredible to train or coach someone who was once 100 lbs heavier or to work with that person whose never lifted a weight or exercised a day in their life. Its absolutely inspiring. 

The H3 Family  - Adam, Bob and Robert of HHHealth have taught me so much. They taught me how to be role model for others, how to grow professionally and how to educate myself and show my passion for healthy living. I know I'm a better person today because of every staff member of the H3 family. 

The memories - Countless positive memories. From the day I stepped in as an intern they quickly began. Every memory from my first "Fit Week" to falling off the treadmill in Cardio Central or even being a part of the A&E Heavy TV Show Series. I started and grew our H3@Home Wellness Coaching and took the lead on Devins Dash a 5K race in memory of one of our fellow co-workers. I am truly grateful and humbled by all these memories.

I could write a book about my time at Hilton Head Health. What I do know is that I am moving on for the right reasons and I am a better person because of my time spent in those walls. I can now dial  in on my training, coaching, and grow my knowledge of evidenced based endurance training. I'm following my passion. There really is no risk involved now.

What do you think is one of the toughest decisions for the endurance athlete? I think it comes down to that initial jump from long slow duration training to CrossFit Endurance. I hear it all the time at seminars ...the questions in the back of the room ... "What about my 20mile run? or 100mile bike? How is it possible to be ready on race day without doing so much distance?" It's entirely possible.

If you haven't checked out the June 2003 CFJ article, "Metabolic Conditioning" by Greg Glassman please give it a read. It explains how intervals do the trick. If you're not a journal member sign up. Glassman discusses energy pathways and how training these different pathways allows us to reap the same benefits of a typical endurance athletes protocol. Metabolic Conditioning can be achieved thru different intervals such as "Tabata Training" which we've heard the study of the 4minute workout group that trounced the 60min steady state workout group when it came to VO2 improvements. Dr. Stephen Seiler renowned Exercise Physiologist wrote an article called "Understanding Intervals" where he talks about 1st and 2nd wave endurance adaptations reached by training the phosphagen and glycolytic systems and 3rd wave adaptations that come specific to the sport. Dr. Seiler believes by focusing on the 1st two (E.I. CrossFit) it broadens the cardiovascular stimulus. There was also a recent blog on "Why Women Shouldn't Run" It caused quite the stir at our box, but convincing it is...

At CFHH, I see these adaptations with our athletes. Each week we focus on a short interval and long intervals specific to the sport and it continues to prove the research behind anaerobic impacting aerobic. The simplest distinction between theses two training stimulus is that Anaerobic does not require oxygen for energy, aerobic training does. Anaerobic impacts aerobic, but not vice versa.The fact of the matter is that there are winning rowing programs that train all intervals. Police training programs in Florida who have found that CrossFit produced better run distance times than prior programs. Numerous evidenced race results by CFE athletes going anaerobic coupled with a few third wave workouts (tempo and time trials). One of our Athletes recently ran her first marathon a week ago at the Flying Pig in Cincinnati, Ohio. Lindsay Martin ran 3:32 qualifying for Boston 2014 and placing 14th Age group in her first shot with not too much aerobic training. The longest run Lindsay completed prior to the race was 15miles (purely to test the nutrition). She coupled her 4 CrossFit Workouts per week with 3 Run Specific CFE WODs.

The most important point of today's blog is to remember that high intensity efforts can produce dramatic aerobic benefit without the muscle wasting seen with endurance training. Take the sprinter verses the marathon runner body type. Quite a different picture huh? The toughest decision is putting the trust in this though. I get it. You won't get your 3hour training run any more, but are you willing to dial it back for the bigger benefits?

Quick how to on training the Pathways
Phosphagen ... 10-30sec... 30-90 sec recovery ... 1:3 recovery ratio ... Reps 25-30 ... Example run specific workout would be 50m-100m sprints, 200m for elites.
Glycolitic...30-120sec...60-240sec recovery (you would want to shorten the recovery as you gained fitness)...1:2 recovery ration...Reps5-15... Example run would be 200m to 600m
 Oxidative...120-300sec...120-300sec...1:1 recovery ratio...Reps3-5...Example run would be 800m, 1200m up to mile repeats. *All these must be trained with the ability to hold the technique

Its a hard decision making the switch to the CrossFit Endurance model when your used to regular endurance training.Can you agree though that sometimes the hardest decisions turn out to be the best?