Will My Pants Still Fit?

So, the question is, at the end of this hypertrophy phase (pronounced, by the way, hi-PURR-tra-fee), will my legs still fit into my pants? OK, maybe my legs aren't getting quite that big, but I am responding pretty well to the lifting, and I still have almost two weeks to go. I also credit my Paleo nutrition plan for the way my body is responding.

Still, this phase is hard work, especially after doing a real job all day, even if it is a desk job. Last night I was feeling especially beat down.

I expected hockey to go badly on Sunday night, but I felt surprisingly good. I was able to skate hard until the last 15 minutes or so. I also scored a couple goals and had several other good chances. From the sport psychology standpoint, I changed my goals for the skate slightly before I went, and I wonder if that was more effective? Maybe always changing goals a little bit is better than using the same ones over and over again? It sort of makes sense.

Weekend Update

I did my second micro block of the hypertrophy phase this weekend. It was pretty weird to take two days off on Thursday and Friday. I was fully recovered by Saturday morning.

I thought the Saturday morning workout was noticeably easier than the workout on Tuesday. The workout this morning was tough again... most likely from the residual fatigue. Hockey will be brutal tonight...


I realized that I didn't post about how I resolved my squatting problem. It turns out that I don't have heavy enough weights to make the two-leg squats worthwhile. So, I went back to my single leg squats and focused on increasing depth. So far, it seems to be working well. I'm still not getting quite as deep as I think would be ideal, but I'm going deep enough that it seems to be effective.

Starting Hypertrophy Phase

I started the hypertropy phase of the Morris strength plan this week. It was pretty tough going, lots of reps... Morris has you do two days back to back, and then take two days off. I felt OK during the day on the second day, but I felt (understandably) worse during the workout. Today is the first rest day. I'm a little sore, but it's not too bad. I should be good to go again on Saturday. I see why he suggests not riding much during this phase. So far, the lifting has been enough to wipe me out.

"1RM" Testing

Last night I did most of my 1 rep max (1RM) testing. I didn't actually go for my 1RM, but I used an estimation based on 4-10RM. I think it's close enough for my purposes.

I did the same thing last January in preparation for my strength work in 2008. My results for this year were consistently better than those for last year. I'm a little surprised, I figured that they would be essentially the same.

The only test I didn't successfully finish was my squat test. I was hampered a little bit since I hadn't done much squatting on both legs (see my last post). Still, it was not paying attention that ultimately screwed me up.

I did my warm-up set, and it was fine. I made my first attempt at the test and made it to 10 reps without too much trouble... I definitely could have done a few more. So, my plan was to rest for 5 minutes or so, add some weight and do it again. I rested, then made my second attempt, and I made it to ten reps again. "Hmm..." I thought, "that didn't seem much harder than last time..." Then I actually looked at the dumbbells and saw that I hadn't changed the weight! Doh! While not near my max, I figured that the two sets were hard enough that I probably wasn't going to get a good result if I tried again. So, I'll try again tonight or tomorrow, depending on how I feel.

Squatting

I'm feeling less fatigued this week, even though work has been busy and my daughter decided to wake up at 4:45am today (15 minutes later, my dog licked me square on the mouth... not pleasant that early!). It's bitterly cold here, so I've not been running or skiing outside.

I've been deeply pondering the squatting situation I talked about last time. On Tuesday night, I did reduce the weight I was lifting to try to go to a deeper squat. Sure enough, I could go much deeper. I had to reduce the weight about 40% to do it. I'm definitely much weaker near the bottom of the squat.

Then, last night, I was explaining all of this to Sarah, and she had me demonstrate everything, including seeing how far I bent my knees on the bike. We reached the conclusion that I still wasn't going deep enough in my squat to match the knee bend I get on my bike. The only way I was able to go deep enough was to do the squat on both legs.

I was looking for a chart online of leg angle around the pedal stroke, but I didn't find one. (I do have some in my books.) I did find this one of muscle usage around the pedal stroke. It's kind of interesting.

Plan Progress

I'm wrapping up the Strength-preparation phase of the Morris plan this week. (Earlier, I said that this wasn't described in the book, but it is. It's just maybe not in an obvious location.) My ramp up has gone fine, but I might have progressed to the heavier weights just a little too quickly. I haven't been sore at all, but I am feeling the fatigue. I'm sure some of it has to do with resuming training with more seriousness and being back at work after a long Christmas break.

I've scheduled a little more rest this week to get ready for the next Strength phase. I want to start the phase feeling fresh because I've heard it's a tough one. The main thing to get done this week is to do the 1RM (1 rep max) test. I probably won't actually go to 1RM, but maybe 3-4RM and calculate 1RM from there. It will be close enough for me, and safer.

I have been thinking a little bit about the lifts I'm doing. I had good success last year in doing 1-leg versions of the squat and deadlift. The benefits to doing the 1-leg exercises are that it's easier on your back, you don't need as much weight, and it uses more stabilizing muscles. The drawbacks are that you can't lift as much and reduced range of motion in the lift (for me, anyway).

I think the fact that you can't lift as much weight is probably not a big deal for an amateur. (By "not lift as much", I mean that on two legs, you could probably lift more than double what you could lift on one leg, since stability is much improved.)

The reduced range of motion is what's got me thinking, particularly for the squat. Because of the more stable position, I can definitely go much deeper into a squat on two legs than I can one one. It seems like I should at least be getting to a knee bend that matches my max knee bend on the bike, and I know I'm not there right now. Relative to the bike, it means that I'm missing out on the top part of the pedal stroke, which is definitely important for generating power.

How to remedy this? I guess first I need to verify if this is a balance issue or a strength issue. I guess the test here is to back off on the weight, try to go deeper and see what happens. Now that I'm thinking about it more, I suspect it is mainly a strength issue.

I wish that I'd thought about this before I started the prep phase. C'est la vie. It will be a little hard on the ego to back off on the weight, but I'm pretty sure I'll get more of a benefit from doing the exercise properly through a wider range of motion. In fact, I may improve substantially on the bike if the muscles really were weak at the "low" part of the squat (top of the pedal stroke).

Hockey Notes

So, after a very productive game last weekend, I hardly got a sniff of the net this week. Lots of factors influenced it I'm sure, but here's the key lesson I took away from it:

About 2/3 of the way through the game, I'm sitting on the bench thinking about how I'm not playing well. I was skating hard, but it seemed like I couldn't catch (or throw) a pass to save my life, and I wasn't getting good bounces. I realized that I had to change my message. Instead of thinking, "Man, I'm sure playing like crap tonight", I started thinking, "Keep skating hard, and things will start to go your way." Hockey is interesting in that way, you have time to sit on the bench and think while you're not playing.

I can't say that it dramatically changed the way I was playing, because it didn't, but maybe there was some improvement. I did end up with a couple of decent plays near the end.

The point is that I need to practice staying positive when things aren't going my way. It will happen, and those negative thoughts need to be caught and stopped early. In bike racing, maybe it's an early crash, or a mechanical, or any number of other things. I'm thinking back to the Brighton race from last year. Not the DNF in the XC race, but my crash in the short track race that sent me all the way to the very back of the field. Old men and children had passed me! I could have quit or gotten down, but instead I put the hammer down, passed a ton of people and finished 4th. I think part of what made that race happen was that I was very confident going in (I thought I had a good chance of winning, and based on the final results, I probably did!). I think that confidence, in turn, shaped my response to the crash.

XC Ski

I had a few REI gift cards burning a hole in my pocket, so I decided to buy some cross-country ski gear. I've been wanting to do this for a while, but I've always had more bike-related things to spend money on.

So, I picked up my skis last Tuesday night. On Wednesday and Thursday we started getting snow. My wife and daughter would be coming home late Thursday night, so I took the opportunity to scoot over to the nature center / fish hatchery in our neighborhood. There's a flat 1.7 mile loop around the fish ponds that I figured would be skiable. More people had walked on it than I expected, but, for the most part, I could find good snow. Someone else had already been out skiing, so I followed in their tracks for most of the loop. I only had enough daylight to do one loop, but it was a good shakedown test.

We got a lot more snow Friday night and Saturday. Since I had more time Saturday, I went over to Independence Oaks during my daughter's morning nap. Supposedly, this park is one of the best local places to go. It wasn't quite what I expected, but it wasn't bad; I would go again. There's a very well-traveled and flat loop around the lake, and some hillier (less-traveled) trails through the woods. I skied for just under two hours. Even though it didn't seem like really hard work, I was pretty tired by the time I was done.

Hat Trick +1

I had a good skate last night. For the first 20 minutes or so, I was just flying around. I didn't have anything to show for it, but it felt good. Then, I sort of hit the wall. We only had three guys on the bench, and I just wasn't getting enough rest. So, I took a pretty long (kind of easy) shift on defense, and that seemed to help. On the next shift I scored two goals! On the first one, I got my own rebound, but my momentum carried me behind the net. I shot the puck toward the goal anyway, and it ended up bouncing off the goalie and going in. On the second goal, I caught a nice pass in the slot, waited for the goalie to slide out of position, and then put it in.

I was OK for a few shifts, and then I started getting tired again and took another shift on defense. On the next shift, I got goal number three. I don't recall now how I got to the front of the net, but my shot rang off both posts before it went in.

At some point during the game, I got dumped (tripped?) pretty hard in front of the net. My feet were way over my head. It bent my back pretty good, but it feels mostly OK today. I felt fortunate that I'd been stretching my back quite a bit over the past week. I did land hard on my knees though, and they are pretty sore today. I spent some time icing everything before I went to bed (bags of frozen vegetables make good icepacks!), but it didn't help my knees as much as I'd like. I suspect I'll have some good bruises there.

My last goal was a garbage goal. I put a rebound in from a foot or so away. The Zamboni driver usually lets us play until the last goal, and mine was the goal that got us off the ice. So, I was happy about that.

So, what's with the sudden explosion in my goal-scoring and general improved play? (Recall, I got 2 at the last skate also, compared to 1 or 2 total in all of the skates preceeding!) It could be a lot things. From the technical side, I've been spending a few minutes during the week working on balance and stickhandling stuff, and I'm sure this is helping a little, especially the balance work. I think the main difference is in my attitude though. I wrote a few weeks ago about practicing my mental preparation techniques on the way to the rink. One of the ideas I had was that there was no reason I shouldn't be one of the best players at our skate. Yeah, I don't play hockey as much as everybody else, but I'm one of the youngest and one of the most fit. It makes a difference when you go out on the ice expecting to win the little puck battles, expecting to score, etc. Then, when you actually have the success you expected, your attitude improves even more. Sort of a positive feedback loop. This kind of attitude is something that I need to carry over to my riding.

2009 Training Has Begun!

This week marked the beginning of my 2009 training. As I've discussed before, I'm switching over to a Morris-style plan for this year. It's not covered in the book, but I'm beginning with a short preparation phase before I start his Hypertrophy phase. I saw the idea to use a short prep phase on Ashwin's blog, and it makes sense. Coming off a long block of mostly light exercise, it doesn't make sense to jump right in to lifting heavy weights. So, for the next couple weeks, I'll be getting myself ramped up.

My other exercise this week has consisted of one short ride on the trainer and a couple of runs. The run I did on Tuesday was pretty terrible. I was pretty happy about the roads being clear of snow and ice; as a result, I paced myself badly. I went out way too fast and was suffering before I'd gone too far. To top it off, after a long downhill stretch, my knee started bothering me, even though I was well short of my target run time. So, I called it a day and walked home. After I got home, I checked the training log and found that I'd only run twice over the past two weeks, so I probably bit off too much. I had been doing some jump rope stuff, thinking that it was an OK substitute for running, but it doesn't look like that's the case.

I ran again today (on snowy roads), and it went much better. I paced myself better and took a slightly different route that didn't have me going down long hills. It wasn't a particularly comfortable run, but I didn't have any knee problems and I was able to hit my target run time.

Difficult-Difficult

I wanted to post a link to this article on Alwyn Cosgrove's blog before I forget it. It's about stretching yourself and comparing activities that are difficult-difficult with those that are difficult-easy. Good stuff.

I'm nearing the end of my "transition" period of the off-season. I've been staying pretty active, but not taking things too seriously. Training resumes in earnest tomorrow. I will be following the Morris plan for 2009. It will be interesting to see how it all goes.

Confidence and Cleaning

I've been officially on vacation for the past few days. Unfortunately, I've still had to check work email a little and I had to call in to one meeting. Now I'm really on vacation until Jan 5th, as my customer's office is now closed. I've been spending most of my time cleaning up around the house. The family is all coming over for Christmas, so we needed to get the house in order. I can't say it's been fun, but it's nice to have a clean house.

My workouts have been pretty sporadic. We've been getting dumped on with snow, so I'm at least out shoveling, but I haven't done much else. That's OK though, I've only got another week or so of "transitioning" before I get going on the '09 training.

I had a decent hockey game on Sunday night. I ended up with two goals and a couple other good chances. I'm starting to play with more confidence, even though my skills (skating, puck handling, you name it...) are not where I'd like them to be. I think the confidence thing is key, even if you're just faking it. Fake it 'till you make it...

Suzie Q, Space Dog!

10,000 Hours

There's sort of a pop-pyschology theory floating around that says to become a world-class performer at any skill, you need roughly 10,000 hours of practice. Most recently, this theory has been publicized by Malcolm Gladwell, but it originated elsewhere. I'd heard about this before, but it came back to my attention due to this T-Nation article (note: T-Nation is not at all a work-friendly site... I'm almost embarassed to admit I read it, but they do post some very good articles).

The interesting bit in the T-Nation article (if I scared you off from reading it yourself) was that, in the original study, they didn't find exceptions. That is, there were no "naturals", people that were elite that put in significantly less than 10,000 hours, and there were no "grinders", people that put in 10,000 hours but were not elite.

Relative to cycling, there also seems to be anecdotal evidence to support this. There are plenty of stories about pro cyclists who rode many many hours in their youth. Interestingly enough, the pro cyclist stories usually are told with the idea that they probably rode too much. Maybe in hindsight they do feel like they rode too much, but I really wonder if they would have become pro's if they hadn't done it.

OK, so we're coming to my main question. If something like the 10,000 hour theory is correct, should we really be using low-volume, high-intensity training schedules? On the face of it, you'd have to say no. Low-volume means that you'd have to train much longer to hit your 10,000 hours.

Under further examination though, the answer isn't so easy, because I think not all training time is equal. To give a slightly absurd example, let's say I spent my 10,000 hours only riding on the trainer. Would I become an elite bike racer? Obviously not, I wouldn't have any handling skills. What about 10,000 hours doing LSD rides outdoors? Not as easy to answer, but probably still not. 10,000 hours racing or doing quality efforts? I think you'd have to answer yes there (although I don't know how long it would take to accumulate that time).

This suggests to me that there is some separation between the strength / conditioning aspect of racing and the skill of bike racing. (In fact, Jeff told me as much earlier this year, "You're finally starting to look like a bike racer..." What I didn't write in that post was his other comment, "Putting down power is easy.") So, the issue is the quantity of quality hours, not just the quantity of hours.

For the high-intensity plan, I see two ways this could benefit you: 1. You should spend more of your training hours training at race-like conditions. 2. The lower volume of hours spent working on the conditioning aspect of cycling could free up more time to work on other skill aspects.

Sorry for the long post, but there was a lot to cover...

Screw Shoes Update

I've gotten in a few runs now with the screw shoes. The first run was on very hard-packed snow and ice. These are probably ideal conditions for the screw shoes. You definitely still slip a little (and I was being careful), but the screws slow down the rate of slip considerably. Even though everyone says it's fine, I was worried about feeling the screws poking me through my shoes; everyone is right, you don't feel them. The shoe is not real comfortable running on bare pavement though, since your weight is entirely focused on the screw heads. Probably more screws would help with that I guess.

The run I did last night with the screw shoes was a little different. There was a lot more unpacked snow on the ground, and the shoes didn't work quite as well. It felt like the sole of the shoe would pack up with snow so the screws wouldn't bite and it got a little slippery. Still, most of the time, it was vastly better than running on unmodified shoes.

Win Every Shift

There were a lot of good quotes in the local papers when Steve Yzerman retired. I thought one of the best discussed his desire. It went something along the lines of "... he wanted to win every game, every period, every shift."

On Sunday night, I decided that I should use my hockey games as an opportunity to practice mental preparation techniques that I also use for cycling. I thought I'd keep it simple and just come up with a few goals for the game, just like I have goals for my races. With the basic goals in mind, then the technique is to come up with a short, powerful phrase to get your mind in the right state to achieve them. Then, I used what my Mental Edge book calls a "success history search" to associate some emotion to them.

My phrases for the skate were:

1. Win every shift
2. Own the corners
3. Get open (I had a little trouble coming up with a good #3)

Doesn't sound like too much when you read it, but, when you've spent 30 minutes in the car attaching emotions and positive images to those phrases, it gets you pretty fired up. In the game, I found that my phrases worked really well. One surprising result was that my focus during the game was much better than it usually is. Since hockey isn't my "main" sport and it's a pretty informal group, sometimes on the bench near the end of the game, I'm getting tired and I'm watching the clock and I'm just ready to go home. This week though, even though I was getting tired near the end again, my focus was much better. I didn't have any thoughts about the clock running out and going home, and I actually felt stronger near the end of the game.

Assuming that my fitness this week wasn't noticeably better than last week, you have to put the difference down to my attitude. Interesting result.

After some reflection on the way home, I think for next week, goal #3 will be "move your feet".

Nebraska

After watching the Lions get spanked at home on Thursday, the family headed out to Nebraska for a wedding on Friday. The trip down on Friday went very smoothly, my daughter was pretty calm for our first flight (Detroit to Chicago) and slept the entire second flight (Chicago to Omaha).

The time we spent in Nebraska was fairly relaxing, aside from keeping my daughter up past her bedtime every night. We stopped by the bike shop in Grand Island, NE. It was a pretty decent shop; they had a cool kids tricycle that caught my eye. Maybe a first birthday present for someone? (I think this photo doesn't do it justice. I will try to upload the picture I took with my phone at the bike shop.)

I was pretty happy to not be trying to stay in shape on the trip for the race next weekend. I managed to get some exercise in one day out of the three. I had planned to play hockey Sunday night also, but...

Our trip back Sunday was pretty brutal. We left at 8:30am, and didn't get home until about 10:00pm. Both of our flights were delayed, and we sat on the ground in planes for quite a while waiting for gates to open up. Our checked bag also didn't make it to Detroit on our flight. It arrived at our house at midnight (!) last night. My daughter did OK on the planes, but it was a long day of traveling for everyone.

Pain in the Neck

I was hauling around some 80lb bags of water softener salt Monday night, and today my neck and shoulders have just been killing me. I'm 99% sure it was the salt that did it...

Last night, I went for a run again. This time, I warmed up for 10 minutes on the trainer first. I was able to complete my run as-scheduled with no knee problems, so it looks like warming up properly is key. I was reminded of some facts regarding in the winter, in the dark, in a neighborhood that doesn't get plowed... it gets icy in spots that are driven over a lot. I didn't have any trouble, but I could feel the ice underfoot a few times. I figured that if I keep this up all winter, I'm sure to wipe out. So, I went in search of solutions...

There are a lot of add-on traction solutions available, but I'm going to try the DIY way, found here. The nice thing about this is that it's pretty cheap (I spent about $2 on sheet metal screws) and, if it doesn't work, I can take the screws back out . So, I took my old pair of running shoes and sunk a few screws in. I'm going to run tomorrow, but the roads may be clear enough that I'll use my normal shoes. Once I run on another icy day, I'll write about how it worked.

Also, for those in need of some "motivation", you might try, Nega-coach!

Done!

I decided on Wednesday night that I was done racing for the year. Just way too much stuff going on and my fitness had already slipped. It took me until Thursday before I felt recovered from the jet lag. I don't regret not racing this morning.

After I decided I was done, I actually had a pretty enjoyable week. I got a lot done at work, played with my daughter, and drank some beer... excellent!

Starting yesterday, I decided that I'd better not be a total slug, so I got out for a run in the morning. I had to cut it short when my knee started bothering me. I think part of the problem was that I wasn't warmed up enough. I think this isn't such a big deal in the summer, when just walking around outside will loosen you up a bit, but in the winter, just walking outside will probably tighten you up. I did some easy spinning on the bike after my run and everything loosened right up and I felt OK. So, for my next run, I'm going to spend 10-15 minutes pedaling the bike inside (or doing something else inside) before I go out.

This morning I got outside and finished raking the leaves in my yard. It was actually pretty comfortable, since it was sunny and I was working. I'm leaving for hockey in another hour or so. This will be the first time in quite a while that I've skated two weeks in a row... I'm expecting good things!

Struggling

This week has really been a struggle. I'm definitely having more trouble adjusting to the time change this week than I did going the other way last week. I only slept about 4 hours Sunday night, and then last night I was up for about 2 hours at 2am.

Work has been full throttle since I've been back. I haven't had any energy to train since I've been home (except for hockey Sunday night). I was pretty tired this morning, which may actually be a good sign, since I was very alert in the mornings earlier this week. I'm hoping to be able to get a trainer ride in tonight, we'll see.

I've pretty much decided that I'm not doing the Waterford 'cross race this year. I don't see me being able to stay in reasonable shape over the next few weeks. I'm also really questioning whether or not to race this weekend. I barely trained last week and I don't have much motivation right now. It will probably come down to a last minute decision.

So, that means that my cycling season will be over after this weekend, or, it's already over and I just don't know it yet. I've basically now recognized that it's difficult from a training standpoint and from a motivation standpoint for me to race in November and into December (I've had trouble with this in past years too). I'm taking this into account in next year's training plan. I'll try to be in good shape a little earlier in the 'cross season, and maybe not worry too much about the last couple races.