Last week I teamed up with my good fiend and fellow trainer Jim Bathurst to help Bob Vastine celebrate his 72nd birthday by lifting 50,000 pounds of weight in 1 hour. He would be doing so with two lifts: the rack pull (a raised deadlift), and the bench press.
For only three weeks prior to this event did Jim and I work with Bob to prepare. He had been working with Jim on mobility and some pretty intense stretching, while with me, he worked on light conditioning, stability and some basic strength work. After we went back and forth on some different ideas (last year he pulled the car for his 71st), we decided on this challenge, something that we all thought would be very tough and pretty damn impressive as well. So we got to preparing.
It was a rough start. On day one, to see where he stood on the rack pull, we used 185lbs and were only able to make it through 6 rounds before we had to hang it up and get on the mat to stretch out. Bob was mostly struggling with the conditioning aspect of this style of lifting. Holding the world record in his age group for deadlift (450lbs) and bench (285lbs), he really is used to just moving a crazy heavy load no more than a few times and taking a nice long recovery. This was a whole different monster.
Jim and I geeked out with the numbers and calculated that he would need to perform 15 sets of a 185 rack pull and a 135 bench press with a 60 second rest between exercises and a 30 second prep time for each as well. This would leave him about 500lbs shy of the goal weight at 60 minutes. So, with training, keeping a close eye on the heart rate the entire time (we didn't want to see that thing get too far over 145, pretty high to sit for an extended period for a 72 year old), we worked to find ways to shave off rest time. We were skeptical on raising the weight because we did not in any way want to compromise his form and risk injury.
After some concern and talking about adding time to have it performed in 72 minutes, we decided to just get after it. And on Tuesday, November 24th, Bob came in to get after it. With a select few people cheering him on, Bob put on an incredibly impressive display, keeping great rhythm, perfect posture all around and in the end, here's what he finished with:
54 minutes
53,800 total pound lifted.
He looked so good in fact, after 11 rounds Jim and I added 10lbs to each lift for 6 solid more rounds. Great work Bob! You continue to be an inspiration to me and to so many others.
Never Stop, GET FIT.
Josh Courage
Monday, November 30, 2009
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Over-Trained / Under-Fueled
This past week I know I was right on the brink of going a little overboard. But it wasn't necessarily from training too much. In fact, I really did not train much more than my body is normally used to, the only question as to my actual training would be how quickly I decided to get into this crossfit programming around a marathon. What really played a large role in the way I felt Friday coming into that trans-continental workout, was my nutrition. I was improperly fueled.
When I started all this a month ago, I began a modified Zone diet, which was actually going pretty well up until the marathon. I began increasing my carb intake the week before the run knowing that I would need the extra glycogen reserves during the long endurence-filled day. What happened after the run is what threw me off. I completely crashed. And, as a result of the energy depletion I was feeling, and the fact that I had all this left-over food at my place from the marathon event, I ended up consuming not only a bit too much, but also a bit too much of the wrong kinds of food (IE: crap carbs in the form of flour, wraps and chips, refined sugars, sodium filled sandwich meats and nowhere near enough veggies and natural sugars and fats). When improperly fueled, my body ends up reacting in a couple different ways (I know from plenty of experience): my metabolism gets thrown off drastically resulting in abnormal sleeping patterns, fluxuating energy, slight mood swings and feelings of weakness and super strength. When read, this sounds like I all of a sudden became some roided out crazy man running down the street looking for his next kill; while, more realistically, these effects were very subtle and only noticable by me, and maybe a couple really close, very observant friends.
So what ended up happening? I continued with my everyday activities -training clients and working out- and each day things just got tougher and tougher. My recovery from the workouts got slower and slower until I wasn't really recovering at all. And two Saturdays ago, when I did my tons of hill sprints and DB clean and presses, I really never felt one ounce of recovery from that day on, untill today. And through this experience I realized something that I think is so important for anyone trying to get, and stay at a good/great fitness level:
Prepare, and don't forget to eat.
Upon a short recollection of my last couple weeks, I found that the main theme was my complete lack of schedule for consumption. Even on days when I ate well (meaning, I don't consume crap/fake food) I was still not doing so on a regular schedule. There were times when I would go 4 or more hours without eating more than a few pieces of dried mango, and for someone who's lifestyle demands constant activity, I need to make sure that I am constantly fueling so that I can keep my metabolism running smoothly. The worst part about doing this is that in the evening, when I started to slow down from the busy day and the hard workouts, I would then all of a sudden realize just how damn hungry I actually was. And in the past couple weeks, my attempts to control that hunger were pretty weak to say the least.
So, tonight, I had Gladiator playing in the background while I shuffled around the kitchen cooking up chicken breasts, ground ostrich, chicken apple sausage, turkey chili, salmon burgers and few other main proteins. I also wrote out a basic list of meals throughout the day to follow, and general times foe when I should be having those meals. Now, all I will have to do during the day is check my cards, check my watch, add the veggies, salad, fruits, beans and eggs and my meals will be complete. It really was not a very difficult thing to do, it's just one of those things you have to kick yourself in the but and just DO if you know you won't have the time for it during the week. Preparation. A fit, healthy person will always be prepared.
Never Stop, GET FIT.
Josh Courage
When I started all this a month ago, I began a modified Zone diet, which was actually going pretty well up until the marathon. I began increasing my carb intake the week before the run knowing that I would need the extra glycogen reserves during the long endurence-filled day. What happened after the run is what threw me off. I completely crashed. And, as a result of the energy depletion I was feeling, and the fact that I had all this left-over food at my place from the marathon event, I ended up consuming not only a bit too much, but also a bit too much of the wrong kinds of food (IE: crap carbs in the form of flour, wraps and chips, refined sugars, sodium filled sandwich meats and nowhere near enough veggies and natural sugars and fats). When improperly fueled, my body ends up reacting in a couple different ways (I know from plenty of experience): my metabolism gets thrown off drastically resulting in abnormal sleeping patterns, fluxuating energy, slight mood swings and feelings of weakness and super strength. When read, this sounds like I all of a sudden became some roided out crazy man running down the street looking for his next kill; while, more realistically, these effects were very subtle and only noticable by me, and maybe a couple really close, very observant friends.
So what ended up happening? I continued with my everyday activities -training clients and working out- and each day things just got tougher and tougher. My recovery from the workouts got slower and slower until I wasn't really recovering at all. And two Saturdays ago, when I did my tons of hill sprints and DB clean and presses, I really never felt one ounce of recovery from that day on, untill today. And through this experience I realized something that I think is so important for anyone trying to get, and stay at a good/great fitness level:
Prepare, and don't forget to eat.
Upon a short recollection of my last couple weeks, I found that the main theme was my complete lack of schedule for consumption. Even on days when I ate well (meaning, I don't consume crap/fake food) I was still not doing so on a regular schedule. There were times when I would go 4 or more hours without eating more than a few pieces of dried mango, and for someone who's lifestyle demands constant activity, I need to make sure that I am constantly fueling so that I can keep my metabolism running smoothly. The worst part about doing this is that in the evening, when I started to slow down from the busy day and the hard workouts, I would then all of a sudden realize just how damn hungry I actually was. And in the past couple weeks, my attempts to control that hunger were pretty weak to say the least.
So, tonight, I had Gladiator playing in the background while I shuffled around the kitchen cooking up chicken breasts, ground ostrich, chicken apple sausage, turkey chili, salmon burgers and few other main proteins. I also wrote out a basic list of meals throughout the day to follow, and general times foe when I should be having those meals. Now, all I will have to do during the day is check my cards, check my watch, add the veggies, salad, fruits, beans and eggs and my meals will be complete. It really was not a very difficult thing to do, it's just one of those things you have to kick yourself in the but and just DO if you know you won't have the time for it during the week. Preparation. A fit, healthy person will always be prepared.
Never Stop, GET FIT.
Josh Courage
Saturday, November 28, 2009
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