Willie said it best when he wrote:
“Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.”
William Shakespeare
Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.
Norman Vincent Peale
Three Lefties - Shultz, McNamee, Palandjian
February practice with the Harvard Tennis Men’s Team (pictured from left Christo Schultz, Will McNamee, Paul Palandjian). Congratulations goes out to the team and Coaches Fish and Rueb for their victory in winning the ECAC Team Championships last weekend hosted by Yale. Harvard defeated Brown, Princeton and the always “dirty” Columbia tennis teams to win the tournament in decisive fashion.
Package Transport Required
To settle the debate about the efficacy of conventional long distance slow training versus interval training, Martin Gibala has come to the rescue. Gibala, an Associate Professor of Kinesiology at McMaster University in Canada published a study in the September issue of the Journal of Physiology comparing interval training and steady state training or long slow distance. The study, although conducted over only a two week period, looked at a twenty minute interval program versus steady state work ranging from ninety to one hundred and twenty minutes. The interval work consisted of thirty second sprints followed by four minutes of slow pedaling. This would amount to two to two and half minutes of high intensity work during a twenty minute session as compared to 90-120 minutes in the “heartrate zone” for the distance group. Gee, which would I want if both were equal?
The conclusion was that both methods showed roughly the same improvement in the chosen marker of oxygen utilization. Yes, the same. Do the math. Each group worked out three times a week. The interval group exercised for a total elapsed time of one hour per week with six to seven and a half minutes of intense exercise contained in that hour. The steady state group exercised for between four and a half and six hours a week yet the aerobic benefits were the same?
Seems to me if time is an issue in your life interval training is your fitness answer. Obviously, the study only looked at aerobic capacity and not caloric expenditure or weight loss but, it’s another huge boost for those us who believe in the superiority of interval training. The reality is that athletes have known this for years. Unfortunately, the fitness and medical community continues to beat the long slow distance drum. The question in my mind is not whether or not you should be interval training but, why aren’t you. A brief warning. Intense intervals aren’t for beginners. You must be healthy and have a few weeks of the dreaded Long Slow Distance in your system before attempting intervals.
Thank you to Mike Boyle’s informative 2008 article a portion of which was excerpted above.
Imagine you are sixteen years old and your parents give you your first car. They also give you simple instructions. There is one small hitch, you only get one car, you can never get another. Never. No trade-ins, no trade-ups. Nothing
Ask yourself how would you maintain that car? My guess is you would be meticulous. Frequent oil changes, proper fuel, etc. Now imagine if your parents also told you that none of the replacement parts for this car would ever work as well as the original parts. Not only that, the replacement parts would be expensive to install and cause you to have decreased use of your car for the rest of the cars useful life? In other words, the car would continue to run but, not at the same speed and with the efficiency you were used to.
Wow, now would we ever put a lot of time and effort into maintenance if that were the case.
After reading the above example ask yourself another question. Why is the human body different? Why do we act as if we don’t care about the one body we were given. Same deal. You only get one body. No returns or trade-ins. Sure, we can replace parts but boy it’s a lot of work and it hurts. Besides, the stuff they put in never works as well as the original “factory” parts. The replacement knee or hip doesn’t give you the same feel and performance as the original part.
Think about it. One body. You determine the mileage? You set the maintenance plan?
No refunds, no warranties, no do-overs?
How about this perspective? One of my clients is a very successful businessman. He often is asked to speak to various groups. One thing he tells every group is that you are going to spend time and money on your health. The truth is the process can be a proactive one or a reactive one. Money spent on your health can take the form of a personal trainer, massage therapist and a gym membership or, it can be money spent on cardiologists, anesthesiologists, and plastic surgeons. Either way, you will spend money.
Same goes for time. You can go to the gym or, to the doctors office. It’s up to you. Either way, you will spend time. Some people say things like “I hate to work out”. Try sitting in the emergency room for a few hours and then get back to me. Working out may not seem so bad. Much like a car, a little preventative maintenance can go a long way. However, in so many ways the body is better than a car. With some good hard work you can turn back the odometer on the body. I wrote an article a while back ( Strength Training- The Fountain of Youth) that discussed a study done by McMaster University which showed that muscle tissue of older subjects actually changed at the cellular level and looked more like the younger control subjects after strength training.
Do me a favor, spend some time on preventative maintenance, it beats the heck out of the alternative. Just remember, you will spend both time and money.
Mike Boyle
http://www.FunctionalStrengthCoach3.com
“Space and light and order. Those are the things that men need just as much as they need bread or a place to sleep.” Le Corbusier
“I love the way he comes out for Davis Cup. He brings that energy, he likes the big stage and things matter in Davis Cup. I like the way he’s performed in Davis Cup and I like what I’ve seen from him.”
2007 Davis Cup Championship Captain – Patrick McEnroe
Take away – Be positive, consistent, energetic, passionate and…
You have got to get busy, stay busy and cowboy up for country…
People tend not to use this word beauty because it’s not intellectual – but there has to be an overlap between beauty and intellect. – Tadao Ando
My thought for today: Half of life is – yes – WHAT you do and how you go about it. But more importantly – the other half and that which brings true fulfillment is WHO you spend it with…Peace, P.
On light in space: “We believe that beauty is not to be searched for in the objects themselves, but in the brightness and shadow-play, unfolding between the objects.”
Tanizakio Jun’ichiro, ‘Lob des Schattens’.
