I think I just saw Randy Savage at the YMCA...

Okay, okay, okay. So maybe it wasn't really him. But the guy there had the same perma-tannned, oily skinnned, bulgy-eyed, roided up look. And I'm 99.9% sure that if I had bumped into him he would have responded with something like, "Hey, watch it kid or else the BONE-SAW is going to break your twiggy little body in half!"

A Bad Plan is Better Plan Than No Plan

Yep, it's that time of year again. Time to figure out what I'm going to do with my life. Don't worry, I won't wax metaphysical or anything on you here. I'm talking about my training plan for the year.

Last year was my first real year of planning for the entire cycling season. In the past--2003-2009ish--it had always looked something like this....

1) Snow Melts, Craig goes outside again and starts running or something. (Remember that's can be as late as April in Minnesota)

2) School lets out, Craig starts riding his bike and sometimes triathloning as early as one week after school ends. (those June races were never too pretty)

3) Go like crazy all summer, usually facing the danger of burn-out sometime around the 3rd week in July while the race schedule has a lull

4) Peak in mid August (usually with high aspirations for the Turtleman Triathlon)

5) Go back to school in September and let the fitness slowly fade through the cold white months of winter.

6) Repeat steps 1-5.

So what made the big difference last year, you ask? A Christmas present, I tell you. No ordinary one at that. I got a copy of The Cyclist's Training Bible, by Joe Friel. It's a fantastic read and one of the best things I learned while reading was to make goals and plans for the season. Then structure my training plan around those goals. This may seem basic, but taking the time to actually sit down and do it is something that most of us never do.

The next part is the hard part. Learning from your results of the year before. That's where I'm at now and am trying to figure out how to layout this next year. The other difficult aspect is that I've now moved to Wisconsin and don't know the race calendar around here. I think that my main goal for the year will be to peak around the second weekend in July because that's when Superweek comes to town around here. I got to race in one Superweek event in Geneva, IL last year and it was lots of fun. We'll see if I can give it a go again this summer, maybe with a race in the Tour of America's Dairyland as an appetizer.

If you've never taken the time to make long term fitness goals or plans, do it. You won't regret it. Because the plan is aimed several months out, it's important as you go to evaluate it's effectiveness and tweak it as necessary. What's the worst that could happen, you learn something about yourself? After all, the only plan worse than a bad one is no plan.

Antioxidants: who needs 'em?

The name antioxidants implies that they are against oxidants. But why would you be anti-oxidant? Is there anyone out there who is pro-oxidant?


Let's start with the basics:


As your body works and metabolizes fuel (makes energy) it also produces reactive oxygen species, or ROS. Not to be confused with ROUS's (I don't even believe they exist). You may have also heard of them as Free Radicals. Your body makes them all the time during metabolism and when your metabolic needs increase when you are more active your ROS production increases too. Whatever the name is, most people agree that it is good to keep them in check. You see, generally your body oxidizes metabolites in order to break them down. Oxygen, as you may have inferred by the theme in naming here, is really good at oxidizing. The problem is when you have ROS attacking things in your body that they shouldn't attack...like your cells.


An antioxidant, then, is something that gets oxidized to stop your body from being damaged by getting oxidized. Some common simple antioxidants include Vitamin C and Vitamin E but there are many more that the body uses. In some ways it makes an antioxidant like a bodyguard taking a bullet for you.


The theory behind supplementing antioxidants is pretty sound, try and stop the dangerous ROS flying around by upping the number of body guards (antioxidants) in the system. But the proof is a bit lacking.


If we move on to the current evidence we see:


One study in Spain (M.E. Munoz et al. / Toxicology 278 (2010) 101–111) published recently, showed that there was a benefit for elderly exercisers whose body's natural defense mechanisms were a little worn out. But then again these participants were sedentary to begin with and the study was sponsored by the antioxidant drink that the participants were taking during the study.


Another study done by University of Wisconsin-Madison said the opposite, that perhaps helping your body deal with antioxidants stops your body from making other good adaptations to exercise. Most benefits from exercise actually come from stressing your body which includes the production of ROS. When you let your body recover from this stress, your body generally rebuilds itself as strong or stronger than before which is what allows for increased performance. Yet another more recent study in Germany echoed these findings by showing that exercisers who supplemented with antioxidants had less of an increase in insulin sensitivity than exercisers who did not take antioxidants. That means that antioxidant supplementation could actually decrease the effectiveness of exercise for managing Type 2 diabetes.


Finally, the idea of taking antioxidants as a daily supplement or in your multivitamin has lost a little bit of its credence since an article in JAMA came out that showed daily doses of antioxidant substances ranging from beta-carotene to Vitamin E may actually do more harm than good as a preventative measure.


The conclusion:


...a bit fuzzy. Antioxidants have reached craze status, this is confirmed by the fact that the word antioxidants has become a marketing catch phrase and is plastered all over everything from breakfast cereal to green tea. The science behind them is convincing, but as it turns out your body is pretty good at managing on its own.


Even in an event like an Ironman Triathlon, where there is a very significant increase in ROS production, healthy well trained athletes "experience no adverse health risks regarding oxidative stress" (Toxicology. 2010 Dec 5;278(2):211-6. Epub 2009 Sep 18). So for all of you endurance athletes out there who see Lance Armstrong drinking FRS in the commercials, don't be too quick to join the antioxidant party.


As with all fitness fads, it's best to give it a little time before following the crowd. That allows the scientists some time to straighten out the theory from the practice. And don't think the decision here is final. I'm sure it will be some time before this all really gets figured out and we stop going back and forth on what we think is best. Until then I'd say it's best to stick with what has lasted the test of time. Let your body do what it's been made to do by training regularly. It'll give you the jump on ROS you're looking for instead of dumping in extra unnecessary antioxidant supplements and relying on those to do the work for you. Then again, that's just my opinion and I'm no professional... at least not yet.

FitDeck

No cash for a personal trainer? No time to figure out what kind of exercise you should be doing? No problem.

I'm kind of a freak in that one of the things that I really enjoy is planning workouts and then actually doing them. Most people struggle with figuring out what they should do, how long they should do it, when they should do it etc. And if you get far enough to figure all that out it burns a lot of energy needed to overcome the exercise inertia that keeps you from going out and doing it.

Enter the FitDeck. It's a pretty nifty little idea if you ask me. A FitDeck is a deck of 30-50 odd playing cards designed to create a workout for you. There are all sorts of different kinds. Take the "bodyweight workout" set for instance. There are 50 different bodyweight exercises. You just draw however many you want to do and go to work on your very own circuit workout. Each card is intended to take about a minute of time. So in 30 minutes you could do a 10 exercise circuit 3 times or just do 30 different exercises. Pretty cool, eh? I thought so, I got a Pilates set for my wife for Christmas.

They have all different kinds to choose from, bodyweight, kettlebell, Navy SEAL, exercise ball etc. Even sport specific decks like Swimming, Soccer or Basketball. The guy who came up with the FitDeck is an ex-Navy SEAL so he knows a thing or two about being in shape. Most of them are designed around having minimal or no equipment which makes them even easier to use than if you had to bring it to the gym.

I'm all about making it easy to do a hard workout--if you know what I mean--and this makes it easy to do without needing to plan it out or find a trainer to figure it out for you. So if you need a little help getting your goals taken care of a FitDeck might just be the boost you need.

By the way, I'm not getting anything from FitDeck for writing this. I just thought it was cool

Making Plans

Whew, just in time for the new year. I can't think of any other time of year that this might be more appropriate than just before everyone is making their New Year Resolutions. Before you scoff and tell me you think it's cliche or that resolutions are just good intentions without anything to back them up think about it for just a moment.

While there is nothing special about the New Year as far as a health or fitness perspective it's not a bad thing to take the chance to make some goals for the upcoming 12 months. The important thing is to distinguish between goals and dreams.

Goals are specific. They have a plan of action to bring them to fruition and a way to measure if they have actually been attained. Dreams on the other hand are unattainable, unrealistic and if you really take the time to think about it are not something that you would ever even expect to happen.

Let's give an example. One of my goals two years ago was to run a 45 min 10k race. To do this I prepared for several months. I planned my weekly runs and set up a schedule to follow so that I would be ready for my big run. On the day of the race I knew how to measure my success. If the clock was over 45 minutes when I crossed the line I had failed and if it was under 45 minutes then I had succeeded. My plan was specific and my goal was measurable. I had some experience running prior to this. It wasn't like I was just trying to start as someone who never ran or only jogged a 12 min/mile pace before this, so I knew that this was within my reach. Thankfully, I attained my goal. I made it to the finish with less than 5 seconds to spare.

Now a dream of mine has always been to be in the Tour de France. This obviously is not going to happen. No matter how much I train, it's just not a possibility. I'm in my mid 20's, I have raced my bike for one year so far and am only a Cat 4 racer. Riding in Le Tour just is not an option for me. But I can dream, can't I?

Another important part of setting reasonable goals is using the right scale to measure them. You would never measure the growth of a tree in seconds. It would be absurd. The same is true for fitness or nutrition goals, you need to measure with a calendar, not a clock.

So even if you are adverse to making a New Year's Resolution, think about all this the next time you make plans for life whether they are in your work or play. Aim high, but have a plan for how to achieve it and measure it when you get there so that you don't spend all of your energy towards something you discover to be just a dream.