Happenings
My apologies for being a little late
with this issue of the newsletter, but I had a rather pressing issue (pun
intended) that needed attending to.
As some of you may be aware, my wife
and I live on a block of land that is covered in native bush. On this property,
we operate a foreststay, homestay hosted-home business. Although there are a
lot of trees on the property, because we have placed an open space covenant on
it, we cannot cut down trees for firewood. Most of our cooking is done on a
woodstove which also supplies backup for our solar water-heating and is also
our sole provider of heating. As we need a constant supply of firewood, we are
always on the lookout for fuel supplies. The local farmers can supply some of
our needs, but we felt that we would need to have some sort of ongoing supply
from our bit of land, so we decided to plant fuel-wood trees on the small part
of our land that we excluded from the covenant. Last week, the final
consignment of seedling trees arrived for planting and we needed to clear
grass-weeds and plant the seedlings while the weather was suitable. We hope
that the first seedlings planted a couple of years ago, will be suitable for
felling in another three years or so. These stumps will then coppice, and
produce a second crop of trees. Here’s hoping!
For those of you who may be
interested in our place, logon to www.foreststay.com
and see where all this drivel comes from.
Enough of all that. Let’s get onto the
important stuff!
Welcome to Shanna Crispin from the
West Coast of the
A little further north, in my neck
of the woods, a couple of recent members and me, took part in the Athletics New
Zealand Track & Field Championships race walking events in
A couple of days later, the farmyard
manure hit the whirly-thing when we all lined up together to face the starter’s
gun in the 20km road walk. We had anticipated that the course would be fraught
with problems, and we weren’t wrong. I won’t go into details, but times were a
little slow and I don’t think anyone finished the distance feeling fully
satisfied. Nevertheless, Shirley Barber was pleased to stand on the podium to
receive her bronze medal for finishing 3rd in a time of 2h 20min
55sec. in the men’s race, I managed to tail-end the field with a time of 2h
5min 17sec. In my case, the course didn’t help much, but a lack of suitable
preparation wasn’t much help either. So it’s back to the drawing board for me
and a closer look at what I need to do this coming year.
The Want to be a winner
in your sport?
Here are the five critical tasks:
1. Maximise your aerobic capacity (V02max) so that more energy is available to
sustain your exercise.
2. Raise your lactate threshold as high as possible, so that intense efforts
can be maintained with a minimum of fatigue.
3. Become more efficient at carrying out the exact activities required in your
particular sport, so that less energy is wasted during competition and hard
exertions feel less stressful.
4. Fortify yourself psychologically, so that the vicissitudes of training and
competing can be handled more easily.
5. Learn how to rest, so that your hard training is perfectly balanced with
adequate amounts of recovery.
Now let's break them down....
1. Maximise your aerobic capacity
Hoisting this
is probably the easiest of the five tasks, since just engaging in your sport
for expanded periods of time can heighten V02max (the maximal amount of oxygen
that the body is able to consume). If you're a runner, for example, and
currently training 40 miles per week, you can earn a nice V02max upgrade simply
by expanding your weekly schedule to 50-60 miles, without increasing the actual
intensity of your work-outs.
However, beyond a certain point, increasing your quantity of training no longer
boosts V02max. Once that point is reached, INTENSITY of training becomes the
key factor: you'll have to cycle, run, row or swim at speeds which lift your
heart rate to at least 95 per cent of maximal in order to push V02max as high
as possible.
To make things more difficult, attaining such high heart rates for brief
periods of time won't work. If you're really interested in sending V02max to
the stratosphere, your 'intensity needle' will have to point to 95 per cent of
maximal heart rate for four-to-five minute stretches several times during
selected workouts.
2. Lift your lactate threshold
Lifting lactate
threshold (LT) - the exercise intensity above which lactic acid begins to
increase appreciably in your blood - is fairly straightforward. If you fatten
up your V02max, you will usually raise your threshold as well, since LT is
often a fixed percentage of aerobic capacity.
However, it is also possible to raise LT independently, which is lucky in those
cases where V02max refuses to budge. Training continuously at about 85-90 per
cent of maximal heart rate for 20- to 25-minute periods will generally have a
profound effect on LT.
If you don't own a heart monitor or hate checking your pulse, a good LT-raising
intensity is one which feels as though it would be impossible to sustain for
longer than 30 minutes during a workout.
3. Become more efficient
The key to improving your
efficiency of movement is to recognise that each muscle in your body is
composed of collections of individual muscle cells. If you make a particular
muscle stronger, then fewer of the individual cells within that muscle will be
required to sustain a certain level of effort. In other words, more muscle
cells within the strengthened muscle are allowed to rest while you're engaging
in your sport, and other muscles which assist your power-boosted muscle are
less likely to be called into play. Since you'll need to activate fewer
individual muscle cells to pedal a bicycle at 20 miles per hour, swim at 1.5
metres per second or row a boat at a particular velocity, your overall energy
demand will be lower - you'll be more efficient! As a result, you'll be able to
step up to higher than expected intensities of exercise, or else conserve large
quantities of precious muscle fuel if you prefer to remain at your traditional
work rate.
To get more powerful, and therefore more efficient, you'll need to carry out
some training at levels of effort which are actually higher than your usual
competitive intensities. Obviously such exertions can't be sustained for long,
so the usual plan -for the endurance-oriented athlete is to employ 30-90 second
intervals at close to top capacity. The recipe for the correct recovery
interval during such workouts is a bit ambiguous. Utilising recoveries that are
equal in duration to the work intervals can be good, because it helps an
athlete's muscles to develop 'lactate tolerance' - the ability to control
increases in acidity and sustain high power outputs for longer periods of time.
On the other hand, longer rest intervals allow more work to be done during each
work interval so it's probably best to have some workouts with short recoveries
and others with more extended rest periods. Sprinters, of course, usually won't
want the 90-second work intervals; for a 400m sprinter, for example, 10- and
20-second intervals at faster than 400m pace would be ideal.
An additional way to become more efficient is to make use of an esteemed tenet
of training called the 'specificity principle'. There's no special magic here;
the idea is simply to do some training at the exact intensity one hopes to use
during an important competition.
For example, the top-level runner who wants to sizzle through a 5K in 13:10
should complete some 1000m intervals in 2:38 each, the 10K competitor shooting
for a 30-minute race should carry out 2000m intervals in six minutes, and the
marathoner hoping for a 2:11 clocking should cruise through 10-miles runs in 50
minutes. In each case, these runners are practising the exact tempo which will
be required for the race. Likewise the rower who wants to hustle a boat through
the water at a particular cruising velocity, the cyclist shooting for a goal
time, and the skier needing a specific pace to win a race, must all practise
that particular intensity during training.
The bottom line is that competition is not just a muscular event; an athlete's
nervous system must learn to CONTROL muscular activity at the precise exertion level
required for the race. Specific training allows the nervous and muscular
systems to come together in a coordinated way.
4. Fortify yourself psychologically
Compared to the physiological
requirements of a winning performance, the exact psychological needs of the
top-level athlete are less clear, but it is certain that superior performers
are able to concentrate almost totally on their bodies during workouts and
competitions, blocking out extraneous thoughts and negative information which
might impede their performances. The best athletes also tend to be somewhat
self-critical, but not overly so, and they often engage in 'positive
self-talk', giving themselves encouragement both during exercise and throughout
the course of an average day.
Supreme competitors also have the ability to let bad performances roll off
their backs; in fact, they tend to regard poor outings as opportunities to
learn more about themselves and to make necessary changes in both their
physical and mental preparations for competitions. The best athletes also seem
to form mental images of themselves moving powerfully and quickly, and they
tune in these images before major competitions.
Finally, almost all great athletes have the apparently paradoxical ability to
both relax and remain somewhat tense. Their muscles are untaught and ready for
maximally powerful efforts during competition, yet within their minds, keen
fires burn, which are ready to ignite almost superhuman physical
exertion.
5. Learn how to rest
Although severe
workouts are necessary to get to the top, rest is equally important but is all
too often missing from a potentially great athlete's schedule. Attuned to the
idea that high-level workouts produce winning performances, the majority of
athletes go overboard, pushing themselves to the brink of fatigue and
overtraining. Top athletes have learned that optimal training involves
exercising and resting; it's not possible to reach supreme performance levels
unless fierce exertions are balanced with restoration and recovery.
Even the seemingly fatigue-proof Kenyan runners take two-month respites each
year during which they do very little training. As they put it so simply: 'Our
bodies need to take a rest, so that we can train hard the rest of the year'.
All competitive athletes should have at least one annual six- to eight-week
period in which very little training is done, and should avoid the temptation
to carry out too many high-intensity workouts during the training year.
True, not every athlete needs to reach the five goals which I've outlined
above. Sprinters and throwers, for example, don't require high V02max levels or
lofty lactate thresholds, and they may in fact lose some of their raw muscle
power if they focus on V02max-building training.
Sprinters and throwers need to enhance the anaerobic capacities of their
muscles, not the aerobic, so the maximum amount of force can be exerted in the
shortest possible time. However, for athletes involved in activities which last
for more than a couple of minutes, hitting all five targets should lead to the
biggest pay-off of all: a winning performance.
Every issue of
Peak Performance contains great articles like this - essential advice for all
athletes and coaches.
Weight
Loss and Exercise Myths -- Test Your Fitness IQ
By Lynn Bode
You've tried virtually every "diet" you can think of and still haven't
lost weight. Or, perhaps you've lost weight only to quickly gain it back. You
feel like you are in a never-ending battle that you just can't win. Does this sound
familiar? Stop beating yourself over the head in
frustration!
More than likely you just aren't armed with the right information to help you
be successful in reaching your weight loss goals. There are so many diet
misnomers floating about that it's easy to feel like you’re drowning. The first
step toward success is distinguishing fact from
myth and using the power of knowledge.
To help you get started on the path to permanent weight loss and healthy
living, read below to learn what's true and what's false in the world of diet
and fitness. Take the quiz below to test your knowledge and you'll learn what
it really takes to beat the scale. Read each question and answer true or false.
Then read below to find out whether or not you guessed right.
1. Skipping Meals Is a Good Idea
2. You Can Spot Reduce Certain Parts
of Your Body
3. Eating Late At Night Makes You
Fat
4. If Something Is Fat Free, You Can
Eat As Much As You Want
5. Eating Less Than 1200 Calories
Will Accelerate Weight Loss
6. Salads Are Always A Great Eating
Out Choice
7. You Can Lose and Maintain Weight
Without Exercise
8. If You Only Lose One Pound A Week
You Need A New Diet
9. You Shouldn't Exercise Every Day
10. You Should Wait To Strength
Train Until You've Lost Weight
1. False. The idea behind this myth
is that you'll consume fewer calories in the entire day. The reality is that
you probably will consume at least the same amount, if not more. Skipping a
meal lowers your blood sugar. Low blood sugar
usually makes you very hungry. In return you end up eating quickly and probably
making poor food choices when those hunger pains come a knocking. Eating
several small meals per day helps you stabilize blood sugars and control your appetite.
2. False. If you slave over 200 sit
ups a day, it still isn't going to get rid of your spare tire. Fat is lost evenly
throughout the body. You can't focus on one body part and only work it in an
attempt to reduce that fatty area. To help a trouble spot you must focus on
overall fitness - aerobic workouts, strength training, good nutrition and more.
That's the only way to reduce extra fat.
3. False. Your body doesn't
determine your weight based on WHEN you eat. It just cares how much you eat.
What's important is determining how many calories are coming in
versus how many are going out. You need to find the right
balance based on how much your eating and exercising. If you take in more
calories than you burn, then the extras will be stored as fat. That's true
whether you eat at night or not.
4. False. For the most part, a
calorie is a calorie is a calorie. Sure, it is a little more complex than that
but just keep in mind that for every extra 3,500 calories that you take in and
don't burn off, you will gain a pound. Does it matter if all of those 3,500
calories are fat-free? No! Your body just cares that the extra calories were
consumed. Plus, fat makes you feel full. If you don't eat enough of it, you may
find yourself constantly hungry and you may end up consuming more calories than
if you had eaten something with fat in it to begin with.
5. False. In fact, it may have the
opposite effect. Too few calories per day causes your body to adapt to a
minimal amount of food, and slows down your metabolic rate. The body may think
it's "starving" and actually hold onto every
bit of food to ensure survival. Then, when you begin to eat normally, your
calorie needs are reduced and you end up gaining more weight even though you
are consuming less food.
6. False. Sometimes you'd be better
of eating a burger than a salad. Many restaurant salads are dripping in high calorie,
high fat dressings. Plus, they often add fatty toppings like croutons and bacon
bits. If you are going to choose a salad, be sure the dressing and extras don't
sabotage your calorie counting.
7. True. When it comes right down to
it, weight loss is about the difference between intake and output. As long as you
are burning more calories then you are consuming, then you should be able to lose
weight. So, exercise isn't a necessity but it certainly is the best approach.
Study after study has proven that groups that both maintain an appropriate
calorie intake and also exercise have better weight loss successes and are
better at keeping it off. Plus, exercising provides SO many health benefits it
would
be crazy not to include it as part of a healthy lifestyle.
8. False. Losing 1-2 pounds per week
is actually an excellent weight loss rate. If you lose more than that, then
it's very likely that it won't be permanent. You'll just end up gaining it back.
When you lose at rapid paces, typically you end up losing water weight and lean
mass. You
want to lose fat. So, even though the scale may show less, you won't be as
healthy and won't look as good.
9. True. It's not necessary to
exercise every single day of the week. Sure, it's great if you can get some
type of physical activity in on a daily basis. But, it also is important to
give your body rest time to recover and improve. For example, you don't want to
lift weights every
day working the same muscles. They need time to rest. And, intense cardio
workouts daily can wear you down. Resting one day a week can actually help you.
10. False. Strength training is an
essential part of good fitness. Virtually everyone should include some type of strength
training in their weekly workouts regardless of whether they are wanting to
lose weight, just maintain it, or build muscle. And, muscle actually helps your
metabolism (e.g. helps you burn calories), so you should do it as part of a
weight loss program.
----------------------
About the author:
Lynn Bode is a certified personal trainer specializing in Internet-based
fitness programs. She founded Workouts For You, which provides affordable
online exercise programs that are custom designed for each individual.
(Try www.profitness.net.nz as
well!)
.
PROGRAM
FITNESS
If you should be aware of someone who might benefit from being on a
running or walking exercise program, please get them to log on to www.profitness.net.nz for more
information on how I may be able to help. They may also wish to contact me
direct via my email address. If you wish to know a bit about our Homestay operation, the
website can be seen at www.foreststay.com
The Relationship
Between Sleep and Weight Loss
Guest
author -- Tracy Lee
Everyone
knows the importance of exercise and how it helps us with weight loss, but on
some days don't we all wish we can just sleep in bed and lose weight at the
same time?
Well,
I've got some great news for you...
Sleep
is a critical part of your weight loss program!
This
is a little-known fact, but did you know that sleep can affect your weight?
Rather, it's the lack of sleep that can make you put on unnecessary weight. You
may actually lose more weight if only you were to sleep more every day. What an
intriguing thought, isn't it?
In
a review of several studies examining the impact of sleep on the regulation of
metabolism, Dr. Eve Van Cauter, Professor and Research Associate at the
One
study examined the effect of sleep debt and sleep recovery on hormone
concentrations and glucose tolerance in healthy males ages 18-27. One week of
sleep restriction produced dramatic results: a 30 percent slower response to
both the glucose tolerance test and acute insulin response compared with
results in rested subjects. Sleep deprivation also raised the 24-hour cortisol
profile.
Another
study found that sleep deprivation resulted in 30 percent lower levels of
leptin. Amazingly, the effect is similar to that observed with caloric
restriction (3,000 calories over 3 days), signaling a negative energy balance.
A
more recent study examined the effect of 10 vs. 4 hours of sleep on appetite.
Subjects who slept 4 hours were always hungry and craved starchy, sweet, and
salty foods. These results suggest that sleep deprivation produces a signal
mimicking negative energy balance, inducing people to eat and thereby
predisposing to obesity.
These
results indicate an association between sleep debt and obesity. Sleep
deprivation would affect glucose tolerance and leptin levels and increase the
appetite for unhealthy foods. She noted that sleep restriction would have
greater impact on obese individuals, who have higher leptin levels to begin
with, and on older adults.
Dr.
Van Cauter also noted that the studies were performed in males only. Because
females have higher baseline levels of some hormones (e.g. leptin), sleep
restriction might have worse effects in women than in men.
Hey,
did you notice the groups which were mentioned specifically in the last 2
paragraphs that may be more severely affected by sleep deprivation? I'll recap
them here again: (1) obese individuals, (2) older adults, and (3) women.
That's
really crucial for us because this means if you're a woman over 40, not getting
enough sleep will probably make you feel hungry constantly and crave for all
the unhealthy foods even more as compared to other people. And the more
overweight you are, the more you may be affected by the lack of sleep.
Not
surprisingly, another study has indeed found an inverse relationship between
increased body mass index (BMI) and sleep duration in women. That is, women who
do not sleep enough tend to be more overweight than women who get sufficient
sleep.
And
just in case you still believe in the myth that "Oh, it's alright because
I'll catch up on my sleep on the weekends", you should note that Dr. Van
Cauter also made the following observation: Sleep debt is generally not paid
back fully by weekend sleep. I suppose this is kind of like the saying "An
apple a day, keeps the doctor away" -- eating 7 apples on Sunday instead
of 1 a day just isn't going to give you the same results!
Now,
I'm not saying that you don't have to exercise and all you have to do to lose
weight is to sleep it off. Exercise, strength training and physical activities
in general are vital components of a permanent weight loss program.
It's
simply that if you don't sleep enough, you'll just be making it more difficult
for yourself to lose the extra weight. There's no point in sabotaging your
chances of weight loss success if it's a simple matter of making sure you get
enough sleep every night, right? I mean, how much easier can it get?
According
to William Dement,
Tracy
Lee is the owner of the "Weight Loss for Women Over 40" site.
******************************************************
They say
that a good athlete needs to be flexible. I am rather flexibility challenged,
but this young lady must really be some athlete!
Motivational
Quotes
"No doubt a brain
and some shoes are essential for marathon success, although if it comes down to
a choice, pick the shoes. More people finish marathons with no brains than with
no shoes." - Don Kardong
"It hurts up to a
point and then it doesn't get any worse." - Ann Trason
"The more I talk to
athletes, the more convinced I become that the method of training is relatively
unimportant. There are many ways to the top, and the training method you choose
is just the one that suits you best. No, the important thing is the attitude of
the athlete, the desire to get to the top." - Herb Elliot
"If you race merely
for the tributes from others, you will be at the mercy of their
expectations." - Scott Tinley
"If you start to feel
good during an ultra, don’t worry you will get over it." - Gene Thibeault
"Start slow, then
taper off." - Walt Stack
"DO or DO NOT. There
is no TRY" - Jedi Master Yoda (Star Wars)
"One cannot consent
to creep when one feels an impulse to soar." - Helen Keller
"Hard training, easy
combat; easy training, hard combat." - Russian General Marshal Suvorov
"I find that the
harder I work the more luck I seem to have." - Thomas Jefferson
"Live clean and
train hard." – JoeDom
******************************************************
I hope that this
newsletter finds you all in good spirits and that your goals are looking even
more achievable.
Cheers