The Size of the Fight in the Dog

A couple weeks ago, I had to wince when the chubby young anchor mispronounced Jack Lalanne's name while announcing his death at 96, although it was hard to blame her because by the time she was born, he was already a TOJ and could only be seen pitching his electric juicing machine on non-prime time informercials.

The anchor wouldn't have known that in his prime he accomplished some amazing feats of strength and endurance, like doing 1,000 push ups in 23 minutes and towing a half-ton boat behind him as he swam from Alcatraz to San Francisco. More, importantly, he single-handedly championed the benefits of exercise to the masses on his daily TV show. He was also one of the first to encourage women to lift weights. He was ridiculed by many "authorities" that if people exercised as hard as he recommended, all kinds of problems might befall them. Of course, all these fears were bogus - Jack LaLanne was a pioneer.

I rarely watched his show when I was a kid because I was outside playing sports. Besides, who needed to stand in front of a TV screen to be lead by an over-enthusiastic guy through a series of calisthenics and weight routines? And he looked sort of funny in his one piece jumpsuits with padding in the shoulders. He didn't need any padding because he had good muscle definition and was very strong.

It wasn't later that I realized his outfit was just part of his show. His appearance became his brand. From early in his career, he understood the importance of diet and exercise. The famous English physicist Sir Isaac Newton once credited his achievements to those scientists who came before him; in his words, he "stood on the shoulders of giants." Likewise, the legions of personal trainers and exercise celebrities from Richard Simmons to Tony Horton all stood on Jack Lalanne's shoulders, those of a man only 5"6" tall.

While reading some of the online tributes, I ran across an article that implied Jack LaLanne had failed because despite his life long crusade,  the percentage of obese people in the U.S.  rose from 13% to the present 34%. The author said, "But there are questions about how effective the exercises offered by LaLanne and his peers can ever be for people whose main goal is losing weight."

I don't remember LaLanne promising exercise was the primary means to lose weight. He wasn't selling a fast-acting, six weeks to a new you diet. He didn't have a reality show called The Biggest Loser. He admitted exercise is tough, but the results are worth it. He just made the case that it could help you stay healthy and feel good. He placed a heavy emphasis on good nutrition, i.e., nutrition and exercise control weight.

Exercise has many, many benefits (I rant about them all the time), but weight loss is not one of the main ones. What you eat has much more impact on your weight than exercise. Skinny marathoners are skinny not because they were once fat and now train 100 miles a week, but because they are predisposed to be skinny. In fact, if you exercise a lot, you will get hungrier and have to be vigilant to eat foods rich with the right vitamins, minerals and amino acids. Read the third chapter, "The Elusive Benefits of Exercise," in Gary Taubes' excellent book entitled Why We Get Fat: And What To Do About It.

Jack LaLanne was true inspiration for TOJs everywhere, and a shining example of the truth of the old coach's adage: It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's  the size of the fight in the dog.

Laughing Out 2010

Laughing is as good for us as fresh green vegetables. No joke. :-)

Sometimes the pursuit of health and fitness can get excessive, manic, narcissistic, compulsive, over the top. Especially when the commercial side kicks in -- performance supplements, health and fitness secrets, exotic equipment, promises of the perfect body, be like... (write in the name of your sports/fitness hero).

So let's end the year with year with a big laugh. Listen to this song called "You're Still Gonna Die" by the Old Dogs.  A classic!

These great lyrics, by Shel Silverstein, don't describe TOJs do they? Ha, ha!

So you're takin' better care of your body
Becoming more aware of your body.
Responding to your body's needs.
Everything you hear and read about diets,
Nutrition and sleeping position and detoxifying your system,
And buying machines that they advertise to help you exercise.
Herbs to revitalize you if you're traumatized.
Soaps that will sanitize.
Sprays to deordorize.
Liquid to neutralize acids and pesticides.
Free weights to maximize your strength and muscle size.
Shots that will immunize.
Pills to re-energize you.


But remember that for all your pain and gain
Eventually the story ends the same...
You can quite smokin', but you're still gonna die.
Cut out cokin', but you're still gonna die.
Eliminate everything fatty or fried,
And you get real healthy, but you're still gonna die.
Stop drinkin' booze, you're still gonna die.
Stay away from cooze, you're still gonna die.
You can cut out coffee and never get high,
But you're still gonna, still gonna, still gonna die.


You're still gonna, still gonna, still gonna die.
Still gonna, still gonna, still gonna die.
You can even give aerobics one more try,
But when the music stops playin', you're still gonna die.
Put seat belts in your car, you're still gonna die.
Cut nicotine tar, you're still gonna die.
You can exercise that cellulite off your thigh.
Get slimmer and trimmer, but you're still gonna die.
Stop gettin' a tan, you're still gonna die.
You can search for UFO's up in the sky
They might fly you to Mars where you're still gonna die.


You're still gonna, still gonna, still gonna die.
Still gonna, still gonna, still gonna die.
And all the Reeboks and Nikes and Adidas you buy
You can jog up to heaven and you're still gonna die.


Drink ginseng tonics, you're still gonna die.
Try high colonics, you're still gonna die.
You can have yourself frozen and suspended in time,
But when they do thaw you out, you're still gonna die.
You can have safe sex, you're still gonna die.
You can switch to Crest, you're still gonna die.
You can get rid of stress, get a lot of rest,
Get an AIDS test, enroll in EST,
Move out west where it's sunny and dry
And you'll live to be a hundred
But you're still gonna die.


You're still gonna, still gonna, still gonna die.
Still gonna, still gonna, still gonna die.
So you'd better have some fun
'Fore you say bye-bye,
'Cause you're still gonna, still gonna, still gonna die.


So have some fun in 2011. Run, bike, jump, pump. Breathe hard, sweat, do that last mile or rep. And laugh.
 
Happy New Year!

Becoming a Lean, Mean Eating Machine - Part 1

On the road to fitness, food becomes as important as exercise. Maybe you want to haul less pounds on your runs, recover faster from resistance training, or just feel better.

Changing eating patterns can be a challenge because the older you are when you start the changes, the harder they can be to make because what you eat is the result of habit, convenience and social pressure. Through the years, you have conditioned taste buds to crave a certain mix of sugar, fat and salt. Your family has traditions like deep  fried chicken and fat laden gravy over mashed potatoes. Or your best buddy likes to eat fast food. Maybe (like me) you love the taste of a carb loaded, cold stout.

But once you realize that whatever you put in your mouth affects your exercise and your overall health, you naturally start trying to figure out how to change. A sure way to succeed eating better is to start gradually. Many diets fail because they demand too many changes, too fast.

A much better approach that is guaranteed to work is to start slow and easy and gradually substitute poor food choices with a better ones. You don't do it all at once, but a little at a time. As you do, you learn about food and how it makes you feel and perform. No matter how old or out of shape you may be, you will discover that better food choices steadily improve your strength and endurance, help you think more clearly, and feel more energetic, whether to exercise or work.

The truth is that our bodies are amazingly resilient, and we can live on almost anything that provides enough protein, fats and carbs. Fast food and heavily processed industrial foods (canned, boxed, some frozen) will keep you going, but not over the long haul. But poor food will totally undermine your efforts to get fit. Similarly, good food will get you fit faster.

Over the next couple of weeks this TOJ, speaking from first hand experience, will discuss how to make those food substitutions, starting with how to begin the journey away from heavily processed foods. Here's a warning: once you become a fitness fanatic, you'll become a food fanatic.

____________________________________________
Below is a great recipe sent to me by my daughter. She made these, ate a few, then went to her CrossFit and dead lifted 235 lbs., over twice her body weight.

Easy Coconut Pancakes


1/4 c coconut flour
1/4 c coconut milk
4 eggs
1/2 T agave nectar (or to taste)
1/4 t vanilla extract
dash cinnamon
dash nutmeg

Mix all ingredients with whisk. Let sit for 5 min. while melting butter or coconut oil in pan on med. heat. Cook until light brown on each side.

Three Good Ones

The October issue of Trail Runner magazine had three articles that caught my eye. Although the magazine focuses on ultra-trail running racing (distances 50K plus), often the articles are germane to all endurance sports.

Ibuprofen (aka Nurofen, Advil, Motrin)
The first is called "Pill Popping" by Elinor Fish. It tells the cautionary tale of a 27 year old man who won the 100K National Trail Championship in Eugene, Oregon, then almost died of kidney failure a few days. Doctors suspect the cause was ibuprofen, a class of over the counter drugs called NSAID, an acronym for non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory drug. Ibuprofen is frequently used for symptomatic relief of fevers and minor muscle aches due to colds and flu.

It is so commonly used in the running community that it's called Vitamin I, and taken both before and during races to relieve the muscle pain that occur in tiring muscles during races. The idea is that if you can put off the pain, you can run faster. However, some recent research has shown that actually ibuprofen does nothing at all to relieve the inflammation which occurs during exercise.  In the case of this ultra-runner, it actually clogged the kidneys.

The moral of the story? Don't use it to reduce the normal pain that happens during exercise.

Barefoot Running
There's a good article on the advantages of barefoot running by Michael Sandler, a guy who used it to recover from a serious accident after which he was told he'd never run again. He's definitely got the religion, i.e., wrote a book about it and runs a company to teach it. He says it's easier on the hips and knees than running shoes (he cites research to prove it) and will also help you run faster on trails -- your stride length shortens but your stride is faster.

I haven't bought a pair, so I can't speak much about this. As I've said in earlier blogs, I can't imagine them providing adequate protection on the rocks where I run. My hunch is they are a fad fueled by the popularity of Born to Run. But I could easily be wrong. I thought Crocs would flop. Now I own two pair.

Pre-Race Eating
The last page of the issue is a light-hearted piece by Bernie Boettcher, a very accomplished 49 year old ultra-distance runner. He faithfully follows a healthy food regimen of stuff like oatmeal, raisins, walnuts, chicken, spinach, black berries - you get the picture - the day before a race to optimize his performance, Recently he came in fourth to a guy he saw stuffing his face with pizza the day before the race.

He's a smart guy and obviously knows that what you eat the day before any kind of physical challenge will not have a big impact on your performance. However, it does have a big influence on your ability to train hard day-in-day out and stay healthy. Hard exercise has an inflammatory effect on your body. A good diet provides plenty of phytonutrients and anti-oxidants to help the body heal quickly and support your immune system.

The more likely reason Boettcher lost to the pizza eater was that the winner was younger. A TOJ understands why he might blame his loss on food. It's a lot easier to find a Domino's Pizza than the Fountain of Youth.

Closing the Fitness Gap

When I'm not TOJing, I work at a community health center in the rural resort area of Colorado. Last week a radio reporter called me to talk about childhood obesity. Colorado has the lowest obesity rate in the U.S., but in the past few years, state health officials have noted an alarming trend -- the rate of obesity among children is rising fast, especially in poorer Colorado families.

The reporter asked me why this is happening. I offered several reasons: poorer families don't always have the health education to make good food choices; fresh food is less affordable than mass produced food loaded with fat, salt, and fructose corn syrup; less affluent kids don't have as many opportunities or encouragement to exercise because  fewer PE courses are offered in schools and there are fewer affordable after-school exercise opportunities (many schools now charge money for varsity sports); and cheap sugar and fat laden fast food is heavily marketed and available everywhere.

The day after the interview, I was dismayed to read that basic training of U.S. Army recruits has been altered to eliminate long runs and sit-ups because too many are so obese and unfit that these basic strength and endurance exercises pose a serious risk of injury. Army officials speculated that the causes of this sorry state of affairs were similar to those I guessed: too much junk food and video games, as well as high schools reducing gym classes.

Last Friday I was in Fort Collins, Colorado, for a meeting. Fort Collins has a well-developed trail system for running, hiking and biking. Early in the morning I went to a trailhead at the foot of the hogback just to the west of the CSU football stadium. The sun had just come up and I figured that early I'd have the trail to myself. But, surprisingly, the parking lot was jammed with cars even though I could see nobody out on the trail.

I took off running on a rolling single track for about a mile, then started a zig-zag climb up the rocky face of the hogback. As I neared the top, I saw one, then two, then a long line of runners making the tight hairpin turns down, headed my way. When the first got close, I stepped off the trail to let them pass. There were about thirty of them, mostly men and a few women. They looked lean and fit. The men all had close cropped hair and were clean shaven. As each of them passed, they said, "Good morning, sir." The way they each said "sir" left me with the distinct impression that they were a university ROTC unit out for a training run. It was good to see such a fit group of twenty-somethings out on the trail.

I thought about the difference between these young men and women and the recruits showing up for basic training, many of whom are less affluent young people without the funds to go to college and hoping to pick up some work and skills in the military. My guess is that the young university students had the advantage of mom and dads with the time, income and values to encourage them to participate in gymnastics, soccer, karate and other sports when they were young. This is not to take anything away from their excellent physical condition and discipline to be out on the trail when most of their college buddies were probably still asleep, but these gave them an advantage when they grew up. Most likely, many of the enlisted recruits did not have similar experiences growing up. 

A recent study from the transportation department at Rutgers University discovered that people in countries like Switzerland, the Netherlands and Spain are generally leaner than the average American because they walk and bike more. We need to import more of their lifestyle and city planning to make this possible for Americans, especially children.

We should expand our "inalienable rights" to include life, liberty, justice and fitness for all. And we should walk-the-talk by ensuring, first and foremost, that every child in American has access to a healthy diet and regular exercise. Children who can do sit-ups aren't just stronger, they're smarter. They will develop into adults who can protect our country and compete in the global market. Everybody wins.

Food Fight

You'd think for as long as humans have been around, we'd have the optimum diet for health pretty well figured out.  Yet, here we are in the Twenty-First Century still arguing about food - low carb, high fat versus high fat, low carb, Paleo versus vegetarian, vegetarian versus vegan, corn fed versus free range beef, beef versus buffalo, farm-raised salmon versus wild salmon, gluten or gluten free, vitamin supplements versus nutrients from food only, and so on.

For thousands of years, people ate food based on where they lived and what was available. Our ancestors discovered a lot about food, such as what's poisonous, how to plant and harvest crops, animal husbandry, and how to use heat to kill dangerous bacteria. Most of them still died before they were 50 due to infectious diseases.

But science changed that. We stopped infectious diseases, and new tools and techniques were developed to measure the impacts of food on human health. Strangely, while we've advanced in our understanding of the biochemistry of food, based on the number of obese people and rise in diseases of civilization like cancer and heart disease in our society, the positive impacts on how we actually live well for our investments in food research are mixed,

And, unfortunately, the science can be bought, or strongly influenced, by conglomerates in the food industry. It's very possible the entire FDA food pyramid was built as much by political lobbying by the dairy and cattle industries as it was by bona fide scientific discoveries. Read T. Colin Campbell's The China Study or Howard Lyman's The Mad Cowboy.

This situation makes it hard on a TOJ who's a student of food as it contributes to health and fitness. Some people fuss over food to help them improve athletic performance. Most of us don't need to worry about that and, instead, should focus on what makes us feel good, controls our weight, and gives us the energy to follow our exercise passions.

I think maybe the one-size fits all food plan doesn't exist because our dietary needs vary based on how much we exercise and our body types. Whether ancient Ayurvedic medicine or modern day metabolic body typing, some theories hold that food affects each of us differently - what's good for one person may not be as good for another. Usually, your body let's you know. My wife's a vegan, healthy and follows her TOJ routines fine. I, in contrast, need some dairy and meat to feel satisfied, lucid, and ready to hit the trails or weights. I tried to eat like her once and felt I was starving.

Like you, what I eat is a mix of science and religion. The science is what I've read and observed in my own body, and the religion  just means there's an act of faith involved - I eat (most of the time) what I hope is good for me and probably many others as well.

Here are some food basics In which I believe:

-- Eat lots of fresh veggies and fruit, much of it raw or minimally cooked to keep the nutrients and enzymes intact and     bio-available.

-- Eat only lean cuts of red meat or poultry, and only a few times a week. It should be hormone and antibiotic free.

-- Eat organic foods as much as possible. Some pesticides here and there are unavoidable, but don't ignore them.

--  Focus on nutrients, not calories. When you follow a nutrient rich regimen and exercise, your weight takes care of itself.

-- Avoid fast food. It has no redeeming qualities other than to  temporarily satisfy your hunger.

-- Minimize your consumption of processed food, including so-called "natural" foods. The industrial processes required to produce and preserve them lower their nutrient value.

Over the years, I've changed how and what I eat. I used to be a meat and potatoes guy. I've learned there's another and better way. Now I eat foods that taste good, but also have a strategic health advantage. There was a time I thought healthy food like kale had to taste like grass clippings. Not so. Below this blog is a recipe for kale chips, which taste great, even with beer. And kale has a very high rating for anti-oxidants, imporant to a TOJ recovering from hard exercise.

One of the big questions related to the good fight is this: Is the body a garbage disposal or a temple? Adovocates of the garbage disposal believe that the disgestive tract is such a hostile chemical environment that it can take whatever you eat and will convert it to fats, carbs or protein. It doesn't care if the food came from a discount warehouse or Whole Foods. Young people who frequent fast food joints consider themselves living proofs of this.

A TOJ doesn't go into temples very often (too sweaty), but his or her body has to last to run the next trail, ride the next pass, lift the next kettlebell, ski the next hill, and there's plenty of evidence if you make poor food choices year in, year out, it won't.

CHEEZY KALE CHIPS

2 bunches Kale

1-2 Tablespoons olive oil

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

juice of one lemon

1 cup sunflower seeds ground in a coffee grinder

1/4 to 1/2 c. nutritional yeast (gives it a cheezy flavor)

1-2 Tablespoons Tahini

Wash kale well and remove stems. Pour on olive oil, salt, and lemon juice and massage into the kale using your hands. Sprinkle on sunflower seed and nutritional yeast. Mix in thoroughly. Put on parchment covered dehydrator trays. Heat at 115 for 1/2 hour, then turn dow to 105 degrees and leve overnight. Remove from sheets onto mesh and dry until crispy.

If you don't have a dehydrator, can be dried in the oven at 350 degrees for about 20 to 30 minutes. Watch carefully.

Positive Side Effects

After his narrow victory in the next to the last stage of the Tour de France, Tour champion Alberto Contador commented that he had not been feeling too good, had not slept well, and had a stomach ache. In fact, he'd had physical struggles over the entire 2,200 mile race. He commented to reporters, "Cycling is not like mathematics." He might have added, "because our bodies, no matter how well trained or fed, are unpredictable and complex."

Some days when you go out exercise or compete, you feel and perform just the way you hoped. You've got the groove. But sometimes you don't. You're not sick or injured, you just start into your run or ride or lifting routine and your strength or energy just isn't there. Don't feel bad -  this happens to elite athletes as often as it does to the rest of us.

Sometimes you know the cause. Yesterday I did a kettlebell workout and jumps, leaving my legs tired (the squats were a killer). Today I went for a post-work trail run, with temperatures in the mid-90s under a blazing sun. Ttwenty steps up the trail, I knew each step would be tough going. 

Just as often you don't know why your bio has no rhythm. Maybe you haven't recovered enough from your last exercise session (which is what happened to me) so the glycogen levels are low and your system is busy repairing micro-tears in your muscles. You haven't allowed adequate time for recovery. Or maybe you have some stress at work or in your life that is running you down. Or you are not eating nutritious food.

It's very normal to have days like this every now and then. Just because you don't feel your best doesn't mean you shouldn't proceed with your workout. You might start feeling better after your warm-up. Even if you never feel great that day, you still get the benefits from the exercise. Years ago I read an interesting book called Maximum Performance by a UCLA physiologist who had worked with many elite Olympic athletes. Once he did a survey of people who had set world records, asking how they felt minutes before their event that day. Surprisingly, many complained that they had trouble sleeping the night before, had indigestion, and felt weak. Yet, like Contador, they won. 

However, you want to be on alert if this lethargy or "just ain't got it feeling" occurs on several consecutive days. You might be over-training. A good way to find out is to know your normal resting pulse in the morning an hour after you've gotten out of bed when you've been feeling good. If it starts drifting up over a period of days, say 4-6 beats more per minute, you know you've been pushing too hard and need to take more time off before your next workout or lower the intensity of it. An exercise journal is useful to see if something is changing and what might be the cause.

Most times on days when you don't feel so great but go ahead and continue your workout, you're glad you did. 
Even if you're slow and struggle, you still feel better afterwards. Exercise is a drug with very positive side effects.

Rope Jumping: Floating Like A Butterfly

If you didn't learn how to jump rope when you were a kid, you had a deprived childhood. And if you don't do it once in a while now, you have a deprived adulthood as well. Jumping rope is one of this TOJ's favorite exercises because it has so many physical benefits and can be enjoyed by people of all ages, anywhere, anytime. And it's cheap and safe.

The physical benefits are as good as they get, whether you jump aerobically or anaerobically. It gives you a top cardio workout; involves the total body; stimulates strong bones because you are pushing directly against gravity; promotes timing and coordination; and it has about half the impact of running because you land on the ball of your foot instead of your heel so it's easier on you joints and spine.

The real reward of rope jumping does to the complex of muscles, tendons and ligaments in the foot, ankle and lower leg. The rapid mini-jumps required by rope jumping stimulate tremendous muscle elasticity and balance. The mini-shocks of landing strengthen the entire suspension and stabilization system that supports the rest of your body. All power from your body -- whether running, pumping iron, swinging a bat, throwing a ball -- originates from your feet. It's no coincidence it's a standard practice in a prize fighter's workout.

Rope jumping is an intense, vigorous activity, and ranks among the highest calorie burning exercises of them all. Consider that a 155 lb. person jumping a rope at a moderate rate (100+ jumps/min.) burns 844 calories per hour. A runner of the same size moving at at 10 min. per mile pace burns 704 calories per hour. You burn these calories jumping just an inch off the surface.

I workout with a jump rope at least once a week. Sometimes I just jump continuously for 20-25 minutes. I jump forwards and backwards on both feet, side to side with both feet (like skiing), alternating two jumps more heavily on the right foot then two more heavily on the left, and switching one foot forward and one foot back. I'll follow this with light upper body weight lifting or calisthenics.

Most times I do an interval workout using a heart rate monitor. I jump for two minutes, then rest for one minute. The interval is performed with equal weight on both feet. In the two minutes, I skip steadily faster over the first minute and a half, then as fast as I can for the last half minute. I aim to get my pulse up to at least 80% max (calculate 220 minus your age times .8) the last few seconds. During the one minute rest period, I expect my pulse to drop 30 or more beats, which is a good indication of a decent level of fitness and ability to recover; the more and faster it drops, the better. When your pulse no longer drops less than 30 beats during the one minute rest period and remains elevated is a sign you are fatigued and it's time to stop. You can get a great workout doing just 6 to 10 intervals, and that's perfect if you are pressed for time.

If you haven't jumped rope lately, ease into it. Just do a few minutes a day at a slow pace until you get the hang of it and strengthen your feet and ankles. A good warm up is to stretch your calf by keeping your foot flat on the floor and pushing your knee forward (works good leaning against a wall) and also putting your feet should width apart and springing very lightly with the balls of your feet never leaving the ground. Also rotate both your arms, forward and backwards 10x in a windmill motion, then just shake your hands with your wrists loose. You'll be ready to go.

Invest in a decent rope made of plastic/vinyl. As exercise gear goes, they're inexpensive. Avoid cotton rope (too light) or leather (wears away at the handle). Get the right size by standing on the middle of the rope with one foot and see if the handles just reach your armpits. A pair of cross training shoes, well padded in the forefoot, are nice to have too, though not absolutely necessary.
You can jump on any surface, but it's best to have a little flex like you get on a wooden deck or with a thin practice mat or carpet scrap on a hard surface, especially concrete.

I'm not sure why so many people stop rope jumping when they grow up. You wonder if it's because they associate it with kid's games and fun and a long time ago when they had incredible physical energy, before kids, jobs, and pot guts. Don't be fooled. You can do it at any age. Just pick up a rope and start jumping. It'll take a few weeks, but you'll discover the energy is still there.

I used to marvel watching Muhammad Ali in his prime. A large, powerful man, he moved with such grace and agility, round, after round. To prepare, he spent a lot of time rope jumping. That's how he was able to float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.

You Gotta Have Heart

A heart rate monitor is to a TOJ what a telescope was to Galileo. It provides another insight beyond speed, reps, weight, or distance to measure exercise intensity.

While elite athletes use heart rate monitors as a precision instrument with which to train their bodies the the their max, this TOJ uses one because it is fun to explore how heart rate correlates to the spectrum of sensations experienced between exertion and exhaustion during intense or prolonged exercise.

I've made some interesting discoveries with my Polar heart rate monitor. I was surprised to find that when trudging up a mountainside my heart rate rises, but rarely gets as high has it does on the flats. Even more surprising was the tremendous drop in heart rate coming down. Though my thighs throb, my heart rate drops into a zone where it's not clear there's much training effect, at least according to the conventional calculations for the so-called aerobic zone. My heart also beats slightly harder on a bicycle going uphill than when I run.

Whenever I do intervals where my heart beats close to its maximum rate, I watch to see if it drops a minimum of 30 beats within a minute after completion of the interval. That's a reliable indicator of a good fitness level, and when it doesn't drop that fast after an interval, I'm nearing exhaustion. Sometimes when I workout hard several days in a row, I leave the monitor on after the workout to see how long it takes for my resting rate to return close to normal. If it doesn't return to normal within an hour or so, from my experience, that means I've not recovering between workouts, and that can lead to inflammation and a weakened immune system, making me more susceptible to colds and flu.

Typically heart rate monitors are used to determine some number, based on age, close to maximum heart rate and then the aerobic and fat-burning range between 65% and 80% of maximum heart rate. Truth be told, determining optimum aerobic zones is an inexact science.

For years, dogma was that your maximum heart rate is 220 minus your age, but the calculation has become more elaborate than that. In fact, it's difficult to determine exactly what your max heart rate is, although if you sprint to the point of exhaustion and capture the highest value on your heart rate monitor, you'll be close enough. (Note: Make sure your doctor has cleared you to exercise at that level of intensity, especially if you're a TOJ.)

Online you'll find a plethora of heart rate/aerobic zone calculators. One included a factor that differentiated between the rates for men and women. Here are three good examples: the Mayo Clinic, a fitness site, and a gear (like heart rate monitors) site. I found the gear site correlated the best with mine. Yours may be different.

Using a heart rate monitor during any kind of exercise will make you think about all kinds of things. Recently the NY Times had a good article that raised questions about whether it's best to train in the morning or in the afternoon. The author had discovered a pattern: according to her heart rate monitor, her heart rated tended to be lower in the morning and higher in the afternoon when doing the identical exercise. Some chrono-biologists chimed in that the body may be more primed for hard exercise in the afternoon.

By itself, heart rate is not very useful because it is affected by age, temperature and humidity, how rested your muscles are, what you've been eating, among many other factors. But I've found if you frequently wear one, you develop a sense of how all these are related and reflected in that number. WebMD has an informative summary of the myths and facts regarding heart rate, including the fact that your maximum heart rate declines 7 beats per decade of life. If you really want to learn a lot about it, check out Joe Friel's Total Heart Rate Training.

If you've been a good TOJ this year, ask Santa for one. It's a perfect recession gift -- good for your health and cheaper than a new pair of running shoes.

Merry Christmas!

Exercising on the Edge

A couple weeks ago a strange and terrible thing happened: three runners died in the Detroit Half Marathon. The men, 26, 36, and 65, all died within sixteen minutes of each other. News of the tragedy gave pause (hopefully a short one) to endurance athletes everywhere.

In wake of the tragedy, the Internet buzzed with speculation as to what happened. One blogger was convinced that a demented person had poisoned the water at one of the rest stops. It will be interesting to see what the pathologists conclude, if made public.

Facts regarding each of the men's health and medical history are few. They were probably in pretty good shape based on what I've read. The death of the 65 year old was no great a surprise because, as every TOJ knows, odds of sudden death during exercise rise steadily as a function of age, and he reputedly had some lung problems. When young men die during exercise, it is usually attributed to an electrical conduction or other hidden heart defect.

The weekend after the Detroit event I received an email from Dr. Al Sears (http://www.alsearsmd.com/), who runs a wellness and longevity center in Florida, and is a strong opponent of aerobic training, especially running marathons. His email claims this type of exercise "shrinks your lungs and downsizes your heart's output." Further, studies have shown that blood samples taken from people who have completed marathons have exhibited the same enzymes that are present during a heart attack. Dr. Sears sells an program that is based on progressively short anaerobic bursts of exercise, which be believes are safer and help you live longer.

I forwarded his email to another TOJ who is a distance runner (had just finished the Humboldt County Marathon in California) and a physician. His reaction was illuminating. He said it might be true you live longer if you exclusively follow a short interval program like Dr. Sears, but there is no scientific evidence that it does. Furthermore, most distance runners use a variety of exercise, including intense progressive intervals.

This distance runner/physician's most important point was that how you exercise really depends on the outcome you seek. If you want to run a marathon, you have to train for it, which is true for any challenging physical endeavor. If your goal is just to live a long time, it might not be necessary to do many of the forms of physical exercise that a TOJ enjoys. Most TOJs exercise hard because it enhances the quality of their lives. Quantity, as measured in years, is just a secondary effect, and subject many other factors like genetics and environment.

My friend speculated that there might be subsets of people for whom distance running is good, and others for whom it is detrimental. But being able to identity who falls into which category waits future study. Right now, to use his words, we are still in the medical dark ages when it comes to long term effects of exercise.

For most of us, any exercise where you ramp up your heart rate -- whether in intense, sub-minute anaerobic bursts that leave leave you breathless or in long aerobic activities where you dwell minutes and hours at at the burning upper end of your aerobic capacity -- presents some risk. You don't know know where you reach a dangerous tipping point, and, luckily most of us never find out.

The men whose lives ended in Detroit did. While it is doubtless a tragedy for their family and friends, this TOJ admires that they were in the race.