Wal-Mart Fitness

Hey Everyone! I received this email from one of our endurance folks…I’ve included a few follow-ups:

Hey Robb,
just a question about using cytomax and goo in training...on those long bike rides 50 + miles and even with the shorter fast ones 25 mi ie fast fifty, time trials 10 to 30 mi sprints and finally for the triathlon
events..ie swimming, cycling and running… i will use cytomax and goo. what are your thoughts on this? i really work hard at trying to stay paleo before and after, these events or workouts..except of course for an occasional piece of dark chocolate..

My response:
You want to minimize the use of that stuff in day to day training. We are trying to make you a fat burning machine...this is what separates an elite endurance athlete from an also-rans. To do this we run you lower carb (paleo_ most of the time...we want to save stuff like cytomax for TESTING and RACING.

Keep in mind we are focused on QUALITY and INTENSITY. The concepts are tightly related and it is antithetical to the current wisdom in endurance athletics which focuses exclusively on more, more, more. You cannot have quality and volume...think about Wal-Mart vs. artisan furniture. The current state of affairs in tri training is Wal-Mart...cheap, worthless crap that leaves people injured, overtrained and not performing at their peak. What we are trying to accomplish is an artisan approach...crafting a QUALITY approach that lends itself not only to performance, but also health and longevity.

So...when you are looking at a race or time trial that MATTERS ( I know they all do but some matter for race preparation, the others matter for EGO) THEN we look at the smart use of cytomax, what you eat for breakfast etc. TRAIN LIKE YOU COMPETE. This much of why I detest the 100mile bike rides and such when folks are competing at MUCH shorter distances....if it’s just a social thing that’s an understandable element but it is NOT helping in race prep...that is critical to understand...that is Wal-Mart training. Ideally we see you do 2-3 Crossfit sessions/week then 1 race distance and RACE PACE/week in the given events. That is a FULL and intense schedule that will still need constant monitoring to avoid overtraining.

With CrossFit we are increasing strength and related but more importantly POWER. Lance Armstrong cares about one thing (or did) while training, that’s power output...work capacity:
http://www.cio.com/article/29173/Lance_Armstrong_Cycling_Power

We augment that work capacity, then you shoot for efficiency on your race distance/race pace efforts:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/06/050615061032.htm

Folks love to get hung up on crap that simply does not matter in training. Case in point VO2 max:
http://velonews.com/article/8167

The people who CROSS THE FINISH LINE FIRST (in my book, that mean the “winners") do NOT have the universally highest VO2 max. People think boat loads of long slow effort will prop up the VO2 max and make themselves better. “Stan’s” wife went for an hour and 45 minute run in preparation for her tri event...no clue as to distance covered or power output...the race was not about “can you run for an hour and 45 minutes” the race, like all races is “how fast can you traverse this distance”. That is a direct measure of efficiency and power output. Running in the manner she did for race prep was a COMPLETE AND TOTAL waste of time.

Some people understand this, but like Joe Friel recommending a Paleo diet for endurance athletes, it’s largely ignored:
http://velonews.com/article/8217

And the response:

thanks robb
your response is really thought provoking..i am going to read and reread what you wrote..the reference links look really good and i look forward to reading them as well. after what i saw last weekend, what you are saying makes so much sense to me. i have been training this other way going on three years now and have to rewire some neuropathways around how to do this training better and more efficiently..and where i can create a training schedule to be more enjoyable and safe...health, nutrition, emotions included, i really want to.

part of what i find hard to limit is the fun of some of the rides, the adventure of riding and the feeling of accomplishment and at times the social aspect..even though lately the trainings have been difficult for me due to the driven nature and sometimes competitive atmosphere of the experience.. maybe i am confusing things here in regards to training but emotionally and sometimes physically i usually end up feeling pretty trashed.. i find the training with crossfit to be very supportive and instructive., and largely about increasing one’s own performance rather than outperforming the other...in the outperform the other, i really get how the “more is better” gets fostered..and then the real reasons i want to be out there doing the competitions gets lost…
anyway i like the workout schedule you proposed..and am getting help from Angela around this too..she has been really helpful and supportive and is going to help me with the running..which is like a gift from heaven..given how my body needs to do the running in the most efficient and safe way possible…
so, again, i really appreciate your email and your insight..this helps a bunch..
see ya thursday

And my final response:
This is an important question EVERYONE needs to ask themselves: “Why”?  Why do I do any given activity, what’s my ego attachment to the process and what are my desired outcomes. I fully understand the social element of the riding scene. It is a bunch of go-getters who like to compete and do well but there is also this thought that what they (big volume triathletes, cyclists and runners) are doing is HEALTHY. As evidenced by the growing number of broken endurance athletes we have in our midst’s at CrossFit, this is a pervasive idea that is FLAT WRONG. It’s not my intention to steal the joy of either competition or adventure from these folks (you included) but I went into all of this stuff with a desire to help people optimize performance, health and longevity. If it is someone’s stated goal to kill themselves by over exercise, sleeping 4 hrs/night to “get to the pool” and the like, I just will not buy into it. Until I have someone NOT PERFORM BETTER by doing CrossFit, eating a paleo/zone diet and SLEEPING MORE I will push the hell out of this better, healthier protocol…that also provides better performance. What this does often times mean is a dramatic reduction in training volume and junk mileage. We take people from 30 hrs/week of training to 6 or 8. Oftentimes that lack of a nearly full-time job of diversion is unsettling…folks have to spend time with spouses or children and they may, God Forbid, have a moment to contemplate life and their place in it. THIS is the neurosis that drives the extreme athlete and it has nothing to do with health or longevity. It is self medicating via carbs and repetitive movements.

When I tell someone that I can reduce their training volume from 30 hrs per week to 6 and that they will perform injury free, have a better overall fitness and health AND RUN/BIKE/SWIM better than ever….and I see terror in the eyes of the person because they will have no idea what to do with themselves because they are addicted to the training…I know It’s about something besides performing well.

This is a long winded way of saying “choose quality over quantity”. Balance the great social elements of these communities with the knowledge that there are diminishing returns to all things in life. More time spent riding does not a better rider make, SMART time riding…now we are onto something.

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