THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF SPORT
ALL SPORTS RELY ON THESE BASIC INGREDIENTS.
HERE’S HOW TO GET THE RIGHT MIX.
SPEED In my sport, speedwork isn’t about generating speed with my body, it’s about training myself to perform at high speeds: sharpening my reflexes, instincts, and hand-eye coordination. Doing anything fast requires making split-second decisions, many of which aren’t even conscious. They’re impulses that your body processes on a deeper level. Think of a computer doing its calculations before spitting out information—it happens in a nanosecond, so far in the background that you’re barely aware of it. But somebody programmed the computer first so it would be up to the job. It’s the same thing in the athletic world. To perform at top speed, you need to train your body to make intelligent, efficient decisions with less response time.
Anything that increases your ability to react will help you handle speed. And in sports, velocity is your friend—it can get you out of potentially dangerous situations. Downhill ski racers, who routinely hit 70 miles per hour (mph) on the mountain, work their reflexes using video games and crosstrain in Formula 1 race cars. If you’re used to dealing with 100 mph, then 70 mph will seem slow. On big waves I’m moving somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 mph, with bumps and other obstacles rearing up in front of me.
Whatever you’re doing at high speed becomes exaggerated. Rough things get rougher. Your weaknesses get magnified. That’s why you want to make sure that your foundation’s in place before you open the throttle.
I train my reflexes by doing speed runs on a Jet Ski in rough water, downhill mountain biking, backcountry snowboarding, and performance driving. And recently I started helicopter-flying lessons—the ultimate reaction test because you can move in every dimension and every direction. Short of having an aircraft or a race car in your garage, the simulations at the video arcade are a good place to start.
STRENGTH In theory, it’s a simple formula: To build strength, increase resistance. In practice, things are more complicated. For instance, timing is important. If your training’s geared toward heavier lifting, you must be disciplined about your schedule. You’re tearing the muscles down, so you need to allow recovery time before you stress them again. It’s best to divide your workouts by body part—focus on your chest and arms today, switch to your legs and back tomorrow. Otherwise, you’ll build endurance but you won’t increase strength.
Diet also plays a key role here. Consider raising your protein intake so that your body has what it needs to generate the amino acids that will build new muscles and help existing muscles recover. One protein powder that I like is Muscle Milk (see page 115). It has an impressive blend of ingredients, is easy to digest, and isn’t packed with sugar. Drinking a protein shake before or after a hard workout is a good idea. If you want a bigger engine, you’ve got to fuel it right.
Another thing to keep in mind when building muscle is that extra mass will take a toll on your endurance level. Every 5 pounds is going to cut into your stamina because you’re carrying it around, and it takes more energy to sustain it. In many sports (including the ones I do), bulk isn’t an asset. Depending on your activities of choice, you might not want to make building muscle mass your first priority. And even if you do, it’s important to make sure that you’re building functional power and not just an impressive physique. The last thing you want is to gain strength and lose range of motion. It helps to work with a good trainer who can tailor a program to your athletic goals.
ENDURANCE Endurance is easy to define: It’s the ability to keep going; to do something continuously under a moderate load for a sustained period of time. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy, period. There’s definitely a mental aspect to building endurance. You know you’re on the right track when you hear the voice in your head say I want to stop—now. Push past that and you’ll find a deep calm that settles in after a long workout, when you’ve exhausted yourself. I like that feeling.
If you want to increase endurance, first you need to understand your body’s threshold. How much energy can you put out, and how long can you keep it up? Once you have that information, then you can build on it. But you can’t start to push past your edge until you know where it is.
How do you figure this out? You learn to feel it so that it becomes instinctive. You go out and discover how fast, how long, and how hard you can do something before your system over-revs. Ignore the charts and graphs about heart rates. I can’t buy that everyone who’s 70 is the same or that all 40-year-olds should be doing X … according to whom? That’s like saying every car is a 1972 Buick Skylark. I don’t think you can generalize. Every individual’s aerobic threshold (or VO2 max, your maximum ability to transport and use oxygen during exercise) arrives at a different speed, after a different duration, and at a different heart rate. If you want to use a heart rate monitor, they do work. Personally, I don’t because I want to use my own intelligence about my own body.
Gears on a bicycle (or the power output on a stationary bike) will give you a good baseline. If you can pedal for 15 minutes in a certain gear before coming apart, then next time try it for 20 minutes. When you’re trying to expand your aerobic fitness, consistency and tenacity are key.
Another method of endurance training is to challenge yourself to go from point A to point B. No matter how you get there—pedaling, paddling, walking, running, swimming—set it up so that it will take you some time. Recently, I’ve been paddling across channels, including the English Channel (see page 216). Next I’m planning a crossing of the Bering Strait. As far as building endurance goes, nothing I’ve ever done has worked better than this. So chart yourself a journey. You’ll build endurance. You’ll have a target to focus on. And you’ll accomplish something far greater than a gym workout.
