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WINTER IN AUGUST
Obj: Recovery
Training:
Row 1000m, recovery pace
25-20-15-10-5
Bench Press @ 135#
Ankles-to-Bar
Dips
Pull ups (Strict)
Row 1000m, Recovery Pace
Comments:
3 Things that keep me up at night, and wake me up early in the morning:
1) Injuries - I wrote recently that the injury potential in the weight room is highly overblown, and does not compare
to the injury potential or severity of any outdoor or team sport. That being said, things do happen in the gym, and as the
coach, I feel responsible. Last week, for example, a young female athlete was working her way up to a 1 rep max on a squat
clean, and at a load, far below her personal record, did a clean and tweaked her lower back somehow. And yesterday, one of
my strongest male mountaineers, while working on his fourth set of 3 reps at 75% of 1RM on the standing press, tweaked something
in his upper back/shoulder. In both cases, I shut down the athletes, took time to stretch, put them on the foam roller, gave
them something easy to finish with, and sent them home. In reviewing the warm up and workout progression, I can find nothing
wrong or out of the ordinary - several other athletes did the same workout without any problem - and I don't think either
case is serious. In other words I don't think I did anything wrong, but still I feel responsible.
2) Overtraining - I'm pretty sure I'm suffering the effects of overtraining, and subsequently have cut down on my volume
and intensity this week. Because I limit how many times my athletes can train in the gym to 3x/week, I don't think overtraining
is much of an issue for the athletes who get most their physical activity from the gym. But, I have several athletes who are
hitting it hard in the gym, and doing some incredible volume outside as well. I see this clearly in the guides who train here.
It's near the end of the busy guiding season, and they are all fatigued. They come into the gym fired up, but fade far and
fast. Last night, in one session I had 5 guides training along with Steve and Myra - two of my regular, recreational athletes.
Only Steve and Myra completed the session as prescribed. I pulled everyone of the guides out early, and put them on a long,
slow row. Most have fall trips planned, and want to get in shape to perform well, but they are all simply fatigued.
3) Strength vs. Metabolic Conditioning - I constantly go back and forth on this one. Generally, I'm a strength first guy.
I believe that the best thing I can do for my athletes is get them stronger. An increase in overall relative strength gives
them a bigger foundation in which to apply sport-specific training. Our strength training also identifies and works to correct
strength imbalances caused by sport specificity. Strength imbalances can lead to injury. And finally, increased strength,
especially core strength, makes athletes more durable.
But other coaches disagree. Some argue that metabolic conditioning is paramount, and all the strength in the world won't
matter if you gas on the way up the hill to the hard climbing.
They are both important, but work against each other. Time spent strength training is time not spent conditioning, and
vice versa. Strength is harder and slower to training, but also slower to detrain. Metabolic conditioning trains faster, but
also detrains faster.
- Rob Shaul
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| Dan |
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