YOU WERE BUILT FOR THIS

Is everyone as excited for this new cycle as I am?! Well, if you’re not, just keep remembering how beneficial it is to change things up and challenge our brains and bodies with new stimuli. It’s how neuroplasticity occurs! 😁

Recently I embarked on a hiking trip with some friends, and without getting into a long story I’ll just say I did not make it to the top of the mountain. And to be honest, making it to the top of the mountain is the reason I come to the gym! In other words, I understand the importance of progressing in my workouts, lifting heavy and getting stronger, and exerting optimal output (like 8-10 rate of perceived exertion) in order to initiate the correct systems of my body for adaptation… but putting more weight on the bar or going faster and harder is not my ultimate priority. My ultimate goal is being able to play, and do so for a long long time- like my whole life! And by play I mean climb the mountain when my friends ask me to.

After all, that’s what the human animal was built to do: move and play and endure. In Michael Easter’s book The Comfort Crisis he talks about how way back in the day, man’s capacity for endurance is what kept them alive. The reason they could hunt is because they could run all day after an animal, and in the end, win, because the animal could go fast but could not go for a long time. Running 26 miles daily was a common affair (if you didn’t put that together, that’s a marathon..DAILY!) A pretty stark difference to how little we move today: U.S. adults today= around 3,000–4,000 steps/day (sedentary to lightly active).

Ok, I’ll try to give just a quick overview here without running long. Our bodies have two basic energy systems: aerobic and anaerobic. The aerobic system is our “go all day” system, relying on oxygen and fat for fuel, and the anaerobic system which turns on in higher intensity, when exertion exceeds the aerobic threshold. It relies on stored ATP, creatine phosphate, and glycogen. Aerobic=long distance running, cycling, swimming, (and I’m gonna add hiking, too). Anaerobic=sprinting, heavy lifting, HIIT. 

There’s a grey zone between these two systems that often times a lot of people get stuck in. Not slow enough and not keeping their heart rate below zone 2 (60% of your max heart rate), but not giving enough to reach that rate of perceived exertion of 8-10, therefore never really increasing their aerobic threshold but also never creating an extreme enough stimulus to turn on the nervous system in anaerobic effort. This training actually undermines any true progress. You might feel tired, but in reality you’re not initiating any gains in endurance or speed. 

Insert current cycle. Not only is the programming for this cycle able to tax and test our anaerobic system with heavy lifts and sprint intervals with variable rest, but we get to get out of the dreaded grey zone and really work on training the “go all day” system of endurance as well. And what’s really exciting is we get to track progress that we make... or don’t make, as any area of “failure” is the very area we need to lean into to create growth (for example, not climbing the mountain). 

I’ll leave you with an excerpt from the book Finding Ultra by Rich Roll (on my top ten must read list). This excerpt explains Rich’s reality check when it came to training his aerobic system, and the direction he got from his coach, Chris:

Proficiency in endurance sports, explained Chris, is all about building the efficiency of the aerobic, “go all day” system. To accomplish this, I needed to focus on training that system specifically….For a guy like me, that meant slowing down. Way down….”But if all I do is go slow, how will I ever get fast?” I asked Chris.

“The prize never goes to the fastest guy,” Chris replied. “It goes to the guy who slows down the least.” True in endurance sports. And possibly even truer in life.

-Coach Tish