From Thanksgiving and into the first few weeks of the New Year represents the holiday season, winter, and a period of relative darkness (considering the available daylight hours). Let’s just call it December and January in the northern hemisphere. Year-end projects at work, school functions, holiday parties and other obligations typically fill this season. It’s been called the most wonderful…
Greetings Peeps! Happy Thanksgiving to you. I hope you are setting up for a fantastic holiday that features feasting, family, fellowship…and fitness! Most years around this time I produce a bit of content around those themes and this one is no exception. While I try to maintain a perspective of gratitude all the time, it’s during this season when I…
You are a backcountry hunter or mountain athlete. You spent the whole summer building and honing your fitness. Maybe you participated in our Fit for the Field (FftF) online conditioning course. Regardless, you’re into your peak season and you need to switch your workout system into a maintenance routine. Easy peasy I say. If you were a participant in FftF,…
Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. Regarding today’s topic, a few thousand words can paint an amazing picture. I recently had a great conversation with Lifetime Athlete Dennis Rackers on The Lifetime Athlete Podcast. Dennis is 69 years young, a backcountry hunter, and he carries excellent muscle mass on his frame at 16% bodyfat. His maximal oxygen uptake…
Honestly, I’m not sure we should call this short piece an endurance training primer. It’s more of “a few thoughts about endurance training” type of thing. First, let’s define endurance. It’s unique among the 5 Capacities of Athleticism (along with strength, speed, power, and agility) in that it is complementary, or supportive, to the others. Endurance is certainly driven by…
As many of you will recall, we set up the Summer 2023 Fitness Challenge back in May. Our goal was to test and train a unique capacity of athleticism, which is power. We sampled anaerobic power with a lifting test and used the mile run for aerobic power. The lifting test used a trap bar deadlift, or similar setup depending…
Now, this is a FANTASTIC topic! Today we are going to discuss how to manipulate a workout so that you get the best possible results from your training effort. I went with manipulating because it sounded like the most appropriate term. I also thought about micro-managing and modifying. Adjusting or tweaking would also fit pretty well. Let’s say that in…
This is a little op-ed piece that I’ve been wanting to get out for a while. The topic has been on my mind practically forever but I don’t think I’ve ever stated my position quite this way. The care and feeding of the optimized human requires more than just nutrition, although that is very important. The model I’ve developed, which…
Now here’s an interesting thought! There are definitely some parallels between sprinting and surfing. Allow me to explain. Surfers do three main things in their process. So do sprinters. Get out. Get up. Get on. A surfer will get out, or paddle in accelerating fashion to catch the forming wave. Sprinters drive out hard from the blocks or a 3-point…
A lot of people run as their primary form of aerobic exercise. Many athletes, in all sorts of sports and not just running, need to be able to access their speed and go fast. At least if they want to be competitive or even win. Interestingly, the game of life also benefits greatly from sprinting. But you have to warm…
