All About Soul

Had to juggle a boatload of stuff this morning on my way out the door...of course, those mornings where I meet the man with the rubber stick mean a longer stay in bed, and a shorter window of time to get to the gym without p!$$!ng someone off because they are on the last spinning bicycle with Look pedals...and they're wearing running shoes...and there's another bike they can ride. As always, another story. Actually, it wasn't the moment of getting out the door to the car that was entertaining. It was getting from the car to the locker after the spinning workout. Clean clothes, water bottles, Snickers Marathon bars, eyeglasses, sunglasses, wallet...and the hits just keep on coming...

"This life isn't fair; it's gonna get dark, it's gonna get cold. You've gotta get tough, but that ain't enough; it's all about soul..." - Billy Joel, "All About Soul" (1993)

TLC's spin-off to Miami Ink featuring Kat Von D, LA Ink, started this last week. Great program. One of the artists Kat recruited to work her shop - Corey Miller - is an absolute genius...not that the other two artists are that bad in their own right. However, Miller's work is completely original. He did a design on a guy's arm, sketching with a ball-point pen and working forward...then with the tattoo gun. No xerox machines, computer-generation, light tables for this guy, no sir. I marveled as I watched this man work, comparing his craft to the advertising campaign of a local tattoo parlor (touting computerized designs, templates, and the like). In comparison, Miller's work is so soulful - the man's essence was put into the labor.

I couldn't help but think about the similarity between tattooing and coaching. Each person has a background story, a reason for coming to me. I can use the myriad of tools available to everyone (computer programs, books, calculators), but if I don't put my soul into it I'm doing no more than a tracing of someone else's work. All the research, prior workouts, races (both good and bad) and life experience will have gone for naught. In the same vein, an athlete who comes to the track with strong preconceptions of how their training should go (usually based upon something they've read in Runner's World, "Galloway's Great Big Honkin' Book o' Stuff," etc.) usually has missed a big portion of the story.

It's like going to a tattoo artist with a photo of something you've seen on someone and asking for the same d@mned thing.

As the late runner-philosopher/author George Sheehan said, we are all an experiment of one. Taking a cookie-cutter approach to training may - or may not - be effective. Downloading a list of workouts, paces, distances and times can be all well and good, but it's all in a vacuum. While I may write a training plan (in macro) weeks or months in advance, the last two hours leading into the workout are fraught with deep thought: How do I (or my athletes) feel today? What are the weather conditions? Is there a race in the coming weekend? As always, if I had a dollar for every time I've planned a workout and did something completely different once I got to the track, I'd have enough for at least another coaching book...ha, ha, ha...

The training plan, writ large, months in advance may be the heart, but the two hours of thought spent on the couch, walking through the kitchen, and especially the last half-hour during the drive to the track...are the soul of coaching.

Take A Number

"...the stars might lie but the numbers never do." -- Mary-Chapin Carpenter

The orthopedic consultant gave me the green light of sorts about two weeks ago. I have his permission to engage in easy running or bicycling. My first guess was that he thought I was one of those people who do the bare minimum of exercise; once the sweat starts rolling it's time to quit. Ho, ho, now that's a funny one. Obviously, he's never seen me with that look like I got sprayed with a fire hose.

Then, he mentions three things: First, I have to come back and see him in six weeks.

Second, no lifting anything heavier than a can of soup. The bad news is that my left shoulder and arm strength is growing by leaps and bounds; my right shoulder muscle structure is almost nonexistent. The good news is that 12-to-16 ounces fall right within that weight range.

Third, he suspects I will be one of those patients he'll have to hold back rather than force to progress forward with rehabilitation.

So, how do you make certain not to push the envelope so much you delay achieving cardiovascular fitness, or you risk overtraining and injury, in the foundation period?

You can use the Borg scale to gauge how hard you're working. This scale ranges from 1 to 20, with 20 being the absolute maximal "oh, my goodness, my heart is going to explode any second" effort. Slowly walking is about a nine; a hard effort you can continue to hold for a while is about a 13 or 14, 17 is a very hard effort.

What's so good about the Borg scale? First, you're checking all of your body; heart, lungs, muscles, breathing, and so on, in order to determine your rate of perceived exertion. Second, it correlates quite strongly to your heart rate; multiply your Borg number times ten and you're probably going to be close to what your heart rate is at that moment. This is especially important for those persons who take drugs that affect their heart rate. Third, you don't have to depend on a heart rate monitor to help you tell when you're working too hard.

I like the heart rate monitor. It provides a relatively accurate picture of how hard I'm working. However, most folks who have heart rate monitors don't know their maximum heart rate, and therefore don't know how hard they are working.

Two, and maybe three, schools of thought persist on how to determine maximum heart rate, and the percentage of maximum heart rate a person is exercising:

First is the "220-minus-age" school. So, a 45 year-old would have a maximum heart rate of 175; his or her exercise at 50 percent of maximum would be half of that, or 87 to 88 beats per minute, which is the minimum someone coming back from injury, or just starting an exercise program would use.

The second school takes the "220-minus-age," then subtracts the heart rate you immediately after waking up, to give you the range. So the hypothetical 45 year-old who has a resting heart rate of 45 (not bad for a physically-fit individual; the average sedentary person ranges from 60 to 80) has a range of 130 beats between minimum and maximum. So, 50 percent of that "normal" range (65 beats) added to the resting rate, would give the hypothetical a target heart rate of 110 beats per minute...add another six or seven to give a window...is this getting crazy, or what?

The third school requires having a trained medical professional around to administer a maximal heart rate test. Slap a heart rate monitor or an electrocardiogram on the athlete and run them to exhaustion on a treadmill. The 1985 movie American Flyers has a guy doing this test; it's a scene I love, but my wife cannot stand to watch. The benefit of all the discomfort is obvious; you know what the maximal heart rate is, without question. All the other calculations are simple once you figure that first one out.

Whether you decide to use a perceived exertion scale, or a heart rate monitor, remember that these are tools to help you communicate to yourself and (if you have one) your coach how you are feeling and how your body is reacting to the training. I've met athletes who have set their heart rate monitor at a rate that's too low. It's not completely foolproof; some athletes can operate at higher maximum heart rates than the "220-minus-age" number, which is more of a guideline for that "three times a week, 20 minutes a day, and no more" crowd.