TAPUniversity's Blog

August 7, 2009

Exercise – Brain Connection: Goals and Measurements

Filed under: Exercise - brain connection — dkohrell @ 8:56 am
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Goals and measurements, a topic that once again blends in some management concepts (TAPUniversity is a learning portal that supports management and technology so it’s fitting).  The brain thrives in goal setting situations.  Often it’s the mental part of the game that keeps exercise programs on target, or causes them to slip.  So put on your SWOT caps, step up the dry-erase board and chart your life!

For the last several years I’ve seen them boldly rush in to the local YMCA we belong to in the first week of January.  Brave and very well intentioned people making a change.  Hit the gym, push the pedals, ramp up the treadmill and check out a class!  Somewhere in early February it becomes apparent those that can make it stick and those that won’t.  What was made as a resolution soon fades under the pressures of life or unrealistic expectations.

Now rather than lament what happens to those that fade, I’ve been thinking about what’s consistent with those who stick.  What seems apparent are a few simple yet powerful things:

  • Relationships develop- we are meant to do things together.  Even if it’s a bunch of introverts who just meet at the same thing and do their stuff quietly.  When done in pack we stick.  We’re pack animals. Even Rocky had Mick, then Apollo, Duke and finally Paulie (ok 1 of those is not like the other).  Some activities can be done alone, but doing stuff together makes it motivational.
  • Doing something that you can enjoy once you’re over the learning curve.  If you’ve never swam before it’s a stretch to think you can jump out of adult swim lessons and into lap swimming in 4-5 weeks.   I know several triathletes have greatly improved their swimming over the course of a year and found enjoyment.   There is a learning curve to each new exercise, technique so patience helps.  It can be fun.  Kicking myself from a recreational bike rider to one that has clip shoes, cares about carbon forks/frames and has the foggiest notion about rhythmic stroke motion has been a blast.  It’s also been good for the brain – you see I’m learning something new and triggering that learning in the limbic or “doing” part of the brain.
  • Goals and measurements - I should add “reasonable” goals and measurements.  Unreasonable goals flow through two channels (one) if exercise is viewed as a one shot, 90 day miracle deal or  (two) if the expectation is to shed 50lbs, increase strength, speed, stamina potentially in 90 days.   Neither works.    Reasonable goals with measurement should help propel you – not defeat you.  Goal setting start with an accurate assessment of what your current level is.  Here’s mine for 2009 I typed into a simple spreadsheet I keep on 12.28.08 and a measure of where I’m at as of August 6,  7 months into it.  I try to just keep an honest flowing conversation going with myself – no bull. 
    • Goals:1,500 running (29 per week).. 100 swimming or 3,200 laps.. 200 bike.  Lincoln Marathon – 4:15; Pikes Peak Double!  4:55 and 7:55.  HyVee Long Course Triathlon – Finish.  Des Moines Marathon 4:10
    • Measurement as of 08.08.09 –
      Running on target – 27.9 average, highest number of 40+ mileage weeks since 1997.  High points – Cornhusker State Games & Thunder Run 5k’s, winter and Pikes Peak build up; Low Points – after my father passed away in April – a bit listless.
      Swimming below target but planned up tick in August  following Pikes Peak – 17 miles.  High points  – most mileage since high school and tried new events (1k open water swim) and HyVee 1,500 meter swim at 38 minutes.  Low points – CSG sprint tri was 4 minutes slower? 
      Cycling – over or ahead by 65 miles – cranked in more for HyVee  and hope to finish with 500 total (leads into 2010 goal of 1/2 iron man).  High point – learning to ride a ‘real’ road bike for CSG in June and somehow not totally embarrassing myself on HyVee bike portion.  Low point – taking too long to ask to borrow a decent road bike.
      Pike’s Peak Double is next week – in as good as shape as I’ve been since 1998,
      Lincoln Marathon – blew up and overheated at mile 21 – missed goal by 17 minutes was able to help a friend from high school finish her first marathon – was over’joy’ed with that,
      Des Moines 4:10 updated to sub 4 hours, why that when I blew up in Lincoln? Figuring out the root cause (thyroid / hydration / base mile / April stress) and am getting in much better shape.  I also have 4 to 5 “litmus test” races from 1/2 marathons to 10k/5k to validate.
    • My longer term, 2 to 4 year horizon, goals include 1) Boston Qualifying marathon of 3:30, 2) 1/2 Iron Man and once #1 goal is met, Iron Man Triathlon, 3) 10k swim without search and rescue and 4) matching PR’s in running (5k, 5 mile, 10k, 10 mile and 1/2 marathon).  Could I knock these goals off based on where I was at in December of 2008?  No.  But I can build each year.  Could someone new to any of these activities blaze by me with 6 months of training – absolutely!  And after tripping them I would applaud  – goals and measurements are personal.  The miracle is making it out the door.

Please  let me know some of your exercise goals and ways you use to measure.  Another method I’ve found fun to  measure is a through a couple of ad-in’s in Facebook: VOMaxer and RunLogger.  It’s been encouraging to see how virtual and ‘real’ friends are doing and to chart my own progress. 

Finally wanted to share a cartoon the extols the benefits of beginning your program.

So what do I need to do for good health?

So what do I need to do for good health?

July 31, 2009

Exercise – Brain Connection: Soreness and Pain

Filed under: Exercise - brain connection — dkohrell @ 11:37 am
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The following article from WebMD helps and encourages anyone beginning an exercise program or anyone who’s been in their program for years.  Sore muscles will occur – call it the acute pain of overcoming inertia.  I was thinking of this very topic during a 20 mile run today – which was relatively pain free.  There will be some pain from exercise.  That’s OK.  The key is to determine what is normal soreness and what may be an indicator of a more serious problem.  This blog concerns normal soreness.

Two Types of Soreness that are good

acute, immediate- this is the type of soreness that occurs during or very soon after you’re done exercising.  It can happen to newbees or experts.  There’s also some characteristics of soreness from different activities – here are some that bubble up high on the list

Running:  shins, quads, hamstrings, knee, feet and shoulders, oh my!  Each of those will be pushed.  Depending on current fitness level and body composition, your soreness in any one area will vary.  Here is one big hint. Learn to run on the balls of your feet (I’ll have an entire blog on fore foot running).  For now let me just say that our bodies are meant to run toe to toe or on the ball of the foot (walking is heel to toe).  The downside is most running shoes cater to heel to toe strike.  Test this yourself – run barefoot for 200 meters and see how your foot falls.  Its natural fall is on the balls of your foot right before your toes.

Cycling:  buns, quads, shoulders and back.  Lots of bending over on top of a bike.  Proper technique (smooth and fast rotation instead of straining or chopping your stroke) helps.  For the buns aka “saddle sore” a cycling or triathlon pair of shorts  is well worth the investment.

Swimming: a wonderful healing aerobic activity swimming can strain the shoulders and back depending on type of stroke and, more importantly, your efficiency with each stroke.  Other irritations include swimmer’s ear and even the dreaded google imprint on the nose.  Compared to running there’s far less soreness involved. 

Lifting: more related to DOMS and discussed below, the soreness from weight lifting is typically 30-48 hours after.  This is the old “bench pressed 205 yesterday and can’t lift my toothbrush today” syndrome.

Sore Muscles? Don’t Stop Exercising  http://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/guide/sore-muscles-keep-exercising?page=3
After participating in some kind of strenuous physical activity, particularly something new to your body, it is common to experience muscle soreness, say experts.

“Muscles go through quite a bit of physical stress when we exercise,” says Rick Sharp, professor of exercise physiology at Iowa State University in Ames.
 
 “Mild soreness just a natural outcome of any kind of physical activity,” he says. “And they’re most prevalent in beginning stages of a program.
 
delayed onset soreness (DOMS)   Ah, the joy of the two days after a marathon, triathlon or 100 mile bike ride.  Walking around with a little hitch in your giddy up.  I’ve included a link to a fun video about the day after a marathon.  This type of soreness will lessen.  It’s a profound how our bodies are wired to deal with pain.  It’s associated with the muscle tear down and recovery cycle.  Read more about why DOMS happens in the WebMD article referenced above. 

To overcome DOMS the most powerful and frequently overlooked treatment is the cold soak – within 15 minutes of ending your session.  This runs counter intuitive to what our body tells us (a message of let’s soak in a hot tub and grab a massage is much more inviting than lets sit in a tub for 20 minutes with ice and shiver like a Titanic survivor).  But it’s the best way to reduce inflammation and quasi secret method for Olympic and professional athletes to treat DOMS.  Another good method is to stretch, warm up, cool down and stretch – call this more of a preventive technique.

In the next Exercise – Brain blog we will share a bit about what to do about chronic soreness or pain that indicates a deeper issue.  Additionally some ideas on how to manage that pain will be provided.

 

The day after the Marathon

“Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) is a common result of physical activity that stresses the muscle tissue beyond what it is accustomed to,” says David O. Draper, professor and director of the graduate program in sports medicine/athletic training at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.To be more specific, says Draper, who’s also a member of the heat-responsive pain council, delayed onset muscle soreness occurs when the muscle is performing an eccentric or a lengthening contraction. Examples of this would be running downhill or the lengthening portion of a bicep curl.

September 11, 2008

9/11 – where were you at 7 years and what’s the impact

Filed under: Uncategorized — tapuniversity @ 5:26 pm
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I just shared an email with a former colleague of a dot.com we worked for that was imploding several weeks before, during and, most certainly after, 9/11.    I recallthe double whammy emotion I felt – wondering how to find a new gig and wondering what was going to happen to my family (kids were 4 months, almost 2 and almost 4 years old then)

It wasn’t so much the transition in employment – “hey had to tackle that once or twice through the climb of career advancement and job jumping from 1988 to 2001″.  It was the sense and feeling that I was sitting at home without much of a group to connect with.  Our kids were toddler age then and were off to daycare.  Not that the work place should be the end all.  But it was the sense of “when I was at the State Patrol or Omaha Police Department – my two primary gigs in the 1990’s -  I could have been doing something to help”.   Did my angst come anywhere close to those in NYC, DC, coasts or victim’s families - absolutely NOT. Could I still help out. YES.

Right before 9/11  I thought I would rebound find a PM / Director / expert consultant gig and fulfill the “force like destiny to become a CIO” or so Yoda or the Emperor was whispering to me.   The CTO and mentor or mine from the dot.com, Mark Resmer, had secured a wonderful opportunity with Prometheus — a learning management software start up incubated by GWU in DC – which was purchased by blackboard in 02′.  I was nailing down the finishing pieces for a commuter work arrangement (banking on flying in and out of Regan National Airport).

That changed very suddenly with 9/11.

  • National shut down
  • US races into recession
  • Head count reductions in IT, project management, all over
  • Living on pins and needles with concerns for “what next”

Now, and there’s always a learning and growth experience for all of life, it did lead my life in a more rewarding and better fitting profession.

  • Juggling FTE and consulting roles in project management – sort of getting back to the basics from 2002-03
  • teaching for several colleges and universities – with Bellevue University
  • nurturing the idea to grow something distinctive — ala www.tapuniversity.com
  • pushing myself more toward my family (kids grow fast), exercise (hey why stop at 3 marathons in the 90s), music and helping others.

It hasn’t been an instant rush to gold (still thinking happy Michael Phelps thoughts).  It has been a better direction.

So a couple of questions

  1. Where were you at on 9/11 and more importantly
  2. How has your life been since then, are you still on the exact same course?  If different, how so?

David
Seminar Leader
TAPUniversity

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