Surfers becoming athletes!

Hey kids! Life got a little busy, so as you can see I am a little behind on blogging. 

First off, I am absolutely pumped that the world's best surfers are in Long Beach dueling it out in prime conditions. It is nice to see the pro tour come to the east coast. Often the "right coast" gets overlooked by the surfing industry. Many of the top surfers on the tour are originally from this side of the world, including the 10x world Champion, Kelly Slater. We definitely have amazing surfers from the east, but a contest of this magnitude has not been held on the east coast. 

Today is the final day of the pro event, so check it out if you have some time! The waves are on point! Quiksilver Pro-Long Beach .

However, this is not the main reason for my update today. While listening to the live broadcast, one of the commentators called the surfers "athletes." This was the first time I have ever heard professional surfers referred to as athletes! Surfing is something only a small percentage of the world's population can do well. A lot of people can surf, but not many people can surf well. Yet, until the last five years, surfers did not really prepare themselves outside of the water the same way other athletes prepare outside their field of competition. I believe this is one of the reasons professional surfing was not always taken seriously by others outside of the sport. 

Now, at pro events, the sponsors provide specific warmup areas with swiss balls, stationary bikes, stretch chords, and other apparatuses. Surfers perform sound dynamic warmups before their heats and have solid preheat routines that include more than just listening to their favorite pump up song. Also, the pro with the beer belly is now not seen on the tour. Every surfer is a lean, powerful, fit individual. The surfers now engage in consistent training outside of the water, and it shows in competition. The level of competition has risen so rapidly, and each surfer is capable of winning the event. 

I believe fitness has changed surfing for the better! It is awesome to see the sport take off. To hear surfers called "athletes" is something to be proud about. Thanks to Kelly Slater for always setting a standard for excellence with is preparation for competition. 

Below are a few pictures from my own surfing adventures. 

USA=MARATHONS

Below is an article about the rising rates of US Marathon participation in 2010. It is cool to see the jump in participation of such a fulfilling accomplishment.

The article talks about how the recession may have indirectly helped the participation numbers rise. Since running is a fairly "cheap" sport and is good for stress management, more people have laced up their kicks and attempted the 26.2 mile challenge.

Also, the article states that the overall finishers time has risen, and some people (other sources than this article) argue that the marathon is beginning to lose its prestige as an event. However, with obesity, diabetes, and other medical problems dominating our country, I am ecstatic the participation numbers are rising. I would rather see more people get involved for the personal achievement and health benefits.

I also understand that the nation's overall health still has plenty of work ahead.

Many of the 507,000 finishers in 2010 could have been repeat marathoners. Yet, you know that a fair portion of them were first timers, and some were fairly new to running and activity in general. I hope the numbers continue to rise. Completing a marathon is a fantastic accomplishment. Training for one is a way people can get their health and lives back on track. Enjoy!

Marathoners Run U.S. Races in Record Numbers

By KEVIN HELLIKER

For the first time ever, the number of runners crossing the finish line annually in U.S. marathons passed the half-million mark in 2010, at 507,000, according to a report released Wednesday by Running USA, an industry-supported research group based in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Associated Press

Thousands of runners participated in the 2010 Chicago Marathon in October.

The 2010 number exceeded by almost 9% the 2009 field of finishers, representing the second-largest jump in the past 25 years, behind the previous year's spike of about 10%. In the view of some running experts, the recession inadvertently gave a boost to a sport that costs relatively little and can help combat stress.

The 2011 numbers appear likely to jump even more dramatically, because several popular races have sold out in record time. The Boston Marathon did so in eight hours, the Marine Corps race in Washington, D.C., in 28 hours and the Chicago event this coming October in 31 days. Many other 2011 marathons are also filled up.

But helping handle demand is an ever-growing number of new marathons. More than 35 new marathons – a record number – launched in 2010, according to Running USA, bringing the total to more than 625 U.S. marathons last year. That's up from about 200 in 1985.

For the third consecutive year, the gender division among finishers remained unchanged: 59% men, 41% female. Also unchanged was the percentage of finishers age 40 or older: 46%. Runners between age 20 and 39 made up 52% of finishers, with the under-20 crowd accounting for 2%.

One side effect to this growth is the lower percentage of elite marathoners as more amateurs participate. The median time for male finishers in 2010 was 4:16:14 – compared with 3:32:17 in 1980. Among women, the median time rose to 4:42:10 in 2010 from 4:03:39 in 1980.

Boston boasted the fastest median time among U.S. marathons, at 3:44:17. Boston also had the largest sheer number of under-four-hour finishers, at 15,424. The New York marathon came in second with 14,724. But Boston's under-four-hour crowd represented 68% of the total, versus 33% for New York.

New York's 44,977 finishers represented the largest crowd in the history of the world to complete a 26.2-mile run, ahead of the previous New York record set in 2009, of 43,660.

Write to Kevin Helliker at Kevin.Helliker@wsj.com

Marathoners Run U.S. Races in Record Numbers

Too Much Exercise

I found this article about the effects of too much exercise. This study probably applies to less than one percent of the world population; yet, I found it very interesting. In some extreme cases, people do exercise too much and the effects can be very negative. This article, in particular, deals with endurance events. The study deals with an extreme population of men who have completed at least 100 marathons.

Please do not use this as an excuse not to exercise; however, take a look and tell me what you think. I would love to hear from some of my marathon-addict followers!

When Exercise Is Too Much of a Good Thing

By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS

Jonathan Knowles/Getty Images

Recently, researchers in Britain set out to study the heart health of a group of dauntingly fit older athletes. Uninterested in sluggards, the scientists recruited only men who had been part of a British national or Olympic team in distance running or rowing, as well as members of the extremely selective 100 Marathon club, which admits runners who, as you might have guessed, have completed at least a hundred marathons.

All of the men had trained and competed throughout their adult lives and continued to work out strenuously. Twelve were age 50 or older, with the oldest age 67; another 17 were relative striplings, ages 26 to 40. The scientists also gathered a group of 20 healthy men over 50, none of them endurance athletes, for comparison. The different groups underwent a new type of magnetic resonance imaging of their hearts that identifies very early signs of fibrosis, or scarring, within the heart muscle. Fibrosis, if it becomes severe, can lead to stiffening or thickening of portions of the heart, which can contribute to irregular heart function and, eventually, heart failure.

The results, published online a few weeks ago in The Journal of Applied Physiology, were rather disquieting. None of the younger athletes or the older nonathletes had fibrosis in their hearts. But half of the older lifelong athletes showed some heart muscle scarring. The affected men were, in each case, those who’d trained the longest and hardest. Spending more years exercising strenuously or completing more marathon or ultramarathon races was, in this study, associated with a greater likelihood of heart damage.

The question of whether years of intense endurance training might, just possibly, be harmful to the heart is hardly new. It arises whenever a seemingly healthy distance runner, cyclist or other endurance athlete suffers a heart attack. It’s also sometimes invoked by those looking for an excuse not to exercise.

But, to date, science has been hard pressed to establish a clear cause-and-effect link between strenuous exercise and heart damage. A much-discussed 2008 German study of experienced, older marathon runners, for instance, found signs of fibrosis in their hearts more frequently than in a group of less active older men. But some of the racers had taken up regular exercise only late in life, after decades of smoking and other bad health habits. It was impossible to say whether their current heart damage predated their marathon training.

The new study of elite lifelong athletes avoids that pitfall. None of the athletes were new to exercise. Only one had ever smoked. But even so, the study can’t directly prove that the older athletes’ excruciatingly heavy training loads and decades of elite-level racing caused heart scarring, only that the two were associated with each another.

But another new study, this time in laboratory rats, provides the first solid evidence of a direct link between certain kinds of prolonged exercise and subtle heart damage. For the study, published in the journal Circulation,Canadian and Spanish scientists prodded young, healthy male rats to run at an intense pace, day after day, for three months, which is the equivalent of about 10 years in human terms. The training was deliberately designed to mimic many years of serious marathon training in people, said Dr. Stanley Nattel, a cardiologist who is director of the electrophysiology research program at the Montreal Heart Institute Research Center and a senior author of the study.

The rats had begun their regimens with perfectly normal hearts. At the end of the training period, heart scans showed that most of the rodents had developed diffuse scarring and some structural changes, similar to the changes seen in the human endurance athletes. A control group of unexercised rats had developed no such remodeling of their hearts. The researchers also could manually induce arrhythmias, or disruptions of the heart’s natural electrical rhythm, much more readily in the running rats than in the unexercised animals. Interestingly, when the animals stopped running, their hearts returned to normal within eight weeks. Most of the fibrosis and other apparent damage disappeared.

What does all of this mean for those of us who dutifully run or otherwise make ourselves sweat several times a week? Probably not much, realistically, said Dr. Paul Thompson, the chief of cardiology at Hartford Hospital in Connecticut and an expert on sports cardiology. He was one of the peer reviewers for the British athlete study.

“How many people are going to join the 100 Marathon club” or undertake a comparable amount of training? he asked. “Not many. Too much exercise has not been a big problem in America. Most people just run to stay in shape, and for them, the evidence is quite strong that endurance exercise is good” for the heart, he said.

Dr. Nattel agrees. “There is no doubt that exercise in general is very good for heart health,” he said. But the emerging science does suggest that there may be a threshold of distance, intensity or duration beyond which exercise can have undesirable effects.

Unfortunately, it remains impossible, at the moment, to predict just what that threshold is for any given person, and which athletes might be most vulnerable to heart problems as a result of excessive exercise, said Dr. Paul Volders, a cardiologist at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands, who wrote an editorial accompanying the recent rat study.

“Let’s say we ask 100 people, all same age, all same gender, to start a marathon training program at the age of 20 years,” Dr. Volders wrote in an e-mail. If the runners continued their training uninterrupted for 30 years and scientists then scanned their hearts, “it is very likely (one may say: for sure) that there will be major differences in the tissue of the chambers of the heart between these people,” he wrote. For some, the changes will be beneficial; for others, probably not.

Similarly, because most of the research has been done in men and male animals, it is unclear whether the hearts of long-term female athletes are affected in the same fashion. But Dr. Nattel said it seems likely that the latest finding would also apply to women.

So for now, the best response to the emerging science of excessive exercise is to just keep exercising, but with a low-level buzz of caution. If your heart occasionally races, which could indicate arrhythmia, or otherwise draws attention to itself, Dr. Nattel said, consult a doctor.

But if you exercise regularly and currently have no symptoms, “I think it’s safe to say that you should keep it up,” Dr. Thompson said.

When Exercise Is Too Much of a Good Thing

The Runners High

This is a sweet clip. Runners definitely know the feeling. It is what brings us back for more.


A Runner's High by Ben Redmond from Mishmash on Vimeo.

HIT vs Olympic Lifting/Free Weights

So I have a topic I would like feedback from the masses on. What is your take on HIT training versus Olympic lifting/free weights, in reference to training athletes (outside of weightlifting).

For those of you who don't know what HIT is, it is a form of training created by Arthur Jones who is also the founder of Nautilus. It involves performing a lift on a machine until volitional fatigue, and then the participant continues to do lifts with the help of a spotter until his or her body cannot complete another lift even with assistance.

Olympic lifting is your competition lifts of the clean & jerk and the snatch.

At Penn State, I know a handful of the strength & conditioning coaches swear by HIT training and it is the only thing they use to train athletes. I also have talked to a handful of professors and strength coaches from Penn State and outside Penn State that say HIT training should not be used for training athletes. It is interesting, from a student perspective, to see such tense and strong opinions on the matter under the same roof (Penn State). You can get a good fiery response from people when you bring up this topic at school.

From my own personal experiences, I definitely am positioned more on the side of Olympic lifts and free weights. I do use machines as part of my workout; yet, I try to recruit more muscle groups during each exercise as I feel this applies more to life and sport. I feel that my body learns to "work together" better by doing lifts that don't involve the stability of a machine. Also, I look at sports and think, "we don't play sports in machines, why should we train in(with) a machine." Our bodies are usually free in sport.

I have no doubts that HIT can produce strength results and help build size; yet, I fail to see its purpose in training athletes.

Feedback on this topic would be greatly appreciated!

The "Marathon Man"

A friend sent me this cool article about a man (Stefaan Engles) who ran 365 marathons in 365 days. This is an epic feat by anyones standard. I definitely wouldn't recommend doing this; yet, I applaud this man on his high level of fitness. What I really like about this piece was one of the man's motives for completing this task. He wanted to be an example for others. He wanted others to see that if he could do a marathon a day, that anyone could go exercise for their health and weight management daily.

Stefaan is no newbie to extreme feats. He once did 20 Iron Man triathlons in one year as well. Both of these are world records.

Enjoy and leave some feedback.

BARCELONA, SPAIN (AP)

Belgian runner Stefaan Engels set a Guinness World Record after crossing the finish line of his 365th consecutive marathon on Saturday.

Engels, dubbed the "Marathon Man," began the extreme physical challenge a year ago in Barcelona. He competed a race a day in seven countries: Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Canada, Mexico, the U.K. and the U.S.

THE DAILY

The Daily is the first daily national news publication created for the iPad. For a sneak peek, click here.

Engels told The Associated Press that he did it as a personal challenge and to be an example for others.

"After running 20 triathlons in one year, I was not ready to go back to normal life," he said. "I also wanted to inspire people by showing that if I could run a marathon a day for an entire year, that anyone could run or bike a little each day or do something about their weight problem."

The 49-year-old Engels ran a total of 9,569 miles. He said the key was a slow pace over the 26.2-miles.

"I recovery quickly. I don't run fast and my heartbeat is slow, below 100 if I run 10 kilometers, but it is more a mental story," he said. "The problem was thinking about running a marathon every day. I just told myself to run that day and did not think about the next day or next week."

Engels averaged around 4 hours to complete a marathon. He said his best time was 2 hours and 56 minutes.

"He ran every race, he never walked. He ran at a rate of 10 kilometers per hour," said Angels Garriga, the spokeswoman of Engels sponsor, the diet-control company Pronokal.

Engels had asthma as a youngster and doctors told him he should not participate in sports. But he decided to overcome his ailment and ran his first marathon at 25. He said his latest feat is the result of 35 years of exercise.

"There were a lot of moments when I thought 'Today, I won't finish,' " he said. "One of the hardest moments was in Mexico City after a long flight, the altitude and I had gotten sick from eating something, and I thought 'What am I doing here?' "

This was Engels' second attempt at the feat. He injured his leg 18 days into the first try about a year ago and had to wait until he recovered to start over.

The previous record was held by Japanese runner Akinori Kusuda, who ran 52 consecutive marathons at age 65 in 2009.

Engels adds another entry into the Guinness Book of World Records. His 20 Iron Man triathlons in a single year earned the record in 2008.

As for what is next, Engels said he will focus on writing a book, coaching and giving lectures.

"It is time for other things," he said. "It is time to give my body a rest."

Marathon Man

Food For Thought #2 (2/2/11)

I have a few solid quotes to share, and all of them are from Dean Karnazes. He is a 43-year-old ultrarunner.

"Running has an uncanny ability to mellow the soul, to take the edge off hard feelings, and put things back into a healthy perspective." 

"I never feel more alive than when I'm in great pain, struggling against insurmountable odds and untold adversity. Hardships? Suffering? Bring it! I've said it before and I've come to believe it: There's magic in misery."

"Regardless of how distant your dreams may seem, every second counts."

"You cannot grow and expand your capabilities to their limits without running the risk of failure." 

"When all else fails, start running."

"It doesn't matter how fast you're going if you're moving in the wrong direction."

"Sometimes you're a fisherman, sometimes you're a fish." 

I think all of these quotes have interesting properties to them. They don't have to apply to just running either. You can definitely apply them to all parts of life. Enjoy.

Hey Ladies... Throw some weight around!

 I stumbled upon this article the other day. It really does indulge in a big misconception in the fitness world. Take a read and leave some input. The link to the original article is at the bottom. Just click "This is for the Ladies."

Every time I hear women talk about resistance training, they talk about using light weights with a lot of repetitions. I think this huge misconception should be blamed on the millions of enormous bodybuilders and men who lift to be half man half monster. I can see a girl going to the gym for the first time and seeing a bunch of meathead men completing heavy exercises. She thinks to herself, “I do not want to look like them.” So she does the opposite—lifts light weights.
Now that seems like it would make sense, right? Except it makes zero sense. You see, there is a common misconception that women will “bulk up” if they lift heavy weights. I’ll say this only once—building muscle is an extremely difficult thing to do. If your body had to choose between breaking down muscle and building it, you’d look like a bag of bones. Genetically, you won’t and can’t bulk up unless you want to compete in competition and take some illegal injections if ya know what I mean.
Females want to get “toned,” right? I hate to burst your bubble but there isn’t any such thing as toning or shaping a muscle. Muscles can only get bigger (hypertrophy) or smaller (atrophy). Now to make those muscles look better, you need to shed the fat around the muscle and make the muscle bigger. This can all be done by taking a leap of faith with me and changing what you have always done. Stay with me. You may think I’m crazy, but the research is out there and I have been in the trenches seeing women transform their bodies by simply…lifting heavy weights!
Lifting heavy weights is a beautiful thing and it does so many wonderful things to your body. First, let’s talk muscle. I bet most of your training career, you’ve done mostly endurance exercise (running, biking, swimming, high repetition weight training). What if I told you by doing only endurance activity, you’re only tapping into a portion of your muscle potential?
Your body is made up of both type I (aerobic/endurance) muscle fibers and type II (anaerobic) muscle fibers. Type I fibers are used for endurance activities and don’t have great potential for growth. Type II fibers are those used during sprint and heavy resistance training activities. (In my opinion, those activities are harder and better.) Type II fibers have a much better potential for growth and strength improvements when trained. That means train intensely and with heavy weights and watch strength and muscle size shoot through the roof. (See ya later flabby arms!) In addition, research shows that strength is related to life expectancy. Increase strength and live a longer life!

Metabolism, metabolism, metabolism. As we all know, losing weight is about calories in and calories out. What if I told you that the leaner you are, the more calories you burn doing nothing? That’s correct. You can sit on the couch and watch Dancing with the Stars and blast calories. In fact, every pound of muscle you pack on takes 50 calories a day to maintain. So long story short, the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn throughout the day.
It doesn’t end there. We can all agree that high intensity exercise such as heavy resistance training or sprinting is harder than steady state cardio or high repetition resistance training. (Everybody nod yes.) This means we are surely burning more calories during the exercise, which is all good, but what about when the training is complete? With aerobic training or light weight, high repetition lifting, our metabolism doesn’t stay elevated for very long after our training.
There is something called excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC), which is a process your body uses to repay metabolic debt after anaerobic training. This includes repaying oxygen debt, repairing cells, refilling energy stores. This is a great thing because this elevates our metabolism for 12–24 hours and beyond. So when you’ve finished your heavy training, you continue to burn calories for hours on end.
Which leads us to progressive overload…simply put, we need to constantly increase the weight and intensity of our training. Our body does an unbelievable job at adapting. So if we continue to lift those five-pound dumbbells, we will only be as strong as those five-pound dumbbells. You lift children over your shoulder and pick up fifty-pound suitcases, so why lift tiny weights and get tiny results? To get stronger, look and feel better, add muscle, and burn fat, we need to continuously increase our training. Without the increase, we are all just five-pound pink dumbbells. Now throw some weight on the bar!
So what should you be doing at the gym? I’m not talking about going to the gym and spending an hour doing fifteen chest or bicep exercises. I’m talking two to three days a week of total body, multijoint, compound movements. (Those bang for your buck exercises!) Check back for some sample exercises and training sessions that will surely kick your butt!

This is for the Ladies

Walt Disney World Marathon Story:

I recently ran the Walt Disney World Marathon as part of Team In Training. The YMCA in my hometown asked me to type up a quick piece on my training and the marathon itself. Below is the rough draft. Let me know what you think!

My Marathon Journey

Walt Disney World Marathon

    On April 24, 2010, I ran my first 5k race. It was my first “official” race of any sort. I was always an athlete (basketball, soccer, swimming, and surfing); yet, I never just ran. However, after that first 5k, I started running often and started to really enjoy how running made me feel. I never did more than 3-4 miles per run, but I could feel a connection growing.
    Then in August 2010, I decided to make a decision that will forever have an impact on my life. I decided to sign up for the Walt Disney World Marathon as part of the Team In Training program (which is part of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society). I even coaxed my friend, Nick Evangelista, into joining me on this journey. Together we developed our own training and fundraising plans and started running. We started running more than we ever had before.
    Our first week of training only amounted to a total of 18 miles of running. However, we slowly built our way up into the 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, and even hitting 60 miles a week a few times. We would have one longer run a week (12-20 miles) and then the rest of the week would be filled with four days of shorter runs (3-10 miles). My longest run before starting to train for the marathon was six miles. Sometimes the longer runs were a struggle; yet, overall my body responded well and I started to become a solid runner. I learned a lot about my body during training. I learned when I could push myself harder and when my body needed a break. I learned what foods work best and provide the best fuel for myself. It was amazing to develop such an understanding of how my body works best. Along with running, I also did muscle endurance training in the weight room three days a week and made sure to strengthen my core.
    While all this training was happening, I was raising money for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. This money went towards cancer research and to help pay for medical bills people could not afford. I did not think I had any real connections with leukemia or lymphoma; however, after signing up to be part of Team In Training, many friends and family members shared their stories of loved ones lost to blood cancers or currently fighting blood cancers. This made me realize how big of a cause I was running for. This further motivated me to complete my training and achieve my goals. When the coldest, harshest days arrived during training, I pushed through them because of the cause and the people I was running for.
    When race day arrived on January 9th, 2011, tons uncertainty swirled in my head. I had suffered a rough bout of food poisoning a few days prior and lost a good bit of weight. By race day I felt good enough to give it a shot; yet, knew my body was weaker than normal and had a little less energy. However, I knew I had to run. I knew many others currently battling blood cancers were in way worse condition than myself.
    The race itself turned out to be one of the best experiences of my life. Many past and present cancer patients lined the course and cheered for me and other Team In Training participants. I received countless high fives from kids currently fighting cancer, and many spectators cheered my name along the way. I even got to give my dad a high five at mile 10. That was pretty amazing! The route was very fun, as we weaved through all the Disney parks and all the characters cheered us on.
    In the end, I conquered the mental and physical fatigue and completed the 26.2 mile adventure. I also was able to raise over $3,100 for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. There were 1,200 (17,000 total runners) runners associated with The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society at the race. Together, we raised over $4,000,000!
    I recommend everyone try an endurance event at some point. It will push your life to a new level.

Food For Thought:

A dad was once talking to his 6 year-old son about the human body and how some people don't take care of it. The dad did not expect the boy to really understand; yet, the boy made an amazing comment.

"If we do not take care of our bodies, where would we live....." 

What a spectacular quote. Makes you think.

Welcome to my blog...

Hello everyone!

Welcome to One Fit World, your source for information on fitness. This blog will contain anything I find interesting related to health, wellness, and fitness, and I would love to hear some feedback from you in my comments section. Feel free to send me links to interesting articles, quotes, or thoughts you may have. This blog is a "work in progress," and it will continue to develop over time.

Thank you for stopping by and I hope you enjoy.

Bo