NEW KETTLEBELL CLASS:
Kettlebell is a great way for both men and women to get their strength
workout. It’s fun, rhythmical and challenging. I am going to begin
teaching a kettlebell class at Noon on Wednesdays and I hope you will
try it. Beginners are especially welcome.
Classes will be held at the YMCA Healthy Living Center, Wednesdays from
Noon until 12:50pm. Cost is $40 for a five-week session. ($80 for
non-members.) Register at the welcome desk.
∙ Session 1: January 6th through February 8th.
∙ Session 2: February 10th through March 15th.
The class will teach you the fundamental skills that you need to use
kettlebells safely and effectively. You will learn a variety of skills
to keep your workouts challenging and exciting.
MANDELA GROUP CYCLE CLASSES NEXT WEEK:
In honor of Nelson Mandela, I am dedicated cycling classes next week to
the memory of his life. The class will be a fun - and possibly thought
provoking - journey with wonderful rhythm-driven music from Africa.
Come honor someone who lived his convictions, including 27 years in a
South African prison. And someone who was then able to forgive his
captors with a message of peace and reconciliation. Like Ghandi and
Martin Luther King, Mandela showed us the power of personal commitment
in creating profound social change. Not only a hero in South Africa,
Nelson Mandela has become a role model for integrity and social change
throughout the world.
Come to honor his life. And, as an interesting aside, learn how many of his teachings have meanings for health and fitness.
These classes will run in my regular class slots from December 16
through 21. (Then we will do something fun for Christmas on the 23rd.)
∙ Monday, December 16th, YMCA Healthy Living Center, 4:30pm
∙ Monday, December 16th, YMCA Healthy Living Center, 5:45pm
∙ Thursday, December 19th, Waukee Family YMCA, 9:20am
∙ Thursday, December 19th, Cycle for Neuro Wellness, YMCA Healthy Living Center, 5:45pm.
∙ Saturday, December 21st, Waukee Family YMCA, 8:15am
10,000 HOURS:
In a recent class I quoted Nelson Mandela saying that he had learned
from running that diligent and disciplined training counted for more
than intrinsic ability. President Mandela went on to say he applied this
lesson in everything he did. I mentioned it in class suggesting that
there was value in repeated, conscious training.
After class a student told me about a study she had seen saying that the
greatest common denominator among genius-level scientists and artists
was not intelligence but hours of practice.
As she mentioned, “Now I know why my first cello teacher wanted me to practice 8 hours a day, 7 days a week!” Thank you, Mary.
This in turn reminded me of the precept from Malcolm Gladwell’s book,
“Outliers” where he says that: “Once a musician has enough ability to
get into a top music school, the thing that distinguishes one performer
from another is how hard he or she works. That's it. And what's more,
the people at the very top don't work just harder or even much harder
than everyone else. They work much, much harder.”
Gladwell goes on to say, “In fact, researchers have settled on what they
believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours.”
Mary was kind enough to send me a link to a calculator that you can use
to decide how to get in your 10,000 hours. It is
http://ryac.ca/10000-hours-how-long-is-that
That calculator led me to another thought. My good friend, Randy
Gaffney, is a professional bike racer and coach. And he has diligently
worked at his profession his whole life. Randy often tells me that it is
necessary for him to ride and train hard a minimum of ten hours per
week in order for him to perform at his best. I wondered how does that
personal observation square with the theory?
So I ran the numbers. Training two hours a day, six days a week means it
took Randy 16 years to get to his 10,000 hour proficiency. And now he
has been doing it, three times that long.
And so to pull all these pieces together, we go back to Malcolm Gladwell who says,
“Practice isn't the thing you do once you're good. It's the thing you do that makes you good.”
JOE FRIEL ON POLARIZED TRAINING:
My regular readers know what a fan I am of the cycling coach and author,
Joe Friel. A recent column on his blog takes on a subject that I have
long advocated i.e. that we spend too much time training at 80% effort
and the reason we can’t train at 90% effort is that we never train at
60% effort.
Mr. Friel reports on a fancy new name for this concept: “Polarized
training”. Simply, it says you should train at both low and high
intensity and not spend all your time at moderate effort. More
specifically, too many riders recover at moderate effort, rather than a
true easy effort.
While the studies use heartrate-based zones to determine low, medium and
high efforts, Friel stresses that your definition of hard will vary
depending upon the event for which you are training. Longer duration
events require more time spent in the medium heart rate zone. Hard might
be longer workouts of a medium intensity. He says “hard” is best
defined relative to what you are training for and the total stress of a
given workout not necessarily by heart rate zone. On the other hand,
easy is more easily defined because it will always be below your
“aerobic threshold.”
The headline is that the research groups that trained mostly at low and
high efforts performed better than the groups that trained mostly at
moderate and high efforts.
Or back to my point: you need low level work in order to do high level
work. Always doing medium level work will not allow your legs and body
to recover enough to get to true high level work. If you always do
medium level work, you will “plateau” and stop improving.
There is nothing wrong with easy workouts. They are necessary. For a
highly motivated athlete, it takes more discipline to go easy than to go
hard. But you must go easy in order to be able to go hard.
REMINDER OF CLASS CHANGES:
∙ The Saturday Waukee Cycle class has been moved to a new time at 8:15am.
∙ Lactate Threshold Field (Cycle Training Zone) Testing is moved to
the Walnut Creek Family YMCA at 10:30am on the first Saturday of every
month.
∙ A new Cycling for Neuro Wellness class has been added on Monday’s
at 1:15pm at the Healthy Living Center beginning in January.
QUOTES:
∙ “Running taught me valuable lessons. In cross-country competition,
training counted more than intrinsic ability, and I could compensate for
a lack of natural aptitude with diligence and discipline. I applied
this in everything I did.” ~ Nelson Mandela
∙ “As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.” ~ Nelson Mandela
∙ “Lead from the back—and let others believe they are in front.” ~ Nelson Mandela
∙ “One of the things I learned when I was negotiating was that until I
changed myself, I could not change others.” ~ Nelson Mandela
∙ “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” ~ Nelson Mandela
∙ “I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to
falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the
secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are
many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a
view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the
distance I have come. But I can only rest for a moment, for with freedom
come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not
ended.” ~ Nelson Mandela
∙ "It is music and dancing that makes me at peace with the world. And at peace with myself." ~ Nelson Mandela
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COME ENJOY ONE OF THESE WEEKLY CLASSES!
Monday's - Cycling 4:30pm - 5:15pm
YMCA Healthy Living Center
12493 University Avenue, Clive, Iowa.
Monday's - Cycling 5:45pm - 6:30pm
YMCA Healthy Living Center
12493 University Avenue, Clive, Iowa.
Thursday's - Cycling 9:20am - 10:10am
Waukee Family YMCA
210 N. Warrior Lane, Waukee, Iowa.
Thursday's - Neuro Wellness Cycling 5:45pm - 6:30pm
YMCA Healthy Living Center
12493 University Avenue, Clive, Iowa
Saturday's - Cycling 8:15am - 9:15am
Waukee Family YMCA
210 N. Warrior Lane, Waukee, Iowa.
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