As my generation of Baby Boomers goes not so gently into that good night, there is an increasing interest in the participation of “seniors” in sports activities. The interest in my sport of weightlifting has shown considerable growth in recent years and, as I’ve been dealing with this group more consistently I had thought I would, it might be helpful to share some thoughts about coaching them.

The first thing to realize about coaching masters is that the chronological age is not the most important criterion by which to determine the training program. A 45-year-old who has been an athlete for 30 years is a much different beast from a 45-year-old who has never been an athlete and is just in the process of entering sport.

Let’s begin by saying that an athlete who is a lifelong lifestyle athlete already knows how to live like an athlete. He or she knows how to budget time and to prioritize sports in the daily regimen. He or she has also not developed the instincts to know when the training load is becoming excessive and when the body is beginning to break down. These types of things take a great deal of time to learn and a neophyte master just doesn’t have the time to learn them while simultaneously learning how to train and how to compete.

Some factors that can affect the training of the mature athlete

Great Body Awareness

This is the ability to know where multiple body parts are in relationship to each other and the physical environment simultaneously. Athletes who learned this early in their careers, will carry it into their senior years. Those that haven’t might not have enough time to develop this awareness. There is probably a window of learning that will determine the age at which a person can improve optimally in this area.

Well Established Movement Patterns

By a person’s 5^th decade, they have undoubtedly practiced movement patterns such as jumping, sprinting, throwing many times if they mastered them during their youth. These movement patterns are essential to performing athletic acts, and at a certain age there is not enough time left to master them without running the risk of injury.

The Ability to Perform on Demand

Great athletes are performers and they are masterful at using the performance environment to heighten their abilities on demand. Experienced athletes actually thrive on the pressures imposed by the competitive experience. This skill can only be developed by performing multiple times, and for the senior athlete there simply may not be enough time to get in enough performances and/or to get in enough performances and recover in time for the next one.

Familiarity with the Athletic Lifestyle

Good athletes have spent a great deal of time prioritizing athletics in their lives. They know how to pull away from non-productive activities and they know how to rest on demand as well. People that have lived too long as “civilians” will need to severely alter their mindsets if they are to embark on a lifestyle that is wholly or even mostly dedicated to performance enhancement.

Great Motor Learning Abilities

Sports that place a premium on consistently learning new and challenging movement patterns and skills produce athletes who are particularly adept at mastering new skills in a relatively short period of time. Getting to this point in an athlete’s learning capabilities takes a great deal of practice and plenty of time. Again, time here is the enemy.

Escapability

Athletes who have spent a lifetime in grappling or physical contact sports are especially physically adept at avoiding perilous situations. One of my 50-year-old athletes has mastered the bottom positions of the snatch and clean because he has had an extensive background in jiu-jitsu and football. He knows how to get out of the way while falling. Because of this he has had no fears about going under a barbell because he is confident in his escapability. Master athletes who’ve never developed escape skills are the ones who are most trepidatious about descending into the bottom position and this may prove extremely difficult to remediate.

A Network of Like-Minded Cohorts

As in any other activity, peers like to get together and “talk shop.” This sharing of information is a good way to learn more about the activity as well as best practices. Newcomers in the Senior age category may have a difficult time establishing these types of relationships, and deriving the benefits thereof. This is all about learning to live in a particular culture. This network is also key to learning about reliable, auxiliary support personnel who can help in the recovery process.

Each and every one of these attributes are of immense value and each one can take a considerable amount of time to develop and nurture. Time is understandably a particular concern when working with aging populations.

For the Coach…

For coaches who have never worked with Master athletes, a consideration of the aforementioned factors might be helpful. While all the new athletes you encounter might not be lacking in all of these areas, many of them will probably require remediation in several of them. Working on improving these domains could be just as important as teaching the skills of weightlifting. Many of them can be developed concurrently with weightlifting skills. One should keep in mind, however, that some of these concepts may be entirely foreign to non-athletes, and the necessity for developing them may even be less obvious.

The list, however, is a valid collection of issues that the coach may wish to embrace if the end goal is to provide the best athletic experience for your participants.

One important consideration is the development of muscular tissue. After a certain age it will not be possible to get stronger by developing more or stronger muscular tissue. The task then becomes developing more effective neural stimulation of the tissue that already exists. Any coach working with master athlete needs to become familiar with the process of increasing motor unit recruitment as the inhibition of muscular development progresses.

Embrace the Task

Working with master athletes is even more of a case-by-case venture than coaching younger athletes. Each athlete is unique not only because of genetic factors, but because of the wide range of experiential factors that enter into the mix. Some factors will require significant degrees of remediation while others much less. Diagnostics will become a significant part of the task. Figuring out the spheres in need of extra supplementary work and which ones to minimize is the task to embrace.

For more on how to train seniors:

How to Train the Boomers Safely and Effectively

The post Getting Masters Weightlifters to Competition Gold appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

A Little Background

The Wodapalooza (hereafter “WZA”) is one of the “Big Four” functional fitness competitions in the U.S., along with the Granite Games, East Coast Championships, and OC Throwdown (RIP). World-class athletes are invited to compete on the basis of their abilities, or perhaps on the basis of their sponsor relationship. WZA is heavily sponsored by Reebok and Progenex, so it stands to reason that Progenex will send a number of their sponsored athletes to compete. Sam Briggs is a Progenex athlete so she might be contractually obligated to do the WZA.

Other athletes who are not sponsored but were at the CrossFit Games or podium finishers from last year’s WZA might get an invite. Perhaps you saw these folk on social media busting open their “invite piñatas,” which means they are going and will compete.

This is the invited class. Below the invited class are the elite qualifying class. These participants are required to register and compete in the qualifying round. They compete in six workouts over three weeks. The top 25 males and top 25 females qualify to compete, right alongside those invited athletes.

Next, there is a masters division (there are also other divisions like an RX and Team, but for the purposes of this discussion, those won’t be discussed much). The masters division is comprised of males and females age 40-49 who competed in the qualifier and made the top 25. Not bad – 25 spots. When I competed in the Granite Games qualifier, they only took the top 15. The 40-49 Masters folks were required to perform the same workouts as the elites.

Now the folly begins.

Enter the Men and Women With Canes

The next masters division is the 50+ crowd. You know – the walkers, canes, blood pressure medicine folks. The 50+ division, although required to compete in the qualifier, would be chosen on the basis of a lottery. You read that right. Essentially, bust your ass for three weeks over six workouts, and then your name gets thrown in a chapeau (that’s an old French word for “skullcap”).

The reason for a lottery, as explained by the WZA website, is this:

In year’s past, this was done through an ‘Open Registration’ format, which at a specific date and time individuals and teams raced through online registration. This resulted in frustration for aspiring competitors that were eager to compete, that weren’t fast enough; divisions selling out in mere minutes were dependent on the speed of one’s fingers, mouse, and internet.

In other words, “For the divisions we don’t really give a shit about, spaces were selling out faster than tickets to a Bieber show at an all-girls’ junior high. So now we’re going to pull your names out of a hat, even though you have to do the competition.”

This is just odd. Why not take the top 25 qualifier 50+ masters (or teens, or teams, those other poor suckers also playing the lottery)? Logically, a lottery makes no sense. Instead of converting the previously “first come first serve” divisions to a qualifier, the organizers thought they were solving their problem by turning it into a lottery. But at the same time, they required those folks to compete in the qualifier in order to show “full commitment.” Wouldn’t they be showing full commitment by doing all six workouts and attempting to earn one of the top spots? The explanation on the WZA website continues:

The probability of being selected will be weighted based on your performance. In the simplest terms, the higher you finish in a given division, the better probability you have of being selected.

So doing well in the qualifier gives me some algorithmic advantage, but in reality, finishing say, fifth overall doesn’t guarantee me a spot? Do an old man a favor. Explain to me how that makes sense. Combining a qualifier with a lottery is just plain ridiculous. It needs to be one or the other.

Let me put it in terms the fine folks at the WZA might understand. Imagine a radio station contest where the person who is able to keep their hand physically touching a brand new Dodge Durango wins the car. One by one, people give up, let go and go home. If I keep my hand on the Durango for three days while all the other contestants drop out, and then I have to be caller nine to actually win the car, then what was the point of the competition part to begin with? Why compete, then leave the actual results up to a game of chance?

It Gets Worse

Now the really insulting part. WZA added further disincentives by making the workouts so ridiculously scaled that you might wonder whether they mean to attract any 50+ athletes at all. “Knees to midline”? Hand-release burpee ring pull ups” instead of muscle ups? Come on. I was born in 1962, not 1862.

“We’re a pretty badass bunch of dudes (and gals). If you want 25 of the best in the country, act like it.”

If you want to have a masters division as one of the big four, you want to attract the best 15 -25 masters in the country. I hate to break it to you WZA guys, but Ron Ortiz is one of us now. We’re a pretty badass bunch of dudes (and gals). If you want 25 of the best in the country, act like it. Take the top 25 qualifiers, and give us workouts that allow us to prove we are the best. This includes high-level gymnastics movements. Like it or not, you’re not going to find the best crop with a low-skill, cardio-heavy qualifier. “Who can suffer the most” is only one of many criteria that should be in place in order to advance to the next round.

The possible upshot of the current scenario is that some of the more talented players lose out on a spot, and a guy like Ron Ortiz gets a sponsor invite and embarrasses the potentially less talented field. And nobody wants a bloodbath.

Stop With the Insults

All you event organizers out there, stop placating 50+ athletes. If you are one of the big comps, including the CrossFit Games themselves, give us your best shot. Let those 50-54, 55-59, and 60+ athletes who put in the work and have serious competition aspirations have a legit shot by hitting the full spectrum of possible movements. And so help me, if you program knees-to-midline ever again, I’m coming right across this table.

Time for supper. It’s four o’clock.

More Like This:

• CrossFit Updates: Kevin Ogar and the Masters Level Competition
• CrossFitters: Time to Call Ourselves Out on the Shenanigans
• Is CrossFit’s Definition of Fitness Flawed?
• New on Breaking Muscle Today

Photo courtesy of Jorge Huerta Photography.

The post Dear Wodapalooza: Stop Insulting Masters Athletes appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Still Go Hard (Just Not Every Day)

For some reason we seem to think athleticism must stop at forty. That’s no great surprise given that back in the 1950s and ‘60s the medical profession was telling us that after age forty you shouldn’t exercise anymore. They said it was too much strain on the heart. In other words, you were expected to just slide gently into the grave from then on.

While there aren’t many stand-out professional athletes in their forties, the fact that there are a few shows us it is possible to still have some good days. I’m well aware there are a growing number of active mature athletes who pursue their passion thanks to HRT, but I want to look at what is possible for those of us who don’t want to go down that path.

For me, the most important thing to realize was that I may feel like a young me still, but my body doesn’t. I wake up stiff sometimes and often have to hobble around the room for a minute until things start to loosen up. And while I can still go hard, I can’t go hard every day like I used to. In a given week, I will likely have two hard workouts with the remainder being far more moderate, as I simply can’t withstand so many hard sessions. In other words, I just don’t recover like I used to. 

Rebalancing the Body

After every hard session, regardless of age, the body needs to rebalance itself. It does this through two primary mechanisms – food and sleep. Training for most people generally falls either early in the day before work or later after work. In both cases it is important to get a decent meal in post training. It won’t kill you if you don’t do it, but by the end of the week the benefits from quickly refuelling your body can be felt.

I won’t bore you with quoting studies as by now you should have seen the thousands of articles written about the importance of post-workout nutrition, so try to get a meal in within thirty minutes if you can. Don’t be scared of carbohydrates either as they will need replenishing after you’ve used them up during training. 

As you get older one of two things happens. Either you realize you can’t get away with poor choices anymore and that a fast-food meal makes you feel horrible for days. Or, you realize having a six-pack isn’t as important to you as having a glass of wine with dinner each night and enjoying some of the less health conscious and tastier options out there. Neither is right or wrong and only you can decide which is the right path for you. But if you want to keep pushing hard past forty, then you’re going to need to make good food choices more often than not.

Time, Food, and Sleep Management

Food is like the petrol our body needs to keep running. The better the quality of fuel we put in, the faster and longer we can rev the engine. But sleep is like preventative maintenance. Forgoing sleep to watch TV or stay out late will halt your progress faster than anything else I can think of. One of the problems about passing forty is that often by this stage we have serious jobs that may require working outside normal hours, or there might be kids. Or there might be kids and work.

Most people’s time management skills are awful. They waste time on unimportant things, watch too much TV, and don’t prioritize looking after themselves by getting to bed early. While life is never perfect and there will be situations (particularly for those with kids) that require changing your schedule on the fly, getting people used to your routine is essential. Everyone knows not to expect an answer from me after 8.30pm at night as I am already starting to get ready for the next day. Clothes are laid out. The alarm is set. It’s rare that I am in bed after 9:00pm.

That may make me seem like an old man, but if you want to have enough energy to train well the next day, then you must get enough sleep. For me, I find that eight hours is critical if I plan to have the energy not just to train well, but also to have a clear head for the work that comes after it.

The other part of the sleep equation is taking a nap during the day. I know this makes me seem like even more of an old man, but currently I train twice each day and without that nap in the middle the quality of the second session is low. My total sleep for every 24-hour period is eight hours overnight and another hour during the day.

Balancing the Training

After food and sleep comes balancing the hard work in your training versus the easy work. I shouldn’t really call it easy, because it’s not, but when looked at in relation to the hard sessions you’ll see why they’re called easy. A hard day may look like this:

• AM – 70min hill run as 20’ warm up easy, then 1’ at 8% followed by 5’ easy, 2’ at 6% followed by 5’ easy, 3’ at 4% followed by 5’ easy. Repeat for another round followed by 10-15’ cool down.
• PM – Front squat and power cleans for strength followed by approximately 60 min of some type of interval weight training (IWT). IWTs are usually a compound resistance exercise followed by a 2-min cardio exercise, with a rest to work ratio of 1:1.

After a day like that you’ll find you wake up the next day stiff and tired. That’s actually my current Friday workout, which means that Saturday has to be “easy.” In this context easy doesn’t refer to actually taking it easy, but in deliberately choosing activities that won’t put as much stress on the body as the day before. A typical Saturday looks like this:

• AM 1 – Easy run of 40 min. Eat immediately after and take a short break.
• AM 2 – Strength session, predominantly upper body, followed by a bodyweight circuit.
• PM – Easy swim.

If you pull the thread on this second day and compare it to the first, you’ll see a big difference. A flat, easy run is refreshing after the pain of the hill run the day before. A strength workout that is mostly smaller muscle groups and confined to the upper body is far easier than squats and cleans. The use of bodyweight circuits is also far easier than an IWT (which if you’ve done one before, you’ll know can be an absolute killer). And the swim combines more easy aerobic work with cool water, which has an anti-inflammatory effect.

The Take-Away

There’s no reason to stop working hard as you get older, you just need to be smart about it. You need to be diligent with your food and sleep in order to recover properly between sessions. And don’t try to train hard each day, but follow hard days with easy ones to allow your body to recover while still gaining fitness and strength. Fit at forty is possible – if you are smart about it.

Photos 1 & 3 courtesy of Jorge Huerta Photography.

Photo 2 courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post Fitness at 40: How to Train Hard and Play Smart appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Allow me to give you the highlights, Buzzfeed style:

The Master’s Qualifier Worked

The masters have been clamoring for a regional qualifier for a while now, much of that based on two things:

1. That it would be easier to qualify for Carson in a regional setting where you know you can beat a targeted group of people from within your region rather than having to beat everyone in the entire world.
2. The other oft-cited reason was that it would “weed out the cardio jockeys” who seem to do well in the Open but then flounder at the Games.

Going in, it might have seemed that securing a spot in the top twenty during the Open would all but ensure your trip to the Games, but for perhaps the nineteenth and twentieth people fighting it out with the guys and gals who landed 21 through 25. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

The qualifier, which handed the masters four very different workouts than we experienced in the Open, upended the top twenty in most, if not all of the age brackets. Opening with a max clean was proof that the ability to move weight would be critical.

Let me put this in perspective. In 2011’s CrossFit Games, the second event for the masters 45-49 was a max clean and jerk. Ron Ortiz won that event with a 255lb lift. Ortiz took first place this year in the qualifier with a clean of 315lbs. Those who only cleaned 255lbs in the qualifier this year were rewarded with a tie for 62nd place.

The upshot? To advance to the Games, you need to be strong. Very strong. My 275lb clean was good for a fifth place in the 50-54 age bracket. Think about that. You clean 275lbs at the age of 51, and that’s good enough for fifth? Wow. Don’t get me started on Steve Hamming in the 55-59 age bracket cleaning 295lbs. If you aren’t strong, you aren’t going to the Games.

So we got what we asked for – begged for, in fact – a masters regional that required us to show our metal in a different set of tests, stay extremely consistent across nine workouts, and possess a well rounded set of skills.

Less Stress Works Just as Well as Complete Stress

In 2013, my approach was 100% focus and dedication to making it to Carson, which resulted in 100% stress. I made it, but found that I was had less fun than I actually had hoped at the Games. This year, my goal was to get as strong and as fit as I possibly could, and if I made it to the Games, great. If not, great.

It made for a much more enjoyable year of training, and fairly relaxed Open, and only a few tense moments between workout four and the settling of the leaderboard. Don’t get me wrong, I trained as if I was going to the Games. I trained hard and remained dedicated to my programming right down to the last rep. However, the Games was no longer my primary goal. My primary goal was strength and conditioning. The Games was a secondary benefit, as is longer life, better health, and all of the benefits that will come from training hard and smart.

There Are No “Asteriks” in the Masters Division

Dave Castro did the online interview below with the winner of the 45-49 bracket, Jerry Hill, (first place through the qualifiers) and posed this question: “Is there going to be, for this division, 45 to 49 year old division, an asterik for these few years of victories because Bill Grundler is not competing? [sic]”

Jerry’s reaction is priceless. For a nanosecond, he reacts as though someone smacked him in the cheek with a pair of white gloves and challenged him to a duel. Then he quickly recovers and graciously gives both Castro and Grundler some placating, then moves on.

For those who do not know, Bill Grundler is a 45-year old, highly regarded CrossFitter who is clearly a friend of CrossFit Headquarters, and who has been providing color commentary for various events including the broadcast Open workouts. Last year Grundler basically dismissed the masters by saying that he would rather compete with the “elite” athletes and take a shot at the Games. He qualified both for the masters 40-44 and regionals last year, and declined to participate in the masters event in lieu of trying to make the Games, despite the fact that one can do both. He failed to podium in SoCal.

But the idea that somehow, this man, who has declined to participate, should be given the defacto absentee title of “winner” and thus handing anyone who dares to podium in real life an asterisk, is nothing short of insulting. Now, granted, Castro says all of this with a playful poke, presumably, but I don’t think anyone who is in serious contention for the 45-49 podium thinks it’s funny.

Two-time 45-49 champ Lisa Mikkelsen opted out of the Games this year in favor of family. Does this mean that whomever wins the women’s 45-49 should get an asterisk? No. That is absurd. The field is the field. Sam Briggs’ victory in 2013 did not come with an asterisk since Iceland Annie was unable to compete. Froning will retire after this year, and whoever wins in 2015 won’t get an asterisk.

Grundler does not factor in to the masters Games. May the best man* win.

*and woman. 

The post Third Time’s the Charm: Going to the CrossFit Games appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

– Dylan Thomas

I don’t know about any of you, but I do not act my age. I am stronger, faster, fitter, and in better shape than I have been at any point previously in my 51 years, so why would I? When I was 28, I could bench 235lbs. At 51, I can bench about 280 for a single. (Not that one’s bench press is the “bro-test” in CrossFit, but it’s all I have to measure against my 28-year-old self).

I never scale anything, and I rarely, if ever, use my age as a reason when I am beaten the “kids” at my box, (and those so-called kids are anywhere from 25 to 35). Usually, when I lose to them, it’s because they are just better CrossFitters than me. In a nutshell, it simply does not occur to me that I am 51. I have no intention of slowing down. I have some fairly lofty strength goals, as well as overall fitness goals, and can’t imagine why I would yield to aging – at all.

Now, admittedly, my warm up takes a little longer than most. That is due largely to working through flexibility issues that, despite my best attempt at ignoring my age, still exist. Although to be fair, I think those issues have existed since I was a kid anyway.

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

About a year ago I took a look at an old friend’s Facebook page, and started browsing through his photos. This particular fellow, we’ll call him “Terry,” was a wiry, tall kid who was into motorcycles and heavy metal back in 1980 when we were in high school. My mind’s eye still saw him as that lanky kid, with long, pasted, side-parted ‘70s style hair. When I saw his current photos, my jaw dropped.

Terry was sitting in a chair with his arm around some old lady. He was surrounded by eighteen grandkids. He was, himself, old. Santa-Claus old. He had gray hair, a long grey beard, was fairly portly, and like I said, sitting next to some old lady I couldn’t identify. What? Terry looked seventy. Older even.

Curious, I started creeping (to use Facebook parlance) on some of my other high school friends. It was eye opening. I can’t believe that my classmates got old. Old! (There was, I will admit, some sense of perverse satisfaction when I discovered that a couple of the hot girls who wouldn’t give me the time of day back then had literally morphed into oldish blue-hairs. But I digress.)

Truth is, they are not old. They are all fifty or 51, just like me. You know who else is 51? Tom Cruise. Brad Pitt is fifty. And neither looks like a right jolly old elf.

What is most telling, though, is a set of twins with whom I was fairly close with back in high school and after. One of them settled into a married life, had children, and proceeded to live a fairly sedentary, American-dream life. Good job, good family, church, and community. The other moved to Chicago, began running marathons, and stayed active both physically and also in environmental causes. When you see pictures of them side by side, it’s fairly shocking. These twins, only minutes separating them in age, appear to be separated by twenty-plus years of “aging.” One looks 45, the other looks seventy.

Is there a common denominator? Yes, genetics plays a role. Some people are genetically gifted in the sense that they look young, always have, and maybe always will. But there is something more to it than genetics: fitness. Fitness keeps you younger. Younger looking, younger feeling, younger acting. There is even some proof of this right down to a cellular level. And more proof here.

Old Age Should Burn and Rave at Close of Day

On the opposite side of the spectrum, I dare say that lack of fitness makes you older. In appearance, in ability to function, in attitude. It’s a cascading effect that literally sucks the life out of you. If you are overweight, you move less because movement is often just uncomfortable. If you’re uncomfortable, you do less. You sit more. You lose muscle tone, strength, bone density, and blood flow. You just get…old. You’ve all looked at those class reunion pictures where some of the people, all from the same class, look 45 and others look 75. I believe the difference is their level of fitness.

The will to live is defined as follows: “A psychological force to fight for survival seen as an important and active process of conscious and unconscious reasoning. This occurs particularly when one’s own life is threatened by a serious injury or disease.” If you are in danger of dying, the will to live, at a truly instinctual level, will kick in and cause you to fight for your life. If you are drowning, you will claw, kick, and fight for air until the end. When it comes to being faced with a terminal illness or a possible mortal injury, no one goes “gentle into that good night.” We fight it. Hard. No one wants to die.

Why then, do we fight so hard and embrace the will to live when death is imminent, but when faced with long-term health, we let scope-creep shave years off of our lives? Why do we let inactivity, pounds, and bad habits (i.e. smoking, drinking, and poor nutrition) make us old? Aging is inevitable, but why, when the so-called secret to staying young isn’t a secret at all, do we choose to acquiesce years to indulgence?

Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light

Getting “old” is a choice until it’s not a choice anymore. I have always had the attitude that my body is my body, and I will make it do what I want it to do, not what my age “allows” it to do. I will do muscle ups, bar muscle ups, heavy snatches, clean and jerks, handstand pushups, you name it. As far as I am concerned, I am just Pat McCarty, not 51-year-old Pat McCarty.

I am going to rage against the dying of the light. Pick up the bar. Grab the rings. Squat heavy, and often. Look aging in the face and laugh. I will not go gentle into that dark night.

It’s your choice. Acquiesce to aging – or rage against it?

The post Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night (Or How to Grow Older Disgracefully) appeared first on Breaking Muscle.