Becoming Better: Skills Acquisition

My current favorite author is Atul Gawande. A general surgeon in Massachusetts, Gawande's writing style is both highly engaging- he frequently incorporates narratives of dramatic experiences accrued throughout his medical education- and quite authoritative- through a liberal citation of research studies. Two of the books he has authored that I have purchased, Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance, and, Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science, accompanied me to Thailand and I continue to learn from them as I re-read them.

In one part of Complications, Gawande depicts the necessity of tenacity and determination in regards to the successful acquisition of a skill; be it surgery, playing the violin, or professional athletics.  Gawande cites the conclusion of researchers who examined the disparity between top performers in many fields (mathematics, music, chess, etc...) and lesser performers. The difference did not lie in innate skill, but in, "the cumulative amount of deliberate practice they've had" [1]. The potential limit imposed by one's genetics upon their VO2 max is an oft-cited claim for prowess in triathlon, but maybe this is just a minor part of the story. Gawande cites the conclusion of cognitive psychologist K. Anders Ericsson when he writes that Ericcson notes, "that the most important way in which innate factors play a role may be in one's willingness to engage in sustained training" [1].

My experience with swimming certainly supports this line of thinking. Starting my freshman year of college, I began to swim in the university pool. I pursued swimming more intelligently than passionately, forcing myself to hop in the cold water and repeat stroke drills to improve my speed and efficiency. In the pool, I met Alan Jacob, a much better swimmer and very prolific cyclists (and now very good friend). Alan routinely swam daily and would clock +20 hours of riding each week regardless of the season.

When I first started swimming with Alan, I would finish maybe half of the set's 200-yard interval before he touched the wall. I remember once playing around with a warm-up by swimming with fins and thinking to myself how nice, but seemingly impossible, it would be to swim this quickly. Then Alan passed me in the adjacent lane. Swimming so slowly was frustrating.

But I kept with it. My weekly yardage held constant during the busy school year and, come summer break, I would build it up further. With each year of college, my average weekly yardage would increase and my interval splits would drop proportionally. Now, of course, it was the increase in yardage, guidance from Alan, and improved stroke mechanics that made me a better swimmer. But it was a continued willingness to go to the pool and repeatedly throw myself at a task wherein I improved very frustratingly slowly that facilitated these changes.

Leading the swim in a super-sprint triathlon held at the college during Sophomore year. I'm the closest swimmer and Alan is in the adjacent lane. I'd actually lead the race into T1, but only because Alan elected to wear bike shorts and had to keep pulling them up as he swam. He beat me by 5 minutes on the 12-mile bike leg anyway...

I remember one set Junior year. Alan and I were doing a workout we called the 400 medley, which was a continuous 400 consisting of '100 at moderate pace, 50 breast stroke, 100 build (slow to med to fast pace), 50 kick, then 100 build to a sprint. We were coming up to the wall just before the final 100 of the last 400 yard set. I was, for once, right alongside Alan. Feeling confident, I said, with a cocky edge to my voice, "I'm still here, Alan," while still staring at the wall of the pool inching closer. Alan turned his head ever so slightly and just gave me a look.

I got absolutely smoked on that last 100. Yet even though I lost the battle, in my mind I'd won the war. I was improving. In our workouts Senior year, Alan would come in slightly ahead of me on each interval just as often as we would glide into the wall together. But that improvement wasn't made from just the laps, the drill work , or the core workouts we did afterwards. It was made at 8:00 at night while staring out the window to pouring rain and a mile-long walk in the dark to the pool.

In one of our last swim workouts together after I graduated from college, I came across Alan doing some repeats with Kevin Wang, one of my school's best swimmers and now coach of the team (and the local Master's club that I swam with. Kevin was also a great source of guidance and inspiration). I hopped in and after a quick warm-up gave it a go. Kevin destroyed us both, but I glided into the wall in second place.

"Wow, you're really fast," Alan told me during the rest before the next set.

Elated at the compliment, I just smiled, dropped under the water, and kicked off the wall to start the next 200-yard interval.



*Gawande is a MacArthur Fellow, a general surgeon at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, a staff writer for The New York Times, and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health. He's also, I've found, an excellent writer.

Sources:
[1]. Gawande, Atul. "Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science." p.20 . Picador Publishing, U.S.A. 2002

Today's Run

Upon arriving at the Step Ahead Khao Lak center, I was relieved to find a great place to run just 200 yards up the road. A widespread disregard for traffic safety makes running or riding along the road more dangerous than petting great white sharks and almost as dangerous as cycling in Texas.

The loop is approximately 1 kilometer long and circumnavigates a large pond (pictured above) in a D shape. The circuit is completely flat, but that just means I'll need to be creative. Various fartleks (or, speed play) runs will comprise a lion's share of my outings. Example farleks include surging the straight section (the backbone of the D), accelerating each time I round a corner (the path isn't curved, but segmented, so that would make for about 6 surges each lap), or varying my pace with the tempo of the song I'm listening to on my iPod Shuffle.

The sunrises and sunsets I catch from the little pond loop are extraordinary and I'll photograph and post them soon. Also, the loop appears to be a public park, and several locals walk laps each morning. I'm always greeted by warm smiles as I run the loop and do my best to exchange a cheery 'su wut dee krap,' or, 'hello' ( 'krap' in Thai is a word that makes a statement polite).

The Thai Diet

Sunset view over the Andaman sea from my new favorite restaurant

In his excellent book, Racing Weight: How to Get Lean for Peak Performance, Matt Fitzgerald outlines virtually everything the serious endurance athlete could care to know about optimizing body composition. Though I'll post a thorough review of the book later, it should suffice to say that I certainly recommend it if one needs to seriously address this issue in their training and racing.

Though the book has many benefits, one of them is assisting the reader in developing a proper diet strategy based off knowledge gleamed from diet journaling. Fitzgerald adds a quote to the effect of, "A measured quantity is a managed quantity," and while I'm not measuring my food on a scale a la Armstrong, I am addressing the fueling of my body with great focus.

In doing so, I have determined that, though I was eating very healthy foods, I was also eating more of these foods than was metabolically necessary. I was quite literally having too much of a good thing.

Enter the Thai diet.

For the 6 month period before I begin medical school in early September, my wife and I will be doing volunteer work in Khao Lak, Thailand. We are working with Step Ahead, a Christian organization that works towards local community development by assisting women and children at risk, teaching English and German, and many other special projects (such as developing sustainable agriculture in a nearby impoverished village, a project that I'm excited to be working on now). Should the urge strike you, you can read about our adventures on our trip's blog at yrockmovement.blogspot.com. 

Part of being in Thailand means I have the good fortune of having unprecedented access to Thai food. It's actually cheaper here to eat out than it is to make your own meal, as only 30 baht per dish makes each dining experience $1 USD. The portions, however, are certainly Thai-sized, and with meals just rolling around three times a day, I am probably eating in the neighborhood of 60% of the volume of my American diet. Combined with daily runs timed at sunrise and sunset, I have an excellent chance of making my way to my optimal race weight and a significant improvement in performance.

I'll measure my outcome by my performance in a penultimate running event, either the Phuket Marathon, half-marathon, or 10km on June 13th, in addition to measuring my body composition (lean mass and body fat % relative to my desired body weight). I'm excited to track this transition on these pages and look forward to faster running splits once I return to the States.

I can't say that I'm too excited to return, however, cause even though we spend quite a bit of time working, we have very easy access to paradise (and, as it turns out, vacant beach resort chairs near the beach). Please note the European-tourist in the background. It's like Kona in October over here- all of the Europeans are in Speedo-style swimsuits and none of them appear to have ever heard of skin cancer. I guess I'll add sunscreen advocacy among tourists to Step Ahead's agenda.  

Examining Diet Soda

Drinking diet soda instead of regular soda is like smoking cigarettes to avoid taking meth. It doesn't make sense. At least, that's how I feel now. After buying a few Coke Zeros recently, I thought I would research the health implications of diet sodas and was surprised by what I found. 

More Diet Soda = More Obesity. And Diabetes.

Sharon Fowler, MPH, and her colleagues at the University of Texas Health Science Center-San Antonio collected data on consumers of diet soda for 8 years and presented their findings at the annual meeting of the American Diabetes Association in San Diego. The surprise finding was that those drinking only diet sodas had a much higher prevalence of obesity than those who drank the sugary versions of the soda. As Fowler tells WebMD, "There was a 41% increase in risk of being overweight for every can or bottle of diet soft drink a person consumes each day" [Source 1]. Concerning diabetes, in a study performed by the Journal of American Medicine, the daily consumption of diet soda was associated with a 67% increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes. 

The authors of the study did note that diet soda consumption wasn't likely the primary cause of the weight gain. But not only does diet soda have this high degree of correlation to obesity, it can also be unhealthy itself and lead to poor dietary decisions. To understand this, we should take a closer look at the main ingredient of diet drinks- Aspartame.

Aspartame: what is it? 

Two forms of Aspartame

Aspartame, the main sweetener in U.S. diet drinks, is distributed under several trade names- such as NutraSweet® and Equal® -and is approximately 200 times sweeter than sugar. So little of it is necessary to achieve a sweet taste within a beverage that it's caloric contribution is negligible. Upon ingestion, aspartame is catabolized into smaller molecular components, principally aspartic acid, phenylalanine, and methanol. Whereas phenylalanine and aspartic acid are both commonly encountered naturally in the body (the former is an essential amino acid in mammals), methanol is toxic and only 10mL of it will cause blindness while 100mL can cause death. Is the concentration of methanol resulting from aspartame metabolism unhealthy? Very likely not, but methanol is there, and that's a health concern to be aware of. 

In a survey of U.S. consumers performed by the FDA, the average aspartame intake was found to be approximately 200mg per day, or, 7% of the ADI (with ADI essentially being the recommended maximum daily consumption allowed to avoid health risk). A widespread controversy surrounding aspartame is that it's linked to an increased risk of various cancers. In a study published in 2006, however, the National Cancer Institute compared individuals who consumed aspartame-containing beverages to those who didn't. They found that increasing levels of aspartame consumption were not correlated with any risk of lymphomas, leukemias, or brain tumors in men or women.

My conclusions on aspartame- it seems like a perfectly acceptable artificial sweetener except for the fact that it's metabolized into methanol. Even though the quantity of methanol would likely be negligible, it's a toxic chemical that I want no part in voluntarily consuming.

So, despite my aversion to methanol consumption, the trial of diet soda seems to pass the aspartame test. But what about the affect of diet drinks on one's dietary choices.

Diet Soda: same great soda taste, but, well, even more calories. Just in a different form.

The main point of this entire blog entry is to reveal the hypocritical nature of diet soda consumption. There's a documented "Sweet Tooth" Syndrome induced by diet soda consumption wherein a person is more inclined to desire and consume sugary foods following diet coke consumption. Though the Diet Coke in your hand may have zero calories, the cookie likely to follow it has quite a few.

In a paper published by Behavioral Neuroscience, adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were given a differential experience in terms of foods provided with varying sweetness and caloric content. Here's the quote:

 "We found that reducing the correlation between sweet taste and the caloric content of foods using artificial sweeteners in rats resulted in increased caloric intake, increased body weight, and increased adiposity, as well as diminished caloric compensation and blunted thermic responses to sweet-tasting diets. These results suggest that consumption of products containing artificial sweeteners may lead to increased body weight and obesity by interfering with fundamental homeostatic, physiological processes."

The effect is similar in humans. In a study performed by the University of California- San Diego, 12 women were scanned by functional MRI while sipping water sweetened with either real sugar (sucralose) or artificial sweetener (sucralose). Though the women's palates couldn't tell the difference (sucrose and sucralose are registered the same by taste buds) the brain could register a difference. In the study, the sugar activated the pleasure-related regions of the brain more intensely than Splenda. To paraphrase, the artificial sweeteners got the brain all excited, but didn't deliver the goods. Another study by the researchers found a similar effect, where rats fed yogurt with real sugar and artificially-sweetened sugar consumed much more of the latter. They suspect that the sweeteners inhibit the brain's ability to regulate its caloric consumption. 

In addition, as anyone who regularly consumes diet soda will tell you, they're highly addictive. A fairly high concentration of caffeine combined with the seductive claim of being a zero-calorie indulgence can lead individuals to consume several daily. A study was performed where rats were fed artificial sweeteners in order to elucidate the addictive nature of the sweeteners. Not only did the rodents gain weight to the point of obesity, when given the option of consuming cocaine or diet soda, they preferred the... diet sodas!

Finally, though diet soda may replace regular soda in the diet, it is itself replacing actually healthy beverages like water. Try obtaining your caffeine fix from healthier sources, like coffee or tea, and stay away from diet soda.

Sources:

[1] Denoon, Daniel J. "Drink More Diet Soda, Gain More Weight?" http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20050613/drink-more-diet-soda-gain-more-weight . WebMD.com

[2] Better Health: Smart Health Commentary. "Do Diet Sodas Make You Fat?" http://getbetterhealth.com/do-diet-sodas-make-you-fat/2009.12.21#more-13550

[3] Scientific American. "Artificial Sweeteners Confound the Brain- May Lead to Diet Disaster." http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=artificial-sweeteners-confound-the-brain

The Complete Triathlete: A Quiz

A significant portion of triathlon's appeal lies in the attempt of mastering a sport that itself consists of three quite separate disciplines. If you've ever seen a runner try to swim, you've witnesed firsthand the challenge that triathlon presents to the athlete. But I've found that rather than embracing the subtle nuances of the sport, most triathletes- myself included -are often quite unfortunately content to swim, bike, and run lots then hope for the best on race day.

To address this problem, I devised a list which I made into a quick yes or no quiz. It's by no means comprehensive, but by taking it and analyzing the results, you can determine places you may be able to improve within each sport, your lifestyle, or triathlon as a whole.

I'll be doing my best to better address each of the questions listed below. I'd suggest embracing a couple, several, or all of them as New Year's Resolutions, but everyone knows, as demonstrated by gym attendance, that Resolutions only last until February.

SWIM
1. Do you swim with a Master's Swim Team
2. Have you had your stroke videotaped and analyzed by a qualified individual?
3. Do you not only perform drills each workout, but drills specifically addressing deficiencies in your stroke?
4. Do you practice strokes other than crawl/free-style? (For example, by swimming a small percentage of your weekly yardage backstroke, you can develop muscles that are neglected by crawl stroke and make your muscular development more balanced and your body stronger overall + less prone to injury).
5. Do you flip turn? If so, do you flip turn well?

BIKE
1. Have you been professionally fit? For example, by a F.I.S.T. certified individual, Serotta Fit Institute Certified individual, or by a service like Retul .  If not, have you put continued effort into studying and improving your position?
2. Do you train intelligently with a power meter?
3. If you train with a power meter, do you leave the numbers alone once in awhile and just go for a perceived-effort ride?
4. Do you perform a majority (about 80%) of your rides at a low-to-moderate intensity and have the remaining amount dedicated to high-intensity training (ex: tempo workouts, hill sets, sprint sets)?
5. Do you ride with a local club or team?
6. What color is your bike? Black is the fastest color, and white is even faster.
    (that's a joke, but it's also probably true)
7. Have you analyzed the relative performance of each leg with a basic or advanced exertion test?
8. Do you perform bike-specific drills like single-leg pedalling, riding a fixed gear, or riding on rollers?

RUN
1. Are you more than 10% heavier than your optimal race weight (if you know it, or over 10% above what you would expect your optimal race weight to be)?
2. Do you train for and race running events in addition to triathlon training? For example, a local 5km, 10km, or half-marathon?
3. Do you regularly perform running-specific drills each week? Ex: Before each run, do you warm-up, stretch easy, do drills, strides, then your workout?
4. Do you do a regularly core workout program which emphasizes the muscles that get under-worked compared to the running-specific ones? Ex: exercising the hip adductors and abductors?
5. Do you run consistently, have a decent variety of workouts, and have a longer run each weekend?
6. Do you only increase your mileage by about 10% each week when building up?
7. Do you get a new pair of shoes every 300-500 miles?
8. Do you make a consistent effort to run on soft substrate?

RECOVERY
1. Have you tried regularly icing, massaging, elevating, or compressing (i.e. compression apparel) your muscles to see if they improve your recovery?
2. Do you get an optimal amount of sleep (likely +7-8 hours) consistently?
3. Do you address impending injuries rapidly and diligently or try to train through unusual soreness/pain?
4. Do you have a post-workout (within 15min) recovery snack like a protein bar or fruit smoothie to replenish your glycogen stores?
5. If you've been injured in the past, have you kept up on preventative measures to keep from becoming injured again? Ex: you had ITB impingement and used a hip roller to recover and now use a massage stick daily.


NUTRITION
1. Do you eat many 'nutritionally-empty' foods?
2. Do you eat smaller, healthy meals at regular intervals during the day?
3. Do you consistently measure (as in, once a month) your body weight/composition? (A quote I picked up from Matt Fitzgerald's Racing Weight, which I'll write up a review of in the near future, spoke to the effect of "A known quantity is a managed quantity")
4. Does your weight during the off-season (usually the Thanksgiving-Christsmas desert fest) inflate beyond 10% above your training weight? For example, the weight you achieved before your taper for the previous season's A race?

LIFESTYLE
1. Are you regularly negatively-stressed? Have you identified what's causing the stress and worked towards reducing it?
2. Do you manage your time well?

The 3 Most Necessary Holiday Bike Component Upgrades

You've spent more time with your bike than your children and tended to it more lovingly than your wife. In return, it has supported you more faithfully than a well-trained dog. A well-trained dog made of carbon fiber.

Here are the four essential bike component upgrades that your life has been incomplete without. Even if you didn't know it.

3. Titanium Bolts

Ti may be losing the war against carbon fiber, but it's hard to argue against its incredible strength, durability, and lust worthiness. It's practically chemically inert in it's alloyed form, resisting as many sweaty trainer sessions as you can throw at it. In addition, it's the strongest metal for its weight, as strong as many common steels but 45% lighter (1), and has the highly touted argument of a high fatigue limit. Whereas metals like aluminum will fatigue to the point of failure over time, Titanium is immune to any stresses below the force of it's fatigue limit. Will bolts on your bike experience this limit? My guess is almost certainly not, but it's holiday bike upgrade time and practicality is not your concern. Besides, there are some aluminum bolts thrown into the above kit to bring the weight down (Al wins in the weight-weenie battle), and the bolts are of course anodized a beautiful deep red. Check out the above kit from Specialty Racing Products and ask your spouse if eliminating the omnipresent threat of bolt failure isn't worth a paltry $150. Plus, you stand to lose at least 5 grams in the process.

2. Nokon Cables

Anyone can run regular cables, but it takes an individual with true hatred of their money to run Nokon Cables. Beyond being the undisputed 'patented cable system of the future,' Nokon cables offer the benefits of: resisting kinks, managing tighter corners, provide a compressionless housing, and most importantly, come in pretty colors. Also, they mention that the Aluminum housing won't rust, but as far as I know, the standard rubber housing on cables won't rust either, so... wait, never mind, that would be a practical consideration. And you can't lord practicality over your riding buddies every Saturday morning. For only approximately $99, you could upgrade your cables this holiday season. Think of how many more cups of Egg Nog you could have to compensate for the weight savings. It's at least 3. Maybe even 4.

1. Ceramic Bearings

Ceramic bearings are widely heralded as the choice of bearings for top-tier wheelsets. The argument lies in their diminished rolling resistance and heightened durability as compared to standard steel bearings. If my memory is correct, you could be losing at least 5 watts if you're not on ceramic. And that's just the wheels. The general consensus is that if you're not on ceramic bearings, you shouldn't even bother riding. Upgrading to ceramics if often compared to providing a performance benefit comparable to moving from an uninflated to an inflated front tire, or, during a 40km TT, similar to moving from facing backwards to forwards while riding. Don't forget derailleur pulleys and bottom brackets need the upgrade too. If your spouse disputes the necessity of having every bearing be ceramic, tell him/her that to not upgrade the others would be unfair, and that's not the person he/she fell in love with.  Regarding the price, well, the adage of 'if you have to ask, you probably can't afford it' may be in effect, but look to spend about $400 if you go for these $90 derailleur pulleys from VCRC along with their $150 ceramic bottom bracket and a $150 set for your Mavic Wheels.

----

You may have noticed an increasingly sarcastic tone within the above entry, but each upgrade is to some degree a legitimate suggestion. If your bike is fit properly, maintained flawlessly (as in, you're cleaning the drivetrain while reading this), and has top of the line components, and you hate saving money, then any of these could be for you. There are of course better uses for your money, like a powermeter, computrainer, aero helmet, or Master's swim teach membership, but if you have those bases covered, then enjoy!

Sources:
1. ^ ^a b c Barksdale 1968, p. 738

Product Review: AlCis

Just the essentials: AlCis and Avery the guinea pig

Just a quick look at the AlCis website reveals exactly why I had no real interest in using their product. With marketing statements like, " a uniquely luxurious cream base was invented. Infused with nourishing botanicals and anti-oxidants it also re-hydrates the skin throughout the relief process. So soothing, so effective that it now lives on in a new line of ALCiS body care products," I'd think I was rubbing shampoo on myself. 

It gets worse. " And so it goes: a premise, a solution, a desire to develop a non-invasive, medical solutions to everyday health concerns. That is ALCiS… "

That... is exactly why I didn't use their product for two years. After receiving free samples in my Escape From Alcatraz swag bag, I passed them along to family because I thought it was just a gimmick. Apparently, I was mistaken. 

I do just about 100% of my running on trails, and recommend that everyone else do so (I don't care if it's not possible- make it happen). The sudden transition to racing the Turkey Trot 10km all on pavement, unsurprisingly, left my knee in a slight state of disrepair. Back at home for Thanksgiving, my Mom, who had received one of the aforementioned samples, ran to get some all the while espousing its virtues. I consented to try it, and am very glad I did so. 

As a topical analgesic, it's a pain relieving lotion applied directly to the area causing trouble. This localized application of pain relief is a nice advantage when compared to pills that are inherently generalized, distributing their effect throughout the body. There are also no apparent side effects. For example, if you're taking ibuprofen to reduce exercise-related pain, you risk upsetting your stomach or damaging your liver*.With AlCis, if you apply it wrong, well, then there's no help for you because it's pretty simple.  

After applying a generous amount to both knees, I went to bed. Upon waking, I felt a strong degree of Delayed Muscle Soreness throughout my lower body, except in the areas where I applied the cream. Walking downstairs, rather than inciting minor pain or tightness as it had the day before, was incident free, and an easy 20 minute recovery run on some local singletrack trail was pleasantly devoid of pain or tightness as well. 

I'm now an advocate of AlCis and have a tube of my own. While it won't combat the cause of inflammation, it will reduce the symptoms- allowing you a very enjoyable reduction in soreness or pain. If, of course, you do feel pain or tightness, rather than treating the symptoms, pursue the cause aggressively and make sure you're fully healthy before continuing training. But following a race, hard workout, or just a long day on your feet, I can personally attest to the benefits of AlCis. 

One other thing I'd like to mention, I was pleasantly surprised to find that, if you sift through the marketing hyperbole on the homepage, the Alcis website  reveals that they have a very nice list of teams, organizations, and races they sponsor, including Yale's Cycling team, USC's Tri Team, MS Waves to Wine, and the Lupus Foundation of Mid and Northern New York. I always like supporting companies that in turn sponsor developing athletes and disease advocacy organizations. 

And, yes, I am forced to admit that it was creamy and luxurious.

If you're regularly feeling sore or would like to reduce the symptoms of an injury that you're treating, try purchasing AlCis from one of any number of retail outlets (listed on the website). 

Note: Along with every other  product that I've reviewed, I have no connection to the company or financial incentive to review the product. I'm just sharing my experience as a consumer. 

*I'm not- yet -qualified to deliver medical advice. Before acting on anything I or anyone else writes, please independently affirm it's accuracy, or, if health-related, consult a medical professional.