VO2MAXimizer

When my swimming “comeback” started last December, I declared pro right out of the gates.  Since then, what started as a joke has since become kind of a thing.  I landed my first sponsor!  That makes me a legit PRO now, right?

What?!  A 40 year old guy training again after twenty years out of the water just landed a professional endorsement?

...but it's still newsworthy, right?  Come on TYR, you know you wanna sponsor me too.

I have been using a new product called the VO2MAXimizer. It seems to fit right in with my training, as the science behind it shows the potential to work toward the same goal regarding energy metabolism within the muscle.

I am working on a few posts for the near future explaining “The Viking Training Method” and the scientific rationale behind it. I will probably be a little more active on the blog this fall since I am back in the water more and exploring a new way to get faster.  I plan to go into some detail that will tie directly into what the VO2MAXimizer claims to do for athletes. It is designed to essentially mimic high altitude training for those of us who have no access to those places up there where the air is rare.

My training trip up Mt. Everest was fun and all but I thought I was done with that whole walking to morning practice uphill in the snow thing when I moved away from Alaska.

From their website:

“The studies concluded that athletes who were exposed to IHT, (Intermittent Hypoxic Training,) were able to perform at a much higher work rate for longer periods of time.  Also, blood samples demonstrated that the athletes benefited from significantly higher levels of red blood cells, hemoglobin, as well as a greater mitochondrial density than the control groups.  These studies helped to explain the claims by elite coaches and athletes that the "Live High/ Train Low" life style was necessary to compete at a world class level.  

It has been conclusively demonstrated that IHT makes more oxygen available to an athlete's muscles.  Additionally, IHT allows athletes to better convert the oxygen into ATP(chemical name for energy). And so "Hypoxic Altitude Training" was born and has been continuously employed by elite athletes ever since.”

I wanted to give this product a try because I had heard other athletes talk about it.  My philosophy of minimal training and my insane work schedule threatened to leave me with no time dedicated to improving VO2 max, so if I can substitute for that by using this breather while I type on the computer at work… well, I thought it was worth a shot. Beyond increasing VO2 Max, I am curious about the talk of hematocrit and mitochondrial density, two stats that the training method I have chosen focuses on specifically.

More from their site:

“By reducing blood oxygen saturation levels to low but safe levels, the human body responds by releasing EPO, which causes the body to produce more red blood cells, and hemoglobin. Studies have shown that in just three weeks, athletes who've been exposed to IHT experience approximately a 20% increase in red blood cells as well as increase mitochondrial density. Our beta users have been able to demonstrate the same IHT results by training with the VO2MAXimizer (over 20% increase in Hematocrit).”

I know that there is some back and forth in the swimming and scientific sports communities about the value of altitude training, but I really feel that this device has given me a boost. Considering the cost and inconvenience of attending an altitude training camp, having access to this machine whenever I want is more than worth the money.  Plus, it is not that I don’t want to do the work at altitude… it’s that I would never in a million years have time to travel for training.  I am trying to find ways to squeeze the work into my schedule and the VO2MAXimizer allows me to do that.  I am seeing results right now that don't make sense considering just how low-volume my training is right now.

Plus, I am pretty sure my wife would rather I not enclose our bed with one of those Oxygen tents.

That would pretty much kill sexy time.

I have agreed to help the owner of the company to advertise and sell the VO2MAXimizer if I feel it is worth promoting, and I do. Currently it is only available by referral, so if you visit the website and arrange to purchase one, please go to www.vo2maximizer.com and let them know the Viking sent you by selecting SwimViking from the drop down menu.

"How Athletes – and You – Can Get Faster, Better and Stronger"

David Epstein is a great speaker.  All you sports and stats geeks should get a kick out of this talk if you haven't seen it before.  Of course, most of the swim stats he shows are things we have all talked about on deck I'm sure...

Training in a Tech Suit Doesn't Have to Bankrupt You

So the Viking recently decided that tech suits, even just the modern compression jammers, make such a difference in technique that it is worth it to train in tech when practicing race paces.  Crazy right?  Well, it at least could be crazy expensive.

I have had the Blueseventy Nero XII for a few years now and have used the heck out of it.  I have lent it to several swimmers and have raced in it myself and that thing has been beaten up beyond belief.  Amazingly it still has fantastic compression.  The problem is that these modern suits have no stitching.  They call it "welded" seams and they eventually come apart.  I decided before the Pro-Am in December that it was worth trying to repair it.  This video explains what I came up with.





Now I plan to do my own training in a tech suit.  Hopefully I can scrape together some cash to get a new suit to race in.  I really am interested in buying old tech suits if anyone has any they want to get rid of.  I know a lot of swimmers who buy a new one every season.  Let me know if you have any laying around!

"Training is for Kids"-- or, How the Viking Perfected the Old-Man Taper

Yup.  I am a professional athlete now.  I filled out a W9 and everything.  Haha.

I am sure that some of you out there saw that SwimSwam gave me a little love this December for my race at the Chesapeake Pro-Am.  I think it is time for me to tell the story.  (Sorry, Chris and I have both been a little absent lately.  Busy!  Bzzzy Beeezzzz!)  First, I have to say that Chesapeake is my favorite meet ever, not just because the prize money brings in the pro's, but because they run their operation with creativity and precision.  When the hotshots come to OKC, the host club really takes care of them and they plan cool events like visiting a children's hospital, autograph sessions and more.  The meet was huge this year and they had no timeline or operation issues.  An absolute class act.  This is why it surprised me that I was invited to declare myself a "professional athlete."


The meet director, Paul Thompson, saw me fill in on a relay at Sectionals for a swimmer who didn't show and we chatted a bit.  This was a couple of years ago and he asked me if I was training.  I hadn't been doing more than an occasional warm up with the kids in a morning practice.  Maybe once or twice a month. (I did a 1:01 LCM 100 free.) I told him I would like to train... I had this fantasy that I could get under 1:00 in the 100 SCY breast again.  I had tried a few times at alumni meets and such and was never able to do it, even with a full body rubber suit.

This year I had lost some weight.  I emailed Paul and asked him if the offer was still open and he said sure...  I explained that I might swim pretty slow and I don't want to tarnish the idea of being a "pro" and he was nothing but encouraging.  I even explained that I would only be doing it as a gag and that I just wanted something cool to write about and he still encouraged me...

So I really did it.  Here is my bio, mixed right in with Dax Hill, Josh Schneider, and all the rest:

It was amazing.  I was invited to be a part of all the pro activities and was allowed to use the pro warm up lanes and crash area.  Of course, I was there as a coach first and had to take care of the 18 athletes on my roster, but it still was a blast and the real professionals were nothing but friendly as I invaded their space.  The thing is, it all went from "gag" to "serious" real quick when I actually swam pretty damn fast:  I went 58.92 in the prelims and scored a spot in the B final for the 100 breast!

That's me in the silver cap in lane two.

What the hell?!  My lifetime best 18 years ago was only 57.0 and that was with a hell of a lot more muscle and hardcore training...  Right now I am 39 years old and I don't do anything even remotely close to the what I would call "training."  How did I do this?

Well, I think I am on to something.  I might have started the new masters swimming philosophy.  Here is the outline for you to follow if you want to pull a fast swim out of your butt on command like the Viking:

1.  Replace beer with scotch and replace wheat with meat.  Last April I didn't just go paleo... I took it a step further and went full keto/LCHF.  I also started running on occasional mornings when I don't offer a swim practice.  I plan to write a little more on this later, but I am telling you that you have been lied to your entire life about food.  At my worst I was 215.  Right now I weigh 170.  I have never felt better in my life, and even though I typically start running every spring for a few months, I have never had a year where it went as well as it has since cutting out carbs and optimizing my body to use fat as fuel.

Seriously, Homer is a more qualified nutritionist than most of the idiots out there giving advice.

2.  When you actually have time to swim, be 100% race specific.  When I swim 1000 yards, it is with absolutely no waste whatsoever.  As a coach I can work up to 15 hours a day, sometimes 7 days a week.  I refuse to give up family time for training, but at the same time I decided that I am sick of always having an excuse for not taking care of myself.  So I occasionally swim morning practice with the kids...  usually just the warm up and one more set, and typically only once or twice a week if I swim at all.  I just make sure it is all with a purpose, including the warm up.  More on that later as well.
3.  No matter how little training you do, if anyone asks you, tell them you are gonna swim really freekin fast.  One of my club parents who was a swimmer at Navy back in the day asked me often if I am really gonna be ready for this.  "Hell yeah.  I am gonna kill this."  The she would ask me how my last workout went.  "I don't remember.  That was three weeks ago.  Training is for kids.  I don't waste my time with that stuff."  For reals...  when you are 39, my best advice for taper is: don't do any exercise of any kind for the last month before you race.  The meet started December 19, and if you look up my runkeeper stats you would see that I my last run was November 15th, and I swam November 19-21 with about 4000 yards spread over three days, I swam 1000 yards on December 12, and I swam less than 1000 yards each on four of the five days before the meet started.  The rest was mental training.  It's all in your head, people.
4.  Don't stress about making a plan.  Enjoy it.  Sick?  No big deal.  No time to work out?  No big deal.  Broke your leg?  No big deal.  Stress reduction is a part of taking care of your health, and that part is all about perception.  There is no deadline.  There are no risks.  Exercise for fun and fitness or don't exercise at all.

I hope to swim again next December, but if I can't... who cares?  I don't really have the time or cash to pursue Masters Swimming even though SwimSwam says I would rank pretty well for my age group.  I loved the experience of getting up and going fast again.  I especially appreciated all of the people who had nice things to say at the meet and since.  Swimming is a cool sport that way.  And hey, I got a cool picture while I was there as well:

The oldest pro and the youngest pro there... 39 and 14.

I hope to write a bit more about the details of how I have changed my relationship with food in the future because I think a lot of coaches will be interested.  Watch for it.  This last year has been very eye-opening and well... I am pissed that I didn't discover it a long time ago.

Thanks to the Viking, Reaching Your Athletes Just Got Easier

The kids are always on their phones nowadays right?  I mean, back in the day we used to stand up, stretch and at least shake our arms around ten minutes before the race.  Now kids are looking at little tiny screens before and after a swim.  I have one girl on my team who can do the entire Ab Ripper X video without ever looking up from her phone, texting the entire time. Some kids even have the fancy water-proof cases on their phones and set them at the end of the lane right next to their cappuccino during practice. I don't even stop them from texting through kick sets any more. How are we supposed to get through to them in this day and age?

By playing their game better than them... that's how.

I bestow upon you a great gift today.  One that will modernize your coaching arsenal and make you more powerful than a jedi who took time to meditate right before he got sliced in half in a kick-ass lightsaber duel.  Seriously, it is time to make a "text pics" folder on your iPhone right now.  I have been collecting funny gifs and pictures since spring sectionals and I occasionally send them to my athletes to get my message across.  It has brought much joy to my team communication.  Here is a small sample:

"Hey coach, what's practice like today?"

"Yeah, your start was that bad."

I use this one a lot.  It has really improved my marriage as well.

When someone throws up during sprints at morning practice.

When they go out too fast and manage to hang on.

When they go out too fast and don't manage to hang on.

 

Here's to a good swim

"Hey coach, can I do one-arm on the fly?"

"Hey coach, is it okay if I am a little late to practice today?"

For when they see how hard this practice is really gonna be... "I'm sorry.  I love you."

This works for just about every excuse in the book.

  

some of my favorite ways to respond to whining.

..sometimes I even pretend I am revving up a tiny motorcycle in my mouth like this guy

for when I really need to psyche up the relay.

I am betting Bob Bowman was wishing he had this one a couple of years ago.

every male college sprinter needs to be sent this one at least once.

Come on coaches, you got any good ones you wanna share? Let's see them in the comments.

*here's an iphone secret for you.  Since gif's play when they are received over mms, but don't play while you are creating the message: if you can't remember what the gif does in action, tap the envelope as though you are sending it as an email so you can see it play, then go back and send it as a text.

How Did Ryan Lochte Do?: The Viking's Review

"Colonel Fury... tell the execs we can scratch Project Tool Academy.  We found our man."

Now that "What Would Ryan Lochte Do?" has premiered, everyone in the world of swimming is feeling the need to declare whether they love it or hate it.  I struggled a bit with what side of the fence I sit on.  At the USA-Swimming website, Gus evidently felt the need to put a disclaimer out there: "The first thing to keep in mind when watching “What Would Ryan Lochte Do?,” is that it is a reality show, and like all reality shows, it has nothing to do with actual reality." 

I am not sure I agree in this case.  Hard core athletes party, and I have heard some pretty good Ryan Lochte stories.  I fear this may be spot on.  It's just not the side of an Olympian we usually see put out there.  At least he comes off as a sweet, goofy guy who loves his family, and not mean-spirited or rudely obnoxious like a lot of pro athletes.

The Bad:  I couldn't help but cringe at the thought of how many swim families got together in front of the TV expecting a show about swimming, training and Olympic excellence all wrapped up in the tortilla of fun that is Ryan Lochte's personality... only to find that really it's the swim version of Jersey Shore minus 99% of the actual swimming. Young swimmers love Reezy but we might have to cover their eyes a bit too much here.

"...it's as though millions of swim parents were suddenly asked by their children to define the word douche-bag."

The Good:  Lochte is a like-able guy.  If you can get past the "don't let your twelve year old watch" stuff, you can't help but think he is funny--  although unfortunately he tends to be funny in the way that "blonde" jokes are funny.  I can see why he was chosen for a reality show.  A lot of the appeal is his clueless-ness and that is a winning formula in the world of reality television.  I mean, the folks at Fox News in Philly seem to love the guy:

Philadelphia News, Weather and Sports from WTXF FOX 29

Of course, as a swimmer I have to wonder where all the other swim people are.  I would love to see the dynamics between Ryan and Coach Troy, or even Ryan and his dad.  I want to see some of the swimmers I have met who train with and hang with Ryan because they have to be a part of his life in some way, don't they? Aren't his training partners ever around to knock him upside the head before he does something dumb, or is the Lochtourage there to keep other swimmers from dragging him down?  Hey, maybe that is coming up in the next few episodes.  Who knows?

This was the part where my wife said "I wanna give this guy an IQ test so bad."

I am trying not to take this too seriously or think too much about how it effects our sport.  Lochte is not a swimmer now so much as he is a celebrity.  Good?  Bad?  Whatever... As a former swimmer and now a coach/teacher, I can't help but see this as a science experiment.  This is our first glimpse into the depths of the post-grad phenomena.  Think about it.  Ryan is in a new kind of petri dish.  When I think about if 21 year old me were all of a sudden able to make enough money as a swimmer to just keep swimming?...  I would have probably still been living the college life at age 28.  Ryan is living the dream on a whole new level and thriving.  Imagine it:  college swimming without homework; without needing a job, without NCAA rules holding you back from the hops inspired awesome-ness you might have been. Who knows where I would have ended up if all of a sudden there was no point in me maturing beyond that point?  For me, it might have been a little more like Shakes the Clown than a coming of age frat party movie, but hey, every body is different, right?

I might have held it together a little better than this, but anyone who knew 21 year old me gets what I'm sayin.

  

Either way, I'll take it.  I am not gonna bring my club kids together for a screening or anything, but all in all it was fun.  I hope they can keep it interesting and I hope that we get to see a little more of the swimming side, but I am not gonna complain too much if we don't.  It's a reality show and expectations just have to be low.  Ryan has crossed the line from swimmer to loveable douche-bag celebrity, but he is still our loveable douche-bag celebrity.

And even if they were to cancel it after one show, at least we got a couple of cool gifs out of it, right?

 


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Hey Cincinnati... No Hard Feelings. I'm Still Rooting For You.

I got a SwimSwam email alert the other day that should make any fan of college swimming happy:  The Cincinnati Bearcats will be "aggressively" working toward re-instating full scholarships to their swimming program!  The cherry on top?-- Their new football coach is a big supporter and is pitching in to help!

I was pumped when I read this, even though I like to pretend I hate Cinci. Why would I do that?  Read on...

It's not you, Bearcats... It's your parents.

My freshman year at the National Independent Championships (NIC) in February of 1993 I had made the top 8 in the 400 IM and the 100 breast which were both in the same session. (NIC? Never heard of it? It's the conference for all the teams who don't have a conference.) I had barely squeaked into 8th in the 400 IM and had edged out a Bearcat to do it.  The team race was tight enough at that point that it mattered.  

I have to hand to the Cinci crowd.  We were in Charlotte, NC and there weren't very many (Southwest) Missouri State Bear parents there to watch.  In contrast, the Cincinnati Bearcats had a sea of red in those bleachers.  Seriously, they weren't just awesomely ridiculous about cheering for their team... they even had a cheer to cheer on themselves.  "Cinci! Cinci! Cincinnati parents! Cinci! Cinci! Cincinnati parents!"  

I am not kidding.  At first we thought they were saying "BEARCATS,"  but no, it was "PARENTS."

Obnoxious, right?!  I would have been pretty embarrassed if that was my mom up there in those bleachers acting like that.

I had a shot at a medal in the 100 breast, so Coach Steck told me to blow off the IM and relax it, and I did.  I swam a 4:20 when it took a 4:09 to get in.  Haha.  I didn't really think anything of it until I was walking from the blocks to the cool down pool with my towel and sweats in hand.  Those obnoxious parents-- they actually did a cheer just for me!  It was a pretty simple one:  "BOO!  BOO! LAME!"

And of course me, with my silly little mohawk had to stop and do one of these:

"You boo'in at me?  Of course you are.  I'm the only one here."

It was odd, how charged I got from that.  For the first time, I felt like a real athlete in a real sport.  Wow.  This must be what pro athletes feel like.  They hate me.  They actually care!  I felt like a closing pitcher for the Cardinals cleaning up the last inning at Wrigley Field for the win.  Haters gonna hate.  Damn.  I shoulda moon-walked.

Maybe it was just because the bleachers at meets in Alaska never had enough people to even get loud.  Maybe it was because I felt like parents really never actually watched anyone but their own kid.  I am not sure why that felt so damn good.  This made up for everything I missed by choosing swimming instead of trying out for middle school basketball.  This was the big-time.

So, yeah... I am glad to see Cincinnati is gonna give their program the AED treatment.  There is a lot of history there.  Hell, Josh Schneider's success is enough to get swim fans and alumni excited about it.  But really, I just want to see those ridiculous parents back in the stands.  Swimming needs a little more of that.

No hard feelings... I appreciate the history of your program and your mom's enthusiasm for it.  I hope you guys come back with guns blazing.  Go Bearcats.