Have you ever run uphill? Yes, once, when a shop at the top had a sale on pointy helmets.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuBw39uCT4Q

Combining the Catch-Up Drill with Body Roll Emphasis

Today was a good day in the pool. Everything seemed to click. Here is what I was thinking about:

First of all, I was doing the catch up drill, because I think it may be the single best drill to do in the pool. That was going well, so I started using a higher arm recovery. The high recovery was great. I was rolling onto my side more and gliding easier through the water. So far so good. Next is where it all came together. At the instant where my catch started to take hold, I began getting good at two things: timing the entry of my hand and violently rotating my hips. When these actions line up, the result is a quick body roll that removes a huge amount of load from the arms.

By the end of the swim, I'd dropped from 17 to 16 strokes per length without even going anaerobic. Today was a good day in the pool.

Core Part 1/2 - Strength

What does a student, a full time employee and a hard core gamer all have in common? A bad back. Its probably the most common chronic pain around. Add an athletic career to that and there is no possible way you won't complain every now and then. Probably, you'll just complain every now--that is to say, all the time.

How do you fix this? Better posture. How do you get that? Core strength and flexibility. But how you attain those things is the real question.

Gym teachers of the world: LISTEN UP. Here is how to strengthen your core. In my opinion, it is the only acceptable way to do it safely and realistically.

First of all let me be very clear:  CORE DOES NOT MEAN SIX PACK. It doesn't even mean abs.

Starting from the bottom up, the word core should really include: glutes, especially the medial and minor ones, all four (thats right, FOUR) levels of abdominals, all of the spine extendor muscles, your neck muscles and the stabilizers of your scapula (shoulder blade).

Why do I feel this way you ask? Well anything your limbs do is stabilized by the things at either end. If the body end is weaker than the business end, you're going to cripple yourself.

In a practical sense what this means for you is that to exercise your core effectively, you should be doing so across as many joints as possible. I'll end with a few good exercises.

I have another point to make here and it is pretty simple. There are only a few real world applications of the crunch or sit up. The one that comes to mind is cross country skiing and even that is half squat these days**.

So to summarize what I've said so far:

1. Core exercises should involve as many joints as possible because the term core refers to a large number of muscle groups working together.

2. There is no requirement to move your spine during core exercises. In fact, anybody who studies the effects of spine movements during core exercise will tell you that they are the devil.

So what should you do? Well there are tonnes of possibilities, but the general rule is that you want your core to be active, but your spine to be static. Here are a few examples

Any kind of plank. Try using an exercise ball or lifting an arm or a leg.
Any kind of squat, dead lift, clean lift or kettle bell lift.
Any kind of push-up or chin-up. My personal favourite is a chin-up with my legs parallel to the ground. You can also go at 45 degrees and work your way up.
Any kind of row, ideally, standing, pulling a cable.
Lots of dumbbell exercises done standing or one sided are good as well (i.e. overhead press using only one arm at a time).
There are many, many, many, many more, but this is a great place to get started from.

Next time, I'll discuss the importance of flexibility on keeping good posture and a pain free back. It'll probably be a fairly short post.

**This is kind of like my beef with bicep curls. They're not that useful if unless you shoot pool or row. Also, curls for the girls.

Running Form Part 2 - Foot Strike

I talked about this last time, but I thought it would be a good idea to paint a more detailed picture. Here are some more points about the foot strike.

It is desirable to have your foot strike as far back as possible because you don't propel yourself forward much until just before your foot leaves the ground. The rest of the time your foot spends on the ground is basically just to get to that point.

It is desirable to have your toes come down first because of the way your foot naturally lands. To optimize shock absorption, the pinky toe should touch down first. From there, the outside edge of the foot touches down and at the same time the foot rolls medially so that the big toe touches down. This allows the big toe to apply pressure at toe off.

As the foot lands, the bones flatten out (to model this, take your hand, cupped, and put it on the desk, pinky first; when your hand (foot) lands, flatten your hand). This deformation is a major part of your body's natural shock absorber. It is also one that has been ruined by cushioned heels and stiff soles of modern shoes. It is possible to strengthen these muscles lots of different ways, but spending time in minimalistic footwear is a good way.

Fortunately, the above two points go together hand in hand, so you can work on them at the same time. Here are some more points:

Land with your foot under or behind you knee. This can limit overstriding and keeps you from braking upon foot strike.

Pick up your feet. Your foot should never land while it is still travelling forward in relation to your center of mass. Ideally, it will already be moving backwards upon foot strike.

Have the proper hip alignment. This is a complicated one, so I'll take my best shot at it. First of all, there should be no horizontal rotation of the hips--that is to say, from an aerial view, the hips should stay directly under the shoulders (which also should not move). There is however, some rotation that can be seen from a side view. The bottom of the hips rotates forward as the foot lands and extends as the leg extends backwards. You may feel tension in your abs upon foot strike if you do this right.

My final point is that your ankle remains loose upon recovery. The wrong thing to do is to reach forward with your foot with a flexed calf in order to get your forefoot to come down first.

The way to learn these things is to take it slow. On each run pick one or two things to periodically focus on during over the course of the workout. Try to relax as much as possible both while focusing and while just running.

Swimming: a couple of points about pull

I had an interesting conversation about a few parts of swim technique today and I thought I`d share them with the world.

1. Shoulder flexibility and hand depth

When your hand enters the water, it pauses for a moment and you glide. Your hand and arm makes a hole in the water that your body then passes through. This is common sense to most swimmers, but here is the catch (yea thats a swimming pun). If you hand is "too high" in the water, your hips will sink.

So how high is "too high"? Well it all depends on shoulder flexibility.

Try this test: put your hands in the air like somebody is pointing a really scary gun at you (elbows straight, hands shoulder width apart). Now allow yourself to relax, bringing your arms far enough forward that there is no significant tension in any muscles. This is the angle your shoulders should sit in the water because the whole point of gliding is to relax and conserve energy.

Now that we have established the angle that your shoulder can comfortably rest, it is important to get our priorities straight. Keeping your hips on the surface takes priority over the aquadynamics of your arm. To keep your hips on the surface, simply figure out the distance from the longitudinal axis of your body that your hand sits while you are relaxed (the position discussed in the previous paragraph).

Sacrifice a bit of drag caused by your arm and reduce a tonne of drag caused by your hips.

2. Maximizing power in your pull - a quick breakdown of the underwater portion of the swim stroke

Step one: use the biggest paddle possible. Starting from your gliding position, your first priority is to make your hand and more importantly, your forearm vertical in the water. I would compare this to Eminem in 8-mile when he's rapping to all his homies in the 313, but you can picture it however you like.

Step two: use your lats to set up for step three. The next part of the stroke is to bring your elbow to the side of your body. You will be pulling the water back and slightly towards the midline of your body. Your recovering hand enters the water at this point and the body rotation involved in this action helps you out. You are propelled forward, but more importantly, this sets you up for step three which is where the main propulsion occurs. When your elbow gets to the side of your body, your hand will be directly below your hip and at this point, step three begins.

Step three: use your body roll and your triceps to push past your hips. For the duration of step three, your elbow remains locked to your body. Rolling your body provides most of the power and your triceps provide the rest. You should be pushing water backwards and slightly away from the midline of your body.

Here is a youtube video of Mr. Phelphs. He is a sprinter though, which means he will have less hip rotation and a deeper stroke than a long distance swimmer:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax77_hHq9Dc

3. Back pain

Finally, I've had two triathletes complain about back pain to me in the last week, so here are three things to check.

Is your hand too high in the water? If you are trying to keep your hips up at the same time as you try to keep your hand high in the water (during the glide), your back is probably working pretty hard. Let your hand drop and stretch your shoulder (pecs and rotator cuff).

Is your bike position too stretched out? Here is an easy example of the stress this causes: bend over so that your back is at approximately the same angle as it would be while you ride. Now take your hands and put them in an aero tuck. Slowly reach forward and feel the stress build in your low back. Does this look like your position on the bike?

Are you running hunched over? My number one tip to becoming a better runner is to fix your standing posture. If you stand hunched, you probably run hunched. Or maybe you run hunched anyways. Either way, stand up straight.

Race Report - University Sprint Triathlon Championships

On Saturday I traveled to Kingston as the final stage of a six day road trip with my moral support, Mike Yetisir. We arrived at the race site around noon to check out the course which consisted on an indoor swim, and two lap bike course and one lap run course. The bike was windy with a few medium sized hills and run the run consisted almost exclusively of false flats. I rode one lap of the bike course with Mike following me in the car. I felt so safe because he forced cars to give me the whole lane when the passed me. It also helped that there was a speed trap half way along the course!

I woke up on race morning at 7:30 having had a wonderful sleep in the Queens student ghetto. We arrived on site around 8:30 and checked the place out. Having had really bad nerves last week at the UW Tri Club Aquathon, I was sure to keep my arousal levels low. Music helped tremendously and my heart rate didn't spike until just before the race start.

Due to my less than ideal swim last week, I got put in the second heat, so the fastest competitors headed onto the course 30 minutes before me. I do most of my training all my my lonesome though, so I wasn't stressing too hard about that.

I took the swim a little easier than I normally would. I swam as efficiently as possible and was fairly fresh onto the bike. My 750m swim split was between 12 and 12 1/2 minutes (by what my watch says). I was second out of the water, but ended up being first out of transition. Not realizing I'd made that pass, I spend the first couple of kilometers looking for the guy I thought I was chasing.

In a word, the bike was just fun. On the way out, I was riding around 45 km/h with the wind at my back on my bike that I picked up last weekend. The way back was more like 33 or so though. Pacing was tough because I was all alone on the course, so I rode pretty hard, but in afterthought, it might have been a good idea to go a bit faster. About half way through, my heart rate monitor stopped working and displayed a HR in the 220's. I hopped off the bike with a split that was around a minute slower than the leaders (33 min or so).

Speaking of biking, I just got a brand spankin' new bike (specialized transition with token 8 cm deep wheels).

Thats right. Shiny. Red and white paint. Carbon fibre. A true racing machine. Photos to come I'm sure.

Thanks to Damien and Gearheads for the always fantastic service. My set-up was rock solid and everything was working perfectly.

The run went way better than I expected. I averaged 3:49 min/km. The first kilometer or so I had a pretty bad stitch in my side, but after that I ran fairly strongly and my biomechanics held up. I ended up running around 50 m too far because the cone for the first turn around was on the sidewalk and I was on the road running the best line.

I finished in 4th with a final time of around 1:07 which is a new PB, but it was an indoor swim, so I'm not sure if it really counts. After the race there were plenty more heats to watch and plenty of banana chocolate chip pancakes to be had.

Thanks to Matt and all the volunteers for making the race happen. Also to Chris Morton for inviting me to come out and registering me. Hopefully I'll see more of the UW Tri Club in the future.

Running Form Part 1 - Minimizing Impact

For my second post on my brand new blog, I'm going to start tackling a pretty tough subject. Running form confuses so many people because we learn to run implicitly and as a result, we never have to describe it. The problem is that lots of people learn wrong. I blame video games and shoes with too much cushion. We need to run more as children and we need to be able to feel the ground when we do this. With pillow shoes, it doesn't make a difference how you land because you can't feel the impact anyways.

Minimizing Impact

More impact means more injuries. There is no point to running if all you do is hurt yourself. Nobody gets better on the sidelines.

To reduce impact in the vertical plane as much as possible, land on your mid-foot or forefoot and land underneath the body. Forefoot landing is pretty much only for sprinters because it takes a lot more energy, so I will focus on a mid-foot landing. Landing on the mid-foot is basically a flat footed landing with the balls of the feet leading just a tiny little bit ahead of the heel. This allows the load of landing to be shared between the muscles of the calf and the skeleton (the majority of people land on their heels which results in nearly all of the impact being translated into the skeleton). Landing on the heel is associated with several of the most common running injuries including  shin splints and patellofemoral syndrome.

Landing underneath the body is also imperative to reducing impact in the horizontal plane. Landing in front of your centre of mass means that upon impact, you have to absorb some of your forward momentum which results in stress on the body (and going slower which will be discussed next time).

Landing directly under the centre of mass (hips) means that you can start pushing yourself forward in space as soon as you land. I find that trying to push myself forward as soon as I land is a good way to concentrate of landing in the right spot.

At this point it is extremely important to warn you of two potential problems should you begin running with a mid-foot landing. First of all, your body, primarily your calves, will not be used to this style of running, just like when you change anything else in training, start small and build slowly. The second thing is to make sure that you also land under your body. If you don't, the load on your calf will be enormous because you'll be adding the horizontal forces to the vertical ones.

The other thing you want to reduce is rotational moments. Moments are usually applied by twisting in the upper body. Basically if for example you twist your arms around your torso with each stride, you balance that out with your ankle, knee, and various muscles including your quads and core. This is all impact that isn't necessary for forward movement and can easily be avoided.

You can limit your arm movement by keeping your elbows tucked in close and allowing your hands to travel from beside your hip to about six inches in front of your armpit. Another great way to reduce moments is by keeping your hips square to your direction of travel. To check this while running, I put my hands on my hips and it becomes pretty obvious if there is a problem.

Some things to try:

A's, B's and C's. Any running coach should be able to show you these. There are probably some good youtube videos as well. They focus on certain parts of the running stride.

Strides. To do strides properly, you just take 10 or 15 of the best running strides you can at 70-95% of your max speed. They are short because your attention span is probably equally short. You can do these barefoot if you like and it is usually best to do them on a soft surface. You can do them as a warm up as often as you like.

Barefoot and minimalistic running (toe shoes or flats): these are ways to get a better feel for the ground. They are important to do on a weekly or biweekly basis, but they are also a good way to get injured. You should treat them as a drill rather than a fitness session.

Focus. On your runs, periodically spend a few minutes running as beautifully as you possibly can. You'll find that over time the technique you use most often becomes second nature.

Athletic Dinner Table

Introduction

Eating properly is pretty much the single most important recovery tool a person can use. Putting the correct things in the correct amounts into your body will optimize your ability to repair damaged tissues, increase alertness and pretty much just makes you happier with life. I will focus on “what?”, “how much?” and “when?”.

Before I get into the meat of it (haha, pun), here are a few basic guidelines that are fairly universally accepted. First, if your great grand daddy didn’t eat it, neither should you—while there are exceptions, this rule is true for just about everything. The reasoning behind this is that evolution can’t keep up to all of our new food inventions, so our bodies know how to digest foods that have been around for a very long time. This means two things: ancient foods won’t be toxic to your body, but equally importantly, ancient foods will allow for a more complete absorption.

The second rule is one that I think is both delicious and effective: the majority of your meals (breakfast, lunch and dinna) should be made up of fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds and lean meats. I will go into more detail later on why. This is sort of another way of saying the first rule if you think about it.

Macronutrients

Macronutrients are the simplest thing to keep track of in your diet. These are your proteins, fats and carbohydrates—I would also rank their importance in that order.

Proteins, as you know, are used to repair our muscles. Protein is the Lego block of our bodies and you should have it with every meal. We don’t really store protein like we store fats and carbs, so the primary reason to eat it so frequently is so that our bodies are able to constantly build and repair tissues. Protein also increases absorption of carbohydrates which is pretty awesome. I guess the final reason protein is useful (which is also the basis for the Atkins diet) is that protein isn’t easily converted to fat, so it makes it easier to keep a nice tight behind.

You should focus your sources of protein on fresh, lean meats. Basically, if it isn’t cooked when you buy it, you should be okay, but the less fat on the cut, the better. Chicken is pretty much the best meat to eat on a regular basis, so make that a staple. After that, turkey and pork are kind of fatty, but I wouldn’t go as far as to say they’re bad, just not as good. Fish has mercury in it, so once a week should be your maximum. The advantage of fish is in the good fat that they have, which is the next topic. You can use protein powder which I don’t have any beef with (another pun hahahaha). Protein powder is a supplement though, so you just need to make sure you keep it that way, rather than using it as a staple. Finally, some people diss eggs, but I think they’re pretty fantastic for daily eating.

Fats do so many friggin’ things its ridiculous. They act as fuel, hormones, structural units and quite a few other things.  First, let’s go over what you should avoid. Anything that has been processed is bad for you. Period. Trans fats are the famous one. Basically, throw out your margarine and only buy quality butter. Better yet, just use olive oil which is the god of all oils. There are other good oils, but you have to be careful because cheap oils are usually hydrogenated and hard to metabolize. So the golden rule for your frying pan is only use olive oil because it works for anything from eggs to grilled cheese, and it’s stupid healthy. Olive oil is rich in omega-3 fatty acids which just means that there is a double bond between the 3^rd and 4^th carbons from the end of the carbon chain. Omega-3s reduce inflammation and can be more effective that aspirin or ibuprofen. They also are good for your immune system. I take omega-3 pills because I don’t like fish. You don’t have to have them every day, but they’re useful if you’re in heavier training.

Fats are also a wicked energy source, but the key is to make sure you eat fats that are easily accessible. There are really two sides to metabolizing your fats: conditioning your body to use them and choosing fats that are easily metabolized. One good reason for all of the low intensity training we do is that it teaches our body to use fats instead of going straight to glycogen stores which is a huge part of endurance. The other half of metabolizing your fats is choosing good ones like olive oil, avocados, seeds and nuts. A major reason for this is that these are good sources of unsaturated fats which are liquid in your body rather than solid, so they can be manipulated easily.

So in one sentence, have fats as much as possible (at least once daily), and generously make olive oil your best friend in the kitchen.

Finally, we must look at carbohydrates. Just like the other macronutrients, some carbs are more equal than others. Glycemic index refers to the speed at which our body can break down different types of carbs. It’s to simple/complex carbohydrates as the BMI scale is to measuring body fat percentages (more recent, specific and useful). You want things with a low glycemic index except right before, during and after exercise. Rice, quinoa, oats and other similar foods have the lowest index, pasta, cereal and bread is usually somewhere in the middle and potatoes and energy bars are the highest. Fruits and vegetables can be at both ends of the scale.

You don’t really need to eat that many carbs to be healthy. They’re basically just energy so directly after sports and meals during heavy training periods are where you would eat most of your carbs. I’m not saying cut them out entirely, but they shouldn’t usually be your dietary focus most of the time.

Micronutrients

Micronutrients are your vitamins and minerals. Your body needs these mostly for all of the reactions that take place.

Since you are focusing on eating a huge amount of fruits and vegetables, you shouldn’t have to worry about most vitamins. Just make sure you get a variety of different colours and all that.

Speaking of colours, anything with pretty colours usually contains antioxidants which are one of those ridiculously healthy things. Basically when your muscles break down (and also from a variety of other things, such as injuries), free radicals are released. These little buggers basically go around and react with random things in your body which causes more damage. Antioxidants eliminate free radicals and speed up things like recovery but also help with cognitive function. Berries, wine, and squash are all examples of good sources of antioxidants.

Iron is important for athletes, especially ladies. It is a key ingredient to blood, and as athletes, we need as much of that as possible. Nuts and seeds are great sources of iron, so supplementation isn’t necessary for normal people.

Caloric Requirements

Unless you’re carb loading, there isn’t much point in eating more than you can burn. As a very general guide line, if you go for around an hour at moderate intensity, you probably have burned 800-1000 calories. So for 170-ish lb guy, that would mean you’re looking at 3500-ish calories in a day which isn’t that hard to get.

Sleep, Stress, Sugar, Fibre, and Water

Get tonnes of sleep. It helps you recover and increases cognitive function. Nuf said.

Stress is toxic; eliminate it. Stress results in the release of cortisol which is a hormone that makes your body try to conserve energy. It makes you put on weight, slows your sex drive, increases your blood pressure and makes you depressed. Fortunately, exercise is a terrific way to reduce your cortisol levels.

High blood sugar is toxic. It binds to blood proteins, rendering them useless. Try to avoid blood sugar spikes.

Fibre keeps you regular and clean, so eat as much as possible. A few hundred years ago we ate as much as 300 times the fibre we eat now, so the sky is pretty much the limit here.

Drink a tonne of water. I’ve heard you should drink your weight in pounds in ounces. So for a 170 lb person, that's 170 ounces or around five or six litres. Also, add around one litre of exercise. The key here is to carry a water bottle or two around and make a point of refilling it. You’ll absorb water better if you drink little bits frequently.

The Simplest Cook Book Ever

Here are a few recipes that I have found a lot of success with. I’ll arrange them by meal.

Breakfast – the most important meal of the day.

Breakfast for an athlete is a complicated meal, because it really depends on when you plan on doing your training. If you do morning training, your breakfast may turn into brunch and then lunch becomes a mid-afternoon meal designed to hold you over until dinner or prepare you for afternoon training.

Oatmeal

This is probably my favourite meal of all time. It is just so versatile. You start with a base of oats (around half to two-thirds of the meal by volume). Load on a variety of nuts, seeds, berries, fresh and dried fruit, honey, peanut butter, protein powder (mixed into the oats), yogurt, or whatever else tickles your pickle. I have a big bin of all of these ingredients, which makes assembly very quick and simple.

Specifically, I use flax seeds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, almonds, walnuts, raisins, craisins, goji berries (supposed to be high in antioxidants), bananas, and whatever else is handy.

This meal also works well as cereal. I’m actually fond of uncooked oats mixed in with cereal and milk poured over top.

Eggs

I like to fry up some peppers, mushrooms, broccoli, chicken or anything else in the fridge with olive oil and then break 3-5 eggs overtop of them to make a delicious omelette (cheese too if I remember). Including eating, this usually is a 20 minute project for me. If you have a big day ahead of you, throwing in some toast, oatmeal, cereal or left over pasta from the night before is good idea.

Choose oatmeal if you have a big day ahead of you and choose eggs if you’re recovering from a big day. 

Oatmeal is a good way to keep your gas tank full all day, whereas eggs have the protein for building muscle and the omega-3 for reducing your residual inflammation. Eggs are also useful if you’re going to do two training sessions in one day because of their recovery benefits.

Lunch

For me, lunch is often more of a snack, because I like afternoon training and training on a full stomach is bad news bears. Depending on your stomach, you’ll enjoy between 1.5 and 3 hours between big meals and training sessions.

Sandwich

The sandwich is a fantastic lunch food, but make sure you do it right. Make sure you’re putting fresh veggies and lean meats in it if you’re not training soon after eating. PB and J doesn’t have much nutritional value, so choose that one if you’re going to train 30-60 minutes after eating. I’m also a big fan of the pasta sandwich—it’s exactly what it sounds like. Finally, bear in mind that freshly baked whole grains are the best breads to pick. Bread is a recent invention though, so you won’t absorb it as well as ancient foods like rice.

Dinner

My staple dinner goes like this:

Chop up meat and throw it in a pan with olive oil, garlic and onions. Once the meat is partly cooked, throw in as many different chopped veggies as are in your fridge. I’m a fan of peppers, broccoli, mushrooms and beans, but there are obviously tonnes more options. Sometimes it helps to steam the veggies separately. To do this I just turn the frying pan up to 7 or 8 and then throw in a few table spoons of water with a lid.

Now that that is all cooked, heat up some red sauce and throw everything on some pasta (100 grams should be fine). Cheese optional.

I also like to add a salad or something. Salad is a good way to get a variety of leafy greens which have lots of different vitamins, fibre and sometimes cool things like iron and antioxidants. Choose a variety of leafy greens, not just lettuce, because the weird ones are usually the healthiest. Salad is also a great way to hit up the carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, nuts, seeds, fruit and anything else that doesn’t quite go in pasta.

There are obviously tonnes of other things you can make for dinner, but this is an option that covers just about all of the angles. If your ingredient list looks like the one above, it’s probably also a good choice.

Snacks

I like to get most of my fruit intake between meals. Fruits generally have lots of sugar in them, so I eat fruit before and after exercise. I also am a big fan of what I like to call a power platter. You basically take a big plate and heap it with fruits, vegetables, berries, hard boiled eggs, nuts, seeds and the like. You can get a huge portion of your daily requirements this way and the variety of tastes is always pleasing.

Before and after workouts, your snacks should be more energy focussed, so you’ll be looking for granola bars, sports drinks and bananas.

So there you have it. Follow it as much as you can, and enjoy the benefits.

Sample Days

This section will show how to time your food intake with examples of different training days.

In general, eat more carbs and fats if you are doing LSD and more protein if you are doing strength or intensity.

The LSD AM workout (8:30-11:30):

The night before. Consider adding some extra table salt to your meal to top up your sodium stores. A banana would be good as well for the potassium.

7:00. Wake up. It is important to wake up this early because you need time to digest before this long workout. The first priority at this point is to get food in you as quickly as possible so that by the time the workout begins, your stomach isn’t full anymore. I would choose the Oatmeal breakfast outlined above because it is quick to make and packed with energy to fuel a three hour effort.

It would also be a good idea to throw in some protein with this breakfast for two reasons: (1) protein with every meal helps absorption and (2) your body will be starved for protein after 3 hours on the road, so you might as well start the refuelling process now.

7:00-8:00. Drink. When you wake up in the morning, you are dehydrated. Shoot for around a litre of water in this time frame.

8:00-8:30. Bring an extra water bottle or two to training so that you can top off your tank right before you leave. If you are so inclined, an electrolyte drink would be a good idea here. A snack is also a good idea.

8:30-11:30. Your aim should be to drink 2-3 litres of water, depending on your body size and sweat rate. Sports drinks are a good idea as well (for anything over an hour). While you do not need this much liquid to make it through the session, your recovery time will be significantly reduced this way. I rarely carry this much liquid with me, instead, just knock on some random door and ask for some H₂O. It is also a good idea to eat during the workout. Different people are capable of different amounts, and it is possible to train your body to eat more during workouts, but for the novice, one or two granola bars per hour is a good place to start.

11:30-12:00. EAT AND DRINK. This time is the single most important part of your recovery. Your first priority is to hydrate and take in some simple sugars. In general, 1-3 grams of carbohydrates per kilogram of body weight is a good place to start. A bagel has around 50 grams and granola bars have 30-40 grams. Your body has the greatest potential for absorption during this period, so take advantage of it.

11:45-12:15. Protein. Your body has been taking a pounding and your muscles are ripped and torn. Eat a portion of protein. You could prepare a drink with 1 or 2 scoops of protein powder or you could bring your favourite meats from home. The advantage to powder is that it is easy to prepare, drink and digest.

12:00 onwards. This is really when the workout is over. Your nutritional focus switches from energy to nutrients. Hit up the fruits and vegetables.