Lionel the Lab Rat

Don’t fret for Lionel. He isn’t abused by some corporate Dr. Frankenstein performing Clock Work Orange experiments that twist his little rodent body, mind and soul. He is a complete volunteer participant in an on-going, self-experiment that tests his limits and sanity. His self-inflicted experiments are based on new ideas he finds in all the fitness, running, triathlon, and biking magazines, web sites, blogs, and books he can get his hands on. The bottom of his cage is covered with clippings and copies of his favorites. And almost every week he finds a new training experiment to test. He might be intrigued by the interval training of some star or star’s coach. Great, he jumps on the wheel and cranks it out. Or he’s drawn to a gravity-based, old school core workout. Next thing you know he’s hanging from the top of the cage doing pull ups and leg raises. You can imagine that Lionel’s training schedule is in constant flux with all the new activity. Results are generally positive, but interspersed with periods of time off due to injuries or exhaustion, which seem to occur just when he’s rounding into top shape and close to a key race!
Are you a little like Lionel? Most of us want to push it to the limit in search of a new personal record (PR). Every second lower is exciting and makes us feel like we are moving forward. We learn, we observe, we test, we succeed, and often we also fail. Then we get healthy and start the cycle all over again. How often do you go over the edge and pay the price for doing too much or trying too hard? It’s human, err rat nature. The problem is that we usually don’t know where the edge is located until we look down, like Wile E. Coyote, in midair and see our training scream to a halt, again.
The answer Lionel, and all of us, seek is how to find the scope and depth of training that works best for him without burn out, injury, or an unrealistic training schedule. If you follow pro athlete injury reports, it seems that the answer isn’t readily found, even by the world’s best athletes and coaches. Many become Lionels and look, and sometimes find, it through trial and error. And after all these years, Lionel also doesn’t have the magic formula that works for everyone! However, through all his efforts, he did find a few axioms that help guide his training (not counting relapses). Across the top of his cage, he has two banners that he has to read each and every day, as he is apt to forget: “A single workout won’t make a champion (PR), but can break one,” and “Consistency over time equals success.” Lionel has learned the hard way that while each workout is designed to accomplish a goal, it is also part of a foundation that’s built over time. Injuries and burn out make the foundation weaker. He now views his “career” as lasting a lifetime, which helps him keep the big picture in focus, and not worry about any one workout. Of course, Lionel stills tries new things (you can take the rat out of the lab…), but works them in more slowly into the schedule, doesn’t increase the duration or difficulty too quickly, and whenever possible, chooses less over more. He’s been reading a lot about how less is more lately. Now that’s anathema to a lab rat with testosterone problems, but you know by now that he’s willing to give it a try. Until next time, Lionel is off to spin class.