Victory again… Another dunk off a teammates lob… Fun fun fun !
OK I got to the stadium today, and before I started a warmup lap I thought about how hungry I was.
So I went to the store and bought one those cooked chicken ready to go…
http://25.media.tumblr.com/7be74e3a48b99d63bff35029270da580/tumblr_ml3pxuzTiV1s9gaf4o1_500.jpg
Ate it in the weightroom.
And then I was too tired to train… 
So now I’m home, will do speed work tomorrow instead.
I had a “training-depression” yesterday and had a complete off day (that’s big news, btw). 
Instead, I went on a 1.5hr walk, in which a caught a cold, and I’ve been coughing since (lovely !)
But in any case, I did 10x150m murder-hills with my sister today, followed by a 500m “transformation” on flat. While inhaling the most pollen i’ve seen in the air, and a bunch of other bugs. It was pretty much hard to breathe…! But Hills are my favorite training =)
Silencer, I hope you recovered well from that last-night’s sandwich… !!! :o
I like the food photos. They make me laugh.
I remember training in California a long time ago and we knew this guy named Arnold and he had a gym and he was huge. I think that was the first time I learned from him that eating enough becomes a real challenge for those wanting to get really strong, super fit and are in a category beyond recreation. One of the NFL guys put it best … you become somewhat sick of having to eat so much. I did not always feel this way but I had my share of the challenges associated with timing of eating, what to eat and what worked specifically best for me. Golly geez, if knew then what I know now but ain’t that the way it always is…
Planning your eating and organizing your meals is really a dilema athletes of all levels of sport ( or recreation face I think?) .
Btw. I love roast chicken and I am getting pretty good cooking them.
Silencer, Stephanie… Anyone ?
What are your tricks? Do you have any? What are your favorite things that work for you?
Ok, I see you are not perfecting this all the time but maybe you read my blog about protein shakes. I know it’s seemingly obvious and simplistic for some but I really find the efficiency and quality of food stuff you can use in shakes works for me. Stabilizing blood sugar and keeping a steady flow of nutrients going so your insulin is even and you are never going too up or too down ( with the blood sugar).
If I eat only protein and really cut down the carbs I just can’t train properly.
I have mentioned before using the very high protein diet , no carbs during the week and then bulking up on high carbs on the weekend NEVER WORKED for me.
Hated that feeling and for my event I just never had any energy.
I find simple sandwiches and eating normal really does not work so well if all the things you are doing are not normal. ( ie / training routinely and fairly seriously with intent to perform).
Then there were the guys I witnessed briefly on the track circuit eating tons and tons of simple carbs but I know this was not a routine thing but something they allowed ever so periodically to indulge.
just my thoughts and I would like to hear what others thinking is regarding nutrition and how they make their " tricks" work for them with routine training.
Stephanie,
You seem to work quite hard and I was wondering how you feel after taking one day off?
Have you done much experimenting with actively regenerating yourself as your " go to" training seems to be always… more not less.
walking for 1.5 hours and then doing hills the next day makes me tired thinking of it.
I am just curious as I know school is a large component of your day to day lifestyle so perhaps you need more exercise to compensate for a great deal of sitting?
Good, only athletes understand me That chicken should be on the cover of sports illustrated !!
I totally agree on the intentionally low carb thing, it doesn’t work if you’re on you’re feet training 4 hours at the track in the heat …
What I usually do, which started as a system but now is unconscious is carb cycling. Fancy name for a basic idea, and that idea is “fuel for what you have to do”.
If it is a tempo day, it is wise to limit carbs severely to maximize body composition effects. But if i’m doing 2 hours track and 2 hours strength weights, I’ll bump it up.
So if on a tempo day I’m having 4 eggs, a shake and a salad for breakfast, on speed day i’ll have 4 eggs, shake, salad, and a potato.
For lunch, instead of 2 pieces of chicken breast with a bit of rice and an apple - then 2x chicken breast+a lot of rice/noodles and fruit
And of course Master Cafe and Kinder which is also a bit of sugar before the workout
Mid workout “boosters” - Dates, walnuts and dried figs are always around and I’ll have a second coffee between track and weights while I rest 15-20~ minutes.
Shakes I have maybe once a day usually in the morning… After the workout I usually burn a tuna (ok, you thought the chicken was funny, wait till you see what I do with a can of tuna and a lighter).
Bottom line I am guessing the goal here is to maintain a low bodyfat level while maximizing performance. Or in other words if I can jump high and measure fast 60’s for 2 weeks in a row, while staying at the same weight (assuming bodyfat goals were achieved) then I am doing good.
Then you can play with it… Too much fuel makes a car heavy, too little fuel and you can’t finish the trip.
Now the morning walks, or morning “light hills” on empty stomach, these are powerful fat burners regardless of the diet. So it’s always nice to have a “spare” workout to take care of 20% of the body composition goals.
I used to count the carbs, but now I pretty much know what a weight gain diet looks like for me and the opposite.
That is because I used to be a 115kg “amature powerlifter” and an 89kg “athlete”.
Carbs is a big thing indeed, with pasta every day, potatos and oatmeal, at 100kg bodyweight, I could do this (225lb x 22 reps)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1rKlF1mGrI
I think that was last year. (i always bench like that, half inch short of top, keeps my shoulder healthy)
Now at a nice 93kg, I can do 15 on a good day with no speed in it.
But bottom line, doing that @ 89kg would be optimal for an athlete So now I “only fuel for what I need to do” and keep the “efforts” more CNS oriented rather than muscular/fuel/leverage dependant training.
Is it perfect ? Well, I stuffed a ton of “2nd hand” beef, ground with chicken beaks and feet in a white bread sandwich the other day… And it was midnight ! Still suffering from the effects… But I would like to think that most of the time i’m ok heh
General warmup 20 minutes with sprint drills
Football patterns 30 minutes with friends from national team.
Sled sprints - 6x20m, plus 6 contrast bodyweight dashes after each one.
1 legged box jump - 5x3
Basketball practice, 2 hours. (announced last minute… should have done weights)
Massage 30 minutes
There’s a crow there at the track that eats my dried figs all the time… He actually digs inside my bag when i’m not there.
Next time i’m there i’m going to set up a trap, catch that son of a gun, and put it on a grill. I’ll post my victory picture when I do.
So pissed !!!
I like to hear what people do and you approach your training and eating / nutrition with a great deal of method while not forcing the food which in my view is totally sustainable.
I also like the flexibility you allow yourself and adjustments with which foods do what / when and how it’s customized for you.
Thanks for sharing this info with everyone as you are providing a template without really knowing it.
oh, by the way…
Perfect is the enemy of good so to answer your question from my perspective and experience " is ( your diet) perfect/" I would say it’s working and that it’s effective. Can’t get much better than this.
Oh of course ! Ain’t no thing but a chicken wing on a string
I just think that just like advanced training, advanced nutrition has a certain aspect of feel to it. each minute needs to be customized to the user. Just like each minute of training for the 100m needs to be “customized” by the coach with constant feedback and minor improvisations.
Yes, it’s easy to take the “customization” to the bad spoiled side, but once you time slower and gain 5lb of fat,then next time you quit the bullsh*t and become responsible
Pic of the day: Silencer chasing the crow that ate his dried figs, effectively ruining at least 3-4 sets of high intensity shock training.
I failed the chase (but i’ll get him next time)
http://25.media.tumblr.com/2942ba62bf0a325309ddccab3c627cc3/tumblr_ml5nh9ishN1s9gaf4o1_500.png
It’s like National Geographic Wild down here. I’m running to survive and protect my kill (figs)
What are you going to do when you catch it?
I think we have all eaten a bit of crow sometime but feathers and all.
How long have crows been in Israel?
They have been here for a while now, at least since I started buying dried fruit for training. Say 2007.
My hip flexors are doomed, and tomorrow’s speed work is jeopardized. I’ll try to massage it out otherwise I’ll be laying low till Friday.
It’s that game last Wed… .played the whole game… Too many fastbreak straight dashes. Good for the team, but it killed my legs.
Yesterday, power work.
WU+Drills
Contrast starts , (20m sled+20m free)x3
1 leg box jumps, onto PV mat. 5x2 jumps each leg.
Step jumps 7" 7x10 secs, max at 20 jumps, 2 per sec.
Altitude landings, knee height + small jump from top, 3x5
WTS
Frontsquat 5X5 at 90kg
Clean, 3x5 at 100kg
RDL 3x8 140kg
Last game next wed , then I’ll be joining the national flag football mens team.
It’s flag, so not too much training pressure/injuries. Once a week and if there’s a game then add that… I’ll be able to stay competitive while training for that VJ
Hi Angela, sorry it took me so long to respond ! I had a deadline and all my free time went into that… (plus some sleep…) But it’s sent.! (the sleep was lost forever though… 
)
The minute I started training with a group in Italy, training volume increased more and more, until I was doing trainings I never had the courage to do before. Double trainings also became a necessity after a while… By last February, if I trained only once per day, I felt flat the next day… But of course it all depended on many things; type of trainings, sleep, extra CNS stress due to research work, etc…
Yes my type of work requires a lotttt of sitting, and I never got used to it… I pretty much finished my PhD (March 2012) while never being put for more than 10’ at a time… No chair feels comfortable to me, and I must have some type of ADD as well … :S Sometimes I have to invent pre-programmed study interruptions, to keep my blood circulating at my desired level, without having to interrupt my brain activity by having to think about how to ‘move’ each time. For example one time I had tied a rubber band around my ankles, and every X amount of time (10min or 30min, depending on work inspiration), I would do sideways shuffles diagonally in my room and then go and sit back. Sometimes it’s abdominals, sometimes it’s superman holds. Sometimes it’s something that doesn’t even exist in the books.
Sitting has become a torture
But when I have the most work to do, I’ve even been able to fit in double trainings, including 1hr of total biking to and from the track, so I cannot really say that I’ve been sitting all that much. But it is part of my work, and sometimes I think about becoming a secret agent that works out in the field. But now it’s not a secret any more… ahhh.
Regeneration… well with all this middle-distance training i’ve been doing, I haven’t been in too much trouble. I think biking back home after training has been very regenerative. I do some self-massage on my calves, a bit more stretching than I used to (which was almost none), and that’s pretty much it.
Regarding food, I’m still learning… I’ve found that what Silencer mentioned with the morning caffeine and walks is indeed effective.
In Italy I kind of got used to eating pasta and a larger amount of carbohydrates in general, which was ok with the type of training I did.
But now I’m slowly converting back into a sprinter, and being home in Greece, I can eat all the meat I want
One pretty much learns by experience which foods work for the stomach and which are hard to digest, for pre-training meals. Because I get bored easily, I go through phases.
I discovered a supplement recently, which is becoming popular among civilians; Ippofaes (it literally means “horse food”), which is said that it is what Alexander the Great used to give to his horses. It is found in the stores that sell nuts and dried fruits in Greece. It comes in a jar, and it looks like reddish hard raisins. On the attached sticker, it said that you should eat 4 or 5 seeds in the morning, or boil them in hot water for 3 minutes. I tried option A the first time, and almost died from the bad taste. Two weeks later, after I overcame the shock, I boiled 5 seeds in water and drank it. It was wonderful.
It is written that it is the only plant that contains omega 3s and omega 7s with anti-inflammatory and anti-thrombotic characteristics. It heals wounds, boosts the metabolism and protects against cancer. It protects and boosts the nervous system, and fights stress. It controls the metabolism. And it actually goes on and on… It sounds like the jar of all miracles.
Sorry if this post sounds all over the place. But this is how my heart feels right now as well … =)
Track saves.
Your note was very nice to read Stephanie and it’s interesting to see how people fit school and training into their lives and what things they do to deal with the stress.
I think a fair bit of activity or training is complimentary to learning and studying but I also see and understand the challenge of dealing with extended sitting periods.
I like the idea of mixing studying with exercise and feel a useful strategy I also try and teach people. You need breaks and you need to actively manage breaks the same way you plan timed breaks with runs and lifts.
This is why I was asking you about regeneration. Nutritionally it makes perfect sense to safely try ways to optimize your best self ( that is how I like to think of it) .
Easy biking can certainly be restorative and fresh air is essential and I guess if you are in Greece all that Vitamin D is wonderful.
The " horsefood" supplement sounds like some of the unusual things that are out in the market but not so much mainstream so it makes you wonder what the heck it is?
A great deal of money is spent on horses health and performance and you would not be the first person to try something the horse trainers are onto for decades.
Friday thee 19th,
Long Warmup, then football patterns vs defense
Medball work, 3D thrusts from all vectors, 4x10, used 3kg this time.
Sled work, 30 yards packpedal drag with 40kg, then a 20yard sprint x5
SLJ’s, 5x3, best of 3.0M, not too shabby after all the football and sledwork.
Then I couldn’t jump anymore because my pec minor was bothering me, so went up to the gym for frontsquats and GM’s.
Frontsquat, 5x3 with 100kg (full) and GM’s, 3x8 with 100kg.
Then drove to basketball practice, the last of the season before the break. Wednesday I’ll have my last game too.
No more ball will allow me to kick the volumes a bit higher, both the the power section and the strength section. Actually much higher …
Today, upper body weights being careful on a small pec minor irritation.
CG Bench press 80kg 4x8
DB Row 4x8 with 58kg dumbel
Seated cable row, max machine weight 4x8 superset with face pulls
Shoulder press with BB - 60kg 4x8
Bicep work.
PM- National team football practice 3 hours (how did that come into my life all of a sudden ? lol )
AM -Some power, tired after yesterday’s practice.
Warmup
Medball work 4x10, some in 3D.
Hill sprints 5x10, 5x20, 5x30 at 85%
5 hurdle jumps, 5 sets of 2 5 hurdle jumps. (10)
Depth jump, low height - Too much crashing… left the track.
PM - Strength
Frontsquat 4x6 at 90kg (full paused)
GM 3x8 at 100kg
Walking hill lunge, 60kg 3x8 each leg
Hipthrust 140kg 3x8
My ass has been freezing for the past 2 weeks over here… So not a lot of walking.
Tomorrow “summer” is back on for quite a while so will start again.