As I write this article, my 12 year old son is finishing off a 15 minute kettlebell workout. He came to me a few months ago asking if I could put a training program together for him. His goals were to work his entire body while improving his performance in sports (he plays soccer and runs cross country). I now realize that an additional motive may be for him to put on some muscle to attract some attention from the ladies. I get it...attention from girls was important to me in 7th grade as well!

While I’ve tried to do my best to just live by example and not force my children to make exercise or resistance training (i.e. lifting weights) a priority, I was definitely encouraged when he asked me for my help. His 7 year old little brother is already jumping in once in a while now to see if he can lift heavy things too!

But should children resistance train? If so, what are the benefits? Turns out, the answer is yes...and there is a big benefit other than just improved fitness and strength.

Back in July of this year, the results of a meta-analysis were published. The goal of this review was to investigate the effect of resistance training on academic outcomes in school-aged youth (ages 5-18).

The nine researchers conducted a systematic search of six electronic databases (CINAHL Complete, PsycINFO, SCOPUS, Ovid MEDLINE, SPORTDiscus and EMBASE) with no date restrictions. They only reviewed studies that, (a) included school-aged youth (5-18 years), and (b) examined the effect of resistance training on academic outcomes (i.e., cognitive function, academic achievement, and/or on-task behavior in the classroom).

Fifty-three studies made the cut.

The following definitions were used in the analysis:

Cognition: The set of mental processes that contribute to perception, memory, intellect and action.

Academic achievement: The extent to which a student has achieved their educational goals, commonly measured by examinations or continuous assessment (i.e., standardized tests, school grades).

On-task behavior: On-task behavior (follows the class rules and is appropriate to the learning situation).

Off-task behavior: (any behavior that was not on-task and could be categorized as either motor off-task, noise off-task or passive off-task).

The meta-analysis concluded that preliminary evidence shows resistance training may improve cognitive function, academic performance, and on-task behaviors in school-aged youth. Higher levels of muscular fitness were associated with greater performance in tests of cognition and academic achievement! This is a huge development. 

As a parent, if you want your child to perform at their best academically with less behavioral issues, strength training should be part of their regular routine. Even if they do not play sports.

According to the Mayo Clinic, light resistance and controlled movements are best for kids — with a special emphasis on proper technique and safety. Kids can do many strength training exercises with his or her own body weight or inexpensive resistance tubing. Free weights and machine weights are other options.

Done properly, strength training can:

• Increase your child's muscle strength and endurance
• Help protect your child's muscles and joints from sports-related injuries
• Help improve your child's performance in nearly any sport, from dancing and figure skating to football and soccer
• Develop proper techniques that your child can continue to use as he or she grows older

Keep in mind that strength training isn't only for athletes. Even if your child isn't interested in sports, strength training can:

• Strengthen your child's bones
• Help promote healthy blood pressure and cholesterol levels
• Help your child maintain a healthy weight
• Improve your child's confidence and self-esteem

International guidelines recommend children and adolescents participate in an average of 60 min of moderate to vigorous physical activity each day. Further, it is advised that young people engage in muscle-strengthening activities, such as resistance training at least 3 days per week. Resistance training is a specialized form of muscle strengthening activity designed to enhance muscular strength, local muscular endurance, and muscular power. It involves the use of different modes of training with a variety of resistance loads, including but not limited to body weight, free weights, elastic bands, medicine balls, and kettlebells.

I found it interesting that most of the studies were done where the resistance training took place in schools, during the day. Further solidifying the fact that we should be promoting more physical activity in schools. Students are required to spend most of the day in a classroom, where sedentary behaviors are prevalent. In this context, the inclusion of resistance training into active learning should be considered by school districts. For the school district my children are in, daily recess ends after 5^th grade and PE Class is just once a week in middle and high school.

Unfortunately, neurological conditions are back in the news due to several celebrities making public their struggles with disorders such as epilepsy, Alzheimer's, ALS, Dementia and Aphasia. Neurological disorders are medically defined as disorders that affect the brain as well as the nerves found throughout the human body and the spinal cord. Structural, biochemical or electrical abnormalities in the brain, spinal cord or other nerves can result in a range of symptoms.

The specific causes of neurological problems vary, but can include genetic disorders, congenital abnormalities or disorders, infections, lifestyle or environmental health problems and injuries to the head or spinal cord.

The “lifestyle or environmental health” causes are the ones that are most fascinating to me. These can be controlled and have been studied quite a bit over the last few years. Some of the evidence should be alarming to everyone but seems to go unnoticed.

I determined long ago that I wanted to do all that I could to maintain my physical abilities as I aged. It’s no secret that physical decline begins in the decade of the 50s and worsens as we age, especially for those who don't exercise. I want to be self-sufficient and independent as long as I can, so I do things like lifting heaving things, pushing myself physically on a regular basis and eating healthy.

But what about maintaining mental health as I grow older? How do I not only make myself harder to kill physically, but mentally? I don’t want to be the ripped-up 85-year-old in the nursing home that doesn’t know where he is!

Until recently, there wasn’t much research that had explored the association between specific dietary patterns and the risk of neurological disorders. However, if you look at research over just the last three years, it suggests that oils widely used in cooking and added to commonly consumed foods, could harm brain cells and heighten the risk of mental decline.

A 2020 study in mice showed that consumption of soybean oil leads not only to weight gain, but also to gene dysregulation that could cause higher rates of neurological conditions like autism, Alzheimer’s disease, anxiety, and depression.

Another study found that feeding mice the equivalent of 2 tablespoons of canola oil per day is associated with worsened memory, learning ability and weight gain, along with “considerable neuronal damage” and increased formation of beta-amyloid plaques, the signature of Alzheimer’s disease.

Need more evidence or don’t think mice are relative enough to humans? How about the results of this study on baby pigs that found increasing the amount of calories from vegetable oil from 1.2% daily to 10.7% daily compromised neurodevelopment. Americans now consume nearly twice that amount, and most baby formulas include vegetable oil as one of the first ingredients.

Are monkeys close enough to humans to believe test results? This study changed the diets of a group of 36 monkeys to a Western diet for 27 months. The change is the monkeys was amazing. They became depressed! The percent time spent depressed was positively correlated with higher concentrations of monounsaturated fats, a higher polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) ratio and higher concentrations of omega-6 PUFAs. Omega-6 fatty acids can be found in sunflower, safflower, soy, sesame, and corn oils.

Vegetable oils, while nearly nonexistent a hundred years ago, now account for over 20% of Americans’ calories and have made their way into nearly every packaged food and restaurant meal we eat, like cookies, salad dressing, bread, crackers, chips, candy, vegetable puffs, granola bars, and even nut milks.

Unlike the name, these oils are not made from vegetables. Vegetable oils are oils extracted from seeds.  Specifically, vegetable oils include:

• Canola oil (also known as rapeseed oil – lovely name)
• Sunflower oil
• Safflower oil
• Grapeseed oil
• Soybean oil
• Cottonseed oil
• Sesame oil
• Corn oil

While some of these seeds in their whole food form are healthy, it’s the crazy amount of processing that must take place to extract oil from the seeds that results in a product that contains unnaturally high levels of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), which are highly unstable and prone to further oxidation when heated. 

So what can I (and you) do to protect ourselves from these “brain killers”? I’ve been looking for these dangerous oils for years now. Ever ssince reading Cate Shanahan’s book Deep Nutrition. Despite my efforts, it’s nearly impossible to completely avoid these oils, but there are some things that I do.

Read food labels carefully.  While most foods found in a box or package contain vegetable oils, not all do. I’ve found crackers, chips and even some bars that are free from them.

Don’t cook with vegetable oils.  When it comes to cooking, stick with extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil, or avocado oil. You can get them in spray form, which is helpful as well.

Eat at home or try making your favorite packaged foods at home. This takes some time and lots of trial and error, but there are lots of helpful links online now to recipes.

Don’t feel like it’s not worth the effort. I promise that there is not a single person suffering from a neurological disorder that wouldn’t give anything to go back in time and at least try everything they could to prevent it.

A recent study found that the more runners distract themselves from what their bodies are doing, the more effortless their run may feel, and the better their performance. The new study was published on October 1^st of this year in the Journal of Motor Learning and Development. Researchers at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran, Iran, used the study to determine whether runners would perform more effectively if they were distracted, compared to if they tuned in to what was happening with their bodies.

After a baseline test of a treadmill, the subjects ran on four separate days, for six minutes at a time, running at about 70% of their top speed, while the scientists monitored their oxygen consumption, the amount of lactate in their bloodstreams and their feelings about the difficulty of each run.

Participants experienced a different experimental condition (i.e., four focus of attention conditions) during each of their 4 days of participation in the study. The four attention strategies were as follows:

    (a) An associative-external attention was prompted by repeatedly instructing the participant to “count your steps” while running.

    (b) To create an associative-internal focus of attention, the examiner repeated the phrase “Focus on the muscles in your feet” during the running action.

    (c) Participants viewed a video clip of a basketball game on a monitor placed at eye level while in the dissociative-external condition.

    (d) An dissociative-internal attention was prompted by asking each participant to perform mental calculations during the trial. This was done by providing each volunteer with a unique number and then instructing them to continuously subtract by three while running. The researcher asked the participant to verbally report the currently calculated number every 30 seconds.

A lot of us have been told by a coach or read an article telling you to focus on your running form, listen to your breathing, count your steps to track cadence, or think about the process of lifting your knee with each stride or kicking your heel back. But does doing any of this make us faster or make running seem easier?

To my surprise, the study found that that video watching easily bested body listening. The runners consumed the least oxygen and produced the least lactate when they viewed basketball and were the most distracted. Their running, physiologically, was least taxing then. They also told the researchers that when they watched the videos, they felt the least strained. Their running felt hardest, on the other hand, when they paid attention to their muscles, with the other strategies falling in between.

Jared Porter, a professor of human movement at the University of Tennessee, who oversaw the new study suggested that those of us that run should wear headphones and stream music or podcasts while running or watch television as you jog on a treadmill.

“We were surprised by how significant the effects were” when people’s minds drifted away from their bodies, he said.

In conclusion, according to the results of this study, recreational runners who wish to optimize their running in terms of movement economy should be encouraged to implement an external-dissociative focus of attention while running. So will I start running with headphones? Not likely. But what I will do is try and just be in the moment and enjoy the sights and sounds of nature as I’m out running. Maybe get real crazy and even try not running with a watch now and then!

You can find the full text of the study here: The Effects of an Associative, Dissociative, Internal, and External Focus of Attention on Running Economy

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I started training for this race in the fall of 2019. I had signed up to run the full marathon in April of 2020. A global pandemic caused a slight change to those plans! I was in great shape in the months leading up to the race that was planned for April 25th. My workout times were faster and my heart rate was lower. I was poised to run a fast race. Then on March 25th, for the first time in it's 19 years (47 years for the half marathon), the race was cancelled. The half was rescheduled for August 2020, the full was not going to be run at all in 2020 - the only option would be virtual at some point later in the year - which I was not interested in doing.

So I stopped my training. All that fitness was wasted as there were no other races anywhere else to run either. While I continued to run a few times a week, they weren't focused runs and with no races on my calendar, my diet started to slack as well. 

Then in December came the announcement that you could defer your race registration to the 2021 race. Since I knew that I wanted to do the race live, and didn't want to lose my entry fee, I signed up for the April 2021 race. I was still not feeling motivated, but hoped that once I get back into my training, my mental state would improve!

I decided to kick off my training with a long run at the end of 2020. I wanted to see where things stood both physically and mentally. It wasn't pretty. I had a lot of work to do in a short amount of time. I still wasn't excited about the race. So I decided a good way to ensure that I put in the work and was ready come race day was to challenge myself publicly. On January 2nd, I posted the following to social media:

It worked. Any time I didn't want to push that last run interval, or any time I wanted to eat that dessert, I thought of this post. I thought of that feeling I would have when I crossed the finish line with a new Personal Record (PR) and how good that would make me feel. That feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction far outweighs any temporary feeling of pleasure I get from eating a piece of cake or indulging in some Jet's pizza! When my body wanted to call it quits at 6 hill repeats when the training plan called for 8, I thought about crossing that finish line on April 24th and did those last two reps.

Even in a pandemic, not much has changed from a stand point of free time I have to train. Making time to train for a marathon is not easy with a full time (50+ hours a week) job, a wife, four kids, a dog (that I'm training), and countless responsibilities around the house. I knew that I had to follow the Balanced Approach plan that I developed while training for four Ironman triathlons.

At the beginning of January, I got the training plan out and got to work. I pulled just the running workouts out of the 36 week plan and counted back. I had 20 weeks until race day. Every workout was going to be important, there was no room for wasted days when the plan was cut 16 weeks short.

Each week consisted of three runs. Usually one with hill repeats, one with sprints and one that was either all aerobic or a progression run. When it was all said and done, I went back and looked at the 20 weeks of training. My average week consisted of just 18.75 miles and only 2 hours and 39 minutes of running! Compare this to most marathon training plans that require you to run 5-6 times a week with weekly mileage in the 45-50 mile range!! Seriously, who has time to run for 7 or 8 hours every week?!?!

If you are interested in learning more about the training plan I followed, you can find it here: The Balanced Approach to Marathon Training

The workouts and my fitness improved, and in the weeks leading up to the race, so did my confidence in my ability to get that PR. My previous best for a stand-alone marathon was 3:40:31. That was what I needed to beat. Even just one second faster would be enough!

The actual race was unlike any other that I had done. While still navigating a pandemic, the race organizers did the best they could to create a safe environment for everyone. That meant staggered start times and no (very, very few) spectators. It also meant a new course that was basically on walking/running paths instead of roads. The aid stations were a mix of water bottles and giant water coolers for runners to self-fill their own bottles. Runners would be required to carry their own nutrition. This was no problem for me, as I always have my own food anyway. For this race, I decided to try something new. In my search for real food that is both portable and easy to digest while running, I decided to try out baby food. That's right, I was going to fuel my 26.2 miles with the stuff that you feel to your one year old. I spent some time in the baby isle at the store reading ingredient labels and thinking about how easy it would be to carry 4 or 5 of these pouches. I grabbed a few different kinds to test on some runs. I ultimately landed on the Biodynamic brand made by White Leaf Provisions. I tucked four of them into my fuel belt and ate one at miles 5, 10, 15 and 20...and it worked great. Being fat adapted meant that the 160 total calories (40 calories per pouch) is all that I needed to get me through.  

Beating my goal time equated to a pace of 8:24 minutes per mile. I knew that I wanted a little to spare, so I set my sights on holding a pace of 8:20 or less. I knew not to go out too fast, so I was checking my pace every few minutes to make sure I wasn't getting much under 8:10's. I'm happy with my pacing and I honestly feel like holding a steady pace is a huge key to running a successful marathon. It wasn't until mile 22 that my pace started to fall off. As expected, those last 4 miles are brutal.

Good thing the course was pretty lonely, there were several times that I was talking to myself out-loud. Trying to keep my legs moving and willing myself to hold as close to my 8:20 pace as possible. My Garmin was telling me that I was 0.15 miles long the whole day. The mile markers on the course always came 0.15 to 0.17 miles after my watch beeped for the mile split. I think I ran the extra distance early in the race at the turn around at Eva Badman Park. There was no sign, cone, or even paint or arrows on the ground to indicate where to turn around and I'm sure I went too far. So my actual distance for this race turned out to be 26.37 miles! Not that I needed that extra 0.17!!

There's not much better than that feeling you get when you try to do math with a little over a mile to go and after assessing how you feel and how fast you need to run, you realize that you are going to meet your goal. I knew that despite the race course being long, I would still set a marathon PR! My official time was 3:38:49.

The finish line was very anticlimactic. No PA system. No one announcing your name as you sprint toward the line. No finish line shoot full of cheering spectators. No music playing.  - Just a small flag that says "Finish" and a timing strip on the ground. I cross the line, stopped my watch, and stumbled up to the rack of medals. No one was there to put it over my head like I just won gold in the Olympics. I took one off the rack and put it around my own neck. I looked around. There were only a few other race finishers standing around. Everyone looked a little lost. So I just started walking back to my car.

While inside I was busting with joy, I'm sure to anyone that saw me, they probably thought I was disappointed. It was weird. I worked so hard, made so many sacrifices to accomplish my goal and then there was no one there to celebrate it with. The good news is that 20 minutes later, I was in my living room surrounded by people that were proud of me and were more than happy to celebrate with me!

Putting races on the calendar and setting goals for them has always been a driving force behind training hard and keeping myself healthy through diet and lifestyle. With no races in 2020, it was hard to stay on track. Despite the persona I put out, I struggle to make good choices sometimes when it comes to food and doing things to improve my mental state. With several races on the calendar for 2021, I'm hoping that I can make this a year where I can get things back in alignment. A marathon PR is a good start!

#2. Eat Real Foods

Avoid stuff that comes wrapped in plastic. “Foods that undergo ultra-processing tend to see much of their nutritional bounty stripped from them,” says Yoni Freedhoff, an Ottawa-based obesity doctor and author of The Diet Fix. Another reason to avoid processed foods is related to energy density, or calories per gram of food. “Generally speaking, ultra-processed foods are much higher in energy density than foods made from fresh, whole ingredients,” says Freedhoff, “which isn’t great for maintaining a healthy weight.”

Freedhoff’s ideal diet for health and longevity? “One that is rich in whole foods that in turn are especially filling. You can keep calories at bay while maximizing nutrition,” he says. ​

#3. Call Your Friends

While it's difficult to do during a global pandemic, a mounting body of evidence is revealing that hanging out with friends and family doesn’t just make you feel good in the moment—it’s also good for long-term health. Social connections are associated with reduced levels of the stress hormone cortisol, improved sleep quality, reduced risk of heart disease and stroke, slowed cognitive decline, lessened systemic inflammation, and improved immune function.

In a 2010 study published in PLOS Medicine, researchers from Brigham Young University followed more than 300,000 people for an average of 7.5 years. They found that the mortality risks associated with loneliness exceeded those associated with obesity and physical inactivity and were similar to those associated with smoking.

#4. Avoid (Nearly) All Supplements

Americans spend more than $30 billion every year on dietary supplements, yet the vast majority don’t work and may even cause harm. A 2016 article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association cited more than 20 years of research and concluded that “studies evaluating dietary supplements have yielded predominantly disappointing results about the potential health benefits, whereas evidence of harm has continued to accumulate.”

Though supplements are often pristinely packaged in alluring promises, ​but most are garbage. There simply aren’t many supplements with sufficient evidence behind them to support their use in a person who doesn’t have a particular proven deficiency or need. I take supplements (Garden of Life brand) because I am often asking my body to do extreme things (such as triathlons, obstacle course racing and lifting heavy weights), but if you are eating a healthy diet and your exercise is moderate, you likely don't need supplements. 

#5. Sleep 8 Hours at Night

Regardless of what the biohackers may tell you, you simply cannot nap or intermittently sleep your way to optimal health and functioning. It’s only after you’ve been sleeping for at least an hour that anabolic hormones like testosterone and human growth hormone—both of which are critical to health and physical function—are released. What’s more, a 2007 study published in the journal Sleep showed that with each additional 90-minute cycle of deep sleep, you receive even more of these hormones. In other words, there are increasing marginal benefits to sleep, and hours seven through nine—the hours most people don’t get—are actually the most powerful.

Deep sleep is also beneficial to mental health. Researchers from Harvard found that it’s only during deep sleep when your brain combs through, consolidates, and stores all the information you came across during the day. “There’s a reason all the bodybuilders and super-intellectual people I know are obsessed with sleep,” says Joyner. “Sleep works wonders.”

#6. Enjoy Nature

In Cheryl Strayed’s bestselling memoir, Wild, her mom tells her that the cure for much of what ails her is to “put [herself] in the way of beauty.” Turns out she was right, at least according to the latest science. Time in nature is an antidote to the ill effects of stress, prevents and in some cases even helps cure anxiety and depression, and enhances creativity. Though the exact causal mechanisms are not yet known, researchers speculate there is something unique about nature—perhaps related to the fact that we evolved to be in it—that puts both our bodies and minds at ease, promoting physical and psychological restoration and subsequent functioning.

#7. Don’t Smoke

New flash! Smoking is associated with dozens of types of cancer, as well as heart disease, dementia, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. According to the American Cancer Association, smoking causes one out of every five deaths in the United States, killing more people than alcohol, car accidents, HIV, guns, and illegal drugs combined. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, your body literally starts repairing the damage caused by smoking within days of stopping. So you are not doomed after years or even a lifetime of smoking. Stop today.

#8. Don’t Drink Too Much

Like smoking, excessive alcohol use is associated with a number of chronic diseases, such as liver cirrhosis, throat cancer, and cardiovascular disease. Drinking too much also impairs sleep and daily function. The good news is that if you enjoy alcohol, drinking reasonably—one drink per day ​—carries minimal risk. “Moderation is key,” says Joyner.

Parts of this post originally appeared in Outside Magazine published April 18, 2017.

If you have lifted weights or spent much time working out, you have likely heard that you need to 'keep the body guessing' by regularly switching up your workout routine. For those just starting out, it’s much easier to follow the same plan day in day out. However, doing the same workouts for too long will bring your training progress and gains to a slow crawl.

The biggest problem of not altering your routine is simply boredom. There are certainly people out there that would do the same thing every day for years if they thought it would help them accomplish their goals. There is a certain segment of the population (Type A Personalities), that will do whatever necessary to succeed…even at the cost of being bored. But the truth is, you will at some point plateau and no longer adapt to your training. Not to mention the risk of injury from overuse. Nagging injuries could be a sign you’ve reached a threshold pattern called pattern overload—an injury to the soft tissues resulting from repetitive motion in one pattern of movement.

Your training should be physically challenging and mentally stimulating. If you are constantly progressing, it's highly likely that you will remain motivated to keep training hard and progressing. But if your body starts feeling sluggish, fatigued, or it's taking you longer than usual to recover in between workouts, a change of pace might be what you need.

Even slightly altering your routine every so often will lead to the best results. Just switching your grip position is enough to create a different stimulus. For instance, a different stance in your squats, or changing from front squats to back squats. Doing narrow grip versus wide grip bench press is an easy way to switch things up as well. And it doesn’t need to be just new exercises, either. Trying a new sport or even a new kind of workout class—say spin or bootcamp if you never venture out of the weight room and treadmill.

The next obvious question is, how often should you switch up the routine? A good general rule is every 4-6 weeks for most people.

As with most things, you can overdo it. You do have to be careful not to bounce from program to program too regularly, as your body is not going to know what to adapt to and you will never get the results you want because you are not sticking to anything long enough to see measurable progress.

All that being said, you can keep a few key exercises or lifts as part of your routine even if you change up other parts of it. Complex lifts such as deadlifts, pull-ups, squats, bench presses and rows are worthy enough to always have a place in your program. Mobility exercises are also a key part of staying injury free.

Happy training!