Inhuman. Usain Bolt breaks the unbreakable record again, by a ton. 19.19 in the 200m. The gap he opens up in this race, oh my.

Here’s an HD video of Usain Bolt crushing his own world record in the 100 meters. 9.58! Tyson Gay turns in the third-fastest time in history at 9.71.

Could this guy be more fun to watch? Usain Bolt turns in a 19.59 in Lausanne, in the rain, into a headwind. The Science of Sport has some good commentary.

Very interesting article from Kelly Baggett, 7 Modern Day Myths About Plyometrics. Here’s more about the Iso Extension Stim he mentions.

Usain Bolt lays waste to another world record, this time the 150 meters. Watching the race brings back Olympic déjà vu; total destruction of the field. Here’s the Science of Sport’s take. I wonder if he can score a WR in the 400 too? He’d need to take like 2.5 seconds off his personal best, I think. Michael Johnson thinks he can do it.

P.S. Here’s the super slow-motion replay of his 100m Olympic final again. Even slowed way down his feet spend such a remarkably short amount of time on the ground, and I love watching the clock tick down as he runs past it.

Three very good reads:

• Barry Ross: The Holy Grail in Speed Training.
• Mark Sisson: The Role of Lean Muscle Mass and Organ Reserve in Aging.
• Sister Corita Kent: Immaculate Heart College Art Department Rules (really).

Okay, I probably shouldn't file this under "Equipment", but boy, this hill behind my daughters' school sure is good for some quality workouts:

Mixing in forwards and backwards (each direction), pacing, reps, emphasizing power or endurance, there are lots of workouts you can build on one of these things. It's only about 35 yards long, but at that angle, that's enough. In the me vs. hill matchups, the hill is undefeated. Wrecks me every time.

[Heads up: Ferruggia's always blunt and occasionally crude, so don't click through if that bothers you.]

I've never made "bulking" my focus in my training, but I though this three-part piece by Jason Ferruggia on "Cardio While Bulking" (part one, two, and three) had quite a bit of useful advice and insight into integrating cardio and intervals into your workouts without injury or overtraining.

Here's one thing that really grabbed me:

If you choose sprinting as your form of interval training you could get hurt; it's an ugly truth that has to be faced. The thing that will lead to even more injuries is following faulty interval protocol advice. Normally it is recommended to do 30-60 second intervals when they are being performed on a stationary bike. A lot of people take these recommendations and apply them to sprinting. This is a huge mistake! Nobody can sprint for 30-60 seconds. Ok, not nobody; but most average people can't do it. World class athletes can sprint for that long, but not everyone else.

He then elaborates, so click through for more (that bit in particular is in part three). Anyway, the reason it grabbed me is because I've always just blindly applied the Tabata protocol to sprinting, without considering that the original studies were done on bikes. Of course, the "as hard as you can" part of my interpretation allows me to "sprint" for 20 seconds at a slower pace then I'd run the 40, for example, but it still kills me.

• Jon Gilson of Again Faster attended a USA Track and Field Coaching Certification and came away with some great notes on general athletic performance and sprinting tips and techniques.
• CrossFit Oakland has a very helpful post on muscle-ups. The photos are good, but the video of progression exercises (link therein) for kids is terrific.
• I took for granted that multiple sets were a necessity for strength training, but apparently that's debatable. Clarence Bass has two posts on the subject. The first seems geared towards bodybuilding, but the second references all kinds of generally applicable evidence. Listen to your body. (thanks Jim O.)

Just a quick workout of the day for you: do a set of Tabata sprints, followed by Tabata "backwards overhead medicine ball throws" (hold the ball with both hands, squat a bit while bending over then hurl the ball backwards over your head as far as you can). I used an 8 lb. ball and a 10 lb. ball, so I'd throw one then the other then sprint to them and do it again as fast and as forcefully as I could. My daughter thought this was a particularly fun one to watch.

It's a bit vague in spots, but More Research on the Aerobic Benefit of Sprinting nicely sums up why I've completely eliminated anything remotely resembling long distance work from my training. Why sacrifice speed and power with no upside? Personally, I need every bit of speed and power I can eek out. I do wish I knew how much rest the sprinting group took between sprints, and whether the numbers are reversed in that table, but you get the gist of it.

So as you probably know by now, this is why Tabata Intervals are the backbone of my training regimen. For anecdotal evidence of the protocol's broad applicability, scroll down the third success story on this Clarance Bass page, titled "Tabata Protocol Produces PR Rowing from 500- to 10,000-Meters". « via CrossFit »

Ross's workout, The Magic 50, has become my de facto benchmark workout. I feel like I've been going a bit light on the running lately (partly because of the damn achilles, which are still bad from Easterns), so tried a variation yesterday. I substituted a 50m sprint for the DB swings, so it looks like this:

• 5 DB snatches per arm
• 50m sprint
• 10 burpees
• Rest 1 minute max.
• Repeat 5 times (for a total of 50 snatches, 5 50m sprints, and 50 burpeees)

Challenged myself with the DB weight (60 lbs.), sprinted all-out, and did the burpess as fast as I could (no hitches or breaks in the movement, one flows into the next).

Thought I was going. To. Die.

Enjoy!

Clarence Bass has another great article up on the benefits of sprint training. Subjects in a relatively recent study reaped significant benefits doing "four to seven "all-out" 30-second sprints on a bicycle ergometer with four-minute rest periods, six times over two weeks". They did not get the peak oxygen uptake or anaerobic work capacity benefits of Tabatas, however:

"Most strikingly," the researchers wrote, "cycle endurance capacity increased by 100% after [sprint interval training]." The time to fatigue cycling at about 80% of VO2max increased on average from 26 minutes to 51 minutes!

If you hate grinding out long cardio sessions, this is a must-read. For example:

"To our knowledge, this is the first study to show that sprint training dramatically improves endurance capacity during a fixed workload test in which the majority of cellular energy is derived from aerobic metabolism," the researchers reported. Impressively, the short period of very intense exercise produced improvements "comparable to or higher than previously reported aerobic-based training studies of similar duration." In other words, about two minutes of very intense exercise (15 minutes over 2 weeks) produced the same or better results than previously shown after two hours a day at about 65% of VO2max, or 20 hours over two weeks.

15 minutes vs. 20 hours. Yow.

The "Tabata Compared" section was of particular interest to me (obviously). Fantastic piece. By all means, click through...

It's nice to see the actors that will be playing Spartans are training in a relatively Spartan manner. Funny to see a second video of band sprints in such close proximity to the first. I'm starting to think I need more elastic in my life. « via Crossfit »

I thought every now and then I'd post notes on my "love/hate exercises". These are exercises I hate doing because they leave nowhere to hide, and they crush me. And yet, because I hate them I must also love them, as what better sign is there that they are working?

I have applied many different exercises to the Tabata protocol, but far and away the worse two (and therefore the best two) are sprints and burpees.

Sprints are "fun" to do as Tabatas because 20 seconds (the work period) is roughly the time of Michael Johnson's world record in the 200 meters (19:32). So find a 200m straightaway and mark it off with cones. For your first interval, run like you are trying to beat MJ. When the timer goes off, note in amazement how far away you are from where he'd be standing. Walk during your 10 second rest. On the next interval, sprint back to the original cone, your goal being to get to it. You won't. Repeat a total of 8 times. Pure death. The best tip I can give you is this: as everything else is pounded out of you conciousness, try to focus on your form. Picture your knees, your arms, your hip drive, instead of the misery.

I can't decide if burpees are less painful, as painful, or more painful than sprints. It's that close. Even though I've written about them in many other posts, let me repost a bit here:

After five weeks of the program, I have a love/hate relationship with burpees. They are great, but I suck at them and they kill me. Make sure you're doing the right kind of burpee (here's a demo clip). Let me emphasize a couple points:

• Drop down into a full squat while putting your hands to the floor before you kick out.
• Kick out and drop into the pushup simultaneously.
• "Kick in" at the same time as you are pressing out of the pushup (even after five weeks, I still suck at this part).
• From the squat, leap as high as you can and then drop into the next squat, all in one fluid motion.

I think the above tips are all key to both good form and speed. Also, as you progress in the workout above and you start to die, try to focus on the fluid progression of each movement to the next. It will be very tempting to kick out first, then do a pushup (while catching a bit of rest in the upright pushup position), or to land the jump without flowing into the next squat (again catching rest, or at least a breath). There are a million ways to cheat. Resist the urge. Focussing on form and fluidity will help you get the most from the workout.

Above all, remember this: the key to getting the most out of Tabatas is to do each and every work period as hard as you possibly can. Do not pace yourself so you have gas for the last (or third, or whatever) interval.