How's Your Record-Keeping?

No, this has nothing to do with your Very Important Tax Documents, although I strongly recommend keeping careful track of those as well if for no other reason than that it is conducive to marital harmony.

(A typical conversation chez Tactical Ballerina the second weekend in April: "Honey, where did you put that thing we got from the Monetta Fund?" "Which thing?" "You know, it came in that big envelope. Last September, or maybe it was October." "Oh, that. I thought you had it." And so forth. We have been doing this in one form or another for 20 years now.)

No, this is about your training. You need to be keeping records there as well, or you'll never know for sure whether you're making progress or not.

Okay, that's not completely true. If you're a complete novice it's generally easy to see whether you're on the right track, simply because if you're new to training and on any kind of a decent program you can expect to make progress by leaps and bounds. Still, even at this phase of training it's good to get in the habit of recording your workouts since later on your gains will come in much smaller increments, and unless you keep track you may not always be sure whether you're really gaining strengthspeed, etc., or not. This is assuming that improved performance is your goal. If your goal is more aesthetic you'll still want to record your workouts, but you'll also need to take photos periodically to make sure your muscles are developing in the way you want and/or that you're not losing too much lean mass as you shed fat.

I frankly deplore the necessity of doing this. My own progress photos invariably make me cringe. Have I mentioned that my ribcage basically sits on top of my hip bones? Seriously, I have the world's shortest waist. I'm practically a mutant. Thing is, it's helpful to be reminded of this stuff because otherwise I am in danger of forgetting, for instance, that certain exercises, such as weighted crunches and side bends, are probably not the best for me strictly from a cosmetic standpoint. (I don't care for them from a functional standpoint either but concede their usefulness if hypertrophy of the outer core musculature is desired, which it often is, especially at the start of swimsuit season.)

But, anyway, I suck it up and do it, and you should too. I recommend taking at least 3 photos, one from the front, one from the side, and one from the back. You can flex or not, your choice, but try to do the same thing each time you update so you can compare more easily. If you're preparing for a physique competition you may want to take photos as often as every week when you're in the dieting-down phase, but otherwise once a month is more than adequate.

It's painful, at least to a pathologically vain person such as myself, but it's a whole lot less painful than unwittingly spending months on a program that's not getting me closer to my goals, or that may even be counterproductive.

The Goddess-In-Progress Training Plan

Okay, I'm already a goddess. And so are you. Unless of course you are a guy, in which case you are a god. Really. If you care about your health, if you eat right most of the time, if you exercise regularly and with some intensity and commitment, you are already as fabulous as you ever need to be.

But this isn't about that.

This is about taking it to that next level where even the people who don't particularly like you have to admit you look darned good. This is about sticking it to your evil ex and your catty sister-in-law and all those people in high school who used to kick sand in your face. This is about proving to the world that while fertility may decline with age hottness endures, and that just because you're over 45 it doesn't mean you're past your sell-by date.

Now for the specifics:

If, like me, you are a woman in mid-life who is in very good shape but not quite as lean and sculpted as she used to be, the problem very likely is hormones. I'm assuming, of course, that nothing else about your training regimen and diet has changed, which may not be the case. Mid-life women may be dealing with aging parents, teenage children, failing marriages, job stress ... all sorts of things that can impact a woman's time, energy and commitment to training. In my own case I've had some of that, but really not too much so I'm inclined to think feral hormones are the main reason for the upward creep in my body fat percentage

So what do you do when, like me, you've hit the hormonal wall? You commit to working harder. Sorry about that, folks. I wish there was another answer, I truly do. But there isn't. So deal with it. Really. There's no point in shaking your fist at the heavens and saying "It's not fair." It isn't, but lamenting the unfairness of it all gets you exactly nowhere. If, like me, you're a person of fairly average genetic gifts you've probably already figured that one out. Some people build muscle more easily than others, and some people lean out more easily. Some do both, and I hate them as much as you do :)

The good news is: a person of average genetic gifts who's on a good program can get results that equal or surpass those of a genetically gifted person who chooses to coast on his or her gifts. But what do I mean by "a good program"? It must include some intense resistance training and some high-intensity interval training. It must include a pretty strict diet with plenty of protein and very controlled carb intake. Beyond that, it's hard to be specific because what one individual needs to "take it to the next level" may not be the same as what another needs. So much of it depends on what you've been doing.

In my own case, I've been doing a lot of metabolic resistance training. Supersets and circuits and kettlebells, oh my. Great stuff, and for years it kept me as lean as I cared to be. But eventually it stopped working, as even an excellent training program will generally do if you don't change it up from time to time. Let me reiterate: there was nothing "wrong" with what I was doing. In fact, according to Alwyn Cosgrove's "hierarchy of fat loss," what I'd been doing was the best thing I could do for fat loss. But for ME it was no longer "best" because I'd been doing it for too darned long and my body had gotten used to it.

So I looked elsewhere on the hierarchy, and what I came up with is a regimen that combines more traditional bodybuilding-type resistance training, some high intensity interval cardio, and also a certain amount of steady state cardio at lower intensity. It's way more time consuming than what I'd been doing, but frankly that's what the situation calls for. Again, I'm not talking about what's necessary for basic health and fitness. I'm talking about taking it a step or three beyond that.

My diet hasn't changed too much, other than that I've cut my calories a bit and also begun paying even more attention to nutrient timing. The fact is, fat loss is a catabolic process while building muscle is anabolic, so you can't do both at once. But what you can do is try for microcycles where you flood your body with nutrients at a time when it's best positioned to take advantage of them, i.e, during and immediately following your workouts, then cut way back at other times so your body draws on its stores of excess fat for energy. In other words, at any given point during the day you're either burning fat or building muscle, but over the course of the day you're doing both. Theoretically, anyway :)

And again, none of this is worth bothering with unless you're already quite fit and lean. The further you are from your goal, the easier it is to get results. Just eat less and move more, and you'll be fine. Don't make yourself crazier than you must.

Regrettably, I myself would appear to be at a point in my training where I must become a raving lunatic to get the results I want. But I can do that. In all honesty I've never been all that disciplined about my training, but lunacy comes naturally to me :)

My new training goal is ...

extreme hottness.

No, really.

Okay, stop laughing!! I'm serious :)

Here's the deal: I was reading John Berardi's blog the other day and came across a post discussing a physique competition he'd recently attended. His big revelation? That there exist 47-year-old women he would totally hit on!

(Earth to you, Dr. Berardi, hon: if you were to try it you would learn that there exist 47-year-old women who would not give you the time of day, not with that dumb soul patch thing you've got going on. Really, do you even know how stupid that looks on a man your age? Someday you are going to look back at photos of yourself and be so embarrassed.)

As a 47-year-old woman myself I naturally took umbrage. It's time for a paradigm shift, people! This idea that a 47-year-old-female is no longer worth looking at needs to be relegated to the dustbin of history. With regular, vigorous exercise and a good diet we can look great as our daughters. We may not all choose to make the effort, but it IS a choice.

And I'm out to prove it. For the next 8 weeks I'm on a one-woman mission to find out just how good a menopausal woman of average genetic gifts can look without the aid of surgery, airbrushing, or ingestion of anything other than clean foods, protein powder and vitamins. (I do however reserve the right to slap on a coat of self-tanner when the mood takes me.)

More on this later.

Workouts are continuing strong

I benched 105 on Friday, which is not a personal best for me but it's more than I've been able to press in quite a while so I am pleased. There was no one on hand to spot me so I didn't feel comfortable increasing my weights beyond that, but I think I could have.

I also did barbell rows, underhand grip, with 100 pounds which I think is about as much weight as I've ever used for that particular lift.

Next week is a back-off week, with fewer sets and higher reps per set, so I will be using lighter weights. Since my workouts will be less intense I'm going to try cutting my calories some, just to see what happens.

After next week my workout split will change a bit. I will still be lifting four days a week, but instead of a straight upper/lower split I'll have two dedicated upper body days, one lower body day, and one total body day that looks to be more conditioning-oriented. I may try implementing calorie cycling during this phase of training ... or I may not.

I admit, I struggle with motivation when it comes to fat loss. There's a big part of me that thinks it's a bit ridiculous--and maybe not even healthy--for a woman in her late forties to try to maintain the same low body fat percentage she had in her younger days. It's different, of course, for women who participate in physique competitions where a single-digit body fat percentage is imperative. I'm not at all drawn to the sport myself even though I do sort of secretly want a pair of those stripper heels. But I do think it's a pretty cool thing to do and I would love to train an aspiring figure competitor sometime.

Even figure competitors, however, do not maintain ultra-low body fat year-round. At least, the healthy ones don't. Ballerinas do ... but they also do questionable things like dance for years on stress-fractured feet. I admit there's a part of me that wishes I hadn't let myself be talked out of pursuing a career in dance, but mostly I'm glad because I'm sure I wouldn't be as healthy as I am today if I'd stuck with it. Now, thankfully, I don't need to worry about being cut from a show if I've got a strained muscle or am carrying some extra fat. On the other hand I don't love the feeling of being the biggest girl in the corps, and since I have no intention of giving up any of my hard-earned muscle about all I can do is try to shed some fat from my thighs and midsection.

Yesterday I deadlifted 185 lbs

Not that I'm proud of it or anything :)

I haven't been posting much lately about my own workouts and nutrition because frankly I'm still trying to figure out what works for me these days. Perimenopause is a game-changer for sure. It used to be that my body would respond in fairly predictable ways to every little tweak in my eating and exercise regimen. Now, not so much. My body still responds, but not always as I expect. Sometimes I am pleasantly surprised, and yesterday was one of those days. More typically the surprises are not so welcome, but more on that later.

Anyway, here's what I've been doing for my workouts over the past few months:

Because of the hand pain and grip problems I've been experiencing, I've cut way back on my kettlebell practice and returned to free weights as my primary mode of resistance training. After a couple of months of total-body programs three days per week I felt ready to take on an upper/lower body split requiring four days a week of resistance training. The program incorporates "wave loading," which basically is like doing two pyramids, the first with submaximal weight and the second with maximal weight. The first week of the program the rep scheme for the "waves" was 8/6/4, the second week it was 7/5/3, and the third week it was 6/3/1. What I love about this is, I have plenty of time to figure out how well my body is responding before I attempt to max out my weights. Because I prefer to be conservative in my weight selection I generally repeat the final set of the second wave a couple of times, increasing the weight incrementally until I've truly maxed out. Yesterday, for instance, I put 165 lbs on the bar for my final set, which was meant to be my one-rep max. But I knew immediately that I'd gone too light, so I did an extra rep with the 165, then slapped another 20 lbs on the bar and did 185. Then, just for kicks, I put another 15 on the bar just to see what would happen, and of course it didn't move. I didn't mind, though, because at that point I was pretty sure I actually WAS done. It might've just been mental, but either way I certainly wasn't prepared to risk an injury.

I also did 1-arm dumbbell snatches with 40 lbs, which is another personal best. One of these days I will write a post in which I babble about dumbbell/barbell cleans and snatches versus the kettlebell versions of same. I almost wish the exercises had different names because the technique is so different. There are plenty of similarities of course, but then there are similarities between apples and oranges as well, right?

I hadn't really thought about it yesterday, but in looking back on the workout I think the warmer weather we've been enjoying this week may have contributed to my success. My hand pain and numbness are worse when the weather is rainy and cold, but yesterday my grip was not an issue. I had no real problem holding my lockout for several seconds, then lowering with control even with 185 lbs on the bar. I think I will have to try reincorporating kettlebells for some of my high-intensity interval training just to see how that goes. I think it will be better now.

I'd also taken ballet class that morning, so my glutes and core were fully activated. And, no, I wasn't wearing leg warmers but I did still have my pink tights on and I would like to think they contributed in some small way to my success.

More likely, though, it's the supplementation.

In all honesty I am not a lover of supplements. Some have merit, at least for some people, and some (most?) are just snake oil at best, harmful at worst. Sorting out the worthy from the unworthy requires far more knowledge than I possess, so I'm not even going to try. That being said, if your body for whatever reason is subject to more than the ordinary amount of stress, the nutritional support available from food alone may not be enough to meet your particular needs, so supplementation may be in order.

Dr. Susan Kleiner's Power Eating is a good source of information when it comes to sports nutrition. She's not a big fan of supplementation either although she does speak well of creatine. Supplementation as a way of dealing with non-workout related stressors (such as perimenopause) is, however, beyond the scope of her book. More useful in this regard is the Precision Nutrition system, which has some specific recommendations for mid-life women.
I've begun incorporating some of these (zinc, magnesium, phosphatidyl serine, and valerian at night to help me sleep, fish oil to help with moodiness and depression, etc) to pretty good effect, at least when I remember to take them. The phosphatidyl serine is also supposed to help with foggy thinking and excess cortisol, but honestly I can't swear how helpful it is in either regard. I haven't been taking it long so it's too soon to say.

Speaking of Precision Nutrition, I have actually gained some weight on the plan even though my calorie intake has been what until very recently at least was maintenance level for me. I'm not especially concerned, though, because my workouts have been so strong. As long as the extra calories are being put to good use, who cares? Don't get me wrong: I'm somewhat disconcerted that this is the case, and I can't say I'm thrilled about having to get my "fat pants" out of storage. (Yeah, I keep a couple pairs of size 2's around for times like this. Cry me a river already. Sheesh.) But I'm certainly not concerned enough to want to change anything at this point. Getting strong is a priority for me, and I certainly seem to be making progress on that front so for now I can deal with the extra mass on my thighs.

Sing My Life With Your Words, Tom Venuto!

There's a lot of nonsense "information" on fitness and fat loss floating around the Internet. I should know, because some of it is written by me :) But there's also some very good stuff, and the author of much of it is Tom Venuto, the Burn The Fat guy.

He had a very good blog post the other day on female fat loss that I think you all should read, especially if you are smaller-framed like me:

http://burnthefatblog.com/archives/2010/03/speed_up_slow_female_fat_loss.php

It's just common sense, but it's still a salutary reminder for those of us who tend to get frustrated when the scale seems not to be moving even though we've been 100 percent compliant with our diet and exercise programs. The sad fact is, whether you weigh 180 lbs or 110, losing a pound of fat means creating a calorie deficit of 3,500. And creating that deficit is a whole heckuva lot easier for the person who weighs 180, because even if he's not terribly active he probably requires 2500 calories a day just to maintain his weight. Cut that by 20 percent and he'll lose a pound a week even without increasing his activity level. The 110-lb person, on the other hand, requires far fewer calories to maintain her weight unless she happens to be, say, an ultra-marathoner-in-training or an aspiring Olympian. Assuming a maintenance level of 1800 calories a day, a 20 percent calorie reduction will result in a weekly deficit of only 2100 calories, equating to a loss of only a little more than half a pound of fat a week. If Ms. 110 wants to speed things along she'll need to move more--but even that can be frustrating because with her smaller frame she's going to burn far fewer calories doing exactly the same workout as her 180 lb friend. (Mr. Tactical Ballerina and I have put this one to the test. But it's all right. I love him anyway. Usually.)

So what's a girl to do? In a word--okay, three words--suck it up. Deal with it. It is what it is, and lamenting the unfairness of it all gets you exactly nowhere. (I'm not saying don't take it out in small passive-aggressive ways on your 180-lb friend, especially if you happen to be married to him. This can be quite enjoyable. Just ask Mr. Tactical Ballerina, who incidentally has the patience of a saint:))

Seriously, you can still attain your fat loss goals even if you're smaller and have a slower metabolism. You just can't expect to shed fat as fast as a bigger person would. The good news is, you probably don't have as much to lose to get to goal. A loss of as little as five pounds may be enough to take you from "acceptable" to "rock star." If you think in terms of percentages of body fat lost you can definitely keep pace with your larger friend. In fact you may even get to goal sooner.

So don't despair. Seriously, don't. Go shoe shopping instead. Buy a nice pair of heels that will make you the perfect height for your weight :) It's much more satisfying.

In Which I Say Nice Things About Machine-Based Exercise Programming

If you're the sort of person who reads fitness blogs (and if you're not, what are you doing here?) you probably are not a big fan of exercise machines. To be honest, they don't rock my world either. They work muscles in isolation, in only a single plane of motion, which is not the way our bodies operate in real life. Exercises that require coordinated muscle action, and that are multiplanar, are my preference, and they're probably yours too.

But guess what? We're not typical.


Take a minute and try to imagine the mindset of, say, a 57-year-old woman who has never exercised in her life, who doesn't enjoy movement, who isn't comfortable in the gym environment, but knows she needs to begin an exercise program to improve her blood lipid profile and prevent bone loss. The worst thing I could do would be to set her up with a bunch of complex-seeming functional exercises. They might be totally appropriate from an exercise-physiology standpoint, but how much good are they going to do her if she's too intimidated to actually do them? If she's an affluent woman who can afford to work out with me every time she comes to the gym, there's a lot I can do to increase her comfort level with free weights and functional exercise in general ... but most of the wellness seekers I meet are not so fortunate. All too often they can't afford more than a session or two, or at least they think they can't. (More on that some other time. For now, assume they really can't afford more than a session or two with me.) For these people, the best I can do for them is to come up with something they will actually come to the gym and do on their own, with enough consistency to get results, at least until they can scrape together enough money to buy more sessions with me.

Enter The Exercise Machine!


Don't ask me why, but novice exercisers seem to be less intimidated by machines than by free weights. Honestly, I wish they were more intimidated by machines because there's every bit as much injury potential with machines as there is with free weights--maybe more, even--but most people seem not to realize it. To use machines safely and correctly you still need a certain amount of joint stability and core strength, and if these are lacking you will hurt yourself. The seated leg press machine is one of the worst offenders, to the point that I steer people away from it unless I know they've got sufficient core strength to maintain a neutral spine as they push with their legs. But if they can do that .... well, I'd really rather they do squats, lunges and deadlifts, but if that's not going to happen I'd rather they do leg press than nothing at all.

I will admit, there are a couple of machines that I believe were invented by the Devil expressly to try my patience. The seated spinal flexion machine, for instance--don't even get me started. I fantasize about sneaking into the gym at night and smashing it with a kettlebell. Someday I will do it, I swear. In all seriousness I do believe that for most people this machine is unsafe and sets them up for low back pain by encouraging an unnatural movement pattern. Hip flexion good, spinal flexion bad. I will sew those words on a sampler someday.

But most of the other machines are safe enough if used properly. Occasionally I will encounter someone who is simply too tiny or too tall for a given machine, but for the most part it's possible to find settings that are fairly biomechanically correct and won't doesn't stress the joint unduly. Of course the joints can still be destabilized via muscle imbalances that can arise when muscle groups are trained in isolation, but that's more of a potential problem that can be addressed by making sure the overall program is well balanced, with equal attention paid to opposing muscle groups. No leg extensions without leg curls, no chest presses without back rows--that sort of thing.

Okay, so (most) machines can be safe (enough). But are they effective? Hell, yes. If you don't believe me, google Wayne Westcott. He's one of my favorite exercise scientists, mostly because his name makes him sound like the mild-mannered alter ego of a cartoon superhero. But he's also done some very interesting studies demonstrating the benefits of a machine based exercise program across all age groups. In one such study over 1,100 participants ranging in age from 20 to 80 were set up with a very basic program of machine based resistance training and moderate intensity (70-80% MHR) cardio , about 1/2 hour of each, performed 3x per week. Over the course of 8 weeks all participants lost body fat and gained muscle, with the greatest muscle gains (2.4 lbs) manifested in the 61-80 age group. I don't know about you, but I find that to be fairly compelling evidence of the benefits of machine-based exercise.

Would they have made even greater gains if they'd been training with free weights? Probably ... if they'd stuck with it. But many of them wouldn't have, due to the intimidation factor I mentioned earlier. And as a trainer who works in the real world training real people, I tend to think an exercise program is only as good as the client's willingness to comply with it.

So next time you're at the gym and you see a personal trainer setting someone up with a circuit of machine-based exercises, don't assume the trainer is an idiot who doesn't know what the hell she's doing, because there's a reasonable chance the trainer is me. And I am a lot scarier than you are, and you really don't want to be on my bad side. Trust me.