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ARPWave Search and Destroy for Knee Tweak Part I

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About 3 weeks back, I tweaked my left knee. I was practicing some medicine ball cleans after I took a Crossfit Level 1 Trainer weekend seminar and on one of rise ups from the clean, my left knee must have drifted inward and I got a twinge of pain on the outside of the knee. I was hoping it would go away, but it didn’t. It lingered and was making my leg not feel correct.
I then remembered reading about how therapists were using the ARPwave electrostim machines to help people heal faster from knee injuries. I had already tried out their Search & Destroy (S&D). But going for only a session or two on a given problem didn’t give me longevity on the solution. The problem seemed to get better for a while and then it came back.
Also since I train with an ARPwave POV, we often talk about how to reinforce a training state for a long period of time. If an athlete can get to max power on the ARPwave POV and complete 40 sessions at this power with no compensation, they can maintain this heightened training state for as long as a sports season, maybe longer.
With this in mind, I thought back to the fact that my previous S&D sessions seemed to provide a solution to the physical problems I had, but it was short lived. I also thought to the fact that some people will rent one of their therapeutic machines, the RX100 or Trainer, and live with it for many weeks. Putting two and two together, I figured that if I were to rent a machine and use it nearly every day for many days until the problem was solved, then I could get more completeness in the treatment and longevity in the results.
I rented a Trainer from ARPwave Austin. Via a Skype video call, they led me through In-Balance technique (mimicking a technique that chiropractors do with physical manipulation), then S&D on the left leg. S&D found some “hotspots” on the top of my rectus femoris, and along my vastus lateralis, and another lesser “hot” spot on my vastus medialis (VMO). Choosing the two hotter spots, I put stim pads on them:

Now came the fun part. My movement was to squat 5 times, and then increase power, over a period of 5 minutes on one polarity and then repeat with reverse polarity. At maximum frequency of 500 pulses per second (PPS), my muscles quickly contracted into big knots as I increased power! When I reached my current tolerance, I would then perform 5 squats. Adaptation (amazingly) occurs within the 5 squats, and now it doesn’t feel so bad any more. I crank the power again and once again my leg muscles seize up. Then I force my way through 5 squats, finding that it gets easier with each rep. I adapt once again! I crank the power again, grimacing at the new higher level. I repeat the squat reps, and adding power in between sets.
I should also say I learned my lesson from my first times with S&D – if you don’t eat enough, you’ll be horribly sore for days after. So now whenever I do S&D, I drink a protein drink of about 37g of protein (2 scoops BCAAs 10g, 3 scoops Muscle Synthesis 22g, 2 Tbsp Upgraded Collagen) before and after the S&D. Then I also try to eat .75lb – 1lb of beef or lamb in the meals following. By doing this, I manage to stay soreness-free and am able to be recovered enough to do S&D the next day.
I did this on as many days as possible following. There were definitely days off in between, but I tried to do it every day. Each day, I managed to reach max power a little earlier until I could just put it up to max power on the first try. The rectus femoris hotspot disappeared very quickly, and I switched to working the VMO instead.
My VMOs deserve some further discussion. The first inkling I had there was trouble with them was running the NYC Marathon and then the LA Marathon. In both times, I was pushing hard but miles before the finish, my right VMO cramped out on me. Then, during training with EVOultrafit and my POV, I always found that my VMOs, if they were part of an electrostim pad placement, limited my ability to take high power. As soon as I reached a certain level, they would seize up and prevent me from moving.
It turns out that as a training tool, the POV tries to get your muscles to be used to firing at a higher rate and with stronger contractions, thereby allowing it to perform at a higher level.
I was not surprised that a hotspot was also found on the left VMO, and so after my rectus femurs hotspot disappeared, I switched to working on my VMO. Sure enough it seized up, but going through the S&D protocol, I was able to more quickly increase power and adaptation to high rates of contraction and contraction strength.
After reaching max power on the ARP Trainer on the first interval of movements, I moved onto the strengthening phase.
This involved putting the pads on both sides of my body, first putting them on the original hotspots on the left leg, and then mirroring them on the right leg. So now, I was going to hit up my right VMO but without having the benefit of going through some days of Trainer work on it. As soon as I powered up my first strengthening phase, I marveled at the difference in feeling between my left VMO, which was just sitting there taking the power, and my right VMO, which had seized up but was adapting quickly.
Strengthening involved three movements:
1. Stomp Squat – you are sitting, then stomp both feet on the ground to shoot yourself to standing.
2. Isometric Hamstring Curls – you are sitting, then try to pull your feet into the ground via your hamstrings as well as curl the heels back.
I did 1 and 2 alternating for about 10 minutes. In between each pair of movements, I would attempt to increase power a little more until I was at maxa power. After the 10 minutes, I would jump into:
3. Standing Leg Extensions – stand on one leg, bring other leg up to horizontal. Kick out foot, pause for 1 count, then bring back. Repeat on both sides.
This I did for 5 minutes. Once again, I was supposed to increase power, but by this time I had already adapted to max power and just did these straight through.
I did strengthening until I could achieve max power on the first interval. The limiting factor was my right VMO which had to come up the adaptation curve.
The last piece was a sprint test, to make sure there was no more pain at all. I was to run sprints, 10 at 50% effort, 10 at 75% effort, and then 10 at 100% effort. If there was any pain of about 2 out of 10 or above, I was to stop and keep going at strengthening.
So I got on my old running shoes, not looking forward to this as I had not run at all since 2012! I managed to get up to 100% for 6 reps, at which time my right groin was getting super tight. Not wanting to risk a groin pull, I stopped (and also because my times were starting to rise and I could not keep up 100% effort). It was, however, good enough evidence that the process was completed and that I could be back in action.
My thinking now is that while some issues can be resolved with only one session of S&D, there are some issues that require more regular time with the protocol. It was definitely worth it to rent the machine first to address my left knee tweak, and then get my VMOs to a higher level of performance.
I am really curious, however, on whether or not my right VMO will cramp out again during a marathon. This will have to wait – too busy to train for such a long event, and I hope I can maintain its level of performance until I get time to train again.
Now that I had this ARP Trainer here, I decided to keep it for a few more weeks and address another nagging problem: my left shoulder which gets sore during wide grip pullups and swimming. Stay tuned for part II.

UPDATED: Somapulse/Alleva-Wave: Healing and Recovery via Pulsed Electro-Magnetic Fields

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The latest gadget I’ve been using is the Somapulse. It uses Pulsed Electromagnetic Field technology (PEMF) developed at NASA, and its patented signal helps humans repair and heal tissues. You can read more about the development of the Somapulse on their site.
As an athlete, I have an immediate attraction to any technology that can heal me and help me recover faster! Still, I had to admit I was skeptical on its efficacy. I had tried a number of recovery technologies and not all of them seemed to work. But if something was good enough for NASA, it must be good enough for me, right?
The Somapulse retails for $1390 but I had a discount code which reduced that to about $1000. It’s design is pretty ghetto – for $1000 you’d think they could make a battery cover for it. It runs in cycles of 40 minutes: 30 minutes of looping through 3 different types of signals, and then 10 minutes of rest.
The first day I put it on for about two cycles on my left front deltoid area, which was sore from doing pull ups (poorly!). By the time the two cycles were done, the soreness was gone! The next morning there was still no soreness.
Next I tried it on my forearms and elbows, which were completely wiped out from bad kettlebell form. The problem had moved from being muscular to inside the joint itself. In weeks past, I would take a week off from working out and the pain/soreness would not even diminish. By the end of the week, it felt pretty much the same as it did when I began the week off. Then I would go on to workout and more than likely destroy it further.
It seems that my recovery capabilities are pretty slow now as I get older. If the Somapulse doesn’t work, then my only alternative is to take a LOT of time off until my elbow and forearms heal up. That would suck!
After 3 days of Somapulse treatment for many hours each day, the pain was noticeably less! By 3 weeks time, the elbow was pretty much completely healed! Amazing!
I loved this device so much that now I have 2 of them, and then I bought two more of their “veterinarian” version called Alleva-Wave. It is only $700, or $550 in quantities of 5 or more (to get the discount you must join on their site). With 4, now I can treat all 4 limbs at once (yeah I got a lot of problems!). The Alleva-Wave also supposedly has some improvements in the PEMF is gives out. I’m testing it now.
Some usage notes:
1. Putting on the Somapulse right after an injury, or some place you think you’ll be sore, is more effective than the day after. I have this issue with electrostim training on my VMOs and they always get DOMS for many days after. If I train, and immediately put on the Somapulse coils, they will not be sore – DOMS doesn’t even show up. But if I wait even a day, the DOMS appears and stays no matter how long I put the coils on.
2. Muscular issues take a lot less time than ligaments or tendons. So my left front delt issue could be cleared up in an hour, but my elbow took 3 weeks of treatment every day for many hours.
3. I find that wearing it for many hours each day is best, for as long as you can take having wires hanging around you.
4. Stacking the coils to magnify the electromagnetic field to the max is best. I tried separating the coils and sandwiching areas but none of these seem as effective as stacking the coils on some area.
5. They sell coils with varying cable lengths. I found that the longest ones are the best 47″. The other two are way too short and inconvenient.
6. Most of the time, using a velcro wrap works well in holding the coils against a body part. But some parts are much tougher, like the shoulder area where movement can cause a wrap to shift and the coils may either move or fall out. I wear Under Armour Compression Shirts which work really well at holding the coils onto awkward parts of the body.
7. Wearing cargo pants is a must. Big pockets are necessary to hold the Somapulse or Alleva-Wave units.
8. Rechargeable lithium 9V batteries are also a must. Buy some of these off amazon.
9. There are some more interesting effects I have not tried yet, like stimulating the thymus for the immune system or solar plexus for systemic issues. The possibilities are pretty cool though.
I really was skeptical that the Somapulse would work. I was pleasantly surprised at its effectiveness. This product rates amongst the best I’ve spent money on.
UPDATED:
Yesterday I was waiting to see how long it would take for some DOMS that showed up on my right VMO because of electrostim training. It was day 3 and it was still very sore; I was skeptical that it would disappear by the next day on its own. So I put my new Alleva-Waves on to see what would happen. Knowing what happened with the Somapulse, I was expecting that nothing would happen. After several hours of treatment, my soreness didn’t diminish and I went to sleep.
This morning I woke up and the DOMS in my right VMO was nearly gone! Wow! During breakfast, I put the Alleva-Wave on it for another 3 hours and after that, I was ready to hit it with electrostim again.
Something in Alleva-Wave’s setup makes it more effective than the Somapulse. I stacked the coils on the right VMO, and used the H setting. It may be that because there is now no rest period that and there is also higher power now. But I am ecstatic that I can get rid of DOMS overnight whereas before I could not with the Somapulse!

12 Months Training with EVOUltrafit and the ARPWave POV

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I’ve managed to cross a year of training with the EVOUltrafit guys in Arizona. It’s been an interesting year full of challenges and learning. Some notes on my progress:
1. Back in October, I got a program that was to be done while I worked out with kettlebells. This made time commitments a lot better as my workouts were approaching 3 hours from doing KBs, and then a EVO/POV workout afterwards!
2. Dialing in my nutrition has been key. I wrote about this in Eating as Training and a Discipline. But as I wrote, I am also attempting to self regulate food so that I do not overeat on days I do not train.
3. Listening to the webinars has been very helpful. It’s a slow process of piecing together the hows and whys. Lots to learn still and over time I am being more observant to the results I get and do not get via training.
4. Managing variables has been tough with all these life changes I’m going through. But I also know that if I cannot hold as many of them constant as possible, I cannot know for sure why something happens, or doesn’t happen.
I’m buying up gadgets to help with data collection. My Beddit is helping a lot, and I just bought an Exergen Temporal Artery Thermometer. Most of the ones I got from the pharmacy were total crap – they would read temps in the low 90s – I think it thinks I’m cold dead! But this one works awesomely and consistently. I still have my Withings scale which is good.
One that I am hoping Beddit will solve is knowing how many sleep cycles I had. Since Zeo’s demise, there has not been another good sleep tracking device.
5. The last program I tried to do for about 3 months. One goal of mine was to see if I could attain a power of 100 on the POV with each protocol. I managed to get to 100 on 2 out of the 4 – the other 2 still remain out of reach and would love to find out more on why and how to have gotten there.
6. I did find out that doing overhead movements with load, and getting stimmed on my arms during those movements were exceedingly dangerous! The vibrations induced by the fast flexing of my muscles challenged my control of weight overhead. On days where I stimmed, I had to concentrate doubly on the movement, and sometimes I had to back off on weight if it was more of an endurance move, like overhead carry of a KB for 100 ft.
I suppose that Jay and Charles would have said that the POV provides an irritant and that blasting through the irritant provides for improved results. This may be true, but I have found that probably it would have been a lot safer with a spotter, and also I could not lift as many reps as without the stim. I think the stim also used up resources in the rapid contractions and made for less movements possible, when compared to movements without stim.
However, I have a program now that removes stim from my KB workouts. In the few days of this new program, I have found improved results with my usual workouts. I hope that these displays of performance continue.
7. Some other cool results:
a. These last few weeks were filled with sick family members and children and made for stressful days and sleepless nights. A protocol involving my thymus and feet really helped me recover from these weeks.
b. I was messing around with a particular foot protocol with the cables crossing from left to right sides and found that after finishing the protocol, my walking pattern firmed up! My gait was very good, and the correct muscles fired. Just recently, I tried a variant of the foot protocol where the cables were on the same side and found that this version didn’t improve my walking pattern. How fascinating. I need to dig more into the various effects of the protocols even on the same body parts.
Just the other day, I had different results from a bicep/pec pad combination. In the crossover configuration, the stim was equally felt. However, in the same side configuration, the left bicep pad lit up well before the other 3 pads!
I definitely want to dig more into the difference in results between the crossover and same side configurations in any pad placement.
c. This is less a POV result but definitely an EVO result. After a ton of KB swings and snatches, I managed to wreck my right elbow. It started as a forearm problem but then moved to my elbow where it became chronic and not go away. I would take a week off from any working out, and the whole week it would still be the same soreness. Then the week after, I’d get back to working out, which was probably a mistake in terms of my elbow, but being an athlete I was unwilling to stop training. Ultimately, it took a Somapulse to bring my elbow back to health and no pain, but it couldn’t do it alone because I needed to fix something in the form of the swing to stop it from coming back.
After much experimentation, I figured out that it was the lack of ability of my triceps to flex strongly during the swing. Taking the tricep out of the force absorption chain meant transferring that force to the forearm, and then to the structures of the elbow. How was EVO involved? I started doing the Preacher Curl Isoextreme which trains the tricep to flex strongly in a raised position at 90 degrees out from the body. This was extremely hard for me – I found that if I started in the raised position, my triceps were totally soft no matter how hard I concentrated! So I had to lower my arms to a point where I could get and maintain a strong contraction of the tricep, and then raise it to as high as I could where I could still maintain contraction. I also started doing it one arm at a time, using my other arm to poke at the other tricep to make sure it was still contracted. Over the last few times of doing this, I could slowly raise my arm higher each time a little bit more, while maintaining a contraction of the triceps.
Going back to swings, I would now forcefully and consciously contract the triceps and the combination of isoextreme and conscious tricep contraction during swings allowed me to get back to pain free swings, as my Somapulse helped heal the damage that was there.
8. In thinking about how I started, I think that remote training and management is really tough. Jay/Charles set me on a good program, but in examining how I adapted to their training programs, I think I was completely unprepared. I sent them videos, yes, but I think that is only the tip of the iceberg. They like to talk about variables and there were plenty that I’m sure weren’t considered in the creation of my programs. Some of them simply were not visible in the initial tests that I submitted via videos. These were things like my ability to recover, or what were barriers to my training like work and family.
I think that I should have talked to them about being totally unprepared and to take me up the training curve from rock bottom. I think I would have learned more and adjusted better to the process versus jumping in mid-stream.
But now after a year of working with them, I’ve come to know my body even better and think I can adapt better to their programs, and also know more about how to approach them.
9. I’m currently dealing with a family member with a serious illness. It is taking up an incredible amount of time in the short term, wreaking havoc with my schedule. I asked the EVO guys for some help with this and they came back with a program that has a maintenance day workout, and also protocols that train me overnight! I am very curious to see the effects of this overnight training. Will report back in a few weeks hopefully on how that goes!

Eating as Training and a Discipline

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My coach Charles Maka at EVOUltrafit likes to say that most humans can’t do the most basic things. The basic things like breathing and, the topic of this post, eating properly are things that somehow most people can’t do the right way and have lost the ability over the years.
A few months back, I posted about my discovery in Eating for Recovery, where I figured out I was not eating nearly enough to recover properly, and that through eating more, I could recover overnight from a tough workout.
Along with that revelation, I learned a bunch of other things:
1. Eating is TRAINING.
I used to be more cavalier about my eating. I read about other athletes attempting to optimize their food intake but I never tried it myself until my discovery. So at the very least, eating is a part of training along with other stuff I never really paid enough attention to, like stress, sleep, etc.
But as I got deeper into my discovery, I also figured out that eating itself is training. It takes a lot of work to eat in a way to optimize your goals. You can think of it as training an additional 3 times a day (assuming you eat 3 times a day). What if you miss an “eating workout”? What if you workout too much, as in eat too much? Or too little? What if you do the the wrong thing in your eating workout, as in eating the wrong thing? What does that do to how well you achieve your goals?
2. Eating as DISCIPLINE.
Every day, my wife asks me, “what shall we eat tonight?” My answer is always, “I don’t care as long as I can get a 1lb of beef.”
Eating takes discipline to execute in a way that is supportive of your goals. On many days, I am running around stressed looking for someplace where I can get a decent 14-16oz of beef! It takes a ton of discipline to keep eating with a pattern and a plan, when you are running around all day doing the normal things people do.
Then all day, I practice keeping a running total in my head of how many grams of protein I have eaten so far, and then work like hell to make it up in case I don’t get close to my goal at lunch time. I have a strong motivator – if I do not eat enough, inevitably the next day I wake up sore and unsure if I can complete a normal workout.
3. Tracking progress is a pain so simplify.
I have tried food tracking apps but nothing really works for me. I now just have a Google Docs spreadsheet where i type in all my daily data: workouts, stool, sleep, and food. In this way, I can see everything in one screen and not in several places where I don’t have an easy way to connect it when I need to analyze.
But then, do I track each food and also their exact amounts? I do write down the composition of my meals. But it was too hard to deal with every part of the meal. How do you estimate the weight of a pile of string beans? Or a filet of salmon? Tim Ferriss wrote in 4 Hour Body that he used to bring a small scale with him and ended up weighing everything before he ate it. I thought this was too unwieldy and I deemed it unnecessary. So I settled on getting good at tracking only meats, fish, and poultry and their associated protein content.
I memorized the typical protein content for beef (1oz=6g protein) and fish (3oz=17g protein) although many sources cite varying conversion factors. That’s too complicated, so I simplified by memorizing just those two. For chicken, I look it up since I don’t eat chicken very often. I also memorized the protein content of my protein powder and collagen supplements.
Then I familiarized myself with cuts of meat and fish and approximately how much they weigh, in case I went to a restaurant and didn’t know the exact weight of the meat on the meal. Most of the time, I would just asked the waiter and sometimes they would know and sometimes not.
Then I tracked mentally only the protein intake of meats and protein/collagen supplements. It was too difficult to figure out how much broccoli or other vegetables I ate alongside my meats so I passed on that. Once I crossed 1.5 times my body weight in grams of protein of only meats and supplements, I was OK.
4. What you eat is pretty important.
Eating the right things is also super important. So eating enough protein is my primary aim; the other goal is to not eat crap or undesirable things. For example, I am on a low/no carb diet with high protein and high fats, so eating in this fashion works for me to keep me from putting on pounds in an inappropriate manner. It is a shame that this also means that most restaurants don’t have much to offer when I am eating to this plan.
This also requires discipline, although for me it has become a standard part of my life now and is not hard to execute.
5. Timing of meals is important.
Experimentally, I found that eating the bulk of my protein as close to my workout, or generally by lunch time, creates better recovery results than if I complete the bulk of my protein intake by later in the day.
intake before/after workout
eat as soon as possible after. found out recovery is better by a bit, less tight in the mornings.
if morning workout, dinner is too long time but better than not eating it at all.
6. Create the ability to regulate eating from day to day.
Overeating is always on my mind. Do I really need to take in 1.5x my body weight in grams of protein every day? Probably not. Thankfully I do not have some innate attraction to food where I cannot get enough of it regardless of whether I’m full or not. Taking in 1.5x my body weight in grams is definitely taxing the limits of what I could eat in a given meal! So I had to build up the ability to eat that much protein per day AND down-regulate that back to about 1x body weight in grams protein on days I do not workout.
6. What is the goal with your body weight and composition?
At the moment, I am attempting to put on weight to be able to handle heavier kettlebells. So eating this much has put on 10+ lbs of weight, mostly muscle since I can still wear most of my regular pants. If I ever get back into a sport where lower weight is more desirable like Ironman racing, I will see what kind of adjustments to make on this kind of eating plan. Is it still 1.5x my bodyweight in grams protein or less?
9. Getting sick of eating beef is a challenge.
I was eating grass fed beef exclusively, about 1 lb at lunch time on workout days. Then I found it was harder and harder to eat that. Some of it was because I haven’t perfected quick cooking of beef yet using a pan. But I think the other difficulty was that I was simply eating so much of it that I was getting tired of eating it. So now I’m working in grass fed lamb, which seems to be a lot juicy (fatter?) than beef and by the way it’s half the price!
10. Monitor your body as much as possible.
As a new biohacker, I am working with a functional medicine doctor on making sure my blood numbers are all in range and that nothing bad is happening due to this diet and the heavy demands I’m placing on my body.
11. Old guys like me need more protein than younger guys, according to this article from T-Nation, Protein Pulsing for Muscle.
Fine tuning my eating and nutrition has definitely helped my training in ways I never imagined. Now I can’t help but look back at my early years of triathlon and wonder how I could have progressed, had I been eating properly.

What’s the Deal with Kicking in Freestyle Swimming?

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There always seems to be some controversy surrounding kicking in Freestyle swimming. In the TI forums, someone posed a query about kicking and here is how I answered it, with some minor edits:
Some thoughts about kicking that I’ve discovered:
1. There are those who can kick to propel themselves at speed, and those who cannot.
2. There are many reasons why someone cannot propel themselves at speed, some physical, some neurological.
3. The younger you are, the more likely you can develop the correct physical and neurological attributes to enable kicking for speed. Entering swimming when you are older means you will most likely have a harder time developing attributes for speed generation via kicking.
4. Some theorize that bigger feet can propel you faster. I’m not sure this has been conclusively proven that big feet always make you fast via kicking since there are other elements involved besides big feet, but there are definite advantages to being able to have more surface area for moving water.
5. In my experience, poor balance will result in negating any kicking advantage you might obtain. If you’re even gonna have a chance at speed via kicking, you better have your act together in balance. This goes for flutter kicking in SG, or Skate. It also applies to kicking with a board. If you are dragging your body in the water behind the kickboard, you’re gonna have a hard time obtaining speed while kicking behind it.
6. Thus, one bad aspect of kicking with a board is that in order to get your body up, you’re most likely going to have to overextend your back and arch to get your hips and legs up horizontal. This can be VERY bad for your back. To combat this, you could keep your head down in the water but then you have to tip your head up or to the side to take the occasional breath.
7. There is a risk that if you imprint overextending on the kickboard, it can ruin your posture for regular swimming. The majority of the population in today’s society already exhibits overextended backs (ie. “sway”). I do not think it’s a good idea to reinforce already a bad postural aspect.
8. Some physical and neurological attributes:
a. Ankle flexibility seems to be a major element. You must also be able to point your feet and toes and keep them pointed without straining other muscles while swimming (ie. no calf cramps!).
b. Proper movement pattern for kicking, very unlike any other kind of movement pattern on land.
c. Proper mobility and strength in the lower body, from hips to feet.
d. Ability to move legs rapidly enough in that movement pattern from a physical conditioning standpoint. Moving your legs so much requires more oxygen and energy and thus there is some fitness you will have to develop in order to kick for a long time.
e. Timing some of the kicks to the arm stroke to generate power spearing forward. If 2BK, then all of the kicks, 1 each stroke, is timed to the spear.
9. If you are kick challenged, then don’t waste time developing your kick like someone who has been swimming since they were a kid or someone who has mastered the 6BK. Go to the 2BK immediately.
9a. If you are finding that kicking isn’t moving you forward all that fast, then also don’t bother. You will probably find that kicking will use up resources faster than you want, versus getting you more speed.
10. You should also ask yourself why would you want to kick in Freestyle swimming. If you are trying to be the fastest for short course racing, then it may be worthwhile. If you are a triathlete and need to save the legs for the bike and run, then kicking might not be desirable.
11. If you are kick challenged, that doesn’t mean you couldn’t develop a kick. Like it or not, kicking is a valid swimming skill and if someone wants to learn, then by all means go for it.
I was kick challenged but then over the years of working in TI, i could actually start moving myself across the pool with kicking! The things I had to adjust for myself were:
a. If I kicked in Skate, I had to spear much deeper, like 30-40 deg than for regular swimming. This would ensure I had my hips really high and a great horizontal position in the water.
b. I had to metabolically prepare for constant and fast movement of my legs, and at a rate that was higher than I was accustomed to. This rate was much higher than for running. And I had to maintain it while I could not get constant air due to being face down longer than I would for a land activity.
c. I learned that kicking on my back was different than kicking on my stomach. If you kick on your back, you need to also exert kicking force to the back of the leg in addition to kicking forward. This helps bring your hips up. Also, this aspect applies to kicking in Backstroke – the first time I was drilling Backstroke, I could not even move! But then Coach Shinji told me I needed more down kick, or when on my back I needed to kick to the rear of my legs versus only to the front, and that fixed everything.
So it can be trained, and there are ways to train for 6BK that are optimized. The later in life you start swimming, the more time you’re going to spend developing the basic attributes for kicking. I do think it is possible at any age to do so. It’s just that most people are too impatient to work at it and arguably you can swim pretty fast without kicking so much.

Swim Optimization: Beyond Balance, Streamline, and Propulsion

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In the current TI method, we like to talk about the 3 stages of teaching progression: Balance, Streamline, and Propulsion. Generally speaking, mastering swimming requires mastering skills in those 3 areas in that order. One should generally have some basic level of mastery before progressing to the next level or else they will have difficulty executing the next level’s drills properly.
At a detail level, those 3 levels of progression are really areas of emphasis during our training and in drills we give to our students. In reality, you are touching upon all 3 concepts in every drill, but just to varying degrees of focus as we want to emphasize some particular concept at each level.
One thing I hear when I talk to people about TI and see also in forum posts around the internet, is that people think TI just stops there and our swimmers never get fast. And swimmers often get confused by our materials or if they do not continue coaching from a TI coach that they reach a certain point in their swimming and they don’t advance any further. Often I hear TI is at fault, or is missing something, or isn’t for competitive swimmers. This is far from the truth.
As a level beyond Balance/Streamline/Propulsion, I like to talk about Optimization, which is what you do when you master Balance, Streamline, and Propulsion. But what is Optimization?
Optimization is:
1. Further mastery of Balance, Streamline, and Propulsion in coordination, time, effort, speed, etc.
Drills don’t end with what is shown in our DVDs, or with your workshop, or with your first few sessions with a coach. We teach with more advanced progressions to fine tune your swimming, and also with focal points which are individualized to your own issues. Teaching the use of tools like the tempo trainer and tracking can help bring consistency and accurate, actionable information to your training, versus training in a data vacuum from workout to endless workout. The next level is to take your newfound skills across time, and to train you to hold form with faster tempos and for longer periods of time, and to increase your capacity to generate velocity while not wrecking your streamline and balance.
2. Application of Balance, Streamline, and Propulsion in more situations like racing, or in open water.
TI coaches have a wide variety of experiences ranging from short/long course racing to triathlon to open water racing to crossing the English channel. We apply TI techniques to make swimming in those situations more effective.
3. Pursuit of a higher goal than just mastery of swimming itself. This can be something like comfort in the water or obtaining their PR in the swim leg of Ironman. Or it can be using swimming as a means of improving mental focus and growth.
Following on 2., many TI coaches can advise and coach you to your particular goals which go beyond skill-based mastery of swimming. Swimming, like any physical activity, has benefits which can translate to activities outside swimming. Many TI coaches can help you realize the connection between the two, and perhaps even strengthen that connection.
It is an unfortunate fact that many people perceive that TI ends with Balance, Streamline, and Propulsion, or has little or nothing to offer beyond the teachings of the DVDs. Optimization of swimming is something that every TI coach I’ve encountered knows well, especially in the areas of their expertise. My hope is that over time, Total Immersion is more well known as a full system of learning and mastering swimming and for improving aspects of your life beyond the pool.

Postural Considerations for Swimming

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One of the biggest issues I see first with my swimming clients is their posture. When they cannot get their spine aligned properly, nearly everything about swimming is very difficult.
We start with balance in the water, but if you cannot get truly horizontal in the water, then balance is hard to achieve. Most of my clients are Silicon Valley professionals – hence, a desk job at a computer for years, if not decades, with their upper (thoracic) spine and neck both dropping down, and their shoulders pulling inwards towards their chests as they look down on monitors and type on keyboards. When your posture is like that, and for many years, your body and mind think that is normal posture. All your structures and muscles have (mall)adapted to this shape. Then, one day, you want to start an athletic endeavor (great!) but unfortunately your posture is now not in an optimal shape for movement.
What does poor posture, and therefore, poor spinal alignment, produce? The body is an amazing machine. It has mechanoreceptors (nerves which sense mechanical pressure or movement) which will fire the right muscles to do what the brain is telling it to do. If you want to move or lift or whatever, and your spine is aligned, then the correct muscles will fire to perform the movement. Primary movers, big muscles like your pectorals and lats, that are designed to move your body parts fire and do the main work. Stabilizers, smaller muscles whose main function are to keep your body parts in alignment during movement, fire to keep the body structures stable so that primary movers can do the heavy work.
When the spine is not aligned, your body will do its best to enable it to perform whatever instructions your brain gives it. But knowing that your spine is not properly aligned, it will begin to fire the wrong muscles, meaning stabilizers or the wrong primary movers, in order to perform the movement. Stabilizers are great at one thing; they are designed by nature to keep the body in alignment – they are not great at creating power for large movements over long periods of time. They are smaller, and they do not have the proper mechanical leverage due to their location on the body which is not like primary movers which are placed in the right locations and attached to create huge mechanical advantages for movement. Consider the list from the Postural Restoration Institute in the document entitled Swimmer Dyssynchrony Syndrome. Muscles perform duties they were not designed to do, leading to poor swimming and injury.
Not only do muscles perform the correct functions, but also things like balance in the water get hard to accomplish. Trying to press the front part of your body down into the water becomes nearly impossible when your upper spine is frozen in a curled position. Nor is holding your body truly straight possible – so the lower part of your body wants to bend downward and trying to straighten resists muscles and structures that won’t or can’t get there.
Fixing posture then becomes a critical part of swimming well.
Sometimes, posture can be addressed by practicing activity. For example, some coaches have told me that continuous, diligent practice with Superman Glide can often aid in postural correction enough to improve balance.
Humans were designed for movement. It is the lack of movement that is creating problems in our postures. So sometimes getting people moving again and doing something other than sitting is enough. Other times it is not. Or, if someone wishes to speed up the process, then other interventions are possible and desirable.
There are many resources to address posture. I recently took the Gokhale Method which was excellent. Its methods are very much suited for the non-athletic population and think they are great for both athletes and non-athletes.
Another great resource is Foundation Training. Their therapy involves a bit more exercise and movement. However, there are some excellent exercises to help you tone up muscles and your nervous system to hold your body’s shape during movement. You can look at their DVD or find a resource who is trained in their methods on their website.
If there is anything I’ve discovered about swimming, it’s that swim training doesn’t have to take place only in the pool. There is a lot you can do out of the pool. A lot of postural correction and training can and needs to take place out of the pool. It can be like Gokhale Method where the practice does not resemble traditional exercise, or it can involve practice like more traditional exercise, like the movements described more fully in Foundation Training. Working on spinal alignment and reawakening muscles that support proper spinal alignment is a 24/7 activity.
In summary, postural improvement is an important part of swimming. Corrections to your posture both in and out of the pool will be beneficial and speed up your ability to become a better, faster, more healthy swimmer.

Eating for Recovery

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A while back when I was still racing Ironman, I figured out that taking protein powder mixed in sports drink for the days after my long training day could bring in recovery by one whole day. Still, my recovery was up to 3 days after, meaning it was really tough to do a decent workout until 2-3 days after that long day of swimming 4000m, biking 6 hours, and then running 30 min. I was elated to discover that protein powder could accelerate recovery by a whole day, but I just chalked the slowness of recovery to my age.
Little did I know….
Fast forward to today. Over the last seven months, I’ve been doing dual kettlebell and EVO/POV workouts (EVOultrafit training with an ARPWave POV electrostim machine). Since both were completely new training stimuli to my body, I knew there would have to be some fine tuning on how much I could do. For many months, I tried to figure out how to be ready and train for as many workouts as possible in a week. For kettlebells, I was building muscle and strength to handle heavy weights in a ballistic manner; for EVO/POV training, I was using a ton of resources through neurological training.
I tried varying the number of workouts per week and also what workouts I was doing each day. I tried EVO first and then KBs, but that made me too tired for a good (and safe) KB workout. So I ended up with KBs first and the EVO/POV next. But still, I would wake up the next day sore from yesterday’s workout. This wasn’t good – I felt like I couldn’t put enough time into training technique for KBs each week. I tried doing 2 days of KB/EVO workouts one after another but sometimes that would wipe me out for 2 days straight! At this point I ended up doing 1 day of KBs/EVO-POV and 1 day off.
The EVO guys told me that I should be eating 1g of protein per pound of body weight to enable good recovery. I started doing some calculations on how much I was eating and I was coming up short! So I upped my protein intake to about 150g (I weigh about 150 lbs), and started taking protein powder before and after my workout to help with recovery. Still, while eating this much, I was not recovering overnight but needing an extra day or two.
About a week ago, I decided on a whim to eat more. Every day I started eating one meal where I would eat a pound of beef. I also added more protein powder across the day. What a difference that made! One the first day I did this, and did a KB/EVO-POV workout that day, the next morning I was completely not sore but only tight in a few places, which I addressed during warmup! Amazing! I went back to my notes and did a calculation on protein intake and I was up well over 200g of protein! Apparently the rule of 1g per 1 lb body weight wasn’t right for me!
I asked Garrett Salpeter of ARPWave Austin what his experience with eating was and he said that in many instances, the ratio was more like 1.5g to 2.0g per lb of body weight, sometimes even more, depending on the circumstances and how heavy they were training.
It seems to me that the 1g protein per pound body weight is a good starting guideline and that you have to experiment to get the correct ratio, sometimes upwards of 1.5 to 2g or more protein per pound body weight! You try 1g/lb first and see if you recover by the next morning; if not, eat more!
Looking back to my Ironman training days, I was clearly not eating enough to fuel recovery. Potentially it was also a reason why I was healing so slowly too. Yes, age is a factor but when I am burning through resources through heavy training, there may be not enough left for other things. But age clearly isn’t as much a factor as I thought as after eating a ton more, I could recover from a tough workout overnight!
Other related items to note – having regular stool is a sign that my body is processing food and expelling waste well. Not having regular stool is a sign that something isn’t working right. This was another sign that something was amiss but I did not know how to read it, as I was not having regular stools for years! However, to fix this, it took Dr. Justin Marchegiani of JustInHealth. I did a series of blood tests: adrenals, thyroid, iron, cholesterol – to see what was wrong with me that I could not see through non-chemical means. The test result that was problematic was my ferritin; it was off the charts! As Dr. Justin put it, I was rusting from the inside out!
I took some supplements to help absorb iron and also stopped taking an iron supplement plus the multivitamin with iron in it. Then I gave blood which was the fastest way to remove iron from your system. After my first blood donation, magically my stool became regular! A month later, I gave blood again and my stool became not only more regular, but more than once a day. This showed that my digestive system had come back to better and proper function and somehow the excess iron was causing this problem. Doing some detective work like this on my blood composition was definitely helpful in putting me back on track.
One more comment – eating more is a training effort in itself. I had to adapt to stuffing myself with more food every day. I am not sure about reports about the stomach needing to stretch but it did take a day or two to get used to eating this much food. But now that my digestion was back on track, and the fact that my training uses up so many resources, I find that eating so much isn’t so bad and that my processing of the food is fast and good.

6.5 Month Update on my EVOUltrafit and POV Training

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It’s been about 6.5 months since I started training with EVOUltrafit. Here’s the update:
1. Whenever I start a new training system, I need to learn and internalize the vocabulary of the system. In order to solicit the correct training responses, Charles Maka, my coach at EVOUltrafit, will often give seemingly vague or convoluted answers. I take copious notes and need to re-read them over and over again to internalize what he actually means and what he is trying to achieve by saying things in that way. So far, I think I’m finally able to understand some of the language used and be able to apply what they say. Still, there is a lot to learn as I work in the system, hear them talk, and try to encourage results in myself.
2. I’ve been attending their monthly webinars. This is where I can regularly listen to Jay Schroeder, the leader of the system, and Charles talk a lot about training in the EVO system and with the POV. They started by giving us POV protocols to try (ie. pad placements, POV settings, duration of treatments) and we would spend the month executing the protocol, and then the following month we would get together to discuss our observations and results. They have since changed the webinars to focus on training with the POV.
Recently I’ve learned a lot about how the mind’s end picture or goals are strongly correlated with how well/fast you master movements. Now when I train, I will spend some moments placing that end picture in my mind and focus on it as I go through my normal workout and then following up with a POV workout.
3. The EVO folks recommend eating about 1g protein per 1 lb body weight. Given how hard it is to achieve this much eating, I also have realized that in the past I was not eating nowhere nearly enough to recover effectively from my intense workouts, especially during my Ironman triathlon days. Once I reached about 150g of protein (I weigh about 150lbs now), I was recovering a lot better. Still, I felt there was room for improvement. Just this last week I upped the protein by another 20-40g per day and THAT made a big difference. I am up to about 170-200g depending on the day and has allowed me to recover fully with virtually no muscle soreness the next morning! HOWEVER, eating does not take away muscle tightness which I’m addressing via MobilityWOD techniques (BTW everyone should be reading Becoming a Supple Leopard – it is THE definitive guide for athletes to take care of themselves. Subscribing to MobilityWOD Pro to watch the videos has also been worth every penny). I also still go weekly to my ART/Graston guy who is awesome.
4. The latest “end picture” that I sent them to derive a workout from was:
a. Get me through the SFG Level 1 Kettlebell Certification.
b. Improve my upper body’s ability to maintain shape and absorb force.
c. Improve my lower body’s ability to absorb force.
Has EVO/POV training had a positive effect?
It is hard to pin down as I have a tendency to throw the kitchen sink at my training, trying everything at once. Still, I believe there have been positive effects.
The Isoextremes that I do seem to have improved my lower body force absorption. I had to run impromptu the other week and found that my stride was subtly different, and that running had a different springy feel to it.
In my 2 arm kettlebell swings, I was having problems transitioning from a 60lb to a 70lb. For some reason, I was feeling some creaking in my sternum area and also was having problems with my left ribs. Then I asked for help in improving my upper body force absorption. It took a week or two, but then I blasted through 70lb and now am 2 arm swinging the 44kg/97 lb.
5. Wanting to put my POV to more uses, I tried some search and destroy which is a technique to ferret out neurological problems in muscle function and to treat them. I was having three problems, and here was what I found:
a. Persistent tight flexor hallicus upon waking in the morning.
Search and destroy found a hot spot on both my insteps. Apparently this is consistent with a “tib-fib problem” post ankle sprains, which I’ve had on both ankles in recent years. In the tibiofibular joint at the ankle has only ligaments to support it, and the ligaments can get stretched causing the tibula and fibula to separate from each other. If this happens, then the nervous system’s joint receptors don’t function right, and after an ankle sprain this doesn’t heal properly causing further problems down the line.
When I figured this out, I didn’t immediately think it would affect my flexor hallicus. Thinking that it was a problem generally in leg force absorption, I began taping it (need to tape it for 8 weeks straight) and on the first day, the flexor hallicus problem was magically gone! I have another 3 weeks of taping to go and need to see if the taping has fully healed the problem after the full 8 weeks.
b. Abnormal, excessive tightness in the right high hamstring/glute junction.
Search and destroy revealed that my rectus femoris, vastus lateralis, and both glute/hamstring junctions had hot spots. Trying the S&D protocol on these areas unfortunately didn’t seem to have a positive effect. It is possible that this treatment method is not appropriate for clearing this up, or the POV isn’t the right tool for this. More on this in a bit.
c. Activation and soreness in the stabilizing muscles of the left shoulder during swimming and pressing movements. For some reason, my subscapularis, pec minor, and supraspinatis get really sore.
Search and destroy revealed hot spots on my front delt, high tricep, high bicep, and inner forearm. For this the POV worked great. I did several sessions, first doing overhead pressing movements and then some sessions doing swim stroking movements. This worked great and my left shoulder is quickly getting back to doing the right thing.
Having said all that above, apparently the POV shouldn’t be used for search and destroy but rather its clinical cousin the RX100. The RX100 is different than the POV in that supposedly it flushes inflammation and is more appropriate for such neurological treatments, whereas the POV leaves inflammation around longer to produce a training effect. Still, anecdotally, it seems that the POV is used on occasion for therapeutic applications but there seems to be some cases where if you’re not careful, you could really throw yourself into some bad place neurologically with the POV.
“Searching” apparently reveals the muscle problems that are connected neurologically. I went to my ART guy and told him about what I found, with respect to my right glute/hamstring junction problem, and he went and cleared up some of the muscle stickiness and tightness in those areas, which improved the problem greatly. So perhaps the POV may be risky in “Destroy” mode, it definitely seems to provide a more definitive guide as to what to target with other treatments.
6. Loosening the body’s muscles with the POV is fantastic. I try to do it every day. Loosening reduces tightness in the muscles and better prepares them for absorbing force. It’s about a 10 minute protocol, placing pads around the body from feet to head, and performing some movements. After loosening, I feel so much better and a lot of my tightness has gone away. Loosening with the POV is much more effective than just warming up!
7. The go-to healing and “remove pain” protocol seems to be background mode on the POV. You sandwich the area that is sore, put the POV in background mode, crank the power to the max, and leave it there for 20 minutes or more. It is amazing how well it works as I don’t perceive any kind of muscle contraction while using this mode.
In about 3 weeks, I am updating my “end pictures” slightly and will ask for a new program. I actually spent 3 months on the current program instead of the single month that it called for as summer proved to be highly interruptive in my workout time. Lots of interesting things to see and learn with this kind of neurological training.

Truths about Spearing Angle in Freestyle

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This post was sparked by some discussion in the forums on finding the perfect spearing angle. Here’s my take on all aspects of the spearing angle during Freestyle.
There are two spearing angles: depth and horizontal.
Most people think of spearing angle as mostly depth. Actually, you can also spear at a horizontal angle. Using the shoulder line as center, you can spear inward towards your body centerline – a bad thing to do – or outwards or away from the shoulder line – much better and safer.
Spearing depth angle helps with body balance.
The depth angle at which you spear your hand/arm into the water can greatly affect your balance. Spearing deeper will tip more weight onto the front of your body and bring your hips up like nothing else. Spearing higher is possible, but there is a higher risk of your hips dropping unless you have good control of body balance independent of spear angle.
Spearing horizontal angle can alter direction of travel and affect stability.
You can definitely spear wider of the shoulder lines and still go in one direction. However, spearing in a direction can also start you moving in that direction as well. So horizontal angle spearing acts a method of steering.
We have also found that spearing wider can improve your stability in the water. It provides an anchor on which you can ride your body on its edge, thus improving streamline and reducing drag.
In open water when the conditions get rough, spearing wider can help you stay stable and on course when the water is constantly moving and waves are present.
Spearing angle is dynamic, not static.
Given many different factors, spearing angle can be very dynamic. For example, if you are swimming a long distance using Early Vertical Forearm (EVF) and you are getting tired, you may want to switch to a lower depth, non-EVF spear to recover a little. As mentioned previously in open water, you may need to adjust to different conditions by altering the depth of your spear. In an open water race, you may need to do a turn around a buoy and horizontal spearing angle will help you make the direction change quickly.
Spearing angle can also be dynamic based on what you’re trying to do. For example, when I practice Skate with Kicking, I always spear much deeper than when I swim full stroke because I instinctively know that I go horizontal with a depth of spear, and it helps me kick my way across a pool while in Skate position.
Spearing angle will also change based on your skill level. A deeper spearing angle is great for beginners because it is the quickest way to achieve good balance in the water. But as your skill increases in affecting body balance, you can start spearing more horizontally to learn other aspects like EVF which require a horizontal spear to perform.
Spearing deeper provides many advantages for beginners.
In TI, we teach a deeper spearing angle to most beginners. There are many advantages to this for someone just beginning to learn and imprint good swim habits.
We have already mentioned one, which is a deeper spearing angle is the easiest and fastest way to achieve a horizontal body position. The other ways: pressing the chest, leaning the body, using the weight of the recovering arm, etc. all are much more difficult and require time to master. I have found that spearing deeper is much quicker to learn and affects body balance in a positive manner the most, than any other balance aspect.
Another advantage of spearing deeper is that it helps cure the dropped elbow problem which sets you up for a poor catch and less than effective stroke back. By getting your hand/wrist below the elbow with a deeper spear, you simply cannot have a dropped elbow.
With the hand pointing at an angle downward, we say to relax the fingers and let them droop downward. When this happens, your palm is already nearly, if not fully, facing back and in perfect position to catch and push water straight back. This removes issues with spearing more horizontally with the wrist locked, and then the stroke back happens with either locked straight wrist which results in water being first pushed down – dropping your hips – then pushing back – adding finally to forward momentum – and then pushing water up at the end – again dropping your hips down. A similar thing can happen when the stroke back occurs with a locked straight entire arm.
Deeper spear angles does not necessarily mean you swim slower.
It is true that there is more frontal area exposed on the upper arm to the forward direction of motion when the spear is deeper. In theory, this does mean that a deeper spear should have more drag than horizontal spear. But in reality, we’re only talking about a thin sliver of an arm. When compared to the drag created by dropping hips due to a horizontal spear, the drag of a slightly deeper spear is pretty miniscule. The optimization of this aspect should be left to those who have sufficiently developed their skills such that they need that extra bit of speed to win a race.
There are many swimmers who do not spear horizontally, nor do they use EVF, and still swim VERY FAST. They have awesome body balance and streamline, and they have fully developed their coordination of using the entire body during a 2BK to drive their bodies forward. These factors are much more important in speed than worrying about whether your deeper spear angle creates that much more drag.
If you have to, use the deeper spear to get your hips up. This will give better results than spearing horizontal to attempt EVF but your hips start dropping.
As mentioned previously, when you fully extend your spear, your hand is already in “catch” position. All you need to do from there is pull it back, pushing water straight behind you. Accomplished swimmers will also have perfected their ability to keep their palms pushing water straight back, versus pushing in all sorts of directions other than back.
In order to swim with EVF, you must adjust your spear depth angle to horizontal.
There are many factors related to achieving EVF. One of those is that you need to get your arm as high as possible in order to be able to let the forearm/hand drop below the elbow. If your arm is not horizontal, then your arm isn’t really dropping too much since you are partially “catched” already. You also lose a little bit of stroking length in front of you – spearing horizontal means you can get your arm as far forward as possible and use the full potential of stroke length to push water from front to back.
To many swimmers, there is THE spear angle that they must find. In my experience, spearing angle is a complex, dynamic element of swimming that changes given conditions, fitness and skill level. The ultimate skill, therefore, is to build your ability to swim at a multitude of spearing angles and you can easily switch between all of them depending on what situation you find yourself in.