Stair Challenge!

Richmond Beach Park steps - Shoreline, WA

How is it almost June?!  That mean's it's time for the Shoreline Million Stair Challenge!  The purpose of this event is to have the community collectively climb one million stairs to increase fitness competing with neighbors. According to the site, last June I completed 11,444 steps!  The challenge was started in 2012 for community awareness of health as well as to bring more people out to the park near my house where there is a long stair case (188 steps) that can be broken down into portions as well as a smaller set of stairs nearby.  I use these when I train for my March stair climb for Multiple Sclerosis which I've previously written about here!

This year my goal is to complete 15,000 steps in the month of June.  That's an average of 500 steps per day or 3500 stairs per week.  I don't work out 7 days per week, so this seems like a lofty goal, but I'm excited to work towards it and spend more time outside.  Additionally, on the side of this blog, I've been tracking my miles walked and stairs climbed all year... and I'm a bit behind in my 75,000 stairs goal, so this should really help get me more on track!  Fortunately, the sun stays out a lot longer in June so post-work stairs will be in order!

I urge others to join me in this challenge and climb some extra stairs this June.  It might help you start a new exercise routine or change your daily habits.  Since I started training for stair climbs, I definitely notice myself taking stairs more than alternatives... and I've gotten stuck in a few stair wells for doing it! You can climb stairs anywhere and still participate in the challenge. We can motivate each other to train and get stronger and more fit!  I want to see photos of the stairs you climb - so if you sign up to join, I'll match your stair count (up to 1000 additional stairs!).  Seattle area friends, if you want to head to a local stairwell - there's a whole network of them listed on this website - let me know and I'll climb some stairs elsewhere! I won't race you - because it's not about doing them quickly.  It's about being active... and I'm slow!

Happy Summer and Happy Climbing!

Climb to the Top for Multiple Sclerosis

Today I climbed to the top of Rockefeller Center for the fourth consecutive year. Why would I do such a thing? Because it’s a fundraiser for Multiple Sclerosis and that cause is important to me- and because I can!

View of NYC from the Top of the Rock

The Climb is 66 flights of stairs- 1215 steps- that today took me 23 minutes and 45 seconds. Those 24 minutes were grueling.  My legs started to feel like lead around the 10th flight and my lungs were gone around the 20th- not to recover for several hours because it’s pretty cold at the top and they burn as I tried to catch my breath. This year’s preparation included a lot more weight lifting along with regular stair training steady pace and intervals including at least 11,500 steps in the past 8 weeks.  I endured one ridiculous training session in an apocalyptic hail storm in Seattle just a few days ago.  There was some foam rolling - because #RecoveryDays.  There was biking and running and circuits.   Last year it took 26:05.  The year before that 28:13.  And the year before that, my first effort in 2015, it took me 30:59.  So, totaling up all the minutes of training, and all the minutes of climbing for these events - I've collectively suffered maybe one week’s worth of discomfort.  Perspective: my friend who has MS (who also makes this climb every year and rocks it!) deals with so much more and on such a larger scale. Every ache I've experienced for this is such a small reminder of a much greater cause- and motivates me to fundraise and train harder. 

Let me be clear - this event is not sad.  It's raising money for a serious health condition, Multiple Sclerosis, which a friend lives with every day.  Having sick family members and friends may be sad- but this event is not. It’s empowering! And it’s challenging It's a bit of a party with an MC and DJ and free t-shirts and Pom Poms. An indoor vertical 5-K road race with lots of bananas and granola bars and weird drinks to sample and pamphlets and tracking bibs and both a start and finish line. I love it.  I love flying to the East Coast to visit with my family and friends for the weekend.  I love that it is an annual event that I regularly train for and fundraise for.  I love that my friend has a huge group of people rallying with her and collectively climbing up those 1215 steps.   I love that it is something that benefits a serious health condition.  And I love that the event raises tons of money!  As my friend said when she greeted the team at brunch following the climb, “Let’s keep raising these funds every year until we no longer have to!” 

Here are a few facts about Multiple Sclerosis (MS) from the National MS Society Website:
1) The cause of MS is unknown - but it is thought to be impacted by environmental factors.  It is more difficult to find a cure when a thorough understanding of a cause is unknown.
2) MS is an immune condition in which your body fights off it's own central nervous system.  The central nervous system includes your brain and spinal cord, so when this occurs, a variety of symptoms can occur depending on where the degeneration occurs.
3) MS is most often diagnosed in people between the ages of 20-50 and is two to three times more common in females. It is most common in caucasians with northern European descent.
4) According to this website, the Pacific Northwest has the highest rate of MS in the world.  There are studies looking at geography, vitamin D and environmental factors such as bacterial infections in an effort to determine the cause.
5) There are numerous types of MS.  Commonly, the condition is broken down into four types, but in actuality, because each person presents differently, there are many more than are generally outlined.
6) What can you do to help?  You can donate here to support further research, or you can join me to climb next year and raise money with me!

Overall- a successful training season with improved climb time compared to last year, much better fundraising, and a fun time had by all!

"If it ain't broke - don't fix it" - Workout Programming Edition

They tell you in PT School that you need to be able to properly demonstrate any activity you're going to have a patient or client do. I'm 5'5" and I was working with someone over 6' tall for return to sport after an ankle sprain.  I set up a series of objects to jump over or onto in various directions including a 12" box.  I went to demonstrate the obstacle course, but when I reached the base of the 12" box, I completely chickened out.  I was glued to the floor.  I then spent my lunch working on box jumps. (And yes, I nailed that 12" box jump, and yes, I made all my coworkers watch repeats as witnesses, and no, I can't do it again unless I work my way up from a 6" box - but at the end of the day, I still can do it!)

Being a physical therapist is an active and physically challenging job.  When I worked with the geriatric population, there were numerous times when I found myself holding up 200+ pound adults who thought they could stand, but ultimately could not.  When I'm working with basketball players, if I go to stretch someone, I'm lifting a leg that is solid muscle.  When I work with really little kids, I have to make it fun which often means ball activities with balance on various apparatuses and obstacle courses.  Not only do I need to be able to demonstrate, I also like seeing what my body is capable of and I like that I get to stay moving for my job.  I also need to work hard to keep myself healthy so I don't hurt myself.

One of the changes I made in 2017 was to program my own workouts and schedule them on my calendar leading up to a stair climb event I have in March 2018. This was the first time I have ever programmed for myself in such a manner and I really enjoyed the experience.

Here's what I learned:
1) Planning made me more compliant with my workouts.  I planned 3x/week over 6 months and when I looked back, I only missed four.  Not too shabby for someone who has previously struggled - A LOT - with workout consistency and rolling out of bed to put the work in.  And, though I was frustrated each of those times, I felt that the sickness I was feeling on 2 of those days and the snow on the ground for one of them were legitimate excuses for three out of the four.  But having a plan meant I was able to get back on track, quickly, and get over regretting missed workouts.
2) Scheduling workouts into my weeks eliminated daily early alarm clocks to see if I would, in fact, drag myself out of bed - because when a workout was scheduled - it happened.  I planned them at the times that appeared to be best for the week, mostly on a regular basis, with enough flexibility should something pop up during my usual time.  I stopped making myself feel guilty, because I wasn't missing workouts unless it was truly what my body needed.  On the few occasions I did miss, I knew I had another workout scheduled in about 48 hours to get right back on track.  Let it go.  Move on.
3) I also learned that I grossly over-estimated my ability to progress my endurance training activities.  Because endurance training is not something I enjoy and I'm not entirely sure my body is built to be running long distances, my program had me increasing mileage every 2 weeks but I was only running once per week so it was too fast of a progression.  It didn't mean I stopped running... it just meant that I had to revise my program early on because my targets weren't appropriate.

Now I'm coming upon the end of my original six month program (5 weeks left) and have been doing some research on how to better write my program for the next period of time. I have a lot more learning to do in this area - definitely a weak spot of physical therapy education, but I consistently came across articles that outlined steps to writing a training program such as goal writing, determining your primary intent (increased muscle size/increased strength/increased endurance/weight loss), determining which exercises to include and at what volume (frequency/reps/sets). But this article on T Nation by Paul Carter had a sentence that really struck me: "You don't need to overhaul a program that's largely working... The worst thing you can do is overhaul an entire program that's producing results. Keep what's working and make minor adjustments to what's not."

I've been on the same program for six months: one day per week each of strength training, interval running, and stair training with the upcoming last four weeks a ramp up of the stair training leading to my event.  I like the variety, my body seems to be recovering from each workout pretty well, I can feel and see the changes, and I'm being consistent.  My primary goals for the last six months were to get into the habit of working out three days per week (not a focus on strength, weight loss, or any other physiological changes) and to be prepared for the stair climb in March.  Period. Since I'm still seeing progress in the physiological changes that weren't even my target - and I'm able to be consistent with the program - despite weeks of trying to more meticulously plan the next program - I'm sticking with it.  It ain't broke... so I'm not fixing it.

So - Step 1: Write Goals for 2018
1) Continue training three times per week.  Get the schedule onto my calendar.  We're forming a habit here. This is my top priority.  The other goals are either ways to try to spend my time to achieve this goal or hopeful side-effects of achieving this goal.
2) Cover 1000 miles for the year (tracker located on the right of this page - tracked by FitBit, updated when blogs are posted.)
3) Climb 75,000 stairs for the year (tracker located on the right of this page)
4) 60 second plank.  Because #core and #strengthgains
5) Of course I have a weight loss goal, as well - but this requires my training program combined with an eating plan which is an entirely different blog post.
Step 2: Volume: Continued plan of 3x/week.  Reps and sets to be planned ahead of time because this is what training looks like.  It's not an arbitrary workout where I get to the gym and think "what am I doing today?"  There's no guessing.
Step 3: Exercise components: The next six month cycle has been broken down into smaller pieces, unlike the last six months. Seattle summer is gorgeous and once the sun comes out, we only get about 90 days to enjoy it for the whole year so you won't likely find me lifting or on a treadmill once that happens.  Summer is for kayaking and hiking with my favorite hiking pal.  And my stairs are outside - so they get to stay in the program.  As long as there's an active activity 3x/week for more than 30 minutes - it'll be ok to skip the weight room if I'm kayaking.  Flexibility is permitted in the workout content as long as there is consistency.

The plan:
January through March 5th - completion of the previously planned cycle.  Includes ramping up stair training and endurance training for my annual Climb to the Top of Rockefeller Center fundraiser for Multiple Sclerosis.  Can't wait to see how this year's training pans out in comparison to previous years which weren't planned.  Goal time for completion is 25 mins.  If you want to donate to that cause, click here.

March:  Recovery from stair climb with more soft tissue work, lower volume of stairs, and lots of core/planking.

April through May: Ramp up strengthening days using this program from Bret Contreras, "The Glute Guy" that has consistently been kicking my butt (pun intended) along with cardio days of  running and stairs as I ramp back up for:

June: June is the Shoreline Stair Climb Challenge and I'll be aiming to climb 15,000 stairs during the month of June.  Last year I made it just past 10,000. Stairs will be supplemented by hiking and kayaking and sunshine.

July: Recovery again with increased soft tissue work and decreased volume with core and planking.

August through September: back to the progressed cycle.

That will bring me back to the time when I will determine if I'll be Stair Climbing again in 2019 and when I would start my training program/what it would look like as we enter the gray days of Seattle for winter.

Why would I share this?  First off - accountability.  Second - sometimes it helps others to plan their training program by seeing how someone else has structured it.  If you're hoping to increase your glute size or strength, you could review Bret's program that I've included. If you want to start a workout program for the first time in a long time - or ever, the ideas I've used to get into a routine may help you.  Or you can come join me on the stairs.  They never seem to get any easier but the view from the top is gorgeous.