This may sound stupid, but for many years I’ve either avoided or cut back on exercise because it made me too hungry.  Exercising in the morning was the worst - it made me hungry all day!  Avoidance was my old strategy.  My new strategy is to buy lots of delicious fresh produce, train hard on a daily basis, and feel great.

Aerobic Exercise:

My philosophy for building fitness - which is to say increasing endurance, losing weight, and generally increasing energy - follows Phil Maffetone’s school of thought.  Phil Maffetone was the coach of several prominent triathletes in the 1990’s, including six-time Hawaii Ironman winner Mark Allen.  Basically Phil Maffetone says that most people overtrain by focusing too much on higher heart rate “speed work” because it’s fun and we are conditioned to think pain is gain. On the contrary, building up aerobic fitness by training slowly for longer distances helps avoid injury, burn fat, and maintain motivation.  Mark Allen sums up his coach’s approach and tells you how to calculate your aerobic heart rate here.  A related book that I haven’t yet picked up, but has received great reviews and is on my wish list, is Slow Burn.

Heart Rate Monitors:

In order to know how hard you’re training, it’s really helpful to have a heart rate monitor.  I thought that most of the Polar models were rather unattractive, so I bought a Timex model and I have been very happy with it.  In early 2008 I ran the Pirates’ Cove Trail Run at a constant heart rate of 150 to get a fitness baseline.

Learning to Swim:

I am a big fan of Terry Laughlin’s book, Total Immersion.  After swimming competitively for eight years with much effort but mediocre form and results, I taught myself how to swim more elegantly using this book.  Training less often, I had the fastest races of my life.  I bought a copy for my former coworker Mark, for my friends Fiona and Mat in London, and I even recommend it to strangers at the pool.  Swimming shouldn’t be a struggle!  With the right form you can cut through the water like a kayak rather than a barge.

Anerobic Exercise:

My philosophy for weight training is in many ways similar to my philosophy for endurance training.  It’s too easy to overtrain (and plateau) by lifting weights that are too heavy too often.  Muscles take at least five days to rebuild from a hard strength workout, so if you want to keep getting better it’s important to take this much rest.  Two terrific books about strength training are Starting Strength and Practical Programming.

Yoga & Pilates:

Another free plug here for Sports Club L/A in SF.  Not only is it a nice place to lift weights, it also offers a wealth of classes like yoga and pilates.  I always leave these classes more aware of, and more in control of my body.  Recently I played basketball after taking a month off for travel, and I should have been rusty but I felt great.  I couldn’t figure out why, until it dawned on me that I had done yoga the day before.

The Feldenkrais Method:

The Feldenkrais Method teaches you to be more aware of your body and move more efficiently.  By consciously experimenting with physical movements, you can un-learn bad habits in your movement and posture that may have been with you for decades.  Like Phil Maffetone, this is the opposite of a “no pain no gain” approach.  I’ve been interested in Feldenkrais for a long time - I bought a book and a cassette tape series in high school.  Highly recommended!

Masai Barefoot Technology (MBT):

This is a shoe that purports to improve your posture when you walk, reducing strain on your hip and knee joints while activating the relatively neglected muscles in the back of your legs.  I’ve owned a pair for over a year now and it really does deliver on its promises.  Even my abs were a little sore after I spent two hours walking around NYC on the day I bought them.  You can’t use MBT’s for running or sports that require lateral movement due to the “natural instability” built into the shoe, but they can’t be beat for walking (and casual wear).  After experiencing the fundamentally better mechanics that MBT’s enable, you won’t want to go back to walking in tennis shoes.