Sunday Story…Recovery Data

One of the interesting things about the recovery process is watching the data change on my Whoop strap. As many of you know, I have been a Whoop user since 2017. Over the years I have amassed a treasure trove of data. But I have never tracked it during a surgical intervention like this. Of course, I have never had surgery like this either. The data the Whoop provides has been invaluable to my progress as an athlete.

One critical point is resting heart rate. In general, a lower resting heart rate indicates better fitness. A low resting heart rate indicates a strong heart muscle that can pump more blood with every beat, so it can beat less. Resting heart rate is measured at the end of your sleep cycle when your body is in its most restful state.

Before surgery, my RHR was 45. In the month after surgery, it went to 54. In the second month, it went down to 51, and last week it went down to 50 with 4 days in a row under 50. This is the power of training and most particularly zone 2 training. Currently, I am doing 5 days of zone 2 work varying between 30 and 45 minutes using either the rower or the Echo bike.

Without the data, I would not know any of this. How important are those 5 or 10 beats? I have no answer to that question, but I know that having a low resting heart rate is essential to cardiovascular health and thus, my overall health. When my RHR is consistently below 50 BPM I can begin to cut down the Zone 2 training and ramp up more high-intensity work. Having a low RHR allows my heart to be more efficient at higher rates. That’s a big win across the board.

John Mariotti

www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com 

www.crossfitodyssey.com

775-338-2412

Sunday Story…Exercise Hygiene

That’s right…exercise hygiene. What? Should exercise be like your other hygiene habits? Is exercise now a habit like brushing your teeth, showering, or changing your underwear?

Speaking for myself, exercise is a habit. When I don’t exercise my day is incomplete. How would you feel if you didn’t brush your teeth today? What if you didn’t brush for a week? A month? A year? I suspect we all know people who have not moved with intention for a very long time.

We are humans. We are designed to move. Ancient humans moved a lot. They didn’t need to set apart movement or exercise from the rest of their activities. Today we need to plan our movement. We have transitioned from lots of movement and physical exertion to minimizing our movement and avoiding physical exertion.

This transition is being proven to be hazardous to our health. Although it may have increased our life span, the cost of not moving has far outweighed the benefits of modern comforts. Diabetes and obesity are rampant, immunocompromised conditions are common, and neurodegenerative diseases all compromise our quality of life as we age.

One of the answers to solving this problem is exercise or intentional movement. Changing our attitudes toward exercise needs to shift from something we do when we have time or energy to something like brushing our teeth. This shift will increase your likely health span outcome.

How are you going to create an environment where exercise becomes part and parcel of your existence? How will you ensure that movement is as important as eating is to your existence? This is going to require a shift in your thinking and a reordering of your priorities. Exercise or intentional movement needs to become part of your daily life. Movement is medicine.

 

John Mariotti

www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com 

www.crossfitodyssey.com    

775-338-2412

 

Sunday Story…100 Calories

It’s that time of year when many of us turn a critical eye toward our nutrition. Let’s be honest, holidays are when it is too easy to self-indulge in all available food and drink. Normally you may not have a problem resisting temptation but often it’s too much. Your willpower is like a muscle. If you keep overusing it, eventually it will fail.

The other day we were talking about calories and weight. It turns out that it takes 3500 calories to equal 1 pound of fat. So, if you eat 100 calories more than you need, or less than you need for 30 days you will gain or lose 1 pound of fat. It’s simple when you distill that down. Now you will need to be consistent over the 30 days. Most of us do very well during the week and not so well during the weekend. The not-so-good will wreck all the good you did during the week.

The real problem? Where are these 100 calories to be added or lost? If you don’t know, that is the problem. You don’t know because you are not measuring and tracking your food and drink intake. How many calories are in the chicken wings I just ate? How many are there in that beer? If you don’t know there is no way you can eat more or less. It is that simple.

The bottom line is this: If you aren’t measuring it, you can’t manage it. This is true of almost anything but especially food. Gain or lose, you must track and measure your intake. Anything less is a recipe for failure.

 

John Mariotti

www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com

www.crossfitodyssey.com

775-338-2412    

 

 

 

 

Sunday Story…Recovery

 

This morning someone asked me what the recovery is for knee surgery of this nature. The answer is difficult. According to my doctor and all the literature the recovery to full range of motion is 6 months and 1 year to full 100% recovery.

The problem with these numbers is they represent an average result over a large population. In other words, your results will vary! At this point, I am 6 weeks or so post-op. I have been probing the edges of what is possible. There is no blueprint for this process.

I have restarted my 15-minute GoWod mobility work with some precautions (no 2 minutes in the bottom of a deep squat yet!). I’ve continued to do the prescribed exercises from the physical therapist. This is particularly important because those exercises have been proven to be beneficial. They are “low-hanging fruit.” Easy to do (for me), yet you can push into the pain cave on certain movements to continue to improve.

According to my physical therapist, I am far ahead of anyone he has ever seen. Most people don’t have the desire to do more than get off the couch and go to the bathroom independently. I have a snowboarding trip scheduled for early March, just over 3 months post-op. Oh and don’t forget the CrossFit Open starts on February 27^th. I have a 13-year streak I don’t want to break!

Recovery, like many things, is determined by how hard you are willing to push, how much pain you can endure, and how badly you want to get back to 100%. All of that and not going too far over the edge that sets your progress back. This is where the rubber meets the road. Can you push to the limit and not fall off the edge?

 

John Mariotti

www.sunday-styories.blogspot.com

www.crossfitodyssey.com

775—338-2412