Sea Swim Cancelled Till Further Notice

Sea Swim Mornings will be temporarily stopped due to the recent oil spill. You guys are reminded not to turn up for training, unless you like swimming in gunk and dead marine life! Geez...the sea is really soooo big but... Shit HAPPENS...

Not only our weekly morning activity is affected....Biz along East Coast is also badly affected...I hear Chek Jewa is also affected http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1059580/1/.html....darn! Really thought our marine life finally got a chance again till now! Who's to BLAME? HUH???

Check out this parrot that we rescued from the oil spill....Simply cannot remove all the oil stains even after 2 washes!

Oh well, you are all encouraged to continue keeping fit by training in the pool and mahjong table ;]

Till the next time we meet.... STAY FOCUSED!

Warming-Up

WHY WARM UP? I get this question all the time. Some people, especially non-athletes, are troubled by the idea of exercising just before a strenuous event. They figure a warm-up just burns energy that would be better used during the event. What they don't understand is that there's a big difference between what's going on inside your body while at rest and what needs to be going on in order to be ready to compete.

During your warm-up, you are increasing your body's demand for oxygen, so your blood vessels dilate to deliver blood more quickly to working tissues. All that work increases core temperature, and your body responds by amping up sweat production. There's a lag time in there, too, when you are producing lots of heat before you are producing a lot of sweat. Getting through that lag time is important because you want your body's cooling system working at full capacity before the starting gun goes off. Interestingly, one of the long term adaptations to endurance training is a quicker sweat response. an athlete's body knows whats coming and opens the floodgates to keep core temperature from skyrocketing.

Your energy systems also need time to transition from being at rest to competing. The mechanisms for producing and processing lactate are particularly important to activate. You always do this on a small scale, but to be ready to compete, you need to kick lactate production into high gear so u=you increase the speed at which you process it.

And last, a good warm-up prepares you mentally. try to set aside day to day worries and focus on your event. Your warm-up time is not social hour; bring your headphones and turn up the volume.

Written by Chris Carmichael is Lance Armstrong's personal coach.

Fuel UP!!

I guess the lesson that I've taken 10 years to learn and occasionally re-learn is fueling up before any workout.

The only reason I do sports, from swimming, biking, running, biathlons, Tri, ironman, is only because I love to test and push my physical limit. Its not abt the medals, placings, certificates, coz at the end of it all, no one really remembers. Sorry for the side tracking....


Anyways...if i dun fuel up before any workout, especially cardio, my immune system goes down the pits... and I'll fall sick with flu....that's one of the reasons pro cyclists use a lot of antibiotics during training and racing.


SO SO SO... if you are wondering why you always fall ill even though you are working out sooooo very often....well check if you are properly fueled up, at least, before training or racing. It's all about timing your nutrition intake.

Let's think about this in a logical way: We now know that the body takes its fuel first from the blood stream and not the fat storage or muscles. For performance, therefore we want our blood to be charged up with fuel just before the event and during also. So if you go into the event without food, the little bit of blood glucose will be rapidly depleted and thus forcing the body to look for other source of energy. This takes a little longer time than via the blood. This is where a properly fueled athlete has the advantage over the lazy one. Once he/she sees you having difficulty, he/she can launch a devastating attack, leaving you struggling to keep up. Your body slowly starts taking energy from fats and if the event is a very long one, the body may take from the muscles (which is NOT good).

I mentioned timing our intake also. We always wonder why I take Vitamin C every night just before sleeping but I still fall sick! May I suggest trying to take before your body goes low in immunity like just before your "healthy" excercise? When we exert and very often atheletes over exert, the danger begins. Therefore, if you take vitamin C only after the exercise, you'll be vunerable from the time of excercise till the time you reach home. AND THEN you take the Vitamin C?! Not Logical right?

Of Coz..the best is pre and post race nutrition. Eat lots of complex carbs and multi-vit before training and lots of protein after... the carbs and Vitamins will provide sufficient energy, boost and even immunity protection for the workout at hand and the protein will help with muscle tissue repair there after.

Yeah dun we all get lazy at times to take in something before a training session.....bad habits will make us die hard.... I just did an entire cardio week only to ignore fueling up on the last day...BAM! I had high fever for 2 days...spent $200+ at East Shore Hospital (yes thats how I spent Labour Day 2010) and only started back up 2 weeks later. Loook at the down time...not worth it lah! Heng my wife can claim for me....who is the pro now? Lol...

Coach Out of Town

Attension all Joe's Swim Students. Coach Joe will be going to Hong Kong with his mummy for a short holiday trip. What a good boy he is!

All his classes will temporary stop from 17th May till 23rd May 2010.

There will be no replacement coach at the moment. Sorry about that! As Coach Eugene's schedule is packed and Coach Wee Siang's Wifey just gave birth!!

So if you need anything from Hong Kong, dun hesitate to let Joe make your wishes come true! lol....

Till then Sayonara Joe San!

Open Water East Coast

Another week at the beach for morning open water ATTTACK!... ok la...we seldom if not never attack.....so early....yawn...who want to attack? Water is not as cool as before u know?....global warming cookin our asses....but still cooler than the air...

Easy open water swim with our safety boards in "buddy" system is the right way to go else you may miss morning kopi and delicious sumptious kaya Gu you at the coffeeshop.

800m is all we did. No Bi or tri races comin up for any of us,,,s0.....just get ourselves salted up a little;)

Are we getting lazy...*hiaz.... NOT

Next Week's Run session... Mt Faber. *Yikes* who the hell came up wif this anyway!