The 4-Hour Body_ An Uncommon Guide to Ra - Timothy Ferriss [156]
Last but not least, I had acute soreness throughout both feet and ankles. The ligaments, tendons, and small muscles of the feet and ankles were underdeveloped.
In other words, I wasn’t ready to run.
Before I could consider serious training, I needed good suspension. To do otherwise would be asking for injuries that could plague me for months or even years.
The “marathon monks” of Mount Hiei in Japan run and walk the equivalent of an ultramarathon every day for six years, some averaging 84 kilometers per day for the last 100 days of training.
I wasn’t looking promising as a monk.
“Am I ready for the Olympics, coach?” I jokingly asked Tertius Kohn PhD as he sat me down in his office at the Sports Science Institute of South Africa. Five days earlier, I’d had a biopsy tube the size of a pencil jammed into the side of my thigh17 to skip the theory and look directly at the limits of my muscle. Much teeth grinding, three muscle samples, and a myography lab later, I finally had answers. Tertius looked at me with a serious expression.
“I’m a doctor, so I like to speak plainly. You might not like what I’m going to tell you, but I’m going to tell you anyway.”
“Ummm … Okay.”
“You’d have trouble finishing a 10K.”
I nodded.
“In fact, I think you’d have trouble finishing a 5K.”
This wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear, but three months of obsessing over ultraendurance had taken me many places, and this was one of them: enzymes.
CS, 3HAD, LDH, and PFK are all enzymes that limit energy production through different pathways.
South African Xhosa mid- and long-distance runners, for example, have high levels of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), which allows them to recycle lactate at higher than normal rates. More LDH appears to mean less accumulation of plasma lactate (more commonly referred to as “lactic acid”), which means less debilitating muscle burn. In Kenyan runners, higher levels of another enzyme, 3-HAD, mean a greater ability to use fat instead of carbohydrate during sub-maximal exercise.
How did I measure up? I am the one under the line. Hear me roar:
The numbers reflect the percentage compared to untrained human subjects. African antelopes and trained endurance athletes are in the mix for contrast. (Credit: Tertius A. Kohn PhD from the UCT/MRC Research Unit for Exercise Science and Sports Medicine. Special thanks also to Prof. Tim Noakes and the staff at ESSM.)
As Tertius showed me the numbers, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. How the hell did I have negative numbers? Despite all of my training and all my efforts, my enzyme levels were worse than a Homer Simpson couch potato.
So much for the “endurance preference” conclusion from the genetics testing.18 Based on my raw materials, I seemed screwed for both endurance and power. In my mind, I flipped through the suitable sports: Competitive eating? Going down slides?
“You are … very, very average,” Tertius would repeat several times over the next 30 minutes of discussion. “I hope you’re not upset. I’m a scientist and like to state the facts simply.”
By that point, I wasn’t upset.
In fact, I was elated on some perverse level. I was worse than average. This meant that any future achievements could be almost completely attributed to training effect. It took a huge variable (genetics) largely out of the picture.
If I could do it, others stood a good chance—actually, a better chance—of doing the same.
That leads us back to our story.
I allocated four weeks to pre-training preparation, in addition to using ART19 for the quads, hamstrings, and hip flexors.
The following five movements and running prep were what I focused on. Stretches are held for at least 90 seconds and performed on both sides.
1. HIP FLEXOR (ILIOPSOAS) AND QUAD FLEXIBILITY
Here, Kelly demonstrates the “super quad” stretch on a couch. Frame 1 is variation A, which is easier, and frame 2 is variation B. I prefer to use B on the floor in front of the couch, with my rear foot resting (ankle bent) on top of the sitting cushions.
It’s critical