The Charles Poliquin carb test, Dave Brailsford, and what you really want from training

Chances are you eat too many carbs. I know I do. The late great Charles Poliquin had a test for males that want to be healthy; if you are above 10% body fat or can’t see each of your abs, you should be on a low carb diet. Most of the time, eating meat and vegetables, and using clean carbs to fuel and recover from intense training sessions. Once you are lean, you can then add more carbs, such as fruits.

Dave Brailsford, the mastermind behind the British Cycling and Team Sky’s takeover of cycling, did a recent interview talking about his current training. His recent riding focuses on maintaining muscle mass and strength and managing fat levels. He does this by eating low carb and high protein, restricting eating to between 11 am and 8 pm, and low intensity, high torque rides. The low-intensity rides and low carb intake aims to burn fat rather than glycogen for fuel. The low carb diet involves cutting out grains, bread, pasta, rice, and sugar.

At Team Sky and now Ineos, riders have adopted a carb cycling approach, eating low carb on low-intensity days and using carbs selectively pre and post high-intensity rides. The low carb days includes riding on coffee and protein or fully fasted for the first 1.5 to 2 hours of low to moderate intensity. Protein intake is kept at around the same level on both low and high carb days. Dr. Morton, the teams, published details of the approach in a research paper in which he sets the intensity level needing carbs as 85% of v02max.

A year ago, I bought some scales that measure weight, calculates BMI, and estimates your body fat based on a scan. I was 88kg and far above my health BMI of 25. My first target was to get below 83kg to be in the healthy BMI range. The next step was to deadlift 1.5x bodyweight and do ten strict pull-ups taken from the book Fat loss happens on Mondays. My focus then moved to become a faster distance runner.

With my current challenge of getting to a 4 Watts per kilo FTP in mind and reading the Dave Brailsford article has led me to think about what I want from my training. The easiest route would be to focus on losing weight rather than increasing power. If I lived in the mountains or were a competitive cyclist, this would make sense. If I am honest though, I want to be strong, powerful, and look good naked, so focusing on power makes more sense.

Body composition goals

If you want a blunt starting point, aim to get your BMI into the healthy range.
If you can measure body fat, a better approach is to get under 13%.
If you don’t care about these measures, aim for 1.5x deadlift and ten strict pull-ups. The deadlifts will require you to be strong, and you will need to be lean for the pull-ups.

Ultra-amateurism

I woke up tired this morning and scrolled through my phone under the covers rather than getting up. I missed my 7 am planned start time for a training session and then needed to help my wife testing some technology before a call. I had an hour and a half ride on the turbo planned, and the daily stand up with my team at 9:30 so the ride move to lunch.

I did not get back to my desk until 14:00 and then spent the next few hours catching up. After work, I had a trip to the supermarket, dinner with my wife, and then a later than planned weight session. I got to my daily blog at 20:30, clean the kitchen and sorted the recycling for bin day tomorrow. I will hopefully be in bed for 22:00 to hit my 7 am training ride in the morning.

While I was putting off the inevitable cold outside of the covers, phrases from sportsbooks I had read teased me. Schedules matter, as soon as one thing is late, the rest of the day is late too. If training starts at 7 am, you are ready at 6:50; you give yourself the leeway to fix it if you have a problem. You treat yourself as a professional in terms of preparation, attitude, and skills. You develop a personal regime and culture of professionalism. I am impressed by professional athletes who reach the top of their sport, but I am more impressed by the ultra-amateurs, like Roger Bannister. They achieve exceptional physical feats but are dedicated to their work in a profession and treat training as a secondary pursuit.

When your main focus is your profession, your training has to fit around your job. Training is put before everything else for professional athletes, but most of us do not have that life, and if we are honest, do not want it. So we wake up a 6:00 to training before work and then again after we finish, and save energy and time for our family and responsibilities. But in that hour or two when we train, we focus on nothing else.

I choose to ride and lift and write. I choose to focus on being great at my job. I choose to spend time with my wife. I choose to have a clean kitchen every night before I go to bed. Training is not a job for me, but it is more than a hobby. There is something deeper to the pain and the effort than getting a 6-pack and staying young for longer. The physical goals I set myself and the training I go through to achieve them become a part of me but when the next day comes around it is my role as a husband and an educator that matter. The pain is just a bonus.

A reminder of the UN Sustainable Development Goals

The UN launched the Sustainable Development Agenda in 2015, providing a blueprint for peace and prosperity, agreed by all UN member states. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the evolution of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) launched in 2000 to reduce global poverty by 2015. The idea is that lasting and meaningful change in eradicating poverty and deprivation requires improving health and education, reducing inequality, encouraging economic growth, and tackling climate change while preserving oceans and forests.

The UN department of economic and Social Affairs list 169 different targets collected under seventeen goals:

Goal 1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere
Goal 2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
Goal 3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
Goal 4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
Goal 5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
Goal 6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
Goal 7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
Goal 8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
Goal 9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
Goal 10. Reduce inequality within and among countries
Goal 11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
Goal 12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
Goal 13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts*
Goal 14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development
Goal 15. Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
Goal 16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
Goal 17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development
UN Sustainable Development Goals

Each of the goals is broken down into specific targets. For example, Goal four, Quality education is split into ten targets.

Goal 4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

4.1 By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes
4.2 By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education so that they are ready for primary education
4.3 By 2030, ensure equal access for all women and men to affordable and quality technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university
4.4 By 2030, substantially increase the number of youth and adults who have relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship
4.5 By 2030, eliminate gender disparities in education and ensure equal access to all levels of education and vocational training for the vulnerable, including persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples and children in vulnerable situations
4.6 By 2030, ensure that all youth and a substantial proportion of adults, both men and women, achieve literacy and numeracy
4.7 By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development
4.a Build and upgrade education facilities that are child, disability and gender sensitive and provide safe, non-violent, inclusive and effective learning environments for all
4.b By 2020, substantially expand globally the number of scholarships available to developing countries, in particular least developed countries, small island developing States and African countries, for enrolment in higher education, including vocational training and information and communications technology, technical, engineering and scientific programmes, in developed countries and other developing countries
4.c By 2030, substantially increase the supply of qualified teachers, including through international cooperation for teacher training in developing countries, especially least developed countries and small island developing States
Quality Education Targets

Each Target then has its own set of indicators. For example, Goal 4.3 covering technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university, has one indicator:

4.3.1 Participation rate of youth and adults in formal and non-formal education and training in the previous 12 months, by sex

The UK government has a website dedicated to the SDGs that provides data on how the UK measures each indicator. Looking at the example above, 10% of adults had participated in formal or non-formal learning in the last 12 months in 2016—participation rates by sex 11.2% for females and 9.6% for males.

I would highly recommend you spend a little time this weekend reviewing the SDGS website and looking at the overviews of the goals that specifically interest you. Each goal has overview and progress sections that cover the implications of Covid-19 on the progress towards the targets.

Let me know what you think about the goals, targets, and progress on Twitter. How do we extend remote learning to more students?

How to interact with people on Twitter

I miss interacting with people. Twitter has people. I will use Twitter to interact with people.

I asked the marketing guru that is my wife for some guidance. Roma suggested I comment on at least five posts per day for the next three weeks using hashtags related to my field. After three weeks, after I am a part of the community, I should then share something that I have been working on that they would value.

I did a bit of a search and found some additional tips

Sort out my profile
Tweet more
Connect with people I already know
Join a regular Twitter chat
Follow and engage with more people in my industry
Learn from Twitter accounts I thing are awesome

Sort out my profile: Your profile is searchable, and people look at it before they interact with you, so make it useful. Get a clear, close up photo of your face, use the full 160 characters for your bio, and complete all the fields including your location.

Tweet more: The best way to grow your Twitter circle is to get people following you to retweet things you post. To do this, you need to tweet consistently with useful things. People who tween more have a larger circle, and so you can use tools such as Tweet deck to schedule tweets ahead of busy times. Use one or two hashtags to increase the visibility of your tweets so people can find you. Stay up to date with topics in your field and tweet about it and include links.

Connect with people you already know: Find and follow people you already know through work and other social networks. You can import your email contacts to your Twitter account to speed this up. Adding your Twitter account to your email signature can also encourage people to find you outside of work as you interact with new contacts.

Get involved with Twitter chats: People meet regularly on Twitter for gatherings using various hashtags. Roma has one called the #5amteacher or something similar when crazy people get up early and talk to each other.

Follow and engage with more people in my industry: Follow the authors of the tweets you are commenting on and individuals that are visible within your industry. Search hashtags to find the people that have similar interests as you, follow them and start to interact with their posts. You can also find great people to follow by viewing who the people you follow are following.

Learn from Twitter accounts you think are awesome: Find Twitter accounts with large followings and lots of interaction, learn how they post, interact with comments, and layout their profiles. Check if they have a blog post or a video on Youtube about how they use Twitter.

Another Challenge

I will update my profile, and then for the next three weeks, I will follow Roma’s advice and comment on at least five tweets per day. When I gave a few minutes, I will also find people I know and people in my industry to follow and interact with. I will watch Ali Abdaal’s youtube video on ‘How Twitter Changed my Life.’

Find me on Twitter and let me know what awesome things you are working on.

Are we ten years from the brink?

I listened to the book ’10 years to midnight’ by Blair Sheppard on today’s Turbo session. The author introduces the ADAPT framework to explain how the western civilisation is ten years away from the brink of collapse. ADAPT is an acronym for asymmetry, disruption, age, polarisation, and trust.

Asymmetry – increasing wealth disparity and the erosion of the middle class

Disruption – the pervasive nature of technology and its impact on individuals, society, and the climate

Age – demographic pressure on business, social institutions, and economies

Polarisation – Breakdown in global consensus and a fracturing world, with growth in nationalism and populism

Trust – Declining confidence in the institutions that underpin society

We have heard many negative headlines in the press since the IPPC Climate change report said we had 12 years to save the planet. These headlines usually tie in other social and economic emergency claims into these 12 years too. Fueled by my newfound distrust in the media institution that underpins society, I was curious about how real these things are in the UK, so I searched for some reliable data.

I decided to look at the first topic of the framework, asymmetry. Two elements where mentioned, the first was, increasing wealth disparity, and the second was the middle-class’s erosion. The first result I got when I googled ‘UK erosion of middle class’ was a Guardian article titled ‘The demise of the middle classes is toxifying British politics…’ I did not click through to get the full title.

Wealth disparity

The Office for national statistics released two reports in July 2020 that looked helpful, the first was Household average income, and the second was analysis on household income inequality. The key findings of these papers:

Household average income

In financial year ending (FYE) 2020, the period leading up to the implementation of measures against the coronavirus (COVID-19), average household disposable income (after taxes and benefits) was £30,800 – up 2.3% (£700) compared with FYE 2019, after accounting for inflation.
Over FYE 2020, real earnings increased by an average of 1.5%, however more recently total annual pay growth for March to May 2020 fell by 1.3%, after accounting for inflation, which will likely impact adversely on income growth rates in FYE 2021
The increase in median income in FYE 2020 continues an upward trend seen since FYE 2013, where average household income increased by an average of 2.1% per year.

Household inequality

Income inequality, as measured using the Gini coefficient, has been broadly stable over the past ten years with disposable income (post direct taxes and cash benefits) reaching 34.6% in financial year ending (FYE) 2020 after peaking at 38.6% in FYE 2008 just prior to the economic downturn; however, the Gini coefficient is 6.1 percentage points higher than average levels throughout the late 1970s and 1980s.
Across all measures, however, there has been a slight increase in income inequality since FYE 2017. The Gini coefficient has increased* from 33.4% to 34.6%, while the S80/S20 ratio shows an increase from 5.2 to 6.1. This mainly reflects a fall in disposable income in for the poorest 20% of people between FYE 2018 and FYE

So the general picture before March was that the median income was improving after tax and benefits. There has been some movement for inequality, but practically over the last ten years, it has been ‘stable’. A caveat, while these numbers have been corrected for inflation, they do not consider changes in the cost of living or large regional differences, but that is a subject for another investigation and another post.

Erosion of the middle class

Middle class: a social group that consists of well-educated people, such as doctors, lawyers, and teachers, who have good jobs and are not poor, but are not very rich. Cambridge English dictionary

The easiest way to get data on the middle class is by income, although most definitions, such as the one I have used, include education level and cultural elements.

The OECD report from 2019 defines middle-income as an income of 75% to 200% of the median income. The report states that a middle-income group in the UK is 58% of the ‘slightly smaller’ population than the OECD average of 61%. Still, the UK has a greater percentage (11% vs the average of 9%) in the upper-income classification (>200% of median), and a smaller percentage in the Poor classification (0-50% of median).

The report also states that the UK has fewer middle-income jobs (and upper and lower-income jobs) at risk of automation than the OECD average, 12% and 18%, and fewer middle-income people (35%) have difficulty making ends meet in the UK that the OECD average (47%).

According to the Office for national statistics, the UK’s median income is £29,600, making middle income between £22,200 and £59,200. There is a dramatic difference in the financial opportunities for people on the bottom of that scale to those at the top, but if you earn £22,200 per year, you are considered middle class by many economists.

Can we trust the doomsday calls?

A quick search and a focus on the UK only show a very similar picture to the one ten years ago. This search is a five-minute sense check and by no means exhaustive and is not making light of how tough it can be to live on the lower ends of the scale, particuarly with a family. Still, it is enough to start believing the declining confidence in institutions such as our media and politicians who make their living through clickbait. I am keen to get further thought the book and start to investigate the claims made.

Is your health worth 1% of your day?

Arnold Schwarzenegger ran a campaign in 2012 called ‘Come with me if you want to lift.’ The campaign aimed to get as many people as possible, spending an hour per day working on their health and fitness. When listing the rules for success in his book, Arnold wrote that taking one hour to focus on your health is just 4% of your day. Spending this time each day will compound and lead to exponential improvements in your quality of life over time. Most people cannot find an additional hour in their day straight away, so he suggests to start with just 15 minutes or 1% of your day and as you progress, the amount of time you can devote to your fitness will go up.

Whenever you hear someone you care about complain about time, ask them if a longer, better life is worth 1%.
Arnold

Percy Cerutty had a similar idea in his 1967 book Be fit or be damned. Percy lists the three most essential areas for health; Pedestrianism, a strong core, and regularly picking up heavy things. For pedestrianism (walking and running), Percy suggested running just 15 minutes per day on most days, starting with walking, then progressing to run/walks, with a long term goal of running 2 miles in this time (7:30 minute miles). He also suggested doing one longer run per week that you build up to 10 miles. For core strength, Percy suggested doing ten sit-ups as soon as you get out of bed and working towards a goal of 100 in a single set with a second set in the evening before bed. The deadlift is the king of exercises, and Percy believed that everyone should do it regularly. He wrote that you should start with half your body weight on the bar and have an eventual goal for health of lifting your bodyweight 5-10 times off the floor.

Dead-lifting, that is, heaving heavy articles whatever their nature may be off the earth, must be considered a primary physical function of homo sapiens.
In a society where most members can afford to have all or most of the modern amenities, the barbell should be considered an integral part of healthy living.
Percy Cerutty

Commit to spending just 15 minutes per day, every day on your health.

When asked by family and friends what they should do to get fit, I usually give two suggestions;

The couch to 5k programmes, such as the free one provided by the National Health Service, progressively takes someone from not running at all to running five kilometres without walking in nine weeks. The kettlebell swings ladder starts with 5 minutes of exercise and builds up to 10 minutes, giving you some time to warm up with some air squats and glute bridges. Doing the couch to 5k run/walks three days per week, the kettlebell swings on the three other days, some sit-ups each morning, and a day off should give you a good start towards health.

For January this year, I am giving the Yoga 15 challenge a go. If you are struggling to get a Kettlebell and it is too cold for you to start running, why not join me?

Once you are in a routine, have a go at some four minute movement breaks throughout your day to get you moving and deadhang from a bar for shoulder health. If you get a kettlebell and are doing the swings, add some overhead presses too. After completing your first 5k, have a look at what is next on your distance running progression.

Feel free to contact me on Twitter if you have any questions and let me know if you are committing to 1% of your day for your health.

The Stotan Creed by Percy Cerutty

‘Stotans, will, by virtue of their philosophy, be nature lovers, with a respect and appreciation of all evolved or created things. They will appreciate the sanctity of creative effort both in themselves and in others. They will strive to understand the significance implied by reality, will be able to discern the real from the spurious, and see no anomaly in nudity, either in body or mind. But neither will they cast pearls before swine. Stotans, for all the reasons that their philosophy stands for hardness, toughness, unswerving devotion to an ideal, and many more – will look upon the sea as their pristine element and endeavour to associate themselves with their primeval source of life by going into the sea at least once per month in all seasons of the year. No practice is more disposed to toughen both the body and the morale than this. Stotans believe that neither the body nor mind can be maintained at a high pitch of efficiency unless sufficient regular rest is obtained, and aim at a daily average of eight hours sleep (that is for young men-older men need only six hours). Stotans, also will not be found in social places after midnight. Stotans shall regulate their lives so that at the end of a period, varying with the intensity of the effort, each shall realize that he has attained, without conscious striving, to a state of knowledge and a position of leadership in the community. It is axiomatic that only the pure can understand purity, only the cultivated appreciate beauty, and only the strong measure their strength. Therefore, only the self-disciplined can command genuine respect.’
Percy Cerutty

Taken from The Golden Mile: Herb Elliott’s biography as told by Alan Trengove. The word Stotan was made up by Cerutty by joining stoic and spartan to describe his philosophy to life and athletics.

New Year’s health and fitness tests and goals

No party last night means I am fresh to test myself and set some health and fitness targets for the coming year.

The 1-2-3-4 assessments

In his book ‘Can you go,’ Dan John provides a simple 1-2-3-4 assessment he uses with all his clients. As I have just finished one fitness challenge, I thought it would be the perfect time to check in with these to see how I am doing and what I need to focus on for health and longevity. The book is excellent, and the kindle version is currently £3.99 so pick up a copy to learn the details for the assessments and what to do with the results.

Assessment 1: Stand on one foot

A simple test, stand on one foot for up to 30 seconds. Scoring above 30 seconds is the goal, holding for less than 10 seconds is a sign to visit a doctor for a check-up.

Result: I achieved 30 seconds on both legs without issue.

Assessment 2: Measurements

Next are two simple body measurements, the first is weight, with over 300lbs being a signal to visit the doctor and dentist for a check-up. The second measurement is the ratio between height and waistline with the target being the waistline at least half the size of height, if not, then body composition is the focus until it is.

Measurement 1 – weight: 82.5kg (182lb)
Measurement 2 – height and waistline: h: 183cm, w: 91 cm

Assessment 3: Questions

Question one is related to mobility, with being able to sleep with one pillow being the target. Question two and three are to help understand the results of the other assessments.

Question 1 – How many pillows does it take for you to be comfortable at night?: One
Question 2 – Do I eat colourful vegetables? I eat a lot of vegetables and a wide variety. I also eat a lot of everything else, particularly sugary treats which explains why I am not leaner.
Question 3 – Do you exercise for a least half an hour each day? I exercise for at least 30 minutes almost every day, for the last year I have run 5-6 days per week and then done mobility and strength on top of this. I choose to have a day off each week for recovery.

Assessment 4: Four tests

The final part of the 1-2-3-4 assessment is four tests. The first is a two-minute plank, with anything less signalling a weak core. The second is based on Claudio Gil Araujo’s sitting-rising test where you attempt to go from standing to sitting on the ground to standing again with no assistance from a hand or knee. The last two are the standing long jump, and a farmers walk. The broad jump’s expected standard is to jump as long as you are tall, so 183cm in my case, but then find your sport’s standards as an additional measure. Brian Mac has published some athletics standards on his website that I will use as a guide. Dan john suggests that you should carry half bodyweight in each hand for the farmer’s walk.

Test 1 – Plank: 2 minutes (only just)
Test 2 – To the floor and back up again: One knee assisted getting back up (9 out of 10)
Test 3 – Standing long jump: 175cm (I think I am limited by technique more than power – I will practice and retest)
Test 4 – Farmers walk: 160 meters with 2x 24 kg Kettlebells.

The strength tests

Next is a check-in with Dan John’s strength standards from his book Interventions. I will not list the steps or details in this post but look at them on Dan’s Strength Standards…Sleepless in Seattle post, to learn more, purchase the Intervention book currently £4.99 on kindle. The audiobook is £3.99, and as with all his books, Dan reads it himself.

The standards:

Squat movement: Level 5
- Front squat: 82.5kg (01/01/21)
- Squat: 100kg (01/01/21)
Press movement: Level 4
- Bench press: 100kg (01/12/20)
- One arm overhead press: 32kg Kettlebell (25/12/20)
Hip hinge movement Level 4
- Deadlift: 142.5kg (13/12/20)
Pull movement: Level 5
- Pullups: 13 (10/20)

Sport Specific test

I will split my year in half for endurance racing. I will use the first five months to raise my Functional Threshold Power (FTP) as high as possible in Project 4W/kg. I will use remaining seven months to get faster as a runner, with as much volume as possible to prepare for the Tromso Skyrun in early August and then targeting a fast 10k as the next step on my distance runners journey to end the year. These two goals will be the foundation for attempts at a sub 10-hour Ironman in 2022.

Tests

Bike – FTP via Ramp test: 242 watts at 82.5kg (28/12/20)
Run – Half Marathon: 1:35:09 (20/12/20)
Body composition (01/01/21)
- Weight: 82.5kg (01/01/21)
- BMI: 24.9
- Digital scales body fat: 17.9%

What to work on

Eat much less sugar to get down to a bodyweight of 80kg or lower. My height to waist ratio from the measurements section of the 1-2-3-4 assessments is close to the recommended maximum. Making sure that it does not get larger is essential, and reducing my waistline is suggested. I train a reasonable amount, so I know this is all about diet and reducing the sugar I consume. Getting my body fat down to reduce my weight will also help with all my other fitness goals. I was down to 80kgs during my most intense training period this year, so I know it is very achievable.
Work on a stronger core by completing the Gymfit level one planking series, ten daily ab wheel rollouts, and proper bracing during all lifts. I was not committed to my ab work during my running training this year. Regular ab work is something I need to commit to if I want to be a faster runner. I barely managed to reach two minutes on the plank test I am falling far short of Jon Albon’s five-minute goal from my running this year.
Practice my standing long jump a minimum of once per week until I can achieve a minimum jump of 216cm. I will be doing many power cleans, squats, and deadlifts over the next six months to help with my power on the bike. With an improvement in strength and power, weight loss, and regular practise to improve technique; I will aim to increase my standing long jump to the mark for an average athlete in the Brain Mac tables.
Purchase 2x 40 kg Kettlebells and work up to a 100m farmer walk with both, a one-arm overhead press with one, and ten double-handed swings every minute for ten minutes. I was limited on the farmer’s walk test by my available weight. Two other challenges I want to achieve this year require a 40kg kettlebell and a future challenge will need two, so I will get two now rather than any other alternative for farmer’s walks. Perhaps the money I save on all that sugar will cover it?
Squat 120kg for a single, 82.5kg of fifteen reps, Front squat 100kg for a single, and complete level two of the Gymfit single leg squat progression. My strategy to achieving a four Watts per Kilogram Functional Threshold Power this year is to get strong, then powerful, then work on holding power for a longer duration. The front squat target is to bring it in line with my bench press, and the Gymfit goal is as much for the mobility progressions and knee and hip health as it is for balancing the strength of each leg.
Achieve a double bodyweight deadlift. The second half of the year will be focused on running, and so the strength focus will move from squatting to the deadlift. To make this target, I will continue to work up Andy Bolton’s ladder of heavy kettlebell swings and bring my power clean up to 100kg in line with my bench press. I will also use farmer’s walks and upper back work, such as elevated feet ring rows and weighted pullups to support this goal.
Complete a Ramp test with a calculated FTP of 4 watts per kilogram. I detailed this in a recent post.
Complete a 10k race with a target time of sub 40 minutes. This is the next step in my distance running progression.

Some thoughts

Eight fitness goals is a lot, and some of them are challenging but not out of reach. Some targets will support others, such as getting a strong squat and deadlift will form a solid base to be fast on the bike and run. The year is in two halves, each with their own goals. The first six months focused on the squat and bike FTP and the second half focused on a double bodyweight deadlift and a sub 40 minute 10k run.

Am I too ambitious? If I achieve all eight targets by this time next year, I will know I did not set the bar high enough for myself. At 37, I am currently a fitter, more rounded, and smarter athlete than I have ever been, and I have used 2020 to achieve a level of strength and endurance that I am proud of. 2021 is a chance to build on this fitness and see what I can do.

Ready, set, go.

10 things I learned running 2000 miles in a year

You don’t become a runner by winning a morning workout. The only true way is to marshal the ferocity of your ambition over the course of many days, weeks, months, and (if you could finally come to accept it) years. The Trial of Miles; Miles of Trials
John L. Parker

I was not really a runner. I had done some ultra-distance stuff on trails including a few Skyruns, but at 85kg+, I had survived on pure grit, and I was far more comfortable going long on a bike. The tipping point was during the 2019 Outlaw X, an end of season middle-distance triathlon in the English Midlands. Training had gone well. I treated the 1.2-mile swim as a warm-up for the bike, I controlled the cycle, keeping to my conservative heart rate target and flew along the rolling hills that resembled my training routes just 40 miles south of the race location. As I pulled into the transition area at Thoresby Park, a lean and sinewed cyclist pulled alongside me and thanked me for the 56 miles of pacing and disappeared into a sea of bike rack. The relatively flat and familiar roads were much faster than the hills around Marbella from my first 70.3 Ironman earlier in the year, I had completed the first 57.2 miles in under three and a half hours, and I was on for a much faster time. The question in my head was ‘Can I get below five and a half hours?’

In short, the answer was no. What followed was two hours and five minutes of leaner fitter, and more prepared athletes passing me as I shuffled along. I finished in under 5:35 which I would have been thrilled with at the start of the race and my half marathon time was not any slower than my training had suggested, but mentally the race took a toll. If I was going to commit time, money, and annual leave from work to travel around Europe for endurance races, I needed to take them seriously; I needed to make myself a runner.

The most exciting thing for me about endurance races is the challenge of not knowing when I start if I can complete it. The Tromso Skyrun in the very North of Norway, at 57km long and with 4800 meters of elevation across some of the wildest mountains in Europe was a race that I knew I would need to commit to fully. In the Hamperokken Skyrace, I had a challenge that would force to become a runner. I set myself the target of running 1500 miles by the start of August before I lined up on the start line and a further 500 miles for the remainder of the year for 2000 miles in total, and signed up for six months coaching with the Skyrunning and obstacle course legend Jon Albon.

The Tromso Skyrun and all the other races I had signed up for were cancelled, but on Christmas Day, I completed the 2000 mile challenge. My final run was the seven miles and 500 meters of accent up to my local hill and back to my house in under an hour, cutting my best time from the previous year by over 12 minutes. I also completed a solo half marathon time trial on the 20th December in one hour, thirty-five minutes, and nine seconds, cutting down my PB from the start of the year by over 20 minutes. But more importantly, I am now a runner.

10 things I learned running 2000 miles in a year

samueljtannerblog.wordpress.com/2020/12/13/very-short-very-steep-very-fast-hill-sprints/(opens in a new tab)

To run high mileage, you need to run at least six days per week every week. Know your daily target average and get it done.
Spend time every day taking care of your hotspots – the niggles, pains, and tight areas you get while you run. If it starts to hurt, deal with it.
Have a big scary audacious goal, then have a plan to achieve it. If you can afford to get a coach, they will accelerate your progress and help you avoid injury (Jon Albon is fantastic). If not, pick a programme and follow it, trying to execute each workout perfectly.
Train all your running muscles to get faster, even if you are training for an Ultra. Train very short, very steep, very fast hill sprints, tempo runs, durations over 90 minutes and everything in between.
Run your quality sessions on the road and for everything else explore the trails. Use the Strava Explore Routes function to find new and exciting trails every time you go out.
Only buy premium running gear, your body will thank you. Premium stuff lasts, I have a Helly Hansen Lifa from over ten years ago, and it is still going strong. Focus on running shoes, running shorts, and a great watch (headphones too if you run with podcasts or music), the quality of the rest is less variable.
Fuel to recover. Drink lots of water each day, get consistent amounts of protein, and eat more carbs on heavy training days. Drink a recovery shake and eat a piece of fruit straight after hard sessions.
Running is a full-body activity so get your whole body strong. Do sit-ups when you wake up, then another set before bed, practice the deadlift and overhead press, and work towards a 1.5x bodyweight deadlift and ten pull-ups. It might not make you much faster, but it will make you healthier, less prone to injury, and much more confident in your body.
Read books by and about runners for motivation and make to make it part of your life. I recommend everything by Percy Cerutty including his biography Why Die, The Golden Mile by the legend Herb Elliot, From last to first by London Marathon winner and Olympic bronze medalist Charlie Spedding, and the novel Once a Runner by John L. Parker.
Be a part of a running community or have a few running friends to do some group training runs and races. Create a Whatsapp group with some runners to keep you motivated and suggest a yearly run streak.

I have transformed my running this year, not only am I faster (not yet fast), but I look and feel far more fluid when I run. I do still, however, have several things I need to work on. I am terrible at doing my core strength exercises, and the community element has been challenging this year, two things that should be easy fixes. Fast runners are lean, and I love sugar, I will have to start eating like an adult if I want to be fast. Finally, I can make myself suffer in an effort on a bike, but I don’t feel I can push myself as hard when running. Developing more mental strength when running, losing some excess weight, doing my core work, and running with others can get me to the next level on my distance running journey.

You can find out about Jon Albon’s coaching on his website. There are cheaper coaches, but Jon is a world-class athlete and self-coached, so you are getting a lot for your money.

Let me know on Twitter if you have any questions on anything in this post.

Make useful videos, publish them once or twice per week, and do this for two years

Many people have predicted that the future of work is in portfolio jobs made up of multiple income streams, including online courses. This week YouTuber and Junior Doctor, Ali Abdaal released his 2020 income that gives information on what that portfolio might look like and how someone might get there. Ali’s income revolves around his Youtube channel, which currently has 1.3 million subscribers.

Ali Abdaal’s 2020 Revenue – £1,013,000

A full-time job as a doctor £22,100 (First seven months of the year only)
Youtube Adsense £100,695
Affiliates £132,471
Sponsors £136,000
Skills share courses including affiliate links £350,000
Online Part-time YouTuber Academy course £220,000
Alumni inner circle membership £53,000

The online part-time Youtuber Academy course and Alumni Inner circle membership

Ali recently launched his first online cohort-based course. The course lasts four weeks and starts at $1495 for the Essential Edition. Premium and Executive editions cost $2495 and $4995 and provide additional features including lifetime access to future courses and further access to Ali and his team. The course’s first cohort had three hundred and sixty students enrol for a total income of £220,000. Ali chose to charge this amount to provide a premium service that would deliver meaningful change in his students. In the video, he explains that people need accountability and community to help them learn from a course in today’s world of unlimited online content. By charging a significant fee for a four-week part-time academy, he can get heavily involved. He delivers sessions live, provides access to himself and his team, and can do much more to help his students make it as creative entrepreneur’s on YouTuber.

If you build an audience over a long period of time who, know, like, and, trust you, then when you start charging real money for a product which is actually good, people will be happy to pay that money and pay for access to you.
Ali Abdaal

The course was so successful that the students asked for ongoing access to the community and Ali. An impressive one hundred and twenty-four students (34% progression rate) have signed up for membership of the Alumni inner circle service. Features of the Inner circle include a monthly coaching call with Ali, guest workshops, additional content, and weekly and daily events.

This idea of building a following via YouTube and social media and then providing access to you via an online course is an interesting one compared to the University model. Large institutions leverage their longstanding reputations and Government protection to attract students and charge them significant amounts of money to provide them with the content, accountability, and community Ali refers to. Courses like this one are beginning to develop sophisticated delivery models and provide motivated students with the skills they require to succeed at work. Will we start to see academics pursuing a portfolio job, working part-time for Universities while building a YouTube follow that they then use to deliver courses directly to students?

Building a portfolio job

Most of us rely almost entirely on a single source of income. This should scare us more than it does. For several years, Ali has asked his coworkers if they would continue to work in medicine if they won the lottery. Half respond they would leave immediately, and the other half say they would go part-time. When asked why they do not become part-time now, the answer is usually related to money. The video gives some useful advice for anyone wanting to start becoming a creative entrepreneur and making some, or all, of their living from the internet.

…If you want to seriously want to get to this level…of making money online, you have to put in large amounts of work over a very long period of time. But the good news is that all of this is really, really fun so it won’t feel like work hopefully.
Ali Abdaal

Ali’s full-time job is a tiny fraction of his full income, and he can hire two full-time employees and another part-time to help run it. He notes that all his various income streams result from posting useful videos to his YouTube channel, twice per week for the last three and a half years.

Like every good thing in life, the progress is slow, but if you keep at it consistently over a very long period of time, then hopefully things will start to compound.
Ali Abdaal

Google Adsense income from short video adverts and banner ads on Ali’s YoutTube videos. Monetising a YouTube channel through Adsence requires a minimum of 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time. He provides the annual growth of this income:

2017 – 59 videos – 1,600 subs – £0
2018 – 88 videos – 120k subs – £12,329
2019 – 62 videos – 450k subs – £33,186
2020 – 98 videos (307 total) – 1.3M subs – £100,695

Once the channel grew and the subscriptions and watch time increased, affiliates through Amazon affiliate links and similar, and sponsorship income started to grow. Again, Ali stresses that this income relies on the success of the YouTube channel. Ali also introduced several Skillshare courses in areas including productivity and study skills that are currently his highest income stream but rely on a massive scale driven by his YouTube channel’s popularity.

Success = work x luck x unfair advantage.

Work in this equation involves consistently publishing content that is as useful as possible. Ali mentions that he is routinely spending upwards of six hours per night, developing his skills, researching, and producing content and has been for the last fourteen years. The luck is the type that comes from putting lots of work to take advantage of the opportunities when they arise. This luck includes the YouTube algorithm. Most of his videos get viewing figures around 20% of his subscription numbers, but his videos’ small fraction will often earn significantly more views. The challenge is there is no knowing which videos will go viral and which will get baseline figures. Unfair advantages are the things that you bring to the table that others can’t. Ali provides the example of when he started making videos and was studying medicine at Cambridge University. He used being a trainee doctor and Cambridge University’s reputation to attract people to his channel before proving himself as an individual. He made videos that played off these two elements to build his early subscriptions. Ali suggests that any new YouTuber works from their unfair advantages to help get their first views and subscribers.

So the challenge for any aspiring YouTuber: Make useful videos, publish them once or twice per week, and do this for at least two years, and you will get success.

Watch the full video on YouTube and subscribe to Ali Abdaal’s channel. Get in touch with me on Twitter to let me know what you think.