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Outside magazine, May 1995
Todd's JourneyBy Todd Balf
I WILL WALK IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF A MAN NAMED MARVELOUS On this Tuesday night at the Petronelli Gym in Brockton, Massachusetts, I'm tailing my trainer and host, Goody Petronelli, as he weaves through the taped and headgeared guys skipping rope, bashing heavy bags, and loogeying into spit buckets. We stop under a huge poster of Marvelous Marvin Hagler, the undisputed world middleweight champion from 1980 to 1987 and Goody's star pupil. "Would you believe Marvin came to me when he was a skinny 16-year-old and that he's never lifted a weight in his life?" he says. Glistening with sweat, muscles rippling, Hagler looks like a big, bald wrecking machine that pumped iron for about 20 years straight. "Look at that stomach! You want a fit body?" Goody queries. "That's it!" Of course I want that body, and I've come to Goody and his dingy third-floor walk-up to prove to my brother and every other heart-rate-monitoring athlete and coach what I suspect: that an old-school regimen is the equal of hyperscientific fitness programs. Beneath hand-scrawled maxims like THERE IS NO SHORTCUT TO SUCCESS and TRAIN UNTIL IT HURTS AND THEN SOME MORE, Goody tells me he's been guiding folks in the strength and speed of boxing for 30 years. Before that, he tells me, he used to whip scrawny navy enlisted men into fighting shape. Goody stops and takes a long, hard look at me. "You got 12 weeks?" he asks over the grunts from the ring. "Heck, I could get two of you in shape in 12 weeks." It was kind of a mixed message. There was the promise that Goody Petronelli, legendary boxing trainer of not only Hagler but current middleweight titleholder Steve Collins, was going to get me fit. On the other hand, my less-than-imposing physique had already left an impression on him. There was no hiding behind the facts that I'm 32 and have a wife, a newborn child, and a job with irregular hours. I haven't competed since I rode a cycling leg as part of a company relay team in a triathlon some seven years ago. And on my first night at the gym, I'd arrived without a jump rope, gloves, or a right-left combination. But Goody isn't to be deterred, or at least he shows no flagrant signs of dismay. Stripping down to a white T-shirt, he demonstrates several exercises. Despite the fact that he's in his late sixties with a lived-in face, his six-foot frame is hard-muscled; I'd be happy to look as good as him. He responds with can-do nods to all of my fitness questions--until I mention the duathlon in Killington, which gives him pause. "Tell me something, kid," he says, his raspy voice bearing in eagerly. "Can you beat this guy?"
I DISCOVER I'M ALL HEART AND NO BICEPS My fitness evaluation reveals little I don't already know (and Goody pays it very little attention). The heart and lungs are in pretty good shape, and the muscles are evaporating. The fact that I've consistently run or biked for 30 minutes to an hour a few days a week has had some bearing: I last 15 minutes and 30 seconds on a treadmill that increases in speed and grade every three minutes, and my pounding heart tops out at 184 beats per minute. That isn't so much a telling sign of fitness as is my VO2 max, 59.7 milliliters per kilogram of body weight per minute. Considered one of the most significant of endurance-type-fitness measurements, the number indicates how well the body takes in oxygen and uses it to produce energy at the cellular level. While I can't compare with elite endurance athletes, who regularly max out in the seventies, I'm above average for my age group. By comparison, the body-fat percentage measurement is cause for celebration: 12.4 percent. Serious male athletes between the ages of 25 and 35 are somewhere between 8 and 12 percent body fat. Unfortunately, says Chris Lovasco, the fitness director of the Beverly YMCA and overseer of my strength tests, my body composition could be changing real soon. That's because I've ignored my muscles for years at a time, and at my age, he explains, any body part left unattended now begins to degenerate fast. "Keep up this pace for a few more years, and you'll lose four to eight pounds of muscle mass by age 40." Without muscle mass, Lovasco tells me, my metabolism will slow and my fat burning-ability will be crippled. On most days, deteriorating muscles don't get to me. But maxing out at just 35 pounds on the shoulder press with an aerobics class looking on has a sobering impact. Chris doesn't pull any punches, either. With a straight face he tells me that my strength is equal to that of someone who regularly lifts the remote and occasionally mows the lawn.
HOW I DITCH WEIGHT TRAINING "Remember," Goody cautions me on our first day of real business, "you can't put a $1 million house on a $500 foundation." So with a lot of base-building to do, I'm given a six-day-a-week, low-effort regimen: I'll focus on 60- to 90-minute "roadwork" sessions (running and cycling) to add to my stamina and lots of reps of classic calisthenics--pull-ups, push-ups, leg lifts, sit-ups, and crunches--for power. There will also be quick timed bouts in the gym with the jump rope and the heavy bag. "If I've got a fighter going against some fancy-pants dancer-type in a few months, I'm not going to have him beef up with long sessions against the heavy bag," Goody says, acknowledging my need for agility over bulk. "I'm going to have him running and moving. Always train with your opponent in mind." In this case my opponent isn't Tom so much as the notorious Killington Mountain Bike Biathlon course. A couple of 2.5-mile runs sandwiching a ten-mile ride up and down 4,200-foot Killington Peak won't take me more than about 90 minutes, I estimate, but aside from the aerobic demands, there'll be a lot of stress on the joints. Goody is training me the way he trains his boxers, but he's also preparing me well for my race: Muscles require just as much if not more lead time than the heart and lungs--though not as much actual training time--to get in shape. "Don't stop halfway on those sit-ups," he bellows while watching me, the midsection being a favorite target of boxing trainers. "That's cheating. Go all the way up and down, and keep your hands behind your head." My first-week training regimen looks something like this (times in minutes): Endurance/Strength
Monday: 60-90 bike/30 cals Petronelli also suggests that I stay away from weight lifting, which can compromise speed and flexibility. Instead, the calisthenics and gym work will be done in boxing-roundlike fashion: three minutes of hard work for every minute off. That way, says Goody, you build strength and endurance. I like the idea, mainly because I abhor pumping iron, plus I can conveniently hang a heavy bag and a pull-up bar in my listing, 80-year-old barn. The spartan atmosphere is perfect for toil and sacrifice; Marvelous Marvin used to hole up in a shack on Cape Cod for weeks at a time. No wife. No kids. Just Goody and some worn floorboards. Unfortunately, the program loses some of its rough-hewn charm when I march into the barn and manage only two sets of four pull-ups, two sets of 15 push-ups, and a dysfunctional round of jump rope.
LEARNING TO LOVE THE HEAVY With a few weeks of foundation training under my belt (I can now do three sets of 25 push-ups, nose-to-floor style), Goody has introduced me to the heart of his program. "You gotta make yourself work harder in training than you would on race day," he tells me. "Spar with extra-heavy gloves. Box longer rounds. Get in there with someone 20 pounds bigger. By fight day, everything feels light--the legs, the arms, the hands, the heart." Hagler, says Goody, used to do much of his pre-fight roadwork on sand or by racing in local 10k's in a pair of combat boots. I've adapted Goody's advice as best I can: I pedaled in old leather hiking boots, hit the bag with heavier gloves, added longer sprints at the end of my rides, and in Goody's gym I've answered to a quicker bell, giving me shorter periods of rest. But now I worry about keeping it up. My knees hurt after the sprints, my shoulders after the gym workouts. I seek a second opinion from Jim Warren, a strength and speed coach to baseball players such as Barry Bonds as well as top amateur triathletes and professional water-skiers. "You're putting in the distance, so Goody's just adding intensity," says Warren. "You'd never tell a marathoner to go 30 miles before the race. Instead, you'd have her run a series of long intervals to build strength. It's basically sound." Warren tells me that unless I notice any symptoms of overtraining (see "The 85 Percent Solution") I should stick with it. After all, my base-building weeks went smoothly. "You're not a weekend warrior anymore," Warren assures me. "As part of the mix, it's OK to just go for it."
I FEEL LITTLE BUMPS ON MY HEEL I can't run. A couple of weeks ago I pulled up lame, feeling like somebody had swatted me across the back of my right calf with a pipe. On successive attempts to run, even after four days of rest, I have to stop after ten minutes. "It's Achilles tendinitis," says Dr. John Kazes, an orthopedist at North Shore Sports Medical Clinic in Danvers. He describes it as one of the classic gung-ho injuries: The Achilles tendon connects the two-headed gastrocnemius, or calf muscle, to the back of the heel bone. As you develop the muscle, it gets bigger, tightens up, and puts added strain on the tendon. "Prevention is easy," explains Kazes. "Stretch the muscles you strengthen, or you'll lose range of motion." Goody prescribed a decent amount of stretching and I'd ignored it, even though on my fitness test my flexibility showed up as a glaring weakness. The solution, says Kazes, is to back off for a few weeks, perhaps take up swimming. But I tell him that's unacceptable. I'm a month away from the race, and there have been reports from my dad suggesting Tom is making startling progress. While the doctor advises me that a tear could be a devastating injury requiring surgery (now there are only pea-size bumps on my heel, a sure indication of scar tissue and perhaps inflammation), I convince him to jury-rig a solution. So Kazes fits my right shoe with a temporary heel lift to keep my Achilles tendon from having to stretch too far. Before I leave his office, I also get marching orders: "Try to do most of your runs on a soft, clay track. No jumping rope for a while, always do the proper warm-up and cool-down, and use anti-inflammatories and ice. Pay Keely on the way out."
AN UNWELCOME EPINEPHRINE RUSH Almost as soon as I'm pain-free and feeling strong, I lose momentum again. Now it's my motivation: I've missed some workouts and slept through others. I've found that solid training partners are hard to come by, plus the idea of needing to improve each week feels like a burden. On top of it all, I'm getting nervous about my training strategy--it recently occurred to me that I've never biked and run in succession--and I'm experiencing lightheadedness, as if I'm getting sick. Not getting an immediate call back from Goody, I frantically contact Jim Warren again. "One thing at a time here," he says. "It's understandable that you're a little flat. While it's not scientific fact, I've found that my athletes seem to work on six-week cycles. It takes that long for the muscles and mind to adapt, and then you've got to try something new." Warren is dead-on--it has been six weeks since I started the overwork phase. "As for your nervousness and light head," he continues, "it could very well be epinephrine--what's referred to as adrenaline. It can be released at the wrong time and make you sick with worry. Do something to distract yourself." Not much later, Goody calls: "Fight through the doldrums, kid. Shake things up. Back when I was training Marvin, I spent half my time finding decent sparring partners to keep him focused." I take both coaches' advice by bagging the usual workouts to spend a sunny day muscling dirt around in our garden. Then I enter a local nine-mile mountain-bike race and surprisingly beat up on my buddies. I feel much better.
THE SHOWDOWN Goody has been away for about two weeks at a title bout in Germany, but he left me with some advice. "Do a light workout on Thursday and nothing on Friday or Saturday," he said. "Your body will be in a near-primal state by Sunday. It will need the work." In the duathlon I am to stalk and measure Tom on the run, and then unload on the 2,100-vertical-foot-ascent on the bike. At the starting line, Tom exudes the same tight-lipped confidence he's displayed ever since arriving at my house outside Boston three days ago (and damn, did he look slim). On the mostly uphill trail run, I follow--Tom watching his heart-rate monitor and me watching Tom. But halfway through, I decide that he's running conservatively, and I sprint ahead. By the transition I've opened up a ten-second lead. The climb goes better than I expect, too, as I ride past people who are pushing their bikes, and though I look back often, I don't see Tom. Knowing that he's planning to go all-out on the descent, I continue to press. "There are two things I can't do anything about," Goody had said to me before he left. Pointing to his jaw and tugging at his crotch, he'd confided, "You gotta have a solid chin, and you gotta have balls." I lift off the brakes and plummet down the mountain. Passing my family, I go hard into the final run, though soon I'm reduced to a sluggish jog. I trained at this kind of intensity and duration--but I never put the two together. Still no Tom. Finally the finish line comes into view, and I hear the race announcer. But I quickly see my brother, and for one terrifying moment I wonder how the hell he passed me. But then I realize he's coming right at me. He still has the final run to go! Tom extends his hand for a high five, and I reach up to meet it. Both pooped, we miss.
SLUSH PUPPY LOVE I win the race and the wager. Tom, in a tradition that extends back to childhood, now owes me Slush Puppies until the next time we face off. I take 17th overall in a time of 1:40:06--but I don't dare rub that in. Besides, the real reward comes with the results of my postevent fitness test. I've shed seven pounds, and I'm down to a near-elite 10 percent body fat. My chest, biceps, and legs all look better, and just for kicks I do two treadmill tests: The sub-maximal test, which is supposed to push my heart rate to as high as 150, doesn't even force it above 140 beats per minute. In the maximal test I peter out at 16-plus minutes, which isn't a statistical improvement over my effort three months ago. However, Chris Lovasco from the Y tells me that the lack of progress on that test can probably be attributed to my emphasis on long, relatively steady efforts. At a middle-effort range I have proved to be amazingly fit, which makes sense: I did most of my training at a medium pace. The only negative? My flexibility has gotten no better. I still wasn't stretching enough, and it's a miracle that I didn't pull a hamstring or reinjure that Achilles tendon. Soon afterward I call Goody with the news, thank him for his guidance, and tell him I plan on continuing to embrace the fitness lessons I've learned. He replies, "I knew you had it in you the whole time, kid. Ready to get into the ring?" "Maybe," I respond. "Let me talk to my brother." Todd Balf, a former hoops player and senior editor of Outside, frequently covers health and fitness topics. He also writes the For the Record column.
Copyright 1995, Outside magazine
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