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TODAY’S TRAINING INSPIRATION:
TREVOR LINDEN

Today’s training inspiration is a man who saw his jersey number retired by the Vancouver Canucks earlier this year, only the second man in history to be so honored. Like Stan Smyl, his predecessor on that exclusive list, Trevor Linden was known more for his heart than his God-given talent and for playing hockey in a manner that often sacrificed his body for the benefit of the team.

Trevor Linden captained the Vancouver Canucks to their Stanley Cup finals appearance in 1994 and finished among the league’s all-time leaders in games played (and with several Canucks franchise records).

Always known for being one of the team leaders in fitness, Linden’s competitive drive extended beyond his play on the ice in several ways. He became an avid athlete politician, serving as president of the NHL Player’s Association. He also continually competed with himself in what appeared to be an academic effort to determine if there were any limits to the amount he could give to his surrounding community. To this day, no such limit has been known to exist.

Like the other top competitive spirits in the NHL (Chris Chelios was said to have taken up competitive bobsledding), Trevor Linden found athletic outlets during the cancelled 2004-2005 NHL season. His drive to achieve and win manifested itself in competitive cycling, where in his mid-30s he performed admirably in international long distance cycling meets.

With that in mind, I mixed up my own training a little bit today, trying out a few new things in order to adapt to some physical limitations that popped up today. This was kind of my Rocky III “Apollo takes Rocky to the swimming pool” day.

TODAY’S PERFORMANCE

10 Miles on Stationary Bike: 32:21

Weights:
- Wide Grip Pull-ups (x5)
- Seated Cable Rows (x5)
- Cable Tricep Underhand Pressdown (x5)
- Cable Tricep Overhand Pressdown (x5)

iPod songs during training (custom):
1. Eminem – FACK
2. Eminem – The Way I Am
3. Eminem – Stan
4. Eminem – Lose Yourself
5. Eminem – Shake That
6. Eminem – Sing for the Moment
7. Eminem – Mockingbird
8. Eminem – Go to Sleep

TRAINING NOTE

I originally stepped onto the treadmill to attempt a moderately fast 5K, something like 9 mph the whole way. After about 25 steps, that was over. My legs had absolutely nothing in them…no energy, stiff and sore. They felt like they were going to pry apart if I tried to run for one minute, let alone twenty.

I guess that was fair enough, and yesterday’s “day off” wasn’t quite enough of a rest. In the previous few days, I had put them through heavy weight training, 100m sprints, 400m sprints, 5K and 10K runs…so I guess there weren’t many muscles in there that I hadn’t overworked or worn out.

So… I decided to wear out some new ones on the stationary bike. I originally planned to do twenty minutes or so, but once I got going and saw the miles piling up, I figured a 10-mile cycle would be a decent place to start. I also perform and train better if I have a fixed distance rather than a fixed time. And I would now have a benchmark time for the 10-mile cycle if I wanted to try to improve upon it in the future.

I set the “difficulty / resistance level” to 15 (the choices ranged from 0 to 25) and set off. 32:21 later, I had finished the distance and wobbled home on my rubbery legs. However, now I’ve got a time to start picking away at the next time I feel like giving the running muscles a day off.

HOLD UP…ROUND 2

In the interests of continued cross-training, and also the supplemental goal of cutting down any excess weight to be as light as possible for the body weight bench press, I decided to work in an elliptical trainer version of a hard-paced 5K run.

The elliptical trainer in question only has controls for resistance (1 to 10), incline (1 to 10) and only provides readouts for time and calories burned. So those are my variables if I want to measure progress. I set the resistance and incline to maximum (10) and began pumping the legs as hard as I could. And that was indeed quite the incline. It made the raising treadmill that Drago runs on in Rocky IV look like…something not very inclined.

Elliptical Trainer (Max Resistance / Max Incline): 20 Minutes / 499 Calories Burned

iPod songs during training (custom):
1. Eminem – Guilty Conscience
2. Eminem – Just Lose It
3. Eminem – When I’m Gone
4. Eminem – Stan (Live feat. Elton John)
5. Eminem – FACK

I’m not quite sure how to translate these particular statistics into some sort of 5K equivalent, but I can say that I felt as bad as (or worse than) I did after my hardest and fastest 5K. Naturally there are other factors like my legs being in rough shape from heavy training and also drawing on some undertrained muscles…but I had definitely pushed my cardio to its limit and I was pretty sure that had this been a 5K run, it would have been pretty decent.

INSPIRATIONAL CLIP

Today’s training inspiration comes from a man who is truly inspiring. In an era where professional athletes are all-too often classified as heroic, Trevor Linden was a man who actually lived up to that standard on and off the ice…one of the true heroes of sports. The following video is the clip that was played on the screen at GM Place the night the Vancouver Canucks retired his #16 jersey and raised it to the rafters.