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We've entered spring. In my quest to return to marathon fitness, I'm changing my training emphasis. I'm dropping the separate leg and upper body workouts 6 times a week and adopting a full body 3 times a week routine. As I try to increase running mileage, there is always a tension between my leg strength work and my need to have them endure miles. With the current scheme, I'll do my legs on non-running days. I was finding that both running and do leg strength work on the same day was really making me tired. Hopefully, by splitting them, I'll have more recovery time for both.

I do not see all this as optional. I am convinced that the leg work prevents running-related injuries: dead lifts, high load heel raises, good mornings, and split squats. There's some peer reviewed science to back me on this as well as personal experience. Additionally, the dead lifts, along with a more knowledgeable core routine, have me hefting wet mulch bags with more strength than any time in my life, including when I was an active duty Marine. The upper body work is not optional either. Progressive muscle loss begins in the sedentary population in their mid twenties. By their 60's and 70's they are either emaciated and frail or obese and hardly able to move. They tell themselves that they are the inevitable result of age and genetics. These are lies we all tell ourselves. Muscle loss is discretionary. Sarcopenia is reversible. Epigenetics is more powerful than genetics.

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I track total volume for each exercise. Total volume is simply the weigh, multiplied by the number of times lifted, summed across all the sets of the exercise. I follow a traditional body building scheme where, once I hit 12 repetitions on all sets, I increase the weight by 10-15% and drop the repetitions down to 6-8 reps per set. The result is a satisfying rise in intensity as my muscles contract with additional intensity against the additional weight. But, with higher intensity comes lower ability to achieve volume: my total volume. I know objectively that this is a good thing. By cycling through sets of 6 reps and slowly building back to sets of 12, I am cycling through high-intensity, low volume and lower intensity, higher volume routines. This holistic approach stresses both strength and endurance systems in my body. Of course, that total volume number will drop for this particular work out, only to inevitably rise again as I continue to train.

This morning, it was supine pull ups. Last workout, I hit 5 sets of 12. Today, I laid a 10 pound weight across my chest and dropped to 6 reps. The additional weight brings additional focus. Sometimes, doing 12 reps almost becomes mindless; 6 reps, on the other hand, demand to be noticed.

This particular morning is the Monday after a more aggressive 11-miler. Mornings after harder, longer runs are always lower energy, no matter how careful I am in attending to recovery.

No matter, Friday's repeat of this morning's routine will show progress.

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I've never tracked workout volume for strength training before. It is a simple concept. For an exercise, multiply the number of repetitions by the weight raised in each set. The sum of the results for all the sets is the volume of that exercise. It is a basic, unflinching metric of work performed. Decreasing rest periods between sets decreases the volume the athlete can achieve. Increasing sets, repetitions, or weight lifted increases the volume. I find that increasing goal repetitions or weight lifted often decreases my volume on that day for that exercise. If I have achieved 5 sets at a particular number of reps, I will increase the number in the next workout. However, I can often not sustain that increased number across all sets. Likewise, an increase in weight lifted often causes a drop in reps sufficient to drop the overall volume. But these are anomalies. With consistency, I increase the number of repetitions at the heavier weight with the goal of hitting 5 sets of 12.

The volume number sets a metric that the athlete must focus on raising. I'm beginning to see the impacts of improperly managed components of my life affect my strength when I let them intrude. With body, as with mind, consistent improvement can only be achieved by focus on desired goals. If you divert this focus to other things, let other things intrude, the metrics will show it.

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