Health & Fitness
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Don’t Let The Old Man In: Seven Strategies For Adding life To Your Years
Photo: Steve and Charlie Markusen on the summit of the Grand Teton, Wyoming. From August 2019, fifty years after Steve first climbed the Grand with his dad Dave Markusen in 1969. “I just get up every day and don’t let the old man in.” Clint Eastwood Aging is like rust—it never sleeps. As we…
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Gaining Fitness, Losing Weight and Slowing Aging with Interval Training
Photo: Doing what I love to do at age 65. Deep in the Escalante Grand Staircase wilderness, Utah; on a eight day, eighty mile off-trail through hike. May 2019. Photo Credit Paul Gardner In my previous What I Learned newsletter, https://crooked-thumb.com/2021/04/07/interval-training-live-longer-live-healthier/ I defined interval training, how it works and the benefits of incorporating interval training…
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Interval Training: Live Longer, Live Healthier
Photo: Steve taking the inside line to a third place podium finish at the 2008 Hopkins Raspberry Criterium. Like the namesake chariot races from Roman times, riding the fine line between control and mayhem. Interval training is not just for competitive athletes. A number of years ago I took on a client in his early…
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Get Lean and Stay Lean: 7 Strategies for Losing Weight
Photo: Steve skiing untracked powder on Mavericks, a 3000 foot vertical backcountry ski run in Grand Teton National Park, January 30, 2021. Credit: Jack Henley Why is it so hard to lose weight? This is the subject of my previous What I learned newsletter article, https://crooked-thumb.com/2021/01/19/body-set-weight-why-its-so-hard-to-lose-weight/. As I wrote in that article, the brain sets…
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Body Set Weight: Why It’s So Hard To Lose Weight
Photo: Steve ice climbing at Sandstone, MN, January 2021 My client was twenty five pounds overweight. A common problem in our country where over forty percent of the population is obese. When I started full-time personal training at Lifetime Fitness, the company’s weight loss philosophy could be summed up in the phrase, “eat less, move…
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Into the Cold: Training for Backcountry Skiing
Photo: Steve Markusen on Triple Direct, Teton Pass, WY, 2019. Photo Credit: Max Markusen I peel the climbing skins off my skis, reset the bindings to downhill mode, don hat, gloves and goggles. I am alone at the top of Edelweiss Bowl, just south of Teton Pass, Wyoming. My son Charlie left two days earlier…
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Into the Cold: Training for Ice Climbing
Photo: Pre-dawn start, pitch one of the Ames Ice Hose. The eyes are the window to the mind. Telluride, CO, 2007. Photo Credit: Paul Gardner I shiver in the pre-dawn cold. Staring me in the face is the first pitch of the 500 foot mega-classic Ames Ice Hose. My lead, the crux pitch: one hundred…
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Creatures of Habit: Small Changes—Big Results
Photo: 2017 Minnesota Senior Games gold medals. Another bike race, another hill… and once again I was dropped from the lead riders. For years I struggled to lose weight failing time after time. Bad habits in control, I ate and drank too much; and over trained. When I hit 60 years old, my weight was…
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Deliberate Training Week Nine: Payoff
Photo: First tracks on Triple Direct, south of Teton Pass, WY, January 8, 2019. Photo credit Max Markusen. This is the ninth and final installment of my series Deliberate Training: Principles of Periodization. Whether you are alpine climbing, ice climbing or backcountry skiing, mental and physical fitness is your key to enjoying the moment and…
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Deliberate Training Weeks Six, Seven and Eight: Recovery–Endurance–Power
Photo: Me and my buddies on a March 1978 backcountry ski tour, Sun Valley, Idaho Fitness programming works. There is a formula for success: goal + reality + determination = a positive outcome. You need to have clear goals. Decide what you really want and commit. Prioritize, you can have most anything, but not everything.…