People often think that because I consistently win races I’m more genetically gifted than my competitors. I’ll let you in on a secret, unfortunately for me that is not the case. There are a lot of very talented athletes and the only way to beat them is to train harder and smarter.

The most important ingredients to success are motivation, perseverance, and having a plan.

Below is my training program.

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday: 150 pull-ups with no rest being over 15 seconds, Add 35 pounds to my back and do 100 more pull-ups. Then do 7 sets of different ab workouts, and then do 3 sets of sprinting 450 stairs. Paddle my local class 5 river with my heart rate monitor. Some days I do three sets of 5 minute sprints with 1 minute breaks. Then I do 10 sets of 20 seconds at 100%, then 10 seconds easy. I do each set 10 times. Other days I sprint the river with the goal being to have a faster time than the day before, along with a lower heart rate.
Tuesday and Thursday: Work my chest, biceps, and triceps, paddle.
Saturday: ride my road bike or mountain bike.
About every two weeks I do a crossfit workout. To learn more about these workouts go to www.crossfit.com

To keep training from getting to monotonous I’ll sometimes do silly workouts. One time I timed myself to see how quickly I could do 500 pull-ups. Another time I timed myself to see how quickly I could do 1000 push-ups and 500 sit-ups.

The general rule of thumb is to make sure your workout is real painful. Never quit when you are tired. I tend to think most of your return comes from the last little bit of your workout that you do. Most people can’t take the pain in the last part of the workout so they quit. If you can push through until failure you will have a huge advantage on most of your competitors.

Good luck!
Tao