It is good to be old...

The past six years of my life I have spent training over thirty hours per week.  The first few months of off season training are the worst because this is when I do high volume and conditioning.  It is important to do this phase of training because this is the conditioning base that will help me maintain my physical condition throughout the season.  As I have gotten older it isn’t as important to do as much volume training instead, it is essential to train less, but maintain a high level of intensity. 

Recovery becomes imperative as I get older.  This includes spending time in the hot tub, cold tub, sauna and receiving deep tissue massages weekly.  It sounds like an easy life, but believe it or not these treatments are necessary for an older athlete, like me to be able to train at the top level daily.   It is defiantly a perk to not have to put in as many hours of training as I use to, but with age comes a lot more aches and pains.  I have forced my body frame to maintain about twenty pounds of extra weight throughout the past six years.  This weight along with the intense weight training has caused my joints to ache.  So, with age comes increased joint pain, but also less volume of training and more massages!  I guess you can not have it all.