This is a workout and story from my good friend Charles Pollak

Hello fellow rowers and friends. My name is Charles Pollak, and I am a close friend of Xeno’s and another rower as well. I graduated from Brown University in 2003, where I was captain of the crew team, and went to United States Olympic trails in the straight pair in 2004. Over the past few years I have cut back considerably on my training from being an elite oarsman in training, to that of a food connoisseur and over-worker in the office without any real sense of physical or mental balance in my life. Well that is about to change.

Over the next few months I look forward to having fun with rowing training again, by focusing on rowing, diet and cross training as well. I want to become an athlete again. Thereby, I will be posting thoughts on this monthly training letter about my goal of getting back into great rowing shape for competition and for everyday life. This will be done by sharing different workouts and training tips that I am putting together with Xeno: to help all of us all reach our training goals together, no matter how big or small they are.

Some of you are probably training to become internationally competitive athletes, while others are training just to have fun, or even to lose a lot of weight. No matter what you want to accomplish by working with Xeno’s iron oarsman training plan, we can all work together as a team to exceed our goals, and all have fun together in the process. Here is an erg workout that I did yesterday at the iron oarsman erg gym. It takes just over an hour to finish. I hope that you enjoy and please let us know any thoughts or questions that you have.



Warm-up: 15 minutes

Light rowing on erg 10 minutes
Stretching upper and lower body 5 minutes
*Drink water as necessary, always remember to stay hydrated.


Drilling and Breathing: 20 minutes

This helps to burn the proper rowing technique into the muscle memory. Also helps to continue with the warm-up so that we are thoroughly prepared for the workout ahead of us.

-start with arms only 20 strokes low 10 strokes a little harder
-add the back swing 20 strokes low 10 strokes a little harder
-move into quarter slide 20 strokes low 10 strokes a little harder
-half slide 20 strokes low 10 strokes a little harder
-3/4 slide 20 strokes low 10 strokes a little harder
-full strokes 20 strokes low 10 strokes a little harder

(If on sliders) move into one legged rowing building the stroke from legs only, to legs and back, into full strokes. Then switch legs. Do some harder strokes during each stage as well for 10-20 strokes at a time. Feel the blood begin to flow and continue breathing. 2 minutes for each stage of stroke per leg

Steady state 10 minutes
*Drink water as necessary, always remember to stay hydrated.



Workout: 25 minutes

This workout is a power workout for torque
Have fun with it and watch your splits drop throughout the three sets.
You can row at a controlled rating and use the power strokes like weights to build strength and gain muscle coordination

(40 seconds on / 20 seconds off) * 5
3 minutes rest light paddle, keep moving

(30 seconds on / 30 seconds off) * 5
3 minutes rest light paddle, keep moving

(20 seconds on / 40 seconds off) * 5
3 minutes rest light paddle, keep moving

*Drink water as necessary between pieces



Warm-down: 15 minutes

Do triceps and bicep curls with the erg handle for the ever important beach muscles. Summer time for Europeans in pink speedos is coming up! Do these while sitting with straight legs and tall lower back. 2 minutes

Do abdominal work for injury prevention. Do this on erg seat while sitting on front of the seat with a flat back and only going down as low as you feel comfortable. Do not over extend sit ups going down and risk tweaking a muscle or your back. Try different arm positions during sit-ups as you feel comfortable. 1 minute

Light row to warm down 5 minutes

Stretch to finish warm down and help muscles maximize gain from workout 5-10 minutes

*Drink water as necessary
*Always eat healthy some solid food within 30 minutes of completing workout to replace carbs and protein, etc. burned off from workout. Feel free to do this even if you are training to loose body weight, as this is really good for you. Enjoy!
*If training to be an elite athlete, feel free to finish workout with post sets on the weights and some more solid steady state on the ergometer. Have fun!

Xeno Muller, Olympic gold and silver medalist, indoor rowing, rowing technique.

Important change in CPR read on!!!!

This comes straight from CNN website and VERY IMPORTANT!!!

(CNN) -- Mike Mertz was dead.

With no pulse, no heartbeat and no vital signs, he lay slumped in the front seat of his Saturn, foot wedged against the accelerator with the car stuck between a tree and a stucco wall in Mertz's townhome complex in Glendale, Arizona.

He never saw his life flash before his eyes. In fact, he doesn't remember a thing -- only what people told him later. A UPS driver, Corey Ash, was making deliveries that Wednesday afternoon, when he heard the engine noise.

Sprinting across the street, Ash reached across Mertz's slumped body, turned off the car and pulled the 59-year-old from his vehicle. He hit 911 on his cell phone and started CPR, the way he had learned it in a National Guard training exercise two months earlier.

The American Heart Association says that sudden cardiac arrest kills more than 400,000 people in the United States every year.

This is the worst-case scenario. If a person's heart stops pumping blood through the body, and they aren't in a hospital, they have only about a 2 percent chance of surviving without serious disability. But Arizona cities including Glendale are starting to find that a few simple steps can radically improve the odds.

Less than a minute after his 911 call, Ash could hear the ambulance siren racing from Fire Station 154, barely a mile from the complex. When the truck arrived, a burly medic firefighter named Ruben Florez thumped an urgent rhythm on Mertz's chest, 200 times in the next two minutes, before another medic stepped in and delivered an electric shock from the paddles of a defibrillator. After 600 chest compressions and three electric shocks, a weak pulse returned.
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* In Depth: Matters of the Heart
* Heart Association: Hands-only CPR works

Until three years ago, Arizona's success rate in cases like this was no better than most of the country. This past month, however, physicians in the state reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association that a new regimen by paramedics has tripled the success rate, to more than 5 percent. Among patients whose collapse from cardiac arrest was observed, long-term survival went from 4.7 percent to 17.6 percent.

In a bold departure from standard practice, paramedics in most Arizona cities do not follow the guidance of the American Heart Association. Instead, they follow a protocol that was developed at the University of Arizona's Sarver Heart Center, largely by Dr. Gordon Ewy.

Even after cardiac arrest, Ewy said, there's enough oxygen in the body to feed the brain and keep a person alive for several minutes. But that air helps only if someone compresses the heart to circulate blood. In traditional CPR, rescuers alternate 30 chest compressions with two long "rescue breaths." Paramedics are trained to start by checking the airway, and insert a breathing tube at the start of resuscitation. These extra steps, said Ewy, waste precious time.

In Arizona, paramedics skip the breathing step. They simply alternate two minutes of pumping on the chest -- 200 compressions -- with a single shock from a defibrillator.
Health Library

* MayoClinic.com: CPR

Epinephrine, a powerful stimulant that jump-starts the body's vital systems, is given as soon as possible. Ewy said the Arizona study, along with studies on bystander interventions in Japan and his own animal research, show that resuscitation without additional breathing is superior.

"In my mind, the evidence is overwhelming right now," he said.

On Monday, just weeks after the Arizona study was published, the AHA revised its official guidelines to promote breathless resuscitation as the preferred method for bystanders without CPR training -- even as it continues to recommend medical professionals such as EMTs continue to incorporate artificial breaths.

Dr. Vinay Nadkarni, past chairman of the American Heart Association's Emergency Cardiovascular Care Committee, said it is too soon to say whether Arizona's EMT method is better than the AHA guidelines. He noted that while Arizona paramedics don't stop to give breaths, they do insert a device to keep the airway open. He said the AHA agrees that forceful, "minimally interrupted compressions" are the most important factor in resuscitation.

But Nadkarni said the AHA is committed to what works. "If there is a way to save lives, and a system can find a way to save a life, the Heart Association is for it."

Crystal Sorenson, a Glendale firefighter and medic for more than 20 years, experienced a vivid example last summer with the case of 48-year-old Daniel Lane. As she pounded his chest, Lane kept grabbing her wrist, struggling to look up. Each time she paused to deliver a defibrillator shock, "he'd let go and drop down, passing out."

A similar story inspired Ewy, who told CNN about a recording of a 911 call he heard several years ago, on which dispatchers guided a woman through CPR on her husband while she waited for paramedics to arrive.

"After a while, she came back to the phone and said, 'Why is it every time I press on his chest, he opens his eyes, and every time I stop and breathe for him, he goes back to sleep?' " Ewy paused and gave a rueful laugh. "This woman in 10 minutes learned more about cerebral perfusion [getting blood flow to the brain] than we had in 15 or 20 years of CPR research."

All that research, Ewy said, pointed to one thing: "You don't stop pressing on the chest for anything."

In Glendale, paramedics are convinced they have a good thing going. "I hate to say it, but before, you went in [to a cardiac arrest scene], almost expecting that it wouldn't work," paramedic Matt Juscius said. "Now... it's almost commonplace to have these guys come down to the station."
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Mike Mertz had a big grin on his face last week, walking in to shake hands with Florez and the rest of the crew at station 154. Outside, he shook his head at what might have been.

"I was completely out. Gone." Now, aside from still-sore ribs and a new implanted defibrillator, he's fine. "If that UPS guy didn't come around the corner, I wouldn't be here today. It was that close."

Xeno Muller, Olympic gold and silver medalist, indoor rowing, rowing technique.

Hello everyone, I helped coach a group of Orange County Firemen!

Hello Rowers,
Last Thursday, I went to Buena Park to coach a small group of firemen, who are about to start their indoor rowing challenge which will consist of rowing 30KM in the month of April. For some of us that distance is very manageable, however if rowing is new to someone, any distance can be challenging. Check out here the photo!
XENO

Xeno Muller, Olympic gold and silver medalist, indoor rowing, rowing technique.

Weight Loss Standings

OK everyone...
The current situation with my weight loss is good. I keep losing weight on the Nutrisystem plan. I must confess that I have substituted a couple of food items to other food that I bought at the grocery store.
A couple of days ago I was due to order my next 28 day ration. I wanted to purchase only lunch, dinner and snacks, without breakfast stuff. However that is not possible, with Nutrisystem it is all or nothing. So I ordered a full round of everything and this time the price tag was in the upper $300, that is fine, since the diet is working. My energy level has increased since I have lost my first twenty pounds. If feel great. Check out my video log on www.youtube.com under "ironoarsman". If you have trouble finding it use Xeno Muller weight loss.
Being on this diet has given me a new goal. I want to combine a healthy life style through rowing and weight loss. That is it. Although my former ideas about rowing being good for: getting into college, "prehab" before joint replacement, "postrehab" after joint replacement, were all good, but I believe that the weight management issue can hit a huge group of people, me being part of it.
So stay tuned. The goal is to make people fitter and slimmer with rowing under my supervision, it is going to be awesome. I will live up to my own expectations to drop the weight, anything under 230 is the ultimate jackpot!!!!!!!
www.ironoarsman.com
XENO

Xeno Muller, Olympic gold and silver medalist, indoor rowing, rowing technique.

Lose weight, subscribe to the XENO MULLER training program

Hello rowers and others who are on diets,
We now offer a yearly subscription of the XENO MULLER training program. This new option brings a $75 savings!
The focus of the training program is to BURN A TRUCK LOAD OF CALORIES, build the aerobic and anaerobic threshold in order to sprint and feel great in February and August. The training program is perfect for anybody who workouts on their own. It is perfect to keep motivated and interested in exercising. The program is great for absolute beginners as well as highly seasoned rowers. I added a sample month for download to make the decision easier. All the best,
XENO
Click here to find the sample training program on www.ironoarsman.com

Xeno Muller, Olympic gold and silver medalist, indoor rowing, rowing technique.