The Masters Athlete Survival Guide

Trade Intensity for Longevity and Win Your 40s and Beyond

• John Katalinas and Scott Fike • Episode 46

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We unpack the gap between weekend intensity and weekday inactivity, then lay out a practical path for masters athletes to build consistency, protect joints, and keep playing longer. Mobility, skill practice, and short strength-conditioning sessions turn fear into confidence.

• defining weekend warrior versus competitive athlete
• risks from sedentary weeks and sudden intensity
• mindset shifts after 40 and fear of injury
• why consistency outperforms intensity for longevity
• mobility as daily warm-up and real-life strength
• blending carries, sleds, and sandbags for safe conditioning
• simple frameworks: circuits, Tabata, and short sprints
• skill practice over ego lifts to prevent dumb injuries
• how hard to train using 70% effort and reps in reserve
• setting three to four weekly touchpoints for progress

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SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to the Ministers of Athletics Munda, where we explore the secrets to thriving and sports after 40. I'm John Candelinus, and along with Scott Flug, we'll dive into training tips, nutrition hacks, and inspiring stories from seasoned athletes who defy age limits. Whether you're a weekend warrior or a competitive promo, this podcast is your playbook for staying fit, strong, and motivated. Let's get started. And we're back. Hi, I'm John. I'm Scott. Scott. John? I I I have a question. I have an answer. Poughkeepsie. What? Poughkeepsie. That's my answer. Okay. Thanks for coming, everybody. Alright, talk to you later. Hope you enjoyed this show. Yeah. I'm still Scott. Yeah, the answer to everything is Poughkeepsie. You're 42. Um, and I don't want to use this as a derogatory term. So excuse me. Let's let's frame this. And so we are not elite athletes. But uh really all ego aside, we're not bad athletes. I mean No, we're pretty good. I mean, we we've got some some credentials. Yeah, I got, you know, you did national rankled stuff and not pink stuff. So what I don't want to do is uh um I'm gonna use this term weekend warrior. Okay. I don't mean it in any derogatory sense. It's just for people whose goals are different than ours.

SPEAKER_02:

I think one of the things, and you're right, there's a lot of people that say, oh, they're a weekend warrior. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I wish I I tried to think up a different term, but it just it income, I think it immediately puts a person in a certain mindset. Well right, let me ask my question. Ask your question. So there's us, and but we've created this uh you know this master No, this Masters Athlete survival guide, right? Yeah. Um a lot of Masters athletes, I would bet the balance of most Masters athletes are weakend warriors.

SPEAKER_02:

In a positive statement. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

That's why negative statement that's why I keep saying, you know, but I mean they've got careers and they've got family and life. Yeah, you know, adult children, grandchildren, own homes, get face tattoos, you know, the things that normal old people do. Give themselves tattoos? Give themselves tattoos, that's fair. We have a friend who did that. We do. Um very talented. So my my question is, I I guess what my question is is we we we're fifty episodes in. The the term weekend warrior, do they need to do things differently?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, let's let's talk about the differences between what a weekend warrior, what the connotation is and what reality uh pretends to be versus you know what you might consider a competitive athlete. Okay. So to me, the connotation of a weekend warrior is they only go hard on the weekend. That you know, it's beer league softball or it's um bowling on Thursday nights. And I know it's not a weekend, but it's a once-a-week type of thing. And you know, that's it. They don't do anything else. That's not always true. To me, a weekend warrior is really more of a recreational thing, it's not a a lifetime, it's not a well, I I'm gonna re I'm gonna re retract that because you can be a weekend warrior forever. You can because you're working 40, 50, 60 hours a week, that the recreational side of being an athlete only really leaves you with weekends. But I think with weekend warriors, we've got to be careful because they tend to be more sedentary. Again, we go back to that concept of life happens, families work during the week, and you know, in a previous episode we talked about sitting at our desk for 30, 35 hours a week. And the problem with that is when you're that sedentary, you risk more injury due to inconsistency because you've been sitting for five days and now for two days you go hard. Well, we talked about stiffness and soreness before, and that concept of the muscles aren't quite what they used to be, they're not used to that consistent motion, and I think we're gonna get into that tonight.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think I think there's sort of a a bell curve when it comes to uh weekend warrior. I wish I had thought of something better to call that, but I think when you're in your 30s, mid-30s, maybe even early 40s, you're you're still sort of trading on credit from your 20s. Like you are headed out, and you know, oh, I'm playing softball this weekend. Well, what did you do last? Well, I played softball last weekend, right? Uh, I think with the a master's athlete, and I will go with coin a new term, master's weekend warrior. I think so. We're master warriors? Maybe. Yes. I just think that they're a little more mindful. I think it's everything from fear. I I I know I've run into a lot of uh how far in are we that I can mention pickleball? Are we good?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, no, I who had pickleball at 518.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, no, because I've run into people in pickleball that like literally that is their first thought when it comes to exertion when playing is fear of injury.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, and I think that's that's a big part of it because and you just hit on this when you talk about weekend warriors and masters weekend warriors predominantly, they can be they tend to be a little bit older, they're not, you know, in their 20s, in their early 30s, you know, or their teens if they're out of high school type of thing, you know, or you know, again, 20s if they're out of college, they're a little bit older, they might be those formerly competitive athletes, you know. And I'm not gonna point at you in this sense, but stop pointing at me then. Okay, I'm pointing at me when I'm talking about he lied.

SPEAKER_00:

He said he's not pointing at me, and you know what he did, he pointed at me.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm pointing at myself, and then I'm talking about John. You've told the story on a few different episodes, and I think it really hits at some of what we've talked about as master athletes, is that you got it uh, you know, high school, you went into college, you were a very good college track and field athlete, and then you know, um I'm drawing a blank on his name, your coach that got you off the couch.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, Tuck Inferna?

SPEAKER_02:

When Charles when Charles got you off the couch, you know, it was hey, you can still do this. You you know, you need to do this because you're doing nothing. So you were an exceptional athlete, but it do I owe you money? You don't. Actually, I might oh I I know that I owe you money. Wait a minute.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, so I see how this works now. No, we're I will short circuit Scott because he's making me blush. Um I spent so let's see, kept competing to maybe 26, 27, and then, you know, kids, house, divorce, all of it. Uh it literally I turned 40 before I really did anything meaningful. Um I did I did get a 500-pound bench for my high school reunion. I don't know that was a goal. How about that for the weirdest, egotistical, dumbest?

SPEAKER_02:

Who had John patting himself on the back at seven and a half minutes?

SPEAKER_00:

I'm not patting myself on the back. I don't know if that's a huge deal. Because you can't reach your back. Yeah. Yeah, basically. Um but I think I think if if if if this podcast accomplishes anything, it it's this message. If you are a weekend warrior, expand your your efforts a little.

SPEAKER_02:

And I think we're gonna get there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I really do. Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

I I think an easier way to describe a weekend warrior is quite simply, you are very sedentary during the week because you have your job, you have your life. And in the weekends, you just go all out because you sort of got that energy boxed up. And it could be pickleball, like you said, it could be golf, it could be long runs, it could be competitive, whatever. Yeah, doesn't matter. But those things sort of happen, and the problem there is we run into injuries because we haven't been training consistently. You know, you've talked about the idea that in pickleball, one of the things when people back up because they're not used to moving all the time, is that they'll fall.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's a big fear, too.

SPEAKER_02:

And I think that's a big thing that we need to look at. And when we talk about it, I think one of the things that pops into my head is we still, you know, Bruce Springsteen reference here. We go back to the glory days when we didn't have to warm up or train or anything like that. And right now, I think part of the problem is the weekend warrior mentality is I've only got so much time, I'm as good as I once was when I ever was. There are so many musical references in this one. No, I just told me Keith right there. Nice. And we don't warm up, we don't cool down, we don't care about recovery because hey, we just played you know six hours of pickleball, or we just you know had beer league softball. So what do you do after beer league softball? You go to the bar and have beer.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, they don't call it like recovery league softball, duh.

SPEAKER_01:

You are such an ass.

SPEAKER_00:

No, but you know, here's the other thing. Here's here's the thing about this term that I'm not loving of weekend warrior. Right. If you are in bar league softball or whatever you do on the weekends, I think part of it is like I love feeling athletic at whatever level level I can compete at.

SPEAKER_02:

I well, if you can't be an athlete, you need to be an athletic supporter.

SPEAKER_00:

He derailed my thing. I was gonna do something wise and he derailed it. Um but there we we are where we are. No, the reality is I think that those weekend most weekend warriors are people that have done something in their past that either defined them, like they had a sport that they were good at, or just get that rush from moving their body. I would agree with that a hundred percent. I I think that's a big part of it. And I like I said, I think you need to expand your weekendness to take care of the old the old master's body now.

SPEAKER_02:

I I like where you went there because that gets into this whole idea of consistency and the how we approach it. You need to be consistent, you know, whether it's a three-day program or a four-day program, not counting or counting weekends as part of that. Uh you need to examine what is your goal? Is your goal strength? Is your goal conditioning? Is your goal mobility? And we're gonna talk about all three of those things tonight. Or is it to be competitive in God help me, pickleball, nice, or weightlifting, or whatever. You know, what are you looking for? And then I think one of the biggest things that we see is and we talked about this in a previous episode, there are so many resources out there now. I don't need a coach, I can go to Joe Schmo on YouTube or whatever, and there's nothing wrong with Joe Schmo on YouTube, but Joe Schmo on YouTube is a trained athlete. We're just getting back into this, you know. When you and I were younger, walking around with our muscle and fitness magazine or powerlifting USA magazine and saying we're gonna copy those workouts.

SPEAKER_00:

Truth.

SPEAKER_02:

What are you smoking?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, I certainly couldn't do that now. Like, oh yeah, god no, I'll I'll deadlift like Eddie Hall. Why not? That seems wise. But you know, I I saw on the social medias again. Um, I think I think my digital mentor Fred Duncan may have posted it. Okay. There's a pyramid, and basically the bottom of the pyramid is gen uh general physical preparedness. GPP, yeah. Yeah. I think that the top is sports-specific skill. Uh I apologize if I've done it wrong. You you look it up, you have the internet, right? Um, not you. I'm listener, you. Oh. Yeah, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I'm definitely not listening to you.

SPEAKER_00:

But I think the weekend warrior thing, like I don't want to drift into, hey, if you're gonna play beer league softball, which I think we're gonna use consistently as the weekend warrior official uh sport. Um I don't think you have to like get in the gym and train. And I think if you have limited time, and actually if you only want to expend limited effort, like I mean, you know, you're not you're not like bringing home money from beer league softball.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, think about what Dan John said to us when we were talking to him. I only have 15 minutes. I'm gonna put some weight on a sled, I'm gonna pull that, and then I'm gonna push it back. Right. It doesn't have to be a 45-minute thing.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, the other thing I was gonna go with though is like you can work on your sport specific skill. Go to a batting cage. Like if you're in the archery, go in the backyard and shoot 20 arrows. Um it's just doing something. Uh, you know, which which sounds so lame. I feel like we say do something way too often, but I I think that if you're that weekend warrior competition only is a bad way to take care of your ancient body.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, you're heading towards this duality of what that came from my uh word of the day.

SPEAKER_00:

I was gonna say, who got a word of the day dictionary for Christmas?

SPEAKER_02:

I did, I did. Um, the the duality of consistency versus intensity, and I think that's really the idea of what we're sort of exploring tonight is looking at that weekend worry where it's intense in a very short period of time versus uh, you know, sort of a normal approach towards athletics, whereas consistency over a longer period of time. And I think we need to look at that idea of consistency versus intensity. What's more important, what's more beneficial for my body, what's gonna be more detrimental for my body?

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, so uh let's let's play a game, let's make up an athlete. I I'm an athlete. I am in beer league softball right now. All I do is when we have a game, I show up, I'm I played baseball in college, I'm pretty good at it. I could still swing a bat, yeah. Um what do I do to expand on my one day a week thing? Because and I in my first thing, um I've had friends and family who are who have done that, you know, in post-collegiate, you know, recreational stuff. If I had to if I had to mentor any of them as to what do I do with any extra time, the first thing I would say is get some sprints in. Because I think the hierarchy of how to expand your weekend warriorness into a little more of a GPP situation is I think you have the potential to hurt yourself sprinting from first to second base.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, 100%.

SPEAKER_00:

Because let's all take a moment now, all of us, everybody listening. When's the last time you sprinted? Yeah, exactly. Last week. Exactly. No, two weekends ago. Oh, yeah, when you sprinted from the couch to the refrigerator?

SPEAKER_02:

No, when I sprinted carrying a 200 pound sandbag.

SPEAKER_00:

That's not really sprinting. You know, you it felt like sprinting, but if you think about it, it's more like falling forward. You are such a horse's ass. I know.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, I I John, I agree with you. And that's an idea of intensity versus consistency. You don't have to do something all out all the time, especially when you are only doing it one or two times a week. Right. That becomes problematic. That's where the tears and the pulls and the everything else happens. That's when you do see those people who are running from first to second base and all of a sudden they come up grabbing their hamstring because something just popped. Yeah. Or something, you know, stretched when it really shouldn't have.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep. And you know, I guess I'll I'll go back to the mythical beer league softball athlete that's I'm mentoring. Um poor guy. You know, the next thing I would expend some energy on? Shoes. Is the mental aspect of whatever your pursuit is? Tell me more. What do I do in this situation? You know, in the case of softball, I'm center field and I get a high pop. Like, what what is the high percentage things to do in a situation? If I'm an archer, what do I do to improve the the grouping of my arrows? If I am playing pickleball, do I drill? Like, do I just work on serves or returns or something? Um you know, if if I'm if I'm a uh getting back in the gym, technique is probably as important as intensity.

SPEAKER_02:

Now we're getting to the consistency side of it. Yeah, yeah. And I honestly feel, at least for the masters athlete, yeah, that consistency is more important. And yes, here's the disclaimer: yes, doctor, no, not that type of doctor. But I think that the more you do something, the more your body gets used to it, the more it becomes ingrained mentally, but as well as muscle memory.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, uh that I think that's where I was going because in the moment of doing your sport and you're hanging out with your friends and you're really trying to compete, you know, to the best of your ability, that's when you turn weird and turn an ankle. That's when you, you know, if you have if you've done some drilling on how to to do a powerful throw from center field or shoot an arrow, whatever we've chosen. Um I think you give your body sort of the toolkit to not do those stupid things.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm gonna jump in here and I've got a great example that I my brother was a high school, I'm sorry, a college all American in wrestling. Okay, okay, extremely talented kid when it came to wrestling. Did he wear a mask? He did not. He was not Lucchile. No, he was not Mexican. Come on. No. So took fifth or seventh in the nation. I mean, he was good. Okay. Okay. Took some time out, did the normal type of stuff, weightlifting every now and then. Timmy has come out to the compound starting, what, about a year ago, maybe a little less, and is finding that sort of way back into it and is an incredibly talented weightlifter. Okay, when we get into some of the strength competitions. This is where I go with that consistency side of things, because as he's doing it more, he's picking more up. And this is where, and this is what you were just talking about, is learning your cues. Because one of the things that I when I work with new athletes that come into the compound. I have to sort of observe and see where their strengths and weaknesses anatomically are as well. And it's that idea because if I teach you how to lift something, but mechanically that isn't the most advantageous way for you, why am I teaching it to you? Let's go to my deadlift.

SPEAKER_00:

Let's go to your deadlift.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, a few years ago, I deadlifted 600 pounds because I did it as a good morning.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep.

SPEAKER_02:

And then we realized that that was probably the worst possible thing to happen.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

John gave me a world of caca. A world of caca. A world of caca. And now it's my form is very good for me. So I think that's where that consistency comes in that you're talking about. Yeah. That mental side of it. Getting it so the body knows not only what is best, but what is best for you.

SPEAKER_00:

You probably also, like if we go with my scenario of taking 15 years off, you also probably need to relearn your body a little bit. 100%, yeah. I don't think you can ask the same things. Uh I think uh I went through this with Highland, I think. Uh wait a minute, you did Highland for a while. Uh um, some you know, some things can mask things. Like I use strength when I didn't have form, um, which is kind of dangerous because I could push my body way harder than than I could move my body, which is dumb.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, your strength versus form masking. We just did a competition down at Candace's place in Pennsylvania, and you could have gone forever with the keg lift. You I mean, your form was spot on perfectly picked it up, pulled in your lip, moved the hands, stood up, used the hips, put it over the bar. What you forgot was this was a timed event. Yeah, it didn't matter. But I mean, you could have probably done it 30, 35 times at that weight without a problem because your form was just so like automatic.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, but here's the corollary on this. So, yes, it was a strongman competition, and some of the athletes probably weighed 70 or 80 pounds more than I. Why are you looking at me? Because I was throwing it from the ground over the bar. So I I basically like I competed to my level against myself. Yes. Um, I could could I have done some stupid thing? Sure. Uh, would it have mattered at the end of the day? Maybe not. But I was very pleased with the outlet because I did things intelligently and with some purpose, and uh, you know, in the guidelines of the training that I had put in.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, and that's it. That's an idea of consistency.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

So let's talk about some of the things that we need to think about when we talk about um what are we looking for? Strength versus conditioning versus mobility. You and I, over the course of the time we've been training together, I think we've really hit all three of those, and we've gotten to maybe a sweet spot where the strength and mobility are woven into the conditioning that we do.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, we try. I guess, yeah, I guess we try to bake mobility into training. Just all things.

SPEAKER_02:

One of the uh two things come to mind to me. You know, very often, and I when I worked for another company, there was a guy that I worked with, and he was probably about 20 years older than me, 15 years older than me. He said, I learned something my father. Every time I get down on the ground, I'll make sure there's a bucket next to me so I have something to push off of to get up.

SPEAKER_00:

I thought it was just in case he got to go, because when you gotta go, you gotta go.

SPEAKER_02:

No, no. Um, but I want to say maybe a month ago, you did a programming where we all put like a crash pad on the ground, and you had to go down onto one knee, bring the other knee down, then come back up, back up without using your hands.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep. Stupid if you're 20. If you were 20, you'd be like, why are we doing this?

SPEAKER_02:

But when you're in your 50s, yep, looking at people doing that stuff, it it's amazing. And you know, the goofiness of like when I put stuff into the washing machine and I throw the stuff in there and you're down on your knees, you make sure everything is good because I got a front load. I get up now without using my hands.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. You have to train to that, and you also have to understand like when I say mobility for a master's athlete weekend warrior, you may not have much. That is not a reason to stay on the couch eating Cheetos. Not a sponsor. Because Pop Tarts are better. Moving a little is uh is better than not moving at all.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, we're not gonna beat the whole get up and walk for 10 minutes thing. No, you know, one of the exercises that we start to introduce once we get past people literally just moving. You had us do this once where it was we were on uh a couple hundred pound plates, I think. It was maybe what, four or five inches off the ground. Oh you had to lower heel touches, heel touch. Yeah. Now you think, oh, what's the problem? Do it without wobbling all over the place. Do it with keeping your legs straight, keeping your foot straight, just touching your heel to the ground and then come back up, then do it with the other one, and keep going back and forth. That mobility type of stuff that we program in now, that I guess, you know, to Adrian's point, I guess that kind of is our warm-up.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and if you think about it, like the weekend warrior who does a little bit of training, goes to the big box gym. If you're just using the machines, you are not introducing those off-center like degree of freedom loads that you get from odd objects and barbells and just you know Turkish getups. Oh, I hate those. Yeah, I'm not a big fan of Turkish getups. They they look, you know, again, I think when I was 20, I discounted them like I got to stand up with a weight? Who woo-hoo? And every now and then now I'm like, can we do something else?

SPEAKER_02:

So I mean, mobility. Okay, let's say that's our warm-up. And I think really we've gotten to the point now where we're doing that conditioning and that strength motion together. Whether it's, you know, we've called them grinds in previous episodes, it's that idea of picking something up, putting it over a yoke, or carrying something. Um, you know, we've done some where it's pick something up, carry it 50 feet, and then at that 50 feet, you set it down and you grab maybe 100 or 200 or however, wherever your strength finds you, pound sandbag and put it over your shoulder, and then do it again. Do it five times. That idea of conditioning, because your heart is now pounding as if you were running, but there's also a strength aspect in that because you're looking at the form, you're looking at the sort of the explosiveness that goes into mobility, it goes into strength, it goes into conditioning, it really sort of weaves all that together. And if you do those three or four times a week, you're now developing consistency.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. And I think I don't, I don't, I it's probably been debunked. Uh Joe Weeder used to call it the confusion principle. Yep. Um, do something else on a weekend. Don't just play softball. Try something else. Go for a hike and over rocky terrain, go uphill, go rock climbing with rock man or rock lifting with rock man. Yeah, you can't rock climb. No, but I mean all right, so you can go very small hill climbing. But you know what I mean? Like if you if you can't, if if you don't have and this this is again not a dig on anybody, but if you do not have the background to sort of self-program, there's two options. One is find somebody that can help you figure out how to be the best weekend softball player you can. The other thing is that do a bunch of things. Um to test yourself in a bunch of different disciplines, including softball.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, we talk about you you mentioned the old weeder principle, the confusion principle. Uh, we've talked in previous episodes about periodization, we've talked about different things like that. We don't talk as often about how often we should do things. Now, yes, if you're just starting, get up and walk every day 10 minutes without fail. You gotta make sure you do it. If you don't do it, don't beat yourself up, just do 10 minutes the next day. Don't double it because you're punishing yourself and then it becomes a punishment. When working out becomes a punishment, that's a problem because then you don't want to do it. If you're going to do you want to become consistent, I recommend three or four days a week. You know, and one of those can be the stuff you're doing on the weekend. It can be the softball game. Because quite honestly, when you're doing a competition, you're working out. That's true. You know, so let's, you know, give a couple of quick thoughts on working out what it looks like in terms of who should we we go to? Are there some mental things we might want to think about? You know, we've already said don't follow what you see in the magazines. Don't always go to the internet. Yes, you can find some neat stuff, and it's helped you and me in some of our lifts and whatnot, and some of the competitions we've done, but you've got to be careful because there's so much garbage out there.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I don't think I don't think the weekend warrior needs to codify their training. I really think what they need to do is either work on things that freak them out or they don't feel as capable as they should. Like, you know, if I'm uncomfortable quickly bending from the waist, maybe I need to do good mornings, not with 600 pounds, but maybe I need to do something like that.

SPEAKER_02:

Right, but I I want to throw almost a caution out there. Too often, when people say, you know, they're they're bad at bending the waist, all they do is bend at the waist to get better. That's not what you need to do. You need to also look at those ancillaries. You know, if you're doing overhead pressing, well, one of the big things that you have to worry about with overhead pressing is your core. I'm sorry, any sport that you do, pickleball included, you've got to worry about your core strength.

SPEAKER_00:

No, that that's absolutely true. And the other the other trap, the other thing that maybe needs to get mentioned here is, and I was super guilty of this when I came back to athletics, is only training the things you're good at. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Like those are those ego lifts.

SPEAKER_00:

Like, oh, I'm I'm gonna go to the gym and squat 600 pounds because I can squat 600 pounds. It's not helping me, it's not it's not improving any deficiencies, but you know, I I feel very comfortable in a commercial gym finding all the plates I can and squatting them.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. So we've talked about maybe three, four days a week. We've talked about pushing ourselves. How hard is hard enough?

SPEAKER_00:

How hard is hard enough? You're gonna make me get through this with being an adult. Damn. Yes, I am. That's fair. You know, there there's a uh there's a concept of perceived excursion or exertion, thank you. Um, or or you know, reps available like left in the tank. I think, and everybody can interpret this as they will. I think if you're if you're training at 70%, I think you're okay. If you want to get a fancy watch and look at your heart rate, um, you know, 220 minus your age is has historically been a thing. I'm not 100% sure that's still true. But you know, there's heart rate variability on your watch now. There's a a million different intensities that you can track with all sorts of wearables. But I think the bottom line is um it scales, right? Like should I train so I can talk to you while I'm training? Sure, there's room for that. Should I go all out for brief intervals? I think there's room for that too. Well, I think what there isn't room for is to go in the gym, go all out every time, all the time, then you know, put the gym bag on the on the couch and sit down. I I I that does not serve you.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, it goes back to where Eric said to us. Exertion is going to differ, like you said, depending on what the exercise is, as well as where you're at in your journey. So you go just past comfort. And that's gonna vary from week to week, too. There are times when I've done stuff that previous week I rocked it. This week I'm not moving anything.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And you know, uh I I will give the listener some homework. I think there's two terms you need to look up if you really want to do something, but you don't know what to do. Look up Tabata and look up uh circuit training.

unknown:

I hate Tabata, I know.

SPEAKER_00:

And I'm and I'm not gonna go into the details of those. I'm gonna let you discover those on your own. But I I think those are two valuable tools for people who are maybe slightly under trained and don't have a ton of time. I think they're I think they're very time efficient, and uh I know they're very effective, even at at all levels. I think even elite athletes um can employ both those techniques to uh some success.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, the simplest tabata I've ever seen came from Olympic sprinters, where it was sprint all out for 30 seconds, then jog for 30, and they kept going back and forth.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, yeah, or they did it for three minute intervals. I mean, to dial it down, not even get all sprinty, but you know, I I trained to do a 5K years ago because I wanted to say I did a 5K. Silly man. I know, but my training started with running the straightaways and walking the curves of uh a high school track.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And that, you know, it that served me really well. Uh, I recommend the the book Couch to 5K. I think uh if you choose to do that, um I think that you know, if you want to run a 5k, I think that's a great place to start. Um you know I want to do an episode in the future? What's that? Equipment. Stuff. I like stuff, that's just why I want to talk about it.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Alright, so my mythical weekend warrior. He's training a little more, or she. They are training a little more. Um, they're seeing some success. That's enough. Like I hate to be this way, but that is enough. If you are enjoying your weekend sport, if you are feeling healthier, there I don't want to create these these like unlimited you need to be getting after it. You know, we come from a like the the thing the thing I see athletes screaming these days is let's go, let's go. Right? Because they're all fired up. But the whole Nike thing, one more rep. I think there's nothing wrong with enjoying your weekend sport and and improving your health some. I would just reverse those two things.

SPEAKER_02:

You want to enjoy your enjoy your health and you know, your healthier. Yeah. Because those benefits you know go to longevity, go to quality of life, and all those things. And that part of that quality of life is enjoying what you're doing. Yeah. You know, the sport, the the camaraderie, all of those things. I agree. I think those are some of the the big situations that they need to look at. So to me, if you came up to me and said, Hey Scott, I'm working with Joe Schmoe or Susie Smith, whoever your your softball player is, what what one thing would you want me to tell them? If I if I said to you, give them one pearl of knowledge. You like that?

SPEAKER_00:

I I'm concerned where this is going because you don't have that many pearls on the string, but yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02:

I've got a whole pearl necklace, pal. The one thing I would say to them would be be consistent. Okay. I like that. In a nutshell, I know we've beat it up a lot this this episode, but it's consistency. Make sure that you're doing it more often instead of more intensely.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, so you would tell my athlete do a little more, don't do it a little harder.

SPEAKER_02:

Don't kill yourself in one workout. Okay. You know, workout being the the softball game or the whatever. Over the course of the week, get in two, three workouts, and then in your game, you're going to naturally find that because you're doing a little more, you know, in your case, the sprints or the the sort of mind-body of how to catch the ball in the outfield, better throwing, those type of things, you know, the shoulder workout, the mobility exercises you'd give them. You're going to find that by consistently doing those things, the intensity will naturally ramp up on the weekend. No, that's true. Because the bodies and body's in better condition, it's better tuned, and the brain is more aligned with what you want to do.

SPEAKER_00:

I like that. I want to stop at that. That seems like meaningful. Every once in a while, I get that pearl of wisdom. That was a pearl of wisdom, folks. You have witnessed a Scott Fike pearl of wisdom. It's a Saturn alien miracle. It's a what a man? What? Okay, it's a Christmas miracle. Thank you. I'm very confused. No, I I think that's good. I think I think we've trained our mythical athlete much to the best of our ability. I'd agree with you. Okay. I'm still Scott. Are you though? I am. Okay, I'm still John. Bye, everybody. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with others, post it on your social media, or leave a review. To catch all the latest from us, you can follow us on Instagram at Masters Athlete Survival Guide. Thanks again. Now get off our lunya damn kids.