Fight Night.

If you knew Trevor Bryant growing up, you wouldn’t recognize him today. As a child and teenager, Trevor was overweight. Never known as athletic or slim, he played water polo and always wanted to take karate lessons. He graduated Sunset High School a year early and went off to college in Wyoming. When he moved back to Portland after college, Trevor started taking karate lessons at a school in Southeast Portland. Here he met Chris and Kristine Boyer. After several years, Trevor moved away, karate lessons left behind. He lost track of the Boyers.

A few years later, he moved back to Portland and met his current wife, Tracy. Trevor often talked of wanting to find Chris and Kristine so that he could start taking lessons again. Finally, he found their school – it was in Lake Oswego and Trevor lived in Vancouver. Trevor did not have the time to fit karate into his busy schedule. He was working 70 hours a week. He weighed about 240 pounds. At 6’4” he carried the weight better than most, but still was not in very good shape. His eating was sporadic, mostly due to his schedule.

Trevor and Tracy were at the Portland Auto Show in the winter of 2003 and they ran into Chris and Kristine. Afterwards, Trevor again commented how he wished he had the time to take lessons. Three weeks later, for Valentine’s Day, Tracy bought Trevor 5 personal sessions with Chris and scheduled them for Saturday mornings. She figured if it was scheduled and paid for, he would go. And he did go - once a week at first, then twice a week, then three times a week. Now, 5 years later, Trevor spends 10-12 hours a week at the karate school and has been training for his first Mixed Martial Arts amateur fight on March 21^st.

A year ago, Trevor decided he wanted to fight, for real. Locally, Rumble at the Roseland, in Portland seemed like the right venue. He talked with Chris and they spent the last 12 months training for the fight. Weighing around 230 at the time, Trevor figured he could get down to the 205-weight class. During this time, Trevor was laid off from his fulltime job and opened a business. The business is a sports nutrition store called Max Muscle. With the proper nutrition and training, Trevor now weighs around 190 and fought the 185 weight class. He is lean and strong, something he never considered himself. The people who come into his store don’t realize that he hasn’t always been this way, that he used to weigh a lot more. His blood pressure used to be way too high. At his last doctor’s visit – to get his blood work and physical done for the fight, his doctor told him he was the perfect specimen of health.

On March 21^st, Trevor achieved a life-long dream. He got into the octagon (the 8 sided metal cage used in mixed martial arts) and knew that he was ready. No matter what the outcome of the match, he will have won. Trevor did not win the fight that night – his opponent was declared the winner. In the hearts and minds of the 40 plus friends there to watch him accomplish his dream, Trevor was the winner. He set a goal, a goal that many thought crazy; he developed a plan, executed the plan and accomplished his goal. Nothing stood in his way. And now, nothing will ever stand in his way again.

I could've had a VO2!

The right equipment and the right knowledge are key to the right performance – in every part of our lives. This is especially true it athletic training. A few years ago I started using a heart rate monitor for my runs and my cycling. I used a formula to determine my max heart rate and then calculated my zones. The general formula is (220 – your age) for max heart rate – then multiply by .6, .7, .8 to determine your zones (60-70%, 70-80%). I usually focused on the zones for interval training and then just paid attention to what my heart rate was during a run. I didn’t try to keep my HR in any particular zone; I just noticed where I spent most of my run.

This year, we need to be smarter about our training – we are going to expect our bodies to do some serious endurance events and will need to train them to handle it. Trevor and I both decided that we needed to get as much information about our bodies and how to make them the most efficient – so we went to our favorite place – Clearwater Clinic in Portland. They started out as our chiropractor about 7 years ago and have worked miracles on injuries. They also have a naturopath who has helped me with food intolerances, recurrent sinus infections and gastro-intestinal distress. We always know that no matter what is wrong with us, they will set us on the path to healing. They are also very involved with Portland Fit and understand all the crazy things we do.

The clinic performs a VO2 test to find your anaerobic threshold – the heart rate at which your body stops using fat for fuel and starts to use only glycogen. This is important to know if you are doing any sort of endurance event. If your AT (anaerobic threshold) is 170 – like mine – you can go 2 hours at the most at a heart rate of 170 before your body will stop burning fat (an unlimited fuel source) and start burning only glycogen. This means that at that point, you would need to ingest a ridiculous amount of calories to keep yourself fueled. This is the reason for hitting “the wall”. Anyone who’s done a marathon knows what this is – your body says “enough”. You lose your ability to move forward and getting across the finish line seems impossible. This is because your body is out of gas.

If you can train in the right heart rate zone, you can avoid hitting “the wall”. If you work in a zone that burns mostly fat, you can go forever. I have been running at an average heart rate of about 165-170 bpm (beats per minute). Since that is right at my AT, I can’t maintain that for more than 2 hours. I can tell you, my marathon time and my IM time will be A LOT longer than 2 hours. I should be training in the 140-155 bpm zone. I thought that would be too easy. Well, today I rode my bike on the trainer and kept in that zone and when I was done, 45 minutes later, I was dripping with sweat. Hmmm….maybe there is something to this. All I know is that I can’t wait to see what happens when I train in the correct zones – how will it affect my training and my performance on race day? Also, if I work in the zone that burns the most fat, what will happen to my body fat percentage? All good questions. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

Oh and Trevor had the same test done and found similar results. We are both shocked at how much there is out there to learn and help us perform at our best. We like to be a resource to our customers and by continuing to learn about ourselves, we continue to grow our knowledge base for them. If you have questions about this testing, our training or really anything, stop in and see us. Let’s learn together!

The road begins here.

We all have to start somewhere. So, we’ll start here. Its been a long road to this start line. Trevor and I have been together for 9 years. We both caught the fitness bug about 7 years ago – when I had the bright idea to train for and complete a marathon. A year later Trevor trained for and completed a marathon. The rest is history. We have spent the last 7 years coming up with crazy ideas of things to challenge ourselves. This past year we traveled to China to run a half marathon on the Great Wall. Trevor has his first mixed martial arts fight this Saturday, the 21^st at the Roseland in Portland.

Last August, we opened our store – Max Muscle Sports Nutrition – in Vancouver, WA. It is our passion. We love talking to our customers and helping them reach their goals. Our favorite thing is helping people realize what they can do – especially when it is so much more than they thought!

Starting March 30^th, we will be training for the Ironman 70.3 triathlon on August 16^th at Lake Stevens, WA. At the same time – we will be coaches for Vancouver Fit – a marathon training group that meets every Sunday between April 5^th and October 11^th – the Portland Marathon. These may be our biggest challenges yet.

Its going to be a crazy summer. Come along for the ride.