Monday, January 23, 2012

creatine phosphate

most of our mondays in power camp are semi-recovery days. j.r.---program designer---arranges them to be either "speed" or "technique" workouts, which usually means higher cadences and lower resistances.
this morning was a speed workout, a lot of just spinning around, peppered with little events he calls CP jumps. creatine phosphate, if you care.

facts:
creatine phosphate shuttles high-energy phosphate from mitochondria to sites of muscle contraction. an energy-rich muscle has lots of creatine phosphate, whereas a fatigued muscle has little creatine phosphate, (mathews/van holde/ahern, 3rd ed.)
and when extra creatine is stored in the muscles, you have that extra energy backup which will help you work harder.


I tried to do some research into creatine phosphate training, and basically what I found is that most people try to increase their creatine with supplements rather than naturally. for those of us who desire a natural solution, I guess we get to do CP jumps.
all they are is a sudden, extremely fast spin-up, like a sprint, for ten seconds.
we do a half dozen of them, one each minute, then do nine more, the latter spaced sporadically throughout the next twenty minutes or so. ( this is an attempt to replicate an actual racing event, where at any moment a competitor can take off, sprinting away, requiring you to react quickly and jump along with him--or her.)

I suppose they're good for me.
but here's what I'm trying to analyze:
I much prefer the first six. during the next--sporadic--segment, all I want is for them to be over.
not sure if this ties into some kind of character flaw, but am thinking it might.
I just want them to be over. give me 15, one a minute, then let me be done.
is it that I don't like the anxiety of anticipation?
or I just don't like the workout and want it to end?
I hope it's the latter, but fear it has more to do with the former.

regardless, this creatine phosphate stuff seems to be a good thing to have, and I certainly hope that all of my CP jumps this power camp season have been helping me increase mine.
then I'll only have to work on my decreasing my resistance to the darn things.

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