Bo Knows Schmeis35for35

If you haven’t seen any of ESPN’s 30 for 30 series, you’re missing out on some incredible documentaries.  Even if you’re not a sports fan, you’ll find the stories extremely engaging as they typically focus on the human side of athletics. 

There have been great pieces on Magic’s HIV announcement, OJ’s white Bronco chase, Pablo Escobar and his ties to soccer, Michigan’s Fab 5 and their cultural influence, the prevalence of bankruptcy among professional athletes, etc.

Most recently, ESPN released “You Don’t Know Bo,” in reference to Bo Jackson.  You probably remember Nike’s “Bo Knows” advertising campaign where they had him pretend to play all sports including basketball, cycling, and even horseback riding.  The ads capitalized on Bo’s star power in 2 sports (baseball and football) and were used to launch Nike’s cross-training line.

Nike already had running shoes, basketball shoes, football cleats, etc. but the cross-trainer was geared towards athletes who liked to do it all.  By seemingly being good at everything, Bo was the perfect athlete to represent the cross-trainer. 

Consider some of these fun facts that show Bo’s breadth of abilities:

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      - He was a 2-time state champion in the 100 meter dash in high school

      - He won the Heisman Trophy while at Auburn

      - A variety of sources claim he has the fastest 40 time ever at the combine at 4.12

      - He was the 1^st pick in the NFL draft but turned it down to play baseball

      - He hit several of the longest home runs in Major League history

      - He could easily break baseball bats over his knee and occasionally over his helmet

      - He could throw to home from the warning track without a hop

      - He was the first pro athlete to be named an all-star in both Baseball and Football

Not bad.  He has some crazy running achievements, amazing football accomplishments, and legendary baseball stories.  I even read he could do a back flip standing in 3 feet of water…that’s pretty mind boggling.

Anyway, Bo’s schedule had him playing the full Major League Baseball season and then switching gears to the NFL after baseball was over.  He would come into the NFL mid-season and still be one of the most dominant running backs in the game even without the benefits of training camp.

So here’s the question:  How was he so good at everything?

Actually, let’s edit that question as I think his natural physical gifts are pretty clear.  Instead, let’s look at a different question that pundits have discussed frequently over the last 20 years: 

How much better could Bo have been at either baseball or football if he chose to concentrate only on one sport?

Interesting, but notice the underlying assumption in the way the question is asked; everyone seems to assume that Bo would have been better if he focused only on one sport.  The conventional wisdom is that playing 2 sports is distracting…any time spent practicing football is time away from baseball and vice versa.

While some of that may be true, I’m not so sure I agree.  I’m wondering if he was so good partly because he played multiple sports.

Clearly, in hindsight from a career standpoint, Bo would have been better off concentrating only on baseball since a football injury effectively ended his career in both sports.  However, let’s take injuries out of the equation…let’s just discuss when he was healthy and if he would have been better focusing on a single sport.

How are we going to solve this?  Am I going to site multiple medical and fitness studies that prove my point?  Of course not!  I’m going to use the all-powerful anecdote!

This is where Schmeis35for35 comes in.  Schmeis35for35 has been, among many other things, a year-long experiment at the benefits of cross training.  Because I have 35 items on my list, I haven’t been able to concentrate on any single item. 

Before this year, I used to go to the gym and pretty much exclusively lift upper body.  If I wanted six-pack abs, then it seemed logical to spend my time doing crunches.  If I wanted to be able to bench press more, then I better do a lot of sets of bench I thought. 

Throughout 2012 though, I have taken a completely different approach.  I went from having only 2 different workouts to having almost no 2 workouts be the same.  Not only do I now run, bike, and swim, but I have several different workouts within each of those.  While I don’t lift much anymore, I still occasionally lift both upper and lower body but focus on all muscle groups and not just a select few. 

Well, the results are starting to come in and they’re looking promising. 

Ok, that was a joke.  That was Arnold when he was Mr. Universe.  Let’s look at some real examples of my progress..

Example 1:  Dips

This past week I tried my goal of 50 dips.  Keep in mind, I used to do dips fairly regularly as part of 1 of my 2 workouts and never seemed to make much progress. I could always do somewhere around 40, but I almost never do them anymore.  Let’s see how I do now…

55!  Honestly, 55 is probably 10 more dips than I have ever done consecutively in my life.  You can try to say that I didn’t quite go down 90 degrees but I’ve watched the CrossFit championships on ESPN and these would definitely count for their standards.  Plus, my form on #1 was the same as #55 so I feel good about that.

As I said, I rarely do any lifting of upper body anymore and almost never do dips.  In fact, I’ve probably done a total of 5 dip sets in all of 2012.  I don’t know if the swimming has helped, if my triceps are getting stronger from spending time on the bike (counter-intuitive, but the bike is actually a good tri workout), or where the benefits came from, but the results are real. 

Hey, that also puts me at 20 of my 35 goals completed!  Bo knows awesomeness and I think this qualifies!  

Let’s keep going…

Example 2:  Swimming 50 yards underwater

This is a completely unrelated goal to dips, but one I’ve had on my list all year as unlikely that I could pull off.  Swimming 50 meters underwater is part of the Navy Seal BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolition/Seal) training and is often a point where people fail.

Let’s check out how I did.

I did it!  21 out of 35 completed!  Here is another example where cross training clearly paid off.  I don’t think this video does it justice, but I tried doing this a couple of times early in the year and could barely make it one length of the pool (25 yards).  I’m not exactly sure why, but my drastically improved fitness level allowed me to do 50 yards now without that much trouble.  Incredible!

While I was only under water for ~45 seconds, the body has to use a lot of oxygen in the movement so it is wildly different than just holding your breath for that long.  I can hold my breath for more than 2 minutes, but swimming 50 underwater is definitely harder than that.

Again, I didn’t spend days practicing this over and over…I just naturally got better by doing a variety of activities. 

Example 3:  Pushups

Early in the year, I tried my goal of 70 pushups.  I got to 70 exactly, but my form was terrible so I didn’t count it as complete.  At the time, I was actually doing pushups fairly regularly so thought that was going to be my peak.

Since then, I’ve essentially stopped doing pushups.  The result now?  Check it out.

71!  While the number isn’t much better than I did before, keep in mind that I had much better form in this video and still reached my goal despite not working on my pushups.  Again, the benefits of cross training in terms of quick muscle recovery and other factors seem to have offset any loss I had from not working on the exercise.

So what has my anecdotal evidence told me that helps with the Bo Jackson question?  It tells me there are clear benefits to cross training that might not have been widely understood at the time.

Remember, it wasn’t that long ago when NBA players weren’t supposed to lift weights because it was feared to hurt their shot.  Golfers never thought about weight training because they thought it would negatively impact their swing and ruin their touch around the greens.

Given everything I’ve learned, it’s not hard to imagine that quickly picking up the spin on a pitch in batting practice is going to carry over to scanning the field for holes as a running back.  Timing a great catch in center field must have benefits in catching a football.  Building leg strength from carrying tacklers surely provides a nice base to blast home runs. 

And perhaps most importantly, mixing in a variety of activities keeps everything interesting and makes it much easier to stay mentally fresh and motivated.

So, in my non-professional opinion, I think Bo knew what he was doing.  He wasn’t just playing 2 sports.  He was realizing the benefits of cross-training before the benefits of cross training were widely known.

Now, a similar formula has propelled me up to 22 of my goals accomplished. 

ESPN, please let me know when you want to do a documentary on me.

Schmeis