The World’s Fittest Humans
Chapter 10: Rebecca “Mako” Samuelson (United States of America)
Even though I had been in five MMA fights and had been around violence for most of my adult life it is way different when you are in a situation where it is kill or be killed at close-quarters. I was too busy killing to be scared. What flips the switch is knowing whether you are going to die or not; violence alone doesn’t take you over the edge and put you in combat autopilot mode. In an MMA fight or, say, in the NFL you know you won’t die and because of that there is a governor out of our reach that keeps your inner animal caged. Survival circumstances unleash the animal in us that is buried under layers of superficial civility engendered by societal mores. But that animal is alive and well under that veneer of social camouflage, trust me on that. That event taught me what I was really capable of. I got a feel for what war is. We humans are no different than animals, we just are really talented at pretending to be domesticated. I wish I could put that ballistic animal mind in a bottle and use it whenever I want.
— Rebecca Samuelson
Rebecca grew up in Jackson Heights in Queens, NYC, not far from LaGuardia Airport and just a short train ride to Manhattan. Both her parents worked long hours and when they didn’t work they drank. Jim Beam was at the top of their most wanted list, but Cutty Sark, Jack Daniel’s or Tanqueray were acceptable pinch hitters; beer and wine didn’t make the roster unless it were an emergency. Her dad had a short fuse and would escalate from screaming to slapping in a New York second with Becky taking most of the abuse because she wouldn’t cower down even when she was too young to offer any meaningful defense or maybe just because she was a defenseless punching bag. This had consequences, not just for her and others but also how she perceived the world. Being thrown around like a rag doll and seeing her mom with a bloody nose wasn’t her idea of playing house. This ugly playing field wouldn’t remain so unlevel for very long, however.
In grade school she got into a lot of fights and not just cat fights but dog fights. She wouldn’t back down from even the big dogs. She discovered a Gracie jiu-jitsu dojo not far from school and stepped in. This was a place that replaced any imagination she previously had for heaven, a place to learn how to fight and move up the badass chain of command, a means to control her world. Her instructor saw the raw energy in her eye and the fire in her belly, a helion that couldn’t spell “quit” and could take a punch as well as any seasoned macho man fighter. She was naturally wickedly strong but quickly learned that bull-in-a-China-shop strength and telegraphed moves turn out badly in jiu-jitsu, a form of martial arts where opponents find themselves on the ground “tapping out” because their joints are locked in checkmated fateful positions due to impatience, lack of skills, or naïve errors in judgement. She learned about takedowns and armbars and wrist locks and sleeper holds and other deliciously painful tactics to line her arsenal.
A night came while she was in the 9th grade when her dad, wreaking of Jim Beam, took a swing at Becky aiming right for her face. This was a bad move and would be the last time he would attempt to strike her. She blocked the blow, put him in a wrist lock, took him to his knees, and then to his belly and then found himself in an armbar. Game over. He quickly discovered that hitting her mom was not a swell idea, either. Rebecca discovered her role as a paladin early in life, a defender of those who cannot defend themselves.
After graduating from high school she started doing CrossFit for a couple years and enjoyed the one-two punch of jiu-jitsu and CrossFit’s intense workouts of the day. She fell in love with the idea of functional training: all for go, not show. She entered the CrossFit Regionals and placed 2nd which qualified her for CrossFit Worlds. She was now weighing a solid 142 pounds with serious arms, shoulders and back to go with her powerful legs. Unfortunately she injured her knee and couldn’t go. A member on the US Olympic team saw her lift and was impressed enough to have her talk to the weightlifting coach at an Olympic lifting gym in Manhattan. She loved it so much that she set her sights on going to the Olympics since Olympic lifting for women became a medal sport at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. She continued her martial arts training and even included Muay Thai which quickly spread to interest in competitive mixed martial arts (MMA).
She received her Associate’s degree in Criminal Justice from the Borough of Manhattan Community College and then went through the NYC Police Academy and became a police woman working a beat infested with bottom-feeding drug lords, weapons-dealing gangs and other vermin in the dark side of the Bronx. Becky may have been a young woman but she was a badass woman and a pedigreed junkyard dog you don’t want to piss off. After dealing with her deadbeat dad and jiu-jitsu gone bad she figured out when to back down and when to get in the grill of the many sordid species of thugs and lower life forms plaguing her beat. Her Olympic lifting was progressing well enough to spend some time in Colorado Springs at the US Olympic Training Center and then she went to the Olympic Weightlifting Trials and competed in the 63kg (138.6 lbs.) class but failed to make the team by 44 lbs. She came back to NYC and focused on her job as a beat cop and MMA for the next three years. She had a record of 4–1 as an amateur in the 145 lb. class before moving on to the pro division.
In the meantime she applied to the NYC Emergency Services Unit, which is their equivalent of SWAT, but was rejected on her final written exam. She applied the following year to the New York State Police Special Operations Response Team (SORT) and passed and was assigned to Troop L which serviced Nassau and Suffolk counties, the two counties just east of Queens on Long island very close to where she grew up. She just turned 27 and finally came into her own as a rookie on NYSP SORT. Her job was extremely demanding so her pro MMA career was cut short with a record of 1–0 but she kept her Olympic lifting going but no longer at a full training load and spent time improving her marksmanship skills with her pistol and other weapons. She lost her training focus when she lost touch with an aspiring, lofty goal. Becky got into running first to keep her weight under control but then she discovered she enjoyed getting out into open spaces and then decided to spend time outside Long Island in the hills doing trail running and then mountain biking with a few die-hard cycling buddies. But the competitive passion was still silent.
Nearly everyone in her unit had heard of her talent in MMA and her accomplishments in Olympic lifting; very few of the men, no matter what their body weight, were stronger. In training she was clearly the most skilled fighter in close-quarter combat and her skills in stressful, tactical situations were excellent. Becky was extremely cool under pressure; she never blinked and understood the value of patience when circumstances warranted it. She heard about Phenomic Games from a member of her SORT unit and saw footage of the women competing at Turin Worlds. Becky understood all about training for the frontend but was blown away by what Airi, Jōtara, and Gabriela achieved on the backend. She was stronger than them but never had any comprehension of the completely different world of The Climb and Nemesis: “strong and long” planted a seed in her brain that blossomed into a yearning. She began thinking…”What could I do if…?”
She began to take her running and mountain biking more seriously but quickly concluded that what she was doing with her cyclist friends wasn’t going to cut against wild animals like Airi and Jōtara. She called her contact back in Colorado Springs and got in touch with coaches in charge of Team USA Olympic mountain biking and track cycling. She got permission to take leave from SORT but with the understanding she would have to re-qualify for weapons competence and fitness upon returning before being placed on active duty.
She had trained for Olympic lifting in Colorado Springs a few years ago but didn’t realize just how perfect it was for preparing for Phenomic Games. It had world-class facilities for the clean and jerk and adjunct functional strength training, a velodrome for technical work for The Burn, access to Olympic rowing expertise, and, of course, there was Pikes Peak at 14,115 feet in the backyard. She bumped into Lake Jacoby, the world’s fittest human, while he was training with the US men’s Olympic lifting team in early preparation for Whistler Phenomic Worlds. He took one look at her and could see in a heartbeat how radical she was and then learned about her solid technical background in the clean and jerk, functional strength training, and MMA chops. But this was all frontend so the message was loud and clear: “Becky, if you are serious then focus on the backend…or else.” She learned about the story of Ivan in Turin. She got the memo, loud and clear.
Her mountain biking had progressed a lot in the last year or so and was good enough to serve as a training base for longer cross-country rides with lots of climbs. Her trail running and speed hiking lagged; she at least clearly understood her weaknesses and understood the importance of balance from her MMA fighting days — if you have weaknesses then others will exploit them until you fix it. The Ivan meme struck home. She got a great referral from the head US Olympic mountain biking coach. She met with Jane Mayer, a mountain biking coach experienced in marathon mountain bike racing and they put together a plan to prepare her for the qualifying round at The Continental Phenomic Championships. Rowing was new to her but she already had an awesome strength background so her focus was on technique and endurance. She didn’t have full-time coaching for rowing but got enough help from an assistant coach for the US Women’s National team to correct her form errors and periodize her efforts.
The Olympic velodrome for track cycling was a whole new universe to her and fellow female trackies took one look at her and saw a future superstar sprinter and 500m time trialist immediately with her stocky, powerful build. It took her a month to be able to hold the line in the steep turns but once she got control of the bike she was faster than goose shit through a tin horn…she loved track cycling! The coach for the men’s kilometer saw her practicing her starts and took her under his wing after seeing how wickedly fast she was for being a beginner and finding out her tough-as-nails background as a lifter, MMA fighter, and NY SWAT member. He had heard about The Burn and saw footage of the event from Turin. From there he helped her with technical aspects that will directly apply and set her up on a training program coordinating lifting, endurance, interval work and flexibility.
She couldn’t believe what a life she had at the moment being able to train full-time for the clean and jerk, track cycling on the velodrome for The Burn, improving her technique in rowing, going on long rides in the mountains, and taking day hikes and mountain runs. Her idea of heaven being a Brazilian jiu-jitsu dojo now became her present place and time — bliss it is. She met new friends in all these different activities but she was the only one that did all of them.
She did some local competitions in the women’s 500m track cycling time trial and by the 3rd competition the only women able to beat her were experienced specialists and not by much. The Burn, being a frontend event, was metabolically in her wheelhouse all along. Still way off world record pace but very respectable. On the other hand, Colorado Springs and Boulder are hotbeds for National-caliber mountain bikers and she had a much harder time competing against those women. On 2-hour marathons in the mountains at altitude she was finishing in the middle of the pack on a good day. The top 5 were National or World caliber cyclists. Long way to go there.
When she hiked Pikes Peak to the summit the first time she thought she was going to die; she never experienced a bottomless depth of fatigue or pain in that fashion in her life. She asked, “Is this why they call it Nemesis?” Yes, she loved this moment in life and gave thought to becoming a professional Phenomics competitor. But the only way that could become a reality is if she could conquer The Climb and Nemesis. They were the two 800-pound gorillas she didn’t know how to take down and put into an armbar. She knew the rowing would come together as she improved her overall endurance capacity, aerobic power and technique. But Nemesis? Deep down she felt scared, a form of intimidation that she hadn’t experienced since the first time her dad threw her against the wall when she was 8. Her reptilian brain was screaming a memo that she would be annihilated. It was a five-alarm fire, a call-to-arms, a once-in-a-lifetime, eye-of-the-tiger moment. Could she answer? Or would she roll into the fetal position and tap out?
Whenever in her life she was called out by a bully she answered with both barrels blazing, win or lose, no matter. No different this time. She doubled down on Lake’s advice to focus on the backend. That horrible image of Ivan mimicking the Bataan Death March on the late stage of Nemesis was burnt into her skull. That would not be her. But what would she do about it?
She bumped into a group of men that were preparing for a big climb on Aconcagua, a non-technical climb in the Andes, the highest point in the Southern Hemisphere standing at just shy of 7000m. They were getting physically and mentally prepared in addition to booting-up their high-altitude acclimatization. She talked them into her joining them for a 10-day trek mostly at 9,000 feet and above with the first several days to include mountain biking where the terrain would accommodate it. It turned out to be a great experience because she was finally getting a boots-on-the-ground experience of what it means to endure. These guys were carrying 50 lb. packs and covering a lot of ground for 8 hours every day. This was completely new to her; never before had she done something that lasted for more than a day at moderate speed. No, she didn’t transform into a seasoned mountain woman but she was building a backend, one step at a time.
Her rowing technique had made huge strides since her early CrossFit days with her biggest problem now being able to pace herself properly. She still was going out too fast only to fade in the last minute. Becky’s out-of-the-saddle mountain bike climbing was finally starting to gel, her legs were no longer toast on the longer, steeper hills. In mountain bike cross-country she had moved up to top 30 in big races with a field of 100 or so. She was doing less track workouts on her track bike and working the starts with a mountain bike on varying grades. Her ability to tolerate lactic acid accumulation from The Burn improved immensely from the early days, her confidence in The Burn was close to where she felt it needed to be. Soon she would begin to focus on the clean and jerk and bring that up to the high standard she must have to be competitive overall. She will need to perform extremely well on the frontend to have a shot at taming the beasts.
The next day she received a phone call from a journalist from the London Herald named Dr. John Beasley. He wanted to talk to her about her preparation for The Continental Phenomic Championships coming up in a few weeks. She was really excited; nobody from a big news source had asked to interview her before and she was nervous as hell. She would meet him early next week at the Olympic Training Center.
Dr. John Beasley and his cameraman Ralph Towers met Becky and her coach Jane Mayer at 1 PM sharp right inside the gymnasium for Olympic lifting. All the lifting platforms were laid out like a checkerboard pattern from wall to wall.
John walked in and spotted her right away, the woman with the muscular legs and statuesque posture; she projected a strong alpha demeanor. John said, “Rebecca?”
“Call me Becky. This is my coach Jane Mayer.”
“John Beasley. And this is my cameraman Ralph Towers. Call me John.”
They found some benches and chairs while Ralph set up the lights, video and audio. Becky was thrilled to do her first interview.
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June 27, 2015
Emailed transcript to the LONDON HERALD for the weekly column:
Portraits of The World’s Fittest Humans: Preparing for The Phenomic Games
Rebecca Samuelson, Olympic weightlifter, MMA fighter, and member of the New York State Special Operations Response Team
Dispatch from the US Olympic Training Center, Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA
— — — — — —
by Dr. John Beasley, PhD
Scientific Journalist
My mission is to track down the leading contenders for next season’s Phenomic Games World Championship in Whistler, Canada and bring their dreams, beliefs, and training approaches directly to you every Saturday.
Who are the world’s fittest humans?
What do they do to prepare?
Why do they do it?
____________________________________________________________
Rebecca Samuelson
Phenomic Human Ranking: unranked
Age: 29
Height: 5–7 (1.70m)
Weight: 148 lbs. (65.8kg)
Birthplace: Queens, New York, USA
Education: Associate’s degree in Criminal Justice from the Borough of Manhattan Community College, New York, USA
Occupation: New York State Police Special Operations Response Team (SORT)
Background: Olympic weightlifting: 4th in 63kg (138.6 lbs.) class at the 2012 US National Championship, 85kg (187 lbs.) snatch, 105kg (231 lbs.) C&J, 190kg (418 lbs.) total
2011 CrossFit NE Regionals, 2nd place (female)
Amateur MMA record of 4–1 in Featherweight class (145 lb.)
Professional MMA (UFC) record of 1–0 in Featherweight class (145 lb.)
Started training for Phenomic Games in 2014
Favorite event: Clean & Jerk
Most challenging event: Nemesis
Favorite exercise: front squat
Coach: Jane Mayer
Diet: omnivore (Paleo)
Favorite food: sirloin steak burger
Status: single
Current residence: Colorado Springs, Colorado and Thomaston, New York, USA
Nickname: call sign: “Mako”
Interview
Dr. John Beasley: Today my journey finds me at the US Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. With me is Becky Samuelson, Olympic weightlifter, MMA fighter, and member of the New York State Special Operations Response Team, which is like SWAT. Also joining us is her coach, Jane Mayer. Becky, you have a very different path to Phenomic Games than I have seen so far. How did your sports career lead you here, getting ready for The Continental Championships?
Rebecca Samuelson: John, I had a rough childhood getting into a lot of fights. I embraced Gracie jiu-jitsu in junior high and high school because it gave me the tools to defend myself and others. I hated losing bouts at the dojo so I became a student of martial arts, meaning I embraced all forms of the combative arts including Muay Thai, Krav Mega, judo, and boxing. I picked up Krav Mega, the Israeli fighting system, and judo from law enforcement and trained at two different dojos for jiu-jitsu and Muay Thai.
Dr. John Beasley: And you did CrossFit for awhile?
Rebecca Samuelson: Yes, and really enjoyed the camaraderie of group training. It was a very strong support system given all that was happening in my life at home and school. It gave me a solid foundation of basic functional strength training for my martial arts and life in general. But when I saw Olympic lifting, the light bulb went off. I felt really powerful being able to perform the classic lifts. You can do them forever and there is always room for improvement. It didn’t hurt that I was really good at it. I was getting really strong at a fast pace. I felt unstoppable.
Dr. John Beasley: And that was when you were bitten by the Olympic bug, you pictured yourself as Becky the gold medalist?
Rebecca Samuelson: You got it! I tried out for the Olympic team but missed it by 20 kilos. I realized a goal like that requires more infrastructure than I had, you can’t just have a goal that lofty and pull it off. You have to have your ducks in order. I didn’t. So I went back to martial arts and competed as an amateur in MMA. I loved to fight. I had a good support system from my teammates at work. They had my back.
Dr. John Beasley: And you did really well. Two knockouts and two submissions…so then you turned pro?
Rebecca Samuelson: Yes, I loved the idea of moving up to the next level but I was on SORT and that is a very serious career, lives are on the line. No way you can keep your head in that game on a part-time basis. I knew I had to give it up.
Dr. John Beasley: But didn’t you want to fight Ronda Rousey?
Rebecca Samuelson: Yes, I really did. She is a bantamweight and I am a featherweight. We are the same height but I am 10 pounds heavier. I would have had to drop a weight class. that would have been a big loss of muscle mass and strength.
Dr. John Beasley: How do you think it would have gone?
Rebecca Samuelson: She is a lot more polished and skilled than me. Her judo is world-class, remember she won the bronze medal at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Her striking skills have improved a lot since 2010. But I don’t turn down a fight. It would have been a great opportunity but a huge challenge. I would have stepped in the ring. But it was not to be. For one thing, just like in my Olympic lifting, the infrastructure wasn’t there to support such an undertaking. It takes a strong team to make a real go of it.
Dr. John Beasley: On your job on SORT, do you get into physical situations a lot against some pretty hardened criminals?
Rebecca Samuelson: It happened more when I was a beat cop in the Bronx. I had to take down gang members and Russian mobsters all the time. That job was far more dangerous than the one I have now. The team I am on now is very professional. We each know what we are going to do and have mapped out the most likely contingencies on a call beforehand. A lot fewer surprises on SORT than poking around in the dark on their turf in the Bronx.
Dr. John Beasley: Do you have any horror stories to tell?
Rebecca Samuelson: Actually I do and it really is a horror story, better than a cop movie. One night my partner and I got a call about domestic violence in an area of the Bronx we knew for a high frequency of cocaine deals coming in from Panama. It was around 11 and my partner dropped me off about a block away and he was going to go around back to seal off the rear exit. We knew there was more going on than a wife beating or something of that nature but didn’t know enough yet to call in backup. When I closed in to the address from dispatch I found out it wasn’t that place, it was on the floor above. I radioed to my partner but there was a miscommunication. I recognized a lookout close by and that this was really about the Russian mob. The hallway was pretty dark leading to the apartment where I heard some screaming and loud sounds. Just as I got to the door it opened and a big guy came out with a pistol and shot me in the chest at close range. Well, he hit me in my Kevlar vest with a 9 millimeter and it jolted me pretty hard but I just reacted and closed the gap from pistol range to close-quarters range so he couldn’t get another round off and now we were in full combat hand-to-hand mode. He was shocked to see me converge instead of run and I would have surely died if I ran because he could have emptied the clip into my legs. We are naturally wired to run but I was rewired to close the gap.
I struck him with a Muay Thai knee thrust to the pelvis and then with my other knee to the groin. We went to the ground and my training just came out of nowhere. With my Krav Maga I got my right finger in his eye while my left hand had his right wrist. I torqued his wrist with a jiu-jitsu technique and the gun fell out of his hand but I couldn’t get to it and he prevented me from getting to my gun. I hit hit him in right eye socket with my left elbow from my Muay Thai training. That bought me a opening to get to his gun with my left hand and I created close-quarters separation with my right arm stiffarming him in the chest. I got the gun and he surged for me but I got off a shot from a close-quarters, hip-tucked position with my off-hand into his chest. It was enough to stop him. In the meantime my partner didn’t know where I was until he heard the shooting. I didn’t want to call the ambulance but it was my job first to save my life and then to save his.
Dr. John Beasley: What happened to him?
Rebecca Samuelson: He bled out and was DOA in route to St. Barnabas Hospital. The bullet grazed his aorta. I was devastated even though he would have killed me if I didn’t have the skills and strength I had. Maybe I was just lucky, I don’t really know, you are so in the moment. I knew I was going to die unless I killed him first. I didn’t want to shoot him but I had no choice. Even though I had been in five MMA fights and had been around violence for most of my adult life it is way different when you are in a situation where it is kill or be killed at close-quarters. I was too busy killing to be scared. What flips the switch is knowing whether you are going to die or not; violence alone doesn’t take you over the edge and put you in combat autopilot mode. In an MMA fight or, say, in the NFL you know you won’t die and because of that there is a governor out of our reach that keeps your inner animal caged. Survival circumstances unleash the animal in us that is buried under superficial layers of civility engendered by societal mores. But that animal is alive and well under that veneer of social camouflage, trust me on that. That event taught me what I was really capable of. I got a feel for what war is. We humans are no different than animals, we just are really talented at pretending to be domesticated. I wish I could put that ballistic animal mind in a bottle and use it whenever I want.
Dr. John Beasley: I can see why you you wouldn’t fear getting in the ring against Rousey now. You might be giving up 100 pounds to mobsters like that.
Rebecca Samuelson: John, you got that right. But skills make all the difference. You blink at the wrong time and it can be lights out for anyone. If you have the right technique and just a little strength you can knock anyone out or force them to submission. A 180 pound man that is in shape and has some well-honed street fighting skills is far more dangerous than a 230 pound guy that relies on his size and strength and is overconfident. And then there is always the risk of weapons.
Dr. John Beasley: There is a saying that sports is just war without the killing. True?
Rebecca Samuelson: I would say no, it isn’t. I have done sports at the professional level and I have had a taste of war. My experience says sport is sport and war is war and they cannot be compared because of the kill or be killed nature of war which changes everything. War is not a type of game. What I mean is that they are apples and oranges, not Fuji apples and McIntosh apples.
Dr. John Beasley: So you had to hang up your gloves and stopped being a pro MMA fighter. But then you learned about Phenomic Games…and something clicked, like it did for you in Olympic lifting?
Rebecca Samuelson: No, it wasn’t quite like that. I saw Airi, Jōtara, and Gabriela performing at Turin Worlds and I was like blown away. They were doing the clean and jerk and were pretty strong but they were doing things I hadn’t really seen before. Sure, I had seen skinny marathon runners before and triathletes but they were going really long under harsh conditions and were almost as strong as me, and I was an Olympic lifter! At first I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I was stunned, awestruck, really. I didn’t think it was possible, for one human body to be that strong and have absurd stamina. I have seen strong women and women with great endurance but they were completely different people, they look completely different. One is like me, sorta blocky and thick and the other is a bean pole. But they look very different, not like a bodybuilder or a model. Closer to a fitness model except they can do everything at a high level, they have unlimited functionality. As I said, I had no idea that people like Airi existed.
Dr. John Beasley: Becky, when did you decide to go all in?
Rebecca Samuelson: At first I wondered how I would do but didn’t jump at it. I didn’t feel the urge. It seemed remote, I just respected the hell of women being able to do those things. They rattled my cage pretty hard. And Jōtara was just 22. She was stronger than I was when I was 22 and I was strong.
Dr. John Beasley: But then something must have served as a catalyst…
Rebecca Samuelson: Sort of, I just started running and it wasn’t about inching my way to testing myself on Nemesis or anything like that. I discovered that I liked being out in the open and just running. It was very freeing, a release from the pressures of work that felt different than lifting or martial arts. Especially when I traveled outside of Long Island and did some cross-country running out on the trails.
Dr. John Beasley: Mountain biking soon followed?
Rebecca Samuelson: Yes, it just happened. I connected to some serious mountain bikers through a mutual acquaintance. I rode with them for several months and then it just hit me that my training, if you add it all up, pretty much was like the Phenomic 5, just that my backend was really weak and technical skills sucked for The Burn and The Erg. I decided I wanted to go for it but knew I would have no chance against the likes of Airi or Jōtara if I stayed in New York doing what I was doing. So I called up somebody I knew from my days doing Olympic lifting right here in Colorado Springs and decided to move here to train full-time. I needed to get that approved by my SORT Captain and he did. Everyone was fully supportive; I think they really wanted to see what would happen if I trained to be on the world stage doing the Phenomic 5. I knew NYC would be behind me when the promo video segment on me preparing for Whistler Worlds was aired in the US. Basically, I was the representative from New York and of police and SWAT nation-wide.
Dr. John Beasley: Coach Mayer, when Becky got here, how strong was her mountain biking?
Coach Jane Mayer: John, you have to realize that Colorado Springs is a really difficult place for a new person to come to and dominate in mountain bike cross-country, there are a lot of alpha females here particularly in the warmer months. That being said, Becky improved very quickly and moved up the ranks.
Dr. John Beasley: How are you organizing her training for the Continental Phenomic Championships?
Coach Jane Mayer: She needed to build a strong aerobic base first and let her see how she stood in a few races. She never showed any discouragement in the early races where she struggled. She figured out how to intelligently ride in the pack and be patient before attacking.
Rebecca Samuelson: [ Becky laughs] Jane is being nice to me. I got killed in my first races! I really sucked. I understand now the importance of having a solid foundation, without that it is impossible to be competitive at the end of a long race. My legs would get so sore I could barely walk. It is a really deep ache all the way to the bone. Soreness from endurance training is very different than heavy lifting, CrossFit or MMA stuff. Obviously I like what I accomplished on the track a lot more than in the cross-country or marathon races but that is simply because I did frontend sports my whole life, never anything of substance over 30 minutes, really. I had to start my backend from scratch and it was no fun getting my ass kicked.
Coach Jane Mayer: Becky is incredible on the track, her 500 meter just screams. She has tremendously explosive starts and a great top end. She is a real talent for track cycling sprints, she is good enough to make the National team.
Rebecca Samuelson: I really love motorpacing, that is where you get behind a motorcycle on the track with your fixed-gear track bike and ride its wheel while they go faster and faster. It really sharpens your bike handling skills at high speed.
Dr. John Beasley: Where do you think your training will take you your rookie season?
Rebecca Samuelson: My strategy this year is to be really solid in the frontend events and be competitive in The Erg. My rowing technique has improved greatly since being here. I know how intimidating it is to build a backend. But I don’t feel that I am in over my head. I will continue to improve until the qualifying round and from there sharpen everything before Worlds but I have to be realistic. I have never faced a challenge of these dimensions in my life. Everyday I train with everything I have. The desire is powerful. Nobody tries harder than me, I am fully committed.
Dr. John Beasley: How is training for Nemesis coming along? What is your approach?
Rebecca Samuelson: I was going on very long trail runs and speed hiking for day trips. Going light and fast. Sometimes I would mix that up with mountain biking particularly if I wanted to work on my out-of-the-saddle climbing. My big break was going on a 10-day trip with a group of guys getting ready for Aconcagua in the Andes. I lost 7 pounds on that trip. We were doing 20 miles a day with packs working through a lot of hills at 7000 to 10,000 feet. My pack was at least 40 pounds but felt like it was a 100 by the end of the day. We spent some time above 14,000 feet. I got a pretty good taste of the life of a trekker. Never done anything like that before. I totally see why people do big climbs. Your perspective of life changes enormously from way up there. It is so beautiful and open.
Coach Jane Mayer: We will have Becky doing some mountain bike and trail running bricks. I know some good places that impose severe vertical challenge. She will need to work on her time trialing skills. In The Climb you are by yourself with no communication about how you are doing relative to others. It is really difficult to gauge how much juice you have left for the final climbing element after doing the preliminary rolling hills. It takes judgement. A two-hour time trial is an incredibly long time to be out there by yourself against the clock doing next to impossible vertical segments. That is not for the faint-of-heart or inexperienced rider.
Dr. John Beasley: Becky, now that you have experienced phenomic training, how does your fitness compare to earlier in your life?
Rebecca Samuelson: I was in my best condition prior to today when I doing MMA fights. It was similar to when I competed in CrossFit. Olympic lifting was ideal for strength but was too one-dimensional but I loved the discipline of it. Fight preparation and CrossFit both helped me with fitness evaluations for being a policeman and SORT and what I might encounter on the job in law enforcement. I was confident in my readiness for whatever came my way and I have seen quite a bit. But none of that got me ready to come out here and do mountain bike racing especially the marathons. I just would run out of gas and it wasn’t about lack of effort. My heart was in it by my legs and wind checked out! The other riders quickly figured out that I was a sprinter-type and knew they could drop me in the climbs. Jane told me not to get discouraged but I just couldn’t get that image of Ivan on Nemesis out my head.
Coach Jane Mayer: This is an awful place to gauge your progress because we have so many National-caliber riders here and another 50 or so experienced, club riders. It is extremely competitive. Becky has made tremendous progress for just this first season and there is still time for further improvement.
Rebecca Samuelson: I will continue to focus on the backend with a couple of long, vertical training sessions to go before Continentals. I would like to move up another notch before getting back to serious lifting before Worlds. I will have no chance unless my lifting is close to what it was and I will have some great coaching and just enough time to make some adjustments prior to my taper. I can tweak everything before Worlds. I don’t have to peak my clean and jerk until then. I got my fingers crossed. It is difficult to try to juggle everything and make it work.
Dr. John Beasley: Becky, I got news for you, nobody understands how to train for Phenomic Games with any precision. It is just too complex. It is disintegrating our previous assumptions about how to train and what is possible and even challenges any prior concepts of what training means at all. Phenomic training has a steep learning curve where there are so many opportunities for serious pitfalls along the way.
Coach Jane Mayer: I got a sense of that right away when Becky told me what she had to do and after I saw the video of Turin. I couldn’t believe what Airi and Jōtara did across the board. They placed a really high bar and they will only raise that bar higher this year.
Rebecca Samuelson: For me, that is why I want to do it. I love the challenge and crave to compete. I had some good training in me from before and now I need to build a foundation for my backend. Everyone has a weakness, in fact, everyone has more than one. I know what mine are and I am not afraid to attack them with vengeance.
Dr. John Beasley: I know you wanted to be a professional MMA fighter. Do you want to be a pro Phenomics competitor?
Rebecca Samuelson: Absolutely. I need to know how I stack up against the best and I will evaluate that after this season is over. I am 29 and Airi is 35. She’s not going to slow down. I have time to improve and move up to their level. I am well aware that I am just a rookie. But I know what I am made of and have never backed down from a fight no matter who the opponent is. I can take a thrashing and I fight way above my weight. I have faced death eye to eye and lived to tell about it. No, I am not overconfident but I know I will do just fine. My call sign is not “Mako” for nothing! But I haven’t proven myself yet. Lake sure as hell proved himself last year and has gotten all kinds of sponsorship, both corporate and from the government.
Dr. John Beasley: Coach Mayer and Becky, great to meet you. We will all find out soon enough!
<end transcript>
The World’s Fittest Humans ©2015 James Autio. All rights reserved.
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John next goes down under to interview the most highly-conditioned military special forces operator in history…
but John doesn’t know that, only you do! Roger is officially a member of Australian Search and Rescue but that is his cover job. His covert job is performing assassinations or rescues of high-level targets and laser-painting targets for drone strikes or 5th-generation, stealth US Air Force F-22 Raptors. He is not just a member of Australian Special Forces, he also performs missions for the US Navy SEALs, US Army Delta Force, UK Special Forces, the Israeli Sayeret, and German Special Forces along with their respective intelligence agencies. Call-sign BOA, his missions involve being able to rapidly move for days or weeks at a time under any terrain conditions carrying full gear to get into position to gather intelligence or use his sniper rifle to kill targets off the grid and then escape like a ghost in the wind. Born and raised in Queensland in northeast Australia and having extensive experience in the Simpson desert region in western Queensland in the outback with Aborigines during his teens, he is a perfect blend of indigenous, primitive wisdom and state-of-the-art military prowess.
Roger is the nicest guy you will ever meet and has a wonderful reputation for being a great humanitarian with his heroic ability to save people from fatal and desperate conditions in some of the most dangerous places on earth in his Search and Rescue job. He wants his shot at winning Phenomic Games and the Aussie government backs him 100%: Roger is the face of Australia for Whistler Worlds.
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PHENOMIC GAMES and PHENOMIC 5 are trademarks of James Autio.
James Autio | doctorgo@gmail.com
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