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Parkinson’s: An Athlete’s Journey is for athletes navigating Parkinson’s, the coaches and clinicians who train them, and anyone who wants real-world strategies for performance and longevity. Hosted by Eric Von Frohlich and Todd Vogt, the show focuses on tactical takeaways: how to train, recover, manage symptoms, and stay consistent when the rules keep changing. Expect honest conversations, tested routines, and guest experts who go deeper on what works.
Eric Von Frohlich (00:32)
So postseason now as far as your training cycle go or you?
Todd Vogt (00:37)
Yeah, I
mean, the only thing coming up on the radar, There's like an indoor rowing circuit around the country on the rowing machine. And there is a local race here. It's like, it's always right around Valentine's Day. it's a 2K, it's Olympic distance.
Eric Von Frohlich (00:51)
So is it a version of the CRASH-B's?
Todd Vogt (00:53)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like a local version of CRASH-B's. That's right, you've been to CRASH-B's, so yeah. It was down for a while after COVID. They started it like two years ago. used to go all the time pre-COVID, like when I lived in
yeah, those events are kind of fun. Like you've been to CRASH-B's, yeah, exactly. I used to love ERG testing days as a coach. I don't know if I went on this whole rant last time about this ERG testing, but.
Eric Von Frohlich (01:07)
The're fun if you're in shape.
No, this
is new to me, but I'm glad you qualified as a coach because I don't know anyone else who ever said they liked their testing days. That was actually...
Todd Vogt (01:22)
No, it's miserable. As
an athlete, it's miserable. yeah, think about it. If you're in a high school or college team, there can be a lot riding on it. Say you're in the varsity eight. Say you're in the eight in the top boat. But if you bomb it, and somebody else in the second boat does well, you might lose your seat. And I don't think rowing is unique to this too in that it's one of the few times in rowing where you can accurately assess your own ability. Because normally in rowing, you're sort of, unless you're in a single.
Eric Von Frohlich (01:46)
Right.
Todd Vogt (01:50)
you're in like a two, four or eight person boat. So there's a little bit of anonymity. It's hard to pinpoint exactly directly to your contribution or how much you're or lack thereof. But the erg, regardless of how well it translates to being underwater, is one of the few times you can say, well, this is what I'm capable read an article about Olympic high level swimmers and they were saying that swimming can be stressful.
Eric Von Frohlich (01:58)
or lack thereof, right?
Todd Vogt (02:13)
A lot of swimmers quit after being competitive swimmers after a while, just because the stress of being on the clock every workout is tough. Your self-worth gets attached to a tenth of a second. Same thing happens as a rower too. Sort of your identity becomes like, I'm a 619 So that becomes who you are. And so then there's a lot riding into every time if you're a collegiate or high school rower, every time you're expected to PR almost.
Eric Von Frohlich (02:21)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Todd Vogt (02:40)
or be close to your PR. if you bomb an erg test, it can really mess with your mind. So from a masochistic perspective as a coach, I used to love seeing how athletes could deal with that pressure.
Eric Von Frohlich (02:51)
Yeah, it's a, you know, you're putting your toe on the line, so to speak, every day. And there's no place to hide, unfortunately, behind the erg like you
Todd Vogt (02:56)
Absolutely. Yeah.
yeah.
Yeah, that's the kind of mind trick of the erg is like, as opposed to say like a treadmill where you just set it at like whatever pace, seven minute pace and just stay on it don't fall off the back. The roller, like the, I guess like the ski erg or the assault bike or anything like that, it tells you how fast you're going and as soon as you start to slow down, it gives you that immediate feedback. Exactly.
Eric Von Frohlich (03:11)
Right.
Exactly. It only measures the stroke you just took.
Todd Vogt (03:26)
done hundreds of the way you deal with the performance pressure have your warm-up planned. First of all, have to be physically prepared. You can't trick the machine to a certain What I would always tell the athletes, high school athletes, is there's a range of performance. Say, for example, you have a high school female athlete like...
Eric Von Frohlich (03:38)
Right.
Todd Vogt (03:45)
say her personal best is eight minutes flat two kilometers, a two minute pace for 500 meters. If she has everything go right, maybe she'll go 755 or 752. If she completely does everything terribly, she's like sick, she didn't get any sleep, she didn't eat well, whatever, maybe she'll go 810. There's a range of performance. She's not gonna go 845 and she's not gonna go 715.
Eric Von Frohlich (04:08)
Alright.
Todd Vogt (04:11)
Hopefully you've done the work before. I mean, the ways to get around is like, you've done enough work that you can say, okay, I know I've done this workout, I've done 500s, I've done 1Ks, like, I know that I'm capable of doing on an average day, I'm capable of going eight minutes, like I So this way at least you can tell yourself, like, I know I'm capable of eight minutes. So then hopefully you have like your warmup dialed in,
You have your routine you eat your food in the morning, you get the proper amount of sleep, you get your gear lined up. And then when you get to the facility, whether it's the boathouse, whatever, you have your warmup. And then once you get into the flow of the warmup, you immerse yourself in the flow of the warmup to sort of do your thing, you know? hopefully you have a plan, like a race plan, you know, like whether it is, whether it's like take 10 strokes hard.
you know, get close to pace, like maybe a little slower for the first 500 meters and then a thousand meters start to ratchet it up. Whatever it is, like have a race plan, and yeah, exactly. at least have a plan, but then you kind of have to feel it out a little bit in the moment too, right? For example, one of the last ones I did well, like in, this is in 2023,
Eric Von Frohlich (05:00)
Which rarely works, but at least it's something to motivate you.
Todd Vogt (05:13)
I pulled a 623. Like I knew I was, the goal was to go under 624. Like that's a 136 pace. So I knew that I had a plan. I was gonna like go off at around 137 or so for the first 500 meters. One maybe close to that for first thousand and then sort of with about 750 to go start to ratchet up the stroke rate and then go for it. And it was kind of happening but.
Eric Von Frohlich (05:15)
A lot.
Todd Vogt (05:36)
I got till about 500 meters to go and I was just over pace. was like 136.1 average. So I knew I was going to have to sprint the last 400 meters or so.
Eric Von Frohlich (05:44)
Right,
because you couldn't make it up in 300 meters.
Todd Vogt (05:46)
Exactly. So, but I was near the edge of like, I was like right on the red line. I was like near fatigue and total failure. I don't was like a moment where I had to just basically like take a few deep breaths and say like, I have to go now. This is now or never, but there was a point where it's like, where my, you know, your mental talk is like,
Eric Von Frohlich (06:00)
Right.
Todd Vogt (06:03)
I don't know if I'm capable of going a little faster, you know? So, yeah. Exactly.
Eric Von Frohlich (06:06)
Amazing. Well, on that day you pulled it off.
So did any of that change when you were diagnosed and you started competing? Well, I guess that specific incident, you had Parkinson's, you were already diagnosed. But was there a change in your mindset or did all the mindset work actually help when you got diagnosed and you laid out your training schedule and your approach to being an athlete with Parkinson's?
Todd Vogt (06:35)
when I noticed my body was starting to act differently like in the fall of 2017. before I started having symptoms one of the things I sort of prided myself on was like my.
Ability to push through discomfort, yep so one of the things I noticed with Parkinson's is still can do it and I still am pretty good at like pushing through discomfort, you know part of its physical and training and stuff like that, but I feel as though I'm not quite as able to do that to myself as I was pre-parkinsonian
Eric Von Frohlich (06:45)
Yep.
Is that like emotional rocket fuel that you're talking about? You've lost that or is it?
Todd Vogt (07:04)
Yeah,
I think what it is is one of the parts of your brain, one of the that dopamine does is it stimulates whatever the neurons that are responsible for motivation.
So I was thinking like, with Parkinson's, like that part of your brain, provides you like that edge, know, and motivation is like a big word. Like motivation can be everything. it can be motivation is what allows like our species to like, you know, hunt and get food and procreate and things like that. Right. So I think that part of my brain, seems like it's not quite the same as it was. I sort of had to
brute force my fitness a little bit. So, getting diagnosed, I still think I can deal with discomfort pretty well and can put myself into the pain cave, whatever analogy you want to use. I can't quite get myself to go as far into the pain cave, as I used to go.
Eric Von Frohlich (07:52)
I've noticed that. think, you know, someone once described the dopamine is not the achievement of your goal, but the pursuit of your goal.
Todd Vogt (07:59)
Yes, that's awesome. I love that, yeah.
Eric Von Frohlich (08:02)
And that's exactly what it is. It's that drive to pursue is dumbed down. that's the, I refer to it usually as apathy. I don't mean apathy as in I don't care, but there's just not the juice flowing that normally made me motivated to use your word earlier, to do the thing that I wanted to do or the thing I thought I wanted to
Todd Vogt (08:12)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, one more time. Yeah.
Yeah.
Eric Von Frohlich (08:27)
⁓ And.
Todd Vogt (08:28)
For sure. Yeah, I think
apathy is like sort of, ⁓ is related to it too. That's like the far extreme of it too, but which I experienced as well, In this case, like when I'm working out, like especially like when it's a hard workout on the rolling machine, it's like, when I pre-Parkinsonian, like, That dude was an animal, I often like to say, you know? So.
Eric Von Frohlich (08:45)
Yeah,
you get amped up and use that as rocket fuel to push through the pain cave.
Todd Vogt (08:48)
Yeah, absolutely.
Okay, here's the story.
This is in summer of 17. I was out on a bike ride one day, just like by myself. I was living in Madison, Wisconsin at time. They had this cool bike route system throughout the city. And then I'm on this one stretch. It's just like a paved bike path. It's like 10 miles long. I'm just cruising along. It's like summer day. I'm going pretty quick. These two dudes like go by me on road bikes, on like nice road bikes. So I like start to pick it up and I'm like,
I catch back up to them in their slipstream. I'm sort of drafting off of them.
Eric Von Frohlich (09:20)
And you're riding a mountain bike or what are you?
Todd Vogt (09:22)
I
was riding a road bike, but it was like my steel frame commuter bike.
it didn't have footless pedals on it.
Eric Von Frohlich (09:26)
Right. It's a significant difference
for those that aren't into cycling. You buy speed with a better bike.
Todd Vogt (09:32)
For sure. This is a nice bike, but it's designed for commuting. It was a Surly that I had custom made. It's great bike, but it's not a carbon fiber road racing machine. You know what mean?
Eric Von Frohlich (09:41)
Not
to geek out on it, but Surly's are awesome. I had a single speed Surly that was my commuter bike in New York.
Todd Vogt (09:47)
Yeah. Exactly, exactly. This is not a single speed, it's a commuter bike. So I catch back, and both these guys have clipless pedals and they're all tricked out. So I catch back up to But I remember after like five minutes or so, I was like, this is And I just couldn't push myself to deal with the discomfort it was taking to hang with him. So I just kind of let myself drip back. And I remember thinking after the fact, was like, that's unusual.
Eric Von Frohlich (09:52)
Excellent.
Todd Vogt (10:10)
Normally I wouldn't back off from the discomfort, you know? So.
Eric Von Frohlich (10:13)
Yeah, well,
it's a lot to overcome. know, Parkinson's is one thing, but not having a carbon fiber bike with a...
Todd Vogt (10:20)
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, exactly. I'll probably will do the race in February, the indoor race. Like I did it last year. It has the same software that they have at CRASH-B's like with the little boats and the concept two racing software. So.
Eric Von Frohlich (10:33)
Very cool. Yeah,
but there's, you know, it's difficult to be an athlete and not have a goal in front of you. I think probably the worst day for an athlete is the day of their race if there's not another race to look forward to.
Todd Vogt (10:41)
Yeah. 100%. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean 100 % that motivates everything. it's hard getting older as an athlete and maybe this is for everybody who's an athlete, especially with Parkinson's because it exacerbates it. I'm not the same as I was obviously when I was 25 or pre-Parkinsonian, but I'm trying to be okay with that. You know
what? Yes.
Eric Von Frohlich (11:02)
Yeah, and it happens quickly with Parkinson's.
It's like an accelerated, whereas normally you lose some of your athleticism, you lose a couple percentage points a year, every year over 25 years, it's not as noticeable.
Todd Vogt (11:06)
What for? What are you saying?
Eric Von Frohlich (11:19)
so.
Todd Vogt (11:18)
I think that's one of
more frustrating things about Parkinson's is like, before getting Parkinson's, I, you know, I was a competitive master's roamer, so I was like anticipating, my sort of speed to go like that as I age, you know? With Parkinson's it goes like this, you know?
Eric Von Frohlich (11:29)
Yep.
Yeah, you kind of fall off a cliff.
Todd Vogt (11:34)
It's like accelerated aging, like you said. That's what I've often thought too, which is hard. So I'm trying to be okay with where I am I think the only bummer sometimes with, like I was saying about sports like track and field or or cycling or swimming or endurance sports, like you have a number, you know?
say like, you you're going six minutes on the ergometer, like Tim, for example, like he's still pretty darn fit, but that guy probably went
Eric Von Frohlich (11:56)
Yeah.
Todd Vogt (11:59)
Yeah. It's, you know, it's probably hard for him to go 610, you know, because it's just so slow.
Eric Von Frohlich (12:05)
because he's
working now and he's got a family and, you know.
Todd Vogt (12:08)
Oh, of course, yeah, you put
in three hours on the machine, know, so a day. It's hard, I think for some people, some athletes, it's like hard to deal with like not being the same as you were when you were 25 or or 28, you know?
Eric Von Frohlich (12:13)
Exactly.
I was playing basketball with my nine-year-old the other day. We were just shooting basically a game of, you know, one-on-one and then some games of horse. And it boggled my mind that I was getting dominated by a nine-year-old and I've played enough basketball in my life that I used to hold my own pretty much against most people. the explosive skill and movement was essentially gone.
Todd Vogt (12:47)
Yeah.
Eric Von Frohlich (12:51)
I wouldn't even say it's diminished. was as if it never existed. And it was just a reality of my humility and maturity to be able to accept that. some of it's exposure, maybe a little play a little bit more so it comes back and it's a little more fluid and a little more natural.
Todd Vogt (13:01)
Yeah.
Sure.
Yeah,
you'll regain some
Eric Von Frohlich (13:14)
Exactly.
Todd Vogt (13:15)
You know, I don't know, I'm not trying to be philosophical.
Eric Von Frohlich (13:17)
No you should be philosophical. It's the thing gives us hope.
Todd Vogt (13:21)
I was saying that, I don't know, this is for myself, like if I do the race, I'll probably will go 640. There was a time like where I, remember doing this race one time, this one would have been like 2010. I didn't properly train for this race. I just decided kind of on a whim to do it, but I was, know, in my late thirties and I was pretty fit at the time. So I was like,
aiming for something under 630. So I remember doing midway through the race, I was on pace to go like 632. And I remember at the time, I was like, I never had gone slower than 630 in like recent memory. So the idea of going slower than 630 was like an affront to my soul, I guess you would say. It was affront to my ego, exactly, that's what it is. So I remember crossing the thousand meter mark and just being like,
Eric Von Frohlich (13:48)
Wow.
Well, I think it's your ego, actually.
Todd Vogt (14:08)
this is unacceptable and you know this is pre Parkinson's so that I just killed myself for the last thousand meters and broke 630. So now it's like I probably can go 640 which is fine
you know.
Eric Von Frohlich (14:18)
people
that were train years to pull a And so that, you know, that's your low bar.
Todd Vogt (14:23)
I All your frames of
And I feel like I'm okay with that idea. I've been trying to just like appreciate the training for in and of itself, like being on the water. Being on the water is great, it's awesome, it's fun.
I've just been trying to like enjoy the fact that I can do what I can do now, you know, which is hard to do sometimes,
Eric Von Frohlich (14:43)
Yeah, well, I think if you embrace the challenge and you use your ability to go hard as a barometer, more so than the clock, it gives you a degree of respect and an allowance for variability in your day. It's a good dopamine day. It's a bad dopamine day. You're motivated. Do not. It kind of makes a little difference. You just have to change the metric to how hard you push as opposed to how quick you went.
Todd Vogt (14:51)
Yes.
Absolutely.
Yeah, for sure. Like, because of Parkinson's, I move a little differently, so it's harder on my body sometimes. So I'm like, alright, I'm like trying to just be happy with the fact that I can go hard and I'm not hurting myself, not hurting my joints, you know.
Eric Von Frohlich (15:23)
You can
do what you used to do, you just can't do it as fast as you used to do it.
Todd Vogt (15:26)
Absolutely. And that's like,
I'm not too, rigid about it, I don't feel, but even still, there's still, an element of ego, like you said, that you have to put in check a little bit, so, which is good. I guess it's a good thing to do that, you know? it's like self-acceptance. That's the word I try to use,
Eric Von Frohlich (15:39)
Yeah, it's, and on any given day that there's a lot of variety in the numbers. If your goal is the numbers, if the goal is just the effort and the ability to show up, then I'm thinking we're both in kind of a postseason mentality and I need to get something on the books from a competition perspective to get me motivated to push a little deeper into the pain cave
Todd Vogt (15:55)
Yeah.
Eric Von Frohlich (16:05)
coming back from the shoulder bicep surgery and the AFib heart rate, which is kind of hitting me on every level. I can't jack my heart rate too much. And at the same time, I can't push my body that hard because I'm still recovering from the surgery.
Todd Vogt (16:14)
Seriously.
Eric Von Frohlich (16:21)
So I'm in this postseason workout where I should be building strength and achieving, you know, at least some some modest goals. So I have to find something, whether it's
tough mudder or a 2k race or something to at least get me pushing into the discomfort for the sake of being uncomfortable and being okay with it. Otherwise you just start avoiding the discomfort and then nothing good comes from that.
Todd Vogt (16:44)
Yeah.
This is a different challenge, like for you almost, it's like the challenge is to get your body healthy as well,
Eric Von Frohlich (16:54)
Yeah, not conflating too much what's an injury or potential injury versus what's Parkinson's and what's just a combination of the two, which you'll never,
Todd Vogt (17:01)
Yeah.
Eric Von Frohlich (17:05)
I think the the thing that's magical someone with Parkinson's
not to do the activity as opposed to.
don't avoid the activity just have to give yourself some grace on showing up and participating and then the next level becomes how hard you can push through those valleys of motivation and dopamine and whatever else is going on aches pains Bradykinesia stiffness you know there's a whole host of things that show up on any given day so it's important that you work through that
Todd Vogt (17:27)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's good. That's good.
And maybe that's why it's hard for some people to get out there and do it. like keep pushing through them.
Eric Von Frohlich (17:45)
I mean, that's tough for some people without Parkinson's. So it's particularly difficult for people with Parkinson's.
Todd Vogt (17:48)
Yeah.
Eric Von Frohlich (17:51)
I'm sure, you know, as an athlete, still see yourself as, I don't think the athlete has changed, just the parameters that you're defining it with change. So it's a healthy mindset. that really sweet, we have that going for us.
Todd Vogt (17:59)
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
on Saturday, there's generally like a group of guys, anywhere from like 10 to 15 people, and we will break up into a bunch of different groupings, like doubles and fours and things like that, and we'll go out and do a workout together. So I was in a double, a two person sculling boat versus a quad, a four person sculling boat.
Eric Von Frohlich (18:24)
and you have how many oars? Right.
Todd Vogt (18:26)
Two oars, each person has two oars.
So I got him to do a double with this guy Ned that I've rode with for a long time. he's one of the starters of this group. so Ned and I were in the double versus the quad. So we kind of stacked it on purpose. Like the other guys in the quad, they're good scholars technically, but their fitness is less than Ned and I. So we figured that'd a nice combo. So we did a...
three eight minute intervals sort of controlled stroke rates, 22 to like 26, sort of medium range, sort of like anaerobic threshold. so we would start, at the beginning of each piece it was pretty fun, like, Ned and I would step on it and we'd start to either hold steady or walk away even a little bit at the beginning of each eight minute interval. Then with about six minutes to go, the guys in the quad would decide to like, get after it, and so they'd start reeling us in.
Eric Von Frohlich (18:54)
Yeah.
Todd Vogt (19:12)
And then the last minute it was on, it was like pretty even between the two boats. So point is like it made, that's what makes it fun in my opinion. That's like, that's the most fun in rowing is when you're out there with your buddies, like side by side,
Eric Von Frohlich (19:22)
I think in large part because you don't know their threshold and how hard they're pushing you you make a lot of assumptions that
Todd Vogt (19:27)
Yeah.
Eric Von Frohlich (19:29)
you're trying to gain
Todd Vogt (19:30)
Yeah.
Eric Von Frohlich (19:30)
and motivate yourself to keep up. But if they're just pulling nice and easy and their heart rate's in zone two and you're in zone three or zone four, it's a little demoralizing.
Todd Vogt (19:41)
Yeah,
my guess is they were probably near for the first six minutes or so they're like zone three and we were in zone four and then, you know, the last minute we were zone four plus and then they were zone three and four, you know, we did three of them. Yeah. So not necessarily a ton of work, but you know, it was plenty hard. that environment was fun having like that team environment, you know, out on the water.
Eric Von Frohlich (19:53)
Yeah, exactly. And you did three of those?
Very cool.
Well, I'm sure you're going to recreate that for your Crash B event. You'll have people that will probably tell you that they signed up and get you extra motivated to perform.
Todd Vogt (20:11)
Yeah.
Yeah, for sure. there's one guy, actually I used to coach him at the club I was coaching up until last fall. He's like a big guy, he's huge. His name's Scott. Scott's almost as fast as I am on the ergometer, but he's a big guy though. He's like 230, so he's probably like 6'3", 230.
Eric Von Frohlich (20:36)
She's
got more muscle, yes, the oxygen eyes.
Todd Vogt (20:39)
Exactly. depending on what his level is, he'll be close to me, but I think I should be faster than him. So, I'm just saying even...
Eric Von Frohlich (20:46)
Is he the same
age group as you?
Todd Vogt (20:49)
Um, yeah, he is. think he's like 52. Like last year at the Erg Race, they put all of the masters together. so everybody who was anybody over older than 27 and growing. So there's like 15 of us ranging in age from like 35 to like 60.
And there's one guy, I vaguely know him, this guy Stephen, who rose at one of the clubs across town. He's in his late 30s. So we take off and I kind of just had my head down for the first 500 meters. I'm not looking at the screen. So I just kind of glance up to see where we are. He's actually ahead of me by a little bit. like a half a length, whatever that is on the split. So we get to the thousand meter mark and he's still ahead of me, but not by a whole lot.
So at like 7.50 to go, was like, all right, it's go time. I brought the stroke rate up and just sort of chipped away and passed him. I guess my point once again is that made it a race. It made it feel like more of an on the water race rather than just torturing myself on a rowing machine.
Eric Von Frohlich (21:38)
Definitely.
It's always good when you have someone to chase.
Todd Vogt (21:43)
Absolutely.
Eric Von Frohlich (21:44)
extremely motivating. Well, I think that goes back to the importance of having a community around you that motivates you and kind of gets you to get out of bed and attack your training plan.
Todd Vogt (21:46)
So yeah.
Yeah.
Have you seen Tim? We speaking to him.
Eric Von Frohlich (21:59)
I've
seen I saw Tim and we as funny as it was, haven't had a chance to literally spend 30 seconds with each other. We were passing, he was working with clients and had him back to back at the gym and I was in between sets checking in to see when he was going to have a window to chat. But I'll definitely see him later today. So. That would be very cool.
Todd Vogt (22:16)
Yeah.
No, that's cool. Yeah.
See, yeah, you do workouts, you should, get on the rowing machine with Tim, do some workouts with Tim
Eric Von Frohlich (22:27)
crush my soul.
I mean, when he's pulling like a smooth 20, he's got legs that just go on forever.
You know, I would have to be, I'd have to be pulling like 35s to just keep up with them. I don't even know if I can keep up with them anymore, to be honest with you.
what adjustments do you make when symptoms hit harder?
Todd Vogt (22:50)
experimenting with just going back to just using the straight up carbidopa levodopa. So mean practically speaking, as opposed to using the extended release right tarry stuff, which was harder to sort of calibrate, I guess you would say.
Eric Von Frohlich (22:54)
Yeah.
Yeah,
especially when you're training.
Todd Vogt (23:04)
typically I take about a dose and a pill and a half every three hours and then the nice thing about the Carbidopa Levodopa if it doesn't feel like it's quite kicking I'll just take like a half tablet more and then I'll just keep doing that basically until I feel like it's like mitigating
Eric Von Frohlich (23:18)
So what do you
consider a normal dose, a pill and a half?
Todd Vogt (23:21)
Yeah, pill and a half. Pill and a half to two pills, it depends. I've been experimenting just taking two straight up. yeah, that's what I did right before we on here. I took a pill and a half, like maybe 20 minutes before we talked, I still felt a little shaky, so I took another half dose, and now I feel pretty good
So, I don't know about you.
Eric Von Frohlich (23:36)
Do you find there's
are there physical things you can do like extra stretching or I guess that's more symptom based because if you're feeling tight, you're going to stretch extra.
Todd Vogt (23:45)
that's a good question. There are like some exercises that I feel like they work better for my body. One thing I was thinking about buying for my garage gym is a Rogue Echo bike. the two exercises that are good are rowing, whether it's on the machine or on the water. Being on the water is great too, like, because both my arms get stretched out, you know?
Eric Von Frohlich (23:51)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Todd Vogt (24:03)
The Rogue Echo bike is good too, because you're using both arms and they're kind of supported in both legs.
Eric Von Frohlich (24:08)
Yeah, it's kind of probably why boxing is so effective.
Todd Vogt (24:12)
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't do a whole lot, but I had done that in the past before. it's for the same reason. Is that what your experience, right? Yeah. Yeah. Do you go to a Rocksteady Boxing class yourself? Are you certified?
Eric Von Frohlich (24:18)
Yeah, exactly.
I'm not. need to find there's a location, I think, in Long Beach, which is about 10 to 15 miles away from here, so it's not technically rock steady, but I need to venture up. need to just carve out the time and venture up to a location that's
within reason. could go 15, 20 minutes, but once you get past that, the traffic becomes unbearable.
Todd Vogt (24:46)
Yeah, was gonna say how long does it take to cover 10 miles in Southern California in LA? Yeah, I was gonna say. Doesn't sound like a whole lot as the crow flies, but yeah.
Eric Von Frohlich (24:50)
Yeah, it can be an hour.
Yeah, the
Kremafly is pretty quick, would definitely be high on the list. And I'll do some shadow boxing and stuff like that. Ski-erg is definitely on the list, although I'm not allowed to do that quite yet. I still have to get clearance from my doctor. Yeah, shoulder and bicep in particular.
Todd Vogt (25:13)
with your shoulder. I was wondering how it is on your shoulder.
Yeah,
year is good, yeah. Okay.
Eric Von Frohlich (25:18)
But kettlebell swings are
a staple. They're pretty straightforward and they work your whole posterior chain.
those usually wake me up and get me moving. This week I had a couple sluggish days in the gym and I just kind of got myself on a treadmill, did some walking and then worked my walking into a minute and a half recovery with 30 seconds of sprinting. sprinting is a, you know.
Todd Vogt (25:31)
Yeah.
How nice.
Eric Von Frohlich (25:45)
It's not sprinting by any standard that I had pre Parkinson's, it's quicker than what I would naturally do. So I've been building that up for a couple of weeks now, maybe a month, and soon we'll start adding more speed to it. But when you start sprinting again and you haven't done it in a while, you have to be conscious of hamstring injuries.
Todd Vogt (25:49)
Yeah, I understand.
Eric Von Frohlich (26:09)
So the goal is not to get hurt and to try to keep the machine moving so that I get the most bang for the buck out of
Todd Vogt (26:15)
Yeah.
Yeah, going back, this kind of goes with what we saying before, if you're not feeling well, like doing what you can do, I think is good enough, you know, so.
Eric Von Frohlich (26:27)
Yeah, there's got to be days where you just kind of two days ago It took everything for me to just get into the gym. And then it became a hour and a half of stretching various parts, you know, opened up my T spine, did some hamstring work, opened up my core, you know, it was just this kind of like forward bow into like a rear arch and just kind of going back and forth between those two.
Todd Vogt (26:53)
Nice.
Eric Von Frohlich (26:54)
seven or eight times and holding them for 30 seconds and it felt surprisingly good but I didn't, I gave myself a license not to step on the gas. I had a stress test that was coming up this week and it kind of was like facing a 2K without the benefit of being an athlete.
Todd Vogt (26:57)
Yeah, that's good.
Yeah.
Eric Von Frohlich (27:14)
got through that and you know, invariably you always end up, if you can get yourself in the gym for 10 minutes, you end up warming up into something that's more than you would have done if you just don't open the front door. We often say the hardest way to lift in the gym is the front door.
Todd Vogt (27:24)
Absolutely, yeah.
Totally. You're right, I kind of fall into that thought process. I do generally one of three things, I guess you would say, for working out. Pretty much most days. I tend to do a fair amount of cardio every day, whether that's like 40 to 80 minutes. That's pretty typical. And that can vary between. walking on a treadmill, walking uphill on treadmill, riding the eco bike, riding my concept two bike, or being on the erg or on the water.
tend to do a fair amount of cardio, but then I also do some amount of mobility slash yoga work every day, whether that's in some sort of strength training, which can be anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes, depending on what I have time for. gone through phases in life where I'll do yoga really regularly, like every day for anywhere from 20 to 60 minutes, what I'm going back to is, what are the things that make me feel good?
Eric Von Frohlich (28:07)
Right.
Todd Vogt (28:18)
like on a daily basis, help me deal with symptoms like cardio is good. You know, some sort of mobility work, yoga work is good too, I found, know, strength training, strength training, you know, there's so many variations of strength training, whether it's just like straight up, that all of that generally makes me feel good too, whether it's just like bench press and goblet squats, whatever, like pushups, like all that stuff helps too, you know.
Eric Von Frohlich (28:20)
Right?
Todd Vogt (28:40)
I feel like I'm coming back to what everybody says without really realizing is like as much exercise as can get your hands on, do things you'd like to do, you know? So, yeah.
Eric Von Frohlich (28:49)
Definitely. I
primarily the takeaway.
Todd Vogt (28:54)
have a story for you. You might appreciate this as well. You made me think of it when talking about skier. This is in winter 2018, maybe. So I was coaching like a high school team in town here in Portland.
Eric Von Frohlich (28:58)
Yeah, please do.
Todd Vogt (29:09)
I was coaching the women's team. we hooked up with a local CrossFit gym that was kind of close to the boathouse.
And so we were going there like a couple of times a week for our winter training, for like our weight training. It was cool. One of the first times we showed up, I'd use a skier like once or twice at this point. So typically the guy who ran the place, this guy, Jake would have him do like some strength training and then do some sort of metabolic conditioning at the end, some sort of finisher, which could be like, a lot of times it was like short sprints on the skier, around the rower, or the concept two bikes.
Eric Von Frohlich (29:19)
great.
Todd Vogt (29:40)
And this one time he just had him do 1K on the skier. And he was like, oh, you should do a two-ton. And I didn't warm up at all. figured I knew it was slower on the skier than the rower. I figured at that point, was probably going close to 630 or under for frame of reference. So I was like, all right, if I can do one.
Eric Von Frohlich (29:53)
Wow.
Todd Vogt (29:58)
138, 137 for 2K on the erg. I can probably go 145 easily on the skier.
Eric Von Frohlich (30:03)
Right, it's usually about a 20 % differential.
Todd Vogt (30:06)
Yeah, that's why I figured I was like, okay, let's add like five splits. So was like, all right, let's add, that puts me about 145. Okay, I didn't really warm up I don't know if that would help or not help. Yeah, so I take off at like 145. I like 250, this is just thousand meters.
Eric Von Frohlich (30:15)
It would help.
Stroke rate is like 60.
Todd Vogt (30:23)
Yeah, and I'm at like 145 or a little faster, but I'm like 250 and I'm like, wow, this is really hard. So I back off like a little bit to like 150 pace. I'm like, all right, let's stay here. You get to 500 meters and I'm like, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to finish this. So that next 500 meters, like, all right, I was like bargaining with myself. was like, okay, let's go to 150, 152. And 155, like 250 to go, I'm like, okay, 155.
Eric Von Frohlich (30:47)
Right.
Stand
the two.
Todd Vogt (30:52)
Then I was like, yeah, stay under two exactly. Then I finished this thing and I just fell onto the ground and laid there for a while.
Eric Von Frohlich (30:59)
Yeah, Ski-Ark usually has some pretty good stories. I remember there was a guy...
Todd Vogt (31:03)
It's really
brutal. That thing is the most brutal of all the machines in my opinion,
Eric Von Frohlich (31:06)
agree. When they first came on the market, I had the first 10 shipped to New York And a friend of mine was a competitive CrossFit athlete and he was telling me that, you know, I was like, what's the deal? Because he'd been to Concept2 and tried to try it out the SkiErg when they were first developing it. And he was like, it's absolutely brutal. No one's going to like it. So you shouldn't order them. I ordered 10 of them for my gym.
Todd Vogt (31:13)
yeah, when you were your fitness like... stuff,
Yeah, yeah.
Eric Von Frohlich (31:30)
because I figured that was exactly what we needed. If people were going to avoid it, we needed to do more of it. And ⁓ it turned out to be a great thing. And then invariably there was a guy who was always trying to get me to do workouts against him. And he was a former rower who was from Europe and he was a bit...
Todd Vogt (31:35)
Yeah, for sure.
Eric Von Frohlich (31:49)
what's the word I'm looking for? Egotistical perhaps. And so I'm an older coach, I'm still in pretty decent shape and could hold my own. And one day he calls me out on a workout in front of everyone. And I was like, I just couldn't give him the respect to avoid them. So I decided to step up the challenge. And so the workout was 500 meters on the rower.
Todd Vogt (31:52)
Okay.
Eric Von Frohlich (32:16)
a run around the block, which was like a quarter mile four times. So essentially we do a two K with a mile run and the whole the whole gym rallies around like the workout that was supposed to happen for everyone else just stops and everyone kind of piles into the gym and there's maybe 60 people watching us go head to head. And maybe I'm about 12 years older than I'm at this point and ⁓
Todd Vogt (32:23)
I've one.
Okay.
Eric Von Frohlich (32:41)
The first 500, he's just kind of sitting behind me, goes out on the run, he just kind of sits behind me and then comes back in and he's just, you know, just annoyingly there. But I can't figure out how hard he's pushing to be there. And I'm digging pretty deep, but I always have a little extra in the tank, in particular since it's my gym and I'm not getting showed up by one of my students. I'm extremely motivated.
Todd Vogt (33:06)
Yeah, yeah.
Eric Von Frohlich (33:09)
So that goes on and every time we come in, there was stairs down into the gym. Every time we come down the stairs, it was like, who's the first one on the stairs? How quick are they getting on the erg? You know, how everyone was gamifying the distance between us coming into the gym and whether he was going or I was going. So on the third round, I decided to reverse positions. And during the run, I slow it down to a point where he passes me and decides that I'm breaking.
and he's gonna step on the gas and he takes the bait and runs into the gym and gets this huge emotional surge of adrenaline because everyone's like finally seen the wheels kind of come off me and everyone's cheering and the place is going freaking crazy. And then we go into the fourth round and I'm just kind of trying to hold on to him or at least give him the perception of holding on. I was actually.
I was working about as hard as I could, but I would have been motivated to work harder if I needed to. So I was like right on that threshold of the red line. But a little bit on the lower side of it than the higher side of it. So sure enough, we come in in the final legs and I let him lead us into the gym. He leads into the gym and we go stroke for stroke on the skier side by side for the last 500 meters.
Todd Vogt (34:10)
Yeah, sure.
Yeah.
Here, that's what it sounds like.
Eric Von Frohlich (34:33)
and ended up beating him by four strokes, dropped the handles, just kind of walk around the gym and he basically collapses. Four strokes at that stroke rate is a matter of fractions of a second. I mean, it was probably a differential of maybe a second and a half. And the whole place just kind of lost their shit and we went fucking crazy. You know, it hero for another day. But it, and of course, you know, he conceded that, you know, it was a great effort and.
Todd Vogt (34:47)
Yep.
That's awesome.
Thank
That's cool.
Eric Von Frohlich (35:02)
He almost took me down, but that was his victory.
Todd Vogt (35:08)
man, did
he ease up afterwards that? he?
Eric Von Frohlich (35:11)
He was still annoying, but his humility kind of got the best of him on that day. And, you know, he kind of had to concede. So I always had that in my pocket. SkiErgs make for great stories just because it's different enough that it's working. I think it works the same ratios of
Todd Vogt (35:22)
That's good stuff.
Eric Von Frohlich (35:30)
60 % legs, 30 % core, 10 % arms, and you have the exact opposite on the rowers. It's 60 % upper body, 30 % core, and 10 % legs.
Todd Vogt (35:34)
Yeah.
Eric Von Frohlich (35:43)
So it's a...
Todd Vogt (35:44)
Yeah,
no, I agree. It's like, it's good in that regard. whether you're on the bike or on the rower can kind of, there's like ability to sort of coast a little bit.
Eric Von Frohlich (35:52)
There was a guy, think Concept2 this year posted it, did something absurd. It was like a 140 for an hour. You average it to 140. Or it might even been quicker than that. I'm going to have to look it up because it was mind blowing. It would be as if I said to you, you averaged to 130 for that time distance. It was just as ridiculous. But it's it definitely makes for some good exercise. I have a Ski Erg sitting in my sitting in my sunroom.
Todd Vogt (36:02)
Yeah, that's incredible.
That's what I'm
Eric Von Frohlich (36:22)
and it's feeling the need to get dusted off and put back to use.