Maroon Ironman Revisited

Maroon Ironman PracticeIt was this time last year Dr Joseph Maroon began training for his 8th Ironman competition.  Drawing on his prior training experiences, nutritional expertise and mental conditioning he sat down with the editors of Muscle & Body Magazine in November 2013 for an interview about “The Making Of an Ironman”.   Read some quotes from the article below and click HERE to read the entire article. 

What motivates a person to train 20-plus hours a week in a test of human endurance that pushes both the mind and body to dangerous extremes? Most say it’s to improve their physical and mental conditions. But for me, the motivation came from adversity, and the race now represents a spiritual quest as much as a mental and physical one.

Learning to handle physical and mental stress is actually a prerequisite to improving physical and mental health, but Ironman athletes must always be mindful of limits to avoid injury. I use my mind to monitor the stress on my body, just like a tachometer on an automobile; I want to gradually increase the RPMs to go faster and longer, but I want to avoid the red zone at all costs. That is where injuries occur, the immune system becomes suppressed, colds and infections develop, and the “engine” breaks down.