Louie Amelburu has been a health teacher for 32 years. He played baseball in college, he boxed and also trained professional fighters, cornering two world championships. But that’s not even his sport. He’s is a multi-time pan American masters gold medalist and world record holder in cycling. Louie is incredible. Listen to his story.
Kyle and Lil also give some background on badminton and how it is played at the Huntsman World Senior Games.
Louie Amelburu has been a health teacher for 32 years. He played baseball in college, he boxed and also trained professional fighters, cornering two world championships. But that’s not even his sport. He’s is a multi-time pan American masters gold medalist and world record holder in cycling. Louie is incredible. Listen to his story.
Kyle and Lil also give some background on badminton and how it is played at the Huntsman World Senior Games.
Kyle Case 0:02
Hello and welcome to the husband World Senior Games active life. My name is Kyle case and I'll be your host on this amazing journey as we attempt to help you get the most out of your life. Joining me in our studio today is my co pilot Lil Baron .
Lil Barron 0:21
I just tried to figure out a different way to say hi.
Kyle Case 0:24
I love the shoulders. No one can see that but today I'm going to continue a tradition, okay, because why not, Why, so I'm going to remind people first of all that registrations are coming in at a very rapid pace are super excited. In fact the past 8000 registered athletes, which is amazing, and just remind them that now's the time to get that registration taken care of. Just a heads up the registration fee does go up in August, oh by the way, the first of August so, so there's time, but now is the time right right right so keep that in mind, you can take care of that right at SR games dotnet also continuing with tradition, I wanted to highlight one of our 35 different sports, we've done that for the last couple of weeks. Any guesses on today's sport.
Lil Barron 1:16
Nope.
Kyle Case 1:20
I'm gonna let you off to the end and talk about badminton.
Lil Barron 1:24
Oh, okay, so then it's a great sport
Kyle Case 1:26
and let's start at the very beginning with the answer to the burning question of why is it called badminton. Yeah, so I'm sure you've wondered. I'm sure you stay up at night. So here's the deal. This is according to the Encyclopedia Britannica. Okay. How is that like a flashback to you . So according to the ecyclopedia Britannica, the name of the game is named for badminton, which he has the country estate of the Dukes of Beaufort in Glocestushire Shire, England. Oh, what's his what you thought. Right, Exactly. I'm sure he's called badminton this because it was first played there in 1873. The actual roots of the sport can be traced back to further back than that to ancient Greece and China and India that's kind of a combination of a bunch of different things that came together in badminton. And so they call it now, so many of us I think myself included have a preconceived idea of what that means and I'll tell you, my, my, everything I used to know about badminton came solely from Disney's Robin Hood
Lil Barron 2:38
Yes
Kyle Case 2:39
Where Maid Marian and Lady Cluck are playing in Prince John's courtyard you remember that one? All right, it seemed like it was such a genteel played in dressing gowns and white trousers. I think some of those play that way. Yeah, and some of us also play just like a rowdy game with our cousins during family reunions in the backyard, right, right, but I'm gonna tell you right now that competitive Badminton is something different than that. It's amazing, it's amazing so according to our good friends at Wikipedia this time. Badminton is a racquet sport played using rackets, where you hit a shuttlecock across the bed. The most common forms of the games are singles, where there's one person. More doubles where there's two players, and points are scored by striking the shuttlecock with the racket and landing it within the opposing opposing sides, half of the course, and saying the score. You can only hit the shuttlecock once before it passes over the net, and then play ends once the shuttlecock has struck the floor. Now, For those who don't know a shuttlecock is the feather. It's a birdie. Some of us have referred to it as a Bernie, it's feathered or in informal matches it's plastic, we use the feathers, we use the real ones at the games. And the tricky thing is because of the feathers, it flies in a different way than a ball does so if you're used to hitting a tennis ball or a racquetball or even in table tennis, the feathers make it fly differently, but that doesn't mean that it's slow, that it's easy. It comes off the racket, a good player hits and it can be going up to 200 miles an hour. Oh, good one is first comes off the racket. Now it does slow down. That's what makes it so wonky, the feathers have some high drag so slows down but it's it's really challenging Dave's Zarco is our sports director he comes out to St George every year from Florida to help us put on this great event. We offer singles, we offer doubles, and we also offer mixed doubles. So you can get that as well as all the rules and the registration information once again at our website, Senior Games dotnet, and we'd love to invite you to come and check that out if you're looking for support. Now, let's move on to these now that coordinated. It's a fun game, it can be a little bit tricky level. Yeah. But today's guest. Man, this guy is just, he's incredible he's done so much and I'm just gonna touch on a few highlights, because the list is too long but Louis, Amelburu has been health teacher for 32 years. He played baseball in college, he boxed. He has been a trained, trained professional fighters as well. In fact he's cornered to World Championship fights, which is incredible, but that's not even his real sport, or the one that he's really excelled at he's a multi time Pan American Masters gold medalist, world record holder in cycling. Wow. And there's so much more, but I'd rather hear from Louie so Louie, how are you doing today?
Louie Amelburu 5:35
I'm doing well, thank you. How are you guys doing awesome,
Kyle Case 5:40
thank you so much for joining us. Yes, I gotta, I gotta start off with, you have such this such such a list of sports that you've done, and even at the highest level ever thrown badminton in the mix?
Louie Amelburu 5:53
You know it's a funny story, I just had shoulder rotator cuff repair and it's should be called Bad bicep, because we played by how we were playing badminton just shortly before school that out and with my students and I went to do a smash and I tore my bicep tendon, which led to my MRI that later discovered a bicycle crashed two years ago that led to my Supraspinous complete terror so I had to have a rotator cuff plus a bicep tendon tendon niece's serinus on six weeks post op so recovering quickly for the Huntsman senior games coming up. Yeah, well,
Lil Barron 6:35
we'll bring up a bad memory.
Kyle Case 6:38
I really had no idea. I thought of course we're going to talk about cycling today like of course, I'm talking about that so I thought well let's pick something that's maybe on the opposite side here and here you are an expert player and an injured because of it,
Louie Amelburu 6:56
you know, my simple batch of I know it's a it's quite the intense gamut of people I've seen the Olympic type of badminton that is no joke, it's really fast. I mean, the coordination and the quickness and the reaction time is unbelievable.
Kyle Case 7:12
It really is and that's what I'm talking like, like I said, many of us who haven't maybe taken the opportunity to watch the Olympics have this idea that it's just kind of a slow game that you hit before the other hand, and, and, I mean there's a place for them right in the backyard, but competitive battle is amazing Lou you hit it, It is like the coordination, the, the hand eye coordination the speed the dexterity, it's incredible.
Louie Amelburu 7:34
Yeah agility everything involved is just amazing and the intensity. People really have to watch the elite level badman. And then the type is
Kyle Case 7:45
just amazing. Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. Well like, like I said we want to focus in on some of these areas where you've really excelled and I do want to get to cycling but before we get to that. I'm curious about the fighting so, so we're, when did you get into boxing.
Louie Amelburu 8:01
Um, I play college baseball and then I knew so I you know I played my two years and, and by then I got curious and I want to start watching my, my grandmother was always against me you know getting, you know the marching and broken noses or whatever and then I met inevitably transfer into training with a very popular trainer at the time Jimmy Montoya, that was bathroom boxing was really boxing. And right now, you know it's not a second second fiddle to UFC, but I got involved with that and then I, having a training background and physiology and stuff like that I started to train fighters, and then it got to the level that I joined with Jimmy montoyo had a, a group of fires from the Dominican Republic and a bit as well and they bring amateur world champions and then tournament to the pros. And that's how I materialize into boxing and then I just became say became teaching and boxing for me and I was teaching as a professional, but my great love for boxing started that way and I got into boxing. Boxing pretty adept to the point where we had six to seven maybe perhaps eight fighters that were world contenders and I rose. I happen to corn two world championships, which was really intense because anytime you go into the rain, you know, anything can happen in the rain, so you got, you have to be really prepared. So it was almost like a war II soldier against your soldiers who prepare the bass and had the you know the proper techniques and, and then that's the battle that took place, so yeah, it was. I enjoyed it. But I also knew that it was very, very dangerous for.
Kyle Case 9:50
Yeah, for sure this is the sweet science. Well that's, that is awesome and it sounds like your passion really comes out in teaching and training and helping other people I know that you continue to do that not only with your profession, but in other areas. But let's get into cycling that's really the area so it seems to me like where you've really been able to excel and have a lot of success. So like you said you played baseball in college and you kind of got into fighting there when did you start cycling as a competitor.
Louie Amelburu 10:23
It was my cousin, actually my cousin says, Hey, Louis, that saw this to the MS from Kathy the multiple sclerosis, fundraising event and I was like, okay, so he goes, it's from here to Lake Havasu, and it was 100 And I think that we would, we would cycle the needles and then that's the first 90 and then whatever is the 60 but it wasn't really it wasn't total 150 But anyway, I was like yes, so I started training during 12 mile by an Italian tour Pato. I didn't know anything about society, you know, I didn't know about the group sets and the tears that followed in the juries Somato 105 I didn't know anything, I just wanted a bike and I knew I love to train and I like to do anything that I always did, I always did it hard as best as I could, right. So he goes, let's do the one with the 150 So I bought the bike and I was shocked, I would train 10 to 12 miles a day. And then I would look and then and then I would look at the Tour de France, their speeds you know a little Did you know they'd be climbing 15,000 feet a day, or I didn't, I thought I would just you know I didn't factor that into my calculations. And I said, Well, hey, I can average that speed up 25 miles an hour, you know I back to them 15,000 feet of climbing I didn't factor 140 Miles 21 days consecutively and all of a sudden I could do that, I could do that so we went on to them that's 115 minutes not a race, but let me tell you anytime you have more than three people at a group ride. At that time we had like seven 800 writers, and I finished 12 And I was like oh my god I have a career I can throw in a little do you know before you get into the intricacies of cycling and all other chemistry that's involved. Wow. Yeah, that's how I started I got introduced by my cousin I bought a bike and then I got addicted, I was obsessed with going faster going longer going harder, and that's how I got introduced to cycling actually.
Kyle Case 12:32
I gotta say like you are a man after my own heart like when you say, it's not a race but come on, like you and I know it's a race. It's a fundraiser and that's great you know that's that's awesome that element of it is great, but the time someone else is next to you. It's a race.
Louie Amelburu 12:52
Of course you know we always say, you know, when you train with people they when you really pin on a number that's when it's really a race, but I always say, you know, anytime you got three people you got to competitiveness. It's just human nature to do so right to push the limits to see how far you can go, how fast you can go and then, but I always tell people, you know, and I always getting back to the competitive side I always tell my friends and our clients that I try to help balance and listen sometimes you don't know what that person did the day before, but you know it doesn't really matter. I don't care, he's here, and it's fine, you know, that's, that's cycling, You know, either way if you go into a running group where it's just human nature to test your limits.
Kyle Case 13:36
Yeah, I love that and we see it all the time at the game, just across the board so, so you get introduced to cycling, and, and, like you say you find that you kind of have an affinity for you kind of like it. Obviously from there it takes off and you've had the opportunity to compete at a really high level and in fact, even set world records have talked a little bit about this six hour time trial record that you were involved in in setting.
Louie Amelburu 14:03
Yeah, I love you know I'm not a big statured person, you know, I'm not gonna traditional time trials but I love to suffer, you know, I was always a writer first and then you know I, I got the notion of oh how do you get faster way, there's a power to weight ratio, And then there's a whole science behind cycling. Amazing. And then you know you have to be as lean as you could possibly be with a strong engine. So I got into time fighting but I never, I was like wow that hurts that discipline, hurts like no other. They call it the time against the clock but it's really, it's a it's a race against your mind because the mind is the mindsets have to suffer for that long is amazing so I already I saw this I was, you know, we go into the web browsing and I saw this six hour time, okay 10 mile 40k 25 miler I've never really gone further than 25 miles but then there's like six hours, and then I saw the record at that time and I think it was 132 miles for my age category and now I was four times consecutive champion now so I was 52 years old 23 And I went there, I think I know I know I can be that you know you always of course, it was it's held in Virgo springs right by Palm Springs area and I, and I told my wife Rachel who happens to be a world champion there as well and she said a record as well and I said let's do this. So, of course, you know in training you never train six hours on a TT bike that's just, you don't know if you train correctly, some people do, you just stay intensity and the positioning and able to hold that most optimum position for that. That time, and you got to be arrow and fast because, I mean, it's no no getting around the fastest, the most miles in six hours. It's as simple as that. And so we did it. And we both won the first time I got there and I, I did 142 miles and six hours smash the rest of it yeah so I averaged like 24.1 miles an hour, I was pretty astonished by that and it's a 10 mile loop. And at four miles you go, the put you into a five mile, but there's not a lot of climbing, there's a two mile climb and a two to 4%, but you know when you do that that six times and the hour and a half mile marker in that time trial positioning try to, try to keep your coefficient of drag as low as possible and you're only picking up with your eyes, you know you're trying to do everything to be as narrow as possible. When the four and a half hour comes, and they put you to the five, five mile loop, then you got to really turn it on because then you know your splits and you know how fast you got to go to make 240 mile or 142, and yeah it's it's, it is brutal on the body, on the, the, the arms, the neck, and the lower portion of your body and also it's quite the task to do so at some level,
Kyle Case 17:30
That's tough and let me just clarify we offer a time trial at the Hudson World Senior Games, but if anybody's worried about hearing Louie's story it's not a six hour. It's more like the other one is talking about, it's a shared system, but there is something special about that time trial you are racing the clock You're racing yourself you're racing your own mental toughness. And really, really a fun race in a stage race, kind of a unique, you know opportunity to just really test yourself and and just see how fast you can go in a certain distance, so that's a project
Louie Amelburu 18:06
I did actually my teammate Mark Schaefer held the 40k time job the Huntsman, games, and the year after I came in and I wrote that record, they haven't identified it in the in the record books by IV, V, I hold the 40k record for that, although they haven't put it in the books yet, but check out
Kyle Case 18:30
what's going on. They're way way out there, and I know a guy I know a guy you can look that up for you. Yeah,
Louie Amelburu 18:37
Two years ago, I believe. Yeah right 2017 Because of COVID. But that time trial that the huntsman Senior Games persona is is so fun because it's on the highway there, then you go back in and it loops back around and then offers when it offers a little bit of grades and offers decended offers all, everything that time trialers can want. So I've done that two years, 2018 and 2019 I participated in the huntsman games,
Kyle Case 19:11
Fun stuff. Well we're looking forward to having you here again, we don't have a ton of time left, but I do want to get into the Pan Am Games. You know the Pan Am Games is an opportunity event to kind of compete within the Americas, you've got the North and Central, South America and and a wide variety of different sports that are offered under the Panama flag, obviously cycling's your specialty. You've competed several times and been very successful. I want to. I'm wondering if you could focus in on maybe one of your favorite pan-am memories one of the things that just really stands out to you,
Louie Amelburu 19:45
Because my parents are from Cuba. I went to. It was the Masters Pan American championships and I wanted to take my dad with me but my dad didn't want to go back to Cuba because when my dad lived there it was, you know, it was an amazing different situation now in a communist country he goes, No, I don't want to go back there he goes. But let me tell you something, If you go if you go and compete, you better come home. Dad Okay whatever you know so I went in there and I was, I want the time trial, discipline, but the story that stands out the most was when there was the road race and maleness Cuban national writer got when we broke away, and we were hammering each other and then you were three kilometers to go, I looked down at my front tire was on flat. And he didn't know and I, you know, I don't want to tell us what's happening to me. And oh my god oh my god, what am I gonna do I gotta, I gotta run this race I got a 5050 chance. And I got three kilometers to go and I looked at my front wheel and it's going down and, and then he looks at me and he goes, Hey, I'm from this country. Can you let me have this when I told her Spanish because I speak Spanish fluently i I'm sorry, but I have a I have a family to go home to as well. And no, we're gonna fight this out because I'm not giving a gold medal to anyone. So, but in doing so he still didn't notice that I was going flat, and with, I don't know, it was like 75 600 meters to go. And there was a little uphill finish which it was advantageous for me, because that was my one of my strength. I said you know what, Louis, You have to go now and don't look back and I remember and I go and I just remember shifting my weight. Like you go 6040 I was like a 20 on the back tire so I could not, you know, increase the deflation of the front tire, and man, I put my head down, I can remember that. All I remember was looking at the tire and the crowds for a while, and I looked up and I, when you're sprinting, you can feel him coming on. And I can feel it, and then I just, I put one hand on the handlebar because I don't want to go both hands up in my shoulder, You know in my front tire. I'm like, Man, I just want to go man off the Pan Ams and then the crowd went crazy I signed autographs. Yeah, that was an amazing memorable experience for me to flatting the 3k to go as a sprinter like 500k just holding on to one that was amazing. Yeah, it is awesome.
Lil Barron 22:32
My dad was probably so proud.
Louie Amelburu 22:35
Yeah, when I came home really yeah he, I get emotionally he was like looking at other gold medals but I was like yeah, this is for you. Yeah,
Kyle Case 22:45
Louis, that that is a great experience.
Louie Amelburu 22:48
Yeah, and then after that, I guess my mom dance professionally in the hotels there, but so I would go and visit the Tropicana the Hilton and all the hotels that she danced and so it was an exhausting, two weeks,
Kyle Case 23:03
But what a great memory and I love the, the ability that you had the opportunity to connect family
Louie Amelburu 23:11
That was one of the best experiences I've ever had,
Kyle Case 23:13
and sounds like, literally I hate it, but we've run out of time. Wow, that is many that speak to you guys back down and get some more stories but thank you so much for joining us. We're looking so forward to seeing you over once again look us up for sure.
Louie Amelburu 23:31
Yeah, well, pleasure and having me you guys. Yeah look forward to seeing you guys sounds
Kyle Case 23:37
Awesome. Okay, we'll do it. Wow.
Lil Barron 23:40
I know, I know I kind of a little emotional with him.
Kyle Case 23:45
I think that's, that's what sports is about. Listen, it's not even about the gold necessarily but that experience of pushing yourself and given everything that you got. There's just something really special. And it's fun to be to be able to provide the athletes, you know, over the age of 50 and I'm just really bad I love it I love it. It gets me jazzed. For sure, because that will equip things as we wrap up here I mentioned at the beginning of the show but just a reminder registration is open, save that 20 bucks right save 20 bucks register before August first save $20 You can check out all of our schedules rules dates or COVID plan is there, it's all available at SR games dotnet. We've also got a bunch of other great content there active aging information blog posts, access to our living your best life webinar series lots of stuff so spend some time and see your Game Stop now. We want to remind you to tune in live next and every Thursday at 5:30pm Mountain Time on AM 1450 or FM 93.1 For the husband World Senior Games active life. We of course take this live show and turn it into a podcast, and you can subscribe anywhere that you find your podcasts, so just do a search for husband we'll see your needs actively. If you are listening by Podcast Take a moment and give us a rating, write a quick review, it really helps to spread the word. One of the best and easiest places to do that is that pod chaser.com slash the act of life. And then of course you can find this in previous shows right on our website. Again that is senior games.net So check that out today's inspirational thumb. It comes from the Scottish novelist Robert Louis Stevenson. And he says, Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant. Until next Thursday, stay active.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai