Yearly Archives : 2013

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Laguna Phuket Triathlon Course Review

May 15, 2013

 

Learn by doing! Join our next ironguides The Method training camp in Phuket 2-3 November, 2013 — Clich HERE for more info.

Video from ironguides Phuket Training Camp in 2012

 

Having lived in South-East Asia for the past six years, I have had the chance to coach people to most of the key events in this part of the world.  The Laguna Phuket Triathlon is one of the most popular event among triathletes from all over Asia. Accessed through direct flights that are less than a couple of hours away from several main cities in Asia, this event provides a challenging and fun course, superb accommodation and a breathtaking venue. It is a great weekend, with a mix of hard racing and partying by celebrating the end of the season.

Swim (1.8km)
A beach-run start is always a fun way to begin a race. However, unless you are trying to place in your age group, take this run relatively easy: otherwise you will spike your heart rate and it will take a couple of hundred meters in the water to catch your breath.

 

The first half of the swim is held in the beautiful waters of Bangtao Beach. There are usually no currents and waves which makes the first part of the swim relatively easy.
Then you run another 100 meters across the beach to dive into the resort’s lagoon. This is a challenge since the ocean water has a higher density than the lagoon (or a swimming pool), so there is a sinking feeling for the first few hundred meters of the next swim section.

You can simulate this change in training with the following swim set:

Choice warm-up
[3x100m hard with the pull buoy – 10sec rest
3x100m hard without pull buoy – 10sec rest
2x100m very easy recovery – 60sec rest]
X2-3 (do the set above two or three times, depending on your experience)

Swimming with a pull buoy helps you float better. It also changes your balance and technique in the water. When you take the pull buoy off and do another several hundred meters of repeats at race-pace effort, you will feel the difference in terms of how high you are in the water—exactly the same way you feel when you switch from the ocean to the lagoon in the Phuket swim!

Bike (55km)
Once done with the swim, the transition is very straightforward and simple. You will be directed to the mounting line. The bike course is well marked and safe (for Thailand’s standards anyways).
The course is mostly flat. You will face the most difficult part not long after T1. From 5km until 12km, you are challenged with three very steep hills—by steep I mean that they are usually ridden in the lightest gear even by world-class professional athletes.

 

It is very common to see athletes walking while pushing their bikes up these hills. To avoid that, you want to have a large cassette (i.e. 27+) or compact cranks.

In terms of fitness, here are two ways to improve your climbing abilities. The first is by climbing more! If you have access to hills, do hill repeats at a hard effort. If you live in a flat area, you can get stronger by riding in a very low cadence, and doing intense and short repeats. You are basically doing leg presses on the bike. See the set below:

Choice warm-up
10-20x [1min at 40 to 50 cadence HARD RESISTANCE / 1min VERY EASY recovery]
Choice cool-down

Pushing heavier gears will also help you to lower your heart rate after the swim, and on the flat parts of the course. The last 5kilometers of the course are a bit slower, since they go through villages with many switchbacks and turns. If you are a beginner, this will give your legs some rest as you get ready to run. If you are aiming for a top placing, you will need to pay extra attention here as losing focus will cost you time in this part.

Run (12km)
It’s a very straightforward run, mostly on the golf course. The golf course’s undulations are not significant. The only special consideration for this course is the terrain, as the mix of grass and dirt road makes it a bit slower compared with a hard surface.

 

It is important to focus on a very high stride rate, and to prepare for this we suggest the following set:

Choice warm-up
[1min fast at 96 steps per minute (count one foot only)
4min moderate at 90 steps per minute]
X5-8 (repeat the set 6 to 8 times, depending on your fitness level)
Choice cool-down

Since many Asia-based triathletes live in big cities, make lemonade out of lemons by using the treadmill for the set above because it is an excellent training tool. How does a treadmill contribute so much to improved run skills?

In basic terms, running on a flat treadmill enables you to run at the same aerobic load as you do on land, but to run at a faster pace for that aerobic load. Meaning: You can run faster for longer, which means you are training neuromuscular patterns to fire at a rate that equates to a faster run pace. The aerobic training component in either case is the same.

Running at a high cadence is a very specific triathlon technique that focuses on efficiency. You also want to use a mid-foot strike, which helps to achieve the faster stride rate. Ideally you want to run at 90+ steps per minute (counting one foot only). The above session will challenge you with fast sections at 96 steps per minute.

 

You also want to get used to aiming for a negative split, which means picking up the effort as you progress into the run.

These tips should give you a good idea for the challenges you will face in Phuket.
Enjoy your training.

Coach Vinnie Santana

 

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Swim Technique – Part 3

April 23, 2013

SWIM DRILLS: WHEN ARE THEY REALLY NEEDED?

In the first article in this series about swim technique, I talked about the process of developing a technique for optimal open-water swimming. In the second, I discussed swim fitness and ways to build it. Here, I consider the reasons we use drills and when to use them.

When we think about swim training/coaching, we always think drills, drills, drills. Many top-end swim coaching companies base their whole business around drills—their own special drills—to produce the best stroke. I want to look at why we use drills and when we should use drills as I think they are often overused.

Firstly, a drill is breaking down the stroke into its component parts and refining movement patterns to enhance the overall stroke and so improving performance. Blindly prescribing drills to every swimmer, though, is not the route to go in my opinion; we need to see each individual athlete to assess what they are doing wrong and what needs to be fixed. We can use video footage of the swim stroke to gauge any potential problems and, if there are any, then go about fixing faults—if something is already working then there is no need to try and fix it. In fact, trying to improve something that already works fine can be very detrimental to the athlete.

When we train in the pool or open water, the aim is to perform as many good strokes as possible. If our technique is solid and we can repeat it then we do not need to be doing drills to change anything—in essence every stroke is a drill! This, though, is rarely the case and as triathletes we have days when we are so tired that our technique can just be terrible and needs a little stimulus to get back to good pathways.

In essence, the body gets lazy and wants to switch on the least amount of muscle to perform any task in order for the fatigued muscles to recover.

This “laziness” causes us to swim very poorly compared with when we are fresh but we can override the brain by performing drills that force muscle activation. So if you get in the pool and feel bad, your stroke timing feels off and power is low, then you need to do something about it: stop your session and perform a drill to fix what’s wrong and then get back into your workout.

It may only take 2-4 x 50m to fix the issue and you can then have a great session.

As an example I like to use what I call the power drill on days when I just feel wrong in the water: this is a great drill that sets stroke timing and also activates all swim-related muscle fibres.

POWER DRILL

Push off the wall on your front, head down and using a light kick, arms are always under the water—elbows and upper arms at the surface and wide of the body. Now pull one arm forward and the other arm back, so you are fighting one arm against the other. It is important that you always lead with the elbow so when pulling the hand forward from the back, your hand is pointing to the bottom of the pool all the way with the elbow leading the hand until it passes the shoulder—from this point the hand comes forward to full extension out front. The hand pulling back does the opposite so the hand comes down while the elbow stays forward of the shoulder and then all back together.

SEE VIDEO BELOW FOR DEMONSTRATION

When you master this drill, you should hardly be moving up the pool!

When we perform a drill in training it is important that we do the drill and then immediately swim after. This is helping the brain associate the drill to the full technique. So my advice: if you feel off, stop your session and perform 2-4 x50m, swimming 25m drill and then 25m moderate effort full stroke.

While the power drill is my go-to drill for most athletes right now (depending on the athlete and the issue), other drills can be used to fix specific problems.

DRILLS FOR INJURIES

I also recommend using drills when you are injured or notice a sudden pain. With swimming this is very common in the shoulder around the rotator cuff. When we swim with a technique that goes against our structure we can easily get inflammation in this area and it is very painful. The standard advice given to athletes is to stop using paddles or swimming until the problem goes away. This can take a very long time and not really addresses the issue so the pain is likely to return once back to normal swimming.

Shoulder problems occur easily in triathletes as we have stiff shoulders from all the riding we do. We need to swim with a style that takes this into account.

So if you develop shoulder pain, or if you already have, then a couple of drills will go a long way to solving the problem. The issue is normally bringing the recovery arm too close to the body and too high above the water—to remedy this we need to recover wider over the water while keeping the hand closer to the water.

DRILL ONE – hand drag

Simply swim as normal but the recovery hand must stay in the water all the way to the wrist—the only way to do this is by staying wide of the body and when you get this right you will instantly feel less stress on the shoulder.

DRILL TWO – finger trail

This is a follow-on drill from the first, so now the recovery hand is just above the water and the finger tips are still touching the water on the recovery.

If you have shoulder problems, these drills should be performed in your warm-up before every swim; if you suddenly develop pain during a session, you should stop and perform some drills before continuing. As above, I recommend just 3-4x50m of each drill, swimming 25m drill and then 25m moderate.

Drills have become an integral part of swimming and certainly have their place when learning to swim. After that, drills must be very specific to the athlete’s needs and performed only when needed. As triathletes we have limited swim-training time and we need to make the most of this for fitness gains. Swim fitness is very important when racing triathlon, as your condition (much more important than time) leaving the water affects the rest of the race. The focus of your swimming should be on taking as many good strokes as possible and using drills can aid this process at times.

Alun ‘Woody’ Woodward, Certified ironguides Coach – UK/Hungary
http://www.ironguides.net

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