Category : Training

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Triathlon Cycling: High or Low Cadence?

July 20, 2018

With the Tour de France just behind us and the top cyclists back in the news, much of the cycling and triathlon media will have made plenty of comments about the higher cadence at which top cyclists rides. Unfortunately, nothing has compromised the average triathlete’s ability to improve on their bike more than the common assumption that maintaining a higher cadence equates to improved performances on the bike regardless of the rider’s ability and fitness. Not only do professional cyclists compete at far higher power outputs than the typical triathlete, but they also do not have to run at the end of the bike and can afford to push their legs and body much closer to the point of exhaustion by the end of the bike.

 

To better understand the importance of cycling cadence and effort in triathlon, you first need to understand how your bike cadence relates to competing in a triathlon as a whole, and how changes in cadence impact your body while you train or compete.

 

The easiest way to visualize cadence and its effect on your body is to picture the bike segment of a triathlon as an amount of “work” to be done, like a huge boulder sitting in your backyard that you need to move from Point A to Point B as quickly as possible. You can equate trying to move the boulder in one exhaustive effort with trying to complete the bike segment with one enormous pedal stroke using a huge chain ring like the one John Howard used setting the world land speed record on a bicycle. The work you need to do to move that boulder in one go or to pedal that bizarre contraption is going to take a huge amount of muscular exertion that will exhaust you by the time you get to Point B.

 

Your other option is to break up the boulder into a large number of small rocks that you carry from A to B – you’re on the right track here, unless you break up the boulder into so many pieces that you spend a lot of time hurrying back and forth, increasing your heart rate and putting a lot of aerobic stress on your body as you hurry as quickly as possible to move all those stones. This equates to using a very high cadence to move from A to B on the bike.

 

The ideal strategy lies somewhere in between: That is, breaking the work up into many manageable-sized pieces so that you can move as much of the boulder with each trip from A to B and can complete the work in as little time as possible. In other words, the right cycling cadence balances the stresses placed on your aerobic system by higher cadences, and the stresses placed on your muscles using a low cadence.

 

To understand this a bit better, you can picture the contraction your leg muscle makes with each pedal stroke as momentarily blocking the flow of blood into and out of the contracted muscle. A short contraction (high cadence) enables blood to flow into and from the muscle more often, which supplies nutrients and oxygen to the muscle and transports waste products and carbon dioxide away from the muscles more often – but at the expense of a greater stress on your aerobic and nervous systems. All those contractions force the heart to work harder and the nerves to fire more frequently. Conversely, a longer contraction (low cadence) blocks the transport of oxygen and nutrients into the muscle and traps breakdown products in the muscle for a longer period – that’s the “burn” you feel when you are riding with a slow, high contraction. However, your aerobic and nervous systems are not taxed as much.

 

The right cadence balances these stresses so that you can apply the greatest amount of force for the longest possible time. But contrary to what you might expect, “manageable” in the above context does not mean “relative to my fitness level.” Manageable means relative to the amount of work you are doing – in other words, the right cadence for you is relative to how much power you can produce on the bike, which depends by and large on your fitness and cycling-specific leg strength.

 

In other words, don’t compare yourself to what professional cyclists are doing – instead, look at what you are able to deliver on the bike. The stronger you are, the more forceful the contractions you can make on the bike. The fitter you are, the longer you will be able to make these contractions. And the greater the sustained force of the contractions you can make, the more you need to increase your cadence and “break the work up into more pieces.”

 

There’s one more piece to the puzzle, however. Unlike cyclists, as triathletes we also need to consider our approach to cycling in context of what comes next and keeping in mind that our goal is not to have the fastest bike split, it’s to have the fastest possible overall time at the finish. What you do on the bike in triathlon has to be understood in context of the demands you face on the run, too.

 

The reality of our sport is that we are always running on tired legs. That means that trying to run with a more forceful, longer stride rate in triathlon will quickly lead to disappointment because your tired legs have much less to give after the bike you’ve just done!

 

Instead, if you look at run speed as the product of stride length x stride rate, the most effective way to run faster in triathlon is to increase your stride rate (which can be learned), rather than trying for a forceful leg contraction. The price on your body for this faster rate of contraction is greater fatigue in your fast twitch muscle fibers.

 

A faster stride rate also means your motor neurons fire more frequently, which over time more quickly fatigues your motor neurons. This results in less forceful nerve signals, which in turn results in less forceful muscle contractions. But there’s ways to stave off this fatigue – recent research indicates that nervous system fatigue can be delayed by reducing the rate at which your nerves fire (Postactivation potentiation: Role in performance, British Journal of Sports Medicine: Volume 38(4) August 2004, pp 386- 387).

 

What does all this mean? In a nutshell, you need to ride your bike in a way that reduces the stresses that you will encounter on the run and keeps those systems as fresh as possible. The slow contractions of a slower cycling cadence (think of your legs as boa constrictors squeezing powerfully to drive the cranks around) will recruit fast twitch muscle fibers to a greater degree, which spares your slow twitch fibers for the run. And because a low cadence fires your motor neurons less frequently, you will reduce nervous system fatigue and enable fresher, stronger nerve signals on the run, resulting in stronger run muscle contractions than you might otherwise be able to generate after riding with a high cadence.

 

As well, because slow twitch fibers don’t contract as explosively and by definition not as often, you reduce the strain on your aerobic system. By riding with a lower aerobic intensity, you also burn less glycogen and can preserve this muscle fuel for the run. Your lower heart rate will also save some of your capacity for lactate tolerance for the run segment of the race.

 

Is it really this straight forward? Well – yes and no! “Yes” because by and large, triathletes need to factor in all of the above and should opt for a slower cadence between 75-85 pedal strokes per leg, per minute. As well, most age group triathletes do not have the aerobic conditioning or strength to generate the kind of power that requires higher cadence. By training at a low cadence against high resistance, however, you will quickly develop leg strength while reducing aerobic stresses in training – in effect, you tip the balance in your training from a more catabolic (a “breaking down” of the body) type of stress (aerobic system stress) to a more anabolic (a “building up” of the body) stress.

 

If you are new to triathlon or if you have bought into the “high cadence” approach to cycling for a long time, you’re giving up an opportunity to train strength and recruit more muscle with each of those puny little pedal strokes you’ve been taking! Try a few weeks of pushing a bigger gear, maintaining your speeds while reducing cadence into the low 80’s or lower – remember, you are training for your race, and that means applying effort in a way to improve performance with a goal in mind. Simply turning over the pedals at a slower cadence will not lead to improvements if you’re not forcing the muscles to work harder at the same time!

 

At the same time, I said “No” above because there are exceptions to the low cadence approach as your cycling abilities improve. As well, the shorter the distance at which you compete, the higher the power you are able to generate. If you are in the top echelons of performance in your age group you will need to increase your cadence for sprint, Olympic and even half

 

Ironman events.

 

Putting all this together at ironguides, we use some fairly simple tactics and tools to improve our athletes’ cycling splits in a triathlon-specific way. One of the sessions most of our athletes see on a regular basis is best done on a spin bike or computrainer, or a windtrainer you can rely on to generate very high amounts of resistance. After a thorough warm-up, complete anywhere from 10 to 30 efforts of the following:

 

60sec against heavy resistance

 

followed by

 

60sec zero-resistance easy recovery

 

We assign a cadence of 40 to 45 pedal strokes per leg per minute for this session, with a note explaining that the cadence should be this low because the resistance is so high that you could not possibly push any faster! For example, a 40-45 Age Grouper we coach pushes 20 of these efforts at 520 Watts – no wonder he’s been winning all of his sprint races this year and frequently placing top five!

 

You can create variations of this approach by pushing a massive gear out on the road, too, for longer intervals and aiming for that “boa constrictor” feeling, while staying in the aero position to simulate your race position as much as possible. Your consistent efforts to push hard against resistance will recruit more muscle and train your bike-specific strength quickly. With a properly structured training program, your all out, high-resistance efforts over varying durations will not over-stress your aerobic system while they consistently develop your leg strength.

 

It’s important to remember that a “properly structured training session” does not mean that you should use power goals to outline the session. Instead, each athlete completes his or her assigned sessions on a “best effort basis.”

 

You can use your power readings to provide feedback on how you are improving over time or to quickly spot fatigue and track improvement. But it is the structure of each session that generates the physiological changes we are after, whether these are high-resistance short intervals that do not overly fatigue your aerobic system while developing strength, or longer time trials done at the end of long rides that develop lactate tolerance.

 

Putting it all together, if you want to improve your overall triathlon times and your abilities as a triathlon cyclist, you need to adopt a lower cadence than you would use if you were training purely for cycling.

 

• If you’re a typical age group triathlete, avoid emulating cycling styles and approaches that are used by the top professionals, especially in cycling. We triathletes lack the combination of specific cycling strength and fitness to implement these approaches effectively.

 

• Remember that your cadence on the bike as a triathlete can be tailored to take into account what the run demands of you. A lower cadence than a cyclist would use for the same power output will contribute to fresher fast twitch muscles and less-fatigued motor neurons, helping you run faster.

 

• As a triathlete, you can’t ride to exhaustion. Using a larger gear and lower cadence reduces your heart rate and spares glycogen, while leaving capacity for you to run longer at threshold levels.

 

***

 

E.Y.T. – Enjoy Your Training!

ironguides is the leading Lifestyle Facilitation company for athletes of all abilities. We provide coaching and training services, plans and programs, as well training education, health and fitness products to help you learn and live a healthy lifestyle. Come get fit with one of our monthly training subscriptions, event-specific training plans, coaching services, or a triathlon training camp in an exotic location! ironguides also provides Corporate Health services including Corporate Triathlons, Healthy Living retreats and speaking engagements. At ironguides, your best is our business!

–

Train with ironguides!

Personalized Online Coaching: Starting at USD190/month

Monthly Training plans (for all levels, or focused on one discipline): Only USD39/months

Event based training plans:

Sprint Distance (USD45 for 8-week plan)

Olympic Distance (USD65 for 12 week plan)

Half Ironman (R$95 for 16-week plan)

Ironman (USD145 for 20-week plan)

X-Terra (USD65 for 12-week plan)

Running Plans (10k, 21k and 42k – starting at USD40)

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How to Restart Training after Illness or Missed Workouts

June 15, 2018

Following a training program on the spot or 100 percent according to plan rarely happens, especially in triathlon where you train for three disciplines.

As an age grouper, the juggle to balance training, work, family time and all sorts of errands and duties is always the biggest challenge with the tri lifestyle.

You’ll miss training days when work unloads on you a big task, when you catch a cold or a flu virus, and of course, when nagging minor injuries becomes a major one if you ignored it.

It is one of the most frustrating moments for a triathlete, especially when you felt you are reaping benefits from all the training you had consistently logged on.

Derailment of training due to illness, injury or work and family obligations is less of an “if”, and more a “when”. To keep your sanity, you just have to learn to be ok with missing workouts.

While giving specific training advice in an article written for a diverse audience is inherently difficult, I do think there are general principles and few rules that can help guide you back on track.

Accept your current state of fitness.
Before your training was stopped by an illness, minor injury or simply by work obligation, you probably have been doing great on your fitness level.  Depending on the length of your hiatus, it is important not to be in the state of mind before the interruption.  It is common to retain the mindset of past training and racing, along with the feeling that if it worked before your body and mind can do it again.   You have to build it up again.

Don’t Push yourself Hard too Soon

The general rule is.   Take it easy at first.  Give yourself  anywhere in between a few days to a couple weeks of easier sessions as this will create some fatigue which works as an insurance that you won’t train too hard at first, then you can start adding the intensity. The combination of a fresh body and the mental guilt that you didn’t train for days, can be a dangerous one as it may lead to some very intense sessions when you first start back which may kill the chance of building some consistency again.

Listen to your body, and don’t dive into those punishing interval or hard rides too soon.  A simple cold can turn into a more complicated infection if you padded on a too tough of training stress on top of it.   There is always a way to scale back on your training, and be patient in gradually making your way back to the level of training you had before the derailment.

Don’t Try to Play Catch-up
Some athletes, when they felt they had recovered from the illness or felt they are close to the state they where before the hiatus, will try to recover the missed workouts by doing Two- a days or cramming a week’s worth of program into a few days.   This is not only detrimental, but may lead back into your illness, overtraining, or worse, an injury.

Transitioning Smart to the Hard Sessions
When you have gone for a week of easy training, and you feel that you are ready to transition to the harder stuff, this is the way to do it.  On the first week of doing the hard sessions, initially cut back on the volume of the sessions, make them short.    Then gradually increase to the full workout the next week or two depending on how you feel.

It Happens to Everyone

It is very rare, if not impossible, to have a training block leading into a major race where you will complete 100% of the workouts. Some people get sick, others injured, others have challenges with their work, family demands time, it won’t be a smooth road to your race, expect and adjust accordingly, and once you toe the start line, know that all athletes next to you, were also dealing with challenges during their prep.

Getting Back to the Program
You have eased into returning to form after the hiatus, what will happen to my training program?

If you missed less than 5 days, just go back to the same program, don’t play catch up, and just ease into the routine as discussed.
If you missed 1-2 weeks, if you are 8 weeks out from goal race, go back to the point before your hiatus, and start from there. These are race specific workouts, and it is good to gradually build in intensity and volume, rather than skipping, and be faced with harder workouts.  Again, don’t overdo and try to catch up by overcompensating on the missed workouts, you are just asked to continue the program on the day you stopped.
If you are more than 8-10 weeks out from race, just continue your program, as if you haven’t missed anything.   Just be careful to ease into the workouts by cutting back on intensity and volume on the first week, as discussed.There will be days when you feel that you are not in the same fitness as you were before, despite doing all of the above, smartly easing into it and all.   Decrease in performance capability is a collateral damage, and part of being in illness.   Just persevere and be consistent, and you will get all the fitness all back.

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7 Tips for a Better Iron-Distance Taper

May 16, 2018

When triathletes reach the taper period of their training plan, their eyes light up as finally, the days of long and hard workouts are behind them. But ask any triathlete about their plan, most of them will have that deer caught in the headlights look.
Am I resting enough? Or am I doing too much? That is the most common lingering question on taper weeks for most age-groupers. For many weeks of long workouts, coupled with high intensity work, it is truly an unfamiliar ground to break it off, especially when you feel you have peaked.
To keep it in perspective, the primary goal of a taper period is to shed and regain. Sounds ironic? It is to shed fatigue, and regain proper form. Fatigue and form usually doesn’t go along well. When your muscles are fatigued, they are tight and usually do not function in their full range of motion. That is why form suffers when you are in the tail-end of any endurance event.
But shedding fatigue and sharpening form has its strategy. You do not suddenly turn-off a tuned engine for three weeks then expect it to run perfectly on raceday.
Here are the tips for a better Iron-Distance Taper:

1. Reduce length and volume. This is a no-brainer, but the rule of thumb is a 25% training volume reduction in the 1st week of 3-week taper. Fifty percent in the next week, and a 75% reduction in race-week. Again, this is a template. A consistent, solid, fitter triathlete will need lesser training volume reduction as mentioned.

2. Do not catch-up on missed workouts! Any age-grouper will miss training, due to work, family time, or even sickness. Catching up with the hard and long workouts and ultimately lessening your taper period will not improve your fitness anymore. One pro triathlete said it best; “there is not a lot you can do inside three weeks to help your race, but there is a lot you can do to shipwreck it.”

3. Too much Easy/Recovery sessions. Reducing the training load does not mean you will ultimately forget high-intensity sessions. Inadequate high-intensity training in the last 3 weeks ultimately leads to a flat race, wherein you feel you cannot exert the power and intensity you gained in your peak period. Just remember to keep your sessions short and at ironman-specific pace…or just a tad-faster. This will keep your body in vroom-vroom mode until raceday, just making it remember you are one fine-tuned athlete.

4. Maintain the regular training schedule/number of sessions in a week. Again, if you mess up with a schedule that you have been regularly doing the past 16-20 weeks or so, this will again lead you to overdoing the “rest”part of the taper, leading again to a flat race. It is important to keep the routine but with less volume. Mentally, that will benefit you greatly as you stay focused on the plan.

5. Reward your body. The build and peak period has made your body one high-fitness machine. During this time, we bet that there was little time devoted to non-swim bike and run recovery sessions. With time and volume decreased in this taper period, you can accelerate healing your body with flexibility/stretching sessions, foam rolling and sports massage. This sessions will help regain proper form, improving your swim, bike and run economy. A repaired and rebuilt body will have maximum potential for power on raceday. Just a warning though, never do a hard, sports massage too close to the race. It will do more harm than good.

6. Not the time to reward yourself by overeating. The race isn’t over yet. The hard work is done, but this is not the time to celebrate by over-indulging with food..or even drinks (alcohol). Maintain your nutrition/meal plan you executed on your build and peak periods. This is also not the time to experiment on what type of nutrition you will need on race-day.

7. Stay sharp mentally. With more time on your hands, this is the perfect time to review and assess what have gone right and wrong on your iron-distance training. Remind yourself your strengths and implement them on your race strategy. This is also not the time to correct whatever weakness you discovered in your training. Instead, work around your weakness and hopefully hide it on your race plan. Review your travel plans, make your packing and gear checklist. Also, this is very important: review the race maps and information guide. An informed triathlete is always the faster triathlete.

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Top 7 Mistakes Age Groupers Make in Ironman Marathon

April 10, 2018

Here at ironguides, we are often approached for help in improving their ironman marathon time. Some of the stories we have received are along these contexts:
• I have a very decent stand-alone marathon time, why can’t I translate that success when it comes to iron-distance events?
• I have prepared hard for my ironman marathon training. I ran 4 times a week, and have done the required mileage, but come the run leg of the ironman, I hit the wall and walk most of the last 10k.
• I have always been strong on the bike and the run. I have been told that I overcooked my bike that led to a very weak run. What should I do?
There are just some of the stories that we have been told with our years of handling age group triathletes. It is quite obvious no matter how fast your 400m run splits or your record time at a standalone marathon, more often than not, those are not good predictors on how well you will run your ironman marathon. Let us look at the most common mistakes triathletes make in their ironman training, and how to avoid them.

1. Not Developing Good Run Technique
You can get away with a poor to mediocre running form in shorter distances. But when you translate that to ironman marathon, any deficiency in form and technique will ultimately come back to bite you in a huge way.

When you have poor form and technique, you spend more energy, you are more susceptible to injuries, and your heart rate will always be elevated.

It is never too late to develop good running form and technique. There are drills that you can integrate in your training on a consistent basis especially focusing on developing a high stride rate. Or you can have your form analyze via video by a running coach, and have recommendation on drills to correct your form. This is not about on how fit you are, but developing the skill, form and technique will make your runs effortless and efficient.

2. Lack of Strength
If you are training for an iron-distance event, and you focus your runs on fast and speed intervals, then you are doing it wrong. Long distance triathlon is a strength sport where strength and muscular endurance are key components.

First off, early in your base training, consider incorporating strength in the gym, mainly of squats, deadlifts and lunges. These exercises will be beneficial on your bike and run strength and provide you a strong core. Moreover, strength training can prevent injury, and having that good foundation, will make your muscles fatigue-resistant. As you transition to your build-up, strength training in the gym can be replaced with big-gear riding and hilly runs.

3. Not Getting Strong enough on the Bike
If you believe that simply focusing on your run will make you a better ironman marathon runner, then you will be in a deep mess after you biked 180kms in your race. It is also no surprise that the personal bests in ironman marathons are achieved when the age-groupers worked hard on their bike training. Getting the miles done in the bike 5-7 hours saddle time, coupled with bouts of big-gear training will make you stronger on the bike. Getting stronger on the bike and smart pacing means you will be fresh after 180km leg.

4. Neglecting Recovery
Yes you still need to do the Long Runs of 2.5 hours and hilly runs. But there are times in the middle of your build-up, your legs are so wrecked, you need to step back, and listen to your body. Otherwise you risk being too fatigue to train with a decent technique and that will not only create bad habits but also increase chances of injuries

There are options for recovery, one is active recovery of easy swim and a spin ride. Others will be a sports massage or a flexibility session. Use these recovery strategies after your key runs to boost recovery and get you ready for the next main sessions

Remember, make your easy days easier, and your hard days harder. And you can only do that if you listen to your body.

5. Not Enough Brick Sessions
This is a very specific skill that every multisport athlete must master. And make it natural on all their training programs. There are mostly two types of brick sessions: the transition run, and the long brick. Transition runs are 15-20 minutes runs off the bike, focusing on finding your proper form, and shaking off the wobbly legs you feel after a long bike. Try to have 2-3 times sessions of this transition runs. You can even do them as a cool down of some of your weekly bike sessions, take it easy and focus on stride rate.

The long brick is a break through workout and must be done at the tail-end of your build-up, or when you are nearing your peak period. Usually this is done on the weekend when you have more time, and the runs are longer (30 mins + runs after a long ride) than the short transition runs. Allow necessary recovery after a good hard long brick session.

Acing these workouts means you are more than ready and shake the wobbly legs feeling you will experience on the first few minutes on your marathon. If the wobbly legs did not wear off, it means you have not done enough brick sessions or you overcooked your pacing on the bike…which leads us to….

6. Wrong Pacing
Your pacing on the bike will matter most on how well you will perform on your marathon. You have done the training on the bike and run, and have significantly improve your strength on both discipline. But on race day, something went wrong. You bonked on the run again. Better to look at your pacing discipline. You saw a competitor on the bike course, overtaking you, and zooming past you and your steady pace. You reacted, and surge to keep up. Or you are within minutes of a goal time, but you ignored the terrain and wind conditions and simply exerted more power just to save that 3-5 minutes off your bike split. Remember, if you paced it wrong, those 3-5 minutes may mean more in terms of your run time.

Whether you will pace via a power meter of do it by feel, having the proper steady pace means no over-exertions on your muscles, making them fresh for the ironman marathon.

7. Mishandling the Nutrition Training
Nutrition is the 4th discipline, specially when it comes to long-distance traithlons. How many times have we seen athletes bonk on the run, vomit and have GI stress issues. Nutrition is a personalized thing. What may work for you, may not work for others, as our bodies are different in reacting to certain fuel and nutrition. The most given advice though is to practice your nutrition on your training. It is not smart to change on on race day what you have been eating on training.

Make sure you also don’t blame on nutrition, an error you’ve made in one of the previous 6 mistakes. For example, you may blame nutrition if your stomach shuts down on race day and you can’t process any calories, but most times these are a result of a combination of factors including wrong pacing.

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The Secret Training Plan

March 19, 2018

Recently we had a new sign up for our monthly subscription training plan and on the same day, we received an email requesting a refund. The athlete said the reason was that he saw nothing special compared to previous training plans he had used before, the workouts were simple and therefore he was not satisfied.

It reminded me of another situation in which two of my athletes, who were friends, started training together but were having different results in terms of performance. The athlete who was not improving as much asked me if I had sent a special training plan to his buddy.

I often also get questioned about the type of training my high performance athletes are on. What’s so special about their training that makes them perform so well, win their age groups, qualify to the Ironman World Championships and so on.

What’s the secret training plan that these athletes are on?

This type of question or the attitude towards feeling that you are missing some secret recipe also means you are admitting that there are some special training sessions, a kind of secret training plan. Some athletes have the privilege to have access to that, making them faster.

But it is important to understand that if we want to improve our swimming, get stronger on the bike or have a more solid run, we need to pursue these improvements by increasing our training load, building a good consistency and getting the “right mix” of training. These are the best starting points and a balance of these things will guarantee your improvements. The truth is, there is no secret training plan, as they simply do not exist!

In 10 years of triathlon, I had the opportunity to meet many successful coaches and when I joined ironguides I came across a methodology somewhat controversial in our sport. Part of our training approach can be similar to some other coaches around the world, but certainly the most controversial is Australian Brett Sutton, coach of Olympic Champion Nicola Spirig, 4-time Ironman World Champion Chrissie Wellington among others. Brett is arguably the most successful trainer of triathlon in the history of this sport.

One of my colleagues and co-coach Vinnie Santana, was coached by Brett and says most of his strength is in the way he motivates his athletes. He makes them believe that what they are doing is the right thing and that there was no limit to what they could achieve. Brett has the skill to change how his athletes think. The training itself was certainly hard work, but it was very unsophisticated and repetitive based on some of the training plans Vinnie shared with me that included some of his own sub 9 hour Ironman performance and Team TBB Kona build (Chrissie’s first win). What I learned from this is that the belief in what you are doing is more important than what you are actually doing.

wagner-araujo25

Behind a victory in a race there are no secrets, but YEARS of consistent practice-Photo Leo Moreira 2011 Ironman Brazil champion in 9h05min, Leo has been an athlete for almost three decades.

Before Ironman 2014 I had many conversations with some top coaches to gather information on how I could improve my own marathon since it was my main limiting factor in races. In one of those conversations, I was told that increasing run volume while pulling back on intensity could be an option since I was recovering from a foot injury. I also had the opportunity to quickly talk to Ironman World champion Chris McCormack and asked him about this, he told me to decrease the intensity and avoid running on very hard surfaces. With these two ideas in mind I designed my new ten week program for the race. During this period, I saw some athletes doing and talking about different things, but I never questioned what I was doing or was annoyed. I had chosen a path and moved on. Pick and stick as they say. The result was that I was able to do my best Ironman marathon, fifteen minutes faster than my previous best time and this led me to my personal best time.

Despite comparing different realities of an age grouper triathlete and professionals, the message remains the same, the secret is having the knowledge and the understanding of why you are doing what you are doing. That’s the secret! Belief is essential in triathlon. Workouts or sets are only the second piece of the puzzle. When you find these key sessions, place them in your training program, work with a coach to do this, and most of all, try to understand why these sessions are important to you. When I think of all the sessions that I or any athlete of mine is doing, none is more important than the other, but I understand why we do each. All sessions that I, my athletes or professional athletes do, can be adopted by each of you, but when, where and how, is what is really important. Get the “right mix” is the key to better results over time. But we must be patient and understand that these results do not appear from night to day, instead, are built over months or years with a lot of consistency, discipline and hard work.

We never knowfor sure when we are getting enough when it comes to triathlon training. Be open to change and be prepared to try new things in your journey to become a better athlete. In this sport, it is not as difficult to improve as it seems. Often the biggest problems is not worrying about the process, but the result.

Enjoy your training!

Rodrigo Tosta

ironguides is the leading Lifestyle Facilitation company for athletes of all abilities. We provide coaching and training services, plans and programs, as well training education, health and fitness products to help you learn and live a healthy lifestyle. Come get fit with one of our monthly training subscriptions, event-specific training plans, coaching services, or a triathlon training camp in an exotic location! ironguides also provides Corporate Health services including Corporate Triathlons, Healthy Living retreats and speaking engagements. At ironguides, your best is our business!

Train with ironguides!

Personalized Online Coaching:  Starting at USD190/month

Monthly Training plans (for all levels, or focused on one discipline): Only USD39/months

Event based training plans:

Sprint Distance (USD45 for 8-week plan)

Olympic Distance (USD65 for 12 week plan)

Half Ironman (R$95 for 16-week plan)

Ironman (USD145 for 20-week plan)

X-Terra (USD65 for 12-week plan)

Running Plans (10k, 21k and 42k – starting at USD40)

 

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The Importance of Pre-Training Rituals

February 19, 2018

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By Shem Leong, ironguides Coach

When does your training session actually start? Do you only mentally switch on as soon as you take that first stride/pedal stroke/swim pull of your main set?

To improve the quality of your training, I challenge you to tune in at least 10, or even 20, minutes before you get changed for your session. For most of us, this would take place on the way to your various training locations; in the train on the way to the track, in the car en route to the pool, walking out of the office to the gym for a quick lunch-hour workout. You likely only have this one window in the day to train so make it work for you.

Dial out all distractions and put the mobile to silent. Give yourself the luxury of being unreachable from that point onwards and use this time to daydream a little. Just what was that Personal Best time again?

Rehearse in your head the set that you are about to do. What kind of set is it? Speed, Strength, Tolerance, Endurance? What is the underlying goal of this set? What were Coach’s instructions and/or feedback from this session in the last couple of weeks?  How am I supposed to feel after completing the set? What am I going to do for a quick and convenient recovery meal after?

Am I going to change anything about the way I executed this set, and if so, what? Think about how you have been executing it in the past weeks and pick out the areas that could be improved. Did you go out too hard and blow up half way through? Could you even out your pedal stroke a little more? What does a good catch feel like underwater? How do you breathe when running efficiently?

If you nailed it previously, consider how to replicate that perfect set. Rehearse the current motivations that have been helping you focus when the going gets tough. Run through your mantras, decide what playlist is going to work for you today, do a quick and honest check on current fatigue and/or stress levels. How many hours of sleep you are functioning off today?

Now is also the time to manage your expectations.  If have you been on holiday, sick, returning from injury or just had a patchy phase recently, don’t expect to perform at your previous best level. Instead, shed all preconceived ideas of where your fitness might be and leave the data behind. It is better that you start with a clean slate and re-configure your perceived-effort barometer. Redefine what it feels like to go easy, moderate, comfortably uncomfortable, hard, and all out.

Trying to force it in an attempt to fast-track your way back to your previous fitness level will only work against you.  You’ll push too hard and will not finish the set and/or wipe yourself out for the next day. Avoiding this is especially important if you’re coming back from illness.

Put together a pre-training ritual. Chances are you already have one; just pay attention the next time to what you do before the session and aim to replicate this every single time. Mentally it’s a process that transports you from the wider world around you with its constant demands and to-do lists to your training zone, a place where you are alone with your thoughts, hopes and dreams.

For the record, after I prepare my bottle, I sit on a certain step to strap on my shoes (to a certain tension), fold my towel in a certain way over the bike, clip in my headphones, string the chord under my top and go through my playlist, selecting the one that I feel is going to work for the day.  I do all this even before climbing on the trainer. It’s simple and takes me all of two, maybe three, minutes but going through this ritual makes me aware of what I am about to embark on. It takes my mind into the present and prepares me mentally for the rigours of the next 40 to 60 minutes.

Only then do I start my warm-up … and that’s another article all together.

Till next time, enjoy your training!

–

Train with ironguides!

Personalized Online Coaching: Starting at USD190/month

Monthly Training plans (for all levels, or focused on one discipline): Only USD39/months

Event based training plans:

Sprint Distance (USD45 for 8-week plan)

Olympic Distance (USD65 for 12 week plan)

Half Ironman (R$95 for 16-week plan)

Ironman (USD145 for 20-week plan)

X-Terra (USD65 for 12-week plan)

Running Plans (10k, 21k and 42k – starting at USD40)

 

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Tips to Kickstart your 2018 Triathlon Season

January 5, 2018

The New Year and the Holidays had just passed and too much merry making has somewhat made you feel guilty about your current state of triathlon fitness.
Don’t over-react and suddenly do a 120-15k brick on your first day out of the year. What you will need to do is to sit down, relax, and reflect on what have you done on your off-season.
If you have been very diligent on your plan to having a great year, we sincerely hope you have followed the tips on having a very good off-season.
W certainly hoped that you had done your homework and accomplished this:
• Addressed your weakest discipline from last year.
• Improved technique
• Gained strength and power on the gym/did functional strength training
• Recovered mentally and physically from last year’s race season
It is ok to step in to the new year with some added weight, and don’t beat yourself up mentally with it. With this kickstart plan, and a sensible nutrition adjustment, you will be on your way to losing it gradually as you go along.
Triathlon events are more popular than ever, and so are the long-distance events like Ironman. To enjoy the season, one must plan accordingly to avoid burn-out, injuries and reach your “A” race in the best possible shape.
Here are the tips to kickstart your season and bring your triathlon performance to the next level:
1. Train to start Training
You bungled your off-season and overdid the Holidays. You are 10-15lbs overweight and felt slow and lethargic. You go out on your first week of your “comeback” by doing a long ride and a long run on the weekend. Stop right there. Your body is not capable of doing the punishing stuff yet. You got to train your body first, before you go into some heavy training loads.

That means continuing the form/technique work and the sessions in the gym. From a non-structured off-season, you got to train yourself mentally too to having a structured plan now, early in the season. This will prevent you from digging up your own hole if you let the off-season attitude creep along.

2. Plan/Set your Goals and Register your Races
Sit down and it is time to look at the Race Calendar and plan your season. Pinpointing your “A” races and the training races you will build around it will be all the motivation you need to gradually start training properly. Instead of saying “I want to do a marathon this year..”, go use that credit card and actually register for an event.

Also, it will be more motivational and challenging if you put some performance goals in all your planned races. You can strive for these goals in your B and C races as way to prepare you for that Big A race.
3. Think short and fast on your first month.
Instead of doing an early season marathon, where you will be instantly forced to churn up long miles in your training, why not sign up for a 5k or 10k run event. If you had a good off-season, it’s a good time to test the enhanced technique you have done in all those drills. It is not impossible to have an early season PR if you aced your off-season.

If not, the short 5-10k run event will be a good test to know your current threshold. And this will be the basis for your current fitness level.

Missed doing triathlons? A sprint triathlon or an Olympic distance event for more experienced athletes is a good way to end your first month in training. Don’t expect to have a good performance, but instead take this opportunity to assess your early season fitness. This will be a good gauge on how well you did in the off-season practicing the techniques, and if you addressed your weakest discipline.

4. Buy Something New
Investing in new gear means you are pretty excited to use it and even brag about it to your triathlon circle of friends. If it’s a new bike, it means you gotta go to your LBS and require a good bike fit too. If it’s a new gps watch, it means you have the early January and February to familiarize yourself with the new features and settings.

The point is, buying new gear means you have that added excitement and motivation to get you out of a rut and out to train. It might also be practical as you might get some inventory sale before the new year models comes out.

5. Commit to a Training Plan
You do not go battle your training months ahead your “A” race if you do not have a training plan. It is just indispensable. Securing a training plan means you have to work for a particular goal, instead of guessing what workout you will do the next day. That just does not work at all in the long run. It also gives you measurable goals and you learn how to track performance.

Also, as age group triathletes try to balance work and family, and a training schedule gets disrupted, you have a ready advice in the form of that plan to get you up and running again.

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Building New Technique

December 22, 2017

Building New Technique

-By Alun “Woody” Woodward – ironguides Coach, Austria.

Offseason is the ideal time to think about building new technique elements into your training plan. We can all improve on our existing swim/ bike/ run technique and even just the way we move in general but the actual process of change is not so easy and very hard to make any change a permanent change.

Why is it hard to change?

Any movement we make is controlled by our brain sending a series of messages to our muscles telling them to contract in a certain pattern in order to bring about movement – this is called a motor pattern. We as humans are made to learn and adapt – once we learn something it is remembered and very hard to unlearn or change, a great example of this is riding a bike, the simple process of learning to ride a bike we tend to learn as children, we can go a number of years without riding then and come back to it and have no problem riding again, our brain remembers the process and while maybe shaky at first the balance and process soon comes back. If we think as triathletes we are maybe performing swim / bike / run sessions several times per week then we are building a very deep muscle memory into our brains that is going to be very hard to rewire.

Making a change

If we want to make a change to technique then we want to at least make the motor patterns rusty by taking a little time away from a certain activity – if it’s run technique we want to change then a period of 3-4 weeks away from running would be wise before starting to think about change and then making sure several weeks are available with no fitness goals other than learning and in training the new technique.

So lets say a break has been taken and we want to get to it, now I like to break the technique down to smaller movements – so if we are looking at running we may want to run with a shorter stride landing under centre of gravity rather than the long loping stride many athletes have – this is very economical for a triathlete and what we should ideally be looking at. To make this change I would look at breaking the desired movement down into 3 sections and then going through these movements in isolation to start building the new movements into the brain without actually performing the full running action – this process only needs to be done for a few days before going into the activity again. I find using a mirror very important when performing drills to ensure we are actually doing what we want – what we think we are doing and what is actually happening can be very different at times. As an example with running we can look at what we want the foot to do after impact with the ground until it starts to move forward for the next stride

* so stand in a running stance
* lift one leg directly from the floor and pull under body
* ankle should stay inline with supporting leg all the way up
* allow gravity to bring leg back down to starting position
* hamstrings should be responsible for this movement
* repeat 30 times and then change legs

This process of building patterns can be done 2-3 times per day and will only take a few minutes – never do for prolonged periods as if fatigue sets in we will resort back to old patterns of movement. Performing these drills first thing in the morning and last thing at night will accelerate the learning process!

Putting the movements into full practice

Once we have gone several days of learning our new movements we can think about putting them into full activity – it is vital you start out slow with short periods of activity in order to maintain good technique and further build the movement into your brain and replace old patterns. Using running as an example this may be a series of 1 minute runs with 1min walks between – having someone watch you to make sure technique is as desired helps a lot at this time. As with the drills we want to stop before fatigue sets in or we risk reverting back to old technique. Slowly build up from this point and before long you will be back to full volume training with your new technique solidly set and ready for improved performance.

By Alun “Woody” Woodward – ironguides Coach, Austria

 

ironguides is the leading Lifestyle Facilitation company for athletes of all abilities. We provide coaching and training services, plans and programs, as well training education, health and fitness products to help you learn and live a healthy lifestyle. Come get fit with one of our monthly training subscriptions, event-specific training plans, coaching services, or a triathlon training camp in an exotic location! ironguides also provides Corporate Health services including Corporate Triathlons, Healthy Living retreats and speaking engagements. At ironguides, your best is our business!

–

Train with ironguides!

Personalized Online Coaching: Starting at USD190/month

Monthly Training plans (for all levels, or focused on one discipline): Only USD39/months

Event based training plans:

Sprint Distance (USD45 for 8-week plan)

Olympic Distance (USD65 for 12 week plan)

Half Ironman (R$95 for 16-week plan)

Ironman (USD145 for 20-week plan)

X-Terra (USD65 for 12-week plan)

Running Plans (10k, 21k and 42k – starting at USD40)

 

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Rest Days: Learn How to Read Your Body Before Taking One

December 18, 2017

Time for the next session—but you’re tired and unmotivated to head out of the door. You’re not sure if the fatigue comes from having had a stressful week at work, or if you went a bit too hard at those weekend sessions. You are a dedicated athlete who feels very guilty whenever you miss a session. At the same time, you know that training through fatigue or illness is bad for your health. So what to do?

For this scenario, The Method athletes are given a few simple guidelines to “test drive” their bodies to help decide if they ought to skip a training session on any given day.

The key? WHEN IN DOUBT …  try it out!

This does NOT mean that you train when you’re sick.

But on those days when you’re unsure whether your should train, or not, The Method encourage athletes to simply try out your body to see what it tells you. Start the session with a very, very easy 20 to 30 minutes before making that call.

If you feel better, continue your session as planned. If needed, back off and take it easy later in the set if you find that you’re deteriorating.

If after that initial 20-30mins you feel the same, i.e. neither much better nor much worse, modify the session so that it places less strain on your body. For example, if you’re to do a long endurance effort, cut the duration. See how you feel later in the session before deciding if you’ll carry on. If you’re to do a lactate-tolerance session, greatly moderate both the duration and the intensity of the efforts and give yourself a lot more rest between each effort. You still engage your high-end aerobic system and fast-twitch muscle fibres, helping to maintain your accumulated fitness gains until you feel strong again.

If you feel worse after testing your body for that very easy 20-30mins, pack it in and head home. Your body’s telling you that it’s not prepared to train today; you might be fighting an impending illness or simply need to recover. Heed the warning and take the day OFF.

A stitch in time saves nine—if you’re ill or fighting illness, having a few days of rest from training will prevent a prolonged forced break from training and racing.

Use these simple guidelines to judge the most appropriate response on days when you feel sluggish or off. Often, you’ll have a great training session on a day you might otherwise have written off.

And on days you feel great?! Go for it! Just remember, the goal is not to deliver hammer blows to the body, but to generate a long-term, consistent training stimulus.

Illness
Try as we might, there is simply no way to avoid getting sick once in awhile. For these times, The Method stipulates you take time off and recover. Remember: With The Method everything is relative. When you’re sick, the body is weakened and needs to recover from training. The goal is to achieve maximum, effective consistency.

Rest
With all that said, The Method doesn’t set in stone when you’re to take rest from training. Unfortunately, this heretical notion of The Method has led to more misinterpretation than any other of its principles.

Life has a funny way of throwing curve balls at us: work, family and community commitments often cause us to miss out on training. Rather than worrying about missed training when this happens, take comfort from the fact that you’ve been training consistently and diligently until then.  Your days off due to commitments elsewhere become your rest days from training, and are automatically suited to your life schedule since they come when you truly need the time elsewhere, rather than when a schedule hammers them out.

You can also look at it this way: No schedule can accurately predict what you’ll be doing each day for months down the road. Quite simply, what The Method tells an athlete is rest when you need it.
Many amateur athletes spend the better part of their day physically recovering from their training at a desk or otherwise in their daily work. The Method accepts that most amateur athletes do not have the luxury of a daily routine dedicated to sport alone.

For this reason, The Method distinguishes between mental rest and physical rest. For example, a stressful work-travel day on which you can’t train may cause you much mental fatigue while your physical training systems have been resting. Consequently, that stressful day counts as a rest day, even though you might be tired from it.

Keep in mind that everything is relative in The Method training. The hormonal context in which The Method places you determines how you ought to train subsequently. If the stressful travel day
comes on top of a lot of other stress in your life, it can create a significant catabolic experience for your body. In this situation, The Method’s approach advises you to avoid endurance work or excessive lactate-tolerance training immediately following or during this (or other) high-stress period.

After taking a day off, be smart when getting back into the training. If circumstances required you to rest, use these simple rules to get back on the plan:

* Add some volume to the start of the workout in order to kick start your body again before trying any intensity. You don’t want to go too hard while being too rested. Rather, add volume to tire yourself a little bit without pushing the intensity. Then do your intervals. For example, add 30 minutes of easy running before the main set.

* If you are a performance-oriented athlete, then take an easy day in each of the sports after your day off. The reason is that you probably needed the day off due to deep fatigue levels, and the extra bit of easy training will help you recover back to normal fatigue levels. Then you’re most likely good to go again!

Learn how to read your body and stay consistent to your plan!

Enjoy your training,
the ironguides team

 

ironguides is the leading Lifestyle Facilitation company for athletes of all abilities. We provide coaching and training services, plans and programs, as well training education, health and fitness products to help you learn and live a healthy lifestyle. Come get fit with one of our monthly training subscriptions, event-specific training plans, coaching services, or a triathlon training camp in an exotic location! ironguides also provides Corporate Health services including Corporate Triathlons, Healthy Living retreats and speaking engagements. At ironguides, your best is our business!

–

Train with ironguides!

Personalized Online Coaching: Starting at USD190/month

Monthly Training plans (for all levels, or focused on one discipline): Only USD39/months

Event based training plans:

Sprint Distance (USD45 for 8-week plan)

Olympic Distance (USD65 for 12 week plan)

Half Ironman (R$95 for 16-week plan)

Ironman (USD145 for 20-week plan)

X-Terra (USD65 for 12-week plan)

Running Plans (10k, 21k and 42k – starting at USD40)

 

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Changing things up

December 11, 2017

We are heading to the end of the season now with only a few big races remaining for most athletes. This is a hard time of year to maintain hard training as both the body and brain are fatigued not only from training but the extra demands that come with racing. Another factor we don’t really link with the decreased motivation is the changing of seasons, we all go through a boost in motivation in spring as the days get longer and warmer but tend to blame other factors when the reverse happens in Autumn.

We see the same things happen to all athletes at this time of year and we can plan to change training protocols or add in elements to the training to make sure motivation is maintained and form continues to rise for important races.

Changing location of sessions is one big thing we can do to refresh the mind and make training more exciting again.

Moving a swim session from the pool to open water is a very easy way to do this, this time of year the open water should be at its warmest as the sun has been warming lakes and oceans all summer so the water should be inviting and will certanly provide a different and more specific session to pool swimming. Head to the open water and you can do the same session style as in the pool by simply converting 50m into say 30 strokes and using this to convert all distances into strokes.

On the bike think about changing your long ride from a TT bike session to a mountain bike session, this will give you access to new routes as you can vary both riding on road and trails, i’m sure many of you have been out riding and come across trails going off the road, now you can turn off and go explore. Not only does this give you an opportunity to explore it also offers a great way to develop riding technique. Riding on loose ground with a mountain bike requires a good smooth pedal action applying equal power all through the pedal stroke, if we only tend to push down and pull up what you will find is the wheels just spin and you stop moving. A few weeks of this work and you will notice a big difference in your riding on the road!!

An added benefit of mountain bike riding over road is that slower speeds for the same effort mean you do not suffer so much in the cooler weather. Riding can be unpleasant in the cold and wet on a road bike but quite enjoyable and most certainly warmer on the mountain bike.

Running can become very monotonous especially with lots of intervals in your program but try taking the intervals to a new environment to freshen your mind – head to a forested are or country park and try to find a loop that approximates your interval length – now take a number of weeks where you perform intervals on the new loop with no watch – you know distance is right so just get out and run to perceived effort and enjoy the new environment. You will be surprised what a month of this style of running will do to your performance level and motivation.

Not only can we change elements of training to get a boost to our performance we can also make a change to the way we race. Going into a race with a different goal and mindset can lead to a very different outcome and breakthrough performances.

RACE CHALLENGE

Change up your race plan and see what happens, for example instead of keeping things steady and consistent all day try looking at one of the sports and really pushing the effort above your normal levels and just seen at happens. For example if you see yourself as a strong runner and have always ridden conservatively to save energy for the run you could look to really push the bike to the point you think no way you will be able to run and just see what happens when you get off the bike, in my experience many runners really underestimate how hard they can push the bike and still be able to run.

Another classic change would be if your a good swimmer who normally leads from the front try holding back in the pack and getting out of the water fresh for the bike, you may find you swim 30s or so slower only despite the effort being much less than normal and as a result are able to access much more power on the bike and also run better off the bike. A great expanse of this tactic leading to a breakthrough was when Pete Jakob’s won Kona in 2012, Pete is arguably the best swimmer in the sport and had led the swim out at Kona with Andy Potts for several years holding a 30s plus advantage on the rest of the field. Pete has always then lost time on the bike and had a great run to run back into contention but not quite win the race. In 2012 Pete held back on the swim and then had a much stronger ride not only staying with the lead group but actually showing as one of the strongest riders towards the end of the bike and this put himself in a winning position heading into the run which he went on to dominate. So a small change in tactic led to a very big breakthrough!

If your feeling motivation slipping and your not performing as you want then take note of the changes above and see how they can fit into your training program, small changes especially just changing scenery can have a huge impact on your mental and physical well being. This could be all you need to take on your competition and head into winter with a big performance in your final race! A strong finish to the year can bode well for a successful winter raining program and an even better season to follow.

Enjoy your training.

 

Changing things up

By Alun “Woody” Woodward
–

Train with ironguides!

Personalized Online Coaching:  Starting at USD190/month

Monthly Training plans (for all levels, or focused on one discipline): Only USD39/months

Event based training plans:

Sprint Distance (USD45 for 8-week plan)

Olympic Distance (USD65 for 12 week plan)

Half Ironman (R$95 for 16-week plan)

Ironman (USD145 for 20-week plan)

X-Terra (USD65 for 12-week plan)

Running Plans (10k, 21k and 42k – starting at USD40)

 

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