Triathlon tip: Stick to your coach’s prerace plan

In the week leading up to the race, follow your training plan. While you may feel that you are not doing enough or should be doing more, remember that there is not much you can do to improve your race performance but there is a lot you can do to hurt it. Sneaking in extra workouts because you do not feel prepared will only hurt you come race day.

Important training principle

Most of us know that if we want to improve, we must stress ourselves in some of our training sessions. Exercise stresses the muscles, stimulating them to grow stronger and work more efficiently. Without enough rest after the stress, however, the muscles are driven to exhaustion or injury. Stress must be balanced by rest in sufficient quantity and quality for adequate growth.

Hard or long runs must always be followed by several easy days in which the pace or distance is reduced. In addition, you must build rest weeks into your program: every second or third week, you should automatically reduce total mileage. This gives your muscles the extra time to “catch up.”

Improvement is based upon the quality of your speedwork and the length of your long run. By taking a day off and then running easily between these two “quality days” you will recover, rebuild stronger and reduce the chance of injury. Common mistakes that lead to injury are:

1) Trying to attain a high mileage level week after week
2) Running daily runs too fast
3) Not enough rest

Medicine Ball Partner Exercises

1. Lunge to Chest Pass: A dynamic move for a dynamic duo. Grab a medicine ball and face your partner, standing about 3-5 feet apart. Keeping the chest up, lunge forward, completing the movement with a crisp (and accurate!) chest pass to your partner. They’ll then catch it and head straight into their lunge-and-pass. Repeat for 10-12 reps each, or until Butterfingers tests your patience.

2. Single-Leg Chest Pass: Stand on one leg, about 4-6 feet from your partner. Keeping the core tight and the body stable, pass the rock back and forth using a basketball chest pass. Continue for 30-60 seconds. Switch legs. Be one move closer to J. Lin status.

3. Overhead Pass with Squat: Time to get up close and personal. Stand back-to-back with one partner holding a medicine ball overhead. The other will then reach up and grab it (klutzes take care!), followed by both buddies coming down into a low squat position. The partner with the ball will then roll it back between their legs for the other one to pick it up and start again. Continue for 10-12 reps, then switch!

4. Partner Floor Slams: This is one throw down you don’t want to miss. Badass #1 starts with a medicine ball overhead and slam it down to the ground so it bounces once before reaching Badass #2. With the core fully engaged (the power of the pass should come from the core as well), keep sending the ball back and forth for 10-15 reps each.

5. Partner Side Swing Pass: In a swing state of mind? Stand side-by-side, about five feet apart, in an athletic stance with the abdominals contracted. Keeping the arms straight, have partner #1 swing the ball from the outside of the body to the inside (pivoting the outside leg as you pivot), then toss the ball to partner #2. Repeat until you get the swing of things, and switch positions.

6. Partner Shuffle Drill: Bring it back to basketball camp. Facing your partner a few feet away, stand in a ready position with the knees slightly bent and core engaged. At “Go” shuffle for about 20 feet in one direction, while simultaneously tossing the medicine ball back and forth. Head back in the opposite direction to give both sides some love.

7. Sit-Ups Pass: Work the middle, times two. Start seated on the floor next to your partner, facing opposite directions, with knees bent. Holding the medicine ball to your chest, both recline to the floor, come back up, and pass the ball to your partner. Repeat for 10-15 reps, or until the core feels good and fired up.

8. V-Sit with Rotation and Pass: This one’s double trouble, for sure. Sitting on the floor about 1-2 feet away from your partner, with knees bent, hold the medicine ball to your chest with abs nice n’ tight. Next, both recline back a few inches and rotate one way and then the other (maintaining that rock hard core!). Return to starting position, and throw the ball to your partner. They’ll catch it and repeat the movement. Repeat for reps or time (90 seconds is no joke).

9. Kneeling Partner Twist: Partners in crime can hit the abs and obliques with this simple twofer move. Kneel back-to-back, and slowly twist to one side until you can hand off the ball to your partner. Then twist to the other side in order to retrieve the ball again (oh, hey there!). Continue for 60-90 seconds in one direction, then switch.

10. Hi-Low Twist: Start standing back-to-back, holding the medicine ball firmly in two hands. Twist toward your partner and raise the ball up high so you hand it off to them over your shoulder. They’ll grab it and do the same move, but meeting you down low on the other side. (Did we just become best friends? YUP!) Continue for 60-plus seconds in one direction — until you feel the heat in those arms, shoulders, and core — then switch directions.

Exercises: Single leg squat

One of the most commonly prescribed and most popular rehabilitation and injury prevention exercises to improve stability and functional strength is the Single Leg Squat. This exercise strongly develops the quadriceps and gluteals, with a complimentary boost to the hamstrings. It’s an excellent exercise for runners and triathletes because it stimulates the running movement.

Triathlon Training Program 30.4.2012 – 6.5.2012

On Monday we will start  the second 3-week cycle in order to match the peak at Olympic Distance Triathlon on 20.5.2012. It will be 2 weeks  difficult training and 1 recovery – taping:

Cycle 2, Week 1

30.4.2012 – 6.5.2012

Monday:

Workout 1: 50 minutes easy running, Zone 2.3

Workout 2: 50 minutes swimming, Zone 3.4

Tuesday ( holiday):

6:30 am, Golf English School, Training 1, bring bikes, turbo trainer, pulse meter,  running and cycling shoes, extra vests and electrolytes:

10 min. run, (20 bicycle turbo trainer, the first 10min.  120 to 130 pulses, the remaining 10 to 145-155 + 10 min. outdoor jogging speed zone 4, the 2000 meters target under 8 minutes, pulse 165 to 173.) X 3

Training 2: 30-45 minutes body weight  exercises.

Wednesday:

Training 1:

6  o’clock.Cycling. Start by Agrotis bookstore parking. 40 km, duration 1:40; route Tseri, Kotsiatis, Nisou, Latsia. Zone 3

Workout 2: 45 minutes swimming Zone 2.3

Thursday:

Training 1: 5:45 am  English School: 15 running loose, 50 minutes 4:25 to 4:30 pace per kilometer rate, 10 minutes 4 minutes per kilometer, 5 minutes recovery, Zone 3.4

Workout 2: 30 – 40 minutes strength exercises

Friday:

Workout 1: 40 minutes easy running, Zone 2

Workout 2: 40 minutes swimming, Zone 2

Workout 3: 40 minutes cycling, Zone 2

All three low intensity. 2 of these may be consecutive.

Saturday:

5:15 departure with cars from Agrotis  bookstore for  Machairas picnic area. 1:40 run from St.  Onoufrios to Stavros  1 minutes fast- 1 slow (about 12-13 reps). Zone 4. Continue until  the Kakokefalos path (zone 3) and return from the trail . Carry fluids with you.

Sunday

6  o’clock.Cycling. Start by Agrotis bookstore parking. Warming up to Potamia  and 3 fast laps of 12 km, 6 together drafting and the remaining 6 faster in almost everyone’s maximum speed, no drafting. Rest 4-5 minutes after each lap. Zone 3.4

Triathlon Program 23-29.4.2012

After the difficult  last month’s training cycle, and the  Sunday’s race, this week we needs to rest, both physically and spiritually. One way is to not get in a rigorous program.

Monday surely rest, from Tuesday – Friday to focus on strengthening exercises, Stretching, and aerobic exercises but other forms than we usually do. Runners can try swimming, cycling, elliptical, etc. Triathletes swim without tension with emphasis on technique, cycling with mountain bike, elliptical, running barefoot, etc.

Next team meeting on Saturday, 5:15 am  at Agrotis parking for 1:20  mountain running. Sunday begins a new training cycle with 4 hours cycling, probably to the top of Tzonia mountain and back. Appointments 6 a.m. at Agrotis parking.

Interesting Fitness Facts

1. Carbohydrates, protein, fat, and alcohol have 4, 4, 9, and 7 calories per gram respectively.
2. It takes a 3500 calorie deficit to lose 1 pound.
3. Insulin and growth hormone have an inverse relationship.
4. The average person can store 500 grams of glycogen.
5. Only fat and protein are essential macronutrients – carbohydrates aren’t.
6. Muscle glycogen is about 3 parts water to 1 part glucose.
7. You burn more calories during the 23 hours you don’t exercise than the 1 hour you do.
8. You don’t need to do cardio to lose weight.
9. The fat burning zone does not burn more total fat calories – only a higher percentage of calories from fat.
10. You’re never too old to do squats.
11. Weight loss is not a physical challenge – it’s a mental one.
12. The scale cannot measure body fat percentage.
13. You can eat anything you want and still lose weight – but weight doesn’t always equal fat.
14. You can’t target fat loss – fat loss is systemic.
15. Muscle does not weigh more than fat – it’s just denser than it.
16. 0 grams of fat on a label doesn’t always mean there’s no fat in the food product.
17. Whole grain bread is still a processed food.
18. Eating healthy is not more expensive than a junk food diet.
19. You can’t calculate body fat percentage from height and weight alone – you need to physically measure it.
20. You can get glucose from both protein and glycerol – not just carbohydrates.
21. Just because a box says “whole grain” on it, it doesn’t make it healthy.
22. You should never attempt weight loss at the expense of your health.
23. Being vegetarian doesn’t just mean you don’t eat meat – it means you follow a plant-based diet.
24. Workout times and negative side effects are positively correlated.
25. Gym membership prices are negotiable.
26. Cooking your food can both lower some nutrient content, and make some more bioavailable.
27. There’s a high correlation between the fitness level of the people close to you, and your own physical fitness.
28. It’s harder to put on 10 pounds of muscle than it is to lose 10 pounds of fat.
29. Once an adult, fat cells can be created, but they cannot be lost – only shrunken.
30. Eating at night does not make you fat – overeating does.
31. You don’t need to do curls to get good biceps.
32. Being skinny does not automatically mean you have a low body fat.
33. The perimeter of the grocery store is where 90% of the healthy food is.
34. If bad food is in the house, you’ll be more likely to eat it.
35. Thyroid hormone output and exercise intensity are positively correlated.
36. Healthy levels of testosterone are good for both men and women.
37. You don’t need a gym membership to strength train.
38. Unless you weigh less than 100 pounds, it’s unlikely you need less than 1000 calories to lose weight.
39. Workout intensity is positively correlated with the degree of EPOC – the afterburn effect.
40. There are 3 types of skeletal muscle fibers – type I, type II-A, and type II-B.
41. 80% of people who begin an exercise program will quit.
42. The body has 3 energy systems – ATP-PC, anaerobic glycolysis, and aerobic.
43. Strength gains come from muscle hypertrophy and improved muscle fiber recruitment.
44. Dehydrating a muscle by 3% can cause a 10% loss of strength.
45. The thermic effect of food (TEF) is highest for protein.
46. Lactic acid is not the cause of delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS).
47. The more muscle mass you have, the more calories you burn at rest.
48. Direct abdominal exercises are not necessary to get good abs.
49. You can lose weight and still gain muscle; likewise, you can also gain weight while still losing fat.
50. Consistency and patience are key to long term successful weight loss.

Triathlon Training program, 26.3. – 1.4.2012

For the English speaking fellows of our triathlon team, i am writing our training program in English, translating from my Greek speaking site christostriathlon.

Racing season begins today. We will make 2 training cycles of 4 weeks each, aiming optimal performance at  the games on 22.4.2012 and 20.5.2012. I will not write a detailed plan at swimming, as most swim clubs organized them.for our team.  In key workouts I write location and time to gather more people as possible. Basic rule a) the sessions start exactly on time and b) Everybody welcome, but if friends in cycling is very slow at some point be separated.

Cycle 1, Week 1

26.3.2012 – 1.4.2012

Monday:

Workout 1: 50 minutes easy jogging

Workout 2: 50 minutes swimming

Tuesday:

6 am, English School Track Station, Training 1:

15 running, 10 x 100,   (1 x 1000 – 3:45 sec, 1 x 400 – 78 sec, 1 x 200 – 36 sec) x3, 5 λεπτά Recovery

Training 2:  1 hours riding loose in the small pulley

Wednesday:

Training 1:

6 day Cycling Running + (Small bag with running shoes on the back). Start by parking Agrotis bookstore. Warming up to “track” (2 kilometers turn around the TV station ” O Logos”). 10 turns with fast spins (90 +) in the low pulley and a straight sprint each lap. At the end of 20 minutes running easy.

Workout 2: 45 minutes swimming

Thursday:

A 6 am workout  English School Track: 20 running loose, 40 minutes 4:25 to 4:30 pace per kilometer, 10 minutes 4 minutes per kilometer, 5 minutes recovery

Friday:

Workout 1: 40 minutes easy jogging

Workout 2: 40 minutes swimming

Workout 3: 40 minutes cycling

All three low intensity. 2 of these may be consecutive.

Saturday:

5:15 departure from Agrotis bookstore for  Machairas picnic area. 1:20 mountain running with at the continuous uphill 1 minutes fast – 1 slow (about 12-13 reps).

Sunday

7 am appointment with bikes at a petrol station near the CT “Saint Therissos” (exit Nicosia) or 7:05 in LIDL Latsia. Warming up to Potamia village   and3  fast laps of 12 km, the 6 as possible together, the rest quickly everyone in almost it’s own  maximum speed. Rest 4-5 minutes after each round.

What Causes Muscle Soreness After Exercising

Since the early 20th century, this specific type of muscle soreness, called “delayed onset muscle soreness” (DOMS), was thought to be cause by lactic acid buildup in the muscles during strenuous workouts where your body’s oxygen supply is depleted.  Recent research has shown this is not the case at all and has even shown that lactic acid is actually used by your muscles for fuel when oxygen supplies are depleted.  This also flies in the face of popular belief .

One would have thought that it should have been obvious that lactic acid had nothing to do with DOMS, due to the fact that this type of muscle soreness doesn’t appear until around 24-72 hours or so from the time you exercised, yet the lactic acid buildup only lasts in your muscles for at most an hour or two after your workout is complete.  Nevertheless, it’s only been in the last 20-30 years or so that scientists have come to realize the actual role lactic acid plays in muscles.

So if it’s not lactic acid that is causing this soreness, what is it?  Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) is now understood to be caused by microfractures in the muscle cells themselves.  This happens when you do some activity that your muscles aren’t used to doing or do it in a much more strenuous way than they are used to.

This is also why after you exercise some specific way a few times and allow your muscles to recover, that you won’t typically get sore again from doing that activity at a similar intensity level, so long as you continue to do it on a somewhat regular bases.  The muscles quickly adapt to being able to handle new activities so as to avoid further damage in the future; this is known as the “repeated-bout effect”.  When this happens, the microfractures typically won’t develop unless you change your activity in some substantial way.  As a general rule, as long as the change to the exercise is under 10% of what you normally do, you won’t experience DOMS as a result of the activity.

For the more technically inclined, DOMS is caused by ultrastructural disruptions of myofilaments, particularly with the z-disk and with damage to the muscle’s connective tissues.  Muscle biopsies taken a day after hard exercise often show bleeding of the z-band filaments that hold muscle fibers together.  The pain then is thought to be largely due to this damage to the connective tissue, which in turn increases sensitivity of the muscle’s nociceptors (pain receptors);  this then causes pain with stretching and the like, basically when using the muscles.

The delayed effect is thought to be as a result of the fact that the inflammatory process that ends up making the nociceptors more sensitive takes some time to happen.

• Another common symptom of DOMS, beside the pain, is swelling in the muscles.  You might notice, after workouts that cause particularly severe DOMS, that your muscles appear bigger than before.  This isn’t because you’ve miraculously gained visible muscle mass in just one workout, but rather because your muscles are swelling as a response to the microscopic muscle tears.
• Stretching before and after an exercise has long been considered a good way to minimize muscle soreness after a workout.  However, recent research has shown that the effect stretching has on DOMS is negligible.
• Methods that have been shown to minimize muscle soreness after workouts are any activities that increase blood flow to the muscles, including: massage; hot baths; low-intensity workouts; sitting in a sauna; etc.
• Somewhat counter intuitively, you can also continue to do high intensity workouts to reduce muscle soreness.  Experts still disagree on exactly why this appears to reduce DOMS, but it is thought to have something to do with exercise-induced analgesia.  This is where your body increases pain tolerance thresholds as a response to exercise, particularly exercise structured around endurance training.
• Recent research has also shown that extended warm up sessions, before exercising in some way your body isn’t used to, will also help reduce DOMS.
• Alternatively, gradually increasing workout intensity, under 10% a week, should allow you to progress in your workouts while experiencing minimal or no muscle soreness.
• When you first start exercising, you might notice a very quick boost in strength after only  a few days of working out.  This isn’t likely due to an actual significant change in your muscle composition; rather, that, as a response to exercising, your body will begin to increase the number of impulses that cause muscle contractions, which will give you a quick strength boost without your muscles actually having changed yet.
• The process by which your muscles grow in length and increase in overall size is called “Muscle Hypertrophy” and is usually a response to physical exercise.
• Scientists can tell how much muscle damage has occurred, which is causing DOMS, by measuring blood levels of CPK, which is a muscle enzyme.  CPK is found in muscles and, when muscles are damaged, ends up being released into the bloodstream.
• It used to be thought that having a nice long cool down period after exercising would reduce DOMS.  This was because cool-down periods speed up the removal of lactic acid from muscles and it was thought that lactic acid was causing the muscle soreness.  It has been more recently proven that cool-down periods after workouts have absolutely no affect on delayed-onset muscle soreness.
• In food products, lactic acid is primarily found in sour milk products such as yogurt, cottage cheese, leban, koumiss, etc.  Lactic acid is also commonly found in modern detergents, as it makes a good soap scum remover; is an anti-bacterial agent; and is environmentally friendly.
• The idea that lactic acid was the cause of muscle soreness and fatigue dates all the way back to the early 20th century from research done by Nobel laureate, Otto Meyerhof.  The specific research was where he cut a frog in two; placed the bottom half in a jar; then applied electric shocks to the muscles in the legs.  After a few shocks, the muscles no longer would twitch.  Dr. Myerhoff then examined the muscles and discovered they were saturated with lactic acid.  Thus, lack of oxygen must lead to lactic acid, which then leads to fatigue.   Because of this incorrect theory, athletes throughout the 20th century were taught to exercise only aerobically, where glycogen is used as fuel.  Once they got to the anaerobic zone, lactic acid would buildup and damage their muscles and force them to stop working out for the day.  It turns out, though, that these theories were incorrect, as shown by Dr. George A. Brooks who is an integrative biology professor at Berkley.  He showed all the way back in the 1970s that muscles use lactic acid as fuel.  It took many years and numerous other research projects, but eventually, his theory that lactic acid is actually used as fuel by muscles has been shown to be correct.
• How muscles use lactic acid as fuel is as follows: muscle cells convert glycogen to lactic acid when there is not enough oxygen present to convert it normally to adenosine triphosphate (ATP); the lactic acid then can be used as fuel by mitochondria, which are the energy factories in muscle cells.  The mitochondria have a special transporter protein that help move the lactic acid into themselves.
• Lactic acid is extremely important because it allows the body to convert glycogen to energy without the need for the presence of oxygen, as with normal aerobic glycolysis (the process by which the body uses glycogen for energy).  By converting to lactic acid instead of ATP, when there isn’t much oxygen available, it allows for the glycolysis process to last for several minutes instead of only a few seconds.  Once your body has enough oxygen present, it can then go back to converting the glycogen to ATP and the lactic acid can be converted back to glucose by the liver and other tissues to be used later.  This makes for much more efficient usage of glycogen when your body is low on oxygen.
• Intense, endurance training can more than double the mitochondrial mass in your muscles cells, which can aid in your ability to use lactic acid as fuel.  This allows your muscles to work harder and for longer periods in extended low oxygen situations such as when you are endurance training or the like.  So one of the reasons trained athletes can perform at the level they do for as long as they do is because their intense training actually allows their muscles cells to absorb lactic acid faster and more efficiently due to larger mitochondrial mass.
• Also contrary to popular belief, the buildup of lactic acid does not directly cause acidosis (increase in acidity in the blood that, among other things, is associated with causing a type of fatigue).
• The system used by your body to give muscles their energy from the conversion of glycogen to ATP is known as an aerobic energy producing system.  The system used by your body to use glycogen converted to lactic acid, when there is very little oxygen available, is called an anaerobic energy producing system.
• One of the single best measures of cardiovascular fitness level, or more aptly, maximum aerobic potential, is called “VO2 Max”.  This is a measure of the maximum capacity of a body to transport and utilize oxygen during exercise.   This is often measured in liters of oxygen per minute (l/min) or milliliters of oxygen per kilogram of body weight per minute ((ml/kg)/min).  The name comes from “Maximum Volume per time unit of O2″
• VO2 max levels in untrained people are typically 40-60% higher in men than in women with the average VO2 max of an untrained man being around 3.5 l/min and the average VO2 max of an untrained woman being around 2.0 l/min.  Interestingly, conditioning can more than double the VO2 max in some people and in others has little affect at all.
• For reference, five time Tour de France winner Miguel Indurain at his peak had a VO2 max of 88 ml/kg/min.  Seven time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong at his peak was at 85 ml/kg/min.  Cross country skier Bjørn Dæhlie had them both beat with a VO2 max of 96 ml/kg/min.  Astonishingly, he achieved that in the off season.  It is thought that his peak is likely over 100 ml/kg/min during the season, when he is in optimal physical shape.
• For further perspective, typical thoroughbred horses have a VO2 max of around 180 ml/kg/min.  Siberian dogs trained for the Iditarod have VO2 maxes as high as 240 ml/kg/min.

Periodization Training

by Mel C Siff, PhD

Periodization is a method of alternating training loads to produce peak performance for a specific competitive event.  It’s a well-established scheme adopted from Russia-it was one of the ‘secrets’ that helped them dominate Olympic sport for so long.  Recently, however, Dr. Yuri Verkhoshansky, a leading architect of the Russian sports training philosophy, wrote an article titled, “The End of Periodization in High Performance Sport,” and readers wondered why a leading advocate of periodization would be saying such things.

Western coaches have been fixated for years on only one periodization (PD) model, that of Dr. Leonid Matveyev.  In this model, the volume of general preparation decreases as intensity and emphasis on technical training for specific preparations increase, producing peak performance during a competition phase (see Fig. 1).  The model becomes too limited, however, when rigidly applied by coaches unfamiliar with Matveyev’s work.  Such a simplified version of the model leads to an over-reliance on apparently objective measures of loading, such as numerical calculations, and does not consider the athlete’s subjective perception of the intensity and overall effects of the loading.

The model does not give unfamiliar coaches any information about which exercises to include in
measuring volume and intensity.  It also does
not consider the influence of different exercises on each other in a training program.  The graphs unrealistically assume that any one component of a program can be measured independent of the others.

But if a middle distance runner is concurrently doing running training and weight training, the stresses of distance work or sprints can impair strength performance.  The graphs themselves
do not allow for this.

The model also does not consider the different training needs of the novice and the athlete.  It requires initial high volumes of training, which may not be the best way to introduce a novice
to a program, as it can prolong soreness, impair adaptation and reduce motivation.  And the gradual emphasis on technique implies that it’s less important early on.  But this isn’t what’s needed in practice.  Beginners usually need far more emphasis on skills training and elite athletes far less.

Finally, the graph’s smooth merging of training sessions and stages may be suitable for novices but not for more advanced athletes.  For example, an increase in intensity while maintaining the same volume has been shown to enhance performance once an athlete has reached a certain level.

It is this simplified version of Matveyev’s original PD model that Dr. V. takes to task in his article, not the overall philosophy of periodization.

Traditional PD can often prove to be as limited as non-periodized training, since all loading is traditionally based upon a fixed original input; hence the value of a modified form of periodization that I call Cybernetic Periodization.  The term cybernetic describes the science of control and communication in which feedback from the output of any system is used to modify the input to the system.

Any pre-planned PD scheme is affected by subjective and objective feedback obtained from the athlete’s current state.  Consequently, it can be helpful to add a column to your training journal (RPE or Rating of Perceived Effort) which rates how strenuous a particular repetition, set or session feels on a scale of 1 to 5.  Do not record an RPE after every repetition or exercise, but note it mentally and use it to guide you in your next set.  At the end of the workout, record only the RPE for the heaviest or most demanding sets.

It’s also useful to rate reliability of technique for the most important exercises, by having a coach award points for the most demanding efforts on
a Rating  of Technique (RT) scale.

Over-reliance on numerical computations in preparing a PD chart is a major reason why
some coaches tend to dismiss their relevance; hence the value of using a combined objective-subjective system.  There’s no need to discard periodization; just a need to apply it more intelligently!

By dr Mel C Siff, PhD