Live Multi-Sport » Training

Rideau Lake Cycling Tour – Ottawa to Kingston return

Tom — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 18:55:22 +0000

The 39th Annual Rideau Lakes Cycling Tour (RLCT) took place on June 5th and 6th, 2010. Organized by the Ottawa Bicycle Club, approximately 3000 riders started on Saturday to bike the 177kms from Ottawa to Kingston. They were supposed to return on Sunday — more about that later.

PREP

It was my first cycling tour — and a big challenge — as my previous longest ride had been about 110kms. I got started in January on the trainer and was able to get a couple of hours per week. Spring in Nova Scotia can be challenging, but this year was outstanding so I clocked just over 1000kms in April and May. I also made a point of doing back-to-back long rides … this worked really well. Sportstracks for January to May : 59 rides / 1587kms (Mar-100, Apr-387, May-1102) / 101 hours

RIDE

The route is at : http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=3806184 (actually, there are several routes — a 100k version that starts in Perth and a 200+kms route) It’s mainly on quiet, flat country roads. My Garmin said about 90% was ‘flat’ with just a couple of climbs. And the last 30kms returning to Ottawa is flat with the prevailing winds usually behind you … much appreciated at the end of the ride!

SATURDAY – we got underway about 8am. My two bodyguards — sons TJ and Cliff — took up forward positions and off we rode under cloudy skies. One of the really cool things about a ride of this size is that you can join a wide variety of groups — want to ride at 28kms/hrs with some triathletes training for Ironman? maybe a little faster crowd? bigger group? smaller? They were all there. By lunchtime, the sun was out, 26C and life was good. We made a point to take regular pit stops, a bit longer for lunch and drink lots — I went through 8 bottles of water. We arrived in Kingston around 4pm, a monster supper at the Queen’s University cafeteria at 5pm and then a bit of downtown sightseeing. Sitting at Queen’s having a beer as the sun went down … sweet.

SUNDAY – what a difference a day makes. Rain, wind, 10C — yuck. All the table talk at breakfast was about ‘the call’ — how long before you phoned to get someone to come for the pickup. We got underway around 8am — it was awful. The rain gear didn’t do its job so after 15mins we were soaked. And the fully loaded cars with bikes on top started passing. And the people along the road, stopped, on their cell .. the call. By the time we got 50kms and stopped at a gas station, it was a grim scene. We kept moving and got to Perth for lunch. Fortunately, the rain finally stopped and by the time we left Perth, things were beginning to dry out. The rest of the ride went well, finally arriving in Ottawa just after 5pm. I heard that 2/3s of the riders chose not to finish the ride.

CONCLUSION

I’m really glad that we did it, and were able to complete the entire thing. I understand that weather is often a challenge. The prep was key — it meant that the ride was enjoyable. Further, it provided some reserve for the lousy conditions on Sunday (I couldn’t imagine really hurting and being stuck on the road in the wind/rain). The ride was very well organized, well supported and the police provided excellent support. Queen’s University was a real treat (it’s been 30 years since I stayed in dorm … some things never change!). And if you can fit it into your long term plans, arrange to have two sons that enjoy cycling that are prepared to take care of you on a 354km journey … it’s awesome!

What Have you Done for Me Lately?

Cliff — Sun, 30 May 2010 17:44:22 +0000

After last weeks surprising podium finish at the TTT, this week it was back to a “normal” life; low training volume while I focused on being rested. It’s a weird sensation to be going full tilt for 10 hours then not letting the heart rate climb out of zone 1.

Finishing a race can leave you on a high, especially when you have a break through performance or set a new personal best. The week following can you leave feeling full of energy which is not what you want if you have to rest!

Thats why it’s important to have designated races such as A, B and C. A – being the most important and C – being a training race. Use B and C races to find out where your weaknesses are, then seek to improve upon them in training. Doing this will allow you to keep your focus and not get you down if a lower priority race doesn’t go your way.

Most of us would love to win every event we enter. Honestly, that doesn’t happen. I do see people wanting to build towards an A race and win many smaller races along the way then peeter out in their goal race. Looking into the situation they were going way too hard (their B and C races were all raced as As). If this happens to you one piece of advice is to leave a large gap between your last B race and your A race. This way, you can really focus on the final goal.

Another suggestion is to spread out your season. Use races to test fitness instead of going for glory. If both coencide then chances are you will have a good day. I find this solution takes the pressure off of winning.

So what was my goal for the TTT? Survive! Check!

Thanks for reading.

Fly Away

Cliff — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 23:56:54 +0000

Its less than a week away for me to visit Victoria for the Lifesport tri camp. I am in a bit of a predicament: Whats the best way to send my bike?

In the past I’ve boxed my bike up and was charged $50-100 depending on the airline. Air Canada is $50. Not a big deal but I’d like to save as much cash as possible. Exploring other options has led me toalternative ways to pack my ride. First, the hockey bag.

Most airlines don’t charge extra fees for sporting equipment. Golf clubs, lacrosse, and archery are among those. A hockey bag could be a great choice.

So, will a bike fit into a hockey bag? Well, at first I went to a hockey store to measure. The dimensions for my 52cm, P2SL are: it has to be at least 40cms long and wide. A feature that is quite hard to find in a bag.

In the fall I went and bought a canoe bag. Its a huge red book bag made for storing a lot of wet gear. It was on sale, bonus, and fit all the dimensions. So I bought it. And it fit a road bike well. The only issue I saw is that it was a thin canvas material. Not great but I figured I could jimmy rig something together for “added protection”.

When I added my carbon support frame there is barely enough room to add another wheel. A bicycle isn’t much good with only wheel. Looks like I need another option.

As luck would have it, I was out for a routine dog when I came across a rather large suitcase. In fact, it will have no problem holding a bike, wheels and anything else I can scrounge up. My only issue with this one is it exceeds the dimensions allowed by Air Canadas. The fee for oversized luggage, $70. So I’m better off with the bike box.

I’m kinda leaning towars the hockey bag. Hopefully if Ipack the box well enough that everything will get there safe and sound. At least, thats what I hope!

Happy Trainin

Cliff

Training Logs – Which do you prefer?

Jen — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 19:37:08 +0000

You might remember that one of my chosen blogs is Steve Stenzel’s “Steve in a Speedo?!“? Well he’s been doing a series called “Does it Work?” reviewing tools that triathletes use on a day-to-day basis. Yesterday’s entry was Steve’s review of four online training logs … Beginner Triathlete, Buckeye Outdoors, Daily Mile, and Training Peaks. Two were new to me, one I’d heard of but hadn’t used and of course, the defacto Training Peaks. Steve has graciously allowed me to repost his thought provoking review. We at LMS would love to hear what YOUR favourite online workout logs are. And why. Then head over to Steve’s and see what they’re saying over there too!

Does It Work: Beginner Triathlete, Buckeye Outdoors, Daily Mile, and Training Peaks

By Steve Stenzel

Note: Choosing an online workout log is a VERY personal choice. If I have bad things to say regarding your website of choice, it’s nothing personal against you. This whole process of finding an online log is really specific to one’s personality, and what works for me might not work for you, and vice versa. But here’s my 2 cents:

Back in August of last year, I put up a post asking for recommendations on different sites for tracking mileage. I had a “physical” day-planner that I had been using as a log, but wanted to try something new. I noted that I had a Wellsphere account, but didn’t like that for tracking miles. If I had to give Wellsphere a grade, it’d be this:

Wellsphere: Grade of F+. This may have changed since I deleted my account, but I had to round every workout to the nearest mile! REALLY?!? This site was horrible, and the layout made it really difficult to get around. Sucktastic.

Oh, and I DID consider just tracking everything in a spreadsheet file on my own computer. Some bloggers sent me some VERY COOL spreadsheets files all set up by day, month, and year. Everything was totaled up automatically, pie charts would appear at the bottom, etc, etc. They were pretty sweet. But I decided I wanted to work online. Plus, I was afraid that the file could suddenly go corrupt and I’d lose all my training info. (I guess I have more faith in unknown online companies to not lose my data…*gulp*)

Personal Spreadsheet: Grade of ??. You could make this as simple or as complex as you’d like, so it’s tough to give this a letter grade.

So in that post back in August, people were recommending some great sites. I listened to what people were saying, and in September of last year, I started 4 new accounts with Beginner Triathlete, Buckeye Outdoors, Daily Mile, and Training Peaks. I started tracking my workouts, mileage, and races with those sites. I QUICKLY found ones to work better for me than others.

Here’s my review of all 4 of those from worst to best (in my opinion):

Daily Mile: Cute design. It’s like Twitter (or a Facebook Group) where you can add workouts. That’s great, but I don’t need ANOTHER place to chat with “friends.” Great for runners only or people tracking their “workouts” (but not for people tracking their “training” [unless you’re a runner]). Not great for mulitsport athletes. Take a look at this screenshot:

2 main problems with this:
1. “5 months ago”? How about an actual date?
2. See the triathlon in the middle of that image? It’s labeled as a “fitness workout” (with no way to store my splits). That’s a little insulting. (But at least it got a bit smiley face! Sheesh.) You can’t add a triathlon, duathlon, or brick workout.

It’s “cutesy,” but a little unprofessional. When you enter a workout, you can give it varying degrees of a smiley face:

Trying to enter a triathlon or a duathlon nearly started the website on fire. Really. It’s like I was asking them to rearrange the stars. It’s FINE for tracking weight lifting routines, runs, etc., but it’s not for multisport athletes.

Daily Mile: Grade of D. (This is a little awkward because “Team Daily Mile” retweeted my tweet that linked to the “foam roller” post yesterday. Sorry.) Like I said, it’s fine for more casual athletes, or those that are runners only.

Training Peaks: Very professional. Many coaches like this because you can leave workouts in OTHER people’s log telling them what to do each day. Nice. You can track your equipment usage. It’s easy to get around, and easy to enter workouts (it’s all pretty intuitive). It totals your weekly mileage. Here’s a screenshot:

Some things I DON’T like about Training Peaks: The calendar (seen above) is a little “clunky” – it’s hard to glace at it and see what you’ve done recently. It’s also “tall,” so you can only see 2 weeks at a time (I like to see the whole month). It also takes a bit to load the calendar; I spent 5-9 seconds looking at this when I first logged in:

(that’s the actual picture – don’t sit here and wait for something to initialize)

Training Peaks: Grade of B-. It’s good for tracking workouts, mileage, and races (including multisport races), but the format didn’t quite fit for me. I wasn’t happy with the way the info is shown on the calendar. That’s just a personal preference, I know.

Buckeye Outdoors: The calendar was JUST was I was looking for, and it was super easy to add a workout. You can quickly see what you’ve done, and the little multi-colored symbols helps make it clear right away. Here’s a screenshot:

The calendar is “clean” and minimal. If you want to see more on a workout, you can scroll over it. Here I am with my mouse over the run workout on the 9th, and you can see the details of that workout on the far right:

Buckeye Outdoors really surprised me. I didn’t expect to like it THIS much. I’d never heard of it before people started recommending it, and it sounded like something for fans of Ohio State that liked to canoe (or something like that).

Buckeye Outdoors: Grade of B+. No major complaints. Tracked everything I wanted it to quite well (even intervals). It’s possible to print out “reports,” but the printout is a little awkward and not in that same calendar format.

Beginner Triathlete: I didn’t like the name; I don’t see myself as a “beginner” anymore. But I liked about everything else on their site. Here’s a screenshot from last month:

All the info is there that I want to see. Swim, bike, run, and strength workouts are all there in different colors. There are weekly totals at the end of the week, and monthly totals at the bottom. I can track my weight if I want to, and I have the power to make that invisible to other users if I’d like (you can see my weight on a few days when I weighed myself). If you want more info on a workout scroll over it, and more info will pop up. Here I am with my mouse over the 12 miler on the 16th, and you can see all my notes:

It easy to add races to your schedule, and then you can see who else is planned to do the race. (In fact, it was because I had the TC 10 Miler on my schedule last Oct that Emily [BikerGrrrl on Beginner Triathlete] knew I’d be running, and she snapped a photo of me that she sent to me.) You can read other people’s race reports if you find a race you’re thinking about doing. Here’s my race list:

At Beginner Triathlete, you can add equipment and note when you use it (Training Peaks has something like that too). I use it like most people: to track mileage on my running shoes. That info appears in your “blog” on Beginner Triathete. You can put whatever info you want in the header of your blog (I have my 2009 races listed, and I need to update it for 2010). Here’s my “blog” on BT, with a few things that I’ve noted:

A: Graph of my recent workouts by week (all run and swim right now…).
B: My “Equipment” list, showing that my main running shoes have exactly 251.55 miles on them (and 52.43 miles on my racing flats).
C: “Personal Bests” that link to my race where I set that PR.

You can add workouts much like you can at Training Peaks. And the calendar is nice and easy to use like at Buckeye Outdoors. So, for me, it’s the best of those 2 sites. But the forums are what sold me on Beginner Triathlete. The forums are SOO extensive. There is a LOT of good info in there, and it easy to add your own question. (There are forums for “triathlon talk,” “classifieds,” “strength training,” “IM specific,” state-specific forums, etc, etc, etc, and even a “cup of joe” forum for anything non-triathlon related.) Anyone can respond to any issue in any forum, so you have to take all advice with a grain of salt. But sometimes you’ll find the person responding is a 9:20 IM athlete (really, there are a few that I’ve “met” on BT, and that have offered me advice, and one of them is ALWAYS on BT).

I contacted the “owner” of BT and told him that I would be talking about what I liked about BT. I asked him what’s in the works at BT. He actually shared a special username and password with me so I could login as a beta tester and check out what’s on the way! Cool!! They’re planning to add more functions to each person’s “blog.” One of the biggest ones is a “Goals” page where you can add weight loss goals, speed goals, fitness goals, etc, and then track your way towards that. Thanks for letting me check that out, Mike!

Beginner Triathlete: Grade of A. It’s not 100% perfect, but I do really like it. And it’s possible to print out a weekly calendar with all your workout notes if you want a hard copy (similar to what Buckeye Outdoors can do, but easier to read). One downside to BT is that some of the settings take a bit to find when you first set up an account – it’s a little “clunky” and takes a moment to find what you’re looking for in the settings the first time or 2. (But entering workouts is a cinch.)

I’ve been using BT since I first checked it out in September of last year. I LOVE throwing my workouts up there ASAP after a workout – it makes me feel very accountable and it makes me want to work hard. That sounds stupid, but it’s true. It’s like some form of subconscious motivation.

Check out the sites I wrote about here, and maybe I’ll see you on BT!

Daily Mile: D. No thanks. Not for triathletes IMO.
Training Peaks: B-. Not bad. Good for working with a coach.
Buckeye Outdoors: B+. Nice calendar. Easy to use.
Beginner Triathlete: A. My site of choice.

What’s your preferred way to track your mileage? Do you use one of these methods? (And like I said at the top, I don’t mean any personal disrespect if you use one of the methods that I don’t care for as much. I hope we can still be friends.) And don’t forget to check back at 2 am and 2 pm every day this week for more “Does It Work” posts. Click on the “Does It Work” tag to see all posts in this mini-series.

Thanks Steve! So. What’s YOUR favourite online tracking/training log??

2 Down, 14 Weeks To Go ’til 1st Ultra-Marathon

Chris — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 22:44:43 +0000

When Cliff first asked me if I wanted to do an ultra-marathon in December, I didn’t think twice (ok, well maybe not quite). That’s typically the way I am when an exciting challenge is put forth in front of me: agree first… then think about it later.

North Face Endurance Challenge

This was 6 months ago and then suddenly a few weeks ago, I realized that I’ve got to start training! This is not something that I can fake my way through! I gotta get ready for the North Face Endurance Challenge Championships, in San Fransisco on Dec 5th.

I found a training plan from Runner’s World magazine that is geared toward people with full-time jobs, which means, the bulk of the running is on the weekends. I liked that aspect, plus it means I can do workouts with the UNB Cross Country team during the week. I also want to race a lot of cross-country races, on Saturdays, which also works in well with this plan.

I also liked that there is not simply one “long run” each week, but two. The main idea in training for an ultra is simply getting used to being on your feet and moving for a long time. So, my Saturdays and Sundays from now until the end of November are going to be filled with lots of running, walking, shuffling, stumbling, and crawling… then doing it again the next day

The first two weeks were not too bad. The only thing that was any different than my normal training was the back-to-back long runs. Luckily, they start off relatively easy with just a 90-minute and 3-hour on each weekend. But that quickly gets jacked up to 2 and 3.5 hours this weekend…I’ll continue to check-in as the miles roll along.

Chris

Be the Next Ironman Champion

Cliff — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 23:29:10 +0000

So you want to win Kona? Well I’m going to tell you how.

But wait a second why would I tell you and not just keep this secret to myself? And how the heck did I find out “what it takes” (not to be confused with the movie created a few years ago showcasing Peter Reid and company).

I had a revelation today. Actually it was yesterday but today it was too hot to do anything so I decided to write about it now. My reasoning came from two different sources. The first was a program sent around by XCzone which is a XC-ski group here in Ottawa. If you have the time go through it. It’s got some really great training tips for snowshoeing, running and of course skiing. My second source came from Alan Couzens blog with his most recent post “What it takes“.

How did these two completely different websites give the answer to unlocking the Kona secret? Read on.

Looking at the XCzone program there are different levels, advanced, intermediate and novice. Well when it comes to anything training I just look at the advanced (doesn’t everybody?). My first thought was man, this is actually hard! Most plans I see are very basic with 1, maybe 2 workouts per day. If you look there is actually 3 things done daily! I know “stretching” doesn’t seem like a workout but it truly is if you want to take your recovery seriously. You could substitute stretching for passive recovery like a massage or an easy pool swim. Bottom line is that to be an advanced endurance athlete, 3 workouts a day is where you need to be to be out in front. Recovery being the KEYYYYY third ingredient.

Now my logic was confirmed with Alan Couzens blog with his most recent post “What it takes“. Now if you’ve read this far you should read his post so you know what the heck I’m talking about.

In his post he talks about what it takes to get to the top. He doesn’t go as far as me to say what it takes to be the next champion but thats probably because I’m just young and naive to know any better. From his conclusions which basically says to be a successful Ironman athlete (AG winner/Pro) you need a HUGE foundation to further your development. No sh%$ eh? But is that all?

Well let’s look at it this way. Take Jonny. Jonny was put in swim lessons when he was 4. He swam 5 times a week until he was 10. At 10 he kept swimming but also took up soccer and hockey. Now Jonny is practicing twice a day and playing games on the weekend. Little does he know that he is helping his body learn how to deal with athletic stresses. Not only that but doing it twice a day! Junior high comes and Jonny makes the swim team and now swims twice a day but still wants to play other sports on the side. Poor parents eh? High school roles around and Jonny keeps progressing as an athlete. He is now working out to help progress his muscle fitness. Jonny is now very disciplined; working out 3 times a day and still keeping it fun!

Ok so maybe Jonny has zero ambition to be an IMan champion. Or maybe Jonny get’s a girl knocked up in grade 12 and is now manager at McDonalds (not that there is anything wrong with that!). The point is he has built an enormous foundation to work from. Maybe he didn’t know it at the time but he is turning his body into a natural endurance machine.

So where does that leave you?

Maybe you picked up the sport of triathlon with huge ambitions of rocking Kona. Well I got news for you, your going to have a long wait till you get to the top.

Now I truly believe that nothing is impossible. Lance Armstrong proved at 37 he can still kick some rump racing the Tour so age isn’t necessarily a factor. However if you want to win your going to have to be one dedicated, motivated (and lucky) SOB.

Where do you start? Well don’t go out tomorrow and do 3 runs, things have to be progressive. My first piece of advice would be look into the crystal ball, what do you see in 1-5 years? Do you still see your self climbing the Ironman ladder or do you see yourself doing other things? If you think 5 years is along time than this might be the wrong game for you. Think back to Jonny, he has been training since he was 4 years old! Thats a 15 year head start (if your 19).

Again I stress that nothing is impossible. So don’t fret if you weren’t like Jonny and didn’t swim (or bike and run). What you will need is someone to help you. The less background you have with a sport the more coaching your going to need. So this would be my first piece of advice, get help. Ideally you’d find someone who knows the sport of triathlon but coming from experience this isn’t always the case. Seek out an advisor for swimming and one for biking and one for running. Or if your truly serious about this career path, move. Move to Boulder or San Diego.

Ok so I have you going down the right path but where does the road go? Well the road is very long. Some of it is nice 8 lane freeway other parts no bigger than a single lane filled with pot holes. The nicely paved stuff comes in the beginning where everything seems to come easy as you progress further and further into the sport. For most athletes huge gains can be expected in the first two years (the younger you are the better). Then the road starts becoming more narrow. This is where a lot of athletes that I’ve seen fall out or become part timers. There use to winning on single workouts a day but aren’t ready to jump to 2 a days. The ones that do upgrade will progress further being able to take on more mileage and higher stresses.

I’m not going to paint the whole picture but can you see where I’m going? The 2 a day athlete then becomes the 3 a day athlete and maybe a fourth (the next dimension!). Like the example of Jonny, they progress further because of the stresses they put on their bodies. My favorite analogy is going two steps forward and 1 back. Breaking the muscle down, letting it heal and then breaking it down. It’s keeping this progression going that is what I think is the fun part.

Is that really it? Get to three workouts a day and boom I’m an Ironman? Yeah! I mean you just have to eat right, train right, keep the injuries low and have a lot of luck on race day. Of course all these other things are just minor. And by minor I mean the key ingredients for you to be at the top.

So if you read this far chances are you either know me (thanks Ma) or you thought I was offering some special potion or going to tell you some secret. Well sorry folks, I’m going to tell you it takes a lot of work. Don’t hate people like Jonny who have a head start. Just find out how Jonny got to where he is and try to emulate that. Hopefully he wrote a book!

****Take this post for what its worth. These thoughts are based on my daydreams and expressed only because I have the time while I’m resting. What would happen if I rested all the time? Do you think I could solve more meaningful problems?

Probably not.

Piece By Piece

Cliff — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:19:34 +0000

In my last post I showed a schedule that would encompass a year of training. The three main ingredients were Strength, Aerobic and Race Specific Training (RST). These were further broken into three sub categories which are endurance, power and speed. In this post, I’d like to talk about the first part of the season which is the strength phase.

You see it everywhere, guys with their shirts off ripped to s#$t. Girls with tiny waists and clothing barely covering their buldging chests (not that I’m complaining). How do these people get this way? Probably throwing up, a lot. But some I’m sure take the time to workout. And by working out I mean going to the gym.

Do a google search and you will find over a million different examples of workout routines. Everyone has “The Best” or “The Quickest Results”, “Shed 15 pounds in Just 4mins a Day for One Week” or my favorite “You would Be Retarded Not to Try This”. That last one was made up by the way. It seems the solutions are out there, so which one is right for you?

A good gym schedule should answer the following questions:

How much time do I have?

What kinds of exercises are needed to help me get better?

What muscles are NOT used in my training?

Am I going to join a group or go it alone?

What is my end goal (lose weight/lift more/ be on the cover of a magazine)?

The most important question is the bottom one. Because when your lifting those pink 2 pound weights, you need to know/believe that this work is for a purpose.

So, I guess this is the part where I give you my “Expert, Bestest, Can’t Beat It, Lose A Million Pounds” plan. Truth is, I don’t have one yet. However, it is in the works. When it does come though, I’m going to put into a small movie format so you can see how each of the sets really work.

I’m always on the lookout for good routines so if you have one, send it along.

As Body Break would say “Keep fit and keep throwing up”.

Great Swim Video

Cliff — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 17:13:33 +0000

http://www.universalsports.com/mediaPlayer/media.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=23000&id=421587&sid=11652

Sit down eat some lunch and enjoy this swim video. It is a fascinating to watch Phelps swim. The guy swims like an Otter.

More Rest = More Benefits

Cliff — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:41:31 +0000

In the recent issue of Journal of Sports Secience, a study was done on rest intervals for weight lifting. Here is a snip of the abstract:

The purpose of the present study was to compare the influence of two and five-minute rest intervals on the number of repetitions per set, per exercise and total repetitions in resistance training sessions.

Fourteen trained men (23.0 ± 2.2 yrs; 74.9 ± 4.1 kg; 1.75 ± 0.03m) completed three sets per exercise, with 10RM load in four training sessions. Two sessions involved lower body exercises (leg press, leg extension and leg curl), with two-minute (SEQA) and with five-minute interval (SEQB). The other two sessions involved upper body exercises (bench press, pec-deck and triceps pulley), with two (SEQC) and five-minute intervals (SEQD).

Results

Table 1. Total number of repetitions in each set and the total number of repetitions in each exercise for
lower body with the rest intervals of two and five minutes. Data are means (± standard deviation).
1st set 2nd set 3rd set Repetitions

Leg press
2 min 9.7 (.5) 7.7 (.7) * 6.7 (2.1) *† 24.1 (2.5)
5 min 10.0 (.0) 9.6 (.8) ‡ 8.0 (1.9) * 27.6 (2.0) ‡

Leg extension
2 min 8.3 (1.5) 7.3 (1.6) * 6.6 (.5) * 22.1 (3.3)
5 min 9.0 (1.4) 8.7 (1.6) 8.3 (1.7) 26.0 (4.2) ‡

Leg curl
2 min 8.0 (1.3) 7.0 (1.7) * 5.4 (1.0) *† 20.4 (3.5)
5 min 9.7 (.5) 9.1 (.7) ‡ 8.4 (1.1) *†‡ 27.3 (2.0) ‡

Values are expressed in repetitions maximum (RM); * p < 0.05 compared with the 1st
set; † p < 0.05 compared with the 2nd set; ‡ compared with 2 min.

Table 2. Total number of repetitions in each set and the total number of repetitions in each exercise for
upper body with the rest intervals of two and five minutes. Data are means (± standard deviation).
1st set 2nd set 3rd set Repetitions
Bench press

2 min 10.0 (0.0) 9.0 (1.3) * 7.1 (1.3) *† 26.1 (2.2)
5 min 10.0 (0.0) 9.7 (.9) 9.1 (1.1) ‡ 28.9 (1.8) ‡

Pec-deck

2 min 8.3 (.7) 7.7 (1.1) 6.1 (.7) *† 22.1 (1.8)
5 min 8.8 (1.5) 9.7 (.9) ‡ 9.3 (1.2) ‡ 27.9 (2.7) ‡

Triceps pulley

2 min 9.3 (.5) 7.7 (1.1) * 5.9 (1.1) *† 22.9 (1.7)
5 min 9.8 (.7) 9.5 (1.3) ‡ 8.4 (1.4) *†‡ 27.7 (2.6) ‡

Values are expressed in repetitions maximum (RM); * p < 0.05 compared with the 1st
set; † p < 0.05 compared with the 2nd set; ‡ compared with 2 min.

The results indicate that the training session performance is reduced by shorter intervals, being the initial exercises
less affected during the progression of the sets.

How can this apply to triathlon? My dad is a perfect example. He wanted to run 22:00 for 5K. In order for him to do this he needed to show his body the speed needed to go this fast. Instead of running intervals on short recovery, he could run slightly longer intervals but with longer rests. Giving his body more time to recover between sets will allow him to run faster during each interval. His body will then be able to adapt to the higher speeds.

Nowhere to hide

Jen — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 18:13:06 +0000

A few weeks ago, our triathlon club had the tremendous opportunity to take a Swim Power Test from Dr. Genadijus Sokolovas of Global Sport Technology. Dr Sokolovas is the Sport Science Director of USA Swimming Inc. as well as coach to some of the best of the best. (Heard of a guy called Michael Phelps? Yah. That guy!)

The premise is strikingly simple. A cord tied to a belt attached to a swimmer’s waist is metered out measuring velocity/force (our’s was just velocity) coordinated with an underwater camera. Not only do you get to see your underwater stroke but a graph below shows where and when your velocity changes. You can swim but you cannot hide!

Swim Power Test with Velocity/Force graphs

Of course, the money was having the good Doc review the footage with each of us. Gotta love his Eastern European attitude as he started the reviews. “I’m not going to tell you what you are doing right. I only care about what you are doing wrong. It is this that is going to make you a better swimmer.”

He started with footage from his coaching videos of Michael Phelps showing us what HE does wrong. “You see, everyone needs to improve. No one swims perfect.” Good to know! It was an eye opening and humbling experience. But oh so worth the price of admission!

I learned that I enter my hands too close to my head and they make a sort of dishy-pointy movement forward, essentially applying the brakes. Further, as my arms are too wide, I lose speed until my hands are almost back by my waist, so I’m missing over half my potential power. Also, I’m not accelerating on the latter half of the catch so my right and left hands are in the water at the same time. Again, losing momentum and power. And finally, my kick isn’t powered by my core/hips rather from my knees – which I already knew – but it was good to have it cemented one more time.

Two take aways for anyone interested in improving their swim stroke:

Get used to swimming without your arms. Dr. S said he wished he could teach everyone to swim with their arms tied to their sides. “Fish don’t have arms. And they swim very well.” (understatement of the year!) Try it. It is HARD! But it’ll teach you to rotate from the core and not rely on your hands/arms for balance.
Do vertical kick drills whereby you keep your arms crossed and kick enough to keep your head above water. Graduate to hands above your head and finally holding weights. Phelps apparently can hold 10kg while doing this. Again. Teaches you to kick from your core/hips rather than from the knee.

If you ever get a chance to take this test, swallow your pride and do it!