Category Archives for "Training"

Triathlon training and performance for elite and age-group athletes with Barb Lindquist | EP#168

Barb Lindquist is a US Olympian and the World #1 ranked triathlete from 2003-2004. After retiring from professional racing, she turned to coaching, and also started working for USA Triathlon on the Collegiate Recruitment Program. We discuss training and overall performance in triathlon from both an elite and age-group perspective.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT:

• Setting up the world-renowned collegiate recruitment program and the reasons for its success
• High performance triathlon now and then – what has changed in the last 15-20 years in training and racing?
• Long-term athletic development for elite athletes and for age-group athletes
• Things that age-groupers tend to underestimate, and on the flipside, over-value
• Fitting triathlon into life, and not life around triathlon for age-group triathletes

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Balancing the art and the science of endurance training with Susan Sotir, PhD | EP#167

Susan Sotir coaches with Breakthrough Performance Coaching, has a PhD in Sport and Exercise Psychology and is an assistant professor at Springfield College. We discuss the importance of balancing the art and science of coaching to develop better athletes, and how leaning to heavily on one side can be costly if you’re after improved performance.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT:

• Why and how to balance the art and science of coaching or triathlon training for the self-coached athlete
• Individuality, and why research findings should never be generalised directly to the individual athlete without a good knowledge of the context of this particular athlete
• How lab testing can massively beneficial in optimising and individualising an athlete’s training, when we apply both the art and science of coaching to their training
• How to read research papers the right way, and conduct a critical analysis of the findings within

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Training talk and better triathlon run training with Jason Koop | EP#166

Jason Koop is the Director of Coaching at Carmichael Training Systems (CTS) and a wealth of knowledge and experience in endurance sports coaching. We dive into a wide variety of triathlon training topics in this interview, including getting specific on how to improve your triathlon run training.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT:

• How much (or how little…) fitness should you lose in the off-season?
• Why you must know the purpose of every single workout and block of training
• How should triathletes structure their run training to improve their running?
• Common mistakes triathletes make in their training
• Current fads in triathlon and endurance sports

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Interval Training – Science and Application part 3 with prof. Paul Laursen | EP#163

Paul Laursen is adjunct professor and performance physiologist at AUT, he lead the Performance Physiology Team at High Performance Sport New Zealand for both the London and Rio Olympic cycles, and he coaches several elite triathletes. He is also the man behind HIIT Science (together with colleague Martin Bucheit). In his third appearance on That Triathlon Show, we dive even deeper into all things interval training for triathletes, and discuss practical programming applications.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT:

• What is the cost in terms of fatigue, recovery time, overall stress, and injury risk of various types of intervals?
• How do factors like age, sex, and athletic ability and experience influence interval training?
• Practical application of HIIT in triathlon programming – what would be some example training weeks for long- and short-course triathletes?
• The HIIT Science book and the course

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Introducing elite triathlete and Scientific Triathlon coach James Teagle | EP#161

James Teagle is an elite triathlete and a Scientific Triathlon coach. In this episode we discuss his own career and training at the Loughborough Triathlon Performance Centre, as well as his coaching and training advice for age-group triathletes.

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Non-functional overreaching with Cyril Schmit | EP#159

Cyril Schmit, PhD, discusses non-functional overreaching for triathletes and endurance athletes. What is it, how can we identify it and prevent it and what are the biggest risk factors for it.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT:

• What is non-functional overreaching, and how is it different from overtraining syndrome.
• How can it be identified using subjective and objective markers?
• How can it be prevented?
• What are the roles of training volume and intensity in causing non-functional overreaching?
• How important is the role of factors outside of training (life stress) in causing non-functional overreaching?
• The relation between heart rate and non-functional overreaching.

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The T.I.M.E system: effective and intelligent winter training with Rob Wilby | EP#158

Rob Wilby, triathlon coach, coach educator, and host of the OxygenAddict podcast, discusses his T.I.M.E system for effective triathlon training through winter. His approach works particularly well for time-crunched age-group triathletes training for half and full distance triathlons.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT:

• Test and Evaluate
• Intelligent Intensity
• Mindset
• Effective Effort
• Examples of weekly structures and workout structures Rob uses with his athletes
• Rob’s recommendations for when you’re going into spring and summer training.

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Case Study: The 40% swimming Ironman training plan with Lars Finanger | EP#155

Lars Finanger is another case study showing how when you don’t have a lot of available time to train, you need to be very smart and make the most with the time you have. Lars finished Ironman Texas 2017 in a sub-9:30 time, on less than 9 hours of training per week. The most surprising thing about his training is that roughly 40% of it was swimming!

IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT:

• A big-picture overview of Lars’ build to Ironman Texas
• An example of a typical training week for him (which was always less than 9 hours)

Factors outside of the actual Ironman training that Lars focused on to achieve a fast time

• Lars’ top tips for time-crunched age-groupers and their Ironman training
• Swimrun events in the US: Lars is the race director of Casco Bay Islands, Boston Harbor Islands, and San Juan Islands

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How Norway became a triathlon powerhouse with head coach Arild Tveiten | EP#154

On 28 April 2018 Norway became the first nation ever to sweep a podium in a World Triathlon Series event when Casper Stornes, Kristian Blummenfelt and Gustav Iden showed the world what the “Norwegian train” is capable of. Arild Tveiten is the head coach of these athletes, and the man behind the transformation that is making Norway a true triathlon powerhouse.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT:

• The training philosophy of the Norwegian triathletes
• Intensity control in both easy and hard workouts
• The use of extensive lab testing and an incredible amount of lactate testing in the field to ensure intensity control
• Building the engine and physiology of an athlete versus race specific training
• Triathlon being a highly aerobic sport and what that means for training
• Managing training load to prevent illness and injuries
• Training at altitude (and managing the return to sea level)
• Using technology to get the marginal gains needed to win in world-class competition

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80/20 Triathlon (revisited) with Matt Fitzgerald | EP#152

Research has shown that cyclists, runners, triathletes, and other endurance athletes improve the most when they consistently do 80 percent of their training at low intensity and the other 20 percent at a moderate to high intensity. Matt Fitzgerald, co-author of the new book “80/20 Triathlon” explains what 80/20 training is all about and answer commonly asked questions.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT:

• What Matt would put on a t-shirt if he had to distill 80/20 Triathlon down to a very short and concise slogan
• The proper planning and the proper execution of 80/20 training
• Is there “wiggle room” in the 80/20 percentages?
• Should you apply 80/20 within each discipline or simply across all your training?
• The most common mistake age-groupers make: not executing the easy training easy enough
• How is easy, moderate, and high intensity percentages calculated?
• The difference between 80/20 training and polarised training
• What to do with the 20% of moderate to high intensity

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