Reach A New Performance Level in 2011

I had an athlete ask me the other evening “how can I get faster or reach a new level of performance?” If you know me or any other good coach, the answer to this question becomes a series of questions directed back to the athlete. Sorry for this but without knowing one’s goals, habitual training level, commitment level, lifestyle, diet, previous race results etc, it is difficult to provide an appropriate answer beyond the obvious “train more” or “train harder”.

So as I reflected on this question I thought I would share some of my ideas that may offer you a step towards that next level. These are in no order of importance, nor are they meant to imply that you need to do them all. In fact by just implementing one of these ideas you may very well achieve a new level quite easily.

Set meaningful SMART goals: I bet many have lost interest in anything else I have to say. Yes goals are important and the more specific, measureable, action oriented, realistic and set in a time context they are, the more likely you will focus on the goal and achieve it. Your goals should also be meaningful for you and should set a fire under your butt to chase them. You are more likely to get out of bed for that early morning swim or run because the goal is meaningful to you. If the goal is too “airy-fairy” then you will be more likely to dismiss it and miss training.
Far too many people neglect to set goals.

Train more: Seems obvious enough but I wish I had a dollar for every time an athlete said they can’t do anymore training in a week. Look for creative ways to add volume to your monthly plan like doing two training sessions per month that are beyond your regular long session. If 90 minutes is your staple long run duration, look to add 15-20 minutes twice a month. You can also look to add in more time training at higher intensities which can be very effective in the short term (4-6 weeks). If done correctly, you can see an increase in your functional threshold power and overall aerobic conditioning. You should also consider training more in the discipline you feel is your weakest.
Look to increase your training volume by 15-20% on the long days.


Technical practice: Spend more time working on the mechanics of swimming and running during the off-season and continue to integrate these technical sessions during the race season to keep your muscle memory. You may do well to look at adjusting your bike position and equipment choices to find a more comfortable and aerodynamic position. Become a student of the disciplines and learn what perfect technique feels like. You must be mentally focused for these sessions and practice the act of “perfect practice” to gain a benefit. Simply going through the motions or getting by is not conducive to learning or improving.
Dedicate 2 to 3 sessions during the off-season to strict
technical sessions.

Dial in your nutrition: Why leave it until you are 8 weeks away from your goal race? Small tweaks to your nutrition can aid in long term health gains and performance improvements. This does not mean you can’t indulge or enjoy sinful foods or drinks. Use moderation and common sense. Experiment with recovery foods or drinks. Focus on your nutrient timing like eating every 3 hours to keep your blood sugar and hormone levels even. Make changes to the composition of you meals by adding in more protein if you tend to not eat protein regularly, more vegetables and less bread products.
Make the habits stick now versus when you feel you need to be
serious.

Recover better: Take this seriously, especially the masters athletes. Look to get more sleep during the week by getting to bed a bit earlier or sleeping in a bit later. Learn to relax more and look for creative ways to take time for you. Take yoga once a week. Get a massage once every two weeks during the off-season. Couple this with your nutrition tweaks and look at when you eat post workout. The “carb window” is a time in which the body is most sensitive and ready to take in the nutrients from post training meal to restore depleted carbohydrates, electrolytes, water etc and is typically within 30min post activity. Miss time your recovery meal and it could mean you won’t be ready for tomorrow’s training in time.
Add an extra day of rest every two to three weeks.

Add in strength and core training during the off-season: Become a more well rounded athlete and individual by working on areas of weakness in your body. These don’t have to be long arduous sessions but rather more focused sessions addressing many of the key lateral muscles in your hips and the deeper core muscles. This can help offset any potential injury that may be developing in your body. It doesn’t have to be fancy either. Squats, deadlifts, bent over barbell rows, pull-ups and push-ups, lunges or split squats can be effective for total body conditioning.
Identify and work on any muscle imbalances or weaknesses.

Train with others: Groups will always help add extra motivation during key sessions or help increase accountability to stay consistent in your training. However, look for training partners of similar ability level, goals or personalities. No one likes to be “that guy” who is always holding up a group or “that guy” who treats every session as if it was a race.
Determine what you want to get out of training with others.

Train alone: Become a one man wolf pack. Training on your own allows you to focus on your training needs and depending upon how you feel you can adapt a training session as you like. You would be surprised how many people hate being alone and crumble mentally without others. Remember many races force you to be independent and deal with many tough situations on your own. Be ready for them. Most professional roadies train on their own to focus on their needs.
Become comfortable being alone with yourself.

Get tested: Learn about your body and take the advice on what you could stand to work on. Many people who partake in an aerobic sport such as triathlon actually show carbohydrate dependent metabolic profiles meaning their bodies preferentially burn carbohydrates rather than burning fats. Zones can be established to help guide you to training a specific energy system more effectively. Many people don’t like the results of such testing as they are so used to training hard all the time and any advice to slow down does not suit them well. They will always remain stuck in the same performance pattern of being slow and be classified as a “carb burner”. Testing also helps you to see if you are improving, maintaining your fitness or in some instances whether or not you are wasting your valuable time just working out versus training. There is a difference between working out and training.
Identify your strengths, weaknesses and what you should focus on in training.

Hire a coach: You knew this one was coming! Coaches can structure your schedule so you don’t have to think about what you should do tonight. You could also just have an expert coach review your program to see if it fits in with your goals and to offer some new ideas or training ideas. There are tons of magazines, articles, websites, blogs that offer up generic training programs you could follow but in most instances they will let you down as they are not specific enough to your needs. Ultimately they stop doing the schedule altogether due to boredom, monotony and lack of direction.
An outside perspective or different approach can be the
stimulus to improvement.

There you have it, ten ideas I feel can help you reach a new performance level. I have really skimmed the surface of each but hopefully you see the point of each and decide to implement one or more of these ideas into your training. Now is the time to implement these versus waiting until next year when you want to get serious.

JVD

Fall 2010 Club Programs

Hi everyone, most of us are hitting the big events of the season starting this weekend with 70.3, then on to the Kelowna Apple and finally Ironman Canada which makes posting a notice about the fall programs seem "unimportant" at the moment.

For your information then, here are the fall programs. Please note registrations will be processed starting early September 2010. Please contact me at jvandyk@talismancentre.com for the fall 2010 registration form. I will need a new form completed by EVERYONE for the fall.

Triathlon Club Swim

The Fall Triathlon Club Swim courses focus on improving swim technique and gaining a better understanding of how your body position in the water impacts your performance. Our experienced coaches have helped many Club members reach new levels of comfort in the water and achieve personal best times in their respective triathlon events. Club members also help keep each other accountable to these early morning sessions.

Triathlon Club swim Monday 6 - 7am 11 sessions (Sep 27 – Dec 13) $110.00

Triathlon Club swim Wednesday 6 - 7am 12 sessions (Sep 29 – Dec 15) $120.00

Triathlon Club swim Friday 6 -7 am 12 sessions (Oct 1 – Dec 17) $120.00

Triathlon Club Brick

The ability to run after the cycling portion of a triathlon is a key element to having a successful day. This group training session is designed to help build your aerobic base and your ability to quickly run comfortably off the bike. These are also fun training sessions that makes the time go by quickly with your Club mates.

Triathlon Club Brick training Monday 6:30 - 8:30pm 11 sessions (Sep 27 – Dec 13) $165.00

Triathlon Club Brick training Wednesday 6:30 - 8:30pm 12 sessions (Sep 29 – Dec 15) $180.00


Triathlon Club Group Ride

Triathlon Club members can ride in a group setting using their own bicycles on the Tacx ergotrainers. Focus specifically on increasing your cycling abilities this fall by training with power output in a motivating group setting. Make the bike your strength for next season’s races.

Triathlon Club Bike training Saturday 9am - 11am 10 sessions (Oct 2 – Dec 18) $165.00

Triathlon Club Ironswim

Build your distance swimming ability through these 90min sessions. This is not just for the Iron-athlete as Olympic distance swimmers can see big improvements in their swimming by completing more metres per training session and per week. A great low impact way in which to boost your overall training volume while under the guidance and support of our coaches.

Triathlon Club swim Tuesday 7:30 - 9pm 12 sessions (Sep 28 – Dec 14) $165.00

Triathlon Club swim Thursday 7:30 - 9pm 11 sessions (Sep 30 – Dec 16) $151.25

Please checkout our ETS fall programs too at http://endurancetrainingsystems.blogspot.com/ if you are looking for some additional swimming and cycling options.

Perhaps next season is when you are going to sign up for an ironman or half-ironman event or see how fast you can really go at the Olympic distance. If so then maybe the ETS Customized Coaching and testing packages are for you. These packages are proven to achieve personal best results for athletes of all ability levels. Do your event knowing you prepared to the best of your ability under the guidance of our coaching team.

JVD

Group Ride on the 70.3 Course

If anyone is interested in riding a large potion of the Calgary 70.3 course on Saturday July 17th I will be riding most of it that day as a training ride. This is a great opportunity to preview the course, test out any equipment you plan on using as well as your nutrition plan for race day.

My planned route is starting from West Hills Shopping Centre - behind Second Cup Coffee and in the area of Indigo Books. We will ride out to lower Springbank Rd and ride the course in reverse to Cochrane. We will head West to Grand Valley Rd then east to Horse Creek Rd, back to Cochrane and then back to West Hills.

10am start.

Please let me know if you will be riding that day.

Jack

10K Hell Run for Fun

From Darren
Hi everyone

The 10k staggered start race is on Sunday July 4 at 8:30 am
Country Hills Running Room. You can email me your
confirmation before Sunday and you best 10k time that you
have run in the last couple years or a very honest
estimate, so I can set the stagger for the start of the
race. If you have any friends you would like to see suffer
send me there names and times as well, everyone is welcome
to enter the race.

Hope to see you Sunday

Darren
haynerdv@shaw.ca

Tonights Swim 6:30 pm

Since the Centaur Subaru swim course has filled up so quickly many Talisman Triathlon Club members have requested a additional open water swim before Wasa Lake Triathlon. As such the Wednesday night brick on June 9th has been canceled and in its place we will have a open water swim night at Lake Mckenzie Beach Club. Any Talisman Centre Triathlon Club member is invited to this open water swim, even if you are not signed up for the Wednesday night brick.

Things start off at 6:30pm.

http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&q=lake+mckenzie+beach+club&fb=1&gl=ca&hq=lake+mckenzie+beach+club&hnear=Calgary,+AB&view=map&cid=619219230388383325&ved=0CEIQpQY&ei=VKsPTID1IYH6M8-N-OsC&ll=50.907606,-113.981481&spn=0.007956,0.022724&z=16

Wasa Lake Group Ride

Well it has come time again to test out the winter training and rock wasa lake triathlon. This year the Talisman Triathlon Club will meet in the north parking lot (site of the old transition) for a group ride, some members will ride the full 40km while others will only ride half. Then its time to test out the wetsuits and jump in the water before the package pick up.

We will meet at noon on Saturday with the bikes.

Hope to see you there.

Jon

Summer Triathlon Club Sessions

Registration for the summer Triathlon Club sessions are now available. Once again we will be doing a shortened summer session since most of us will be out racing or on holidays during this time.

To register please email me directly with your selections and I will process them in the order I receive them. Given the shorter time frame, we won't be doing the monthly payment option for this period of time.

July 5th to August 13th, 2010

Triathlon Club Swim:

Mondays from 6:00AM to 7:00AM (5 sessions $47.50)
Tuesdays from 12:00PM to 1:00PM (6 sessions $57)
Wednesdays from 6:00AM to 7:00AM (6 sessions $57)
Thursdays from 12:00PM to 1:00PM (6 sessions $57)
Fridays from 6:00AM to 7:00AM (6 sessions $57)

Triathlon Club IronSwim:

Tuesdays from 7:30PM to 9:00PM (6 sessions $82)
Thursdays from 7:30PM to 9:00PM (6 sessions $82)

Triathlon Club Group Brick (Wed):

Wednesdays from 6:30PM to 8:30PM (6 sessions $82)

See you at Wasa Lake this weekend!

Jack