Archive for January, 2010

If you’ve still not so keen on stepping outdoors for you runs then these three treadmill sessions will keep you ticking over during the last few weeks of the winter months. Most people associate treadmill running with just ‘doing time’. Treadmill running can be especially useful during the winter months when outdoor running may be too dangerous or you’re attempting to fit in a lunchtime run at work. It is also very useful as it provides a measurable, controlled training environment.

The sessions outlined below are designed especially for those of you with time constraints and require no more than 30 minutes in the gym or at home on your treadmill.

Session 1 - The Speed Up
This sessions aims to improve your ability to build pace throughout a run before pushing hard at the end, which essential practice for race day.
The warm-up for this session is built into the session itself, so start with a pace that’s comfortable. After 5 minutes increase the speed of the treadmill by 0.5kph and maintain that speed for 5 minutes before cranking up the pace again by 0.5kph. Continue this pattern for a further 25 minutes before reducing the speed to a jog. Increase the starting pace by 0.1kph each week to make progress on your fitness.

Session 2 – Hard & Easy
This session aims to increase your leg speed and maximum pace. Start with a good 10 minute warm-up where you build up your speed from a jog to a brisk run, before upping the speed to your 10k pace. Stick with this speed for 1 minute before dropping to a recovery jog for a further minute. Increase the speed from your first rep by another 0.5 kph and hold for another minute, before again reducing to a jog. Repeat this process to rep six, which means you should be 2.5 kph above your race pace. Hold this pace for a further two reps. This will help push leg speeds you wouldn’t normally reach outdoors. Cool down.

Session 3 – Gradient Test
This session uses the treadmill’s gradient settings to build strength and hill climbing ability. Set the gradient to zero and maintain a steady jog for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes start at a long comfortable endurance pace and hold this speed for 5 minutes before increasing the gradient of the treadmill by 2%. Maintain this pace for a further 5 minutes. After this, push it up to 4% and hold for 6 minutes. Next is one 4 minute effort at 6%. Up the gradient to 7% for the last 2 minutes before bringing the gradient back down to zero for a good cool down.

Treadmill running indoors can be very beneficial but please remember to stay hydrated as it can be a hot and sweaty business, with no frontal airflow to help keep you cool.

Happy Training!!
 

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Good nutrition practices help to fuel physical activity in addition to sustaining normal bodily functions and the growth, development and repair of human body tissue. For those of you serious about your sport and training it is a well accepted concept that diet can significantly affect performance. In order to achieve the quality of your training and maximise adaptations, it is essential that you consume a diet that matches the demands placed upon the body.

Until the end of January there’s a massive 50% off your first purchase over at lucozadeshop.com. There’s a whole range of products online to help you meet your needs, including fuelling, focus, hydration, strength and recovery items. You can even shop by sport, making sure you’re buying the right products to suit your exact needs. There are various other ‘box’ type deals including a month’s supply of mixed items for training and racing.

Remember this offer is only available until the end of January. Simply enter ‘INTROFIFTY’ when checking out at Lucozadeshop.com to take advantage of this fantastic offer.

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Looking in the mirror is the quickest and simplest way to see if you are too fat by everyday standards, but this alone will not give you the accurate information that you need as competitive athletes. Carrying around excess weight in any sport has got to be a distinct disadvantage as it can adversely affect strength, speed and endurance. Carrying around this extra weight is not only unnecessary, but also costly in terms of energy expenditure. In endurance sports surplus fat can reduce speed and increase fatigue. It’s like carrying a shopping bag with you as you run, it’ll make it harder for you to get up speed, slow you down as cause you to tire quickly.

Muscle is stronger and more powerful than fat although I’m sure you’ll agree it‘s much harder to acquire! If two athletes weighed 100kg, but one comprised 90 kg lean (10 kg fat) mass and the other 70 kg lean (30kg fat) mass, the leaner one would obviously have the advantage. Possibly the only sport where fat could be considered an advantage is sumo wrestling!

A fat free body however would not survive. It is important to realise that a certain amount of body fat is absolutely vital. In fact, there are two components of body fat: essential fat and storage fat. Essential fat includes the fat which forms part of your cell membranes, brain tissue, nerve sheaths, bone marrow and the fat surrounding your organs (e.g. heart, liver, kidneys). Here it provides insulation, protection and cushioning against physical damage. In a healthy person this accounts for about 3% body weight. Unfortunately for the ladies there’s additional essential fat which is sex-specific and is mostly stored in the breasts and the hips. This fat accounts for a further 5-9% a women’s body weight.

The second component of body fat is storage fat and is an important energy reserve that takes the form of fat (adipose) cells under the skin and around the organs. Fat is used virtually all the time during any aerobic activity; while sleeping, sitting, walking and in most forms of exercise. The body generally uses fat from all sites and an average person has enough fat stores for three days and nights of continuous running. In practise you’d ‘blow’ way before your stores ran out!

In terms of health risks associated with fat you can use a measurement called the Body mass Index (BMI), which classifies different grades of body weight. The BMI of a person can be calculated by dividing a person’s weight (in Kg) by the square of his or her height in metres. My BMI calculation would look like:

85 / (1.87×1.87) = 24.2

BMI Less than 20 — Under Weight

BMI 20-25 — Normal Weight (Grade 0)

BMI 25-30 — Over Weight (Grade 1)

BMI 30-40 — Obese (Grade 2)

BMI Over 40 — Severely Obese (Grade 3)

Doctors use this chart to assess a persons risk of acquiring certain health related conditions, such as heart disease.

The thing here is that when you stand on the scales you weigh everything; bone, muscle, water and fat. Therefore, you don’t know how ‘fat’ you actually are. Someone with a lot of muscle and little fat could be classed as overweight and vice versa. This is where ‘body composition’ comes into play.

The body is composed of two elements; lean body tissue (muscles, organs, bones and blood) and body fat. The proportion of these two components is called body composition. This is more important than total weight.

For example, two people may weigh the same, but have different body composition. Athletes usually have a smaller percentage of body fat and a higher percentage of lean weight than those who are less physically active. Lean body tissue is functional (useful) weight, whereas fat is non-functional in terms of sports performance.

There are various methods you could use to measure your percentage body fat however the most popular methods are with skinfold callipers or bio electrical impedance.

As a personal trainer you’re taught how to measure percentage body fat using these methods however all methods come with a certain degree of inaccuracy. Skin capllipers measure the folds of fat at various measurement points throughout the body and convert to an overall figure, however this relies on a great deal or accuracy when re-evaluating clients. I tend to use bio electrical impedance testers due to the tests being much quicker to conduct. These are electrical devices that pass a mild electrical current throughout the body to measure it’s conductivity. They can be either hand-held or small boxes with wires that attach to the body via pads.

You’re local gym should be able to provide you with a body composition test should you wish find out how you fare. Again there are guidelines as to your results based on your age group. The table below will give you some idea of where you score.

MALE
AGE    EXCELLENT  GOOD     FAIR     POOR
19-24   10.8%          14.9%     19.0%   23.3%
25-29   12.8%          16.5%     20.3%   24.4%
30-34   14.5%          18.0%     21.5%   25.2%
35-39   16.1%          19.4%     22.6%   26.1%
40-44   17.5%          20.5%     23.6%   26.9%
45-49   18.6%          21.5%     24.5%   27.6%
50-54   19.8%          22.7%     25.6%   28.7%
55-59   20.2%          23.2%     26.2%   29.3%
60+      20.3%          23.5%     26.7%   29.8%

FEMALE
AGE   EXCELLENT  GOOD    FAIR     POOR
19-24    18.9%        22.1%    25.0%   29.6%
25-29    18.9%       22.0%     25.4%   29.8%
30-34    19.7%       22.7%     26.4%   30.5%
35-39    21.0%       24.0%     27.7%   31.5%
40-44    22.6%       25.6%     29.3%   32.8%
45-49    24.3%       27.3%     30.9%   34.1%
50-54    26.6%       29.7%     33.1%   36.2%
55-59    27.4%      30.7%      34.0%   37.3%
60+       27.6%       31.0%     34.4%   38.0%

With most multi-sport events (and the associated disciplines of) being endurance based you’d expect the pro’s to be in the ranges of 6-12% for males and 8-18% for females. The minimum recommended percentages for men and women is 5% and 12% respectively.

Clearly, there is no ideal body fat percentage for any particular sport. Each individual athlete has an optimal fat range at which their performance improves yet there health does not suffer. Each of us are also genetically different which has a direct impact on our body composition and ultimately performance.

Don’t get too hung up on your own percentage body fat calculations because no matter how hard you try to change how you are now, it may just be impossible due to how we’ve been built as individuals!

Happy Training!!

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All you Cycling fans out there will no doubt already know that the Tour Down Under kicks off this weekend in Adelaide, with the pre-tour 51 km Cancer Council Helpline Classic. This classic closed circuit road race is held as a preview of the Santos Tour Down Under. Main race Stage 1 gets under way on Tuesday from Clare to Tanunda, finishing with Stage 6 on Sunday back in Adelaide.

All the usual Pro-Tour teams are on the start list with UK new boys Team Sky and US Team Radio Shack heading out for their first competitive race since forming the end of last season.

The video below was ‘tweeted’ a couple of days ago and shows off the vast amount of talent that Lance and his team have grouped together at Team radio Shack, as well as promoting their newest team sponsor, Nissan! It’ll be interesting to see how Team Radio Shack fairs at the longer Giro and TDF races when all the top team riders will be out to play!

Even though the Tour Down Under may not be classed as one of the classic Pro-Tour events it still boasts a host of top name riders including the likes of Lance Armstrong (TRS), Cadel Evans (BMC), Stuart OGrady (Saxo) and Michael Rogers (HTC-Columbia) to name but a few.

You can see highlights of the ’51 Km Classic’ on Sky Sports 2 UK on Sunday from 19:30 to 20:00, with further stage highlights from Tuesday evening through to Sunday, also on Sky Sports. Remember to check your local listings for broadcast times.

My friends over in USA can see highlights on Versus. Again please check local listings for broadcast times.

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When it comes to making a training plan and keeping a log it really is no use keeping it all in your head. A training plan or log should be either of the paper variety or logged on a computer. That way you’ll always have a reference to what you should be doing next week and what you actually did last week.

The training log/diary I’ve produced is a simple PC version written in excel. What it does above that of the paper variety is automatically calculate individual weekly statistics as well as yearly totals for all your training sessions.

It really is very easy to use. Simply enter detail into the necessary fields and the excel formulas will do the calculations. I’ve also added a template to the file with some relevant notes.

The main ‘training summary’ tab is the sheet where the calculations are presented, so you can view all individual weekly statistics as well as the statistics for that year. You don’t need to alter these values as they’re all automated and doing so could alter the displayed stats. I’ve protected this sheet for this reason, however you can un-protect the sheet with the password ‘training’.

All of the ‘Wk #’ tabs are where you should enter the relevant detail such as swim, bike and run distances and times as well as text entry for route, session and weather. Don’t alter the ‘Total Daily Training Time’ fields for each day or the ‘Weekly Total’ fields at the top of the sheet as these are again formulas to give you the automated calculations on the ‘training summary’.

If you have a future training schedule in mind or you’re currently mid schedule you can quite easily transfer your data into the log. If you prefer your training plan ‘schedule based’ and not based around training dates, simply change the day and date fields accordingly to phases, cycles and week numbers.

I’ve also added a couple of other fitness related fields in too, including weight, resting heart rate and BMI (or % body fat). These are a good guide as to how your training is progressing. With endurance type training you should hopefully see your resting heart rate, % body fat and weight reduce as the schedule/log/plan progresses.

Working to a plan or scheduled log is a great way to give structure, organisation and direction to your training which will ultimately lead to a direct and positive impact on your competitive results.

Download your free training log (courtesy of Trispace) right here. You can do as you wish with the log. Rip it into you own design, make modifications or not use it at all. The choice is yours!

Happy Training……and logging!!

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If take two triathletes who both have the same Vo2 max and matching levels of energy economy, but one of them conducts regular functional strength training during the winter/base phases of training, who do you think would win in a head to head sprint tri race? Yep that’s right, the triathlete that includes regular functional strength training into his or her schedule would be the winner. It simply takes more strength to pedal faster and the faster of the two triathletes will be the cyclist with stronger leg and gluteal muscles. The same rule applies to swimming and running. In all three disciplines forces used in forward propulsion are transferred between the upper body and legs through the trunk, so there is an advantage straight away in developing a reserve of strength throughout the body.

Most endurance athletes do not fully realise the benefits of strength training as most of them see strength training as that of the traditional body building method. But as a triathlete you should not strength train like a body builder. Body builders train muscles and perform exercises that isolate and concentrate force upon individual muscles. The result of this type of training is big muscles that look powerful but for most are virtually incapable of co-ordinating with other muscles to perform athletic movements.

Triathletes should look to train movements or patterns and not individual muscles. The majority of the exercises you perform should be based on functional movement that mimic as much of the three discipline actions as possible. The goal here is to promote strength in your stabilizing muscles in order to stabilize the body during swimming, biking and running, as well as generating force from the prime movers(a muscle that acts directly to bring about a specific movement) and synergists (groups of muscles that contract together to accomplish the same body movement) of the body.

A classic body building exercise like the barbell bench press with it’s full trunk stabilisation, muscular isolation and symmetrical limb movements, will stimulate nothing you’ll ever do in the water, on the bike or running. Yes, you may build direct strength of the chest muscles, but there’s nothing functional about it for triathlon.

Functional strength training is all about training your body to perform sport specific movements with correct form and greater force. Like swimming, biking and running themselves your key strength training exercises should involve balance and core stabilisation (another topic I intend to cover), independent limb movements and co-ordination of several muscles that are directly involved in the movements of the three triathlon disciplines.

Your functional strength training workout should be designed to correct the muscular imbalances in order to improve power in all disciplines. There’s no harm in performing this workout all year-round if time permits in your training schedule and the exercises require minimal kit. As long as you’re got a couple of resistance bands and a gym ball you’ll be well on your way. Exercise examples to include in your workout could be; core & trunk stabilisation, lunges, squats, torso band twists, single arm band push, single arm band pull, stability ball pullover etc.

Over the next few weeks I intend to get a sample workout up online so you have the basis of a routine to follow.

Happy training!!

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“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day”. (Edith Lovejoy Pierce)

Best wishes for 2010 and may all your races be good ones!