TRI: What’s the Rush? Think Long-Term!

What’s the Rush? Think Long-Term!
By Jason Gootman at tri-hard.com

There’s a strange paradigm when it comes to conditioning for triathlon that has been in endurance sports for years. People set goals for themselves and then they want to accomplish them NOW! As coaches, we see this everyday. Most athletes have very little patience. They want to be their best right now. This probably comes from our societies overall view on success being that MORE, FASTER, BIGGER, SOONER is what it is all about. We’ll spare you the psychosocial analysis, because wherever it comes from, you must eliminate this way of thinking if you ever want to reach your potential as a triathlete.

Approaching training like most Americans approach life, in a huge rush to do more stuff, will get you nowhere fast. Trying to “get in” more swims, bikes, and runs, and some weight training and some yoga, and more all the while trying to rule the world by the end of the summer simply defies human physiology!

What I am going to say next is not rocket science and any endurance sports coach in the world should be able to tell you this, but it is worth repeating, because it is the cornerstone principle of any athletic conditioning and from what we see daily, not everyone gets it yet…

TRAINING STRESS + REST = GROWTH AND IMPROVEMENT AS AN ATHLETE

Without adequate rest, you will not benefit from the training stress. Period. Exclamation point. Do not ignore this very simple statement.

It is important to our discussion of thinking long term because it is lack of patience that leads many athletes to cram too much work into their weekly training schedule never allowing them to really recover, therefore never allowing them to really improve.

Triathlon is a demanding sport. Reaching your potential is an even more demanding challenge. There are so many athletic skills and fitness qualities that a triathlete needs to develop – swim skill, swim power, swim endurance, bike handling skills, pedaling skills, on-the-bike strength and power, bike endurance, run skills, yadda, yadda, yadda, you get the point. Lots of things to train.

Many athletes make the mistake of thinking that in each training year, or training period, or worse, every week, they need to train each important aspect of triathlon. Yikes! This often leads to cramming in too many workouts and doing too long of workouts.

What gets sacrificed? That’s right, rest. That little part of the equation that too many athletes think does not matter. As long as I “get in” all the training and “put in all the miles”, I’ll be all set, right? Nope.

You see, it is during rest that you actually improve and derive the benefits from your training. Training (all kinds) actually damages your body’s cells – muscle, nerve, bone, endocrine, all of them. It is during rest that the damaged cells are repaired and grow ever so slightly stronger and more highly functioning.

So how can being more patient help you to reach your potential? Simply stated, you can work on and develop different aspects of triathlon conditioning in a sequential and systematic fashion, enabling you to ultimately reach as close as you can to your true potential. This kind of planning is something a qualified coach or a well-schooled athlete can do, but it starts with a willingness to take your time to develop your athletic skills. With patient development you can reach levels of performance that you otherwise never would.

Let’s look at an example of someone who has planned to develop his athletic skills over a number of years, ultimately allowing him to reach a very lofty personal goal. We’ll look at Jim “Very Patient” Williams – a coach’s dream. Jim is 28 years old. He just finished his third year in triathlon and had a best performance of a 2:05 Olympic distance triathlon. He has set a goal of completing an Ironman in 10 hours. Given Jim’s job and family commitments and overall work and stressload, Jim is keenly aware of how much time he can realistically devote to training and still manage optimal recovery – thus ensuring steady continual improvement. Jim knows he has a lot to work on to reach his goal, so he gives himself 5 years to accomplish it. This goal means a lot to Jim and he does not want to sacrifice it by rushing the process. Jim sets up the following broad plan to help him reach his goal.

Year 1:

Continue to peak for Olympic distance racing. Focus training this year on developing total body stability and power through weight room training as well as sport specific work. Additionally, focus this year on developing more efficient swimming technique. Also, really work on improving nutrition and reducing overall stress so that I am in better condition to handle higher volume training in the years to come.

Year 2:

Continue to peak for Olympic distance racing. Focus training this year on maintaining what I have already built, while now seeking to improve cycling and running technique.

Years 3-4:

Peak for Half-Ironman distance racing. Working to maintain power and skill that I have developed in the last 2 years, start to build metabolic endurance to be able to go longer distances.

Year 5:

Attempt to reach Ironman goal. With power, skills, and a real solid base of endurance, focus this year on the physical and mental preparations for my first Ironman.

Given the fact that this was a lofty and challenging goal, Jim did well go give himself several years to accomplish it. You can see how each year Jim planned to develop and acquire a few of the athletic skills and fitness qualities that he knew he would ultimately need to reach his goal. Left out from this example, but important to mention is that Jim also plans to use different parts of each year to work on more specific aspects of his fitness. This approach will allow Jim to train under a workload that was appropriate for him to create steady continual improvement. It also allowed him to build his skills and fitness in a systematic step-by-step fashion rather than trying to do it all at once.

Every athlete is very unique and needs to take the approach that works best for him. This is just an example of how a patient approach can allow you to reach your potential. It is not intended as a training paradigm for the general population.

So go ahead and dream! Set your goals big, huge even! Then go get ’em! That’s the only way to live. Just make sure you take your time to do so!