oriontrainingsystems.com
  • Home
  • About
  • Coaching
    • Program Fees
    • Downloadable Programs
  • Masters Athletes
  • Testimonials
  • Blog
  • FAQ
  • Contact

Why "Proof of Doping" Is a Strawman Argument

2/10/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
When we think about doping in sports, people tend to fall in 1-of-3 buckets
  • the 10% who believe sport is now clean and that dopers account for as little as 1% of elite athletes;
  • the 10% who believe sport is every bit as dirty today as it has ever been; that the sophistication of drug programs remains a couple steps ahead of the corrupt AD powers that be; and
  • the 80% in the middle who are either ignorant on the topic or are ambivalent -- they just don't care

Everyone has an opinion and everyone has a right to his or her opinion.  But, for those who take the stance of defending sport as clean and who contend that athletes must be considered clean unless there is absolute proof to the contrary, the argument breaks down fairly quickly and definitively.  Yes, they demand incontrovertible proof of cheating to declare any given athlete in any given sport a cheater.  This is a strawman stance at best and, at the least, defies logic. 

They shout, 
  • "Trust in the science!"
  • "Trust in the AD process because it's the best we've got!"
  • "Trust in the athletes because they are nice people!"; and to those who disbelieve in what they see
  • "Go back into your cave you trolls because all you do is spout innuendo of guilt!  You have zero proof!"

If those who disbelieve what they're seeing try to turn that around by saying, "Show us proof that we should believe in these top-level athletes," they are met with:
  • personal verbal attacks
  • deflection
  • emphatic statements about burden of proof being on the accusers, not on the teams and athletes

All of this only diminishes the stance of those who say we need to believe.  The internet and the ability to share so much information today has vaulted us into an era where the accessibility to that information has tilted the discussion firmly in the favor of those who choose to take off the rose-tinted glasses and apply heavy skepticism to the feats of strength, speed, power and endurance we all witness:
  • In track & field, the women's 3,000 steeplechase WR was recently obliterated by 8 seconds -- more than 50 meters.  The previous record holder was then officially investigated for EPO use.  This WR performance was also a 15-second PR -- so, an improvement of 100 meters;
  • Mo Farah's transformation is not suspect because of how late in his career it occurred, though this is certainly questionable.  Nor, is it head scratching because of how fast his times became.  The BIG reason his performances became and still are highly suspect is because of his finishing speed.  He's running a sub-13:00 5k with a finishing lap of 51-52 seconds.  And crossing the line looking fresh as a daisy.  This is absolutely ludicrous;
  • In swimming, the cases of a single athlete winning a handful or more of world championship races, and when the cumulative fatigue should be bringing that swimmer to their knees yet they somehow beat all single race swimmers who are much fresher.  And we're to believe training more, wanting it more and cupping for recovery are the reasons;
  • In a team sport like cycling, we are asked to believe in team leaders for the Grand Tours as clean, whether their career progression is inconceivable or, to a degree, at least not plausible:
    • but whether you've won the atomic jockstrap race; or
    • used to win a multi-minute race on the velodrome; or
    • even have won a flat one-day semi-Classic
  • None of this equates or even correlates to Grand Tour podium pedigree.  To think any of it does is an insult not only to intelligence but also to those riders who showed stage race promise and pedigree from the beginning of their pro careers.  Winning a GT is something few cyclists achieve and it is a career-long pursuit -- not something you fall into or a transformation that can occur in a few short years -- forget about several weeks;    
  • In a team sport like basketball, we see athletes who look like taller, leaner versions of NFL linebackers. We compare NBA player physiques from the 80s and previously to those of the 90s and beyond, and it's like we're looking at humans vs aliens; 
  • Soccer, rugby, you name it -- no different.

Insane!  All of it.  Insane.

In the case of cycling, where it becomes nonsensical is when we are supposed to believe in a rider who has won or can win one of the 3 GTs.  He's clean for myriad reasons -- I know him; he's a good guy; he's outspoken against PEDs; he's never tested positive; and so on.  But, in order to believe a rider is clean, you MUST also believe the following:
  • in a rigorous, 3-week race, clean can win -- not just beat, but emerge victorious -- against cheating riders;
  • that the team surrounding and supporting that athlete is also entirely clean -- otherwise, how could he be the team leader if the other riders are cheating?;
  • that the team surrounding and supporting that athlete are also stronger than any of the cheaters that are certainly in the peloton;
  • that ALL the other contenders and teams are likewise clean; and
  • that only those not talented enough to be World Tour riders and winners cheat, in order to make up for their physiological inadequacies

There are more points to support this, I'm sure.  But, if you question any of these points, then your sycophancy around clean riding caves in immediately.

We are also fed so much deflection, and I'm both disappointed and dismayed by how easy the general public and the apologists lap it up.  We see narcissistic videos of LeBron doing deadlifts during the NBA playoffs and hear about how dedicated he is and how he works so much harder than anyone else.  While no one can dispute his talent, it would be ridiculous to believe he's not hoped up on some PED cocktail.  Look here, not there.

The examples are endless and can be discussed about any sport on the planet.

And don't get me started on the grey area horseshit.  Talking about the grey area is the apologist way to excuse cheating.  Cheating is about intent.  There is no grey area with motive.

Lastly, as I've said many times, patterns are proof.  We know unequivocally what a doping athlete looks like because there have been enough of the elites who have been popped -- not by AD organizations but rather by whistleblowers, so there's that endemic failure to the AD system to remember as well -- that we can fairly easily size-up other athletes and do a side-by-side comparison -- athlete in question vs known doper.  If they look eerily similar, then, sorry, the athlete in question is a doper.  

Because remember ... elite sport is rife with doping.  And, make no mistake, dopers are not lazy athletes.  If anything, they work harder because the PED cocktail they are on allows for faster recovery between sessions as well as the ability to work harder during those sessions.  A clean athlete simply cannot compete with that -- unless you believe any given sport is entirely clean.  That the history of cheating and doping and match fixing has been completely eradicated.

But, we are told to take heart.  That AD is working.  Sacrificial lambs are led to the slaughter and offered up as examples of the AD system working.  What is curious is that nearly every single one of them is a second- or third-tier athlete.  When is the last time that you read about a top-level elite being caught by an AD organization rather than a whistleblower or investigation?  Even the more recent and bizarre cases with Russian athletes and Kenyan runners are in now way glowing examples of the AD system working.  So, the myth of "only those not good enough are the ones who cheat" gets perpetuated -- because the narrative that elites are clean HAS to be protected. 

Otherwise, the entire world of sport gets exposed for the complete and utter sham it is.  

Look here, not there.

Happy Training,
​Coach Nate
0 Comments

Are You Training Too Hard?

1/27/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Endurance athletes, especially Masters athletes, train too hard.  I’ll define “endurance” as any event lasting an hour or more.  So, this encompasses a broad range of athletes, from cyclists to half-marathoners and marathoners, to every triathlete on this planet (not to mention all the other endurance sports out there, like cross-country skiing). 

We have been done a disservice on multiple fronts, not the least of which is by the vast majority of coaches out there who espouse repeated bouts of interval training per week or prescribe a large volume of interval training on their athletes’ hard days.  The premise is that we get faster by training harder.  This is true – to a finite point.  In order to better understand how we can extract more from our training and how to best balance aerobic with anaerobic efforts, it’s first important to understand how the body works. 

At a simplified high-level, there are 3 energy systems from which the body draws during any exercise of any duration and any intensity – phosphate, lactate and aerobic.  Phosphate is mainly leveraged in all out efforts lasting up to 30sec but typically falling in the 3-10sec range.  Lactate gets produced in greater quantities the closer we get to our LT (Lactate Threshold) and when we exercise above it.  Lactate is a fuel source, a byproduct of our effort that our body processes more quickly than it is produced until such time as we hit and cross our LT.  The aerobic energy system is when carbohydrate burning is slowed (but not stopped) and we recruit some stored fat as fuel because we are training or racing at an effort that is well below our LT. 

Even 5k runners use predominantly the aerobic energy system -- as high as 93%. We really don’t elicit a high anaerobic utilization until we dip below 2min in effort, and leveraging a higher percentage of lactate for fuel instead of aerobic energy does not even occur until the efforts duration falls to less than a minute. O2 is the fuel of muscles, and it takes about 30sec for the O2 we breathe in to be put to use. People think the O2 is used immediately because when they hold their breath for a long time and the lungs start burning, they take another breath and feel instant relief. But that relief actually comes from expelling CO2, not inhaling O2. A build-up of CO2 -- because we can't inhale enough O2 to replace it -- is what becomes the limiter with higher intensity performance.  When CO2 production outpaces our ability to intake fresh O2, there’s a cascading effect with higher lactate production and other internal triggers that tip us further into an anaerobic state. 
 
So, on the one hand, it is imperative we become aerobically efficient. We do this by tuning our aerobic system so we have a turbo engine rather than a lawnmower engine. By focusing on aerobic training, we can push out metabolic triggers that start tipping us toward anaerobic system/fuel utilization (lactate, phosphate). When these triggers do ultimately get pulled, carbohydrate utilization speeds up and we burn through muscle glycogen faster. Hence, the more aerobically efficient we are, the longer our muscle glycogen lasts. Also, the less our muscles fatigue, the longer our muscle neurons fire properly and spare us from potential cramping (IMHO, cramping isn't primarily due to dehydration or salt loss; it stems from fatigue that keeps the muscles from firing properly). 
 
But, here's the rub.

Part of our ability to become more aerobically efficient (more O2 to the working muscles) gets stimulated by bouts of high intensity training, especially VO2max efforts (lasting up to a handful of minutes). Higher intensity training forces the body to create more plasma and red blood cells, which in turn saturates the blood with a higher amount of O2. Think of a VO2max training block when the first workout of 3min intervals leaves you heaving and out of sorts. After a few weeks, the 4-5min intervals are hard and very taxing, yet there is also a sense that the body is settling in to them. This is due to the adaptation I just mentioned. 
 
The key is to stimulate thru high intensity enough, but not too much. Too much high intensity disrupts your ability to make that internal metabolic shift to being more aerobically efficient. Doping aside, bike racers can dig deep and throw down attack after attack at the end of a 5+ hour race not because they do a lot of anaerobic training but rather because they are aerobically efficient enough that when it's "go time", they have the muscle glycogen reserves to support those efforts and their muscle neurons are not too fatigued so cramping typically (but not always) isn't an issue either. Next time you watch a bike race or mountain stage of the Tour, instead of focusing on the strongest rider, instead focus on those in the front group who inevitably start to fall away. Watch the change in their body language as steam and smoke start to inevitably pour out from under their hoods like a car overheating on the side of a desert road. 
 
The aerobic focus -- and strict adherence to the parameters of those workouts (L2 watts, HR maxed at 70-78%) is what allows you to compete in a multi-hour race at a very consistent effort and pace.  That's aerobic efficiency. It is the complement of the high intensity work -- a little but not too much -- which allows your finish time to be considerably faster than it would otherwise be. The body is a potpourri of response to stimuli. This training stuff would be so much simpler if it weren't, if instead it was more the case of pulling one trigger or another to elicit the precise response we want. But, then, I'd be out of a coaching job.  :-) 

So, when you think about your own training or the training program your coach has you doing, what percentage of time is spent doing intervals at LT or greater intensity?  If it is consistently more than 10% per week, it is arguably too much.  When we look at our lactate production curve, the biggest limiter to performance is how fast we can go before the curve starts to steepen up and to the right – meaning, when lactate production starts trending toward a greater amount being produced than can be processed causing the body to pretty quickly shut down.  The longer the “tail” of our lactate curve, the more aerobically efficient we become and, thus, the faster we also become. 

Happy Training, 
Coach Nate 
0 Comments

Time To Get Back At It For 2019

1/12/2019

0 Comments

 
You’ve finished your racing season and have taken a well-deserved break from regimented training.  Hopefully you’ve taken at least 2 weeks completely off from any working out and allowed yourself to be lazy.  Then, hopefully you’ve spent at least another 2 weeks just getting moving again in something besides your primary sport of focus.  If you’re a cyclist, then maybe you’re doing some running or swimming or hiking, for example.  This is also a great time to reintroduce some light strength training to get the body used to the rigors of the gym once again. 

But, now the holidays are over, we are firmly in 2019 and it is time to re-focus forward towards this season's goals.  Hopefully you are motivated and ready to rip into your training regimen!

If you train with power on the bike, a challenging point is in determining where to set your CP - Critical Power - when you do start training regularly on the bike again.  In-season CP will not be a good measuring stick because your fitness at the beginning of the off-season is nowhere near what it is at the height of racing.  Certainly, you could perform an CP test “out of the gate”, but when moderately out of shape, the test becomes both mentally and physically distasteful, and the results can be a bit skewed.   

So, what’s an athlete to do? 

Here’s a simple way to establish a baseline CP that will be close enough to get you training at the right intensities for your various zones.  Take your weight in pounds (1kg = 2.2lbs) and double it.  If you weigh 150lbs, then it is 150 x 2 = 300.  If you are over 35 years old, subtract 0.5% from this number for every year above 35.  So, if you’re 45, you subtract 5% from 300, which equals 285.  This is your ballpark FTP.  Now, take that FTP value and divide it by 0.80.  This brings you within range of what your CP could be.

Remember, training zones are “zones” for a reason.  There are no absolutes in terms of an ideal or best percentage at which to train a specific energy system.  So, if the above estimate is off by 10-20 watts – in either direction – the effect it will have on your training zones is minimal.  My suggestion is to start with the above formula, use it for the first 4-8 weeks of your off-season training, and then complete an actual CP ramp test.   

By giving yourself a few weeks of buffer from your final race to no training to unstructured training to beginning preparation for next season, you will allow yourself to better ease into your regimen with little to no downside in your actual preparation.  And, you're removing any initial pressures about either conducting a stress test in which you're really not ready to perform, or puzzling over how to establish some preliminary training zones on the bike. 

So fast forward ... You’re back into some sort of regimen for your off-season training and have been at it for a few weeks.  You’ve used an estimate of your CP, but it’s time to establish an actual baseline CP with a proper ramp test. 

After testing many athletes and going through countless CP tests myself, here’s my take on it. While the ramp test can occur with different durations at each "step", I prefer the '10w increase every 1min' approach.  There needs to be a more dynamic inclusion of sub-aerobic, aerobic, threshold and supra-threshold efforts to get a well-rounded result.  When I've done the longer steps of 3-5min, this also entails a larger wattage increase every time -- either 25w or 0.5w/kg, depending on the protocol.  Nothing wrong with this approach, but I feel it is less effective in producing a usable result. My 2 cents. 

Whichever way you decide to go about it, make sure you decide on a protocol that you can get excited to replicate over time so that you are comparing apples-to-apples one test to the next.  Also, frequency of testing – every 6-8 weeks is good enough.  Training zones are minimally impacted by a handful of watts, so no need to test every month.  Lastly, conduct the test at either the very end of a recovery week or the very beginning of a training cycle after a recovery week.  This ensures you are rested both mentally and physically, and ready to give the test the effort it requires. 

Happy Training, 
Coach Nate
0 Comments

Correlation between Indoor & Outdoor Riding

12/29/2018

0 Comments

 
'Tis the time of year.  Most folks need to head indoors for some of their winter riding, or even all of it.  I tend to set a temperature of 30 degrees F as the floor for heading outside.  It can be colder than this when I start out if I know it will warm up as the ride progresses.  But, if the temperature is fairly well fixed, then 30, it is.  When I was younger, dumber and more resilient, I used to go out in some pretty stupid weather for both cycling and running.  I did enough damage to my hands and feet (luckily, no lost digits!) to where I cannot handle the extreme cold anymore.  Plus, there is a most definitive negative impact to training when the body is spending an inordinate amount of energy just trying to stay warm, so in reality what is the point?

About this time of year, I get the obligatory questions about riding indoors vs outdoors, and how to adjust power zones in order to more accurately track the effectiveness of the given workout.  Should you adjust your indoor power up, or down, or not at all?  Great question!  Hopefully I will be able to shed some light on this for you so that you have more confidence in the workouts you are completing indoors and carry that confidence back outside to both training and racing. 
 
Depending on the type of trainer you ride – dumb vs smart, wheel off vs wheel on, as well as which brand of any trainer type – you will find that either your wattage is higher or lower indoors vs outdoors (there isn’t even a “rule” one way or the other, despite what you read or what anyone might tell you).  And in the case of smart trainers, you will probably even find a discrepancy between how it calculates wattage output vs your power meter.  With myriad variables, it can be not only confusing, but downright frustrating.   
 
The punchline here is that your FTP (Functional Threshold Power) and associated power training zones are almost assuredly different when riding indoors.  For example, my old Stages power meter recorded 15-20w lower than my PowerTap and 20-25w lower than my Wahoo KICKR in Erg mode.  And, when I’m riding in a virtual world such as Zwift, the discrepancy oscillates between 10-30w difference.  So, even the swing in discrepancy is wild rather than very tight.  And, there is even a difference between Zwift, Kinomap and FulGaz, at least in my experience.  Couple this with the fact that the resistance of riding indoors also seems greater indoors.  It’s as if the inherent forward momentum created when riding outside is nearly (or completely) non-existent indoors.   
 
Here's a few pointers for you to help with all this. 
 
Rear Wheel On Trainers 
This is the most common type of trainer.  It is also the most challenging to dial in compared to outdoor riding.  Riding on the road, you apply force to the pedals generally from about noon to 5 o’clock.  The bottom and back of the pedal stroke, the legs don’t create any meaningful force because of how the body is oriented to the cranks.  So, there’s a little built in rest for the legs with every pedal stroke.  Not so, indoors.  
  
On a rear wheel on trainer, the only momentum of the rear wheel is that which is created while you are pedaling.  When you stop pedaling, the rear wheel comes to a stop almost immediately.  Because this type of resistance is applied to the entire pedal stroke, your legs are tasked all the more with every pedal stroke.  Thus, your cardiovascular system is tasked more greatly when riding indoors than outside.  Your HR climbs more quickly and your legs crater more quickly – during intervals and during complete workouts.  This greatly impacts your ability not only to produce watts but also ride for a long time.  90-120min indoors can be both a soul- and leg-crushing experience.   

The ”good news” is that the more you ride indoors, the more your body will adapt and a large discrepancy in wattage will reduce over time, even if it never completely levels out. 

Wheel off Direct Drive 
Wheel off trainers like the Wahoo KICKR overcome the dynamic resistance issues of the wheel on trainers.  By taking the rear wheel off, and increasing both the size and weight of the flywheel, wheel on (or direct drive) trainers better simulate the type of momentum you gain when riding outside.  And, wheel on trainers also create a smoother, more realistic “road feel”. 

Now, how the direct drive trainer interprets force and measures watts is still not perfect.  Like my Stages vs KICKR example above, where my Stages actually reports lower output, some athletes I train talk about the discrepancy going in the other direction, where the KICKR records lower wattage than their own power meters.  It would appear that how and where the power meter measures your wattage – crank arm, crank, pedals, rear wheel – will impact the indoor vs outdoor relativity as well. 

Spin Bikes 
Various spin bikes will calculate power.  Stages has come out with a spin bike that uses the same technology on the crank arm of the spin bike just like on a road bike.  Arguably, this could produce a very similar power output when comparing a Stages spin bike to riding a Stages-equipped road bike outside.  However, spin bikes increase resistance by applying a brake to the flywheel.  This creates the similar challenge as with wheel on trainers in that resistance is applied during the entire pedal stroke rather than just when you’re able to apply force between noon and 5 o’clock.  Yes, the spin bike’s larger fly wheel does create more momentum than the small flywheel on the back of your trainer, but this only mitigates the issue of constant force to a degree, not fully. 

Calibration 
You hear about how important it is to calibrate your indoor trainer at the beginning of every single ride.  In my experience, this is a bit of an exaggeration.  Flywheels heat up and, thus, calibrating 20 minutes into a ride can alter the calculation of watts and could result in more accurate output.  However, I have found that whether or not I calibrate my KICKR after completing a full warm-up, the discrepancy is still really big and really isn’t that different in any case.  So, whether or not I calibrate my KICKR, the output will never come into line with my Stages power meter, and calibrating it creates a negligible difference compared to non-calibration.  So, I don’t bother with calibration one ride to the next. 

Now, if I decide to test and re-test my FTP indoors, I would calibrate the unit after warming up and do so before every test in order to ensure as consistent of results as possible one test to the next. 

Other Variables to Consider 
1. A Fixed Position 
Being fixed into one position without the ability to move the bicycle or move your body as much as you might outside causes you to use more isolated muscles and create fatigue all the more quickly. When riding outdoors, we are constantly shifting our body on the bicycle which allows us to recruit some of our upper body to help the core and legs to produce power. This also gives some muscles a rest, helping them to recover and produce more power.  Losing the ability to effectively wobble the bike back and forth reduces the ability to produce peak power.  When athletes I coach are sprinting indoors, I tell them to ignore wattages as they just aren’t representative of what can be done outdoors.  If the effort is there, call it good. 

When riding at L3 (tempo) to L5 (VO2max), more strain is applied to the working muscles, especially some that are rarely leveraged outdoors, such as those of the inner thigh (adductors).  It is not uncommon for the adductors, quads or hamstrings – or all of them – to crater and even cramp up toward the end of a challenging workout. 
 
2. Temperature 
Temperature plays a significant role in the ability to produce wattage when riding indoors, so staying cool is critical.  Heat is a byproduct of effort, and without the cooling wind we experience when riding outside, overheating becomes a real challenge.  The hotter you get, the more you sweat.  The more you sweat, the thicker your blood gets and the harder your heart has to work to pump that thickening blood to the working muscles.  If you’ve heard the term “cardiac drift”, this is what is occurring.  A rising core temperature coupled with exacerbated dehydrating from excessive sweating will do two things:  1) cause your HR to continue to rise; and 2) cause your wattage to drop. 
 
Get a powerful fan blowing on you to provide some cooling.  You can also set your trainer up in the garage where the temperature tends to be lower than in the house, or set it up by a window that you can open to allow cooler air to flow over you to complement the blowing fan. 
 
3. Get Mental 
The mind is very powerful, so don’t underestimate its ability to impact your workout – positively or negatively.  Riding in a cellar staring at a concrete wall is not nearly as stimulating as riding outside with nice scenery.  Nor will it ever be.  Watching movies or race videos helps keep you stimulated and pass the time.  Virtual training programs like the ones I mentioned earlier are also quite a bit of fun.  And what I like about them is that they dynamically alter the resistance of the ride based on the terrain you’re covering, forcing you to constantly shift and alter your cadence and riding style to match the virtual topography.  This increases the “outdoor feel” of the ride in a way that you simply cannot replicate on a “dumb” trainer. 

Adjust Your FTP? 
So, should you adjust your FTP when riding indoors?  I don’t think there is a clear cut answer, quite frankly.  I think if you say “yes”, then you open yourself up to the slippery slope of interpretation, which gets messy quickly.  Instead, my suggestion is to understand the correlation between riding outdoors and riding indoors, and then keep both numbers in mind as you complete both your outdoor and indoor workouts.  Remember, our goal is to shoot for certain training zones – in other words, there are no absolutes.  So, in the past when I had a 20-25w discrepancy between my old Stages power meter and my KICKR, then I allowed a delta of 15-30w and knew with confidence that my indoor workout would be very close to what I would accomplish doing a similar workout outside.
   
And don’t forget, HR is the ultimate governor.  You need to know what your HR zone is for a particular type of workout and that will help you more accurately define your indoor power zones compared to your outdoor zones.  If you think the power zones are the same, yet your HR is substantially different indoors vs outdoors, then you need to adjust your thinking.

When you look at all these variables, you realize that even if all of them have small impacts on wattage (up or down) that adding just a few of them together magnify the discrepancy you’re experiencing.  You can either be aware of the discrepancy and account for it in your head by ensuring your HR is where you need it to be, or you can deliberately create and recalculate indoor power training zones.  There’s no right or wrong answer.  It all depends on how much hand-wringing this all causes you.  I will admit, when I was younger, I would have wrung my hands raw over this sort of thing.  Today, not so much.  I know what a particular type of workout is meant to feel like and if I complete an indoor ride feeling the way I should, then job well done.  Next!

In conclusion, there is a much greater chance that outdoor vs indoor watts will be different than similar.  If you train exclusively outdoors (for example, if you live in a perpetually warm part of the world) or always indoors (for example, if you live in the heart of a busy city and, therefore, riding outside is neither safe nor practical), this isn’t a challenge for you.  However, most athletes are forced indoors during the winter months, some exclusively so.  We put a lot of time and energy into our training so the last thing we want is to emerge from our winter pain caves only to realize we are not as fit or prepared as we thought because we were tracking to the wrong numbers for several months. 

If you are able to create a mix of outdoor and indoor riding through the winter months, then cut yourself some slack.  Be aware of the differences in power outputs and account for them in your various rides.  If it is super important for your indoor zones to be spot on accurate, then you need to complete a separate indoor-specific FTP test.  It is really up to you and your tolerance for “fudge factor”. 

Happy Training, 
Coach Nate 
 ​
0 Comments

"He Just Lost the Fat"

11/27/2018

0 Comments

 
​In highly elite cyclists, we are led to believe they can get skeletal yet retain their massive power outputs without ill effect and without the use of fat stripping PEDs.  So, I did an experiment on myself for 3 months to test out the hypothesis, and here are the results of it.
0 Comments

Transgender Competition, the Wolf Pack & Sporting Hypocrisy

10/20/2018

0 Comments

 
Several hot topics which deserve some time and attention.
0 Comments

Striving For Perfection

10/6/2018

0 Comments

 
It is pretty clear that most athletes strive for perfection.  They look for better ways to train, to eat, to fuel, to sleep — anything that can improve race day performance is addressed.  Every rock is turned over.  And, this makes sense.  Athletes have to care about what they are doing in order to strive to be the best they can be.   

The challenge is when striving for perfection leads to a rigidity in life, an unrealistic view of where things stand and a highly critical nature where any misstep is viewed as catastrophic, where any slight deviation from the Master Plan makes the athlete become fraught with guilt. 

Striving to be your best is a great attribute when properly honed and channeled.  Perfectionism typically falls into one of two buckets.  The first step is determining what type of perfectionist you are. 

The first type is perfectionism is externally-imposed.  What this means is that athletes see others — coaches, peers, friends, parents, etc. — are exerting the pressure upon them to be perfect.  These types of perfectionists feel that an incredibly high standard of performance must be met in order to feel valued and appreciated by other people.  The pressure is to work toward extremely difficult goals in order to please others and have them feel proud of you, because this is the only way to affirm you are on the path to achieving high standards of excellence. 

The second type of perfectionism is self-imposed perfectionism.  This type of perfectionism is defined by athletes who set their own high standards for performance, against which they evaluate and judge themselves.  Striving toward these high standards and their perceived importance in order to attain perfection is central this type of perfectionism.  If tempered and kept to a healthy dose, this can be a positive attribute to have. 

With externally-imposed perfectionism, the risk is that athletes never feel like they measure up, that no matter what they do or how they perform, it’s never good enough.  This can lead to ‘choking’ in competition because athletes can get paralyzed by worrying too much about the expectations and outcomes.  Pressure from others — real or simply perceived by the athletes — will lead athletes to becoming frustrated or pissed off when mistakes are made.  Burnout occurs more frequently with this type of perfectionism as well, because athletes are dealing with their own expectations as well as those of others (again, real or perceived).  This leaves athletes feeling like they can never please those around them; even words of encouragement can be dismissed and cast aside.  

Self-imposed perfectionism tends to allow for a healthier mindset in athletes.  When athletes create high expectations for themselves, they are in control of those expectations — setting them and adjusting them — which allows for less anxiety when thinking about them and striving to achieve them.  There is typically a higher level of motivation and balanced mindset.  Yes, falling short of expectations or goals is disappointing.  But, athletes can typically have a heart-to-heart with themselves and tell themselves they did everything they could to achieve whatever the outcome.  So, while disappointment can still be experienced, athletes who deal with self-imposed perfectionism tend to use that as motivation to prepare better for the next competition. 

Some athletes will say, “Well, I fall into both types.  So, what do I make of this?”  The key is to determine which of the two perfectionisms is primary and guides your athletic journey.  By identifying which type is primary, you can better cope with the associated emotions and feelings which are elicited, so you can minimize the influences that detract from your enjoyment and performances, and maximize the motivational aspects of striving for perfection. 

If you seek improvement, then it is fair to assume you possess some perfectionist tendencies. Understanding what these tendencies are and how you react to them will help you better cope with unrealistic expectations and any disappointments you will surely experience during your athletic endeavors.  At the end of the day, you should derive enjoyment from the process of self-improvement, whether your goal is to complete your first race or become world champion.  Fundamentally, the journey should be the same, regardless of the stakes. 

Happy Training, 
​Coach Nate 
0 Comments

Approaching the Off-Season

9/9/2018

0 Comments

 
The off-season.  For some athletes it is already upon us; for others, it is imminently approaching.

Some approach it with disdain while others look forward to it thoroughly.  I find a lot of how athletes approach the off-season is dependent on a few factors.  First, how well did you race?  If you raced well, then the off-season is viewed as a reward for a job well done.  If you raced below expectations, then the off-season is a purgatory that leaves you between seasons and you can’t wait to get the hell out of it.  Second, how long was your race season?  Racing takes a lot of mental and emotional energy, way more than training, so if you raced during most of the calendar or raced often (or both), you’re probably mentally and emotionally crispy on top of any physical staleness you may surely feel.  Third, how brutal was your last off-season?  Were you socked in with terrible weather and, thus, had to train indoors more than usual, or did you try some new things in training in an attempt to up your game, and those things left you a bit ragged some the Spring.  Regardless, at some point each of us turns our attention away from what has been and starts to focus on what will be. 
  
“Off-season” is the accepted terminology, yet it’s not my favorite description of the time spent between racing seasons.  “Off-season” intones that it’s time to take it easy.  In some cases, this is true.  In others, it’s time to focus on foundational hard work that tends to fall by the wayside once the racing season is upon us.  To me, the off-season is that short period of time after an athlete’s final race when he/she pulls the ripcord and takes a few weeks of down time – time completely away from the primary sport.  No training allowed.  Sleep more, be lazy, complete some overdue projects around the house.  Any physical activity is deemed fun rather than a workout, because this is the time to recharge the physical, mental and emotional batteries.  This is a critical point in time that should last no fewer than 2 weeks and could last as many as 4-6.  Be honest with yourself in terms of where your head is at and trust your gut, not your guilt.  Your body will let you know when it’s champing at the bit and ready to go at it again.  Honor this.  Because the whole point is to get away from daily structure and rules and limitations.  Be freer!  
 
This time away from training is also a great opportunity to review your previous year’s training plan – What worked well?  What kinda worked?  What didn’t work at all?  What have you learned over the past months that you want to incorporate into your upcoming year’s training and how will you do it?  What are your high-level goals for next year and how will those impact your training?  As an innovator, this is arguably my favorite time of the year because I get to wipe the slate clean and start building my master plan from scratch.  
   
So, what happens once you’re done with you off-season down time and ready to get back at it?  I find “preparation” to be a better catch-all term for that time between racing seasons, because once we start training again, it’s all geared toward preparing for the following racing season, right?  You’re no longer taking time off; you may or may not race (for example, a snowshoe race in the mountains as a fun, low-stress diversion from a long ride or run in cold weather); and you’re most definitely working hard (right???).  You are absolutely preparing your mind, body and soul for the rigors of the next racing season and also laying the foundation for achieving your goals for the upcoming season. 
   
 As I state above, you want to be champing at the bit to start your training again.  Don’t force it.  If you’re forcing it, your mind is telling you that your body’s not ready yet.  Better to extend the down time an extra couple weeks and allow yourself to be in the right frame of mind.  Once you start working out again, spend the first 2-4 weeks gradually ramping things up again.  Increase workout frequency first, then worry about duration and lastly worry about intensity.  This first prep period provides you a perfect opportunity to get back to strength training, too.  Especially as we get older and into our Masters years, strength training takes on a more important role in our training regimen.  
  
Lastly, the more time we have between the end of one racing season and the beginning of the next, the more careful we need to be.  There’s a difference between being strong in January and being race ready.  We want to avoid being race ready during the period of the year with the least amount of daylight.  Use the extra prep time to really work on your aerobic engine.  Becoming more efficient at L2 (or Zone 2) will serve you well and is foundational to going faster for longer in your races.  This doesn’t mean you avoid interval work, but the percentage of your volume spent doing intervals should be lower than when you are trying to sharpen up for actual racing. 
  
Before you know it, we will be into next year and our first races will be right around the corner.  Ideal preparation begins with honoring all of your hard work from this year before you start cracking the whip again as you prepare for next year.  
  
Happy Training, 
Coach Nate 
 ​
0 Comments

Make Your Next 140.6 or 70.3 Even Better

8/26/2018

0 Comments

 
Given you can race a 70.3 or 140.6 year round, this article is timely regardless of the time of year.  In some respects, successfully completing a long-distance triathlon is simply an equation of “putting in the time” so that you can ensure, barring an unfortunate situation, you will be able to cross the finish line.  But, in my 25 years of coaching endurance athletes of all walks of life, I’ve seen plenty of athletes – those whom I coach as well as many whom I do not – torpedo a goal due to what boils down to a very small number of errors.  And, these mistakes are all ones that could otherwise be avoided.   Maybe you have made some (or all) of these yourself!
 
So, here is that short list of avoidable mistakes.  
 
Too Much Training 
If some moderate amount of volume and long workouts are good, then more of either -- or both! --should be even better, right?  Right!  Wrong.   
 
Regardless of my explicit instructions to my athletes, a small percentage of them seem to always think that “more is better” and do extra credit – adding more workouts to the weekly schedule or extending multiple workouts because they feel they need to or because they’re “feeling good”.  Not only is this added work unnecessary, it also goes against the well-laid out plan and also negatively impacts recovery.  While simple in premise it is also the most commonly forgotten fact –- improvement occurs during periods of recovery and not during periods of hard work.  Yet, how many endurance athletes completely ignore this?  
 
Do this once or twice, OK (I guess).  Do it often, and the result is that you will arrive at your goal race overly fatigued and, thus, not able to bring to bear all of the fitness you spent so many months building.  Stresses from training are cumulative and add up over time, so deliberate recovery days and days off are so critical to balancing all that hard work out.  Without proper – and enough – rest and recovery, you are doing yourself a disservice.   
 
Planning a Nutrition/Hydration Strategy That Works 
Long course athletes need to replenish the calories they burn and the fluids they lose during a race, and at a rate they can absorb. Learning what works and how much of it is required takes a lot of practice over many weeks.  It is deliberate work.  You would be surprised how many athletes fail to properly prepare in this area as they do in their training.  Or, how many use race day to do things completely at odds with what they practiced in training.  Failing to dial in your nutrition and hydration strategies can lead to utter disaster on race day. 

Depending on how well- trained you are and how hard you are exercising, the body has approximately 60 to 180 minutes of stored muscle glycogen to access as fuel during exercise. So, while you may need very little or no supplemental nutrition during a Sprint or Olympic Distance triathlon (or any athletic event lasting less than a couple hours), supplemental nutrition and hydration should be considered mandatory for longer training sessions and races. Very straightforward and simple guidelines are as follows:  200-300 calories and 16-24 ounces per hour.  I'm finding that decoupling nutrition and hydration on the bike leg seems to work best.  Drink water (or add a fizzy tab for a little flavor), and then take in your calories via bars or homemade "cakes" or whatever solid food works for you.  Worry less about wholesomeness and more about what sits well in your tummy.  Then, on the run, switch to gels and liquid calories -- again, whatever works well for you in training replicate in races.  

It is important to switch up the nutrition sources because, like a muscle, the receptors which help determine how to best process the calories can get overworked and fatigued, and then they shut down -- they need a break!  When this happens, bloating, nausea or worse can set in and your performance will take a nosedive regardless of your fitness.  Changing up how you get your calories minimizes this risk to a large degree (I will not say wholly).
 
Notice the above ranges.  They are ranges because every athlete is different and your own requirements can also change one long training weekend to the next.  Try different approaches and fuel sources to see what your body likes best, especially in conditions similar to those in which you will be racing.  The less you leave race day to chance, the better. 

Race-Specific Training 
There’s a saying, which I’m sure you’ve heard:  “If you don’t do it in practice, you’ll never do it in competition.”  Exactly.  Putting in enough volume is important, yes.  But, if you train slowly and then expect to race quickly, it will never happen.  And you will end up disappointed come race day.  The whole point of training is to practice what needs to happen on race day so that it actually does happen in the race.  Crazy concept, I know.  In training, come to understand the correlation between RPE (rate of perceived effort), HR (heart rate) and power (on the bike and, now, even the run) so that you know precisely what your realistic ranges are for each leg come race day.  If you train at 15mph on the bike but expect to hold 18mph come race day, that’s just not a realistic “mind over matter” expectation to set.  Testing every 4-8 weeks depending on time of year is important to track progress and also reset training zones so that you are training as realistically as you can to achieve positive race day results.   

Race Day Hype is a Killer 
So, you’ve prepared the best you can and have avoided the first 3 mistakes listed.  You’re all set to light the race on fire, right?  Not yet.  Properly preparing for race day is one thing.  Even if your lead-up to your key 70.3 or 140.6 race is spot on and you are a well-oiled (and rested) machine, there is one more, even more nefarious, obstacle standing between you and crossing the finish line in a state of euphoria rather than dejection.   

Pre-race hype is arguably the biggest black hole of energy suck on the planet.  I’m always amazed at how many athletes walk endless miles through the athlete village or race expo every day to buy more gadgets or the most recent and scientific doo-dad that will ensure a world record performance.  It is one thing to casually walk through an expo to burn a small amount of time and take your mind off the upcoming race; it’s completely another to get sucked into the buzz and allow it to leach your focus and energy, which will only serve to de-focus you from the task at hand. 

Athletes get so excited about the expo environment and being surrounded by all the other like-minded athletes, that they risk ignoring their race day plans altogether.  Sure, go to the expo.  But, make one round, buy whatever it is you want and then go ahead and use them in training – after your race is over. 

These mistakes may seem obvious and easily avoidable.  However, they are not.  Even the best athletes in the world have made these or other similar mistakes at some point.  We’re human, not infallible.  That said, being cognizant that these traps exist and can be relatively easy to fall into, allows us to better identify when we are starting to fall so we can better catch our balance and avoid the spikes at the bottom.   

In closing, remain confident in your preparation and stick to the plan you and your coach have put together for race day!
​ 
Happy Training, 
Coach Nate 
 ​
0 Comments

Breaking Through Barriers in Sport

8/19/2018

0 Comments

 
Do Psychological Breakthroughs in Sport Really Exist? 
 
I read an interesting article by Steve Magness awhile back.  Through stats and based on other world events of the era, Magness uses Roger Bannister’s breaking of the 4-minute mile to debunk the long-held belief that this was some sort of magical barrier held in place by a strong psychological “It can’t be done” mentality.  It’s an insightful read I highly recommend, so I won’t ruin it here, but I will highlight just a couple examples of what Magness conveys. 
 
The first is that WWII created a huge vacuum in performances (in this case, on the track).  Not only was most of the world at war, but men who would normally be training and racing were instead focused on the war effort.  Some number of athletes lost their lives or never returned to running post-war.  The second is that no such psychological barrier appeared to exist for events that resulted in odd timing thresholds.  For example, did anyone view 3:43 for the 1,500m as a performance barrier (3:43 is very similar to running 4:00 for the mile)?  Apparently not. 
 
Give the article a read.  Cool stuff. 
 
In any case, it made me think back to my own athletic career.  I was a competitive swimmer from age 5 through college.  Swimming, like running, is a very objective, timed sport.  But, unlike running, there is no holding back in swimming.  Swimmers don’t swim just fast enough to win their events like what occurs in many non-sprint running events.  While running (again, non-sprints) is about tactics and, more often than not, doing just enough to win the event, swimming is all about guns blazing and pedal-to-the-metal from the gun to the finish.  Swimming is all about going faster and faster every time a swimmer enters the water. 
 
There are definitive barriers in swimming events, many tied to a very 'clean' time value, but all subjective.  Growing up, I looked at a notorious time barrier in my events and thought, “I’m going to crush that.”  Barriers at different ages were goals, not deterrents.  Those times were things I and my fellow swimmers strove to smash, not things from which we shied or feared.  What we tended to shy away from was the daily bashings it took to achieve our goals.  For once we set goals and strove to achieve them, the sport stopped being fun.  I still enjoyed swimming, otherwise I would not have competed for as long as I did or gotten up at the ass crack of dawn year round.  But the “fun factor” evaporated at a young age.  Top-level sport is a grind. 

The same can be said for events in other sports.  Take, for example, the 40k time trial on the bike.  Largely, the goal is to dip under an hour.  3 hours or 4 hours seem to be the most common time barriers to dip under for the marathon.  For the Ironman, just about any round hour time barrier can be chosen.  Why not 55:17 for the time trial, or 3:26 for the marathon, or 11:47 for the Ironman?
 
The reason, I think, that the 4-minute mile became romanticized and glorified is because it is one of the few events that has had a very even and neat barrier.  Four minutes is very clean and easy to rationalize.  Dipping below the “00” is a definitive mark that’s easy to quantify.  So is 10 seconds for the 100m dash (for men).  And, back when Banister ran, the world, especially Europe, needed something to support, something about which to get excited.  How better to inject patriotism and a renewed sense of hope and optimism into a people than through an athlete striving to accomplish something that as yet had never been achieved?  Who wouldn’t rally around that? 
 
We’ve been programmed to buy-in to the concept of “breaking through” … something.  If we’re not shattering preconceived notions of barriers, then we’re admitting we are ordinary creatures.  That we are less awesome and valuable than the pedestal on which we place the human race and its capacity for greatness.  The 4-minute barrier as a standalone metric is really nothing inherently special.  Don’t get me wrong, anyone who can break four minutes for a mile -- or an hour for the 40km TT, or 3 hours for the marathon, or 10 hours for an Ironman -- is a very, very fast athlete. 

But not mythical.  And, it stands to reason that athletes who break certain times that society or the media or some other faction imposes as a barrier upon a certain measured distance of competition in a given sport, look upon those times not as barriers but rather as goals of achievement.  It is these goals that get said athletes out of bed day after day after day to subject themselves to endless hours of gluttonous punishment. 
 
Achievement.  Because all of the blood, sweat and tears that athletes pore into their sports has to amount to something.  Otherwise, why the heck do we subject ourselves to all the punishment?  
 
Happy Training, 
​Coach Nate 
0 Comments
<<Previous

    Archives

    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

© 2015 Orion Training Systems, All Rights Reserved