Self coached triathlete pitfalls
Are you self-coached and designing your own training programs?
There definitely is a certain enjoyment of being able to plan out a huge 16 or 24 week build-up to a big race. It also gives you the flexibility to do what you enjoy and make changes depending on how you feel because no one knows how you feel better than you do.
If you go with a pre-designed, online plan, many of them share a common pitfall that you should look out for: the training rollover.Like cell phone minutes, training fatigue rolls over from week to week and many coaches forget this fact when designing programs. It seems that the whole week’s training magically disappears Sunday at 11:59 pm and you wake up Monday morning fresh and ready to take on another tough week fully recovered.While this would make training a good deal easier, it simply is not the case.
The training fatigue from a hard weekend or the chronic training stress from multiple weeks of training takes its toll and builds upon itself. Consequently, when the TSC crew sits down to design a program for a client, we have to be very aware that a lighter day might be needed on Mondays to allow the athlete to recover from the weekend and start the week off right.
Swimming on Mondays is perfect to allow for recovery but still gives you a good workout especially if you had a long brick or ride on Saturday and a long run on Sunday. Monday swims should focus a bit more on upper body strength through pull work or IM sets, endurance sets, and technique to give the legs and the sympathetic system a break.
As you sit down to record your own training program (or modify one) think about placing a good swim in first thing Monday morning. It is a perfect way to start your week (and your recovery) off right.
If you go with a pre-designed, online plan, many of them share a common pitfall that you should look out for: the training rollover.Like cell phone minutes, training fatigue rolls over from week to week and many coaches forget this fact when designing programs. It seems that the whole week’s training magically disappears Sunday at 11:59 pm and you wake up Monday morning fresh and ready to take on another tough week fully recovered.While this would make training a good deal easier, it simply is not the case.
The training fatigue from a hard weekend or the chronic training stress from multiple weeks of training takes its toll and builds upon itself. Consequently, when the TSC crew sits down to design a program for a client, we have to be very aware that a lighter day might be needed on Mondays to allow the athlete to recover from the weekend and start the week off right.
Swimming on Mondays is perfect to allow for recovery but still gives you a good workout especially if you had a long brick or ride on Saturday and a long run on Sunday. Monday swims should focus a bit more on upper body strength through pull work or IM sets, endurance sets, and technique to give the legs and the sympathetic system a break.
As you sit down to record your own training program (or modify one) think about placing a good swim in first thing Monday morning. It is a perfect way to start your week (and your recovery) off right.
Just in time for the holidays! LAVA PANTS, your “shortcut” to off season swimming gains. To get $50 off, head to:
http://xterrawetsuits.com and use code TRISWIMCOACH’ at checkout.
