Training Programs

Attached are your active recovery and nutritional protocols for next week – please review each day’s notes and associated video links. Keep in mind that this week is designed to rejuvenate your body – mentally and physically.  If you push either the intensity or duration, you will leave yourself flat coming into Phase 6 testing.  This will negatively affect your testing data and not provide us a true snapshot of your current level of strength, speed and endurance.  Your goal is to be a good trainer and an excellent racer – not the other way around!

Train With a Purpose or Risk Missing Your Ultimate Potential

My job for the last 36 years has been to guide athletes and racers towards their personal goals by improving their health, wellness and ultimately their performance potential – and there is nothing more satisfying than working with motivated, hardworking and focused individuals.   However, occasionally, I have interviewed potential clients only to find that the individual is not focused on what the true goals of training and racing actually are.  Here are the first steps I implement with all of my clients to establish clear cut goals and the objectives necessary to make the goals a reality.

Establish Specific Goals

When athletes come to me with non-specific goals, it is impossible to set up testing and training protocols.  In order for me to help the athlete identify his or her physical limiters, we need to know the characteristics of the key races (hot, humid, long, hilly, etc.).  If you are extremely strong on the flats but struggles on the hills while cycling, if you choose a race that has multiple hills, you need to develop your strength and ride in the hills.  Though this sounds simple, it is overlooked frequently, especially with less tangible things like heat, humidity, duration and intensity.

Additionally, your training protocols need to be created and implemented based on the date of your key event – the workouts you are implementing three weeks out from a key event, should be significantly different than what you should be doing 10 weeks out. Such specifics will allow you to fine tune your training plan (specific to the demands of the race), eliminate your physical weaknesses, and begin to perform up to your full potential.

Define the Commitments Necessary

Establishing goals and objectives will have no value unless you have adequate time to apply. By identifying the amount of time it will take to implement your training objectives, you will establish the foundation of success.  If you fail to quantify the amount of time necessary to train properly, you will find yourself becoming rushed and performing at a sub-par level.  For example, if you need to work on your endurance but don’t have 60-90 minutes a week a couple of days per week to dedicate, you will become frustrated because your endurance isn’t improving – not because of effort or ability, but because of the lack of time.

Race to Evaluate your Progress

A few races, planned two to four weeks out from your key race will help you identify if your training efforts are on point.  For example, if your early race speed needed to be improved – how did you do when the race began?  Where you able to sustain the high intensity levels necessary to be competitive?  Was your warm up sufficient to allow you to get up to top speed early or did you use the first part of the race to make this happen?  If there is a skill that needs to be developed for your key race, how is that skill developing?  If you miss your mark, you have clear focus on what to work on over the remaining two to four weeks before your key event.  I hope you see how this becomes an endless circle that guarantees your success!

Establish Training Volumes and Intensity Levels

Knowing your overall training volume (sport specific and cross training) is key to understanding if your body is getting the correct mixture of speed, endurance, strength, flexibility and mental development (all of which need to be outlined on your weekly schedule).  I say this often, but feel it is worth repeating, “it isn’t what you do in the form of training, but rather, what you absorb”.  If you are not seeing your performance elements improving, then guess what, you are not getting any better – think about this!

Additionally, most athletes are not training at the intensity levels that they think they are.  It has been my experience that most athletes train too hard on their easy days and not hard enough on their high quality days.  This creates a two-fold problem.  They train too hard on easy days which leaves them too fatigued to push the intensity levels to the next level for improved fitness and top end speed.

Properly Evaluate Key Workouts

I have my athletes train with a heart rate monitor for every workout to eliminate any misperceptions of true intensity levels.  Some people argue that a heart rate monitor doesn’t factor in variables such as heat and humidity, but I would have to strongly disagree.  If the body is struggling with these variables, it will be clearing indicated in the heart rate monitor.  The athlete can adjust the intensity and the interval distance if the heart rate monitor is indicating that the overall stress on the body may be too much and counterproductive.

Clearly you can see how establishing goals, allocating the necessary time and testing on regular increments will ensure that your goals become a reality; another set of tools to help you Work Smart, Not Hard and Avoid Overtraining!

Yours in sport & health,

-Coach Robb, Coaches and Staff

Thought for the week:

“No matter what it is, pick yourself up and go on to the next project.”
-Shelley Duvall