RM Coaching - Athlete Focused Triathlon Coaching

Many years ago, a coach said to me "There are 168 hours in a week and 30 weeks until your big race, how badly do you want this? Let's make a plan that you can stick to".

Getting Started: The Foundation of Your Plan

So where should you start? This can actually be quite a tough question. For many years I would turn up at the pool to swim with no pre-thought-out plan and just swim whatever I felt like. My training was equally ad-hoc with no real plan or thought behind it, but I kind of enjoyed it. However, I realised that to make significant improvements I needed to focus my training on the event that I wanted to do well at.

The first thing to think about is what is it that you want to achieve as this will dictate how you should train. By 'achieve' it's not the race or distance, it's how you want to perform in the race. You may be a novice athlete where the performance probably isn't as important as gaining experience from training and racing triathlon, but once you have some experience you will undoubtedly want to go faster.

The Two Key Questions

So the first aspect of planning your season is 'What do I want to Achieve?' This may be goal-based (I will cover goals in a later blog), or it may just answer the why, the what and the how.

The second thing to think about is 'Where am I now?' This is where you accurately judge the reality of what your situation and capabilities are now, not from 3 months ago or last year. This could also reflect on your own knowledge and your equipment.

From this point, it really is a case of looking at the demands of the event and tailoring your training to meet those demands (as an example if you are going long, you really need to be able to build a strong aerobic base and manage your carbohydrate fueling). It really is simply getting from the now to where I want to be.

You must also take all of the factors in your life, your ability to train and identify how much time and effort you can devote to getting to what you want to achieve.

The Principles of Endurance Training

Applying the principles of endurance will support you in your planning:

Core Training Principles

Overload

Create enough stimulus to cause an adaptation to occur whilst recovering.

Progression

By progressively overloading the body to the demands of the event, will allow the body to adapt to the demands. But this must be managed sensibly, don't try to do too much too soon.

Regression

Understand that missing a session or two will not ruin your training but understand that taking too much time off from injury or tiredness will have a negative effect.

Specificity

Try to replicate the type of race you will be racing, this may become more specific as you get closer to the event.

Individuality

You are unique, what your mate or a pro does rarely equates to what you need to be doing. Your lifestyle, physiology, and psychology (Bio, Psycho, Social) are unique to you, don't change to adapt to what others do. Be the master of your own plan.

Flexibility

Things will change, life, work, and family will all have an influence on your plan. Don't be overly rigid in your approach, if your training needs to change then do it.

Consistency (extra)

Research has shown that over some time the athlete who consistently trains will improve more than the athlete who is often injured, sick or tired from pushing too hard.

Building Your Plan

You now can look at the amount of time from the event to now and work out how long you have to put in the type of training you need. If you work backwards, you may find it easier to plan your recovery, and the focus of sessions and see how you can add progression to the plan.

Have points in the plan where you can assess your training, either by testing or racing to see if you are on target to achieve your aim.

Throw in a good diet, with sensible nutrition and as much sleep as you can manage in those 168 hours a week and you will work towards what you want to achieve.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How many hours should I train?

A: It depends on you and your lifestyle, experience, fitness and training intensity. If you can't get more than 3-4 times more sleep than you train then you are training too much. You must be able to recover to do the training.

Q: Should I periodise my training?

A: There is little evidence to suggest that a periodised approach works, however, you may feel it appropriate to have phases of training or may build your training around a cycle of build and recovery (You may need to be flexible around this approach). You may wish to test and re-test at some stage or indeed use races to see if you are on track.

Q: What is the best type of training to do?

A: As in much of the approach it all depends on what the demands of the race are. There are many types of training recommendations such as 80/20, pyramidal and so on. It depends on how much time you can commit to and how much time you have to recover between sessions. For instance, a one-hour maximum all-out session could take you 24 - 48 hours or longer to recover from. You do need volume and you do need some intensity, start easy in both and progressively overload. Also if you only have 8 hours a week to train and you are hitting three disciplines plus strength training, you could have proportionally more intensity than if you could train for 15 hours a week.

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