Whats your constraint?

For several years I have coached a triathlete who I would say is a typical age grouper.
At 40 year of age he was running his own business, working 60-70 hours per week, a young family (wife and 3 small children) and averaged about 5-6 hours sleep per night. As a high achieving individual business success was important for him. He brought the same traits into triathlon and was willing to get up at 5am to get in 2-3 hours of training before he started work. He regularly completed 10-12 hours of training per week and by taking care of his diet managed in the main to stay healthy (although prolonged high levels of stress do have a negative impact on the immune system with the result that illness is not far away). He also rarely got injured. Sounds pretty good doesn’t it? There was only 1 drawback to all of this; he never really made the gains that his efforts deserved. In training he seemed to make some headway but when it came to racing his performances had plateaued.

At the end of 2010 he sold his business and effectively retired from work (Ok so now this makes him different from you but that’s not the point) he has been able to return to a more normal way of living. The 2 biggest changes are
1. reduced daily stress
2. increased nightly sleep quantity

And, the results of this are that training has been much easier and that both mentally and physically he feels he is now making rapid progress.

If I was to ask you what you thought your constraint was you’d probably say “I’m a poor swimmer” or “my biking sucks”.
I think that for many age group athletes their constraint is stress. Despite regular training of the right dosage progress is slowed or stopped by high stress levels. I haven’t met an athlete yet that has reached his or her peak. If athletes like the Brownlees, Wellington and Jenkins can make gains each year (albeit small ones) then I’m confident that you can too.
The question is “if you are one of those currently under a high stress level how can you make gains as a triathlete?”

1.Get more sleep – Even 30 minutes per night can make a difference. I know many people who don’t go to bed early because they are surfing the internet or channel hoping on TV. It’s just a bad habit. They could go to bed earlier but they don’t. If this is you it’s an easy change to make
2.Reduce your training load - I know this sounds like a ridiculous suggestion but if you aren’t making any gains on your current workload then something has to give. Drop your training load by 10% and use the extra time for recovery. Give it 4-5 weeks and if that doesn’t work drop by another 10%. I’ve always believed that you should do enough training to make improvements and this is particularly important if you are in a bit of a time squeeze.
3.Lower the intensity - High intensity training requires more recovery. Triathlon is an aerobic sport so keeping the intensity below 80% of max heart rate will still improve your fitness but you’ll be able to get a better recovery. I’m not suggesting this as your long term strategy but certainly while you are under a lot of stress this will help
4.Alter your workout schedule – For example if you have a 3 week build and 1 week recovery then try 2 build + 1 recovery. If you are currently on this then try 10 days build & 4 recovery
Alternatively have an easy day after every moderate or hard day of training. Add an extra rest day per week. You could try rotating your training so that you spend 1 week focussing on say swimming and maintaining your fitness in the other 2 disciplines for 3 weeks and then have a balanced week of lower volume
5.Switch off – yes I know it’s difficult. As a self employed person I’m constantly trying to build my business and that means I think about work 24/7. However I have learned to switch off when I need to. If you can work receive emails on your phone then make it a principle to turn it off at a certain time or at the very least not to look at or respond to those emails. Then find another hobby (not sport related) such as reading, listening to music, cooking that will occupy your mind without requiring physical energy
6.Identify the causes of your stress – some stresses are internal (triathlon training, being a perfectionist) some are external (having to work longer hours to stay in a job). If you can identify the sources of your stress and target the internal ones you may be able to reduce your total stress load.
7.Monitor – It’s very rare that stress remains high for long periods. It goes in cycles. For instance the end of the financial year is a bust and stressful time for accountants. But it does end. If you can identify time so of likely high stress in advance you can then adjust your training to cope. Also monitor your responses and if it all looks to be heading into the red zone again you can take action before you get ill.

You may have seen the XtraNormal cartoons where the triathlete is trying to justify to a friend (non triathlete) why they do such large volumes of training.
The friend says
“Why do you do so much training when you work so many hours and don’t get any sleep”
The response is
“Because I am a triathlete”
heres an example of the cartoons

I think we find these funny because we see these traits in other athletes but not ourselves. We constantly keep bashing our bodies with inappropriate training loads and wondering why we don’t make any progress. The solutions are simple common sense but as they say sometimes common sense isn’t so common.

If you found this article useful or have any comments or suggestions then please post them to the blog.
If you have friends who you think may benefit then please FEEL FREE to forward it on. I’m also happy for you to post these blogs on to your own personal or club blogs just as long as you provide some sort of link back to me

Stay healthy & have fun

P.S. we now have a 20 week programme for every single long and middle distance event in the world. You can find the link here.

If you don’t see your race, then please contact me. There is a programme!