fbpx
Ironman Hawaii 2016 - Schwimmen - 17_0

From Preseason Project to the Big Island

In the early morning hours, before dawn breaks, 48-year-old Kit Allowitz is awake and grinding. The metrology development manager trains before the sun rises to ensure he can devote the remainder of his day to family and career responsibilities. Hours later in Colorado, Karen Cowles, a registered nurse working from home as a safety specialist with the FDA, is on the bike trainer, pushing through challenging intervals before her lunch break ends. Completing her workout during the day is key to keeping her evening hours open, where she will lead the track workout for her local training group.  In a Dallas Texas suburb, 30-year-old coach Elizabeth James wraps up her evening workout before settling into an orientation call with on-boarding…
TriDot_120117_Blog

Why Triathlon Training Should be Fast Before Far and Strong Before Long – Part 2

In yesterday’s blog, we discussed two key reasons why “fast before far and strong before long” is a wiser, more productive training strategy: It emphasizes stamina over endurance and recovery over merely logging miles. Here are two more crucial benefits: 1. Fast Before Far and Strong Before Long emphasizes proper form Perhaps the greatest casualty in the “first far then fast” mentality is it often produces poor athletic form. As the body overstresses and is exhausted by the overreached distance, it starts to break down and lose form. The result is poor body mechanics, as the body isn’t as fresh, alert, and responsive as it should be. TriDot Co-Founder and four-time IRONMAN Jeff Booher cautions athletes to avoid “having too…
TriDot_113017_Blog

Why Triathlon Training Should be Fast Before Far and Strong Before Long - Part 1

Traditional training principles and workouts in distance events often preach the theory that one must first conquer the desired distance and then work toward increasing speed and strength. This may at first sound good and seem to make sense. But it can be short-sighted, self-defeating, and possibly even injury-inducing. It can also result in meaningless and even harmful “junk miles” and increased training time. The better strategy is “fast before far and strong before long.” It’s one of TriDot’s fundamental beliefs which focuses first on developing strength and speed, and then emphasizes distance.  Here are two of four primary reasons this belief makes good sense and produces better results: 1. Fast Before Far and Strong Before Long emphasizes stamina, not…
TriDot_110817_Blog

Why Core Strength is so Important for Triathlon

They’re not just for looks, guys and gals. Your abdominal section, or better yet your entire core, is the proverbial backbone of triathlon’s three disciplines – excuse the confusing anatomical metaphor. Many triathletes might assume strengthening their arms and legs will generate the most benefits since these are the extremities that directly impact your movement in the swim, bike, and run. However, putting all of your focus there would be a mistake. The core may arguably be the most important muscle group to strengthen in triathlon. But why is core strength so essential for your progress as a successful triathlete? The short answer is posture and form. Core Strength for your Swim Swimming requires a stable trunk and streamlined position…
TriDot_101317_Blog

How Many Hours of Triathlon Training Do You Need?

There’s a saying by successful businessman and syndicated columnist, Harvey Mackay, “Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it, you can never get it back.” Truer words have never been spoken for the triathlete. Every hour is a precious commodity, which always seems to be in short supply. Yet every bit of time’s small stock is absolutely necessary to achieve any sort of triathlon-related goal. As any seasoned triathlete is aware of by now, successful triathlon training requires a significant quantity of hours of work per week in order to mean something. The real question is, how much is enough?…
TriDot_091317_Blog

How to Handle the Heat when Triathlon Training

For most triathletes, training in the heat is brutal. Not only is the heat and humidity physically draining; it’s mentally demoralizing. In fact, as a triathlete in training, you may even be struggling with the mere reality of garnering enough courage to train outside during these few intense months. However, with the proper planning and the correct mindset, you can master triathlon training in the heat. Here’s how: Hydrate Early Hydrating during your triathlon workout is pointless if you’re starting without the proper amount of liquid to utilize. And hydration to battle severe heat doesn’t start 15 minutes before your workout either. You need to be hydrated many hours or the night before. You’ll need the time for your body…
TriDot_082417_Blog

How to Motivate for Triathlon Training

When you’re not “in it,” finding the motivation to train is a difficult hurdle to climb. The desire to train doesn’t usually spark out of thin air. It’s developed by positioning yourself within the right mental and physical circumstances. So if you’re having trouble staying motivated in your triathlon training then here’s some advice on how to buck that trend. Create Goals Training just to train is a difficult task to take on. When there’s no urgency or event on the horizon it’s easy to ask yourself why you’re even doing anything triathlon related in the first place. Therefore, a triathlete always needs a goal to be shooting for. The misconception, however, is that this goal always needs to be…
TriDot_082217_Blog

Misconceptions about Carb Loading in Triathlon

At some point over the past four decades or so athletes created a picture in their mind of what carb loading looks like. And that image became a big bowl of pasta the night before a race. In reality, effective carb loading for any endurance event, much less triathlon, is much more involved than this. First of all, why do we “load” carbs prior to a race? The reason is because of glycogen. Glycogen is the most accessible store of energy in the body. Glycogen is what you’ll be burning as fuel during a triathlon. When you eat something like pizza, most of the carbohydrates from that pizza get stored as glycogen in your body. Thus, eat pizza the day…

Patents applied for in the U.S. and abroad. TriDot and the TriDot logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Predictive Fitness, Inc. in the US and other countries. Other trademarks include Optimized Triathlon Training, nSight, TrainX, RaceX, Physiogenomix, EnviroNorm, Normalized Training Stress, and Training Stress Profile. Additional Predictive Fitness trademarks can be found at www.predictive.fit/trademark-list.

Copyright © 2010-2021 Predictive Fitness, Inc. All Rights Reserved.