My first week back in training has been a good one. It is a
great feeling to be active again, eating how I like to and getting good quality
sleep. I have completed 5 rides, 4 swims and 3 runs, along with one all over
body strength session and 2 core workouts. I didn’t do everything I had planned
to, partly based on time restraints and partly on how I was feeling. I didn’t
push myself much but got a good feel for the activities again.
Riding was enjoyable. The majority was done at an easy pace
with a couple of sessions incorporating some efforts. Running was limited and
the legs showed their vulnerability in these early stages with a lack of
ability to turnover with any great speed. Swimming was interesting, as I cut
all of my sessions short because my poor core strength and lack of muscular endurance
showed through, deeming it pointless to push on too far at the moment. I
concentrated on technique and simply logging some base mileage.
Just one week is enough to get me pondering about my current
plan for the months ahead. Is it planned well and do I have the right spread of
sessions to yield dramatic improvement?
I have been looking closely at my program over the past
couple of days and, combined with assessing my weaknesses, I have concluded
that a high training frequency in swim, bike, run and core is a major key to
unleashing my potential.
Previously, in peak training periods, I have performed 5
rides, 5 runs, 3 swims and just 1 core session per week, where sessions covered
necessary training elements of speed, strength and endurance across workouts of
varying length. This may seem like enough and it has been until now, which is
why my performance improved greatly this past season and enabled me to qualify
for the World Champs. However, to go those extra couple of steps, and compete
for first place, I must change something.
One particular area which I firmly believe will be improved,
by increasing the number of sessions per week, is my swimming. In races, my
shoulders and core tend to fatigue very quickly causing a laboured and
inefficient stroke. My arm turnover decreases rapidly and I am losing 5 or more
minutes to the leaders of my age-group in a half-ironman. I intend to rectify
this issue by increasing my swimming to 5 sessions per week. The important
thing to remember is that not every session is hard. A couple of the workouts
will be just about spending more time performing that exercise and engraining
those movements into my muscle memory. The others will have greater specificity
and intensity. This is where ‘every little bit counts’. Some days I might only
be able to do 30mins in the water but even performing three 30 minute sessions
along with a couple of 45 minutes sessions per week is far greater than 3 one
hour workouts.
The shorter sessions have the added benefit of producing
less fatigue, whereby, I can swim without losing form from being too tired to
do things right, and provide good quality training. This is priceless while
building other aspects around it, such as, core strength and overall aerobic
fitness.
Core strength is another area where I will be increasing the
frequency of sessions greatly. 3 or 4 sessions per week are essential. This is
not just abs. Your core encompasses the complete abdominal system, lower back
and muscles surrounding the hips. A large repertoire of exercises is very
useful for targeting all of those muscles but not essential and some solid
basic exercises might be all you need.
Again, they don’t have to be huge workouts every time, just
doing them more often and with great form will ensure greater swimming ability
and should assist running and cycling just as much. So much focus is on your
core muscles throughout an entire triathlon without even realising it. Therefore,
it must have a great deal of emphasis placed on it during a training schedule
to reap the benefits.
The above examples of frequency will be present in my riding
and running too. I will be aiming for 6 rides and 6 runs per week, after I have
completed my initial 4 weeks of base training. Not all 6 sessions are hard.
Some are short but provide much needed mileage and general frequency of
performing the activity. For example, you could add a 20 minute run after a
hard ride or a 40 minute spin on the bike before a hard run session.
In a training week totalling approximately 20 hours, there
is purpose in every minute but those purposes can vary greatly. If you are a triathlete
struggling to find enough time to train long sessions each week, I suggest
looking at performing a higher number of workouts, with shorter timeframes, for
each discipline. Training more frequently for the same total weekly volume will
be just as, if not more, effective.
Tell me in the comments below when you have experienced an
improvement simply by increasing your training frequency.
Cheers, Lincoln.
