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Training Tips are designed to shed light on different aspects of training that may seem basic, but are often overlooked. 
Read. Enjoy. Train. 

Training a National Champion From 1000 Miles Away: Part Three-Specific Training

11/1/2017

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Specific Training:
    Within 1 month of watching Reese’s data roll in, I had picked up on strengths and weaknesses in his physical performance. Mix that with our Skype sessions and I was hearing the same thing that I was seeing.  For the first month or so, I didn’t want to act but only observe and make notes.  Finally, I had identified a strong opportunity and we began to discuss it. 

Pacing:
   There is no doubt in my mind that Reese is genetically gifted. He has an exceptional ability to dig deep and tap into his anaerobic capacity after being on the limit throughout a race.  This physiologically is possible for most, but many aren’t willing to hurt like Reese is. While he is talented in this arena, it was also causing a drastic reduction in athletic performance because he didn’t understand how to control it. This is where the STRYD Power Meter comes in. 

Utilizing the STRYD: 
   For Reese we have found that 195 watts tends to be his functional threshold pace for anywhere between 1500-3000 meters.  Roughly 5-10 minutes.  For longer distances this number would be reduced, but for his specific purposes, this is the number that we have focused on for his races.  By seeing all of his data in training and racing, we found that he can hold this pace, but he will see a significant decline in performance if he goes above it for too long. In his early season races it was almost like clock work.  Reese would have the mentality that he needed to lead from the start and would always open up the first 300 meters of his 1500’s at 220-250 watts. His first 400 would be in 1:07-1:10, followed by 2 laps at 1:17-1:20.. and a 4th lap at 1:10 (again, his ability to kick). He kept running the exact same times for about 1-2 months as he continued to use the same approach.  For Reese it was always his idea to start fast and try to run from the front.  In his local races this was fine as he would win regardless, but at the national level this wasn’t going to cut it. For the past 4-6 months we have worked on a more controlled opening lap which doesn’t put him in oxygen debt. We don’t exactly use those terms when talking together, but he understands the idea… his body can’t support it yet.  By working on this tactic, we have continually improved his pacing and finally at the national championship have cut nearly 40 seconds off his 3000 times from early in the season and 15 seconds off his 1500 times.  While he did improve physically as well, he improved greatly in his understanding of race pacing and tactics and benefitted greatly in trusting his body and letting others set the pace early on.  While all of this is fantastic, it was actually his bike workouts that finally showed him the light. I will discuss this next. 

ZWIFT: 
   This was our breakthrough.  Reese and I started using ZWIFT a couple months before nationals and it has been a game changer for us. I knew that Reese was understanding our pacing talks about STRYD, but he was still only executing in half of his races.  He was getting better, but it still wasn’t ideal and Nationals were coming up.  Knowing this and that he was understanding power, we started riding on ZWIFT and discussing watts/kilogram. In ZWIFT, watts/kilogram is essentially the metric that determines how fast your rider goes. On the flats a more powerful rider will win, but going uphill its all about your watts/kg ratio.  After riding 1 time and discussing this, Reese started to catch on and we referred to all intervals in this terminology. He knew to keep his numbers in a certain range when working and was building his understanding as well as his physical performance.  Once I knew he understood this metric enough, I told him we were going to do a 5 min race… who ever is ahead at the end wins.  We did this race on a mountain climb in the ZWIFT software so that it would be equal. Reese weighs 101 pounds where as I weigh in at 182 pounds.  Therefore, his 3 watts/kg is roughly around 150 where as mine is around 240.  For reference Reese has a threshold of around 165 watts where as I’m around 275.. We both share similar W/kg at threshold.  So,  the stage was set.  I picked 5 minutes because I knew his 1500 meter races took him just under that amount of time.  I said “Reese, do whatever you gotta do to win.. whoever is ahead after 5 minutes is the winner”.  Sure enough, he took off flying. I was watching his guy and he started at 5.5 watts/kg for 20 seconds.  I laughed to myself but thought “great, this is what I wanted”.  Reese was about 8 seconds up after 1 minute but was starting to fade. I had started at 3.8 watts/kg and told myself I would only go up to 4.2 if I absolutely had to.  I wanted to try and use the lowest amount of energy possible to teach him a lesson.. Reese quickly faded after about 90 seconds (which is where most anaerobic capacity dies off and your body starts screaming for oxygen).  By 2 minutes I had caught him.  I was feeling fresh and he was dying.  by 3 minutes I had put in a 4 second gap, 4 minutes an 8 second gap, and at 5 minutes I had won by 11 seconds.  Going back over his power files after, we saw that Reese had surged to 5.5 to start, faded to 3.2 for 3 minutes.. then picked it up trying to catch me the last 30 seconds up to 5.5 watts/kg.  He raced it exactly like he did his 1500’s on the track.  Reese ended up doing far more work than I, where as I had averaged 3.8 watts/kg for 5 minutes which would have easily been in Reese’s wheel house had he been patient and smart. 

  All this is to say that, it took Reese seeing it with data in front of him and knowing that I had worked less but gone faster while using the same metrics.  Even if we were doing traditional coaching in that instant, Reese would in his mind think “of course Derek won, he is older and stronger”.  But by seeing both of our Watts/kg on the screen and knowing we were equal in that setting, I beat him using less energy.  A light bulb went off. 

Track Nationals:
  About 1 month after our First ZWIFT Race, Reese showed up at the AAU Junior National Championships. We had talked quite a bit regarding his pacing, our ZWIFT experience, what we expected other kids to do, to not panic, and to trust what we have been building all year.  I’m proud to report that in all of his races, Reese went through the first lap in 3-4th position and successfully kept his pace through the middle laps to distance everyone and win each event he participated in. While power is important in race settings, its the idea and mentality that may be more important.  Numbers won’t always translate to wins, but the education and understanding of how numbers work and how to maximize your odds of success can.  We maximized Reese’s odds of winning by playing into his strengths and and limiting his weaknesses. This to me is the power of technology and how we have, as a community, built a 3x national champion. 

   I would be naive to think that this was all a product of distance coaching. As I noted in part 1, Reese has a fantastic network around him which includes a local track coach, swim coach, family, and friends who support him.  What I wanted to point out in this 3 part series is that many times performance goes far beyond what you see in person.  While there is no substitute for hands on coaching and experience, there is a lot that can be done to increase the athletes effectiveness, physical, and mental (probably the most important) performance. 

​   It has been a blessing to coach Reese over the last 8 months and I look forward to continuing our goals together. While I have been able to teach him some things, he has given me the opportunity to experiment with new methods of coaching and constantly make me think outside the box.  I hope you enjoyed this quick look in on how we work with athletes all across the World. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me at ddalzell@dalzellcoaching.com
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Coaching a National Champion From 1000 Miles Away: Part Two- Technology

10/31/2017

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The Technology
   As we began on our journey in Winter of 2016-2017, Reese’s parents made it clear that he was lacking interaction. From a coaching perspective I knew that there were options for us to use that would help alleviate the problem of being 1000 miles way. While local coaches are fantastic and I would strongly urge everyone to seek one out, sometimes they get wrapped up in just a traditional sense of coaching which includes a stop watch and vocalization at practice.  While this is needed, I wanted to provide Reese with another perspective which included interactive technology and advanced performance tracking.  Below is how we achieved this. 

Skype
   Quite possibly the easiest solution to not being in person was utilizing the software Skype. Since early 2017, we have set up weekly calls on Skype so we can not only talk, but be held accountable, presentable,  and respectful to each other. We put a premium on listening to each other which can be visualized over the video feed. Every Monday at 4:00 PM we have spent 30-60 minutes going over Reese’s training, his plan of attack for the next week, his weaknesses, his areas of strength, and then possibly most important, just getting to know each other outside of sport. To form a strong relationship with a coach/athlete, you need to be more than just sport. This is something that I am passionate about so I always ensure that we discuss fun activities outside of training that either himself or I are going through at the time. Training simply off data can de-humanize a person, so by keeping that human element in there is critical for the connection and trust on both sides of the relationship in my opinion. 

STRYD Power Meter
   The best advancement in the sport of running has been the power meter. Reese’s father Rodney was supportive of the idea and what it could mean for his son, so he was able to purchase one of them through our business and we haven’t looked back since.  While Reese is out training with his friends at track practice, he is going through group activities or running intervals. While he has a sense of how it feels, the only data that he can go off of is his pace and times. At the end of the day, a fast pace is whats needed to win national championships, but there is a lot more that goes into pace other than just tracking seconds and speed. By looking at Reese’s power numbers and intervals, we were able to identify a threshold value and anaerobic value. Trying to describe these ideas to a 12 year old has been challenging, so instead we focus on feelings in the body.  Do you feel like your legs are on fire?   Do you feel like you’re gasping for air?  Okay good, thats exactly what the numbers indicate… what if we pace it like this,  how does that feel?  These conversations went on for 4-6 months. Reese had to take a step back in his mentality to take 3 large steps forward. Luckily for me, he was willing to try.. and together we worked through the difficult times of slower results or not winning events. Over the past 8 months, the stryd power meter has been one of the best tools we have used as it gives me exact data on what he is doing and how to best inform his decisions going forward.  I will discuss more on how it won him National Championships in Part 3

ZWIFT
   This may be the key that unlocked Reese’s 2017 potential.  We have recently started using ZWIFT which is an interactive cycling software. Reese pairs up his power meter to his computer, I do the same thing, and we both have avatars on a screen riding together. While this is great for anyone of any age (I personally use it for all of my indoor cycling training), it was especially effective for a 12 year old that enjoys video games. Again, his father approved of the software and helped set it up, and we have been using this over the past several months to teach Reese specific pacing strategies and execution. While on ZWIFT we will get on a call and set up speaker phone so we can ride, see each others avatar next to each other.. and talk over the phone. It has been our “ah-ha” moment in terms of getting that hands on feel while being 1000 miles away. We are literally training together in unison regardless that we are in separate garages in Texas and North Carolina.  In Part 3 I will discuss our training protocol for teaching Reese pacing tactics in his races. 

TrainingPeaks
   As I alluded to in Part 1, we utilize the training software TrainignPeaks and WKO4+ (behind the scenes). It allows all of Reese’s workouts to be uploaded so I can view them, ensure he is getting in the training required (but not too much, he is only 12 years old) and give feedback on what I’m seeing. This mixed with all of our other technology has allowed for a customized approach to every workout he does. 

In Part 3 of this series I will discuss specifics into Reese’s training approach and how we have worked to improve his performance.
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Coaching a National Champion from 1000 Miles Away: A Three Part Series

10/30/2017

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Part 1: Introduction:
   Reese Vannerson is the 2017 12 year old AAU national champion in the 800 meter, 1500 meter, and 3000 meter events. Over the past year, I have been lucky to work with such a talent, but its had its fair share of ups and downs in terms of efficiency. Throughout this 3 part series, I will take you through our introduction, tactics, tools we use, and methods for improving. The goal of this series will be to inform the reader on how to maximize their racing and correctly select guidance, even if they aren’t located within your town. 

Local Coaches: 
  It would be ignorant of me not to mention the help Reese gets on a local level. Reese is part of a track team in Sugar land Texas, goes to swim practice with a local youth group, has access to a local cycling network for indoor training, and has a great support crew in place. While I feel what we have done has positively impacted Reese in his endeavors, it takes a village to create a champion. Reese’s parents have gone above and beyond in providing him with training groups in order to constantly push him and strive for the goals he has set. 

First Introduction:
    I met Reese at a Mind Right Endurance camp in June of 2016. He was a young 11 year old and my colleague Jeremy Brown had been advising him in a couple of his endurance disciplines. Over the course of camp we were able to ride together for many miles, get to know each other, and start to form a bond that would be re-examined in Winter of 2016-2017. 

  When Winter rolled around in 2017, Reese’s dad Rodney Vannerson, Jeremy Brown, and myself got together to identify that Reese and I would be a good fit given we both had goals of excellence in endurance athletics. At that moment, we decided that I would oversee Reese’s development in terms of overall management of performance. Reese would still have his track coach, still have his swim coach, but I would oversee cycling and eventually look over all of his data from a performance aspect. 

Getting Started:
    To initially get started, we set up his TrainingPeaks account which allows any endurance coach to program in workouts and have his/her athlete upload their training files. Essentially, a coach will go in and write a workout (run 4 miles for example) and if the athlete does the workout and records it on a device (a watch), it can be uploaded to show the coach GPS files, heart rate, speed, elevation, etc.  Depending on what the watch does will depend on how much data you can receive.  For reese, this meant that I would see his pace, power (Stryd running power meter), heart rate, elevation, and cadence. On the bike I would see his heart rate and power meter as well. Having these tools available, we focused in on a plan that would help Reese maximize his racing and aim to set personal records and hopefully achieve his goal of national championships. 

Initial Discussions:
    Talking with a 12 year old will make you re-think how you coach an athlete. Having worked with more experienced athletes (ages 22-60), I had developed a certain type of dialogue that I was comfortable with. Within the first 5 minutes of talking with Reese, I knew that I was going to have to change the way I coached. While challenging, I was excited for this change of pace as I felt it would bring me back to the roots of coaching and also allow myself to learn throughout the journey as well. If you think you understand something in depth, try discussing that topic with a young adult, I bet you will have a new outlook on the material and it will give you a new perspective as well!

So, Reese was on board, I was learning on the fly, his parents trusted in me as a coach, and I knew I had a job to do.  In part 2 of this series I will touch on the technology we have used to help Reese (while being 1000 miles away) work with me 1-on-1 and see actual improvements that have led to his development as an athlete. 

Part 2:  Technology of Coaching an Athlete 1000 miles away. 

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The Importance of Off-Season

9/26/2016

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   Its easy to work hard as endurance athletes. When the season is young and hopes are high, anybody can find the motivation to get out the door and go put in some long miles and hard efforts. The building process will often take you through a 6-10 month window of focused training that is meant to make you faster and stronger.  However, while you spend the majority of your season looking to get faster, you also must understand the importance of off-season and the purpose it serves. There are three key topics that should be focused on in the off-season which can be seen below. 

Balance

   One of the key things to focus on in the off-season is balance. Not only with your body, but with your life as well. As amateurs, sometimes I see athletes thinking they need to build through the off-season to get even faster for next year.  I’ll be the first to tell you that this often leads to peak form in the Winter/early season and a burned out athlete by mid-season of the following year. We should all take a page out of professional athletics here and see that even pro’s take an off-season to recover. During the season your muscles go through so much that you often create unbalanced muscles that may present themselves as tight legs or strained muscles. The off-season should be spent working to re-balance those muscles for optimal training and racing the following year.  Beyond just your muscles though, we often neglect other important areas of our lives during the season. The off-season gives us extra time to focus on other responsibilities and get our life back into a balance that allows for our success as an individual. 

Mentality

   I gave you an example in the last section about an athlete that wants to continually build through the off-season. This athlete I have found will do 1 of 2 things. Either A) they will burn out half way through the next year because they can’t handle the constant focus or B) they will fall into a rut of doing the same training everyday and completely neglect specifics when it is time. What many forget to realize is that athletic performance is made up of two factors. Those factors are the psychological side of athletics and the physical side. Just like we rest and rebuild our physical side for optimal performance, we also much rest and rebuild our mentality during the off-season. The best way to do this is to get away from specifics for a while and just relax mentally! Let me repeat that last point… relax!

Goals and Maintenance

   I’ve preached taking time off mentally and rebuilding your muscles/life balance. While its critical to get some rest, we also don’t want to start next year at absolute zero again. This is where a coach comes in for optimal balance of time and maintenance of some fitness. During your off-season you should be having a conversation with your coach to discuss the season and the goals of the next year. All we want to think about is just very generalized ideas of goals and targets to shoot for. While its fantastic to make SMART goals, remember that you’re giving yourself some relaxation time mentally so these goals right now just need to be ideas. Its the coaches job to put things in place as they should be, its the athletes job to trust the coach and spend the rest of the off-season relaxing. SMART goals come into play during the pre-season when motivation is building again and the body is ready to start the build for the next year. 
   Once the coach and athlete have talked in general terms of goals for the following year, then the coach must work to maintain a base level of fitness but get the athlete away from specifics as much as possible. A great way to do this is to mix in 2-3 solid training days a week to maintain, but the rest of the week should be made up of physical activity that is good for the athletes state of being. An example of this is hiking in the rockies or cross-country skiing in the winter or playing soccer/hockey with a club team.  We are trying to maintain some fitness, but to not sweat the little things like a missed days workout or going to play hockey instead of riding a bike.

Conclusion

   I’ve come to find that the off-season may be one of the best times to have a coach or invest in a coach. Whether you’re the athlete that wants to keep building or the athlete that wants to cut everything, the coach is there to keep things in balance and direct your path. You need to get away from some things but you want to maintain others. You need to rest your mind but you want to have a long term idea of things to come. You want to re-balance your muscles but you don’t want to bulk up.  The off-season is what sets you up for your fastest season yet. Let your coach do all of the thinking and allow yourself to relax and re-find your balance as an athlete. 
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How to Destroy Personal Records

9/19/2016

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    As a coach, I’m in a unique position to see all of my athletes daily training that often goes un-noticed. What everyone looks at is race day performances and how they stack up against competition when it matters. While I love to see athletes crushing their PR’s, I often go back to their training leading up to the event or conversations we’ve had and see very similar characteristics.  This blog is to highlight the characteristics that many of my athletes share and could be a foundation for your continued success as well. 

Consistency
    While I’ve blogged before on the importance of consistency, intensity, and volume (fitness fundamentals) I really want to focus again on consistency. It’s that important.  When I go look at an athlete that has made a huge jump in fitness and race day results, almost every time I will see that they rarely miss a workout. What i want the reader to understand from this point though is that every athlete I work with has a busy life.  In todays day and age, we are all busy!  However, what these athletes have is an ability to schedule in 1-2 hours a day to get in their workouts. Some of these athletes are Surgeons with crazy schedules, a 5 restaurant owner with 2 kids, An Electrician who was in school with 2 kids, an MBA student/full-time worker with a toddler, an Engineer who drives often across the state with two kids, etc etc etc. I can go on and on about how amazing some of these individuals are, but where they all truly excel is in scheduling time for themselves (often 4 AM wake ups) where they make their training and success as an athlete a priority.  With these busy schedules, its inevitable that a training session will be missed, but for the most part, all of these athletes are getting in 5-6 days a week of focused training. 

Knowledge
    One of the best things of being a coach in this field is that I often become a teacher to athletes. What I’ve found as a coach is the more educated an athlete becomes, the faster they become. There is something to be said for having a coach and letting them do all the thinking for you, but the more you understand about power, pacing, recovery, training stress, etc… the more focused your training will become. As my athletes start to become students and learn as they train, they often take a big step up in their abilities as an athlete. When I go back and look at all of the great performances by athletes recently, I notice that they all have taken a large step in understanding principles of training this year or years past and understand data analysis at a level that at least allows them to make good decisions on the fly. For any athlete that is serious about setting PR’s and becoming competitive, a big key to that is talking with your coach on a continuous level to learn the focus of workouts and how to judge if progress is happening. 

Time in the Sport
    Nothing pains me more than having someone who wants to be great, but only dedicates one year to the goal. If I start to look at some of my athletes that had the best performances in 2016, its often my athletes that have been on with me for 2, 3, or even 4 years. This is because endurance athletics has a cumulative effect as the years add up. Your muscles become more efficient going through the movements and your body becomes more efficient at utilizing oxygen through these movements. While many athletes want to come into the sport and be great, they often make the mistake of wanting too much too soon!  This thought process can leave them discouraged after their first year, but often if athletes can stick with the consistency over the years, they will start achieving those high goals they had originally set in place. This is one of the fundamental characteristics to top level success by each individual. 

Conclusion
    A lot of individuals look for a secret recipe to get fast or a quick fix. Some athletes may come up to me and say, so… How do I get fast? They often think their will be an elaborate answer that has been passed down from some wizard or other force. However, its quite simple. Start to become consistent in your training, start to pay attention and learn what you are doing, and stay in the sport for multiple years. If you can focus on those three cues then you are going to excel as an endurance athlete. While the day-to-day is important and what the coach is there for, endurance athletics is all about the consistent years and building both your physical abilities, but mental ones as well. 


For more information, Jeremy Brown of Mind Right MultiSport will host a live chat on this topic on Wednesday Sept 21. 


For questions or comments please email me at ddalzell@dalzellcoaching.com
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Race Selection Based on Strengths

9/12/2016

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    As you get into athletics, surely its just about being in competition and getting your feet wet. However as you start to advance, it quickly becomes evident that you need to play to your strengths if you truly want to excel. This is true in any sport as you aim for that top level. Just as everyone in baseball may want to be shortstop or centerfield, for some individuals you are just much stronger at another position.  In endurance events, the same thing happens. In cycling at lower levels you will without a doubt find individuals that want to be an “all-arounder” or win every race.  This is often not possible and leaves cyclists feeling defeated even though they were set up for defeat.  This blog will look at how to select races to find yourself in better positions to win or advance within the sport you love. 


Fast-Twitch vs Slow-Twitch
    We watch the olympics and see different swimmers in the 1500m vs the 50m. For some reason as amateurs, this seems completely reasonable when watching on T.V but if we were to go to the pool, we would want to beat our friends in both the 50 and 1500. As amateur individuals we feel that if we practice enough, we can be good at everything.  While you will make advancements (hence why coaching is important), you will naturally be better at one event vs the other.  This is because when you were born you were born with a certain ratio of slow-twitch or fast-twitch muscle fibers.  Depending on what you have more of will determine which event you would be better at!

    Now, just because you were born with a certain ratio doesn’t mean you can’t convert some fibers. There are fibers that can go back and forth between fast and slow (trainable fibers), but you will still be at an advantage over other athletes based on your genetic background. 

    This becomes evident quickly if you were to spend 4 weeks training, and then go through some test sets. You will either have a natural ability to put out power instantly, or sustain power for longer amounts of time but never reach the same maximal output as your fast-twitch friend. 

    By understanding which one you are, you can start to understand what you are better at as an athlete and use this as one of your first ways to select a race

Weight
    Weight in endurance events is a huge factor in overall performance.  While there is a point at which you can be too light to sustain effort, generally speaking the athlete that weighs less will do better over a long day due to not having to exert as much force and not requiring as much energy to cool themselves as their overall mass is lower. 

    When we start to look at cycling, weight comes into play when possibly selecting a flat vs mountainous race. If we know what your threshold is in watts, we can divide that by your weight (kilograms) and make a very calculated decision on if you should race in the mountains or find flatter road races. For someone with a low watts/kg but a high ability to put out maximum watts, it would make no sense to go race in the mountains. Understanding your watts/kg in cycling can play a huge factor in selection of races. 

    And finally for our triathletes. All of this comes into play for you.  Are you good at cooling off in hot weather? Are you a strong cyclist or strong runner? If you are looking to qualify for Kona one day or just looking to have the race of your life, it would be wise to pick a race that suits your strengths. There are Ironman’s with cooler temps and those that are notorious for hot temperatures. There are Ironman’s with difficult bikes and those that are pancake flat. If you plan on spending nearly a year focusing on a big event like Ironman, then it would be wise to select a race that will give you the best chance at maximizing your abilities. 

Height
    While this is a generalized statement, its often that taller athletes are better fit for aerobic endurance than anaerobic power. This is because V02 is related to the amount of surface area you have. Also, athletes that are leaner tend to have higher V02’s as well. Therefore, the taller you are and the leaner you are, the more likely you are to have a high V02.  With these athletes selecting events that are a function of v02 and threshold tend to suit them well (think Time Trials or 10k running). 
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    The smaller you are the more likely you are to have condensed fibers that are great for powerful motions and better suited for sprinting.  Now, while I type this its good to understand there are outliers (Usain Bolt), but the only way you will know for sure is to test. 

Conclusion
    You can be the best sprinter in the world, but you will get destroyed in a long distance race. Rather than try to be above average in all races, why not focus on becoming the best at the race where your strength is represented. All endurance sports have differing distances, terrain, time of the year (weather), etc.  Before you go into your next season you should realize where your strengths and weaknesses are and plan your season accordingly.  Don’t put yourself at a disadvantage because you’re negligent in your scheduling. Understand your strengths and have your best season yet!


To hear more, tune in Wednesday as Jeremy Brown of Mind Right Multi-Sport and I host a coaches chat.


For questions or comments, please email me at ddalzell@dalzellcoaching.com
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Specific Training = Best Results

9/6/2016

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    When getting ready for any athletic season, (cycling, running, football, baseball, etc) there should be a method to the madness of developing your practice/training schedule. What every athlete/coach should understand is the principle of specificity and what it means.  To put it in the simplest terms, if you want to get better at one thing, then you train that discipline. While it seems like common sense, athletes often get lost in this simple idea and look to do too much. 

Train Specifically for Your discipline
    Again, if you want to get better at something, then you must train for it. To put this into an example, if a cyclist wants to get faster at riding a bike, then they should be riding their bike.  This athlete may get into trouble like many do by thinking they will get faster by being in the weight room or out on the XC ski track.  While each of these do have benefits in different ways, the absolute best way to get faster on the bike for this athlete is to ride the bike. 
    Now, once you get into the sport itself, then any cyclist will tell you that its just as important to be specific to their event as it is their sport. A great example of this would be a sprinter who puts out 100% energy for 15 seconds vs a time trialist who puts out 100% effort for 60 minutes. Sure there can be some benefit every now and then for a time trialist to do sprints or vice versa, but the overall structure of their training should follow what their goals are within the sport. 

Periodization of Specifics
    Part of the principle of specificity is that you should start basic and get more specific as the season ramps up.  This is a great topic to discuss because it shows that a base level of fitness is key to overall success, and that the entire year doesn’t need to be specialized in any athletes discipline. For athletes, this is normally where the cross-training style of workouts come in. So for a summer baseball player they may play football in the fall, or for a competitive runner they may mix in swimming/cycling to maintain fitness but not be overly specific during their low points of the year. 
    This portion of the year (base fitness) is important for the overall process because it will build the athletes generalized fitness but also not put too much wear and tear physically or mentally on the athletes specific muscles/focus for season events. The main purpose of this base fitness phase is only to get to the pre-season with enough fitness that they can peak in-season when they go into their specific training. 
    As you progress into the season, this is where the specifics needs to ramp up and you need to train your body for the actions required. If you are a 4km pursuit cyclist on the track, then you need to be putting in some hard efforts that simulate 4km intensity.  If you are training for an Ironman, then you need to put in some long volume to build muscular endurance. The best thing you can do is break down what the race/event will demand and start to structure your training in the same way. 
    Once the season is over, you will enter your off-season. This is the time when the body should be given rest and your need to recover. While you are recovering from your specifics though, you can still maintain some base fitness and this is often where athletes will get back in the weight room. This time away from specifics can be great for the mind and body and allow you to slowly get back into your base training mode. 

Weight Lifting and Its Purpose
    Its important to understand what weight lifting is on a basic level.  Weight Lifting is a form of anaerobic training used to increase muscle mass/power/endurance. Often times I hear endurance athletes speaking on how they are going to get into the weight room and improve their cycling/running performances the next year. While they may in fact improve their performances, it may not be for the reasons they actually think.  What weight lifting will do for an endurance athlete is balance their muscles which helps in injury prevention. To put this in other words, the only way your squat/leg press gains are going to help your cycling/running is if you’re an anaerobic athlete in these disciplines (100-400 meter sprinter, track sprinter).  Even then, this would be the most basic form of your season and you would go into your specific training later on before your event.  Weight lifting is naturally an anaerobic exercise and endurance events are all aerobic in nature. 
    This being said, endurance athletes need to understand that they can get in the weight room in the off-season to re-balance muscles and help with injury prevention, but our goal isn’t to build your squat or bench press to olympic levels… its simply to help re-balance your muscles so we can train hard again without an injury due to muscular imbalance. 

Conclusion
    There are many people out there that are simply seeking general health and fitness. They want to look good and feel good about themselves which is a great thing for many.  This blog doesn’t talk about these individuals because general wellness and high level athletics using specificity of training is completely different.  As an athlete seeking high level athletic performance, the best thing you can understand is the principle of specificity. While it seems so simple on the surface, often times athletes/coaches disregard it and end up missing improvements from year to year. The best way you can get better at your discipline is by training it specifically. Remember to go from general to specific as the year progresses and you’ll start to have better performances than you’ve ever had in the past. 




To hear more on the topic, tune in Wednesday as Jeremy Brown of Mind Right Multisport and I discuss the blog each week.  Links can be found on the Mind Right or Dalzell Coaching Facebook page. 


For questions or comments reach out to me at ddalzell@dalzellcoaching.com
    


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The Science and Art Behind an Ironman Bike Split

8/29/2016

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    When going into an Ironman or long distance race there is often many questions from athletes regarding pacing, strategy, tactics, nutrition, and making adjustments on the fly. Whats nice as a coach is that we have all this data in front of us to create the most effective plan for each athlete. But what does that look like?  I can tell you that before any athlete goes into their Ironman I often give them three goals for the bike.  These goals are pacing, nutrition, and aerodynamics.  By focusing on these three cues, athletes tend to perform up to their abilities during the bike split of their race. 

Pacing
    For this blog I’m only going to focus on power. The power meter has transformed the cycling community and prices have dropped to allow most triathletes/cyclists the ability to own one. 

    Training Stress Score
    So, what is the proper pacing? Is it 70% of an athletes functional threshold power (FTP)? Is it 80% of an athletes functional threshold power?  The answer to that is yes, but maybe not for you. It isn’t so much about the exact effort level, but rather how much stress is put on your body while racing at those levels.  Instead of thinking I need to race “x” race at “x” amount of effort, we should be looking to see how much stress can my body handle on race day and still be effective to have a strong run.  This is where Training Stress Score (TSS) comes into play. Yes, TSS, that pesky training tool that is always being utilized in your training has now made its way into racing. 


    The question then becomes, how much TSS can I handle during an Ironman bike split and still run strong?  This image can be found on TrainingPeaks and was formulated by Rick Ashburn. It is by no means my intellectual property but I believe it does a tremendous job of showing a strong bike versus an over bike.  


   If we remember that TSS is a value derived by intensity and duration, you can start to see that the faster riders (in the 4:30-5:00 mark) can ride at a higher % of FTP because they aren’t on the course for as long. The slower riders need to ride at a lower % of FTP due to the duration of being on the course.   This is the first number coaches should look at when starting to formulate a pacing strategy for Ironman.  The ideal TSS value you should be aiming for is somewhere between 250-280 during the bike portion on race day.  Anything below and you left a bit of time on the table, anything above and you’re going to be fried for the run. 


    Variability Index (V.I)
    If you’re an athlete that likes to look at your data then you’ll often see a “V.I” field in your power analysis. This field shows how evenly paced your ride was.  What it takes into account is your normalized power (the actual stress you put on your body) vs the average power (the actual average of your power).  Normalized power does a good job of weighting different power zones due to not all watts being treated equally by your body. Normalized power is what creates your TSS due to the measuring of actual stress on the body. Average power is whats going to create your average speed for the day and the two powers can differ drastically. 

    The way you have the fastest possible time for your effort on race day is by trying to equal these two power values out.  You are essentially trying to get the most amount of speed (average power) for the effort you are putting out (normalized power). If for example you go out and ride the course at 200 normalized power (what your body actually thinks it did) vs having an average power of 180 watts (the actual power your bike thinks it did), you gave away 20 watts of effort and will have a V.I of 1.11  (NP/AP = V.I).

    For best execution of an Ironman bike split you want a V.I of 1.05 or less. The way you create this is by having a steady pace all day and not surging up climbs and coasting down descents. It is much faster to ride a steady pace all day and continually keep the legs moving within the dedicated power range.

    Race as you Train
    While all of the numbers are great and can lead to the optimal Ironman strategy, they are only as good as your training has been.  I can program in an athletes optimal strategy based on a 260 TSS and 1.0-1.05 V.I. , but if this athlete has never done a long ride up to those standards and their body isn’t ready for race day… then this plan won’t work.  This is where the art of coaching comes in to look at all past training data and see how athletes respond to long rides and what their bodies can handle.  Yes they may have a huge FTP, but do they have the muscular endurance to utilize the proper % of FTP for 5 hours? Ultimately, the athlete and coach must decide on the best plan of action based on actual performances they’ve seen. You aren’t going to transform into a super hero on race day and all of a sudden hold 20 watts higher for 112 miles and feel fresh.  You must simulate this in training and see what you can handle. 

Nutrition
    Let me be clear, if you’re going to give up time by sitting up on the bike and not worrying about power, please do so for nutrition!  Nutrition is the most important part of the day. Many athletes neglect nutrition on race day because they always want to maintain a steady power and forget to eat/drink.  Without food and liquids, your body will begin to give out and not allow for your ideal performance regardless of pacing.  
    When discussing how many calories or oz of fluid you need, that will differ amongst athletes. To generally speak for this blog, I will say that the typical athlete will need somewhere between 250-300 kcal/hour and 24 oz/hour during the bike portion.  Some athletes may not be able to handle 300 kcal/hour and take in 200 instead while others will take in 350-400. This is all developed during your training to see what your stomach can handle for long durations. 
    Factors that will come into play in nutrition are the different branches of carbohydrates (long chain vs short chain), how hot it is on the day, how humid it is on the day, your sweat rates, etc.  If you are neglecting these issues in training then you are neglecting your performance.  As an athlete you should begin a nutrition log for training. This training log should have

Date:
Starting weight:
Finishing weight:
Distance of training:
Temperature:
Humidity:
Calories taken in:
Oz of fluid:
Overall feeling:

    Keeping this log will go a LONG WAYS in helping you dial in race day nutrition. 

Aerodynamics
    One of the best tools for your Ironman bike split is the bike itself. If you have an aerodynamic bike with aero bars, utilize it!  When going into www.bestbikesplit.com and analyzing different factors to a bike split, the largest factors are athlete FTP and athlete CDA. Aerodynamic drag coefficiency (CDA) is essentially how much air hits you while you’re cycling in different wind conditions. The more wind that hits you, the more drag you create. The more drag you create, the slower you go.  When sitting up on the horns or riding in an upright position you will often have a CDA of .3 or higher.  When riding in aerodynamic positions you can have a CDA of .21 - .28 depending on position. Essentially, if you go from sitting up to a good position on a bike that you can maintain, you will shave an hour off your Ironman bike split just from position alone. While there are plenty of individuals who are much more detailed in CDA than I, I can at least tell you that if you aren’t able to race  in an aerodynamic position, you’re giving away serious time. 

    With CDA comes equipment usage just like the bike. There are many things that come into play such as cable housing, aerobars, helmet, skinsuit, tires, wheels, water bottles, etc.  If you think these things don’t matter then you are only kidding yourself and your expected race finish time. This topic though will be saved for a later blog. 

Conclusion
    There are three things that you can control while out on training rides or during the race of your Ironman. These things are pacing, nutrition, aerodynamics. While there may be factors that pop up during the race which influence these factors, you should still have an awareness of each and how they impact the overall day. If you neglect these factors you are neglecting your race. Being educated and knowing how to utilize these factors is only going to lead to a better overall race performance and overall feeling towards your entire Ironman process. 


To hear more, Jeremy Brown of Mind Right Multisport and I will host a google hangout to discuss these issues on Wednesday at 10 A.M Eastern. 


For questions or comments please reach out to me at ddalzell@dalzellcoaching.com

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Race Day Perspective

8/22/2016

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   When going into races after training for an entire season, everyone wants to perform perfectly and maximize their abilities. There is nothing wrong with this approach as we are all driven to do our best (hence all the training days we put together throughout the year). However, due to un-controllables, our best doesn’t always present itself on the day of competition. This blog will discuss how training can be objective but how its often best to keep race day performances in perspective.  

Objective Training vs Race Day Perspective

    When taking an athlete through training, nearly 80% of the plan is based off of objective data such as hours/day they have to train, lactate threshold values for zone development, how much stress is being put on the body each day, how much chronic stress has been put on their body for the month, power targets and run pace goals, send off times in the pool, etc etc etc.  This often results in the athlete developing a fantastic mindset for training (extremely dialed in and focused) that is centered around controllables. As a coach, the best thing I can have any athlete achieve is a mindset that only focuses on what they can control. This starts to create an intrinsically motivated athlete and a racer that is aware of their abilities.  While this is a blessing in training, this can be the beginning to the end mentally on race day. 

    What happens when you are supposed to hold 200 watts for Ironman but you can only manage 180.  What happens when you should be holding 380 watts in a time trial but your body only says 345. How about working to hold 8:00 pace for a trail marathon but 8:45’s is whats really happening? Is this a bad day or simply just a change to the game plan? 

    When an athlete goes into a race, there is an optimal performance that we are targeting. However, in my 4 years of coaching I have only seen an optimal performance happen roughly 5-10% of the time. This isn’t because athletes aren’t peaked, or they aren’t as fit as we are suggesting, rather conditions such as heat, wind, rain, competition, tactics, etc can all vary so drastically outside of training. Having to react to the setting and make game-time decisions can often take you away from optimal conditions. However, this is where perspective comes into play.  Below are some recent examples of athletes who have won, even when it may appear as a miss on the surface. 

Real World Scenarios

    Joe S has been on with Dalzell Coaching for 3 years now and recently raced the New England TT Championships. Going into the race we were targeting a power goal of 370-380 watts.  On race day though, Joe was only able to sustain 348 NP and 341 AP for the event. On the surface it would appear that Joe hit roughly 90% of his goal. However, upon further analysis of his file you can see that power dipped on downhill sections but he was holding 36-38 mph for those sections (not giving away much at all).  So while he may have initially been upset with the overall power file, he still ended up with a great pacing strategy given the course and came away the overall winner.  To put that in perspective, Joe came on with Dalzell Coaching 3 years ago as a Cat 3 cyclist who wanted to excel in time trials.  

    Eric R came on with Dalzell Coaching at the start of 2016. His goal was to break his PR at the Ironman distance and shoot for an 11:30 time.  His previous time was 12:31.  Going into race day Eric had controlled as much as he could and built his fitness to an all-time high. Going into the race he had a goal of holding 165-175 watts on the bike which would put him in a strong position to run towards his 11:30 goal. As he got on the bike, his power meter died and he rode the 112 miles by perceived effort.  Given that it was storming, 20mph winds and a downpour, Eric came in roughly 30 minutes behind his projected split (bestbikesplit.com).  Eric had his best run ever at Ironman and finished with a 12:04:xx.  While his missed his overall goal at the start of the season, he performed to his best ability under the conditions and took nearly 30 minutes off his PR.  This was his 3rd attempt at breaking his PR and he did it with flying colors.  Initially he notes it isn’t what he wanted overall, but put in perspective, this is a huge stepping stone for him and his development as a triathlete. 

    Tyler W is in his first season as a pro/elite mountain biker. He came on in late 2015 with the goal of being competitive in this class. Going into the x100 race we had a goal of shooting for 240-270 NP as mountain biking can vary so much on race day due to tactics and course layout. At the race, his legs started to hurt quite a bit as he had a race the previous weekend. For the overall race, Tyler was able to hold 242 NP which was in the goal range, but he felt as if he may have slightly underperformed personally. When you look at the actual results, Tyler was able to take 4th overall in the race which is a huge result for him in his development as a Pro/Elite racer. Even though it wasn’t his optimal race, he is starting to reach his yearly goal of becoming competitive in the Pro/Elite field. His 90% this year is easily beating his best performances from last year. 

Conclusion
​

    I could continue to show examples, but I believe you the reader should have one major take-away from this. You can enter a race with your ideal game plan, but once the race starts, you will have to navigate situations to the best of your ability. Often times you will have to deviate from the plan slightly, but you should be in a much better position to do that given your fitness gains from the year. In the end, its always about making improvements year to year. Yes, we want to see your 100% performance happen, but you also must be extremely proud of yourself as an athlete when your 90% this year easily beats your 100% effort from past years. While there are many things you can control during a race, when races require change, its always a good idea to keep things in perspective. 


To hear more on this topic tune in on Wednesday at 10 A.M Eastern as I discuss this topic with Jeremy Brown of MindRight Multisport. 




For questions please reach out me at ddalzell@dalzellcoaching.com
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Training in the Heat: Why Its Different

7/4/2016

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   When training in the cooler months of the year, you can often focus in on specific numbers to hit during training days and often leave workouts feeling accomplished and strong. As the heat picks up though, you may start to find that you are feeling sluggish and even that your fitness feels like it's decreasing. With so many races happening in the summer and early fall months, why do our bodies feel like this when we should be hitting peak fitness?  Below are several reasons why you may be in this exact spot right now. 

Training by Numbers
    When training by numbers, you may often have specific heart rate ranges, power ranges, or pace/mile indicators for a workout. These are often very specific to the athlete and can be utilized for maximized training, but they often take a back seat when the temps go up. 

    As the temperature increases, it requires a higher demand on your body to cool yourself during exercise. The bodies overall job during exercise in the heat is to keep the body cool to ensure you don’t overheat and hurt yourself. So while in cooler temperatures most of the blood flow is going to muscles to produce power/speed, in the heat most of the blood flow is going to the skin to try and cool the body. This results in higher heart rates for most individuals while also producing slower times or lower power numbers. 

What Causes Heart Rate Spike or Lower Power Numbers?
    In the heat as noted above, the blood flow focuses on your skin vs muscles to ensure a cooling effect is taking place. Also, as the heat continues and you become dehydrated in your training day, this puts more strain on your heart which can also result in much higher heart rates as your body now must work even harder due to your body being out of balance. 
    For example, if you are used to training in March and running 7:00/miles at 150 beats per minute, in the heat of July/August you may have a 150 bpm reading on your watch but you may be running 7:45’s or 8:15’s.  This doesn’t mean that you are any less fit, it just means your body isn’t in ideal conditions to produce an optimal performance.  This can often create a brutal psychological battle within many athletes minds. 

Using Heart Rate in the Summer Months
    With so many factors already contributing to heart rate (training levels, dehydration, caffeine, stress, sleep, heat, etc) I often only recommend using heart rate in the summer for low level (base) workouts. The reason why I only program in base workouts with heart rate in the summer is because if we are doing a base workout, we often want to make sure we don’t go too hard. This is a great time to ensure we are working at a certain intensity.  However, as efforts bump up and you go outdoors for long periods of time, I find it better to use perceived effort in the summer months to ensure that you are hitting a specific intensity and not becoming too distracted by the numbers.  It becomes increasingly difficult to get all factors correct in the summer months, however we can always control perceived effort which puts the ball back in the athletes court for successful workouts. 

My Coach Gave me a Hard Workout With HR This Summer
    While there are general rules that I practice, they aren’t always implemented with each athlete (specific athletes require specific workouts). If I gave somebody a workout such as: 

1 mile warm up
5x 1 mile @ 165-180 bpm
1 min standing recovery

1 mile cool down

    This athlete may experience 4 different things from this workout.  The athlete could:

  1. Experience that their body will not push to these limits in the summer because the body can not cool itself and will find a reduced heart rate at which to work at. 
  2. The athlete will think this is a threshold workout (speed focused) and find that they are running endurance pace (speed) at these ranges and deem the workout a failure
  3. Heart rate is going crazy and they are spiking above 180 bpm because they are exceptionally fit and light but focused on hitting prior speed marks they had run. 
  4. They run in the desired range but find their pace is very slow and become discouraged. 

    The only time that I may be scheduling workouts such as this in the summer months are if someone is nearing their peak race and we need to get specific to race demands.  These workouts often show the athlete/coach where they currently are and what realistic expectations should be for the race. 

Conclusion
    When training in the heat, you must realize that your body is going through many different factors.  Your body in 55-60 degrees fahrenheit is completely different than your body in 90-105 degrees fahrenheit. Focusing on pace/heart rate during these tough periods of the year can often lead to discouraged athletes and questioning of fitness. With run paces getting slower or power numbers dipping as heat increases, you must understand that it isn’t the fitness you are losing, its the flow of blood to your muscles and that this is needed in order to cool your body for continued training. I would urge you to focus more on effort during these summer months and let the numbers be what they are.  You will do much more for your own confidence as well as your fast numbers once cooler temps come back in the Fall! 

Disclaimer: These blogs are written in generalized statements. Each athlete will have different needs based on their fitness, their experience, their peak race schedule, etc. 


For More information, reach out to me at ddalzell@dalzellcoaching.com or join Jeremy Brown and I for a coaching hangout on Wednesday at 10 AM Est.
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    Derek is a Level III USAC coach with his masters degree in Coaching Sports Performance, his passion is to help others in the sports of cycling and triathlon.

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