The majority of our time is spent training for our athletic events. Tri's, marathons, ocean swims, you name it, the time we spend practicing dwarfs the time we actually race, even for those who race often. This is also true in team sports. Although it doesn't look like it, the NY Giants spend a ton of time practicing for the games they play. But there is a big difference when it comes to perceived outcomes. The sports teams usually have a really good idea of what they can do, and what they can't do, and game plan to match those abilities. They then go out and try to nail their plan. But many individual athletes have an unrealistic idea of what they can do come game day and because if it underperform. Let's look at how this happens and what you can do to perform to your potential on race day.
The most obvious difference is the participants in team sports have an extra pair (or more) of eyes evaluating their talent. Unbiased opinions of your talent and abilities are extremely important for you to develop a training plan that reflects your true abilities. Then your not wasting your time training for race goals that are too lofty, or even too low. A coach can also assess your weaknesses and make a plan to systematically improve them. Now being an endurance coach myself I have to report to you that this is extremely common! One of the biggest contributions I bring to the table for my athletes is in evaluating his/her abilities and preparing a program to best suit the needs of that particular athlete. Something those pre-fab plans cannot do.
So back to all that training time we started out talking about. If you spend the majority of you time training in zones and speeds that don't suit you, you are then practicing something you cannot pull off. Why waste all that time and energy? By training in zones that suit your heart rate and talent you will perform better on race day and may elevate your overall performance. Really? But who does that you say?? Well...
There has been some investigation done on how athletes do during a race when compared to how they trained. Only 30% of those studied where able to race at the pace they trained for and therefore met their goals. A tiny percentage, about 1%, were able to race FASTER than they trained. A whopping 70% raced some degree slower than their estimated, and trained at, race pace. What happened? Well by over estimating what they could do a majority of the athletes set themselves up for failure and in fact stunted their times. Let me give you a triathlon example: If you overestimate your ability in the swim and/or the bike, and go out faster than your body can truly handle, not only will your run be affected but it will affected in a BIG way! The time on the run will be exponentially slower than if you had a proper goal time on the first two events. In this case proper pacing when then have lead to an overall better time.
Where do you go from here? First I would seriously consul that you get a good coach. Ask around there are definitely some good live bodies out there that can be a big help. Let's face it between all the money you spend on equipment and the time you spend on training it is an awesome investment. Even just for a few months! Additionally I would look into obtaining one of Sally Edwards books on Heart Zones training. She has been doing it forever and is the best at it. Lastly take this off-season and run some tests. Find out your max heart rate, maybe even you VO2 Max, and set up some reasonable goals for the athlete that truly you are. Not only will it make the whole experience more satisfying but you may find out you have been practicing slower than you really are!
Monday, November 25, 2013
Monday, November 11, 2013
Okay you think your so smart....
Recently I came down with something that gave me a stuffy nose, sore throat, a bit of an ear ache, a slight fever and, well, just overall achyness. I wasn't dying but I was certainly not feeling good enough to participate in the Olympic Tri I was scheduled to do that morning. One of the recommendations I received from well wishers was to take some tylenol for my fever as it would make me more comfortable. When I heard this I immediately recalled the words of my good friend Dr Steve Johnson "you have a fever for a reason, its meant to kill off the invaders, let your body do what it needs to. Do you think your are smarter than your body?? It has gotten us through a couple million years I think it should know what its doing!"
Yeah...So where are you going with this Bobo?? Well it got me to thinking (and wondering) about another of our bodies responses and how we treat it. Inflammation and icing, or cyrotherapy if you will. It has always seemed a little counterproductive to me to combat the bodies normal response to any issue that arises. Tylenol for fever, ice for swelling, pepsi for a hangover. Is icing something we should actually be doing? Whose idea was this anyways? Couldn't the ice be better used in frozen margaritas? So here is some of what I found:
Inflammation is a necessary and normal response to an injury. The process increases blood flow to the area bringing healing nutrients to the damaged tissue as well as increases lymphatic flow away from the area removing damaged cells. You know what else inflammation does? It makes the boo boo hurt! If you have an area that hurts you will be less inclined to want to use it and therefore your body has the time it needs to fix it. Using an injured area can make the initial problem much worse. So far so good, I like what I am hearing.
Lets take a step back and talk about the lymphatic system. It is a secondary circulatory system that runs throughout your body helping to drain fluids and blood byproducts back into your bloodstream. Once those items have been delivered to your primary circulatory system they are either re-used or disposed of as necessary. Now this system is not directly attached to the heart and does not have valves in it. It is a free flowing low pressure system. If there is inflammation in an area the pressure of that swelling will cause flushing out of the area by the good out lymphatic system. But research has shown if you decrease that swelling it slows the outward flow and then, once the ice is removed, it causes the system back wash to the area actually increasing recovery time. And as we all know back wash sucks.
Most patients report the damaged area felt better after icing. But additional studies show there is no improvement in range of motion or decreased healing time with icing. It just decreases the swelling so you felt better so that us type A's triathletes could go out and exercise with our injuries sooner. No Bueno!
Interestingly compression without ice did not seem to have the same negative effects on recovery times that icing and compression did. But again the caveat is that with compression we improved how the area felt and then went and did our 56 mi bike/10 mi run brick anyways.
Now in all the studies and research there was a line were inflammatory response got out of control. That the inflammation itself began to restrict blood flow to the area and lymphatic flow out of the area. Unfortunately no study pointed to where this line of critical inflammation was drawn. But again they point to mild compression and elevation as the key treatment for this dilemma. Noticeably anti-inflammatories were not thought of very highly in how we treat inflammation. Besides there inherent side effects they again they masked and decreased our bodies response to the problem, decreasing healing and lengthening recovery times. When icing was recommended it was for very short periods of times (10 mins) and only for one application.
Finally having dealt with the medical field for a long, long time as well as having read tons of research papers and gone to paid for pharmaceutical conferences it comes down to a basic understanding of our bodies. If we catch something, hurt a joint or pull a muscle a healthy body is its own best friend. We are generally in good condition and are able to muster a stout defense to the insults our bodies receive. Don't try and mask or control your bodies response. Give it time, let it do its work and skip the schedule brick for that day and while your are recovering perfect that margarita recipe.
Yeah...So where are you going with this Bobo?? Well it got me to thinking (and wondering) about another of our bodies responses and how we treat it. Inflammation and icing, or cyrotherapy if you will. It has always seemed a little counterproductive to me to combat the bodies normal response to any issue that arises. Tylenol for fever, ice for swelling, pepsi for a hangover. Is icing something we should actually be doing? Whose idea was this anyways? Couldn't the ice be better used in frozen margaritas? So here is some of what I found:
Inflammation is a necessary and normal response to an injury. The process increases blood flow to the area bringing healing nutrients to the damaged tissue as well as increases lymphatic flow away from the area removing damaged cells. You know what else inflammation does? It makes the boo boo hurt! If you have an area that hurts you will be less inclined to want to use it and therefore your body has the time it needs to fix it. Using an injured area can make the initial problem much worse. So far so good, I like what I am hearing.
Lets take a step back and talk about the lymphatic system. It is a secondary circulatory system that runs throughout your body helping to drain fluids and blood byproducts back into your bloodstream. Once those items have been delivered to your primary circulatory system they are either re-used or disposed of as necessary. Now this system is not directly attached to the heart and does not have valves in it. It is a free flowing low pressure system. If there is inflammation in an area the pressure of that swelling will cause flushing out of the area by the good out lymphatic system. But research has shown if you decrease that swelling it slows the outward flow and then, once the ice is removed, it causes the system back wash to the area actually increasing recovery time. And as we all know back wash sucks.
Most patients report the damaged area felt better after icing. But additional studies show there is no improvement in range of motion or decreased healing time with icing. It just decreases the swelling so you felt better so that us type A's triathletes could go out and exercise with our injuries sooner. No Bueno!
Interestingly compression without ice did not seem to have the same negative effects on recovery times that icing and compression did. But again the caveat is that with compression we improved how the area felt and then went and did our 56 mi bike/10 mi run brick anyways.
Now in all the studies and research there was a line were inflammatory response got out of control. That the inflammation itself began to restrict blood flow to the area and lymphatic flow out of the area. Unfortunately no study pointed to where this line of critical inflammation was drawn. But again they point to mild compression and elevation as the key treatment for this dilemma. Noticeably anti-inflammatories were not thought of very highly in how we treat inflammation. Besides there inherent side effects they again they masked and decreased our bodies response to the problem, decreasing healing and lengthening recovery times. When icing was recommended it was for very short periods of times (10 mins) and only for one application.
Finally having dealt with the medical field for a long, long time as well as having read tons of research papers and gone to paid for pharmaceutical conferences it comes down to a basic understanding of our bodies. If we catch something, hurt a joint or pull a muscle a healthy body is its own best friend. We are generally in good condition and are able to muster a stout defense to the insults our bodies receive. Don't try and mask or control your bodies response. Give it time, let it do its work and skip the schedule brick for that day and while your are recovering perfect that margarita recipe.
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