Training log and Training plans for Running, Cycling, Triathlon and Fitness

We are hiring new talent – could it be you?

August 31st, 2010

Marketing Coordinator

Peaksware is looking for a marketing genius who also lives and breathes health, fitness and athletic performance. We need an experienced, organized, creative, web savvy coordinator with lots of self-motivation and initiative who will utilize in-bound and out-bound marketing strategies from social networking to blogging, newsletters and content writing/editing to traditional public relations.  If you are interested, please view the full details.

Web Designer

Peaksware is looking for an artistic leader to design web, email and mobile communications, promotions and software applications. We need an experienced designer who is self-motivated, takes initiative, contributes to, and works well with the entire team and is passionate about our products and mission to help motivated individuals and professionals achieve health, fitness and peak performance. If you are interested, please view the full details.

All About Overtraining

August 30th, 2010

By Ben Greenfield

Many people engage in what I would call “under-reaching”. Individuals who “under-reach” typically arrive at the gym and perform light exercise at an intensity that is insufficient to achieve weight loss or boost fitness levels. However, there is a truth to the mantra “Something Is Better Than Nothing”, and even under-reachers are doing better for their bodies than if they hadn’t shown up to exercise at all.
On the other hand, there are “over-trainers”. Over-trainers work out at a very high intensity, sometimes accompanied by a high volume that may include multiple exercise sessions in a single day. While high-intensity and high-volume training is not necessarily harmful, long periods of time (weeks or months) spent training in this mode, especially in non-elite athletes, can lead to inadequate or incomplete recovery, which can not only be very dangerous and detrimental to the body, but can also work directly against weight loss or fitness goals. If overtrained for long enough, an individual can completely crash, become chronically ill and fatigued, and be forced into complete rest for up to 3 months! Let’s look at three variables: 1) how overtraining occurs; 2) common signs of overtraining; 3) what to do if you’re overtrained.

1. How overtraining occurs:
• Inadequate recovery between training sessions
• Too much high intensity training, typically for too long
• Sudden drastic increases in distance, length, or intensity of exercise routine
• Daily intense weightlifting
• High volumes of endurance training
• No vacations, breaks, or off-seasons
• For athletes, excessive competition at high levels (i.e. trying to win every race)
• Inadequate nutrition, typically in the form of caloric and carbohydrate/fat restriction
• Insufficient sleep
• High amounts of stress and anxiety

2. Some common signs of overtraining:
• Excessive fatigue/lethargy, especially outside of the gym
• Loss of motivation, energy, drive, and enthusiasm to train
• Loss of sex drive
• Increased stress, anxiety, irritability and feelings of depression
• Insomnia, sleep problems, or nightmares
• Poor concentration, hyperactivity and an inability to relax
• Large fluctuations in weight
• Loss of appetite
• Constant excessively sore and/or weak muscles
• Increased susceptibility to sickness and injury
• Lower performance in competition, such as racing
• Higher resting heart rate and elevated resting blood pressure
• Longer periods of time for heart rate recovery to normal levels after exercise
• Diarrhea, nausea, or headaches
• Menstrual irregularities

If you experience just one or two of these symptoms, it does not mean you are overtrained. However, several symptoms taken together should be strongly indicated with overtraining, and you should take immediate action.  TrainingPeaks offers athletes and fitness enthusiasts the ability to closely monitor progress so that overtraining can become a topic of the past. By following a training plan that is well balanced and incorporates the critical recovery component, you can avoid many of the pitfalls associated with endurance training. In a recent blog Dirk Friel shows you how easy it is to watch for overtraining with PMC.

Train smart this year, give yourself the balance needed to get stronger and faster with professional plans, expert guidance and the tools available at TrainingPeaks. (View the complete article on Overtraining by Ben Greenfield).

TrainingPeaks contributor Ben Greenfield, M.S. PE, NSCA-CPT, CSCS,  is recognized as one of the top fitness, triathlon, nutrition and metabolism experts in the nation. For more information on coaching and training with Ben,  click here. Or send Ben an e-mail at ben@bengreenfieldfitness.com.

Hills: Sit or Stand?

August 27th, 2010

By Joe Friel

I was asked in a tweet last week if a rider should sit or stand when climbing a hill on a bike. I wish I could give a one-word answer, but that isn’t possible. As I’ve said so many times here in responding to reader questions, my answer must often start with “it depends.” This one is no difference. Here’s what this answer depends on…

Steepness. Low gradient hills are usually done seated. Steep hills often demand at least some standing. And the steeper the hill is, the more likely you are to stand up. When standing on a steep hill your body weight takes some of load off of the leg muscles. On the other hand, it tends to stress the aerobic system more. As a result you’ll probably breathe harder and have a higher heart rate when standing. But the steeper the hill is the less difference there will be when it comes to muscular- (seated) vs aerobic- (standing) system stress.

Hill length. The shorter the hill, the more advantage you will have by getting out of the saddle. You’ll create more power (again, because of adding body weight to the pedals) and get over it quicker.

Type of event. On low-gradient hills a triathlete or time trialist is less likely to get out of the saddle than a road racer. This is primarily due to the variably paced nature of road racing (as opposed to the steady-state riding of triathletes and TTers). If another member of the group is accelerating up the hill, you are often forced to accelerate to keep pace, or risk being dropped. A quick acceleration on a hill usually requires standing.

Body mass. The lower your body mass the more advantageous it is to stand on a climb. The greater your mass the better off you’ll be staying seated. One quick and simple way to come up with your body mass is to divide your weight in pounds (1kg = 2.2lbs) by your height in inches (1cm = 0.4in). So if you weigh 154 pounds (70kg) and you are 72 inches (180cm) tall your “mass” is 2.13 (154 / 72 = 2.13). I’ve found that for males the best climbers are at less than 2.0. These folks should stand a lot (think of Marco Pantani). Men in the range of 2.0 to 2.3 tend to alternate between standing and sitting a lot (for example, Lance Armstrong). Those men at 2.3 to 2.5 are best advised to sit a lot (like Miguel Indurain). Folks over 2.5 usually avoid hills. Women should use a scale which is about 0.2 lbs/in less (for example, under 1.8 are climbers).

So losing (or gaining) weight may change how you climb – and how well you climb. For example, a 1kg (2.2 lbs) loss of weight (bike and/or body) allows you to climb a 1000m hill with a 10% grade about 3.5 sec faster than when heavier at the same power output. Another way of looking at this is that 1kg is about 3w on a climb (so 1lb is roughly 1.5w).

Speed. At about 12mph (20kph) or faster staying seated and in an aero position if in a time trial or triathlon is usually a good idea. If your speed is less than 12mph then sitting up or standing is often better. This is affected, however, by the wind. A headwind essentially reduces your actual speed. So even if your speedometer says you are at 15mph (25kph) but there is a strong headwind then you are better off seated and even aero. While you may be more powerful above 12mph bike-wind speed when sitting up, your speed return on energy investment is not favorable due to headwind drag.

Fatigue. On long climbs, especially those late in the race, there may be some advantage to alternating standing and sitting to relieve muscle fatigue. Even if all of the other considerations listed here indicate you should stay seated, but the muscles you use to drive the pedals when seated are wasted, you may need to stand simply to give them a break.

Gearing. This is related to steepness. If you are on a hill but your gearing is so high that cadence bogs down you will need to stand in order to keep the gears ticking over.

Mountain bike. Standing causes the back wheel to lose traction when riding off-road on a steep hill on loose gravel or wet roots. So staying in the saddle is recommended for such climbs on a mountain bike. Pedaling while seated produces more even tension on the chain throughout the stroke and helps to prevent wheel slippage.

The good news here is that you can basically trust your instincts on hills in races. In most of the above situations your body will tell you when you need to stand or sit. It’s really not a great mystery – unless you overthink it. In this case, experience is the best teacher.

Training should involve both sitting and standing. Sitting will help to build greater muscular force for riding on flat terrain. It’s a bit like doing squats. Standing may boost your aerobic capacity, especially when the hill takes only two to three minutes to climb.

Joe Friel is a Co-Founder of Peaksware and author of many popular training books including, ‘The Triathlete’s Training Bible’, ‘The Cyclist’s Training Bible’ and ‘The Paleo Diet for Athletes.’ To learn more about his services including coaching and training camps based on his books visit www.TrainingBible.com. For training plans and additional information visit TrainingPeaks Plans.

Do You Tend to Overtrain? Let the Performance Management Chart Help Steer Your Way

August 19th, 2010

I recently heard from a TrainingPeaks subscriber who was looking forward to activating the new web-based Performance Management Chart (PMC) in an attempt to help him avoid his tendency to overtrain. This athlete has a perfect reason to start using the PMC, which could potentially prove out to be a saving grace.  PMC allows users to see trends in training progress as well as to spot potential overtraining.

This TrainingPeaks member sees the value in tracking a daily heart-rate based TSS (hrTSS) value as a way to better understand their daily workout benefits. In working through some questions he posed, it brought about an interesting list of tips I’d like to share.

Tips:

• Chronic Training Load (CTL) Starting Value- As long as you have previously recorded workouts within TrainingPeaks which includes heart rate, pace or power data, there is no reason to enter a starting CTL value. You’ll need to use the “Backfiller” feature and then I’d just let the PMC calculate the CTL for you.
• If you do not have any recorded workouts to establish TSS values from, you can estimate a starting CTL value by estimating your daily TSS average. If you tend to accumulate around 30 points for example per day then just enter a starting value of 30. The PMC chart will becom emore accurate as you start tracking your actual TSS values.
• Make sure you have your Heart Rate Zones set on the Zones page .
• You may need to use our “backfiller” feature within the PMC so you can set your Zones History and have TrainingPeaks calculate past TSS values. Be sure to set the date range and assign a HR Threshold value .
• There might be some days when you didn’t upload a heart rate file.  No problem as you can manually type in your estimated hrTSS into any days with missing TSS values and get credit for those workouts. The best place I’ve found to review daily TSS values is on the Spreadsheet tab. You can customize the spreadsheet to add a “Score” column and quickly run through your daily TSS values.
• PMC Zoom Feature: There is a really neat feature within the PMC which allows you to zoom into specific date ranges. I keep my default date range set at “Last 365 days” then I simply zoom into shorter ranges to see the details better. Here is a short video of my PMC where I zoomed in twice then snapped back out to the original Last 365.

I hope you find great value in using the Performance Management Chart. This concept of modeling training and performance has been well utilized at the highest levels of sport. The concepts are easy to comprehend since we can all relate to how fitness grows with consistency.  However, fatigue is a necessary evil if you wish to build fitness. For most people who are just looking to lose weight and improve their health, overtraining is  not an issue since their main goal is to simply get out and exercise on a regular basis. 

Good luck with your training and here’s to your health. Get out there and get your blood moving!

Dirk Friel

Co-Founder TrainingPeaks

Recent Oil Crisis Could Bring Triathlons to the Children in the Gulf

August 16th, 2010

Gulf Waters Triathlon Ready

Your vote can get the kids in the Gulf started in the triathlon lifestyle.  On Monday, August 2nd, TrainingPeaks Member Multisport Performance Institute (MPI), a multifaceted performance training company founded in early 2010, was notified that it was chosen to compete in Pepsi’s Good for the Gulf grant competition. This grant competition is an extension of Pepsi’s Refresh Everything project which began in January. In response to the recent oil spill disaster, Pepsi added this second grant program aimed specifically toward projects that directly affect communities on the Gulf Coast.

According to the CDC, childhood obesity has tripled over the past 30 years. Unfortunately, it is estimated that ten years from now this trend will continue.

Because MPI is dedicated to doing its part to combat this problem in the Gulf Coast community, it submitted a project to “fight youth obesity by introducing the sport of triathlon to children”. The goals of this project are to help fight obesity, educate our youth on the importance of nutrition and fitness, introduce children to the sport of triathlon, and encourage families to pursue healthy and active lifestyles. The request is for $25,000 to help MPI launch an initiative to educate the youth of our community on the importance of healthy living and fitness through the sport of triathlon.

With this grant money, MPI will be able to launch a local awareness campaign, host three youth triathlon races, conduct educational training sessions and start a youth triathlon club to encourage healthy living while also growing the sport of triathlon. The funds used for this inaugural year will allow MPI to continue this initiative in years to come by building the necessary framework for continued participation and growth.

The Good for the Gulf competition is decided in a democratic method where members of the public will vote online or via text for projects that they find most compelling. Voting began on Monday, August 2nd and will continue until August 31st and allows for ten project votes per day and the ability to re-vote each day throughout the competition. Winners will be announced on September 22nd.

The MPI team is employing all professional and personal connections as well as social and traditional media to ask the community to vote for the project . The votes are collected on a daily basis so vote every day and let’s get our kids moving.  TrainingPeaks is proud to support the future of triathlon through this incredible opportunity.  As you know, TrainingPeaks is dedicated to the ongoing support of motivated people who want to be more fit, have enhanced performance and who desire success with athletic and life goals.  When MPI asked us to vote for this project it was a no brainer.  MPI plans to use the TrainingPeaks system to teach the young triathletes about setting goals, tracking progress and recording success. We couldn’t be more excited to participate in the shaping of tomorrow’s superstars!

For more information on the project, contact Coaches John or Mark at 850-564-8745 or visit MPI directly .