Archive for the ‘Training’ Category

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5 Myths About Sports Science Testing

Friday, September 3rd, 2010

Sports science testing has been around for many years and used by elite performers to enhance and measure their performance. Knowing your bodies “scorecard” allows you to make informed decisions about exercise and allows you to maximie your time to make sure that the training you do really counts. We decided to compile a few of the more common myths we hear about sports science testing below:

1. Sports Science Testing is Only for Professional Athletes

This is indeed false and I believe the basis for this comes from the fact that a sports institute (until Racers’ Toolbox came along) was the only place you could get testing. In my opinion testing is more useful for amateur athletes than it is for the professionals. Pros have a very good self awareness and a great ability to control their effort when they need to. The majority of amateurs do not and as a result often train at the wrong intensity which limits their ability to perform to their potential.

2. Testing is Hard

We offer 4 tests in our lab and only one I would class as hard as it is a maximal test. The others involve relatively light to moderate paced exercise or standing still in the case of body composition test. For the majority of the clients that we work with, the maximal test is of little use and we tend to point people away from this. If you can walk (or ride a bike) you can test.

3. Testing is Expensive

Just like you purchase insurance you should consider testing an investment. By understanding the numbers that testing provides, you are better able to craft a training plan that will reduce injury, illness and mental fatigue. Over the long run the testing will more than pay for itself by saving you money on physiotherapy and doctors bills.

4. Testing is Not Suitable for Weight Management

Body composition and fuel efficiency testing is an incredibly powerful combination to manage weight. One test tells you exectly how much fat you hold on your body and the other tells you how to burn it off and increase your metabolism.

5. Knowing Your Numbers is Enough

Knowing your numbers from testing is just the first step. Once you have your numbers you need to understand them and how they can be integrated into your training plan. At Racers’ Toolbox we pride ourselves on not only testing our clients, but teaching them so that they can make informed decisions on a daily basis about their training and lifestyle.

If you are contemplating a marathon, triathlon or are struggling to lose weight why not try something new and visit Racers’ Toolbox for a test. Our trained and experienced consultants are able to recommend the tests that will best help you achieve your goals.

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4 Simple Steps for Completing a Marathon

Friday, August 27th, 2010

Great, you signed up for a marathon but do you have any idea how to complete it in a way that wont leave you suffering for days afterwards? Below are a few key points you can use to put in place the structure you need to reach your marathon goal.

1. Determine Your Current Fitness Level

Most physicians check a few key metric when you go for your annual checkup. Blood pressure, heart rate and temperature among others depending on your age and medical history. Similarly, there are a couple of key things you should measure if you want to know your current physical fitness:

  1. Lactate Threshold – Whenever you exercise at light intensities, your body produces and clears lactate acid. As the intensity increases there comes a point when you are no longer able to clear it and it overflows into your bloodstream where it will quickly fatigue your muscles. The goal of training is to improve your ability to clear lactate acid at higher and higher intensities over time. The lactate threshold test is a 30 minute test consisting of 5 x 5 minute stages each at increasing intensity. During the 1 minute rest between each stage, a small finger prick blood sample is taken and analyzed. From this your lactate threshold and training intensity heart rate zones can be established.
  2. Fuel Efficiency – Fat provides twice as much energy per gram as carbohydrate and you can store 30,000 calories of fat in the body while only 2,000 calories of carbohydrate. By improving your bodies ability to use fat as energy, you will not only be able to manage your weight effortlessly, you will be able to maintain a higher pace for longer time. The fuel efficiency test is a 20 minute test that looks at how your body uses energy and from this your ideal heart rate range for burning fat can be established.

2. Plan Early

Your success lies in coming up with (and executing) an effective training plan. A marathon training plan should be from 16 – 20 weeks in duration, depending on your experience level and should have a minimum of 4 runs per week for beginners through to 6 runs per week for more experienced runners. Will you fail if you don’t apply these numbers? No, not necessarily, but your chances of becoming injured, ill or not racing at your best go up dramatically. Ask for the help of a coach or more experienced runner if you are not confident to put a plan together yourself.

3. Train the Right Intensity at the Right Time

This may surprise you, but a marathon is not a “fast” event. Even for the elite running under 2 hr 10 mins, this is not a fast pace compared to what they can run for 5km or 10km. You need to reflect this in your training and only show your body the pace at which you hope to complete the event. Any faster, and your bisy will not understand what you want it to do. Your body is a mchine so it is up to you to programme it correctly.

4. Get Comfy Gear

A marathon is a long distance and the training is tough. Be sure that you invest in the right gear so that you are as comfortable as possible during training and the event. Here are a few things you will need:

  1. Shoes – Make sure that you invest in a good quality pair of running shoes that suit your foot type. If you are unsure on your foot type there is plenty of information online and you can ask the sales assistant at your local shop (although take their advice carefully).
  2. Socks – Having a good pair of socks will help reduce the chances of blisters and abrasions.
  3. Shorts & Singlet - Choose something with minimal seams so that you avoid abbrassions and for guys, the dreaded bloodied nipples
  4. Heart Rate Monitor - A heart rate monitor may be the best investment you ever make but only if you know how to use. Generic formulas to calculate heart rate are not effective so make sure you invest in a round of testing (see point 1 above) to establish your ideal training intensity zones.

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Pilates – Now I See What The Fuss Is About!

Wednesday, August 18th, 2010

Slightly more than a month ago, Ben embarked on a personal quest to improve his flexibility by joining Focus Pilates sessions. It’s time to check back on his progression thus far.

Due to a bout of illness and a busy work schedule, Ben managed to attend only 3 weeks out of the 5 weeks of Pilates he had planned. However, the improvement shown is definitely significant and now he sees what all the fuss is about. Ben’s original goal was to place both hands flat on the ground by 1 January 2011 and as you can see, with 4 more months to go, he is already more than halfway there – as seen in the picture to the right, his fingertips can now slightly touch the ground. Not a bad effort for a busy man!

Ben will continue with the stretching and foam roller routine given to him by his instructor and come 1 January 2011 all signs point towards him having his hands flat on the ground.

For those interested in trying pilates, the guys at Focus Pilates are the best. They have 2 studios – one situated in the heart of the CBD at 20 Malacca Street and a fabulous new studio in Tiong Building in Orchard Road. You can visit their website at www.focuspilates.com.sg to find out more about their approach and services.

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Pilates – What’s All The Fuss About?

Monday, July 5th, 2010

Pilates is a physical fitness system that was designed in the early 20th century by Joseph Pilates, a gymnast born in Germany. He designed a system of exercises during the First World War with the goal of improving the rehabilitation program for many returning war veterans.

Joseph recommended a few precise movements emphasizing control and form to aid injured soldiers in regaining their health through strengthening, stretching, and stabilizing key muscles. The Pilates Principles were created to condition the entire body: proper alignment, centering, concentration, control, precision, breathing, and flowing movement.

Recently Ben from Racers’ Toolbox decided to see what all the fuss was about and started a pilates course at Focus Pilates to improve his poor flexibility and to ease the pain in his lower back he has been feeling since taking a full time desk job.

On his first visit to Focus, Ben was put through a series of tests by the instructor. The goal of these tests? To establish strengths and weaknesses from which the instructor can tailor a programme. The instructor identified that he is very tight through his lower and upper back and through his hamstrings. Ben will now undergo 4 more one on one pilates sessions with his instructor Danny and will then move to group classes. Total programme – 5 weeks.

The photo to the right is of Ben’s current flexibility. His goal? To place both hands flat on the ground by 1 January 2011. Check back in a few weeks to see how he is progressing in the next installment of the pilates blog.

For those interested in trying pilates, the guys at Focus Pilates are the best. They have 2 studios – one situated in the heart of the CBD at 20 Malacca Street and a fabulous new studio in Tiong Building in Orchard Road. You can visit their website at www.focuspilates.com.sg to find out more about their approach and services.

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Why Hydration is Critical

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

When you train it is absolutely critical that you remain hydrated.  Being well hydrated:

  • Assists with recovery
  • Avoids dehydration
  • Helps you optimize your training

This graph shows exactly this positive benefit of hydration in action.  The graph shows two separate training days (from one of our clients) and compares the effects of being hydrated as opposed to becoming increasingly dehydrated.  As you can clearly see, the blue line represents speed which is controlled by monitoring heart rate.  As the run went on, the clients speed had to decrease in order to keep the heart rate in the correct zone, due to dehydration effects.  In contrast the pink graph shows the client drinking water during the session, and over the course of the session was able to maintain a much higher average speed (at the given heart rate).

So why did this happen?  When you become dehydrated your blood gets thicker (because the plasma loses its water content).  This is medically known as increase viscosity.  As the blood gets thicker it also becomes harder to pump to your muscles and needs to beat faster to deliver the essential oxygen to keep going.  Hence the athlete will either need to slow down or can continue at this pace, which could lead to adverse training effects.

If you apply this principle over several weeks and months of consistent training, a person who continually stays well hydrated will get in many more quality hours of training than someone who is dehydrated.

Now the question is who do you want to be?

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Recovery 101

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

Any endurance sport is tough and the training for such an event can be demanding. Maximising your recovery from training will maximise what you get out of the sessions you are doing. This is crucial for all working athletes who are busy juggling a job, family and training as you want to get the most out of the time you commit to your training plan.

Below are a few things you can look at doing to increase your recover rate from training:

Ice and Cold Water Therapy
Most elite athletes will tell you that stretching and massage on a regular basis will keep their muscles long and in good condition. Keeping your muscles long and knot free is essential when you are trying to train hard day after day.

Just remember to keep it light after a hard training session or race as deep massage can slow recovery especially if you do not get regular massage.

Off Road Running
Running is a high impact (not quite like rugby) sport. One way to help reduce the impact on your joints and tendons is to run on grass or on softer surfaces. By staying off the road I have found that this reduces post training muscle soreness and allows me to train harder more often.

Stretching and Massage
After a run, run a cold hose over your legs (especially your shins) or sit your legs in a swimming pool or bath. This is an effective way to reduce fluid build up. You can also use ice but make sure you wrap the ice in a wet towel to avoid ice burn.

Elevation
Elevating your legs after training helps to reduce fluid build up. Combined with Cold Water or Ice Therapy this is very effective.

Contrast Therapy
Contrast therapy is where you hose down or soak your legs in cold water (like ice or cold water therapy.. see above) and then jump into a hot shower or a spa pool. Once you feel your legs heating up and are red with blood jump out and put them back in the cold water. Repeat several times.

Nutrition
It has been said that within 30mins of finishing training you should eat to start replacing all the nutrients that you lost while exercising. I usually find this hard to do especially after a hard session so I tent to take a shake with a mix of both carbohydrate and protein. Many companies make these recovery shakes including SIS, Hammer nutrition and Power bar and you can get them at most cycle shops. If you also find eating hard after a session then I definitely recommend that you try one of these.

Compression
The use of compression socks and tights is the latest trend in recovery. The pressure that compression socks put onto the veins, arteries and muscles helps push blood through narrow veins; therefore, increasing the flow of blood and returning it to the heart as it should.

Relaxation and Sleep
This is my favorite form of recovery. Aim to schedule harder sessions on days when you can relax and aim to get more sleep. It has also been proven that short sleeps of up to an hour after training can help increase recover by increasing circulating hormones.

Ben

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New Years Resolutions

Thursday, January 7th, 2010

Burn FatWell here we are in 2010 already (happy new year by the way) and if you are like me, you may have made a resolution to lose a little bit of fat (a little bit more than before the holiday season started in my case) and trim up.

Here is what I plan to do to get the fat down:

1. Spend more time in my fuel efficiency zone
Exercising at a very low intensity is a great way for me to burn fat. By spending time doing my training at this low intensity early in the year, my body becomes more efficient at metabolizing fat and essentially makes me a more efficient and faster (not to mention leaner) athlete in the long run. When I combine this with step 2 (see below), I become a fat burning machine and not only am I effectively burning fat when I exercise (at any intensity), I am burning a higher amount of fat when doing nothing. This is what will help me reach my goal.

You can retrain your body using a few simple techniques to become a fat burning machine.

2. Try to eat organic and less processed foods
This for me is a tricky one and is most definitely a work in progress. I have a very sweet tooth and am struggling to replace my soft drinks with water and my chocolate / sweets and fast food with less processed, less surgery foods.

Foods such as cheese, whole milk, butter, french fries, burgers, sweets, energy bars, and soft drinks are what are known as energy dense foods as they are very high in calories relative to their size or volume. This has been a typical diet of mine for the past 20 years.

Now that I am older (and wiser I hope) I am trying hard to change my nutrition habits to eat more nutrient dense foods such as fruits, vegetables, fish and lean cuts of meat. I am hoping that along with the weight loss benefits, I will see an improvement in my energy, complexion and focus.

So far the plan seems to be working, since 1 Jan when I started this, I have already lost 4mm of fat and am feeling a little more energetic. This doesn’t sound like much but it is pretty good in just 1 week. I am now at 61mm of fat and the goal is to get back down to <50mm by 21 March (half ironman). We will see how it goes.

All the best to everyone for a happy, healthy and safe 2010!

Ben

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Getting The Balance Right

Monday, December 21st, 2009

load vs recoveryIn the last post we discussed the importance of planning and making sure that you complete each of the training phases to achieve your race goals.

In this post we will add the next layer to building an effective training plan and that layer is known as balance. Getting the right balance in your  training plan is important because if you mess this up, you can be left broken, tired or overtrained.

The first part of balance applies to the amount of load versus recovery throughout your progression. For most working athletes a 2 week load, 1 week recover protocol is good to follow. Some elite age groupers and professionals use a 3 week load, 1 week recover cycle although I think this is an over kill for most people.

Once you are happy with this progression the next thing to do is balance your week. You want to avoid having “like” sessions close together. Examples of this can be hill sessions next to hill sessions or speed sessions next to speed sessions as this does not allow for adequate recovery. Triathletes have added difficulty as this rule also applies to sports. It is best to keep swims away from swims, bikes away from bikes and so on. As you can see it can really be a balancing act.

It is important to understand that everyone responds differently to training and that most of what is mentioned above will be learned through trial and error over an extended period of time. Once you have your first plan, pay attention to how you feel and take notes. This can be useful when planning your next build up.

Happy training and happy holidays everyone.

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So How? Planning Your Season.

Monday, December 14th, 2009

successThis year is over (from a racing stand point) and now is the perfect time to begin planning for the coming season. The thing is, do you know how and what to plan?

When planning, understanding progression and the different phases of training is critical to maximising your time and getting the results you desire.

There are 3 main phases that all build ups (to peak) should go through.

Phase 1 – Endurance
Endurance should be the first phase of any training plan. In this phase the goals are to improve basic fitness, improve technique, reduce body fat, improve fuel efficiency, improve recovery rate and improve tolerance of training.

This is done and summed up by doing long, steady (aerobic) training.

Phase 2 – Strength Endurance
Strength endurance follows endurance and is in my opinion the most overlooked and important phase of training. In this phase the goal is to continue to build you milage / duration, increase strength, reduce body fat, improve fuel efficiency, improve recovery rate and improve tolerance of training.

This done and summed up by long, steady (aerobic), hilly (or paddles, bands and drag shorts in swimming) training.

Phase 3 – Speed
The last phase in the training progression is speed and I caution that speed is a relative term and is probably better described as race pace training. There is nothing fast about an ironman or ultra marathon (unless your are a pro) so there is no point doing 100m sprints to improve your “speed”. The speed needs to be specific to the distance of your event.

The goal of the speed phase is simulate race conditions and intensity so that on race day your mind and body has “been there, done that”.

Now that you understand the progression of training it is important to understand the importance of load versus recovery and how you need to balance this. Check back next week to read more on this.

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Get Your Numbers

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

With roughly 16 weeks to the 2010 addition of Ironman 70.3 Singapore now is a great time to be starting a focused build up so that you can be at your best on race day. This time of year is great for planning and even the pros have started their preparation for the 2010 season.

One of these pros is a kiwi guy named Kris Gemmell (world #8) with whom I spent a lot of time training and racing over the years. Kris is an amazing athlete and a great guy.

This is what Kris had to say in his recent blog about his preparations.

“I’m currently down in Christchurch with the Triathlon NZ high performance squad, We have been busy getting some early season testing done to find some baselines for the training over the summer. It’s always hard to max out in these tests at this time of year, but its very helpful for both coach and athlete to get the necessary feedback that will help with the overall design of the program going forward throughout the season.”

Like Kris, now is the perfect time for you (if you are racing 70.3 or any early season events) to visit the lab and get your baseline figures. When we have the numbers, we can craft a very specific training programme that will help you achieve your goals. The other cool thing with testing is that it allows for very accurate tracking of improvements. If you are a curious (analytical) person then you will love the data we provide.

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