6 Pillars of a Successful Triathlon Training Program

A good training plan is more than just an accumulation of volume or training miles. To create a successful program one must incorporate six components, all of which must be combined in the right way in order for an athlete to be successful. In addition to training, an athlete’s work and personal life needs to factor in for long-term success. There is no one template or plan that will suit all athletes - this is why experienced coaches need to be able to draw from each of the main components to create a cohesive plan that works for that athlete at that moment in time. A plan that works for one athlete cannot be duplicated for equal results from multiple athletes. Each athlete is an experiment of one that is continually evolving and changing. This is the greatest challenge for top level coaches.

6 Pillars of a Successful Triathlon Training Program

Tim Crowley

A good training plan is more than just an accumulation of volume or training miles. To create a successful program one must incorporate six components, all of which must be combined in the right way in order for an athlete to be successful. In addition to training, an athlete’s work and personal life needs to factor in for long-term success. There is no one template or plan that will suit all athletes - this is why experienced coaches need to be able to draw from each of the main components to create a cohesive plan that works for that athlete at that moment in time. A plan that works for one athlete cannot be duplicated for equal results from multiple athletes. Each athlete is an experiment of one that is continually evolving and changing. This is the greatest challenge for top level coaches.

The priority and importance of each of these components will vary depending upon the athlete, and will continually evolve year-to-year and within the training year itself. This is the key to developing long tern success and a healthy lifestyle.

The goal of this article is to make athletes aware of each of the six essential components of a triathlon training program and highlight the areas within each that should be addressed and mastered over time. Many of these components will overlap and supplement each other and are not exclusive or solely independent. You will notice that I have not included nutrition as one of the components, as this is in a category all its own. Also, note that the components are not listed in order of importance or priority as this order will change from athlete to athlete depending on their strengths, experience and what their own personal limiters are.

Here are the six components of an effective triathlon training plan:

?             Endurance

?             Movement economy

?             Strength/power

?             Speed

?             Mental fitness

?             Recovery/regeneration

Below we’ll take a look at each component and outline its importance within the training plan, as well as give ideas and insight on how to better incorporate the component into your short and long term goals.

Endurance

Triathlon is an endurance sport. When we think of the word endurance were often think solely aerobic endurance, which is in extremely important yet not the only factor in triathlon success.

Muscle endurance is the ability to generate force, power or speed over the duration of an event. Muscle endurance is just as important as aerobic endurance, as it often determines how fast an athlete can cover the race distance.

Areas of endurance which must be addressed include:

 Aerobic threshold – base level endurance work what is predominantly aerobic. Often thought of as base training.

 Lactate or anaerobic threshold - these are relative terms as many scientists cannot determine a universal definition for them. They can simple be thought of as the highest intensity (watts, pace, speed or HR) that can be held for 30-60 minutes.

Max VO2- often used in a lab, but not a good predictor of athletic success. Vo2 training is hard but yields improvement in all key endurance markers (specific strength, sustainable speed, power, threshold and improved endurance).

During your endurance sessions, include one or more intensity levels to increase the value of the training session. Here are a few examples

Bike- 15-20 min. warm up

4x5 Min max sustainable watts or effort with 5 min easy spin recovery ( VO2)

3x15 min just below current threshold/ 5 min easy spin

Rest of ride easy endurance

Progressive tempo run

30-40 min easy endurance pace/ HR

15 min progressive temp run, increasing pace every 3 min. begin at half marathon pace and the last 3 min at 1 mile pace (Vo2)

Movement economy

Our ability to move efficiently and with good biomechanics is a critical skill for all endurance athletes, and one which requires continual work throughout one’s career. Learning to move smoothly and efficiently whether in swimming, cycling or running will allow us to put more energy into going faster.  To use a car as an analogy, this is equivalent to improving your body’s MPG (miles per gallon).

Improving movement economy through better mobility and running drills is a form of “free speed”. Researchers have found that in runners, a quality strength training program can yield as much as a 5% increase in performance solely through an increase in running economy!

In addition, the ability to move smooth and efficiently decreases the incidence of overuse injuries due to compensations.

Some tools that can help your movement economy include:

?             Bike rollers - rollers force you to ride with a smooth pedal stroke and apply force evenly with both right or left feet.  To stay upright, you need to be smooth and relaxed.

?             Treadmill - tempo work and intervals on the treadmill give you the opportunity to work on smooth, quick cadence while staying locked into a specific speed. You can also feel a choppy stride and vertical oscillations  (excessive up and down movement) on a treadmill more than you will on the road or track.

?             Indoor trainers with erg mode  - Stationary trainers that have erg mode, will allow you to get comfortable and efficient and at a given wattage. Erg mode on trainers allows you to lock in a specific wattage, therefore as you vary cadence, you will feel the pedals load and unload. This will enable you to find your optimal cadence at race intensity. You will also find your more efficient cadence for a given wattage.

?             Videotape analysis - Video can be a useful tool for both athlete and coach. This is especially true with swimming where regular feedback will allow you to implement changes in your swimming economy.

Strength/Power

Many endurance athletes and coaches use strength training only in the off-season when cycling volume is often diminished due to cold weather or lack of daylight. It is especially important for athletes over the age of 30  to maintain a high-quality strength training plan. Research has shown that after the age of about 30, there is a loss of muscle mass of approximately .5 pounds per year, or 5 lbs. per decade regardless of how much aerobic training you do. A properly designed plan will help reduce muscle imbalances which are often the cause of overuse injuries. Off-season workouts should last about 30 to 40 minutes 2-3 times per week, with in-season plans lasting as little as 15 to 20 minutes 2 times per week.  A well-designed plan should include the following:

?             Movement skills (also helps with movement economy) - these include dynamic warm-up drills, running drills, and corrective exercises that may be individual to the athlete.

?             Core stabilization - this includes stabilization strength as well as stabilization endurance  and all planes of movement. Stabilization strength is the ability to eliminate unwanted movement, while stabilization endurance requires an athlete to stabilize over a specific length of time, or the duration of an event. Most full body multi-joint movements also include a stabilization component (see next).

?             Multi-joint movements should make up the bulk of the strength segment of your training plan:

?             Pushing - barbell and dumbbell pressing, both horizontally and vertically

?             Pulling - vertical pulling such as pull-ups, and horizontal pulling set such as TRX inverted rows which help offset the stresses on the bar caused by freestyle swimming and riding aero bars.

?             Single leg pressing - single leg strength variations such as one-legged squats or rear foot elevated split squats put less stress on the back, are specific to cycling and running, and involve the hip stabilizers which is critical for injury reduction.

?             Glute-dominant exercises - such as mini band walks, single leg hip lifts and single leg deadlifts. These exercises will strengthen the glutes , and take stress off the abductors and hamstrings which are common sites of overuse injuries.

?             Flexibility/soft tissue work - sessions should end with flexibility exercises and foam rolling exercises to reestablish muscle length and facilitate recovery. This only takes a few minutes but is important to include.

 It is advisable to work with a qualified strength and conditioning coach to help design an appropriate program that suits the athlete’s needs and time restraints.

Many programs for endurance athletes advocate high repetition set such as 15 reps or higher. It’s important to develop strength and power by using low-rep ranges (3 to 10 reps per set), as this will not only develop and maintain proper strength levels, but will also create stronger tendons and connective tissues, which are often the site of many overuse injuries.

Many athletes have home gyms where they have treadmills and indoor bike setups. This is the perfect place to create your own training center. With little space and minimal cost you can create a very effective home training facility. Some great tools to include would be:

?             TRX or suspension trainer

?             pull up bar and large stretch bands

?             dumbbells or power blocks

?             mini slide or Val slides

?             mini bands

?             stability ball

?             barbell or hex bar

Speed

To be fast you need to go fast...and for this reason it is essential to include some sort of speed training and all three disciplines throughout the year. This can be as easy as including weekly strides, short hill downs, or half pool sprints. For Masters athletes it is especially important since once speed is lost, it is much harder to regain.

As your training year progresses toward your key races you want your speed sessions to more closely model the specific demands of your race. This will differ depending on the distance of your races and your current race pace. Short-course athletes should do speed work in and around current 5k pace, while long course athletes will do “fast sessions “ at 10k to half marathon pace.

During cold winter months, stationary trainers and treadmills are great devices to work on speed since you can control all the variables. The treadmill can be used throughout the year to do “over speed” work which will allow you to run slightly faster than you would on a track, thereby training your body’s turnover in a controlled environment.

In the pool short sprints with plenty of rest or accelerations within longer sets will help maintain your swim specific power and speed. You can also use paddles, fins, and ankle bands in any combination to create variations in speed sets. These sets do not need to be long, and should not leave you exhausted. Small doses of speed throughout the year will help maintain the speed you have worked hard to acquire.

Mental fitness

I have included this is a major component since it is often a limiting factor for many athletes.

“You are what you think most of the time.”

The willingness to push through adversity, harsh training conditions and race stress is often what determines success in endurance sports. Competition is the opportunity to put into play all the things that you worked on in your training. It should not be a source of stress, but an opportunity to reach new levels. Too often athletes base their training or self-worth on race results, a group workout or the last interval that they’ve done, when it’s much more important to look at the entire body of work.

You owe it to your competition to bring your best every time you step on the start line. Never convince yourself you are “training through a race”, as this becomes a slippery slope when thing get difficult in a race.

Athletes cannot be afraid to push the limits in training and competition - and then be willing to fail, as this is part of the process. Just as swimming, cycling and running are skills, athletes need to develop the mindset and mental skills to be competitive and face adversity and subpar performances, and to learn from them to become better. You should learn something new every time you race. This is what make triathlon so special. After 27 years of competitive racing, I continue to learn.

Recovery/Regeneration

Training is not merely putting in as many miles as possible. It’s the ability to stress the body and recover so that it adapts to a higher level. The area of recovery/ regeneration has been widely embraced by the multisport community. It is easy to see people training and racing with compression garments, using all kinds of supplements and recovery drinks.

Other areas of recovery which may be as important but often overlooked are sleep, blood chemistry, and heart rate variability.

?             Sleep - this is the single best recovery method, but since it cannot be patented and marketed, it is often overlooked. The use of devices such as Zeo sleep monitors allow you to monitor the quality and quantity of sleep. It also allows for the tracking of deep sleep and REM sleep which is vital for both physical and mental recovery. Think of it as a power meter for sleeping. If you measure it, you can manage it.

?             Blood chemistry - several time a year, it’s important to track major markers in the blood. When certain key markers are low this will have a major effect on training and health. The ability to track key blood markers will allow you to optimize training and maximize race performance. It’s good to get initial markers done during the off-season and then periodically monitor them throughout the year to make sure there are no abnormalities.  Companies like Inside Tacker, uses 20 key markers specific to athletes, including iron, testosterone and potassium.

?             Heart rate variability - also known as HRV, measures your body’s parasympathetic nervous stress, which in short is your total stress package which includes training stress and all life stresses. Tracking HRV will allow you to better understand when to train hard and when to back off in an objective manner. This is a new and emerging technology which will guide the way we individualize our training plans in the future.  HRV has become very affordable due to apps you can use with your smartphone. Check out Ithlete, Bio-force or Omega wave for HRV tools.

It’s hard to narrow down all training components into just 6 categories, but my goal for this article was to give some thoughts and insights as to things that might be missing from general triathlon training plans. It is important to individualize training approaches and plans to the individual and their specific characteristics in order to create a healthy, functioning athlete who will be in the sport for a long time. I hope this article led you to explore some new areas of your own training that will open the doors for improved performance.

Sample beginner training week

 Based on the three workouts in each discipline +2 strength sessions

Tim Crowley is a USA T level III triathlon coach. He was a member of the 2008 Olympic coaching staff, and was the 2009 USAT Elite coach of the year. Tim is the owner of TC2coaching, and Triathlon Strength Coach.com . He is also the Head Strength and Conditioning coach at Montverde Academy. Tim is based out of Clermont Florida and can be reached at TC2coaching@gmail.com.