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Showing posts from March 3, 2019

An overlooked aspect of triathlon

Fitter, faster, stronger, leaner, more powerful, improved endurance.  These are among the top words that triathletes will often use to describe what needs to happen in training over the course of a season in order to be more athletically successful. While structured, periodized training can help an athlete develop sport specific fitness, it's especially important to have sport specific skills. If proper skills are not practiced regularly in training, you may struggle to reach your athletic potential on race day - despite putting in the physical work. Most triathletes are great at working out but when it comes to skill specific work, it's either overlooked, pushed aside or not valued. With an infatuation with metrics, distance and intensity, many triathletes overly obsess with gaining fitness only to find that skills don't match fitness. Without a proper skill set, there's a lot left on the table when it comes to performing at your best on race day. This is why it

Don't fear dietary fat

In our body-obsessed society, there’s a lot of confusion on dietary fat. “Fat makes you fat” has controlled the population mindset for many decades. Thankfully, nutrition research has evolved to prove that dietary fat, in the right amounts and types, is important to a healthy functioning body. In my varied and nutritionally-balanced diet, you'll find olive oil, eggs, avocado, nuts, seeds, 2% dairy, cheese and peanut butter. Yum, yum, yum.  Due to its slow digestion time, fat may contribute to satiety, delaying the onset of hunger pangs, cravings and overeating. Fat also acts as an energy reserve, provides fat soluble vitamins, supplies essential fatty acids, offers thermal insulation and protects vital organs.  Because it’s easy to overeat on delicious high-fat cakes, cookies and ice cream, it’s important to prioritize fat from natural sources, primarily plants.  Bottom line: there’s no need to fear fat in your diet. So what about the Keto diet?  On the surface, t

How to deal with a bad workout

I always feel grateful and thankful for the ability to train like I do but sometimes I have bad workouts. Last week I had a string of three days of going into my training sessions feeling energized, positive and excited to train, but when it came to the workout itself, I felt blah. Thankfully, I got out of my funk and followed it up with three quality, feel-great-days of training. Ups and downs are part of training so it would be a mistake to assume that every workout needs to be amazingly awesome or easy to complete. As an athlete, it's assumed that you have high expectations for yourself and you probably want to do well (or impress your coach) every time that you train. But you need to realistic that not all of your workouts will be great. Plus, you can't let a workout put you in a bad mood. Progress is not about always having perfect or great workouts. Many times, progress is not something that is felt on a day-to-day basis. As much as we want every workout to feel g