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Showing posts from February 25, 2018

Attempting to reach your race weight - part II

A change in your body composition to ensure a performance improvement ( race weight) should be the  outcome  of a well planned and executed fueling and training plan, alongside a healthy and balanced, non-restrictive daily diet. Just because you lose weight or achieve a certain body fat percentage, this doesn't mean that you are physically, mentally, emotionally and nutritionally prepared to perform well on race day. You may "look" a certain way but this doesn't mean you will preform a certain way. When a healthy change in body composition is desired, it should not involve restriction, elimination and obsessive strategies. While some sports may reward a "leaner" build, this doesn't mean that you can't be successful in your sport with a little more cushion with your strong bones. As it relates to the sport of endurance triathlon, you are not penalized if you are carrying around a little more body fat on your frame for a strong body can better tole...

Still trying to reach your "race weight"?

In a media driven world, body image has become a critical issue as it relates to athletic performance and health. Whereas one would think that athletes would be obsessed with eating enough to perform well in training sessions to prepare for race day, athletes are constantly worried about eating too much, constantly obsessing with being "too big/fat" or not looking like an athlete. Far too many athletes are training for leanness instead of training for performance. With the idea of body weight and performance having an inverse relationship (the less you weigh, the better you will perform), you may be attempting to reach your race weight in order to be thinner, leaner and lighter for race day. With so many misguided strategies on sport nutrition and daily eating for athletes, it doesn't surprise me when I see/hear athletes intentionally underfueling/undereating in an attempt to lose weight or change body composition.  As it relates to your  healthy weight,  it's v...

How to stop overeating

If you have ever skipped a meal (or snack), you've probably noticed extreme hunger later in the day with a good chance of overeating late into the evening hours. Overeating (and undereating) contributes to low energy and low motivation - neither of which make it easy to reach performance, health or body composition goals. As it relates to training, anytime you overeat, there's a chance that you will feel uncomfortable and tired - you may even feel guilt or shame. None of the mental and physical effects of overeating will help you perform well in your upcoming workouts, especially if you don't do what you know you should do as it relates to pre and during fueling and adhering to your workout prescription. As an example, skipping meals during the day can lead to low energy before your evening workout, possibly forcing you to skip the workout due to low motivation or trying to perform the workout with no energy in the tank. Eating too much late at night before a long morn...

Long workouts/weekend training reflections

Resilience and mental toughness come to mind when summarizing this past weekend of training. Here's the run down: Saturday: Bike: 4:05 ride (70 miles) with 5700 feet elevation gain and one tough 4.5 mile (35 minute) climb up Sassafras mountain. Prior to that climb, we did a hard effort up to Rocky Bottoms - around 4 miles of climbing. Run off the bike: 2 x 15-20 min smooth effort running with 6 x 30 sec of hill bounding (with 45 sec rest) in between the intervals (total: 48 minutes, 5.64 miles, 407 elevation gain PM run: Smooth running for 43 minutes, 4.94 miles, 276 elevation gain) Sunday:  AM Run: Smooth endurance on rolling hills for 1:45, 12.7 miles, 617 elevation gain PM group swim: 1 hour/2800 yards Prior to this weekend, I had a solid week of training - a lot of frequency workouts. As the week went on, I was carrying around a lot more fatigue and working through a bit more niggles than normal but that's all to be expected at this point in my training block. Strengt...