Trimarni Coaching and Nutrition

I have a long history with strength training. I think back to my early years of competitive swimming when was around 12 yrs of age, in the gym (supervised by our coach), lifting weights with my swim team. Since then, I can't think of a time in my life when I wasn't strength training. In the later years of college, I interned with the Strength and Conditioning coach of the UK male and female basketball teams. I then went on to graduate school to study Exercise Physiology to become a Strength and Conditioning Coach. Although my career choice has changed since then, I still have a strong passion for Strength and Conditioning. Although nothing beats the endorphin rush of cardio training, I love the feeling of feeling strong. You never realize how weak you are until you are forced to lift weight (or move your own body weight through specific exercise). While I have had my fair share of soft-tissue related injuries, I have never had a broken bone or stress fracture, and I'd ...

Right now at this moment, how would you describe how you feel about your body in relation to your training/workout regime? Do you use the words exhausted, fatigued, overwhelmed, mentally checked-out, drained, injured, frustrated, unhealthy, unhappy or weak? Or do you use the words strong, healthy, clean, energized, fit or happy? Now think back 2,3 or 6 months ago? Do you feel that you are now in a better place nutritionally, physically, mentally and emotionally with your active lifestyle compared to the past? Between 2013-2014, my body completed 4 Ironman distance triathlons in 15 months. I am extremely grateful to my body for being so healthy and strong to allow me to live such an extreme active lifestyle. And in 6 months, I am so excited to be racing in my 4th Ironman World Championship and 10th Ironman with Karel in Kona, Hawaii. After taking 6 weeks completely off training during my off-season from Sept - November, I knew that in order to keep my body healthy and make performan...

At Trimarni Coaching and Nutrition , we realize that no two athletes are alike. We (as athletes) all have different health and fitness goals, we live different lifestyles (with different stressors, obligations and time constraints) and we all come from different athletic backgrounds. When it comes to coaching an athlete, there is nothing like a personalized training plan with specific workouts and zones to support your individual athlete development. Even better is a training plan that caters to your every day life so that you never feel guilty about the 3 M's - missing workouts, modifying workouts and making-up workouts. An experienced coach understands that preparing an athlete for a race is more than just being a great workout writer. Depending on a coaches background or specialty area, coaches are often required to be experts in many areas or they bring in the other experts in for a "team" approach to coaching - sport RD, exercise physiologist, sport psycholog...

source "One of the most important functions of muscles and tendons in running is to store energy. Like a pogo stick, your body can store energy from impact and then release it to propel your body forward. As such, a large portion of your propulsive energy actually comes from the energy stored in your legs from impact previously made with the ground. This is why you can leap higher and longer if you do a “countermovement” before jumping, like swiftly bending your knees, which allows you to reach much higher into the air than slowly bending your knees. While this “stretch-shortening cycle” has been known about for some time, standardized methods of training this reflex are fairly new. Improvements in your muscles’ ability to elastically store energy have obvious implications for runners, as more stored energy means you can maintain a given pace using less overall energy. In short, your efficiency would improve. Plyometrics are exercises that aim to develop strength ...

When Karel and I were dating in 2006-2007, I remember the first time when I invited Karel to the gym with me to do my plyometric workout. As a cyclist, Karel didn't do much (if any) strength training as he didn't belong to a gym and didn't own any weights at home. All of Karel's training to get faster, stronger and more powerful was on the bike. Although I met Karel with a fresh "Master of Science in Exercise Physiology" degree, my love for strength training (and knowledge) started when I was around 12 years old, when I started competitive swimming. Our coach wasted no time, even at a young age, for us all to belong to Gold's Gym where we would all do our 30 minute strength workout before heading back to the pool for our two-hour swim  workout. In High School, I continued to strength train and perform various plyometric and band work before workouts and then through college, the plyometric and strength routines became more complex as I found mysel...

You were born to make mistakes. No one is perfect. Some of your greatest achievements will grow out of the mistakes that you made in your past.  As an athlete, I like to think of mistakes as learning opportunities. There are no bad decisions but instead opportunities to adjust, learn and to improve. When Karel raced his first IM in Lake Placid in 2013, he told me he made a few rookie mistakes. He grabbed his wrong transition bag from the hanging rack of bag as he was entering the T2 changing tent so he had to run back to the rack to exchange his goggles and wetsuit for his run shoes and visor. On the bike, he took a swig of his gel flask and put the flask upside down in his tri top pocket...opened. A few miles later, his leg felt incredibly sticky with every pedal stroke. It wasn't until he reached back for his flask that he noticed that his entire flask emptied out in his tri pocket and essentially onto the side of his body.  Now I wouldn't call this rookie mistake...

Why do I need the Trimarni 8-week transition plan?  To improve next year's performance by making good use of the transition phase between 'off season' and your first phase of triathlon specific training.   The transition plan is designed specifically to help you develop the proper skills to progress smoothly throughout the year. Consider this the blueprint of building a strong house for your body.  What makes this plan different than my regular base building triathlon training plan?  Transition plan highlights: -The swim focus is on improving your aerobic threshold, drills, kicking, upper body strength and form and improving your aerobic capacity. -For the bike workouts, you will see some high intensity intervals mixed with skills/drills and cadence work. You will be doing single-leg drills, heavy leg drills and a little higher volume bike training on the weekends to improve aerobic threshold. -The run workouts in this phase wi...

Running is  a great stress reliever but it also puts a lot of stress on the body. Without a strong core, your gait is likely to be negatively affected. Cycling is a great non-weight bearing sport but sitting on a bike and pedaling doesn't translate to a strong core. If you love to swim,bike, run to be faster, you also have to train to be stronger. Get stronger before you go faster before you go longer. Every time you land your foot on the ground while running or when you take a pedal stroke, you are relying on your pelvis, abdominal muscles, hips and lower back to work properly as you move your body in a forward motion.  If you are currently training for an event and find yourself neglecting core/hip/glute strength work in your cardio training plan, it's time to carve out 10-20 minutes, a few times per week, to build a strong core.  Sure, training swimming, biking and running may make you a faster triathlete but putting in the miles won't not necessarily...