Trimarni Coaching and Nutrition

With memorial day just around the corner, warmer temps are soon to follow. As the summer begins, heat-related issues during exercise become more common. Before I discuss the tips to help you safely exercise in the heat, it's important to understand how heat and humidity affect your body during exercise. As you exercise, your muscles create heat. To keep your body safe as you begin to build up internal heat, your body increases your sweat rate to remove heat from the inside of your body – this happens through evaporative cooling. Overtime, as you become dehydrated (from fluid loss), blood volume decreases. As a result, blood gets thicker. And the more blood going to the skin means less blood going to your heart which means less blood to your working muscles. To maintain cardiac output (the amount of blood pumped by the heart per minute), heart rate increases in order to supply the working muscles with blood. But due to a decline in blood availability (because of cooling), less blood...

As you go from winter to spring to summer, it takes much more effort and energy to maintain a "normal" pace as the temperature rises. As a way to keep your exercising body safe in the heat, your body increases your sweat rate to remove heat from your body through evaporative cooling. As you become dehydrated (from fluid loss), blood volume decreases. In turn, more blood going to the skin means less going to your heart. To maintain cardiac output (the amount of blood pumped by the heart minute), heart rate increases in order to supply the working muscles with blood. But due to a decline in blood availability (for cooling), less blood is available to go to the working muscles. When the body can no longer take care of all of its responsibilities (remember - all of this is happening so you don't die in the heat), your body begins to shut down to keep you safe. If you ignore the signs of overheating, heat builds up in your body, your core temp increases and you are at risk for...

If you are a long distance athlete, you've likely experiences several pronounced and uncomfortable symptoms related to unsuccessful fueling/hydration methods. Headache, dehydration, swelling, bloating, sleepiness, lethargy, lack of appetite, nausea, chills, fatigue, deep muscle aches, moodiness and dizziness are not just performance limiting but they are also extremely risky for your overall health.  Proper fueling during intense or long duration exercise can help you sustain a desirable effort to maximize training adaptations.  Proper fueling/hydration also minimizes the stress load to help keep your body in better health. Proper fueling/hydration in training also helps you practice fueling strategies for competition as you can train the gut to tolerate nutrition while exercise at various intensities. Contrary to the opinion of other nutrition experts, I'm a huge proponent of prioritizing sport drinks during training. I've also had great success prioritizing liquid calorie...

You may be able to get away with haphazard fueling and hydration strategies in the cold winter months but if you are experiencing warmer temps, now is not the time to "wing it" when it comes to utilizing sport nutrition during your long workouts. If you've ever struggled with understanding your carbohydrate, sodium and fluid needs during a long workout, you've likely experiences several pronounced, uncomfortable and performance-limiting symptoms related to underfueling, overfueling, dehydration and overhydration such as headache, no urge to urinate, sleepiness, lack of appetite, nausea, bloating, fatigue, muscle aches, moodiness and dizziness. Proper fueling during intense or long duration exercise helps you sustain a desirable effort to maximize training adaptations. You can also practice fueling strategies for competition and train the gut to tolerate nutrition while exercise at various intensities. Contrary to the opinion of other nutrition experts, I...

A hearty bowl of stew in the winter and a refreshingly cold bowl of fruit in the summer. Have you noticed how your appetite changes based on the season? This change is partly as a result of the body needing less calories to function at an optimal body temperature - less energy is needed to maintain homeostasis. Even though in the heat, the body slows down a bit to try to conserve energy to not overheat, if you are an athlete who trains high volume/intensity and you only listen to your appetite to direct you when to (or not to) eat, your loss of appetite can result in a massive energy deficit. While you may think that this energy deficit will help with weight loss/body composition changes, training in an extreme energy deficiency affects normal body functioning, which can affect metabolism, immunity, heart health, bone health, menstruation, endocrine health, recovery, muscle strength and power and mood changes. Another reason for a loss of appetite in the heat relates to ...

The warm weather is finally here! While it's great that we no longer have to bundle-up in layers of clothing before an outdoor workout, there is great physiological strain imposed by training in hot conditions. In a recent interview with the Epson Salt Council, I provided my  5 tips for adjusting to warm weather workouts . Since this topic is one that I discuss quite often with my nutrition and coaching athlete, here are a few blog posts specifically discussing the topic of hot weather training/racing: Acclimatization - 8/09 Perfect Cooling Towel Review - 9/15 Challenge Williamsburg Race Report - Temp Real Feel 124 degrees - 6/15 Simple Sport Nutrition tweaks - Swim 8/16 Simple Sport Nutrition tweaks - Bike 8/16 Simple Sport Nutrition tweaks - 8/16