The Art behind the Coaching Science

„What more can you possibly much better do except write a great training plan for swim, cycle and run, so that you made him reaching the finish line for his first Ironman in only 10 hours and 15 minutes?! What is the big Philosophy behind of it?!”

I got this question from the triathlon club manager, where my client was a member I felt some lack of trust and a certain quantity of frustration. All the other six athletes from this club, that were racing in this event, were there for their 2^nd or 3^rd Ironman and were trained for over 18 months for their best finish time of ten hours. My client was doing his first full distance now in Klagenfurt. The others had spent money on training camps, my client did it at home along the Danube. I told him: "If you have the money and want to go to that training camp, do it. However, it is not a must. Do it only if you think it is crucial for your performance, otherwise it is not the right strategy." 
My client started triathlon 2 years ago and after 3 x IM 70.3 he decided to try the full distance.

My reply to the triathlon club manager .... at the end of this post.

All I could say resumes itself to few words:  

Triathlon Coaching is an Art and behind this Art is Science.

Every coach and trainer develop in time his/her personal way of coaching over time. It is true that a good coach has merits in the results of their athletes, but the most part of the responsibility remains on the athletes’ shoulders. The coach/athlete paring must b the right one, that is one of the keys. When the match is the right one, then the communication is working and the understanding level flows on to the both sides of the team athlete/coach. In order to build a great team you need time together. I would say, a real good team needs at least one year together.

On the surface, triathlon training looks very simple: Go swim! Go riding! Go running!

However, there is a much deeper level to triathlon training. You need both components: the Art and the Science. The emotion and the techniques. The passion and etermination. And the experience as an athlete.

Most athletes entering the journey of trainig for a half or full Ironman without a trainer are going on the principle: “More is better.” Years ago, as a newer athlete in this discipline, I tended to believe this as well. As this had been what I always heard from the  “Big Guys”. In a country where in 2011-2014 there were only about five women absolving this distance and having almost no idea about training plans, this was all I could get. The joy of being there at the start was the most important thing. The joy of reaching the finish line was a pure emotional luxury and the intensity of that is undescriptible, believe me!

When I became a coach I had to understand that “Less is more!” And the most relatable example is, in a race where you are competing for over 12-14 hours, it is better to eat less than too much. If you eat less, you have plenty of possibilities to refuel. If you eat too much, you have plenty of chances to get sick and to stop the race!” It makes sense, right?

During a workout your body is under stress, it suffers. Many of you think that repeating that workout, repeating that stress and more, you get the body adapted to it. And this is a huge mistake, because the body adapts to the stress only during the recovery time, allowing the body – read about the supercompensation principle (SUPERCOM) – to become stronger than it was before. This means, the next workout can be longer or more intensive, then you recover, the next workout will be lower in volume and intensity, then you recover, then the next workout will be higher in volume and/or intensity than the pre-previous one. Level 1 of stress – recovery – Level 2 of stress – recovery – Level 1 up to Level 1,5 of stress – recovery – Level 3 of stress – recovery – Level 2 up to Level 2,5 of stress – recovery  - etc. etc. etc.

The recovery time is just as important as the workout itself. When you work all day and are under stress, your energy levels decrease. In order to adapt and to put back your energy reserves, you need to stop the work, eat and go to sleep. This is how life works.

Over the weeks, months and years of training (so named macro-, micro-cycles) you have to keep in mind that your body adapts to the stress (volume and intensity), so you have to progressively and permanently increase the stress factor if you want to become faster and more resistant or both. People who are jogging over 2-3 years on the same route, in the same amount of volume and at same intensities are wondering why they do not get thinner or/and faster. Because their body adapted to that stress, get used to it and relaxes, no stimulus is coming, no better results from the same boring repetition. If you want results, than you have to understand that the body needs a challenge and you can manipulate the way you challenge it by increasing the volume, the intensity and/or the frequency.

This does not mean you  endlessly increase all these components, no way! On the one hand, doing so, you will not resist and the result will be  increased injury risks, overtraining, then depression, then burnout, then end of this journey and start of another journey, where joy is a strange word.

Aside the whole science, the art of training is the Master Key behind a training plan. It is about the optimal distribution of resources during the season. This means you really need a suitable training plan with all components on it:
# Strength
# Swimming
# Running
# Cycling
# Recovery
# Fueling & Nutrition
# Mental training - my focus in coaching

It is a great idea to understand the goal of every workout, of every week training, of every microcycle. You need a structure in training and in your whole life, you need to understand the importance of alternate stress with rest, when, how long resting, what recovery means, when to sleep, when to use active recovery and so on. 
To the science behind the art of coaching belongs the techniques and the very specific season training plan phases based on the race schedule. You start with basic training (building up power – strength -, endurance and muscular endurance). Then you go on with specific training due to each discipline (techniques), then the race-specific phase (simulations, B and C races), tapering, RACE DAY, recovery. This is the general overview of the training schedle, without going into too many details here.

The difference between being an excellent technical coach vs. a good technician and a good “artist” type coach, can be seen on the state of the athletes before start, during the races and after the finish line. It can be simply read on their faces and reactions.

A very good technical trainer can coach bigger groups of athletes at the same time. He understands that every of them is unique, but he doesn’t make substantial differences in their trainings plans which are pretty much fast the same for all of them. 

To use the science and the art of coaching in the same time needs time. A lot of time. 
From my point of view, the art of coaching individuals (triathlon is not a team sport, this is for sure!) comes in when you:

- use the wide holistic range in coaching, 
- treat every single athlete in the way he/she needs,
- clarify very seriously from the beginning the goals, motivation base and races schedule, as well as the communication channels/hours/frequency/kind,
- Educate your athletes on how to understand the role of developing the self-awareness for their body so that they can take the right decisions at the right moment during difficult phases/moments in training/races and life too,
- Introduce them to all other components of their training plan and make sure they understand the importance of all of them (mental training, recovery with all possible forms of it - active, passive, massage, sauna, sleeping, eating etc.-, stretching, strength, mobility, coordination),
-  Properly manage the recovery issues recognising in due time the first signals of overtraining (so, less is more, again!) if the case (when taking over new athletes you might have this issue with them),
- Adapt the training plan and the stress level to the life style the athlete is having, because most of the hobby triathletes do have a regular job, a family, a business, a household and a lot of other stress streams in their life,
- Respect your life in the same time and set limits.

These are just a few of the ingredients.
So, as every athlete is unique, the same about coaches and trainers.

As I already mentioned, the right matching is exactly that Master Key that leads to geh deired success. At the massage school I have learned a golden rule: “If you feel the client who entered your praxis has not the right energy field for you, don’t do it, do not run the massage session with him! Find a way to communicate this to him or, after the first session let him know a second session is not possible anymore and refer him to another specialist. It is bad for you and it is bad for the client, as massage is a energy transfer.”. The same in coaching, believe me! It is a big deal of matching in a way.

My motto is: Let your Mind outside!

So, going back to the question that started this post, I have replied to him: "Hire a holistic coach and find out! :-)" 

Wishing you to find the perfect coach and to have the perfect training and racing season!

www.sportyourlife.at

Feed-back and share are welcome, thank you!
Be flexible, be open minded, put questions! On-line coaching in a very effective way is one of my services.
office@sportyourlife.at 

Good to read:
Off Season for triathletes 
Running in the dark
Maximize your off-season time 

Doing the best of your off-season time (triathlon)

Maybe read this first: Off Season for triathletes
 

Talking about triathletes, especially the long-distance guys&ladies:

We all know that when a full season goes to the end, we try a mixture of feelings:

# Satisfied or even happy or frustrated about the last season 
# very enthusiastic about the next one (“I’ll show them, who is the best!” or something like that, by the way, this is one of the most destructive approach you can have) 
# tired even if many of you pretend not to be (ego or simply ignorance) 
# confused about “And now what?!” 
# “Regeneration time? Pause? What for, I feel great!” 
# “OK, regeneration …. One week is enough! Then I start training again! I beat you all next June!” 
# “I am good trained, so what does it mean off-season training actually?”
And so on, etc. etc.

One of the general mistakes is to ignore the regeneration and the necessity of pausing, then the necessity of building up again. So many athletes are sure about their optimal form in mind and body and after two weeks of “regeneration” start the training exactly where they left it two weeks ago. And if this is happening in October already or in November – I mean Europe, when we start the wintertime – it is for sure not such a good idea.

One aspect is about not to start training all three disciplines at the same level, 100%. Guess what is happening when you start so early to train in a manner that it should start 3-4 months later? You are on the path to your diagnose of burnout! I am sure you are not keen to get into that! Those people who didn’t have the best season of their career are candidates for this kind of mistake, as well as the guys who had a weak last race result at the end of the season. Of course, the last race of a season can be a real alarm signal for you and instead to jump into new training sessions you should take a real break, analyse your entire season and all the results and try to find out where the hatch is hidden. Best what you can do is to ask a specialist, a coach. It is important for you to understand where the weak points along your season were, so that you can understand the mechanisms and to change the training plans for the next season. And keep in mind that a complete training plan does include all your planed races for the next season: race A, B and C.

Generally speaking it is always about self-coached athletes acting on emotions only, not on science! Not happy with their performances/races results/trainings they do start to train too early too much, too long, to intensively and it is just a matter of time when they will get injured or hit the wall! 

Self-coached athletes who recognize the importance of a right recovery can have at least 2 reasons in mind to feel confused: 
1. How long should I cut out the training? Should I really cut out and lying on the couch or what does recovery really means? 
2. When and how should I restart again training? 

So, here are two patterns: 

1. The athlete do not properly recovery.
2. The athlete do recovery, but then has not much idea about how to start again and he/she post-pone it. Every “tomorrow” is good enough to start, tomorrow is coming, he/she wake up in a beautiful morning at the end of November or beginning of December and has still no idea what to do. So, goes back to sleep. Then January is coming and …. Sometimes is too late for certain goals of the year which just began. 

There are lot of options not to fail into these patterns. Especially the Ironman-distance athletes know that planning is 12 months per year. This mean, their mind is on track all the time, the point is not to get stressed. 

After you recovered, you have to know that your training plan always starts with building up endurance and strength. You will always start “long and slow” using your fat reserves in training. But “long” does not means a half marathon, not now – you just ended a full season of half and full marathons and half and full ironman distances, remember?! So your body needs another kind of “extreme” as challenge.

So:

During this period of time, you will not race half or full marathons, but rather very short distances, even one or two 5 up to 10 km races. It is a way to improve your techniques and speed on short and middle distances in running, as running remains the king sport. These are short term goals when you focus on technique and on those elements where you are not so strong as your potential. It is not the right time now for training in “cruise pace” as you need to do during your Ironman-Distance Triathlon in 6 or 8 months for now! 

What I do recommend – generally, not specific, as it is always depending on each individual: 

# Focus on the ABC-Running sessions and develop them in one hour training session. It brings a lot, but a lot of advantages on long term.

# Use hills runs for 30 minutes up to one hour.

# Focus on running and strength for 4 weeks. If no local race available, find 2-3 friends and “race” together a 5 – 10 km distance.

# If you run a 5 km distance in 25 minutes (5’ pace), than train during the week:

On Monday:  OFF 
On Tuesday: 5 km at 6-6:30 pace 
On Wednesday: 2 x 200 m repeats at 5:45 pace +

                 8 x 400 m repeats at 5:00 pace with 150-200 m walk recovery inbetween

On Thurday: OFF 
On Friday:  5 km at 6-6:30 pace (like Monday) 
On Saturday: OFF or 1-2 hours enjoyable hike/jog/cycle or relaxed swim. 
On Sunday:  non-conformist fartlek during a longer run, such as: 
# 3 km at 6:30-7:00 pace, 
# 3 km at 5:45 pace, 
# 2 km at 5:00 pace, 
# 1 km at the fastest speed you can and
# 2 km recovery run at 6’–7’ pace.
 
Be flexible, be open minded, put questions!
office@sportyourlife.at 

Good to read too:
Running in the dark
The art behind coaching science