Triathlon and Timing

It is hard to believe that timing is everything in any sport.  It is JUST A DETAIL, but timing is everything needed to improve or win.

1)   Timing in swimming, coordination of the movements, hips, shoulder, kicking with the opposite leg moving like a whip is everything; moving the whole energy generated by the movement of the body started with hip forward.

2)   Timing rotating the body while anchoring the hand is a key in swimming; while doing what is mentioned in 1).

3)   Timing of choosing when to attack bicycling.

4)   Timing when to follow the break away.

5)   Timing of moving your foot while your weight is in front of you while running is the key.

-   Who has learned the details? The one educated on details on specific sport, in addition to general education.  I will let you see details of Martinolli (announcer) in the Mexico-Gabon.  As he said, “Giovanni dos Antros (bar).”  Giovanni could be a lot better with a better education, better than Ronaldinho when he was the best at least.

Triathlon and the New World

Enero 2002 Revista La bicicleta No 167

This gives us an idea how the world has changed.  Mexico had eight triathletes and the same President of the FMTRI says then and still says that triathlon in Mexico is doing well.  Of course, as long as he owns the only company that organizes triathlons in Mexico.

Macca speaks about how Australia is behind nowadays when it was number one few years back (First interview 1997).  The world has changed and Macca says so (Snd interview 2012); and we can corroborate that by looking at numbers.

Education, technique. personal organization are making the triage.

Triathlete´s Nutrition and Overtraining

I have a patient that helps to understand the subject of nutrition and overtraining.  I asked for permission to speak about her in this blog.

Due to cancer, she got removed her entire intestine, except 60 cm. of jejune.   She is being living in that condition for more than two years already.  In order to keep her caloric and nutritional requirements she needs to eat at least every two hours, and drinks water more often.  She has needed twice Total Parenteral Nutrition (TPN), because she is unable to keep up with nutrients when living a “normal life.”

http://www.experiencefestival.com/wp/videos/ucvlog-video-glossary-what-is-total-parenteral-nutrition-tpn/haWyRCPLlnU

What we learned from her condition is that when she needed the Total Parenteral Nutrition her mood was low, with a heart rate of 100 per minute, tired and sleepy most of the time. She enters within a cycle where she is unable to repair her body and as a consequence she cannot absorb nutrients.  She does not show a dramatic malnutrition before TPN except for mild anemia, which it is not even related to chronic disease.  From day five to a week after TPN, everything becomes different; her hemoglobin which values are in the 12-13 increases to 14, and she feels “recharged.”  Her Ferritin hits the 500. Her electrolytes are within normal limits except for magnesium that could decrease to below 1, even with IV magnesium given at least once a week and oral magnesium daily (below 1 of magnesium presents cramps and once she had a convulsion).  My patient has become the living model of overtraining for us.  I am not advertising TPN for athletes.  The message to take from what I say is that nutrition and recovery place a major role in overtraining and secondarily what one does as training.

It is interesting that in the notes confiscated to Dr. Ferrari, he had every third week, depending on training, “vitamins.” “They appeared to be ordinary training logs, with each week's workouts detailed in Ferrari's own hand.  The investigators noticed asterisks on specific days, but there was no key to help them decipher the marks” Interestingly, TPN was not considered doping then; now it is.

http://es.scribd.com/doc/32068763/Paging-Doctor-Ferrari-by-Bill-Gifford

We have seen the case of Lasse Virén. "Viren's astounding achievement led many observers to conclude that Viren had done something illegal to have so dramatically boosted his performance. Long after the events of the 1976 Olympics, it was determined that Viren had likely aided his performance through blood doping, acts that were not then illegal under Olympic rules: blood doping would not be banned until 1986."

http://www.faqs.org/sports-science/Ba-Ca/Blood-Doping.html

Please see the previous blog.  DETAILS makes the difference: NUTRITION AND RECOVERY

Triathlon and Attention to Details

I say to my athletes: “Thousands of details make the champion.”  There is no difference between you and them, just “details.”  It is like saying that the chimp has 98% of our genome.  Gene duplications are a major source of differences between human and chimp genetic material, with about 2.7 percent of the genome now representing differences having been produced by gene duplications or deletions during approximately 6 million years[4] since humans and chimps diverged from their common evolutionary ancestor. The comparable variation within human populations is 0.5 percent. From 2.7 to 0.5% variance is an insurmountable difference.  “It is just details.”

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimpanzee_genome_project

Let´s take an example.  The Brownlees give details about their stay in St. Moritz, Switzerland.  They took the cook with them and buy their food in Italy because it is cheaper and they found what they need; ANOTHER team is showing photos of shopping pizza in the supermarket with one of their multiple coaches.

“It's great. Food is cooked at 7.30pm every night so I just wander over. It's easy, you don't have to shop or cook so you can let your body relax and unwind after a hard day in the mountains. Sometimes we'll also hop on a ski-lift and go higher in the mountains for a stroll and a hot chocolate too. It's just a nice healthy place to be.”

We learned details since we are born.  It is called education; it can help us to achieve our goals or deviate us from our goals. It depends on our parents, teachers, society, etc.  Remember the difference that could be present by changing just a little the DNA, the phenotype (what we see) is totally different.  A little problem in the chromosome 21 give us a Down syndrome.  The same thing with details.  Details are not details if you want to be champion.  My friend Richard, from Buffalo, one of the few black Americans, born in the US who ran marathons at a competitive level used to tell: "Always look for the edge."

RUNNING TECHNIQUE

I like to show the last non-African holding the world record for the 10k, Arturo Barrios.  Technique is the key.

27:22.4     27:22.47     Henry Rono (KEN)      June 11, 1978    Vienna, Austria[4]

27:13.81    -        Fernando Mamede (POR)    July 2, 1984 Stockholm, Sweden[4]

27:08.23    -        Arturo Barrios (MEX) August 18, 1989 Berlin, Germany[4]

27:07.91    -        Richard Chelimo (KEN)       July 5, 1993 Stockholm, Sweden[4]

26:58.38    -        Yobes Ondieki (KEN) July 10, 1993     Oslo, Norway[4]

26:52.23    -        William Sigei (KEN)    July 22, 1994     Oslo, Norway[4]

26:43.53    -        Haile Gebrselassie (ETH)     June 5, 1995 Hengelo, Netherlands[4]

26:38.08    -        Salah Hissou (MAR)    August 23, 1996 Brussels, Belgium[4]

26:31.32    -        Haile Gebrselassie (ETH)     August 4, 1997   Oslo, Norway[4]

26:27.85    -        Paul Tergat (KEN)      August 22, 1997 Brussels, Belgium[4]

26:22.75    -        Haile Gebrselassie (ETH)     June 1, 1998 Hengelo, Netherlands[4]

26:20.31    -        Kenenisa Bekele (ETH)       June 8, 2004      Ostrava, Czech Republic[4]

26:17.53    -        Kenenisa Bekele (ETH)       August 26, 2005 Brussels, Belgium[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10,000_metres

1)   His cadence is above 200 steps per minute.

2)   He runs with the ball of his foot.

3)   Leaning forward, with his weight always in front of him.

These three steps should be perfect before going to the second part:

4)   Knee should work as a pendulum to increase the momentum acquired when touching the ground.  If we do not have the first three steps. it is impossible to take advantage of the gravitational force using the knee to keep the momentum.

5)   The momentum is also kept by the hip that follows the knee.  Watch this video:

6)   Fear of falling is the main reason why athletes cannot take advantage of gravitational force.  They tend to stop the body from falling by touching the ground in front of them to avoid falling; and most of the time, the only way to do it is with the heel.

Running well is not natural unless we have good examples like the Africans and walk barefoot. If you used shoes as a child, you already have a handicap.  Unlearning takes longer than actually learning how to run well.

Triathlon and The Loss of The Grand Narratives

What does it mean the loss of the grand narratives?  Let´s see Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metanarrative

A metanarrative (from meta grand narrative), in critical theory, and particularly in postmodernism, is an abstract idea that is thought to be[who?] a comprehensive explanation of historical experience or knowledge…In postmodern philosophy, a metanarrative is an untold story that unifies and totalizes the world, and justifies a culture's power structures. Examples of these stories are nationalisms, religion, and science, to name a few. Metanarratives are not usually told outright, but are reinforced by other more specific narratives told within the culture…

Replacing grand, universal narratives with small, local narratives

According to the advocates of postmodernism, metanarratives have lost their power to convince – they are, literally, stories that are told in order to legitimize various versions of 'the truth'. With the transition from modern to postmodern, Lyotard proposes that metanarratives should give way to petits récits, or more modest and "localized" narratives.[citation needed] Borrowing from the works of Wittgenstein and his theory of the "models of discourse,"[5] Lyotard constructs his vision of a progressive politics that is grounded in the cohabitation of a whole range of diverse and always locally legitimated language games. Postmodernists attempt to replace metanarratives by focusing on specific local contexts as well as the diversity of human experience. They argue for the existence of a "multiplicity of theoretical standpoints"[6] rather than grand, all-encompassing theories.

Nothing new, it took almost a century since our great Albert Einstein opened up this new era.  In his book where he explained relativity in 1921, he reasoned:

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/einsteins-special-relativity.html

The genius of Einstein’s discoveries is that he looked at the experiments and assumed the findings were true. This was the exact opposite of what other physicists seemed to be doing. Instead of assuming the theory was correct and that the experiments failed, he assumed that the experiments were correct and the theory had failed.

What in hell triathlon has to do with the loss of grand narratives?

Triathlon coaches see the Brownlees, the Armstrongs and they do not want to see what they see to start thinking, but explained things stupidly as: “They doped;” “they are genetically special.”  Without the Grand Narratives we are lost, but we could have a better second chance as mentioned below.

Think about Queen, the members had “formal” training in classical music.  The same thing happened to Einstein in Physics.  After getting that “formal” training you start your creation and the needed distance from what is known and taught to create and think.  If we do not get the formal training we can end up like the Greeks, the Mayas, the Incas, the Zapotecs (first written language in America), the Aztecs, the Egyptians; they do not know where and when the Grand Narratives were lost in their cultures and perhaps they do not even know what they were and what they are.  I like the film My Life is in ruins for that reason.  We have written in this blog related subjects, April 16, 2012. WHAT A CYBERNETIC TRIATHLON HISTORY IS; and April 25, 2012. GREGORY HOUSE, BRUCE MILLER AND THE ART OF TRIATHLON COACHING.

Eduardo lost the race in Edmonton in the last 200 meters.  He froze during the last 200 meters and entered third.  We have been talking about the situation using simple narratives.  As shown in Coach Carter film where it is said that the “fear to win” is real; doing as Einstein, “deconstructing reality” using simple language like fear.  Please read our previous post.  Einstein said:  "La única justificación de nuestros conceptos y sistema de conceptos reside en el hecho que pueden representar el complejo de nuestras experiencias; pero fuera de ello no poseen otro título de legitimidad." El Significado de la Relatividad. 1993. Planeta, Barcelona.

Physiology of the mind

This is a subject for advanced coaching.  It is not easy to believe what you read. 

Nicholas Romanov told me once that there was belief in Russia that “fighters were born.”  I told him that this was a subject for research and we needed to implement ways to help our triathletes to make them fighters.  The discussion about “the chicken and the egg,” started because we could blame our triathletes for not fighting enough and losing for the very same reason.  We blame the excuses given by our triathletes, but there is something similar observed in patients with Panic Attacks disorder, School Phobia and Generalized Anxiety Disorder.  These patients do not know, at the beginning, what is stressing them.  You should know that these disorders related to fear/anxiety have multiples explanations, depending on our cultural-educational-intellectual background and we do not have a solid knowledge except for the last physiological pathway.  Just before the adrenergic last consequence or last step of the pathway.  Let´s see Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_coeruleus

In stress

The locus coeruleus is responsible for mediating many of the sympathetic effects during stress. The locus coeruleus is activated by stress, and will respond by increasing norepinephrine secretion, which in turn will alter cognitive function (through the prefrontal cortex), increase motivation (through nucleus accumbens), activate the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, and increase the sympathetic discharge/inhibit parasympathetic tone (through the brainstem). Specific to the activation of the hypothalamo-pituitary adrenal axis, norepinephrine will stimulate the secretion of corticotropin-releasing factor from the hypothalamus, which induces adrenocorticotropic hormone release from the anterior pituitary and subsequent cortisol synthesis in the adrenal glands. Norepinephrine released from locus coeruleus will feedback to inhibit its production, and corticotropin-releasing hormone will feedback to inhibit its production, while positively feeding to the locus coeruleus to increase norepinephrine production.[5]

We have seen athletes freezing before a competition or before the final 400 meters; vomiting in the middle of the competition; having diarrhea before or during the competition.  These are called stress related reactions.  You can blame it on the competition itself or think about others ways of solving the future situation.  Because it will happen again and we should know how to proceed!  I CALL THIS ADVANCED COACHING.

A)  We have to recognize that stress is unbearable.
The what, where, how related to stress should be answered to have a combat plan.

B)  Without the recognition of stress related failure we cannot do much about the failure.  The majority of our athletes suffer from stress related failures and we should know how to proceed to avoid future failures.

C)  Stress related failures are ingrained in the way we face life.  It is also related to the way we grew up and our environment.

D)  Guillermo Echeverría, the only Mexican who held a world record in 1,500 meters freestyle swimming showed signs of stress related failure before the competition at the Mexico City Olympics according to his coach.  He was frozen to the point of not shaving his legs a day before the competition.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_record_progression_1500_metres_freestyle

16:28.1             Guillermo Echevarria    Mexico     Jul 7, 1968         Santa Clara Invitational        Santa Clara, United States

E)   Whitfield lost against Frodeno at Beijing for the very same reason.

F)   My patients with panic disorders need a psycho-education in order for them to have the possibility of managing stress related symptoms.  Think about what you do for your athlete and see if it is enough.  It will never be enough to create a champion.

Good Luck in Edmonton (Junior PanAm Championship)

Edmonton won´t have these kind of hills, 14%, more than 500 meters.  This is Oaxaca.

Keep your cadence above 85 rpm when going up hill and you will be able to run.  This makes the difference between the ones who run after the bike like the Brownlees and the others.  Do not wait for research, just look at how they pedal and think clearly; research will come five years later and will have incomplete answers. This is the most important point regarding technique going up hill. The problem is that you need to practice for years to be efficient.

There were posts written in this blog.

17 juin 2012

The Limit of Triathlon Performance

Coggan speaks about it, Hunter Allen and Andrew Coggan, Training and racing with a power meter.  2010.  I like the way he puts it.  What he says is not just relevant to cycling, but to running and swimming.  It plays the major role in our physiology:

Strength, per se, plays a very small role in determining power output. The growing realization that more traditional forms of resistance training, such as weight lifting, provide little or no benefit to cyclists is possibly contributing to the increasing popularity of strength endurance training. Coaches who employ those workouts are attempting to provide a more specific form of on-the-bike resistance training that will enable a cyclist to make gains applicable to racing. However, it appears that few, if any, of the people who recommend strength endurance training have actually considered whether the forces generated during these sessions are in fact sufficient to cause beneficial adaptations to occur. Instead, most seem to have simply assumed that just because the cadence is lower than usual, and hence the pedaling forces higher, there will be an increase in muscular size and strength, and hence in maximal power. In fact, the average effective pedal force during strength endurance intervals is generally too low to represent a significant overload. A laboratory study performed in New Zealand in 2005 found that such training does not increase either the size (estimated using anthropometry) or the maximal force production (determining using isokinetic dynamometry) of the leg extensor muscles.  (139).

There is another previous post:

March 29, 2012. TRIATHLON PHYSIOLOGY FOR DUMMIES AND THE TENDENCY TOWARD THE MEAN Seventh part. What is a neurological workout?  

Remember what Armstrong said in 2007:

In 2007, Armstrong was interviewed by Ciclismo a fondo.  267: 46.  He said: “The reason why Johan and I were able to win was because we competed against a bunch of imbeciles.  We had a modern planning…There were a bunch of ranchers running around us…still the same situation in cycling.”

Swimming Technê

I see one of the best coaches in the world coaching when I see Glenn Mills in action.  How to recognize quality is not as easy when most of the great coaches are gone and the parameters are not kept by the current generation.  Let see some of his drills.  Commitment to improve and rigor are needed, those ingredients are the most important to create a champion

Freestyle - Flutter Kick Fix - GoSwim!

What you see is what you need to do, keep a cadence with your arms, moving your arms with your shoulders leading.  Timing your arms is very important to keep rhythm.  Hips up the water.  Kicking very tied.  Who can do it?  It takes years to get there in case we have the commitment and rigor.

Olympian Roy Burch - Endless Pool - GoSwim!