Chris Froome Coaching and Triathlon Coaching

Before a race in Veracruz this past weekend, we had the regular chat with the team before the race and an exercise to boost our athletes’ egos.  I am careful not to inspire cynicism in our competitors when we do this exercise because of the “excess of ego.” But unfortunately, that is a risk we take when giving information without full background.  In this case we discuss the graph of Froome during the time trial in La Vuelta a España (2011), http://www.trainingpeaks.com/av/Z3JDD63H2UVGP77YSXNITPULAE  

And the question was: “How would you help Froome to be better cyclist if you were the coach?” What they discover was that Froome has room to improve from what we saw; but during the triathlon race, they did not do their best effort to do things right, not even what they discover reading the graph.  The study of the graph and how they perform has nothing in common; they were in automatic mode from the life they have known at home and school.  Whatever they learned from the graph was remotely related to their performance.  This is a problem we constantly encounter in our population, what they learn is not considered useful and is out of mind when performing (it happened in this competition).  We have seen that unless specific learning is generalized after years by team members, it does not belong to them.

The selection from the graph below is when Froome is going downhill and his heart rate increases.  Nine pulses as an average compared to his going uphill.  Increasing three pedals per minutes does not explain the increased heart rate, unless Froome is not trained to go higher than 100 rpm (something that I do not believe).  Froome is a climber and it appears that going downhill is not what to practice as a climber.  Normally, the pulse increases even when we keep the same rpm over time.

Selection
0:42:48 - 0:56:32

Total Time: 0:13:44

Distance: 13.18 km

Energy: 330 kJ

TSS: 20 (0.96)

NP: 412

VI: 1.02

Pw:HR 1%

EF: 2.69

Gain: 12 m

Loss: - 121 m

Grade:-0.8 %

VAM:52

W/Kg:5.9

	Min	Avg	Max
Power (Watts):	0	402	766
Speed (km/h):	35.7	57.6	71.4
Pace (min/km):	01:41	01:02	00:50
HR (bpm):	138	153	167
Cadence (rpm):	22	95	110
Elev (m):	832	861	953
Temp (C):	<29	30	31

First Half: 414w
0:00:01 - 0:29:16

Total Time: 0:29:15

Distance: 22.98 km

Energy: 726 kJ

TSS: 45 (0.97)

NP: 415

VI: 1.00

Pw:HR 5.6%

EF: 2.88

Gain: 210 m

Loss: - 36 m

Grade:0.8 %

VAM:431

W/Kg:6.1

	Min	Avg	Max
Power (Watts):	0	413	598
Speed (km/h):	31.5	47.1	73.6
Pace (min/km):	01:54	01:16	00:49
HR (bpm):	91	144	149
Cadence (rpm):	26	93	114
Elev (m):	835	934	1031
Temp (C):	<28	30	35

What would be our recommendations?

1)   Practice downhill speed.

2)   Practice cadence above 100.

TRIATHLON AND PETER PRINCIPLE

Originally, it was thought that this principle was just for enterprises but accomplishes many people in society, and to apply it to triathletes is not farfetched.  After being juniors competing in triathlon, a different set of skills are needed to make the step to elite.  I am not discovering a black thread, but I am trying to make a point of what has happened to us.

The employee's incompetence is not necessarily a result of the higher-ranking position being more difficult. It may be that the new position requires different work skills which the employee may not possess. For example, an engineer with great technical skill might get promoted to project manager, only to discover he lacks the interpersonal skills required to lead a team.

Thus, "work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence."

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

This principle is present in triathlon when speaking about high performance sport.  As any endeavor, we need special skills in order to succeed, and triathlon skills are related to technique.  This means timing while doing procedures.  We need a very organized person to be successful to master high skill techniques.  It is just as Paul Bergen said when asked about the difference in training of a Mexican swimmer compared to one in the USA.  He said timewise is the same thing, effort is the same, but “I´ll give you an example, when you teach somebody to play piano and take into consideration the time of training; when he/she is asked to play the 9^th symphony of Beethoven a year later, whoever was programed and worked to accomplish the symphony is going to succeed.  That is the difference: ‘the time employed on the plan to accomplish the task.’”  You need skills to accomplish good technique other that what people call talent:  organizational skills, programming skills, etc.  In the third world countries the skills are not there most of the time.  That is what Paul Bergen tried to say:

Paul Bergen

Paul Bergen is an Olympic swimming coach from the United States. He has coached in the USA and Canada, winning coach of the year honors in both countries in different years.^[1] He was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame as an Honor Coach in 1988.^[2] He has coached swimmers to 21 World, 24 USA and 13 Canadian records.^[1]

Among the athletes he has coached are: Deena Deardurff,.^[3] Tracy Caulkins and Inge de Bruijn. He has coached with the Cincinnati Marlins in Ohio, Nashville Aquatic Club in Tennessee, the University of Texas, Tualatin Hills in Oregon, and Etobicoke in Ontario, Canada.^[1]

He served on USA coaching staffs to World Championships in 1975, 1978 and 1982, and with Canada in 1986.^[2] He was an Olympic coach in 1980, 1984, 1988 and 2000.^[1]

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

We are this moment, trying to know how to proceed to make the next move to elite level.  Having an environment and successful adults is necessary for this next move.  Please see the video below when he speaks about "kicking a death horse."

http://blip.tv/swimmingworldtv/ready-room-interview-paul-bergen-3866587

Education, Civilization and Triathlon

Mexico is a sui generis country.  All the times Mexicans try to live together in the here and now; this is something impossible to happen because we do not share the same concepts of humanism, experience, science, religion, etc. Our extremes are a caveman and a Nobel Prize winner in Science.  How to have a grammar that allows us to communicate has been the problem.  Science is far behind in the community to permit a bridge to have a human consensus.  I found a post to illustrate my point.  What he describes happens in any city of Mexico.  According to the following article our assumptions are very different from what it is; “The map is not the territory.”  We think people want to learn and particularly how to improve triathlon performance, but they do not have the intention by culture. 

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

In 1988, the World Bank estimated that 1–2% of the global population subsists by waste picking.^[9] A more recent study from 2010 estimates that there are 1.5 million waste pickers in India alone.^[10] Brazil, the country that collects the most robust official statistics on waste pickers, estimates that nearly a quarter million of its citizens engage in waste picking.^[11]

Vázquez, J.J. (2013) Happiness among the garbage: Differences in overall happiness among trash pickers in León (Nicaragua), The Journal of Positive Psychology, Vol. 8, No. 1, 1–11. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2012.743574

Imagine you are an itinerant individual living in absolute penury in a third-world country. You survive by going through other people’s garbage and extracting your food for the day as well as other essentials like clothing and footwear. You live your life hand to mouth and what your hand finds are the things others have discarded. You recycle what you can for money, and this considerable effort earns you about $3 a day.

By downward social comparison, almost anyone seeing a person living in these conditions would assume the individuals engaged in this activity would resent their life circumstance and view their life as anything but happy.

But this study shows this is a false assumption.

Not only are these people not depressed, they are optimistic, have good relationships, and many of them play sports and read. The majority of them are happy with their lives.

Talking trash

In theory we separate organic and inorganic trash (though the pependores throw it all in the same truck. We're TOLD it gets separated at the landfill, but I have my doubts). At least we have regular garbage pickup. One truck comes through early in the morning, picking up whatever is piled in the streets (some of my neighbors don't seem to have caught on to the idea of garbage cans yet... oh well, rats need to eat too). Around 10 in the A.M. a guy walks down the street with a clapper bell... I half-expect him to be yelling "bring out your dead, bring out your dead"... and the morning garbage parade starts down the street. Regular trash pickup doesn't mean door-to-door service. The guys stop in the middle of the block, and you lug down the stuff (a good reason to take the trash out regularly). About 5 we'll have the afternoon trash parade. Not suprisingly, we're running out of landfill space. The pependores themselves do a lot of recycling . Dumpster diving is practically unknown here... I managed to snag a ratty old sofa (a temporary acquision) only by happening on it in the short interval between the time my neighbors tossed it in the street (a rarity, most people sell their crapped out furniture to guys going by with a horse and cart, who resell it to upholsterers who resell it back to whomever tossed it in the first place). It's semi-reupholstered and one leg is a construction brick, but it's only temporary... it'll go to the guy with the pony one of these days. The pepindores re-cycle a lot of your trash on the spot... the good stuff is pulled aside and neatly piled on the truck, or hung from the side (last week, one truck had three almost complete bicycles and a VW front seat tied to the front grille) while the rest... organic and inorganic... gets unceremoniously tossed in the hopper. Recycled at the landfill? Who knows? There are rumors that all garbage men are rich... I don't believe it, but they aren't exactly the poor dump-dwellers of everyone's Latin American tragic photomontage either. Mexico City's garbage-men have an excellent union, thanks to a semi-gangster organizer about 30 years ago who only stole enough to support his three wives in palacial style, while negotiating good contracts for these guys that included the rights to recycle, along with decent housing and futbal fields. They may live AT the dump... but they don't live IN a dump. And... this is probably the only place in the world where the big national parade highlights the finest equipment of the Army, the Navy, the Marines, the Air Force, the Police and the Garbage Men... who are cheered and applauded wildly. Everybody knows their garbage men, and likes them a lot better than the neighborhood cop. So... what are our popular garbage men picking up these days? DISPOSABLE DIAPERS! 13 % of all Mexico City trash is disposable diapers... 46% is organic waste, that can be composted, 6.4% is plastic (recyclable, at least in theory), 5% is glass (easily recyclable) and 2% is plastic bottles... also recyclable. But what do you do with poopy diapers? Good thing the birth rate is dropping!

posted by Richard Grabman at 1/16/2005 11:04:00 PM |

http://mexfiles.blogspot.mx/2005_01_01_archive.html

The closer we are from the “garbage culture;” the least we would like to practice triathlon or to improve it.  We follow leaders, or Gods if you wish, and the closer to the sport culture the better chances we have to succeed as an athlete.  It is in the family, the state, the country and the world; it depends where we were born or want to belong to.

I leave you with Joe Newton: