Training Tip Tuesday #15- The Run Workout Edition

Last week we talked about running. This week the discussion continues with some of my favorite, and I think, most beneficial running workouts. Each run has a time and place of the year that it is most appropriate but that differs for each athlete and what race they are preparing for.

Overspeed
Purpose: neurological firing, turnover and fiber recruitment
Interval: 30, 40 or 60 seconds.
Pace: Roughly 1 mile race pace or even faster
Recovery: Equal rest to the work interval. So- :30 on/:30 off, :40/:40, etc. Though sometimes I may change up the recovery as an athlete gets more fit.
Reps: 10-20
Summary: These are best done on a treadmill but a track can also be used. If you're using a treadmill then make sure and set it at 1.5% grade to offset for wind resistance. I like to leave the treadmill belt running and just hop off and straddle the side.
DISCLAIMER: Be careful hopping on and off the treadmill. You don't want this to be you-


Long Tempo
Purpose: Both mental and physical strength, aerobic conditioning
Interval: 30-60 minutes
Pace: Roughly 20-45sec slower than your open half marathon pace.
Recovery: There is none
Reps: 1
Summary: This is a long, aerobic tempo run to help you develop stamina and practice maintaining a strong pace for a long time. It's mentally challenging as much as it is physical. I usually warm up 10-20minutes, do a few drills and strides then get down to business. This can also be done as part of a long  as you usually accumulate a good amount of mileage during this workout. Don't try to race this workout. The point isn't to run as fast as you can it's to run an extended time at a hard but sustainable effort.

800's
Purpose: Anaerobic tolerance
Interval: 800 (or a distance that gets you roughly 2:30-4minutes of running)
Pace: Hard. Ok, actually like 5k pace
Recovery: 1-2min between reps
Reps: 4-8
Summary: I associate these workouts with pain. Pure, un-adultured pain. In this case pain leads to faster running though so I'm all for it. This is the kind of workout you do as you are approaching a key sprint or Olympic distance race. It teaches your body to tolerate (or possibly reject) large amounts of lactate which we need to do for running a hard 5k or 10k off the bike.
DISCLAIMER: Not responsible for any vomiting, wrenching, soiling of ones pants or accidental urination.

Hills
Purpose: To make you stronger and create more suffering
Interval: 100m (20sec) all the way up to 1mile or around 5-6minutes.
Pace: Whatever gets you to the top
Recovery: To the bottom
Reps: 4-12
Summary: Short ones, tall ones, steep ones, long ones. Hills are good for you. Most people don't like them but I actually love hill repeats! They are excellent for building strength and a secret way to get speed work in without the same risk of injury as running on the track. Triathlon isn't so much about pure speed when running it's about strength running on tired legs. Depending on the time of year and the races coming up I'll do anywhere from 20sec hill repeats to 4ish minutes. A grade of 6-8% is ideal but you can also use a treadmill. Hill sprints are similar to overspeed and long ones can be similar to mile repeats or 1200's. The difference is that you usually have a full recovery because of the jog to the bottom. This makes longer hill reps a VO2max type workout. Many people run hills on their long runs and think they're getting the benefit but it's not the same as truly running as hard as you can to the top of something tall, turning around and doing it again. Maybe you could do something like this-



These are just a few of the workouts I do throughout the year but all of them have a place in my program and in those of the athletes I coach. Please feel free to ask me if you have any questions about how to execute any of these workouts properly. Run strong!

Training Tip Tuesday #14- Once a Runner

Winter is an excellent time to work on your running. While biking on ice and snow isn't particularly safe and sitting on the trainer for 4 hours isn't especially appealing, it's relatively easy to pop out the door for a 30 minute run even with snow on the ground and sub freezing temperatures. For myself, I absolutely love running during this time of year. Here in Texas, the mornings are often just cool enough for a long sleeve and gloves. The cold crisp air is so refreshing and nothing starts the day right like a good run as the sun starts to peak over the horizon.

I think a lot of time we take the wrong approach to running during this time of year. In this post give some pointers on how to structure your run training to lead to a better, faster, healthier run in 2014. I've come up with a few basic guidelines that I follow during my winter running.

Increase frequency before duration
Running is a skill. Just like anything in life, if you want to get better at doing something you need to do it more. But running MORE doesn't have to mean running longer. In fact, as Matt Dixon talks about in this article- http://triathlete-europe.competitor.com/2014/01/07/winter-miles-summer-smiles there is a lot of fatigue and musculoskeletal stress that comes with completing a "long run" year round. I'd encourage you to read Matt's article as he is one of the best coach's in the business and knows his stuff. If you are already running three times a week for 30 minutes then instead of increasing to 40 minutes each run try to add a 4th run of 30 minutes on a different day. More advanced athletes may run twice a day some days. Two runs of 45 minutes each still equals 90 minutes of running in a day but you stay fresher and run with better form and quality. One thing I do with some some of my high school runners who are prepping for track season is have them do an easy "shakeout" run in the morning of 20-30minutes. This run is very, very easy and I'll often have them do some light drills and strides to open up their hips and prepare their body for a hard workout in the evening. This is a common practice with many cross country programs.

Emphasize technique
Many people don't realize how important technique is in running. We know it's important in the pool because we see that 50 year old, overweight, former collegiate swimmer jump in the lane next to us and start knocking out 1:05 100's. Coach's have come up with all sorts of catch phrases over the year to cue their athletes into certain aspects of running technique- "run tall," "hips forward," "pump your arms." Ever heard those before? It's easy to forget technique though when you're at mile 24 of the marathon and you just want a hamburger and something soft to lay down on. This time of year is the time to work on technique so that it becomes habit and you don't HAVE to think about it when you're grinding out 20 milers in the death of summer. I like to have my athletes do lots of drill work during this time of year. I have a few different videos I've found that give good instruction on how to properly perform a variety of drills. I've shared the one with Lauren Fleshman before which you can see in my top 10 tips to supercharge your offseason. Here's another one I like to use also from another well known runner.




Most of these drills are fairly basic and if you find yourself struggling to complete them then… you know what to work on! As we run we want to have a  quick ground reaction time and running drills will help you feel light and bouncy. Plus, you may learn some sweet moves you can break out on the dance floor.

Run really, really fast
Similar to the plyometric training we talked about with running economy, running very fast for a short duration can help you run more efficiently. Short sprints of 10-30 seconds in length with a full recovery aren't long enough to accumulate lactate or cause your form to break down because of fatigue. Instead they will engage your neurological system and help you recruit all sorts of lovely muscle fibers. You can do these sprints on the track, a grass field, the road or a treadmill. You can do them on flat, up a hill or even down hill. A simple set of 10x :30 on/:30 off will do wonders for your leg speed and turn over.. Just make sure you are fully warmed up and build into the efforts before you try to lay down some mad 100m speed. I learned my lesson last year when I got a bit carried away on some 100's (I love sprinting) and left my calves in knots for weeks. (On a side note- I've discovered that my calves are much less susceptible to getting tight when I am strength training regularly. I believe this to be because my core and hips are most stable while running so I'm not putting as much stress on my lower legs).

Run really, really slow
No, I'm not contradicting myself here. I recommend that the vast majority of your running during this time be done at a very slow pace. If you're not doing drills, strides or specific overspeed work then keep the runs easy and at a conversational pace. Like Matt talks about- think about our form while running and don't have any "bad footsteps." Many, many people I see get carried away while running and every run ends up being a tempo. They don't realize it but they want to "get a good workout in" and so they slowly ramp up the pace every run and end it breathing hard and feeling accomplished. The problem is they may have just sacrificed their form and not really accomplished anything. It may be a struggle because your overall training volume is lower and you're not fatigued from hard workouts. That's ok. Enjoy the feeling of running easy and feeling fresh. It's ok to pick it up occasionally if you're feeling especially frisky but don't turn every run into a Z2/Z3 tempo run.

It will be time to start running some hard workouts soon enough so enjoy this time of year to increase your frequency, work on your technique and get some pop in your step. I'll be happy to challenge anyone in a dance-off consisting as long as it consists only of running drills

Training Tip Tuesday #13: The 6 Million Dollar Year

It's a new year. That means new plans, new goals, new ambitions. Here in America we are really, really good at goal setting. We love to make plans about how we're going to improve, what we're going to do better and the incredible new breakthroughs we're going to have! The problem is that the actual work required to reach those goals isn't as fun and grandiose as the idea is. Before you think I'm pointing fingers here I'll be the first to admit that I struggle with this as much as the next person. The process of coming up with ideas and planning new things is FUN. No work is required yet! It's the working at it that sucks.

Many of us are told from a very young age to "dream big," "shoot for the stars," that we can be "anything we want to be." Others of us maybe didn't receive such encouragement as youths but we've developed big goals and dreams for ourselves along the way. We always want improve and make ourselves into a better version of ourselves, that's the whole goal of triathlon right? To get better, stronger, faster than before. I mean… we HAVE the technology.



The Ironman motto is- "ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE," and we try to embody that in our every day lives by constantly attempting the impossible. (Then immediately blogging about it and instagraming all the photos we took).

Well I'm not here to discount that or rain on any parade. However, as we think about next year and begin planning our season I want to explore the idea that maybe we don't need to do anything incredible or drastically different to get better. Maybe we don't have to have 1700 followers on twitter or 89 likes on our Facebook post to be a success. Maybe we don't need to take our training to a whole new level or do anything radically different.

Success in endurance sport is usually marked by quiet, consistent hard work. Whether you're a fan of WWE wrestling or not (I'll come right out and say it- I'm not), this quote by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson sums up the point I'm trying to get across quite nicely-

"Success isn't always about "greatness,' it's about consistency. Consistent, hard work garners success. Greatness will come."

My goal this year is to be the best triathlete I can be. I want to be successful. I have big goals, big dreams and big aspirations. But one thing I've realized is that success in triathlon doesn't come from one incredible workout or one amazing session. It comes from consistent and quiet dedication to the task at hand. I don't need to do anything crazy. I just need to show up, day in and day out.

So my goal for this next year isn't just to win races or qualify for the world championship. It's to be consistent, maybe quiet at times, but to get the work done.

A Bible verse that I've been reflecting on a lot lately is 1st Thessalonians 4:11-

"Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands…"

I don't really like minding my own business or being quiet but maybe it's something I should work on.

So here's to 2014. Here's to big dreams and a strong work ethic. Here's to quiet, unassuming dedication to excellence. Here's to your best season yet and the fruition of your labor. Nothing crazy, nothing new. Here's to getting the work done.

Training Tip Tuesday #12- The Twelve Days of Christmas: Triathlete Style

In the spirit of Christmas and holiday cheer, I present a triathlete's rendition of the 12 days of Christmas for your reading and viewing pleasure.

On the first day of Christmas my coach gave to me…
An Ironman registration FREE!

On the second day of Christmas my coach gave to me…
2 times compression and,
an Ironman registration FREE!

On the third day of Christmas my coach gave to me…
3 stress fractures,
2 times compression and,
an Ironman registration FREE!

On the fourth day of Christmas my coach gave to me…
4 hour ride,
3 stress fractures,
2 times compression and,
an Ironman registration FREE!

On the fifth day of Christmas my coach gave to me…
fi-ive In-su-lated bottles…
4 hour ride,
3 stress fractures,
2 times compression and,
an Ironman Registration FREE!

On the sixth day of Christmas my coach gave to me…
6 mile repeats,
fi-ive In-su-lated bottles…
4 hour ride,
3 stress fractures,
2 times compression and,
an Ironman Registration FREE!

On the seventh day of Christmas my coach gave to me…
7 saddle sores
6 mile repeats,
fi-ive In-su-lated bottles…
4 hour ride,
3 stress fractures,
2 times compression and,
an Ironman Registration FREE!

On the eighth day of Christmas my coach gave to me…
8 cups of coffee
7 saddle sores
6 mile repeats,
fi-ive In-su-lated bottles…
4 hour ride,
3 stress fractures,
2 times compression and,
an Ironman Registration FREE!

On the ninth day of Christmas my coach gave to me…
9… 10 Garmin XT
8 cups of coffee
7 saddle sores
6 mile repeats,
fi-ive In-su-lated bottles…
4 hour ride,
3 stress fractures,
2 times compression and,
an Ironman Registration FREE!

On the tenth day of Christmas my coach gave to me…
10 x 100's free
9… 10 Garmin XT
8 cups of coffee
7 saddle sores
6 mile repeats,
fi-ive In-su-lated bottles…
4 hour ride,
3 stress fractures,
2 times compression and,
an Ironman Registration FREE!

On the eleventh day of Christmas my coach gave to me…
11 energy gels
10 x 100's free
9… 10 Garmin XT
8 cups of coffee
7 saddle sores
6 mile repeats,
fi-ive In-su-lated bottles…
4 hour ride,
3 stress fractures,
2 times compression and,
an Ironman Registration FREE!






On the twelfth day of Christmas my coach gave to me…
12 salt capsules
11 energy gels
10 x 100's free
9… 10 Garmin XT
8 cups of coffee
7 saddle sores
6 mile repeats,
fi-ive In-su-lated bottles…
4 hour ride,
3 stress fractures,
2 times compression and,
an Ironman Registration FREE!

Training Tip Tuesday #11- Swim Fast to Swim Fast

A big issue I see with many triathletes is that they don't swim fast enough. "It's not my fault I can't swim fast," you may say. "I'm not a professional at this." I'm not talking about fast in an absolute sense but rather a relative one. Whatever is fast for you is fast. To put it another way- most triathletes don't swim HARD often enough. Now, I don't like using the word "hard" to describe any form of swimming because swimming harder doesn't necessarily mean swimming faster. BUT, to get better at swimming you do need to swim hard. And fast. And figure out how to swim hard quickly and fast easily. Makes sense right?

The problem with swimming fast is that it's more painful than swimming slow. The problem with swimming slow is that you swim slow if you swim slow. Most triathletes get in the pool 2 or 3 times a week. They'll do a nice long warm up, some kicking with fins, plenty of catch up, finger tip drag and fist drill work then maybe slap on a pair of huge, oversized paddles and knock out 5x200 of pulling. Don't be ashamed if this is you. It's me as well. Now, drills and paddles have their place but they are not a replacement for hard work. The beauty (and curse) of swimming is that it's non-impact and so we can push ourselves much harder without the danger of breaking down. If you are swimming four times a week or less I'd argue that EVERY time you swim you should have some sort of fast swimming involved. It may look different every time but it should be there. Your stroke will improve and you will swim faster for it.

Yes, you need some endurance work to swim an Ironman or even a half. But for most people it's not the endurance that is their limiting factor, it's their speed.

Ways to swim fast

1) Join a masters group
I'm a huge fan of swimming in a group. Having a coach on deck screaming at you and hurling pull buoys is a phenomenal way to get motivated. Swimming with other people is much more fun and you will automatically work harder without thinking about it. You usually spend all your time trying to catch the feet in front of you that you forget your heart is pounding and your lungs feel like they may explode. If your masters group does mainly sprint work don't utterly neglect the aerobic stuff. You can easily get that in on a weekend or an extra swim on your own. San Antonio has a great masters group led by a very knowledgeable coach, Susan Ingraham. A good coach knows when to break down your stroke and work on technique, and when to give you the evil eye and make you shut up and swim. Susan can do both of these + own you in a straight up 100 free.

2) Swim with fins
And no, I don't mean just for kick sets. I mean do some swim sets occasionally with fins. If 1:30 pace is your normal race pace and you slap a pair of fins on, all of a sudden 1:20's feel just as easy. This will teach you how to feel and pull the water while moving at a greater velocity so that when you go back to swimming 1:25's or 1:28's it feels much slower and more comfortable.

3) Sprint as hard as you can
Whether it be a 50, 100 or a 200. Test yourself occasionally and see how fast you can go if you go all out. One set we did with masters last year that was a lot of fun (and a lot of lactic acid) was 6x100 on a 6 minute send off. Sounds like a sissy set doesn't it? Well each 100 was an all out sprint and let me tell you- by the time we were starting #3, 6 minutes was nowhere near a long enough interval. It was pain. Fortunately, I'd only drank 8 oz of chocolate milk before the workout instead of my normal pint so there weren't too many chunks floating in the pool when I was done. Yes, you may feel like you're going to throw up. Yes, your whole body will start to tie up like your swimming through a bowl of jello. Yes, you may taste pennies in your mouth but those are all good signs that you're going as hard as you absolutely can.

Remember,

"It never gets easier, you just go faster."

This is hard swimming. The legendary "Auburn puke session"

Watch more video of 2008 - Top 10 Floswimming Videos on www.floswimming.org

Completely unrelated video I made of some cyclocross racing I did last weekend in Fredericksburg.


Toughcross2013 from Mark Saroni on Vimeo.

Training Tip Tuesday #10- Camp Cobb

The weekend following thanksgiving I organized a small training camp in Tyler, Tx for a small group of pro triathletes. John Cobb and Jeremy Brown at Cobb Cycling were kind enough to help facilitate some of the camp activities and provide us with some meals and a location to base our rides from. It was a low key way for many of us to start easing back into training. We weren't too worried about intervals or splits, just getting some miles in and enjoying spending time with friends. Training camps are a great opportunity to get a focused block of training in without the distractions of work and life. More than just added training, I think one of the biggest benefits of doing a camp is being able to focus more on recovery. We didn't start our activities until 8am most days and the only thing we did between workouts was eat and watch football. As busy triathletes, our days are normally jam packed from dawn to dusk and I always find it refreshing to be able to relax between training sessions without scurrying around.

We had 10 athletes attend the camp. Jeremy Brown, Seth Cooke and Clay Emge our local, Tyler residents. Natalie Bach drove in from Longview for the weekend. The out of towers included Robbie Wade, my wife Jessica and I from San Antonio, Lauren Lewis and Scott Wilkinson from College Station and Ben Hall from the countr- errrr... state, of Louisiana.

We kicked things off on Saturday morning with an easy 3 mile jog and a 1 mile prediction run at the track. The way the prediction run works is everyone tries to guess what time they will run for a mile and no one gets to wear a watch. What makes it even more difficult is the fact that we all started together and no one knew what the scrawny guy in compression socks next to him had put down for a time. As you can see from the picture below, Robbie is basically a human garmin. Maybe he could get a job testing their watches for them. Scott won the award for most horrible pacing abilities.

Next we headed over to Cobb Cycling to change and head out for a bike ride. Clay was kind enough to  tell me the original route I had planned was complete trash and led us on some of the most pleasant, smoothest roads in all of Tyler. We also managed to find a hill or two. Namely the beast-

This sign wasn't there for us but we still received a warm welcome 

You can get a taste of the beast yourself if you care to give "Texas' Hardest Half" a good old-fashioned tri. Steve Farris does an excellent job putting the race on and it is indeed quite challenging. You'll get to see the beauty of East Texas in full force though and there is also a sprint and olympic for the faint of heart and weak of quadricep. www.tritylerhalf.com

We were all pretty horribly out of shape so the originally planned 80 miles quickly turned into 67 and everyone was perfectly ok with that. We adjourned for the afternoon before meeting up for a pizza dinner and watching one of the craziest plays in college football.

Sunday morning kicked off with a 10 mile trail run that quickly turned from easy to steady to hard to balls-to-the-wall-flying-over-rocks-and-roots. I swear I was close to pr'ing my 5k those last 3.1 miles. Fortunately I only rolled my ankle twice and was quickly on my feet before the pack could run me over and disappear into the brush.

Some breakfast and the compulsory chocolate milk had us refueled and ready to hit the pool. Most of us knocked out a good set of-

While Robbie and Seth kept the hot tub bubbling for us.

Finally it was off to Cobb Cycling again for an easy spin. John was kind enough to tell some of us all the things we were doing horribly wrong on our bikes,

and Ben provided the scenery...

Glutes and calves like this are what 2:10 70.3 bike splits are made of

We wrapped up at Jason's deli where John entertained us with some stories from his early days and gave some excellent advice to all the young pro's on how to conduct ourselves as true professionals.

Most of the crew had to head out after that because of school, work or… actually school and work were the only reasons. Ben Hall stuck around with me for a couple more days so we could practice taking our shirts off and eating large amounts of ice cream.

Monday morning we slept in, lazed around Cobb Cycling and bribed them with starbucks coffee for use of their internet. We hit up a noon swim at UT Tyler with the illustrious Bob Hepler of UT Tyler. Bob was my cross country coach in college and has been my mentor and role model for many years.

After our swim we kitted up and jumped on the bikes for a cruisy 3 hour ride around Tyler. I got to examine Ben's glutes for much of this ride and am still very impressed by their strength.

Another plus from this ride was I found out how inept I am at operating a GoPro. We staged many dramatic attacking and pacelining scenes that were apparently never captured and will be forever buried in the annals of history.

We finished things off on Tuesday morning with an easy 8 mile run with Bob. Well, it was easy for us at least...

Now you know why the UT Tyler XC team is so successful.
They have this angry mammal chasing them in every workout.

An easy 2k swim and we were done! Coming out of a camp is always a bit depressing as you have to return to the reality of normal life but I always find myself much more motivated to stay consistent with my training. Getting to spend time with friends and seeing how hard they work every day motivates me to keep working hard so I can wipe the pavement with their faces on race day.

A huge thanks to John and Jeremy at Cobb Cycling for making this weekend possible and for capturing all the media footage. A big thanks is also owed to our home stays, Summer Brenneman and Karen Brown for letting a bunch of smelly triathletes crash their house for the weekend. And finally thanks to UT Tyler for letting us use their pool.

Word on the street is that more camps are in the works and will be offered to the general public in 2014 so stay tuned for more details!!

Training Tip Tuesday #9- A Look at Running Economy: Part 3

I hope everyone had a great thanksgiving and has had some time to work off that delicious turkey, gravy, dressing, sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie! Actually, I contend that thanksgiving food is relatively healthy if it weren't for the enormous quantity we feel compelled to consume. How is meat, potatoes, maybe a salad and some rolls bad for you? It's the sheer volume of food that does us in and lays waste to our ambitious holiday goals of staving off the ever reproducing lipids appearing about our torso. Oh well, whatever you ate for thanksgiving I hope it was delicious and enjoyed with friends and family!

To continue our discussion of running economy I will finally divulge what Saunders et al., concluded can actually be done to improve RE. 

1) Altitude exposure

There are various mechanisms that researchers believe may play a role in lowering RE with altitude exposure. However one thing is for sure- numerous studies have found a lower VO2 (oxygen) during a steady state test in athletes following 3 weeks at altitude. The performance gains are well proven but exactly WHY or HOW isn't as conclusive. Studies have shown that Kenyan runners (living and training at altitude) did not "accumulate lactate during running until near very high or peak exercises intensities, and had much lower lactate both at altitude and sea level at high relative exercise intensities." This was in comparison to Scandinavian runners who lived and trained at sea level. One of the reasons for this is thought to be the greater skeletal muscle oxidative enzyme capacity exhibited in Kenyan runners which shifts their metabolism from anaerobic to aerobic. Easier said than done altitude training obviously has it's benefits but the expense and length of time you must remain at altitude doesn't make it a viable option for most of us to improve our RE.

2) Training in the Heat

Slightly easier to attain for those of us living in Texas, a mildly elevated core temperature is thought to increase RE by "increasing the efficient of the working muscle." Heat training promotes an increase in plasma volume and decreased blood viscosity. Another adaptation is the ability to run at a given speed with lower heart rate and core temperature following a period of heat training. For most of us, heat training isn't a choice in the summer and I don't recommend post-poning your runs until 3:00 pm during a warm July day just to accomplish this benefit. The article doesn't state what temperature constituted "heat" training but I'd be willing to guess it isn't 110 degrees that is relatively common for a Texas summer day.

3) Strength Training

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO… I can nearly hear the moans emitting from my laptop speakers. For the most part, us triathlete HATE strength training. And I totally understand and can sympathize with the time-crunched triathlete who is having a hard enough time fitting in three sports a week much less a fourth. Well, the studies are in and other than helping injury prevention (another benefit I think strength training has), strength training can and WILL help you run faster. I apologize for the slightly wordy quotation but I think Saunders et al., summarizes things much more nicely and intelligently than I can-

"Endurance athletes must be able to sustain a high average running velocity for the duration of a race." (That's called going as fast as we can for a long time) "This emphasizes the role of neuromuscular characteristics in voluntary and reflex neural activation, muscle force and elasticity, running mechanics, and the anaerobic capacities in elite endurance runners.” (Helps your brain and sympathetic nervous system fire muscles quickly so you can go fast).

This strength training can be either in the form of heavy-weight training or plyometric type explosive-training. Both have their place and their advantages.

Heavy-weight strength training was shown to enhance RE in well trained triathletes (average VO2max of 69 mL/kg/min, which is very high). If it’s benefitting very high level athletes who are already operating further towards the ceiling of their performance capabilities then chances are it can benefit you as well. A great example of someone promoting this in our local San Antonio community is Jen Rulon, of Endurance-Fit. I highly discourage jumping into deadlifts and deep squats if you don’t have a personal trainer or someone who can coach you in the proper technique.

Plyometric training is very popular with sprinters, throwers, football players and other power athletes but it also has its place in the endurance community. By enhancing the muscles ability to generate power and promoting storage and use of elastic energy plyometric training can help a runner produce more force “without a proportionate increase in metabolic energy requirement.” Basically, you can push off the ground harder and faster without using more oxygen. A good thing! Plyometric training is a little easier to do on your own or with a coach because all you need is some space and lots of sweat. Here are a few basic, introductory drills and plyometrics for runners.

The area of strength training is one I think triathletes and runners have the most room for improvement. If strength training can elicit significant performance gains from elite athletes who are at the very tip of the their ability than it will definitely help beginner, intermediate and advanced triathletes as well.