Athletes are registered and the nerves are setting in.

Questions and thoughts running through the mind. Will I set a personal best, will I get that elusive Kona or 70.3 Vegas World Champs ticket?  The list goes on.

We all love to break our own personal bests. We aspire to fast times.

But do we ever spare a thought on execution.

We will never have control over the environment. As shown in Taupo in March, mother nature can reek havoc on the best laid plans.

My South African friend Raoul of Urban Ninja fame recently won his age group at IMSA. He finished second age grouper in a time of 9:32 – 15th overall but I can tell you, a time well off what he is capable of and what he has done before. Only four pros broke 9 hours, the conditions… crazy tough.. So while a time goal might not get achieved there is no way you can be disappointed with not hitting that mark when you execute to the best you can. Sometimes our best races are not our fastest. but as Raoul put it in his race report .. his best ever performance. For those about to race, even if it is not about age group wins … Raoul’s race is about overcoming and he did a stellar job. Salute.

What can we learn?

We need to start looking at our achievements in terms of how we executed on the day.

Did we follow our race day plans?

Were we reactive or proactive when the shit hit the fan? Let me tell you… no race is ever plain sailing and if you haven’t mentally prepared when obstacles show up, it is easy to crumble. But we always have a choice.

How about our fuelling and hydration?

What about our thoughts, and did we hold task focus or were we off with the pixies wondering why this feels so hard?

For those racing this weekend, make it happen… you get an awesome opportunity to execute and achieve your goals.

Think about the choices you have to make. Be willing to deal with them.

For those of us not racing, but training, working, living life … we get numerous opportunities to EXECUTE.

Make the  most of them.

I’m not perfect. I make many a mistake which I’m cool with, because it is the best way to learn. I have learnt not to be afraid of making mistakes.

Because if we’re afraid of making mistakes then we never action anything.

We spin the wheels and stay in our self imposed prison … our CZ

To be brutally honest with you, this post is as much for me right now as it is for you.

Getting old isn’t something that just happens overnight. Kekich Credo #83 “Nobody gets old by surprise”. You do realise life is short right… so why delay in taking the action on the things that are important to us.

As my business mentor put it recently – “Think about what you could accomplish if you really focus for the next 12 weeks. After all, that’s only 0.3% of your life. Surely you can commit to that, can’t you?”

It’s April 18 and 25% of 2012 is gone.. gone forever. Will youmake the changes TODAY that you know you need to make orwill another 25% pass, then another and hello 2013 (where did 2012 go?).

Let’s not waste life … because a life wasted … would truly SUCK!

You might be thinking what does this have to do with triathlon performance? It has everything to do with triathlon performance.

How do we know what needs to be changed? You know if you’re honest with yourself.

Uncomfortable eh!

Take time out for some introspection. How did I perform last week? Did I achieve what I set out to achieve? Yes or No. Why or Why Not. How can I improve? What mistakes can I learn from? What did I do awesome and did I celebrate that success (a simple, good job – to yourself can work wonders instead of always beating ourselves up… sound familiar?)

“I believe that one defines oneself by reinvention. To not be like your parents. To not be like your friends. To be yourself. To cut yourself out of stone.” — Henry Rollins

Do we have to wait to Monday to wipe the slate clean and start afresh or worse New Y ears Day?

No.

Everyday we have a choice. We can continue to have that groundhog day feeling and continue on the path of mediocrity and continue to let others and life pass us by.

The biggest question is do we have what it takes to commit to one goal and see it through to the end? Because most people don’t. 95% of people are not disciplined enough to see their goals through.

That used to me be.. yep revealing warts and all here in fact my dad used to beat down on me with this. As harsh as it felt at the time he was speaking the truth. I learnt a valuable lesson from this and again I’m not perfect but I made some huge inner reflections and started to finish what I started.

Life changing.

I’m sure as hell dedicated to being one of the 5% of all the people on this entire planet that has what it takes to achieve greatness in any realm of life.

I want this dedication of myself and through this blog to inspire you to do the same.

If you think that 5% is a gross exaggeration, take some time to look around.

Each and everyday represents a new beginning and a chance, an opportunity to turn things around and finally join the 5%

You want to be a better athlete, you want to prevent illness and disease… then you need to be strong.

But what are the daily steps you’re taking to get stronger everyday?

What are you doing to escape the 95% .. the wasted life?

Did you get enough sleep last night? Or is staying up late, watching TV, surfing the net or doing work that could have been done earlier more important than your overall l ong term health?

Did you avoid all those inflammatory foods that endlessly capture your attention? Or is the taste of sugar, wheat and all those packaged processed foods worth the life of pain, inflammation, disease and prolonged recovery?

Did you do buy those TP Therapy Performance Tools that you need to or if you have them, did you use them religiously this past week?

Or because you can’t physically see the accumulating scar tissue it doesn’t matter. Suffice to say that moving more freely and being pain free is overrated eh.

Did you throw out those over controlling, biomechanic destroying and injury causing built up running shoes and start to transition into a neutral non controlling racing flat?

Are you taking a 3-5 grams of high quality fish oil every day? Or maybe the quality stuff is too expensive and you’re fine with the crappy quality of the supermarket variety and your health isn’t so important.

Did you eat enough green vegetables this week?

What about doing mobility work every morning? Probably the most important thing we could do to positively improve our musculoskeletal health. Ask any one with chronic arthritis if they wish they’d done things differently.

What about training consistency? How many sessions have you miss this week, month or year? In a week it may look small, in a year it adds up.

Have you been choosing to buy more high quality produce that is chemical/spray free or organic. In fact, moving to only eating produce grown and reared this way? You know you’ll pay it somewhere right… the ethical farmer or the doctor. Your choice.

Are you only buying grass fed meats, free ranging chickens and wild caught fish?

Are you only eating the more refined carbohydrates in the post session recovery window? or do you believe timing doesn’t matter?

Are you drinking clean filtered water (not from a plastic bottle)? Are you drinking 3.3% of your bodyweight in H2O daily?

Are you making excuses when the weather turns to shit or are you getting on your indoor trainer or treadmill or getting to the gym to do your session? Yes even if you have to buy a casual visit.

How much junk food is in your pantry?

How much mental/visualisation training did you do this week?

Have you actually listened to yourself, your subconscious self or don’t you think it matters?

We all have 24 hours a day.

The 22-23 hours that you spend not training per day are as important, if not more so than the time spent training.

Dedication is a 24 hour a day, 7 days a week commitment.

We all have 168 hours in a week.

Why is it that some can extract so much more out of this time, while others are wishing for more time?

You need to train each day with purpose. When your there… be there. No going through the motions. Train with your goals in mind.

Train like your life depends on it.

Strive every day to improve in some small way. Every day in every way I’m am getting better and better. Stronger, faster, fitter, healthier, smarter, and adding more value.

Do you have what it takes to push through when fear grips you?

Do you have what it takes to truly commit to that goal? To stop questioning, to stop jumping ship from one program to the next, to wondering if there are short cuts and an easier way? To come to the realisation that is brutally hard. It’s freaking hard work to achieve greatness?

If you don’t fully commit, you’ll never be among the 5% and you are the only one who has to look in the mirror and live with the regrets.

“We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment.” – Jim Rohn

I have my regrets, we all do, but they can be valuable lessons. We could be all a lot further along in life with making smarter decisions. That’s cool – take full responsibility for that. We are exactly where we’re today from the choices we have made.

Making the mistakes is fine… making the same ones repeatedly is not.

Your life is your responsibility. It’s all up to you. Please don’t put off today.. because tomorrow is too late.

To your life’s success.

Kristian “helping you be more by being more myself” Manietta

Good advice on something I need to do more on and looking back over the $200+ dollars I’ve spent on books at amazon or book depositry of late there is no fiction in there.

So if anyone has has some recommendations on some good fictions reads let me know. I should still continue on with Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy!

Anyway back to your warm up and making it more effective. So I was recently going over some of Lydiard’s teachings.

If you don’t know about the great Arthur Lydiard check him out on wikipedia

As a side note it would seem that Lydiard’s philosophies are distinctly different than mine and that I would be more akin to that of Frank Horwills. That might be true for the most part but I aim to learn from the best of everybody.

Something to go more in depth at another time…

Back to warming up and it’s importance to get your bodies systems ready for what you’re about to ask of them.

Warming up is not given too much attention, but a lot is to be gained(read performance) from doing this correctly.

So we have aerobic and anaerobic metabolism and simply that aerobic metabolism produces in Lydiards words “innocent wastes, water, carbon dioxide; anaerobic metabolism produces lactic acid, which as it accumulates, progressively prevents muscles from contacting”.

Here’s the interesting thing and how this relates to warming up properly.

Even when you start off to swim, bike or run, you’ll likely be going anaerobically until your aerobic metabolism reacts by kicking in.

The problem is that most athletes neglect a proper warm up and go out too fast in training and in racing. This fails to fully prepare your aerobic system and will effectively makes you slow down when you should be able to push hard.

When it counts.. the back end!

Here’s how I like to warm up and what I find MOST effective.

1. Short self massage session using the TP Therapy Tools. This allows me to break up adhesion’s which results in freer range of motion and to force feed blood flow and oxygen into the muscles while opening the neurological feed to the muscles. This helps get my muscles ready for action.

Another huge benefit of this is that you allow your muscles to learn a more efficient and effective motor pattern.

2. Start the session stupidly EASY. There should be no goal times, paces, speeds in the warm up and if there is, it should be to go a slow as possible and progressively getting faster.

These two things WILL make you a better athlete.

Be Bold, Don’t Conform to the Status Quo.

To you Triathlon Success

Kristian

As a quick recap the crux of why I don’t prescribe set weekly rest days or a back off week every month is because it kills long term consistency for one (you end up having more days off then you intend.. fact) and unplanned rest will naturally happen because of a little ‘big’ thing called LIFE!

Today I wanted to continue on this thought process with fatigue and how to avoid getting injured.

Injuries suck. But they do happen and there are ways we can better protect ourselves from them happening.

So it’s not news to anyone that most injuries we see are overuse due to the typical high levels of volume and even intensity and not looking after our bodies through self massage etc.

But there are other ways that you probably haven’t thought about that can also lead you down the injury path.

Lack of sleep and not refuelling appropriately both cause fatigue and most injuries occur when the body is in a fatigued state.

Now this is a double edged sword because there is good fatigue where we have some fatigue on the body and then can learn to overcome set motor patterns thus becoming better… but …

When we get really tired, so tired, that form completely goes out the window and you have gotten your body into a deprived state due to not being appropriately recovered in all ways available to you.. This is when injuries occur.

Here’s some simple yet effective and non rocket science ways to ensure you stay injury free and stay at your best.

1. Get sleep. I’ll admit, this is a tough one for me and I’m far from perfect in the department, but there is a huge difference between 6 hours of sleep and 8. And the more pre midnight hours of zzz’s you get is exponentially better again.

2. Eat healthy foods duh… but ensure you’re getting adequate post session (within 30 minutes) recovery fuel.

3. Warm up and cool downs matter greatly. Don’t rush this. The cooler the environment the longer it takes to get ready. In hot and humid climes, system warm up is much quicker. The cool down however is often neglected but extremely important.

4. Think about what you’re doing. Pay attention to your form and technique whether it be in swimming, riding or running. Try to not hold unnecessary tension by relaxing your jaw and shoulders.

5. Use all the available regen tools at your disposal. The Trigger Point Tools will work IF you use them regularly. Read daily. Have a 10 minute ice bath after your long runs or brick sessions.

6. If you’re coming from some downtime after injury, sickness or just some days off, you need to ease into the training. You will likely feel that you’re ‘on-fire’ and feel awesome. However going too hard here on a fresh body can do a lot more damage than good. Trust me on this.

Think…

Kristian “making it simple for you” Manietta

Rest is important, as are specific recovery protocols of which I have discussed in the past and will do more so in depth covering the various topics.

The problem with traditional protocols is how rest is placed and I believe that is due to not understanding the roles hormones play in training and what the optimal session would be the following day. The focus is typically on aerobic metabolism and lactate threshold sessions… which by the way are highly catabolic on the body and do call for more rest.

However what I have learnt from following the ‘old’ way early on and now for the past 5 odd years doing things differently is that we shouldn’t set in stone when your recovery days should be. No longer do I subscribe to the need for a weekly rest day or backing off training every third or fourth week as per the traditional periodisation model.

I like you am a working age group athlete who has many commitments like family, travel and a seemingly growing list of responsibilities to attend to. This is modern LIFE and there is no escaping it. And this means that life has a funny way of guaranteeing that you’ll be facing unwanted days off from time to time.

The positive kicker here is that you can remove the guilt from missing a session (if you have been consistently hitting sessions) and these days off become your rest days. No making the session up, just start again the following day. All is good.

For most of us we need to understand that even if we feel stressed (for any number of reasons) our body still sees us sitting behind a computer as rest. Yep, think about it.. as I’m sitting here typing this my aerobic system is a rest, and my muscular system is resting.

My body is resting. Sure I had a fantastic run today and at times I was truly in the moment visualising the outcomes I want to see but right now, right here my body is at rest and it gets this rest day in day out and it is a big reason why I don’t plan days off in my training schedule. They will just happen.

There are times like in the lead up to an important race or race week that there is deliberately planned rest. There are also systems and tools I use to determine when I need to rest.

I just wanted to make it clear that most of you will need to take unplanned days off or dramatically reduce training from time to time. This becomes effective recovery.

What about mental fatigue requiring rest.

We all have those stressful work days, or travel that causes us a load of mental fatigue. We feel sluggish and believe we just need to rest from training. Even though you’re ‘tired’ the physical systems have been at rest. So if you take the day off.. this is a rest day.

In time of high stress where we have different stressors coming at us from various paths I recommend adjusting your sessions to provide more of an anabolic (growth) type training session. Since high stress is catabolic on the body, the last thing you need is to add more catabolic stress from aerobic endurance training or lactate tolerance sessions. The best training here is short intense intervals or short efforts with high resistance.

The crux here is to learn to become intuitive and understand your body and its signals. I mentioned some tools and systems above that I and I recommend my athletes use.

1. The good old, go out and test drive your body to see how it responds. Big performance boosts can come from dragging yourself out of bed when your head is telling you you’re too tired to train. This is commonly a trick… when you get out there and clear your head, 9 times out of 10 you end up feeling great and having an excellent session. Though sometimes you still feel tired and can just reduce the session in volume and intensity and other times, you’ll know pretty soon that you need to not train for that day.

2. Morning resting heart rate tracking. This one is very simple. Over a few weeks test your morning RHR as soon as you wake and before you start to move around. Once you have determined a base line then you can tell by checking if you need extra rest, or if you maybe coming down with something. A fluctuation of a beat or two is ok, but when it is 5+ beats, you know something is up and you should get some extra rest.

3. Using a paid software like restwise.com – this gets you to track some basic metrics, like RHR, sleep hours, quality, weight, feelings and gives you a score. It takes about a month to get some meaningful data but it can be highly useful.

Kristian “your triathlon mentor” Manietta

We got ‘over’ fearing for our lives each time we went out riding on our bikes… but slowly and unfortunately that fear is coming back and it’s all to real. Even here on the sunny coast.

On Eater Saturday fairly early when the roads where still quite, Rich Thompson and I were happily riding along – two abreast, which was very legal and within our rights on our way to a quick coffee stop in Eumundi (the hinterland of the sunshine coast). In the matter of seconds, we had an irate driver on his horn from about 200m back and speeding up to us as we came into a round about.

He slammed on his brakes and skidded up to us, screaming out his window. Then spun his wheels as he veered around us only to turn in towards us and slam on his breaks again. Calling us the C word and going mental. He was planning to get out of the car as we rolled around him and then he spun his wheels again and headed for me. It was here I thought this guy was going to deliberately run me over. I got myself off my bike on the side of the road as this guy continued his aggressiveness and verbal assault before driving off.

We got his number plate, spoke with a witness (who a few minutes later came back to tell us this maniac was on his way back). Indeed he was, but this time he stopped his car in the middle of the road and got out of his car. Rich got a short video (over at my facebook page) and only part of the confrontation. He got much worse before he got better.

One thing here is majorly important. Years ago, I would have lost my cool and my temper and likely made the situation worse. But as much as I would have liked to deck this guy, what would it have achieved?  He would have become more aggressive and next time he came across cyclist may have done the unthinkable.

We need to see change but we need to become part of this change and behave appropriately. As pissed off as I was, I was able to diffuse the situation and in fact eventually got an apology out of this guy! I couldn’t believe it. But just imagine, that this guy actually thinks twice about his actions in future. That may potentially save a fellow cyclists life.

This shouldn’t be an us versus them. We need to be the change we want to see. We need to obey the road rules, the same as we do when we drive our cars. Sure there are many cyclists that do break the rules, run red lights and annoy drivers and there are many drivers who also break the law. Don’t be one of them.

Don’t be the impatient person in the car. Even to other road users. We all have a choice. We can react, get angry and achieve nothing or we can be proactive. How much stress would we avoid if we let people in. Lets lead by example.. whether we are on our bikes or driving our cars. Change happens with us.

I recommend checking out the Amy Gillet Foundation site..downloading the Road Users Code and even doing the Road-Right Quiz

Stay safe

Kristian

P.S. I got a lot comments on my facebook page and amazingly one who sided with the driver. The issue is that too many people are in a rush for no reason. We too easily get angry. I can say that I used to be an angry person but I made a decision that being angry doesn’t serve me or anyone for that matter and to this day I still have to work hard on keeping a level head. Let’s make a difference.

I can guarantee the number one obstacle you’re facing in whether or not you achieve your goals, is the simple fact of believing it is possible.

Yep the #1 thing that is stopping you is the lack of belief in yourself. Period.

The problem is, that many of us think that we will start to believe it’s possible when all the ducks start to line up. We want proof… but if you continue to follow that line of thinking you may be waiting a very long time and the harsh reality is that your goals may never happen.

Natalie Cook said it best in her book Go Girl – “The time to believe is when you have no reason too”

Here’s a little secret for you, something I have learned along the way and that helped me first become a professional snowboarder and then become a pretty decent age group triathlete and a great coach.

Belief is just a choice you make. It’s an attitude that you can strengthen over time. It’s your responsibility to take charge, and work on your self concept (get the book – The New Psycho Cybernetics to help you).

You can really do anything you set your mind to. Yes… ANYTHING…

How?

Believe in yourself, use positive self-talk, create the perfect motion picture in your mind with visualisation and combine that with proper training, coaching and ACTION. That is how you achieve the success you’re after… in any field.

“I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to not know what can’t be done” — Henry Ford

First you might need to get rid of this mind disease first.

I came across this back in my personal training days while listening to a guy called Phil Kaplan and he mentioned that you need to kill the Ayerelius Kantorius (the “Aye Kant”) and if you don’t it becomes a life long disease that limits your potential exponentially.

You need to give up the notion of “I Can’t” because if you don’t then it will become a self fulfilling prophecy.

Where did our notions of “I Can’t” start?

Very early in life.

When your kid learns to walk there is a lot of falling down and as parents we give encouragement to keep them trying, again and again. To keep getting back up when they fall and soon enough they;re running around. But then your kid starts climbing on everything and wanting to jump up and down… because there isn’t any fear. There is no self limiting barriers. Nothing seems to big.

But it is here in our own fears that our kids might get hurt.. that we possibly lay the foundations for lack of self belief later in life. If we condition the sense of invincibility out of our kids through our own fears then over time they no longer believe they can.

Not just in climbing, running, jumping.. but possibly in life.

I believe this is sad, and as a parent to a young son, I struggle with wanting him to learn, takes some hits, get back up.. but without really hurting himself. A slight conundrum.

So we can and should teach our kids to believe that anything is truly possible, which it is with the right mindset, determination, focus and hard work, we cannot turn back the clocks to our childhood. What we can do is choose to take responsibility right now for removing the I can’t from our vocabulary.

“I wish” … is in the same vote as I can’t . Don’t wish. Chose and make it happen.

On this road to becoming your best.

There will be obstacles. Many of them.

These obstacles at times feel overwhelming, but I want you to do this. And if you’e bold and serious. You will get up out of your chair right now and do this immediately.

Go stand in front of a mirror and repeat – “No matter how bad it is and how bad it gets, I’m going to make it”

Do it with conviction. And do it again and again.

Have a great Easter

Kristian ” expanding your mental muscle” Manietta

P.S. The TS 70.3 Blueprint is all done.. however I’m having some tech issues with my shopping cart and download links. I should have this all sorted early next week so you can grab it at a good deal.

P.P.S Send me your questions and I’ll be sure to answer them in my QnA.

This one unlike the tip from “cross the line”  takes some time out of your already packed day.

It’s time well invested. If improving performance and staying injury free are important to you.

To extract better performance from your body, we know there is more to it than just the physical training i.e. the sessions you do to develop speed, strength, endurance, neuromuscular capabilities and motor skills to name a few.

Then there’s the mental side of the game which is huge and needs to be trained daily.

Of course there is another huge aspect in terms of how you fuel your body. Great nutrition makes a difference and then there’s things like sleep (and I’ll be honest I need more of this and need to make it a life priority and one of my lives rules to 90% of the time be in bed by 9:30pm)

And while theres many other recovery techniques and gizmos, the one that needs to be done daily is self massage.

Doing this will help you work on the areas that us triathletes need to work on daily. We need to free up the restrictions of our mobility centric joints which are our ankles, hips, thoracic spine and shoulders.

All these areas bind up due to various reasons, with our postural habits and training positions being the biggest.

So we need to work daily on freeing up these restrictions and thus creating better and more fluid range of motion, and allow more blood flow and oxygen to our muscles while also opening up our neurological feeds to the muscles.

We can and should work on these a few ways.

1. Is looking at our current posture outside of training. How we sit defines the way we move and breathe for that matter.

So ensure your feet stay flat on the floor when seated. Not with heels raised .. you may even be tucking your feet under you chair now!

Try not to slouch… you know hunched back with shoulders rounded forward. Shoulders down and back opens up our ability to breathe.

If this is uncomfortable you need to work on thoracic mobility and releaseing the pectoral muscles. And you should be seated at a 90/90/90 deg position. That is 90 degrees at the ankle, knees and hips.

2. Is daily self massage. This will help you regain lost mobility by reducing adhesions and scar tissue. This in turn creates better and more free range of motion which means better efficiency and better firing muscles. Less chance of injury and better performance. You get way more power from your muscles when you unbind them.

3. Are mobility exercises. There are plenty of great examples on you tube that focus on those mobility centric joints I mentioned above. Do these after you have rolled.

Points two and three will actually allow you to have better posture without forcing it. So add these in to your daily regime. If you have some injury issues or restricted movements then I recommend doing this 2x daily. 1 before your morning training session. As it will only better prepare you for the session and then the other at night.

Hands down the best tool for the job is the Trigger Point Performance Therapy Kits. The investment will improve your performance. I guarantee it.

Kristian “theres many aspects of performance” Manietta

Huh.. How is that possible?

Simple, but it is going to require some hard work. But it’s not physical work. This has to do simply developing your mental muscle.

When ever you do a training session you need to ‘cross the line’ and by that I mean you need to be ready to train and focus 100% on what you’re about to do.

It’s about being in the moment. It’s about developing the skill set of single minded concentration and focus.

You can extract so much more out of every session if only you focus on the session and nothing else. Switch off the noise about the phone call you need to make, the work that needs to be done, what you’re going to have for dinner. All of that is irrelevant right now. As are past results both good and bad.

The opportunity you have right now is so huge but you’re letting it pass by.

Don’t waste it on being off with the pixies when you’re meant to be training.

Even on those ‘bad’ training days, theres an opportunity. But you think it may be a waste of time. Let’s say today that you’re only at 70% capacity.

Ok.. that’s what you have got. Why not make yourself give 100% of that 70!

So why don’t you try this. Make a little ritual, find out what feels right to you. Next time you pull on your goggles, clip into your pedals or slip on your run shoes use that as the cue to tune everything out and intently focus.

See the attitude shift? This will propel your performances to levels you you didn’t even dream of.. and if you did dream of them, it will get you there quicker.

70.3 and Ironman are long days. If you cannot focus on what you’re to do in training, then it is going to be impossible come race day.

Stretch that mental muscle. Make sure you find a little cue that works for you and each time you step up to a session … cross the damn line.

Be Bold, Only you can make it happen.

Kristian “the mental game” Manietta

Swimming is underrated due to the fact that since the swim is the shortest part of the day by a country mile that many think it really doesn’t matter.

But matter it does and in a very big way.

And I believe most swimming drills are a complete waste of time because they focus on developing a stroke that is really only good for swimming in a perfectly controlled environment that is the swim pool. Plus most of us just don’t have the time required to undo and relearn specific motor patterns and then be able to hold those motor patterns through increasing intensity.

I’ll admit, I’m definitely not the prettiest swimmer there is and I muscle my way through the water. But the thing I have learnt though is to be as effective as possible in the open water and that swim fitness matters.

Understanding the little financial concept “compounding effect” will help you out in your triathlon training and racing. See just like putting money away consistently yields a nice compounding effect, the same happens in triathlon. Fatigue compounds throughout the day. A little too much fatigue early in the day can become so much later on that puts you on a ‘death march’ to the finish and your performance suffers greatly.

So the fatigue you create from the swim will affect both your bike and especially your run. The longer you can delay the onset of fatigue the faster you’re going to go.

Training your swim matters. But how you train it matters even more. Training for a triathlon swim is not the same as training for a swim race in a perfectly controlled environment of a single lane to yourself with a black line to follow.

Most athletes go to a swim squad. Usually for social reasons, less boring and that someone can watch over their stroke and help make technical improvements. You’ll be given drill after drill to ‘perfect’ your high elbow and develop a nice long glide that you see the top swimmers do and then somehow add power and speed to that without it all falling apart at the seams.

Even if you do become proficient with the nice long glide and have developed the ability to add speed and power to it. What happens to that stoke when thrown in the mass start chaos that is a triathlon race start? Swimming in the pool without interference is completely different to dealing with swell, chop, currents, fists and flailing arms.

That nice beautifully placed hand entry and long glide goes to pieces. The stroke stalls and you end up using a lot more energy due to the constant acceleration and deceleration of your arms. And if you haven’t put the time into developing your swim fitness, there is no engine to help you deal with this. You end up getting out of the water gapping at air like a fish out of water.

As I said above. My swim aint pretty… But it has so far been effective to get me up at the top end of my age group over all. My best Ironman swim time isn’t super quick at 54:30 and my half best is better at 25:13 (I’ll get to how I achieved that later).

What I focused on and still focus on was getting both strong and fit in the water. Below I want to give you some ideas on how to develop an effective triathlon swim stroke that won’t break down in the open water mass start triathlon swim chaos.

I recommend swimming frequently and especially so if you’re a weak swimmer. Swim skills are lost quickly and swimming frequently preserves these hard won skills. Three swims per week will maintain what you have got but four to five lower volume swims will give you the frequency to not only develop great swim fitness but better open water swimming skills.

If swimming is a limiter of yours, placing your swim first thing in the morning before another session will give you better quality as you’re fresher. However that is perfect in theory but may not work with your life circumstances or pool time availability. Just putting it out there… so you know.

Use tools effectively. I love TYR Catalyst hand paddles in extra small (translucent green) for most swimmers. If you’re a sub 55 IM swimmer than you can use the small (yellow) ones. Using these paddles is great for developing strength but also capping your heart rate while working hard. This stops you from being smashed aerobically which takes longer to recover from.

A big pull buoy is another great tool. No it is not cheating. It allows you to learn a correct position and as importantly you don’t have to think about holding that position. You get to focus on developing a better open water stroke without having to kick franticly to hold the correct position. Still kick with the pull buoy in. The pull buoy also simulates your body position in a wetsuit.

The weaker your swim, the shorter your interval repeats should be. If your stroke falls apart early then there is no point swimming long efforts. You get the same aerobic training effect from 80x25m as you do from swimming 2k straight. But the 80×25 with short rests allows you to develop a much better motor patterns and an ability to hold form. Fatigue in swimming is a huge factor so break it up into manageable chunks. A big session smash fest ingraining sub optimal motor patterns is not in your best interest if you want to improve. Keep it short, focus intently and you’ll develop a solid open water technique in no time.

At first keep the total volume of swimming per session down while you work on using the new tools and developing a new and more effective open water swim technique.

The goal is to develop a shorter and faster stroke that is able to be applied continuously no matter what the swim conditions are. Your focus should be on developing a powerful front end. Ie. Hand entry, catch and pull. You want quick acceleration. A high turn over so there is no lag time. Removing lag time in an open water situation minimises the chances of disruptions from external influences.

This takes a little bit of time to develop but will end up reducing your energy expenditure from swimming which I have mentioned is key to improvements in our bike and run performances.

Instruction:

Get rid of the perfectly and carefully placed hand entry into the water. Focus on getting your hand in quick. Drive it in there powerfully to develop momentum which will save you energy from not needing to stop start stop start. Rest of arm follows the hand. This is the set up for a nice quick and strong catch.

Without gliding and keeping constant pressure on the water, keep your arms moving. It’s a continuous rhythm. You have pressure on your fingertips, now you want to pull back straight and powerfully. To develop power through this phase practice some head up water polo type swimming. A fast hand entry followed by a powerful pull develops a continuous stroke. This minimises disruptions such as chop, competitors, currents and swell.

Back to the 25:13 half ironman swim result. That was a huge breakthrough swim for me and I also had to stop and put my goggles back on and bridge back to the group after I copped a beauty to the head. Charlotte and I were living in Canada at the time. It was summer but for some reason the pools had shut. So our only option was swimming in the lake. We swam five days a week in that lake in various conditions from mill pond to foot high chop, but we kept to our pool sets. We were fortunate enough to be lent some swim cans from a local coach. We used a jet ski and GPS to drop them at 25m, 50m and 200m off the pier.

That is swimming I miss… In hindsight this was a perfect opportunity and we were very lucky, but I believe IF we have the ability to swim open water at least once per week then we should make the most of it. Don’t be afraid of keep the efforts short and repeated. You might not have swim cans, a jet ski and gps (well most people have GPS today thanks to Garmin) but you can use land marks or simply use your watch.

I was so comfortable in open water swim conditions and was able to keep a good stroke in the hustle and bustle. I got a good time but I also achieved an awesome result.

Develop your swim strength and understand the importance of your swim fitness and watch the rest of your results soar.

Be Bold, Make it Happen

Kristian “making you a better triathlete” Manietta