Triathlon Related Injury and Overtraining Can Be Avoided: Triathlete Advice

Most triathletes drive themselves into the ground trying to ‘get in their hours’.

Some triathletes are wildly successful with a minimal amount of training.

A majority of triathletes integrate a gym workout into their training without any real understanding of how to workout for triathlete shape.

Most triathletes believe that if they want better results, they need to put more hours into the pool/track/spin class with the instructor that wears the tight bike shorts.

Here is the normal training program 90% of triathletes seem to love:

Swim.

Bike.

Run.

Repeat in a variety of order and progression until you have forgotten where you live and the names of your children.

If you are about to start training for a triathlon, have been training for one or have a friend that does triathlons, know this.

As in most things in life, at a certain point your repetitive training cycle will reach a ‘point of diminishing returns’.

By doing the same three movements repetitively you pull your body into a series of tightnesses and muscle imbalances you

A list of common injuries sustained by triathletes:

Chondromalacia Patella (runners knee)

Achilles tendonitis

Thoracic tightness

Swimmers shoulder

What can be done? Here are the top three things you can do:

check your gear

Having the correct gear that is correctly alighned to you is very important.  If you can afford it get your bike tuned and your shoes checked (most upper end shoe stores nowadays will check video as you run on a treadmill – it isnt an exact science, but its better than guesswork).

recover hard

Just as you work hard, make sure you recover hard as well.  Massage, hot baths, footrubs, all those things that tough athletes aren’t supposed to do but things that your body needs to stay performing at a high level – you are in this for the long run, right?  Or would you rather be an elite triathlete for 2 years and have a career ending injury then?  Your call.

get specialized advice

Personal trainers are many and varied in their training – find a few that are able to speak ‘tri’ and see what you come up with.  If you have someone that knows what they are doing, a few sessions later you will understand your body much better than you could ever imagine.

So mix up your training – go see a personal trainer to get ideas on how to ‘open’ your body up.  Get a massage, for goodness sake!  Triathletes in general spend ludicrous amounts of money on their equipment and leave their body to fend for itself.  Just as you wouldnt pay thousands for a nice car and put a beat up engine in it, you hurt your performance by buying a great bike and gear only to neglect the actual driving force that puts up the real effort, your body.

Yours in health,

Jamie Atlas

Runners and Triathletes: 3 Exercises That Are Guaranteed To Help you Run Better

Most Running Programs are not designed for Runners.

They are likely excellent programs in themselves – their major fault is that they usually work your body in a completely different way than the actual movement of running.

Spiderman was dangerously close to finally catching the 'Lycra Bandits'

The runners and the dumbbells should be friends:

When weightlifting started to enter mainstream popularity, many runners found themselves ‘hitting the gym’ in the quest for faster times.

Unfortunately for the majority of the runners diligently working out , they mostly experienced slower times, greater fatigue and increased incidence of injury. But why was this? Part of this was that they were working out without the science available today, but beneath this was a major factor:

Your average ‘running workout’ has no consideration for the actual sport of running

Do you run with one leg at a time, or two legs at a time? If you ran one leg at a time would it make sense to teach your body to be better at pushing off one leg at a time?

The answer becomes evident if we look more closely at how you naturally run:

Kangaroo vs Leopard

Kangaroos use both feet at the same time to move forward

Do you run by using two legs at once – like a kangaroo?

Notice how the rear leg and the opposite foreleg are on the ground at the same time - similar to how we naturally run

Or with opposing legs – like a racehorse?

Do most of your exercises have you working out two legs at a time?

Would it also make sense to exercise opposing leg and upper body segments at the same time?

What if I told you that most of the exercises your program has you doing are probably of little or no use to your running prowess?

Common exercises that give poor ‘return on investment’ in regards to running

• squats
• leg presses
• leg curls
• leg extensions
• adductors/abductors
• bench press
• lat pulldown

Your exercise program should reflect how you run. Most don’t.

The below picture demonstrates how we run using one leg forward while swinging the opposite arm forward with each step.

As demonstrated in this picture, as you run you counter-rotate through the upper body (notice how every leg has the opposite arm forward?)

Here’s a quick 3 minute video that shows the #1 exercise for every runner or triathlete to do.

Just to be sure, I have included another 2 exercises in this video just to be sure you don’t leave unsatisfied:

Watch the video below to see the exercises that will have you running at your best ever!

If you only have 20 minutes in the gym, do the above exercises for 3 sets of 10-15 reps each side and you will see marked improvements.

You now have an exercise for your upper body, core and lower body that are all designed to help you run better.

Just a few of the changes you should see from doing the above exercises:

• Improvements in your running strength/times and technique
• Elimination of those niggling injuries that come from long runs
• Greater return in your time and effort invested in the gym

if you liked this post, you might also enjoy:

Never run on a treadmill again pt 1

Never run on a treadmill again pt2

which is best: treadmill, bicycle or elliptical?

Jamie Atlas

https://jamieatlas.wordpress.com

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