Readiness Ramp Test

Back by unpopular demand, this is a follow-up to Tuesday's most delicious blogalicious.

There's another manner in which to listen to your body and yet still appease that manic obsessive-compulsive mind of yours. I dub it the 'Readiness Ramp Test' and it helps answer the query, "How do I know when I'm just being lazy or am actually in need of rest?" I think I've written about it before but never in depth.

Since a check of the waking heart rate scarcely tells us anything (I've known many different triathletes [and let's face it, triathletes are different] whose morning pulse rates has fluctuated by as much as 25% without any ill effects on their training that day or the next), a better way to gauge whether or not you're "just being lazy" or are indeed tired is to head out the door anyway and then do the following. After all, the introduction of stress is really the only way to tell if you're equipped for stress.

(While this is an example of a bike test you could just as easily do one while running on a track or a closed circuit; this also assumes you're wise enough [and affluent enough] to possess a power meter.)

a) Warm-up by spinning for 5 to 10 minutes and let the debate also spin along in that topsy-turvy noggin of yours…as the Clash asked, "Should I stay or should I go?"

b) Ride at and maintain 80% of LTHR (lactate threshold heart rate) for 3 minutes at a cadence of 80RPM in the aero-bars and record average power. Keep your HR steady and without deviation in attempt to average 80% of LTHR. When the 3-minutes is up, check your output, record it and rest a minute. Then steadily increase your heart rate to 90% of LTHR and maintain this for another three minutes, at the same cadence in the same position. Do not start recording the 3-minute interval until your HR is at this 90% figure. And again, record your average power when the time is up.

Next, check your HR average for each 3-minute stint and add both power totals up.

Here's a sample of mine from last Wednesday's ride (which I continued doing, knowing that I was merely just tired in my head) (Keep in mind that you can be tired only in the head!) ...

3-minutes @ 135HRavg = 256 watt avg; avg RPM 101 (Note: having come from a bike racing background, I'm a bit of a "spinner"…the spin doesn't stop here.)
3-minutes @ 150HRavg = 310 watt avg, avg RPM 103
Added Power Totals = 566 (256 + 310).

Typical (recent) Power Totals at these HRs on a good day = 585+
Typical (recent) Power Totals at thee HRs on a bad day = 520-

I deem anything below an 8% drop-off in power as a "red flag" and I typically omit any hard riding had it been planned that day.

Why 8%?

Because I've found, through decades of experience, that when I've decided to go ahead and discount my fatigue (or whatever may have caused my output to drop at these given IN-tensities***) I've ended up regretting it a day or two later, no thanks to further fatigue or a scratchy throat or a niggling knee. A similar trend often occurs with the pro athletes I coach. A 5% drop in power on this Readiness Ramp Test is concern enough, but I'll usually allow myself (or the athlete) to at least attempt what's on tap for the day. If it unfurls unfavorably, we're quick to pull the plug, just as you should be. If, on the other hand, the day progresses fine, then roll with it! However, it is also imperative to watch and compare your numbers (HR/power) as the workout unravels, to be sure you are not unraveling as it does so, in the event you're not capable of recognizing this without the use of electronica. This, by the way, is essentially known as "decoupling" and is written about in more detail here, by triathlon's most pragmatic physiologist, Alan Couzens. Joe Friel also touches on the subject here and here.

***Finally, a quick memo, and I've mentioned this a gazillion times over in the past: Training should NOT merely consider output (work performed, as in power output or pace) but also input (the cost of said work), particularly in the early season, when your fitness is nowhere near race-like fitness. Intensities are most often best determined by your heart rate monitor and IN-tuition (i.e., INner awareness, perceived exertion, knowINg thyself) as this is what true IN-tensity is. Heart rate monitors measure stress INcurred, no matter the origIN. A higher than normal heart rate means that something is going on. And don't think for a mINute that your body doesn't recognize this stress. It does, regardless of the source. It does not know, however, what power output or pace you're holding. These, it's important to understand, are arbitrary constructs, manufactured only to appease our Type-A minds. The shrewd athlete will always use every tool available, when said tools facilitate a better understand of his/her body. Sometimes, however, it's best to throw them all out and use only the one between your ears.

PS: Not that this has anything to do with anything, but the average human blinks close to ten million times a year, roughly 800 hour's worth of shut-eye whilst remaining awake. If as a triathlete you were to train this much each year, you would likely perform better on race day. The moral of the story? Open your eyes and get training.

Structure: The Mind vs. the Body

Yesterday, as I forced my outdated but overly-priced bicycle onto the neighboring strips of bitumen (which, amazingly enough {at least to me} can connect me to almost any town in North America...Stehekin, WA notwithstanding), I thought a little about structure; specifically, structure as it applies to triathlon training. (A quick caveat: my life lacks structure and always has, so take anything I have to say on the subject, um, subjectively.)

Over the years I've known a good number of triathletes whose lives depend greatly on structure, as their daily schedule is often filled to the brink. I, on the other hand, require very little structure, as my days are consistently filled to the brim with nothing. Nil. Nada. Nemo. Zip. Zilch. Zero. I go to bed when I need to and I wake when I want to. Moreover, I spend the time between the time I go to bed and the time I wake up how I want to, which, incidentally, is precisely how I need to. There's no clock but my own. And I don't plan to ruin this luxury by impregnating any women (or any men, for that matter) or working to buy a bunch of belongings I'll soon have no need for.

But enough desultory discourse. Back to structure.

During my little solo hammer session, in which I tried to drop me, I thought more and more about structure and the effect it has on our body's performance, principally as it pertains to us athletic types.

There's little argument that structure may be nice for the mind---it certainly seems to evoke a calming effect for the type A's amongst us---but it's also worth bearing in mind that the human body doesn't always respond favorably toward it. What's good for the mind (a plan, for example) ain't always good for the body.

The human body, of course, is a magnificent, complex apparatus. Even yours. It comes complete with a whole bunch of gooey stuff inside that I'll never even remotely understand or care to dissect…or smell. Hell, even those nutty scientists have only really begun to scratch the human body's sweaty surface (which, of course, feels pretty darn good, but never mind that). I recall having read once that there's enough stringy stuff inside you to encircle our magnificent, complex planet---most of which very few of us can spell or pronounce, let alone describe or identify. Our understanding of ourselves is as confusing as understanding what makes us understand.

Besides a spleen, an appendix, a gallbladder and a whole host of organs whose functions you're probably clueless about, your body has its own unique rhythms, its own unique cadences, and an endless repertoire of revolving responses. To make matters worse, its signals are nowhere near as easy to decipher as the minds seem to be. I cannot tell you how many times I've witnessed athletes (myself included) force themselves through a given workout because an agenda told their mind it was the RIGHT THING TO DO, only to watch them get sick or injured (or, worse yet, unmotivated) shortly thereafter. Where they went wrong is in adhering to what looked good on paper (or what they could fit into their frenzied existence), without paying heed to what their body may have been trying to tell them. The human body knows no structure but its own.

So, how do we learn to listen to our bodies? What if its signals are distorted? How do I know when I'm just being lazy or am actually in need of rest? Should I even set a schedule?

Listening to your body is easy, especially if it makes as much noise as the backside of mine does, though that's not the kind of listening I'm aiming to address here. By "listen" what I really mean is being in tune with the signals it sends. Sure, those signals can be hard to decipher, and sure, they can often be imprecise, but only because your mind is so full of clutter that you're incapable of clearing through it all and listening. I mean really listening. You need to free your mind from mental slavery.

When I hiked the Pacific Crest Trail the first time around, circa 2002, I was immediately immersed into the wonderful simplicity of trail life and I soon found myself completely in tune not just with our natural surroundings (the way they've always been) but with my internal environs as well. Because there was no clutter in my mind (or elsewhere in my life) I was able to tune out all distractions and tune in to my body's own rhythms and requirements. I could literally tell whether my body craved an apple or an orange (although it usually craved both, and a bunch of them at that) and the effect either would have.

Today, however, I've lost that incredible way of life and I find myself surrounded by artificial lighting, horns, sirens, walls, automobiles, and a bunch of other noisy, polluting manmade crap. Hurried people are seen every time I venture out in the "real (sad) world", usually sitting in their massive gas-guzzlers a few frightening feet from the back end of my motorcycle. There's simply too much to deal with so worrying about my body becomes secondary. One look at society tells me a lot of people must feel the same way.

But when it comes to being an athlete (and, let's face it, few athletes are as athletic as a TRIathlete, minus the pentathlete or decathlete) it's critical to let your body's warning signs be heard. Here's a little trick I learned way back when, in the days of neon spandex and one-hit wonders like the Thompson Twins (both of which hold me now). Basically, to know what your body is telling you on any given day or before a given workout, you need to ask yourself a few questions. As David Byrne once crooned, "You might ask yourself…"

…How'd I sleep the previous night? Good, bad or ugly?
…What's my general state of fatigue? Not bad, bad, ugly?
…How motivated am I today? Not at all, somewhat, like Chuck Norris?
…What is my level of soreness? High, low, can't tell?
…What is my current stress level like? Road raging, mellow, stoned?
…How bad do I want to achieve my goals?
…Will skipping today's workouts impede (or assist) my progress?
...Am I a compulsive athlete?

These simple but essential questions should allow you to get to know your body better, though it's important to first block out, eliminate, or come to terms with all the white noise elsewhere in your life. As Ferris Bueller paraphrased, "You need to slow down and take a look around every once in a while." But don't save Ferris; save yourself some trouble and slow down, look around and, most of all, look within and listen. Structure that into your plans!


PS: Not that this has anything to do with anything, but the first stall closest to the entrance of a public bathroom has been proven to be the least used. It is also the cleanest.

The Fundemental Law of Training

While hosting the Spring Fling Triathlon Camp a few weeks back, I was approached by one of our participants with a beer in his hand (this, by the way, is not an unusual occurrence at our camps, except that each hand usually has a beer in it). He wanted to know what I felt was the most important principle of training.

I responded with a quick and curt, "It doesn’t matter what I feel. It is what it is."

"And what is it?" he responded, cracking open the 24-ounce can.

"It," I replied, "isn't so much an important principle as it is a law: it is the (thee) fundamental law of training."

"And what is it?" he repeated, knocking back some brew.

"Ultimately, the success of any specific training strategy---no matter how well-thought-out and designed---is dependent upon it. Neglecting it results in more failures than all other mistakes combined."

"And what is it, damn it?!" he responded, for the third time, showing a hostility I hadn't ever seen from a camper before. The beer obviously hadn't taken effect yet.

Finally, I gave him the answer he was looking for, though one might imagine he was already well-aware of it, inebriated or not: "The fundamental law of training is pretty darn simple," I said. "Every training stress incurred needs to be balanced-out with an appropriate amount of recovery, to allow for optimal performance progress." And while my tongue wasn't quite so eloquent, that's effectively what I said, though I may have thrown in a few curse words for emphasis. For what it's worth, I had not been drinking.

He looked at me and quipped, "I was expecting something a little more insightful," and proceeded to walk away. This time I bit my eloquent tongue and held my curse words in.

I wasn't sure whether he'd been hoping for a secret of some sort, if even as cliché as the rhetorical "there are no secrets", but by the looks of it my answer failed to suffice.

The thing is, it's the truth…the "golden rule": If you're going to train hard, you better rest equally as, um, hard. If I were out to sell you something I'd clean it up, polish it, and package it as such: Stress plus Rest equals Progress. Catchy, eh? Simple too. (The opposing expression might go like this: Stress plus Inadequate Rest Equates to Anybody's Guess.)

Sometimes, though, the simplicity of training can be so overwhelmingly confounding that it befalls complexity. This is perhaps why there are so many who seem to want to make triathlon a science and no longer a sport. Scientists can be a competitive ilk, but let's face it: science isn't really the arena for competition. You nerdy lab types need to seek the truth, not the triumph. And anyway, if you find the truth won't you have your triumph?

But that's not why I'm writing. I'm writing to drive home the importance of balancing stress and rest, and "chillaxing"---as Angela calls it---when the time is called for (and it's called for far more often than most athletes and coaches might realize).

But here's where things get tricky; chillaxing (chilling and relaxing) isn't enough. You need to HASTEN recovery if you're truly interested in maximizing your athletic potential. Sitting on your ass all afternoon is good recovery, no doubt, but lying on a massage table is even better (particularly if someone if actually massaging you at the time, while an IV concurrently fuel-injects the right recovery fluids into your bloodstream). This way you can train with quality that much sooner, and no doubt, he who out-trains you will out perform you. Yes, more is better, but only when your body is ready for more. After all, you can only train as hard as you can recover.

Now I'll be the first to admit that mindlessness is great recovery. In fact, I know plenty of athletes, myself included, who make such mindlessness appear as though it was their true calling. But mindful recuperation will outshine it every time. If you can speed recovery, you will speed development. Beer, incidentally, does not speed recovery (though it does help anesthetize those training pains, in addition to making us ugly people look less ugly).

So there you have it: the golden rule and a smidgen on how it should be applied. And while I've never been one to stick to the rules, this one overrules even the unruly.

For more detail on all this, please head over to AC's latest blog. He hits the nail on the head, as per usual.

Seven Deadly Spins

1) The Seated Force Ride. Otherwise known as "big gear" work. The idea is to challenge the muscles in new ways by pushing a larger than usual gear at 50-60RPM while climbing a 3-8% grade in your standard aero position at a moderately hard intensity (90-95% of LT/FTP). At least your aerodynamic drag will be minimized as you rip through the wind at 5-8mph.

2) The Indoor Ironman Grind. Identify your optimal Ironman Power Threshold (ITP) and ride 8% above it for as long as possible, indoors but in comparable race day conditions. You should be able to ride at least the same duration as your last Ironman's ride time. If not, your steady-state stamina needs working. (Your optimal Ironman Power Threshold, or what I term as such, is basically the highest possible power output you can sustain throughout the ride on Ironman race day, and yet still run your best.)

3) Hill Repeats. This is about the fastest way to get fit on a bike. As Monster Merckx quipped: "Don't buy upgrades. Ride up grades." Find your lactate threshold/function threshold power and ride just this side of it for as long as the hill allows. Then repeat. Over and over and over.

4) The Long Ride. "How far are we riding?" I asked Mike Pigg. "We're not riding far," he replied. "We're riding long." I didn't know it at the time but long rides didn't need to be hard; they just had to be long. Of course Pigg's version of "long" was inconsistent with mine; I remember reaching our halfway point in the same duration as my previous longest efforts, somewhere near Laramie (which, sorry Mike, was indeed far from Boulder!). 112 miles never seemed long---or far---again.

5) The PowerCrank Ride. Years ago I helped out at a PowerCrank booth at the Hawaii Ironman expo, offering $5 of my own money to anyone who could pedal this new invention for more than two minutes straight. My antics didn't cost me a thing. As an ex-professional cyclist I rode them for five hours my first time out. Hip strength and mobility is vital for triathlon and I suggest borrowing a pair of PCs and seeing how long you can pedal. If it's less than an hour, your hip flexors are feeble, you maggot.

6) The Group Ride/Bike Race. There's a time for hard group rides and, although that time seldom arises for the triathlete, nothing can push you like a bunch of ego-driven cyclists. Go get pushed and push yourself. If you get good enough you might even be able to push them.

7) The New Stress Ride. I've been riding a road bike since 1980 and this is the single hardest ride I've ever done. My coach at the time, Joe Friel, suggested, "One hour at 120RPM average, regardless of HR or power output." My power was half of what I can maintain all day and naturally my heart rate reflected it and yet I could not walk for three days after this. New stress can be good stress and I was able to increase my riding performance after this, for reasons Joe or I still can't explain. All the same, I'll take it.

Finally, another Deadly Spin includes the old standby: Tabata Sprints. If you're serious about your cycling/triathlon performance you won't go ten days without doing these ever again.

Oh, and for what it's worth, any of these seven deadly spins can be combined.

P Soup

Participation: If you don't join 'em, you can't beat 'em.

Purpose: Know precisely what your goal is.

Passion: Have a burning desire to achieve it.

Planning: Determine how you'll go about achieving it.

Perspiration: Work hard following your plan to achieve it.

Perseverance: Don't let anything get in your way of achieving it.

Picture: Picture yourself achieving it.

Perform: Put it all into play on pay day.

Play: Enjoy the process, regardless of outcome.

PS: Not that this has anything to do with anything, but the word "play" has more definitions than any other in the English language. Is it really that hard to understand? Go play. If you're not certain when you're playing, you're certainly not playing.

The Human Gymnome

Having re-relocated to Solvang recently, I joined the local gym, Performance Fitness. It's an extraordinary facility but a bit overboard for the requirements of Solvang, a parish with a paltry 5,000 inhabitants. Still, I'm happy it's here, especially because of the side-by-side swim flumes. Though I don't swim a whole lot anymore (apart from the occasional spell while attempting to do what I call "surfing", or what real surfers know as "making a complete idiot of yourself") the flumes allow me to more closely scrutinize the strokes of assorted athletes I coach, with the added bonus of not having to stride along beside them as I do so. Now I can pull up a chair (and of course a newspaper) and watch away, all with a minimal of movement.

Besides the "pools" the gym has everything else a triathlete might need, including an adjacent physical therapy office owned by the gym's proprietor. This, I've learned over the years, is an all-too-necessary attraction when attempting to extract the best performances possible from yourself; show me a pro triathlete who hasn't seen a physical therapist and I'll show you a loser. It's true that to do your best, especially when mining iron, you have to run atop a razor-sharp edge. And sometimes you slip down its rusty side.

What I find most valuable about the whole gym experience though isn't the workout or the sweat rate or even the gains to be had, but the human surveillance. Humans have always been a superior source of mirth, particularly when observed from society's periphery, where I tend to loiter.

It all begins in the adjacent parking lot, where gym patrons drive around in their gigantic gas-guzzlers in continuous circles, attempting to secure the closest possible parking spot, nearest the gym's entrance. Bear in mind that these are people who headed to the gym to get some exercise. And what's most bewildering, at least to me, is once they finally find that elusive parking spot, they then proceed to enter the gym, only to start walking on a treadmill! (There are numerous treadmills in the gym, each of which requires the user to "sign-up" beforehand and then wait his or her turn; caged hamsters don't even have it as bad.)

It's important to understand that the weather here in Solvang is about as perfect as perfect gets and walking outdoors is actually quite pleasant. Solvang is Danish for "sunny fields" and that it is. We get about ten to fifteen days of rain a year, and on every other day there are birds chirping, flowers blossoming, leaves rustling and a mighty bright sun blazing away overhead, unimpeded by clouds or smog or large buildings.

But these poor souls don't see it. Nor do they see the paradox in driving to go for a walk. It would be one thing if they were driving to get to a nice nature path but they're not; they drive to walk in place, so they can face mirrors and tune others out by donning headphones. The whole affair is filled with irony and their carbon footprint isn't so much a footprint as it is a foot-strike. And that foot-strike is nearly as heavy as the ones pounding the poor treadmill.

Nothing else in the gym can top this entertainment for me, save maybe for the big macho men who think they're "fit", in light of the fact they can bounce a lot of extruded steel off their chests. You'd guess they were really just after some attention by the way they cry out when they're bouncing these heavy metals, but one must appreciate that such loud grunting proves that you're working hard. I do the same thing when pinching a loaf in the gym's bathroom stalls, to confirm my masculinity. If anyone doubts my manliness all they have to do is step foot in the adjacent stall. I'll make a believer out of them.

Another thing I get a kick out of are the women who work out at the gym, though this could very well be a California thing. I'm not talking about the bolt-on boobs (silly-cones, I call 'em) or the fake bake tan or the jewelry or the bleached hair or the liposuctioned waistline but rather the fragrance. Triathlete women just don't seem to understand that they're supposed to drown themselves in perfume before working out! Not once have I ever been on the starting line of a race and smelled anything quite so invigorating, and that includes those lengthy lines of Porta Potties and the time I feigned my gender so I could win one of those all-women Danskin Triathlons (I did not; Michellie Jones beat me soundly.) The women in these events smell like men! And their poos stink too!

But despite all these shortcomings I still like gyms. Every so often you meet someone you actually truly like. I coach one gal who met her future husband at a gym (though he may not have known his fate at the time). I myself have met a few nice people at Performance Fitness here, including the janitor. Jose and I get along fine because he doesn't question my masculinity and I let him do his job and clean up after me after I've visited the men's locker room stalls.

PS: Not that this has anything to do with anything, but the problem with everything is that there's too much of it.

Alactic Sprints

Below is a letter I just shot out to the athletes I coach...

Dear Motor Units,
As you may be aware, I've started prescribing short sprints for some of you. Well recently I was asked, and I quote, "What the hell is this sh!t all about?" It's a good question, of course, and one I need to answer.

In layman's terminology you're doing "this sh!t" primarily to fire up the ol' fast twitch muscle fibers, much like those nasty Tabata Sprints (see Matt Fitzgerald's latest blog or an old one on mine) do but in a less stressful means. It's these very muscle cells that will be called upon in race situations where fast starts or surges are necessary (as in swim starts, etc) and again late in the race when the slow twitch fibers begin to fatigue. If an event is long enough (i.e., Ironman) and you are truly racing yourself to get to the finish line fastest, you incorporate the use of more than just slow twitch fibers.

These sprints also help send the signal from the body's central processing unit (CPU) (your brain) down the central nervous system in a manner that only faster, frenetic movements can do. All our slow movement (i.e., aerobic training) does little to stimulate brainwaves and the nervous system, and it accomplishes nowhere near what it could for the muscle motor units themselves, perhaps because we evolved not just as fight-or-flight creatures but also as lazy slobs who'd rather walk than run, or who'd rather watch NASCAR from the couch than walk. Remember, man evolved not just to fight or run away, but also to gather, and it's why we're best suited for longer events when compared to the animals that can eat us. By engaging both slow and faster movements we can train the body in a more complete manner and possibly avoid being chewed up and spit out (the back).

Now, about the efforts themselves…

These are not so much anaerobic as they are alactic (as in: so briefly intense that the millisecond each effort becomes hard, it's finished!). The term alactic basically means without lactic acid. In other words, these efforts are so short-lived that your body really doesn't have time to ask, "What the hell is this sh!t all about?" And yet the benefit is palpable. If these efforts are done over a long enough period of time (a matter of weeks that is) you can capitalize on your brain's capacity to send signals, your nervous system's ability to transport those messages, and your muscles' capacity to receive the memos. All in less than a minute or so each week, in each discipline: swim, bike and run.

Some guidelines…

These are, to put it mildly, risky. They must be done only when your "chi" is on and you feel invincible. The fact that I prescribe them at all is risky since I know not when you're feeling on your game. Please keep this in mind and attack them only when ready. Skip them when you can tell you're not ready; it's no big deal. If you are to do them, it is best to do them up a slight grade (except while swimming, unless you can swim upstream fast) to limit the speed involved. They aren't speed efforts necessarily, but simply hard, succinct attempts that are over with and done before you've even come close to reaching cruising velocity. While running, be sure to choose safe, predictable surfaces and while riding be sure the road is smooth and free from the usual hazards: cars, dogs, your buddy's rear wheel, etc.

-Coach