Racing pressure & anxiety need not be negative

As I prepare for a lecture to some junior & U23 athletes as they prepare for the world triathlon championships on the Gold Coast in Australia, my thoughts go to the processes of handling pressure.

Here are some thoughts that may help you as you train hard in preparation of your next race.

-High self expectations can create stress that is perceived as negative. A more empowering interpretation can be that you have confidence in your ability – that is why you are entertaining the prospect of doing well
-Realize that setting yourself a high standard actually points to your belief in your ability
-Some anxiety indicates that you have put something important at stake that demands a higher standard from you.
-Having shown yourself (& others) that you are capable of competing at this level should bring pride rather than concern.
-Preface races & hard training with formalized thoughts around the challenges that need to be met in order to continue the process of transcending your current level of ability
-Confronting thoughts & what they pertain to should be viewed with satisfaction as they point to the purpose of training hard & give the self assurance that your efforts are meaningful & correctly directed

Triathlon in Australia

My 1st trip to Australia. I have been working my tail off & I have only just got here. I love the country. Reminds me so much of South Africa. I apologize for the lack of posts recently, I know it's been a while, but plenty of work & inter-continental travel will do that. All the usual suspects - triathlon training, running, sport psychology being the order each day. Juniors, age-groupers, aspirants & pros - all looking for that extra edge.

This is a great sporting nation & it's easy to see why; every level of athlete is out there every day working at their skills & fitness.

I have often wondered why certain circumstances that logically would be a limiting factor in an athlete's development turn out to be a reason for success. Take the British dominance of middle distance running in the 80s. Training in traffic & wet miserable weather gave the world Steve Ovett, Sebastian Coe & Steve Cram, plus a few others. In South Africa it is generally the rural kids, from areas that have very little of what you would call opportunity, that produce the great athletes.

In triathlon it's nice to see that despite the super sport powers like Australia & the USA, that there is a healthy mix of top athletes from unexpected corners of the world.

Here are some themes that I am working on with coaches as we lead into the world triathlon championships:

· Training progresses linearly & logically from baselines
· Work from actual, repeatedly verifiable data
· Distinguish between open running ability & OTB running ability
· Physical training should always be viewed also as mental training & be designed as such
· Specificity is the overriding principle
· Variety overcomes plateauing – even the triathlete can easily lose effective stimulation from excessive repetition of the same workouts. Not to be confused with phasal emphases
· Maintain perspective
· Differentiate athlete & event/situation/sport performance requirements from personal /ego desires. Be brutally honest

Should we train by feel or with science?

I have just read an interesting article on the above subject: http://bit.ly/sn6OD. Check it out & then read the following blog entry. Then, decide for yourself if you are in balance with your training, or whether a boost from either side could help you achieve the next level in your development as an athlete.

The article is somewhat subjective, contradictory & anecdotal, but raises some excellent points. It I do however agree that the Africans train by feel, & that they have a different relationship with the sensations of the sport at high intensity. For a long time now I have admonished runners for having lost their “feel” by over-reliance on heart rate monitors, stop watches, GPS’s, etc. I feel that workouts like fartlek & runs for time teach pacing & feel & too many leave them out, especially the triathletes, who want it all recorded. That’s why I love workouts that emphasize distance over time (e.g. run as hard as you can for 30 minutes, versus time over distance, (run a 4-mile time trial). Recovery based training is an excellent model for most amateurs, but it does make targeting a specific event (to have peak fitness on the day) rather hit or miss. The conundrum is setting intensity/pace & volume for athletes who have not developed feel through trial & error from years in the sport. Break down or plateauing through a “suck-it-and-see” approach is not a luxury that most coaches can afford, & breakdown through illness or injury leads to massive detraining (& loss of confidence & momentum) & therefore under training is a better way to go for most. Many, many Africans fall by the wayside due to this feel approach – we just don’t know about it. We either figure out how hard to train without breakdown & get better – metabolic progressive overload, or we don’t & break down, lose it all & start again – catabolic excessive overload. They have many more talented athletes in their gene pool who are trying to succeed than we have & an “eggs against the wall approach” (push them as hard as possible & the survivors become champs) is one that the African coaches can afford, but we cannot, (unless we have a huge recruiting budget!).

The point is well taken though, but science as a means to establish what’s working & what is not, is very useful. The heart rate monitor has long been known to have serious limitations as a coaching tool. Racing heart rates under similar conditions & the same velocity are often much higher than training heart rates. In the world of cycling, where the measure of output in watts is now a simple enough procedure, has long since all but tossed out the heart rate monitor as a training tool & uses it more as a secondary confirmation that training is having the desired effect &/or that certain training is not appropriate at a specific time. In swimming where variables are able to be tightly controlled, that besides lactate threshold testing, (again to determine the efficacy of training), velocity (speed) is all that coaches need to measure advancement & even the Kenyans measure that right?

Lastly, pros race to win & that is what this article is about, but amateurs & age-groupers are less warrior-like & more the athlete type, i.e. they wish to improve their own performance & do not often consider that they are racing to win a race outright. In this scenario, pacing & effort – especially in the longer events, greatly determines the quality of the performance – with this approach the tools of the trade can prove very useful. If I know that my pace needs to be x, to achieve a certain goal outcome & I exceed that pace greatly in the early stages, (which is really easy to do), then I am inefficient & will most likely not achieve my target. The Ethiopian star could not give a two-penny hoot about his mile pace, (kilometers in his case!), whether that be 5:15 (a pedestrian marathon pace for him), or 4:15 (approx. WR 10km pace), he knows where he is at in the race & where he needs to be positioned to win & if his physiology & fitness let him down on the day, then it’s “ah well, maybe next time”. The scientists & coaches may be able to determine why it was not on, on that day, but they cannot with any certainty determine what training & tapering exactly would have produced an optimum result – that is where the art, feel & intuition of coach & athlete come into play. Probably why so many great coaches peaked so late in their careers; it took a LONG time for them to blend the art & the science & learn the process of reading each individual athlete & then applying, testing & repeating until voila, a world beater!

Science & feel (art) need to go hand in hand; I have seen too many great performances not achieved by Africans because they failed to pay attention to what science could have foreseen. Similarly I have seen numbers-focused athletes freeze when they realized the devices were telling them that perhaps they were operating in unknown territory & were bound to implode & the thoughts alone led to the slowing or the implosion.

World Champs are hotting up!

More as regards results later with the Bobbysez Blast, but in the mean time just a quick teaser to those of you who do not necessarily follow the world of T&F that closely - go & look at the uTube clip of Usain Bolt's new world record run in the 100m, sub 9.6!!! It was good to see Tyson Gay go fast as well in the same race.

While still powerful, it's beautiful to see sprinting back to the realm of the graceful & lithe again - these men are not physically as muscled as earlier generations, but they are immensely athletic & coordinated - wow.

In the classic high school mistake, that one sees quite often nowadays actually. Ethiopia lost gold in the women's 10 000m; where they may have had the sweep. Arms went up in celebration of the win, while a young Kenyan sneaked by to win it! Meseret Dafar seized up over the closing 30 meters, (ending up 5th!), allowing her team mate Meselech Melkamu to come by, thinking she had won it, when the young, but not entirely unheralded Linet Masai came by & won by a hair.

The Tour is over for this year - but...

This is an extract from a February post from The Science of Sport website, which I highly recommend by the way.

"It brings to mind one of the most fascinating quotes I've ever come across in a cycling book - it was in the book "The death of Marco Pantani" by Matt Rendell, in which a story is recounted of how in the 1990's, with EPO use rampant, the cyclists would set their heart rate monitors to sound an alarm if their heart rate dropped below a certain level. On hearing the alarm, the cyclists would have to wake up, get the bike out and spend 10 minutes on the rollers, in their hotel rooms, just to jump start the circulation.

In the words of one cyclist: "During the day we live to ride, and at night, we ride to stay alive". "

Dibaba out of World's 10 000m

Ethiopian Olympic and world 10,000-meter champion Tirunesh Dibaba has withdrawn from the 10000m at the world championships in Berlin. She is carrying an injury. There is talk that she will go to Berlin anyway & do tests to determine if perhaps she can still run in the 5km.

Her husband Sileshi Sihine, has also withdrawn from the men’s 10,000, citing a hamstring injury. Sihine is the winner of two world and two Olympic silver medals over this distance.

Since I heard of their marriage last year I wondered what level of athletes their kids might be!

My take on the POSE method of running

I often get asked what I think of the POSE method & thought it time to take the risk of putting my thoughts out there. Let me start by saying that I have not done a full, in-depth study of his teachings. I have studied the video & written materials available, as well as the research project. I have worked with many athletes that have followed his courses & teachings & can recognize a runner using his methodology. I know Nicolas Romanov & consider him an acquaintance. He is a very well-informed, scientifically-minded, interesting individual with a true passion for helping runners. We have had some fun conversations in which we have more celebrated the similarities of our work than argued the differences. We both strongly feel that most runners would do well to formally work on their run mechanics & that drills for specific strengthening & habituation are essential to achieve running excellence commensurate with fitness. We have debated the merits of his method versus my take (approach) to effective running mechanics at last year’s USAT National Bi Annual Art & Science festival on the merits of his system & my approach.

The study showed that the POSE method reduces pressure around the knee. An observation of the participants of that study also showed that a large percentage of them developed achilles & soleus injuries possibly due to transitioning from heel to mid/fore foot striking.

I think his strengthening & plyometric exercises are excellent, but that the conditioning phasing needs to be very much longer for the average athlete – in fact it should take years, rather than only weeks. The exercises may also need to be graded, as some are so advanced as to pose the risk of serious injury to the less skilled & conditioned athlete. I fully agree with the forward lean & the concept of going from one pose on the left leg to the same pose on the right leg. Closed loop, reflex actions need a starting point to begin the work of effective correction if required. Running being cyclical makes it hard to intellectualize as well as teach from a static perspective.

Let’s get down to the points where I disagree. Please note that I have always felt that what Nicolas demonstrates versus what he says/teaches in explanation of what he is doing is contradictory. What he is doing looks right, how he explains it does not. Also bear in mind that running involves so much eccentric loading & unloading & an elastic return to power ratio on 5 to 1, that is exceedingly hard to measure what is truly concentrically contracting & what has eccentrically loaded & is "passively" unloading, so both he & I speak empirically to some degree. Hopefully my ideas are an accurate summation of what pressure plate & other testing (like measuring muscle contraction & high speed videography) have shown.

1. Nicolas feels all runners should run on their forefoot – I disagree, many people do not have the strength, conditioning, mechanics or structure to safely do so. Transitioning a runner is slow, pain staking, risky & sometimes not possible. Some of the greatest runners on earth are heel strikers or full foot strikers. Correct forefoot running may be faster, “softer” & more powerful, but demands high degrees of resilience, specific strength & conditioning. Heavier runners beware.
   



2. Nicolas feels that there is no propulsive phase. He feels that correct lean/alignment & limb position will have you fall forward & gain momentum through gravity alone. I feel that the “springs” need to be loaded, thus there is a downward thrust of the leg to apply the rigid leg to the surface to load & then subsequently unload through the ankle, knee & hip hinges. Note that this does NOT imply “pushing” when the foot is on the surface, but before (from knee up position to surface contact). Thereafter the loading occurs passively (albeit rigidly) to preset ligaments & muscles (especially in the plantar fascia & achilles tendon) to store & then timeously release that elastic energy as propulsion. Here is the propulsion phase - the unloading



3. Nicolas believes that this “falling” from one pose to the next is set up by the forward lean & the concentric firing of the hamstring & in so doing raising the heel up to the hips/glutes. I disagree most strongly here, as the loading, eccentrically & elastically of the hip flexors (especially the iliopsoas) through the downward (& rearward, because of momentum) thrust of the leg through glute & quad extension causes the knee to snap elastically forward (the psoas does not actively contract, but controls the release speed). The knee folds in this process (sheer physics) of the knee being snapped forward by the releasing hip flexors, bringing the heel towards the hips to shorten the lever (& taking the shortest route, like the tip of a cracked whip). The hamstring's job is to eccentrically decelerate the lower leg from this point so as not to flip out forward & allow the knee to lock while still air born. This would lead to an excessive braking phase as the foot contacts the surface too far ahead of the dynamic center of mass. There has to be a braking point, but the runner must attempt to reduce this to the minimum – sufficient only to stop them from face planting! A characteristic of great runners is this minimized breaking effect. By lifting the heel up & falling a float phase is set up, which robs the runner of stride rate, a key determinant of successful running. By lifting the heel towards the glutes elastic propulsion is compromised & the main mass of the body is not propelled forward. That's why, in my opinion, when Nicolas, or one of his converts runs they seem to have too much range of motion with too much muscular work for the speed they are generating - they look inefficient; like they are using too much energy for the level of propulsion they are achieving.

I end off by saying that this is my interpretation of what Nicolas is teaching with the POSE method – I may very well be wrong in my assessment. In my 28 years of coaching I have come to a point where I want to help every level of runner achieve a running style or form that allows them to run as fast as their physiology will allow them, to run as far as they need to in order to achieve the desired training effect & not become injured in that process. Instead of teaching one method to every runner, I take what the runner brings & try to work with this, creating the best possible running scenario for them, given their specific physical idiosyncrasies as they pertain to their running mechanics. I try not to make them "mugus", a South African term for a square peg in a round hole!