Off Season Training
By Rich Strauss
Amado Cervantes asked me what he should be doing in the off-season this winter to prepare himself for a great 2002 season. I decided to share my thoughts with everyone.
Try to think of the off-season as going to summer school. It offers an excellent opportunity to get a leg up on your competition, if you take advantage of it. The off-season is a great time to improve on the following:
Run base.
Cycling and swimming technique
Power to weight ratio.
Knowledge.
1. Strong, consistent running base: Ask almost any experienced Triathlete and they will tell you that one of the keys to long term success in the sport is to be consistent with your weekly run volume. Consistent running builds the small muscles, tendons, and ligaments in the lower leg and ultimately enables you to increase volume and intensity in the future. All of this means staying healthy and continuing to develop your weekly long run. It is much better to put together eight 20 mile run weeks, than to get locked into the cycle of increasing your run volume too soon, injuring yourself and being forced to take time off. For your off-season run training, do the following;
Ask almost any experienced Triathlete and they will tell you that one of the keys to long term success in the sport is to be consistent with your weekly run volume. Consistent running builds the small muscles, tendons, and ligaments in the lower leg and ultimately enables you to increase volume and intensity in the future. All of this means staying healthy and continuing to develop your weekly long run. It is much better to put together eight 20 mile run weeks, than to get locked into the cycle of increasing your run volume too soon, injuring yourself and being forced to take time off. For your off-season run training, do the following;Try reducing the frequency of your runs. Rather than running 5 days a week, try just 3 or 4 runs per week.
Experiment with a track session or some strides every now and then. You don't want to forget how to run fast.
Keep up with your weekly long run. Shoot for a two hour run, two Sundays per month. When you are training for the longer races next season, your long run will take the most time to develop, due of the risk for injury and the accompanying need to advance very slowly toward your longest run. Because all other training is very light, you can continue this advancement during the off-season without overstretching yourself. In essence, you are doing your homework, so that when you start "training" again, your long run is already well on its way.
How do I get myself up to a 2 hour run?
Be patient and very conservative. First of all, your pace should be "easy," or "conversational." The difficulty of a long run is not the pace, it is the length. Two hours at any pace is a hard run. Look at the run as an opportunity to explore a new trail, spend some time with a friend, or just get out there and clear your head after the work-week. Second, increase the distance each week by a small amount, and then step back on the fourth week to give your body a chance to recover. A very conservative example:
Be patient and very conservative. First of all, your pace should be "easy," or "conversational." The difficulty of a long run is not the pace, it is the length. Two hours at any pace is a hard run. Look at the run as an opportunity to explore a new trail, spend some time with a friend, or just get out there and clear your head after the work-week. Second, increase the distance each week by a small amount, and then step back on the fourth week to give your body a chance to recover. A very conservative example:| Week | Long run |
| 1 | 1:00 |
| 2 | 1:10 |
| 3 | 1:20 |
| 4 | 1:00 |
| 5 | 1:10 |
| 6 | 1:20 |
| 7 | 1:30 |
| 8 | 1:00 |
Improve cycling and swimming technique:
Cold, dark, and rainy means more time indoors on a trainer. This offers an excellent opportunity for isolated leg and spinning drills. If you have a Computrainer, it's Spinscan time. It's also a good time to get some quality swim instruction and spend a few sessions a week in the pool working on drills and improving your stroke, rather than trying to improve your swim fitness.
Improve Your Power-to-Weight Ratio:
Two cyclists, Bill and Bob. Both ride identical bikes and have identical aerobic capacities. Both cyclists put out 200 watts of power at their Ironman target heart rates. But Bill weighs 150 lbs and Bob tips the scales at 200 lbs. Everything else being equal, Bill will ride faster than Bob, because his Power-to-Weight ratio is higher. What can Bob do to catch Bill? Increase his power to weight ratio by either getting stronger, getting lighter, or both. Fortunately, these two goals can go hand in hand.
How can I lose weight?
Ah, the million-dollar question, but very simple: Calories in < Calories out. Burn more calories than you eat on a consistent basis and you will lose weight over time. Use this caloric needs calculator to determine what your minimum daily calories are, given your current weight. Be sure to select the "sedentary" option. Then estimate how many calories you actually burn in the course of the day. For exercise, assume a burn rate of 500-1000 cal per hour, based on intensity. Easy ride = 600, super hard = 1000.
Ah, the million-dollar question, but very simple: Calories in < Calories out. Burn more calories than you eat on a consistent basis and you will lose weight over time. Use this caloric needs calculator to determine what your minimum daily calories are, given your current weight. Be sure to select the "sedentary" option. Then estimate how many calories you actually burn in the course of the day. For exercise, assume a burn rate of 500-1000 cal per hour, based on intensity. Easy ride = 600, super hard = 1000.For example, let's assume you need 2300 calories per day to maintain your current weight. Today you rode easy for 1.5 hours and you estimate that you burned 900 calories (1.5 x 600/hr). 2300 + 900 = 3200 calories. This is how much you would have to eat to maintain your weight. Instead, just eat 2600 calories. Try to create a daily deficit of 500-700 calories and you should lose 1-2 pounds per week. It is important that you don't try to create too large of a deficit, or your body will react by trying to "hold on" to the fat it already has. It gets harder and harder to lose weight. Personally, the only way I can make this work for me is to keep a log of exactly what I eat each day and add up the numbers.
You can increase the amount of calories your body burns by increasing your metabolism. Since it takes more calories per day to maintain a pound of muscle than to maintain a pound of fat, the best way to speed up your metabolism is to increase your lean muscle mass. You add lean muscle mass by adding weight training to your weekly exercise regimen.
This brings us to the power component of our Power-to-Weight ratio goal. Simply stated, the ability to move a lot of weight on the leg press can eventually be converted to the ability to apply more power to the pedals. I will educate you later about raw vs. sport specific strength, and lifting routines to develop both, but for now let's just say that the winter is an excellent time to get in the gym and "jack some steel." As you get stronger, you increase the power component of your power to weight ratio.
To review, strength training accomplishes the following:
Increases lean muscle mass, thus increasing the amount of calories that your body has to burn to maintain its current weight. This makes it easier to create a daily caloric deficit and to subsequently lose weight
Ultimately increases the amount of power that can be applied to the pedals, swim stroke, or running stride.
The combination of these two factors increases your power to weight ratio.
This brings me to my fourth and final point. All of the above is very simply stated. I left out lots of detail. Winter and the "gift-giving season" is a perfect time to get smart. Begin building your library, or better yet, ask your loved ones to build it for you. Sit in front of the fire with a cup of hot chocolate, a good book, and start reading about Mr. Max VO2 and his friends. Check out the Coach's Library for recommended reading
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