Breathing Drill for Swimming

On the topic of Swimming 101, there is no movement more Fundamental than the Breathing Drill for swimming. In order to develop a sustainable breathing rhythm, it is necessary that you exhale ("blow bubbles") while your face is down in the water. The reason is that when you turn your head to get a breath, you do not have time to breath out and in. If you attempt to do this, you will be on your side for too long, you will not get an adequate breath, and you will sink.

The answer to this problem is the Breathing Drill, the very first drill that I teach to every new swimmer I coach. In this video, Michael is working on blowing bubbles, which he has gotten pretty good at. He is also working on keeping his head level in the water. He has a little room for improvement here, as you can see that his head is angled upwards when he turns to breathe.

Here is a more extensive description of the Breathing Drill, along with an nice overview of some other swimming Fundamentals.


Proper Swimming Techniques -- powered by eHow.com

This Shirt Says It All....

Stacy is getting primed for the Boston Marathon in ~6 weeks. She came in today wearing this shirt:

At first I only saw the "Run Fast...REPEAT" portion.

But then I noticed the "Train Smart...Recovery Quickly" lines as well.

It's true that all 4 components are necessary. And PS-Stacy loves the Newton Shoes.

Bike Storage in My Office

These are some pictures from my office. Some of my clients are coming down to train so often that they store their bikes in my office. Wow that is a lot!

And this is a picture of about half of the trainers stored in a corner:

Even though it is hard to get around and there is little room left, I don't mind it because I love being surrounded by cycling equipment. However some of the other trainers are getting a little mad at me....

2 Kinds of Running Speed Work

Hey Music City Runners:

I frequently get asked the question on how to get faster at running. The first answer I always give is, "Run more and stay in the comfort zone." It is true that by increasing (gradually) the number of minutes that you are running each week that you will improve your efficiency, and hence your speed.

But after a while you will either run out of available time for training, or you will reach the maximum benefit from aerobic base running. Nevertheless I want to be clear here: the two workouts I am about to describe should only be initiated AFTER you have 4-6 weeks of steady running.

Hill Repeats and Pick-Ups are excellent first forays into speed work running. These are the two lowest impact forms of intensity running. They are harder than steady running, but you should be able to recover reasonably fast if you don't overdo it.

Hill Repeats: To do this workout you need to find a hill that is medium grade and takes 2-3 minutes to run to the top. Start with a 10 minute easy jogging warm-up. For the first rep run to the top of the hill at a steady pace. Not sprinting, just steady and strong. Make sure you run a little ways past the top of the hill, 20-30 yards after it has flattened out. When you get to this point turn around and jog back down the hill WITHOUT STOPPING.

Once you have started your first hill, you are to run continuously until you are done with the last repeat. Your "recovery" during this set is while you are jogging easy back down the hill. If you are on a walk-run program, you can do some walking on the downhill portion, but keep going all the way to the top on the uphill.

Again, the pacing on the hill repeat is somewhere between "steady" and "strong," but not heaving and gasping for breath. You should focus on your form during every repetition: Keep your posture upright. Keep your eyes up the hill. Do not stare at the ground. Keep your foot turnover (cadence) high with short quick steps up the hill. Keep your time on each hill repeat by measuring either bottom-to-top or bottom-top-bottom to ensure that you are holding your pace steady or getting faster throughout the set.

Start with 5 hills and build up to ~12 for the workout, which will eventually amount to 45+ minutes of solid up-and-down the hill.

Pick-ups:This is a great workout that will spice up any run and give you some good speed. A pick-up is a 30 second burst of very fast running, with plenty of easy running between each one. During the pick-up your speed should be 90-95 percent of your top speed. Again start with 10 minutes easy to get warmed up. Then do 6-20 pick-ups during the run. Each pick-up should be separated by at least 1 1/2 minutes, but you can jog easy/steady for up to 5 minutes between each one. Start conservatively and gradually increase both speed and # over weeks.

Overall Comments on Speed Running There are no shortage of coaches, programs, and workouts that will woo you with promises of speed work. Having done hundreds of such sessions myself I can tell you they work. But as an experienced coach I want you to see the big picture of how speed work fits into an overall running program. Speedwork is the icing on the cake, and you need to make sure you have some cake first to put the icing on.

If you are a new runner or just coming out of an off-season, then do not worry about this kind of workout. You want to get your several weeks of steady running first.

If you are training for a half marathon or marathon, and this represents a challenging endurance distance to you, then your most important focus is your long run. After that you want several short and medium runs for recovery during the week. You may do 0-2 of the outlined sessions per week. But be VERY CONSERVATIVE in the first few times, because it is more important to AVOID INJURY than to BUILD SPEED. If in doubt, leave the speed out.

If you are training for fast 5K or 10K runs and have a base, then do one each of these sessions each week. There will be more intensity sessions of even greater rigor to follow, but only if you are training for short-and-fast races.

If you are a more experienced runner with a well-established baseline of running then by all means start doing these workouts. The way to get faster at half and full marathon distance is to include appropriate, rigorous intensity workouts. You will enjoy the increased results of these kind of sessions.

COMMENTS FROM READERS:

I just finished 5 hill repeats...it kicked my ass! Thank you for this great info! I really needed to get out of the rut. ---SUZANNE

I'm definitely keeping this one. Thanks. ----AMY

Bike Fit with Experienced Ironman

There are not many triathletes around Nashville who have more experienced than Rob Allison. He has been racing for almost 20 years. After numerous attempts and two very close misses at qualifying for Hawaii Ironman--2 times he was less than a minute back--he finally nabbed a Kona Qualifier ("KQ") spot at Ironman Florida last fall.

Another thing about Rob that you should know is that he likes the best of anything he uses. He doesn't waste time with "bargain" gear. For instance he has a fully pimped-out flagship Scott Plasma that he built himself, complete with Powertap and Zipp Vuka aerobars. However something was missing. Despite a close reading of everything that slowtwitch.com has posted on fitting, he still had a nagging feeling that the bike did not fit him correctly. The Vuka bars, while very light and aero, are not very adjustable.


Photo: Rob.

In the first clip below you can see Rob's position on his tri bike. There are a couple of areas that do not look quite right: his arms appear a little too stretched out, his back is too curved, and his pedal-stroke looks cramped. He is figeting on the saddle. He is not completely comfortable.

Compare before and after, you can play both at the same time:


Rob before fitting.



Rob after fitting.

I knew that Rob was close but had some room to improve. You can see in the post-fitting picture below that Rob's back is flatter, his hips are more open, and his shoulders are correctly aligned over the aeorbar arm-rest pads. Surprisingly, even though he originally felt (and looked) too stretched out, we actually adjusted the aerobars 1 cm forward.

Rob reported that the new position was more comfortable than his previous position. Note, that the previous position was the position that he qualified for Kona on. We know that the new position is easier to generate power because we did the fitting on a Computrainer. We also made a couple of tiny adjustments to his Speedplay cleat positions, including putting a valgus-shim in one shoe.

Here is Rob's write-up of the fitting. And I was not the first person he asked for help with his fitting.....

ST-

Thanks for the time and effort and all of the advice yesterday while fitting me on my bike. I was really excited to meet and go over bike dynamics and fit for me. It has been a long long time since I have taken the time to meet with anyone to go over that aspect of my triathlon training and given the amount of time spent on the bike, I see it as very valuable for me.

As you know, I have been competing in triathlon since 1991 and have raced at every distance all over the world. I have trained with many pros and have even coached, but never have I been able to amass the specific information that you have regarding the bike fit. I enjoyed talking about the specifics of the bike fit for me and I am amazed at how the subtle changes we made felt so natural. Now that I have qualified to go to Hawaii to race in the Ironman World Championships 2010, I feel that I will have a better start to the season and the ability to be faster on my bike.

With a full time job and with the desire to get faster, I believe that your knowledge, the use of the power meter, camera, and angle measuring tools all led to a better overall fitting for me on my bike. Today, I am amazed at the difficulty in choosing a bike that fits and how your measurements and advice made that process so much easier. I was impressed that even my cleat placement was scrutinized by you.

Thanks again for the fitting and the advice for this season. I look forward to following up with you in a few months to see how it has all come together for me.

Rob Allison

Next Music City Runners Club Meeting

Monday March 8 at 7:30pm (after club run at 6pm)

Location: Pie in the Sky (West End)

See blog post from Feb meeting

Guest Speaker will be Dr. Chad McClellan, Medical Director of the Country Music Marathon. Dr. McClellan will be speaking on how to comfortably and safely complete this race. Learn more about his practice here.

New MCR Runner T-shirts will be available this night.

New Cycling Videos

A new batch of my eHow.com videos were just posted. Here are a few samples:

How to Build Cycling Stamina -- powered by eHow.com




How to Prevent Cycling Knee Problems -- powered by eHow.com


I will be posting all the videos on my videos page soon.

While I was looking around eHow.com, I found a great series of videos by Gillette explain to guys how to shave different parts of their body. My personal favorite:


How to Shave the Groin Area -- powered by eHow.com

It sure beats waxing!