functional training

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Posts Tagged ‘functional training’

Functional strength training for endurance athletes: Part 1

Sunday, March 21st, 2010

Endurance athletes typically have a few things in common.

Firstly, they love what they do, and knowing the fact that 99.9% of the population couldn’t imagine doing the sorts of races they do, whether its a Channel Swim, Ironman triathlon, mountain marathon, century ride or ultra distance run. Having the determination and dedication to complete and compete in these events is true testament to the human will, and something that only a small minority of people are capable of. The endurance athlete loves to push him/herself to the limit, overcoming barriers in training, and breaking down every wall that stands in their way on race day.

They also love to train. Endurance athletes are quite happy to slog out 10, 20, 30 hours per week at their chosen sport, and make the sacrifice that is necessary to achieve their goal, whether it’s simply completing the course, or a top 5 finish. The training mindset of the endurance athlete is one that is strong, whatever the weather, against the odds, and willing to go the extra mile.

However, like everyone, endurance athletes have flaws. The biggest that I can determine is that they (not everyone, but the vast majority) neglect strength training, or at least don’t perform the correct type of exercises in the gym. It is this similarity that is the focus of this article.

Ask any endurance athlete out there why they aren’t performing strength and conditioning as an integral part of their plan, and I can guarantee that one or all of the following 3 points will come up:

Strength training will make me heavy, slow and inflexible . . . .

First off is the thought that performing strength training will make them heavier, sluggish and inflexible, and so strength training should be excluded from their training plan. There are a couple of things to address with this misconception. Firstly is the nature of the training that the athlete is associating with strength and conditioning. Often when people think of strength training, they think of traditional bodybuilding training, which is largely dysfunctional to the endurance athlete (although still seems to be advocated in a number of endurance sports training books). However, with a functional training program that has been designed in order to specifically enhance performance, you’re not going to get huge muscle mass gains, you won’t get any slower and you won’t get less flexible. In fact, you’ll actually become faster due to increases in strength, power, economy and movement patterns, you’ll get more flexible due to the integrated nature of the training, and as for getting bigger and slower? Nope. Regarding this, the first thing to mention is that the strength gains you’ll be getting are largely going to be down to improved neuromuscular performance, without a big increase in muscle size. Secondly, in general, endurance athletes are largely ectomorphs, who find it extremely hard to gain any significant muscle size. Those two things aside, the strength and power improvements you’ll gain will totally outweigh any added weight as you’ll be stronger, more powerful and more efficient at your event(s), thus making you a superior athlete and improving your performance greatly.

I don’t have the time to train strength . . . .

The second point is one of time. The endurance athlete spends so much time each week actually out on the road, in the pool or on the trail, that they believe there is no time left to perform strength training. To be fair, in their current regime, they’re probably right. But they shouldn’t be. There is time, and plenty of it. More so, it is a case of not being willing to ‘sacrifice’ a little swim, bike or run time in favour of 45 minutes strength training 2-3 times per week. The philosophy of the vast majority of endurance athletes is that in order to get better at swimming, cycling and running (or whatever your sport entails) the only and best way is to do more swimming, cycling and running.

This is largely where overuse and overtraining injuries set in; that niggling hamstring injury that forces you to take a few days off every couple of weeks, that knee pain you get after mile 13 in your long run, the lower back ache when staying in the aero position on the bike for more than 5 minutes or when running up hill; the list goes on. In order to get better at your discipline, it’s NOT necessary to do it for longer, you just need to do it better. There’s no point rowing the boat harder if it’s pointing in the wrong direction.

Strength and power training won’t help me as an endurance athlete . . . .

My third point is the single greatest myth when it comes to training for the endurance athlete, and that is the fact that the endurance athlete feels that strength and power work will not improve performance in their endurance based event.

During my recent mentorship at the Institute of Human Performance in Florida, Juan Carlos Santana explained this beautifully. Basically, believe it or not, endurance sports are ALL about POWER. The equation for power is work/time, So if an athlete runs a 3h30m marathon one year, then runs the same race the next year in 3h flat, she has become more powerful, as she has performed the same amount of work, in less time. The more functional power you have, the greater your stride length, swim stroke and cadence will be. Another equation for power is force x speed. If you’re stronger, you can generate more force, and as the equation states, power is dependent on strength and speed. So, you can see that it is absolutely necessary to develop functional power (it’s no good working on a 1 rep max power clean) as well as working on strength in addition to speed.

By incorporating an appropriate and functional strength program into your training, you will improve also economy no end, meaning that movements require less effort, and so performance improves and injury risk reduces. Just think, in a 2 ½ hour run each foot will hit the ground around 13000 times. If it’s planting incorrectly, then that’s 13000 incorrect foot strikes in a single run. How many more times does your foot need to land poorly before your knee hurts, adductor pulls or achilles inflames? Not only this, but with incorrect movement patterns, comes power wastage, and if the body is not generating power from where it’s meant to, it’s got to find it from somewhere else. If however you’ve been (and still are) performing the right types of conditioning exercises, then you’ll minimize this and increase your power output and thus improve performance.

An appropriate functional strength training program will give you the following key benefits:

· Improved economy

· Reduced risk of injury

· Improved power output

· Improved neurological performance

· Improved lactate threshold

· Increased flexibility

· Increased functional strength

· Increased stride length

From this article, you should now be thinking differently about the need for training strength for endurance sports success, and in part 2, I’ll be going into a little depth regarding just what a truly functional strength training program involves.

Tags: functional training, Personal trainer weymouth, procision fitness, strength training triathletes, triathlon fitness
Posted in Triathlon Training, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Triathletes, do we need to train so much?

Sunday, February 28th, 2010

Triathlon training at any level takes time, and lots of it. Professionals may train for up to 30-40 hours per week, and novices right up to age groupers will often put in between 4-25 hours per week depending on their circumstances. But is all this really necessary? Do we NEED to train for that long, or is alot of what we are doing, purely JUNK MILES? Is there a better way to train?

I’ll be clear on something right now: The purpose of this post is not to try and change the way you train, or to rubbish any other method of training, rather, it is to encourage people to have an open mind when it comes to training for triathlon, and to let you know just what I’m up to right now in terms of training, following my week in Florida.

During the mentorship program, in one of our final lectures, we got talking about swim training, and in particular, why it is that a sprint swimmer will put in so many hours and miles in the pool each week, when they are training for a race that lasts less than a minute. Do they really need to spend so long training? After all, a 100-400m track athlete doesn’t spend so long training, and we are all humans, so how is it beneficial for a sprint swimmer to train for so long? Would it not be more beneficial to have shorter, more focussed workouts, and more rest in order to allow proper recovery and reduce the risk of injury and over training? After all, how many swimmers (in particular children who are overtrained) develop shoulder, back and hip problems? I don’t know the exact figure, but it’s alot! We then spoke about marathon running, and again, is it really necessary to put in 40-80 miles a week, or would it be more beneficial to have shorter, more focussed workouts, with a bigger emphasis on recovery? After all, you make your improvements while you recover.

We then touched on triathlon, and again the same things came up. Is it NECESSARY to do so many hours? Has ANYONE ever experimented with far less hours, but a much increased quality of training at the expense of junk miles? If you’re training for a long race, do you have to train for as long as the race (or at least each discipline) will take you? If you’re training for Ironman, that could mean putting in 2+ hour swims, 8+ hour bike rides and 5+ hour runs. No not every session, but you get the idea I’m sure. What I’m also sure of, is that there HAS to be a much better way to train. Step up Juan Carlos.

At the end of the mentorship program, a few hours before we were flying back to the UK, I sat down with JC to get his thoughts on Ironman training, and in particular, to help me reduce my own Ironman training volume. Now, as well as the fact that I’m 100% sure that there are more effective methods of training for triathlon than are currently being utilised, I’m also recovering from a shoulder operation which has sidelined my swimming for 12 weeks, cycling for 8 weeks, and running for 11 weeks. On top of that, I work a long hours (much like you), and juggle a girlfriend, friends and family at the same time. Right now I have just 18 weeks to get into the best, injury free condition of my life in order to knock the 45-60 minutes off my Ironman time at IM France on June 27th (that’s my personal goal for the year).

JC is a huge lover of all things sport and fitness, and was more than happy to look at my proposed training program, and after checking out my program, subsequently decided to slash my training hours by about 40%, and ‘play around’ with intensity a little, as well as introducing some pretty exciting new techniques. We then came up with a plan of attack. A structure was formed, followed by specific phases, and I spent much of the long flight home planning out each individual session. What we have come up with is something that has NEVER been tried, or at least documented, within the industry, and could well be something that will help triathletes all over the globe to achieve their goals in less time, with more recovery, and increased performance.

What methods are we employing?

Well…..there have to be some secrets right?! All I can tell you is that a couple of methods could, and probably will, raise a few eyebrows in the triathlon world, but both JC and I are extremely confident that what we have devised will work, and when it does, we are going to be ready to transform the way many triathletes go about their training, leaving you with more time, more energy, and better performance.

From now, leading up to June 27th, I’ll be posting regularly on here letting you know how the training is going, the results I’m seeing and everything else….except of course the program! So keep your eyes on this area, and feel free to add your own comments Before you leave, checkout this video of myself and JC talking about the plan right here

Wish us luck!

Andy

Tags: andy sloan, functional training, ironman weymouth, jc santana, Personal trainer weymouth, procision fitness, triathlon dorset, triathlon weymouth
Posted in Triathlon Training, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Day 2 at IHP

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

Day 2 started with a workout with JC, we did 5 exercises in a circuit, with 30 seconds work and 15seconds rest for 40 minutes nonstop! This included ropes, stability balls, grip trainers, slings, hydraulic push pulls and a lot of effort! So we were all set up nicely for the day!

The first seminar of the day was a one where we discussed the biomechanics of the core musculature and the applied applications for a number of exercises and movement patterns. Carlos, explained also, the implications when we are trying to improve the performance of various movements for our clients.

Once we had finished this we had the privilege of being invited to watch the American Top Team training. For those of you who haven’t heard off the ATT, they are Mixed Martial Arts and Ultimate Fight Championship professional fighters. We observed a conditioning session and talked with the fighters after the session, gaining a great insight into some different ways to condition and train for different movements and fighting disciplines and styles.

Then we headed back to IHP and we discussed Body weight training circuits, both indoors and outdoors. Cesar, one of IHP’s top trainers, discussed the design of some awesome circuits for improving agility and body composition, which will be an invaluable reference tool for when we get back to the UK.

We finished the day with a brutal session of short but very intense sprints towing a 150lb tyre! Look out for pictures and videos soon!

Speak soon!