Rackham's Rules for Triathlon training with 5 year olds, a list of suggested methods
1. Have an extremely flexible schedule. I fit training in at weird times all day long because I have commitments that can't move (like work, sleep, and the kids' school). When I first started training, I'd go to the gym late at night - because that was the time that I had. I'll do strength training at any time in the day; I'll do it at home at night. I'll run early, I'll swim before dawn, I'll spin before the birds get up. My spouse, also a full-time worker person, runs at night - he puts in 50 mile weeks doing lunchtime runs and late night urban runs. If I want it, it can be done.
2. Be willing to do early morning training. Some of the best training is the stuff that happens when it's dark - I have energy to work hard. My calories are still available from dinner, I can go and come back before anybody is awake if I need to. Or, better still, I can get a good workout in, and then get a full day of work in, then go spend quality time with the little ones.
3. Have accountability. To me, coaching is pretty high level accountability. I wouldn't be motivated to do nearly half the stuff I do if I didn't have a coach feeding me a training schedule. It's not like he yells at me, abuses me, or any of that. He says jump, I say how high? Why would I pay someone to tell me what to do, and not do it? It's written down, it gets done. It's a beautiful thing.
4. Teach your children to swim. More than once, I've dropped the kiddos into the lane next to me for their swim lesson. Other parents opt to watch their children from the deck, I choose to drop mine in the pool and start swimming. When they're done and mommy still has 11 more laps to go, they share a lane with me. I taught them to stay on their half of the lane (or mommy will swim over them) and they quite happily kick up and down the lane while I finish my workout.
5. Be sneaky about fostering a love for athletics. I have signed my kids up for more than one race or event without really discussing it with them. It wasn't about what they wanted to do, it was about Mommy and Daddy wanting to race, and I just want them to be there (or maybe I didn't have any babysitting options). Their first kid run totally freaked them out - the distance (one lap of the track) was overwhelming. I had no expectations. I didn't tell them anything much other than "walk, run, do your best - have fun." And they did. Now they pester me about when their next race is.
6. Find races that are kid friendly. The Quad is a perfect example - a race that provides daycare. We've done other runs in town that provide kid races or kid activities during the race. They are out there, I'm not the only one with a young family. I once asked a race director if he could provide daycare - and he did (for my kids plus about a dozen others).
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We challenge ourselves with triathlons, training year round to keep our aerobic levels and technical skills to a point where we can compete to our body's potential, but sometimes we forget that not all of our bodies are made for the wear and tear that accompanies such a demanding schedule. Professional athletes have personal trainers, but the average triathletes have to listen to our bodies and interpret the signals to our best ability. We all have aches and pains that we deal with on a regular basis, and we work through them. Occasionally though, we misinterprets the pain signals and try to push through aches and pains that should be addressed and not pushed through.
One of the most common problems triathletes face is a weak lower back. If we push though lower back pain instead of address it, there is a possibility that we will have to discontinue working out altogether to recover from related injuries. But if we can detect the weakness ahead of time, there are exercises we can do to build up our lower back muscles before we injure them. Warm Up:Before you start these exercises, be sure that your body has had a sufficient warm-up. You can walk for 15 minutes on a treadmill, go out for an easy 15 minute rollerblade or jog around the block a few times. Take a few minutes afterwards to stretch out so that you do not pull any muscles while following the exercise drills below. Exercise 1: (see fig 1)Grab an exercise ball and sit on it. Roll down the ball carefully until only your neck and head are on the ball. Push your butt up so that your back is aligned with your head and neck. Bend your knees and plant your feet firmly on the floor. Try and keep your knees close to together. They don't have to touch. If you are having pain in your knees, position them comfortably to avoid injury. Keep your body in position and raise both arms so that they are perpendicular to your body. Keeping your left arm in place, lower the right arm down to your side. Then bring it back up. Keeping your right arm in place, lower the left arm down to your side. Then bring it back up. Be sure to keep your body posture through these arm movements. Start out by completing 1 minute of these exercises. Then, as you get better, move up to 2 minutes. To challenge yourself even more, grab some stretchy bands and ask a friend to help out or use a pole. Slide into the same position listed above, but have your friend or the pole stand behind you and hold the stretchy band in the middle while you hold the two ends. You will do the same exercise above, but this time you will have resistance. This will work your core muscles, specifically your lower back and butt muscles as well as simulate a freestyle-like arm movement that will certainly strengthen your swim. You can do this same exercise but change it up to work other muscles by having the friend or the poll on the other side of you, standing down by your knees. Instead of lowering each arm to your side like the exercise above, lower each arm the opposite way and brush your biceps by your cheek. Make sure your arm is straight and not bent. Again, start out doing 1 minute drills and move to 2 minutes as you get stronger. To get out of this position, let go of the stretchy bands, put your hands on the floor and sit down carefully. Move the ball away and stand when you are ready. Exercise 2: (see fig 2)Keep the exercise ball and rest only your calves and feet on it. The rest of your body should be lying flat on an exercise mat. Your arms should be facing palm down next to you body on each side for balance. After you have gotten yourself into this position, you want to push your butt up into the air so that you can draw a straight line from your neck to your ankles. Do not arch your back. The straight line is the key! In this position, you want to lower your butt to the mat and raise it back to the initial position slowly. You will feel your butt and thigh muscles working! Start out doing a two sets of 10 slow sets and move to 20 when you feel strong enough to complete them. To make this workout harder, roll the ball so that only your ankles and feet are on it. It will make your butt and thigh muscles work harder producing much better results. To get out of this position, put your butt on the floor, bend your knees, push the ball away and put your legs on the floor. Simply sit up from there and stand up when you are ready. Exercise 3: (see fig 3)Continue using the exercise ball and lay face down on your belly. Put both hands and both feet on the floor to gain your balance. Once you have your balance, raise your right arm and left leg at the same time. Then lower them back to the ground and raise your left arm and right leg. Do not raise your hand higher than your head or your leg higher than your butt. You should be using your lower back muscles to do raise and lower your arms and legs. If you are not sure whether or not you are using these muscles, ask a friend to feel your lower back while you are doing this drill to make sure they are flexing. Just a tip: Be sure to keep your head facing down or you may strain your neck muscles. Start out by completing 1 minute of these exercises. Then, as you get better, move up to 2 minutes. To get out of this position, simply put all hands and feet on the floor, roll back so that your knees are on the ground, and sit back on your feet. Roll the ball away and stand up when you are ready. Warm DownWhen you are finished, take a few minutes to stretch and think about the drills. If you are having problems with these drills, ask a friend to watch or exercise in front of a mirror so that you can see if your body is properly aligned.
One of the most common problems we face is a weak lower back. If we push though lower back pain instead of address it, there is a possibility that we will have to discontinue working out altogether to recover from related injuries. But if we can detect the weakness ahead of time, there are exercises we can do to build up our lower back muscles before we injure them. Warm Up:
Keep your body in position and raise both arms so that they are perpendicular to your body. Keeping your left arm in place, lower the right arm down to your side. Then bring it back up. Keeping your right arm in place, lower the left arm down to your side. Then bring it back up. Be sure to keep your body posture through these arm movements. Start out by completing 1 minute of these exercises. Then, as you get better, move up to 2 minutes. To challenge yourself even more, grab some stretchy bands and ask a friend to help out or use a pole. Slide into the same position listed above, but have your friend or the pole stand behind you and hold the stretchy band in the middle while you hold the two ends. You will do the same exercise above, but this time you will have resistance. This will work your core muscles, specifically your lower back and butt muscles as well as simulate a freestyle-like arm movement that will certainly strengthen your swim. You can do this same exercise but change it up to work other muscles by having the friend or the poll on the other side of you, standing down by your knees. Instead of lowering each arm to your side like the exercise above, lower each arm the opposite way and brush your biceps by your cheek. Make sure your arm is straight and not bent. Again, start out doing 1 minute drills and move to 2 minutes as you get stronger. To get out of this position, let go of the stretchy bands, put your hands on the floor and sit down carefully. Move the ball away and stand when you are ready.
Start out by completing 1 minute of these exercises. Then, as you get better, move up to 2 minutes. To get out of this position, simply put all hands and feet on the floor, roll back so that your knees are on the ground, and sit back on your feet. Roll the ball away and stand up when you are ready. Warm Down Do you want to read more by Niki Doddyn? Just visit TriathaNewbie.com by clicking HERE. Recently I've gotten thousands of emails asking me about my training regime. More specifically when do I training and when do I not train? Actually I have to be completely honest here and state for the record that I did get one email about six months ago asking me this or that about training....or perhaps was it the house training of my dog? Unfortunately we'll never know because somehow I managed to lose the email. But as you may suspect I'm not one to let facts, questions, or even rumors get in the way of doling out my vast plethora of sage advice thus I will do my best to answer this long forgotten question: When do I training and when do I not train? When it comes to training I have the simple to remember Everyman Golden 2NF rule. You way be wondering what "2NF" stands for...at least I hope you are because that's how I keep you reading and not clicking over to your favorite online gambling, porn, or chat room/forum web site. No I'm sorry I didn't mean that. I meant your favorite news, work, or research web site. If you are still with me here's what "2NF" stands for. And since I'm all about choice, I'll give you two possible definitions and choose the one you like best. 1) 2 Negative Factors 2) 2 No F@#%ing Way! We'll, thanks for stopping by and I hope that my sage advise has been of some help to you. OK, sorry about that, I won't tease you anymore. Please don't leave as the rest of the story is really good...you'll see. Let me explain.... The Golden Everyman 2NF Training rule is what I use to determine if I should go out and train on any given day. Here's how it works. Let's start with running as that is the way many of us got into endurance sports. Picture yourself well rested on a perfect day. The sun is shinning, it is about 70 degrees with light fluffy clouds in the sky, no wind, and no traffic and you have nothing else to do but go for a lovely run on the perfect running path, around the perfect lake, running with young people with perfect bodies, followed by a perfect and peaceful nap. That would pretty much be the perfect training run.Now lets add some common negative factors to that run. I'll start with three to keep this simple, but we'll add a few more as you get the hang of this. The Three negative factors (NF's) are: 1) Dark 2) Cold 3) Rain So the Everyman 2NF Golden Training rule states that I will go for my training run as long as only two out of these three negative factors are in play. In other words, I will go for that run if it is cold and dark, or I'll go for that run if it is raining and cold, but NOT if it is cold, dark, and raining. The simple idea is that if the negative factors exceed 2 or more, I'll just not do that workout. Now that you have the basic concept here are some other factors that could negatively impact training: nagging injury fatigue wind gear issues such as only having the wrong shoes time (as in not having sufficient time for the workout) sickness pain hunger/nutrition mud hills mental stamina heat new training route allergies hangover I'm sure that you can add your own negative factors to this list. So why the 2NF rule? Because I have found that all too frequently when I break this rule, instead of making me stronger, the workout makes me weaker. What I mean by this is that by breaking the rule I tend to do more harm than good to my overall fitness and stamina. The most common way this happens is that I get injured. For instance, the last time I went running in the dark, cold, and rain I slipped and fell on a huge rock and twisted my ankle. I would have been in much better shape if I had just stayed in bed instead of going for the freezing early morning run. This is especially true when I get a bit stupid and try to train trough a nagging injury. If I combine the nagging injury like my (Pf) Plantar Fasciitis with a hilly, and hot run, I can promise you the next week I'll be exclusively in the pool because I won't be able to run. As many of us type "A" endurance athletes have either become addicted to training, or can not stand the thought of not getting in that training day, this rule serves as a common sense tool to actually get fitter and faster. But I digress, the second most common way that breaking this rule impacts my training is that I get sick. If I'm fatigued and I go for a cold and wet run, chances are that I'll be looking down the double barrel of a nasty cold and flu within 48 hours. The great thing about the Everyman Golden 2NF rule is that it also works for the bike and the swim. You just need to add and subtract a few of the negative factors and you have a training rule that you can live by on your bike and in the pool. As an example, you can add negative factors such as "questionable water quality" or "unknown masters coaching" for the pool workout and "incorrect bike fit," dangerous traffic" and "crazy riding partner" to the bike ride. I'm sure if you think about it you can come up with your own negative factors. Now for me I have set the bar pretty high with the Golden 2NF rule. For a newbie, I would suggest that you don't exceed the Everyman Golden 1NF rule...at least not until you get to better know the limits of your body.For instance, you don't need to go on a training ride or run in the cold with a "crazy training buddy" who will run or bike you into the ground. That may be a huge ego boost for him or her, but it does absolutely nothing what-so-ever for you when you can't walk the next day because your knees are screaming in pain. So the next time you are not sure if a training workout is worth doing, the Everyman Golden 1NF or 2NF rule is all yours. Oh yes...you may have two other questions: 1) You may be wondering why I call is the Everyman "Golden" 2NF rule? Because do unto your body, as your would have it do unto you. Or in other words, the way you treat a training workout is the same way it will treat your body. 2) You may be wondering about why NF can also stand for No F@#%ing Way! Because when I tripped and fell on that rock in the cold, wet, and dark, I swore that "No F@#%ing Way!" would I ever violate my own Golden 2NF rule ever again. Do you want to swim faster. Mike Ricci the head coach of D3 Multisport. can make it happen. Mike has been coaching winning triathletes for most of his life. He is both USA Cycling and USAT certified. He help his athletes get the most out of their available training time. He does not believe in "junk" mileage or useless workouts. Instead, he utilizes the most current research and training techniques and combine them with race proven strategies to create the best possible training programs for his athletes. |
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