Eriq's Mentor Group - CLOSED (Page 12)

Hi all,

Here are some videos seeking coaching feedback.

Allie swim video  - http://youtu.be/5WtTq8aJxRM

havent seen the video as im posting from my phone. but i just want to throw some comments out re: the pull buoy.

most people will swim faster with the pull buoy. it'll help to lift your hips and put your legs and body closer to the surface, creating less drag. also, if you have an ineffective kick, usually this will make you faster as you are creating less drag by throwing your legs out of alignment with the rest of your body, ie runner's kick, scissor kick, etc.

for me, my legs don't sink too much and i have pretty good position. when i use a buoy, i usually get a tiny bit slower, not much though, maybe 2-3 sec/100 yds. it takes away my kick, which really isnt very propulsive but it does help me rotate and maintain good body position. so since the buoy negates a lot of that for me, i get slower.

so that is not to say i don't use a buoy in training. just don't freak out if you're part of the crowd that gets slower when using one. also, just with anything else, use it as a tool and not a crutch.

have a great weekend all and happy and safe training!!!

Thanks for the video and now time for feedback!

Let’s start with some of the good things I can see. Allie has pretty good extension. Here you can see that her left hand is pretty extended out in front of her. You can see a bit of her right shoulder peaking out of the water. If Allie were to roll just a tad more, she’d be able to reach even further out a few more inches.
 

Here Allie is about to begin the recovery phase of her right arm. Her hand is below her hip and is still in the water. Great job of making your stroke long every time you put it in the water. A lot of beginners will pull their hand out of the water too early and not maximize each stroke. You want to make sure you engage your triceps and extend that hand back.
 

Now let’s address some things Allie can work on. First thing that Allie could work on is her breathing. Here is a shot of her taking a breath, both goggles out of the water, head somewhat looking upwards. I think that she is a late breather. So she is turning her head too late and then keeping it out too long. As you can see in the second picture, her face is still out of the water and her right hand is almost back in the water. Check out this video and skip to 6:35. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anixwBs6Jh4

The over rotating / lifting her head to breathe is probably causing this scissor kick. If you fix the breathing, I’m sure it’ll help with the scissor kick. So I’m not too sure what drill helps fix the breathing but for me it was just a matter of practicing of not turning too much. I used a side kick drill and just practiced turning my head just enough to breathe and replicating that during freestyle. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sX6Q_vj3jis

Two more things – straight arm pull and runner’s kick. Use a pull buoy and just focus on the pull. Focus on keeping that elbow as close to the surface of the water. For the kick, use the quads and think about pointing the toes and keeping the legs straighter. If you have short fins, aka zoomers, this usually helps as well.

Good luck!!!

Eriq,

Great critique with images to support.  Nice.  You should have seen Allie in the pool to day working on things.  I think she has started having a relationship with a pull buoy but I'm not sure.....maybe a little jealous.

We did 9 miles while we got 8 inches of snow yesterday.  Yes, inside and 180 laps......then a swim.  Today 16 mile ride and swim.

On a plane tomorrow so had to get a couple good days in.

Train hard all.

glad to help. hopefully Allie will be able to improve on some of those things, let me know if there's any thing else i can help with or if you have any questions about what i wrote up.

and sounds like you two were busy the past few days. and take away the buoy! j/k =P just don't over use it and become reliant on it.

and if you want to make the buoy hard, or any swim hard!!! use an ankle band. you can buy one for a few bucks but if you have some extra, old bike inner tubes lying around, just cut it up and tie it around your ankles. you should only have like 2-3 inches between your ankles when tied up properly. in my opinion, the ankle band is one of the cruelest swimming tools there is. MUAHAHAHA!

and i know i still owe you some speed workouts. i'll get to it today probably. =D

Here's some examples of some run speed/endurance workouts. Lots of hill intervals - hills help increase aerobic power, fatigue resistance, pain tolerance, and run-specific strength, etc. I think I've talked about this before. Then there's track work or if you have a stretch of relatively flat road around where you live.

These are some workouts that I used early on in the season last year as I was gearing up for Ironman. Keep in mind, a lot of these runs may be more mileage than what you are currently running so adjust accordingly. 

HILL REPEATS

1-2 Mile warm up
8-10x1minutes up hill efforts (5k pace) recover down
1-2 mile cool down

1 Mile warm up
10x1minutes up hill efforts (5k pace) recover down
3-5min easy
1x20-30min @ 10k-half marathon pace
1 mile cool down 

1 Mile warm up
2-3x
8x20sec up hill
3min stand recovery, 10push ups**
1x1 mile @ 5k pace
5min stand rest
REPEAT
1 mile cool down 

1 mile warm up
2-3x
8x30sec up hill
1x1 Mile @ threshold
5-8min easy
REPEAT
1 mile cool down  

TRACK/FLAT ROAD WORK

1 Mile warm up
6-8x1 mile @ half marathon pace
1:00-1:30 walk/stand recovery
1 mile cool down 

1 mile warm up
10x200 avg fast pace, 1min easy 
1 mile cool down 

1 mile warm up
12-16x400
400 @ 5k pace 
Recovery 200 or 400 easy jog 
1 mile cool down 

1 mile warm up
24-32x200
100 MAX SPRINT straight aways
100 walk turns
1 mile cool down 

Still making progress on the swim. Got myself doing 2:04/100m pretty decently, Trying to keep high elbows is improving my pull. I am making gains on the bike, at least I feel like I am. We will see when I can get outside. I have not been running a lot but today I did a fairly simple treadmill run (it is too cold and icy to be outdoors) I felt amazing on there and attribute it to a stronger cardiovascular system due to swimming and biking.

Keep up the motivation!

Not a problem. I will post how to calculate the paces for the run workouts when I get some time to sit down and write something up.

Awesome on the free help. I always say, be open and willing to learn, but also be cautious and know the source. That goes with me as well! Like I've said many times, I'm no coach but have gained a ton of knowledge from different sources and that's what I share with all of you.

Hopefully you get some good insight into your swim stroke and what you can do to improve.

Thanks for the speed work.  Did a nice 5 miler today on the treadmill as it is COLD in S. California this morning.  Raining, cold.....it was like new england.

Hope tomorrow is better as I am in San Diego and want to run outside.  I can use treadmill at home.

Will let you know how speed work goes, but the snow is preventing outside work now.  I am adding some intensity to all three sports now and enjoying the increased heart rate.  

As a Southern Californian, I agree. Though I still would have ran outside, I ran indoors today more out of convenience as I also had a swim scheduled. So I just went to the gym and knocked out both. =P

It's supposed to warm up so you should be okay. I'm hoping it gets a bit warmer as I'll probably be racing Saturday!

Good morning party people!

So I said I would post how I go about calculating my running paces so here we go. There's lots of different tools out there like the McMillan Run Calculator, Runner's World Training Calculator, etc. I used to use the McMillan calculator when I was marathon training before I started triathlon and found the paces a bit to slow for the RPE.

Last year, I got this tool that I'm about to share and found that the paces matched well the corresponding RPEs and has been a great tool in my training. It's an excel file and looks like this. Just type in your 1 mile MAX pace in the yellow box and the rest will calculate. The target pace for whatever distance/effort is on the right in red. And this is for open runs. For a triathlon, I'll usually use a pace above as my target. So for example, the run portion of an Olympic distance run is 10k but I'll aim for a half marathon to marathon pace as a target range pace.

>>>>  Run Pace Chart  <<<<

If anything, you should always have a purpose and target for every workout. The focus might be endurance, speed, strength, whatever. Having a target pace or range pace helps narrow down that focus instead of just going out there and running a bit. Use the tool I have, McMillan, Runner's World, use something. 

HAVE A PURPOSE! No junk miles!!! 

In my previous post, I mentioned that every workout should have a purpose. Then I stumbled upon this video just now. Don't know how I haven't seen it as Crowie is one of my heroes. But here it is, short watch, just 3 mins.

Crowie - Tips on Training

i hope you guys are alive...

anyways, i pulled the trigger and signed up for the local reverse sprint on sunday. i drove the course today before work and i'm thinking i could go pretty fast. but now i'm setting these high expectations for myself for a race that really isn't important in the grand scheme of things.

went to the lbs by my work to pick up some latex tubes and they had last year's p5 on sale, my size too i think. 4500 down from 6500! and if i were to part out my current bike, it'd really only be half that probably. but still, my wife would kill me. =D

i'll be setting up my bike tomorrow to be race ready. put on the race tubes and tires, then put on the disc cover. excited to get my season started early and do some hard, redline racing. i'll probably post a pic once it's all set up.

have a great weekend!

Hey all, sorry for being absent for a while...crushed at work, annual financial audit and a week at Disney with my family.  I feel quite 'rested' on one hand since I haven't done any training in about 2 weeks, but on the other I feel really 'fat and slow' since I haven't done any training in about 2 weeks.  Walking around for miles with a backpack around Disney, Epcot and Animal Kingdon is certainly work, but it's no substitute for tri training.  (BTW, they could really use a whiskey bar back in Fantasyland...)

Back home tomorrow.  Obviously, I'll ease back into training to prevent injury, but two-a-days will probably start by next weekend. 

Oh well, I hope everyone is well and look forward to the aches and pains of training starting on Sunday morning.

i looked over my post about the pace calculator and the link is in there. but i didn't realize i posted the screenshot twice and the link was sandwiched right in between the two. oops! it's there, i promise. =)

i'm enjoying my p2 so no upgrades yet.

sounds like your swim coaching went well. you definitely want your hands below your body, but not extended out below your body. you still want that high, bent elbow.

one arm drills can be fun. did you have your other hand out in front for balance or at your side? it turns into something else when it's at your side. =P and breathing always messes everything up. that's why you see people swim with snorkels. you can focus on technique and not worry about turning your head to breathe for a bit.

Thanks for the feedback on my swim.  I've made a couple of minor adjustments.  What a difference!  My pace has picked up significantly.  Now I need to work on endurance.

PS - I only used the pull buoy for 50 yards out of 800 today!