Manatee Mentors 2016 - Closed (Page 16)

I've always wanted to try the Tour of Sufferlandria... but I'm askurred!  

OK, TinyPic is working correctly today.  Here are my bestest little buddies, Dobie and Coco.

I noticed the Dirty Bike is absent from the bike gallery, I'll need to find a pic of it.

OK, TinyPic is working correctly today.  Here are my bestest little buddies, Dobie and Coco.

I noticed the Dirty Bike is absent from the bike gallery, I'll need to find a pic of it.

I'm a stickler for details. I'm probably going into too much detail and really doesn't matter for (or to!) most people, but that's just to say it's not you ... it really is me and my OCD about always finding devils to go with their tails ... uh ... in the details.

I'm actually a proponent of strength training for everybody, including most triathletes. The benefits are many and you really have to put so little in ... even 10min 2x/week is good. Core training (some types demonstrably more, some less demonstrably less, that's why Tom's asking) will help in all three disciplines, although in different ways for each. They can indeed help delay some muscular fatigue, but not more so than strength training within the disciplines (eg., hard swim intervals, or hills). Some types of core and strength may help you hold good swim technique for longer, swimming being where body position is really important.

But not everyone *needs* to do it.

What prevents (training-related) injury is proper training. Training related injuries nearly always result from too much and/or too hard too quickly.

So let's bring this back to Tom, who's pushing 40 and just quit smoking. Smoking interferes with bone density and that effect is going to last awhile, so he should definitely do some weight-bearing (body weight is fine) work. Running will help with that too, but running has to be built up through frequency and not quickly. Age alone suggests it's a good time for him to start incorporating strength training.

Squats, Bulgarian squats with good technique (nothing explosive, no jumping--in swimming that's what pushing off the wall and good streamlining is for! it's like doing a safe jumping squat against resistance and streamlining is great for core). Planks are great for core; so are the yoga/Pilates triangle and reverse triangle (which have a weight-bearing component). The yoga routines in the BT videos are great.

I'm a huge fan of swim cords for core and strength (and they do translate very well to actual swimming). Ask me more if you like!

And now, ask me when the last time I did core or strength was ... and I'm female, fat, pushing 40, and have arthritis to the tune where it sometimes interferes with daily activities, not to mention training!

Sigh. Can't fix stupid ...

OK, TinyPic is working correctly today.  Here are my bestest little buddies, Dobie and Coco.

I noticed the Dirty Bike is absent from the bike gallery, I'll need to find a pic of it.

Cuties!

I'm a stickler for details. I'm probably going into too much detail and really doesn't matter for (or to!) most people, but that's just to say it's not you ... it really is me and my OCD about always finding devils to go with their tails ... uh ... in the details.

I'm actually a proponent of strength training for everybody, including most triathletes. The benefits are many and you really have to put so little in ... even 10min 2x/week is good. Core training (some types demonstrably more, some less demonstrably less, that's why Tom's asking) will help in all three disciplines, although in different ways for each. They can indeed help delay some muscular fatigue, but not more so than strength training within the disciplines (eg., hard swim intervals, or hills). Some types of core and strength may help you hold good swim technique for longer, swimming being where body position is really important.

But not everyone *needs* to do it.

What prevents (training-related) injury is proper training. Training related injuries nearly always result from too much and/or too hard too quickly.

So let's bring this back to Tom, who's pushing 40 and just quit smoking. Smoking interferes with bone density and that effect is going to last awhile, so he should definitely do some weight-bearing (body weight is fine) work. Running will help with that too, but running has to be built up through frequency and not quickly. Age alone suggests it's a good time for him to start incorporating strength training.

Squats, Bulgarian squats with good technique (nothing explosive, no jumping--in swimming that's what pushing off the wall and good streamlining is for! it's like doing a safe jumping squat against resistance and streamlining is great for core). Planks are great for core; so are the yoga/Pilates triangle and reverse triangle (which have a weight-bearing component). The yoga routines in the BT videos are great.

I'm a huge fan of swim cords for core and strength (and they do translate very well to actual swimming). Ask me more if you like!

And now, ask me when the last time I did core or strength was ... and I'm female, fat, pushing 40, and have arthritis to the tune where it sometimes interferes with daily activities, not to mention training!

Sigh. Can't fix stupid ...

I tend look at it building out of the bolded. Look at the activities you want to do. Tri related, general health, etc. Can you perform that activity? What do you need to improve on for it? Can just do the activity. Can also be some things within the activity itself that can help with this. A good reason to do this is that the more related the additional exercise is to what you're doing it for then the more helpful it tends to be. Examples of what I mean can be in what I've done. I've done zero things that could be considered separate strength training in at least several years. Swimming is one that is really underutilized. Learn to swim well. It really uses a lot of the core muscles when done right. It also directly helps performance in an activity you're trying to do because you're doing the activity itself. Slightly off from freestyle swimming (but still quite helpful) is learning to swim all the strokes. Slightly different (but still very related) motions can help develop a better feel for the water, improve body awareness while in the water, and the different motions needed can work other areas not used so much in freestyle. Yanti has pointed out that something like breast stroke simply can't be done without a good catch. Learning that part of it will transfer right over to freestyle. A strong "Aha!" type moment with other development benefits. Learning to dolphin kick, even just doing a little, can really stress the abdominal area some (and that feel for the water again).

For running, the increased abdominal area fitness did help hold my torso position better, but it was when i did some faster running that really made a difference. Like doing strides. Or especially for me it was going through a number of Repetition speed workouts by Jack Daniels. My torso figured how to position more effectively and my legs figured out how to move better. Then by running simply more in the improved position my running became better.

I've taken pilates and yoga classes before, and they did help with swimming. Mostly in the awareness and control of what my torso was doing. The improvement stopped fairly quick though. Later on I got into masters and picked up much better technique directions and other things to do in the pool and they really built up the needed areas far more than the classes were.

For me, I've been able to find ways of addressing deficiencies within the activities. I also haven't had anything real major. Well, this broken collarbone being the exception now. But someone like Stacy is probably going to need to do more. For what to do, she needs to keep talking with the expert develop things as there was clearly something that happened which needed to be addressed. Just doing the activities don't seem to be enough.

So the point with all this is that it's not so much yes/no to strength training, or finding some sort of "best exercises" that everyone else seems to have, but to look at your situation to see what *you* need to do to perform the activities you want. There are several of us in the therapy center with shoulder injuries. Some of our exercises are the same. Some are very different. We have different injuries that need different exercises to address our own deficiencies.

OK, TinyPic is working correctly today.  Here are my bestest little buddies, Dobie and Coco.

I noticed the Dirty Bike is absent from the bike gallery, I'll need to find a pic of it.

Light grey means maybe, black means likely

GOALS/OBJECTIVES/DESIRES: I want to continue to grow as a person and a runner. I want to explore this beautiful planet we live on and I want to give back when and where I can.

Salty that last line is glorious. Please don't ever stop sharing the pics, either.

I should've formatted my race list that way ...

And I'm really, really happy to know Stevie is still groovin'.

Bio:  I am defaulting to my once a Manatee always a Manatee status in order to compensate for my being 15 pages too late.

NAME: Adrienne

STORY: I was relatively athletic throughtout my childhood, highschool and college. I played several sports including hockey in college. I was a bit overwhelmed by life and didn't prioritize sport or fitness and inevitable gained some weight and got out of shape. More important, I was unhappy and suffered from some depression. I decided to take control of the few things in life that one can including eating better and working exercise into my routine. I signed up and trained for a triathlon and began competing at a higher level, getting some top ten overall finishes and podiums as well as competing at Nationals. While training seriously, I realized I didn't love triathlon but really, really loved running. I switched to exclusively running and have been exploring the sport to the far corners of it's competition again, getting some overall podiums and competing on a national level. I've found a  bit of a niche in Mountain Running. While this is my favorite, I compete in a variety of other running racing from road marathons to cross country. I've also used running as a platform to explore in a literal sense, running 100 miles of the PCT last summer ( photo and summary here: https://adriennes.exposure.co/pct-runventure  and run-summiting a few mountain peaks here in the Pacific Northwest. 

FAMILY STATUS: Partnered, 3 grey cats one aging pug

CURRENT TRAINING: I'm building a base but prioritizing family, friends and other interests before I begin marathon training in February (pending acceptance to the marathon I am eyeing)

THIS YEAR'S RACES/EVENTS: The plan is to do several mountaineering,splitboarding and casual trail events through the spring during my marathon prep to keep things fresh and fun. Then after the marathon I will shift to shorter trail/mounting running competition with more emphasis on vertical gain/loss than distance. I'd like to become a better downhill runner this year so that will be a big focus of training and racing. I am sure many other things will come up but I would like to leave some time in my schedule for big multi-day mountain runs and adventures and less focus on competing.

Light grey means maybe, black means likely

GOALS/OBJECTIVES/DESIRES: I want to continue to grow as a person and a runner. I want to explore this beautiful planet we live on and I want to give back when and where I can.

WHAT MAKES YOU A GOOD MANATEE: I like to have a group of people familiar with my history to bounce ideas off of and I like to provide advice when appropriate 

Hahaha!  I was wondering how long & who would be the first!!!