Work your Weakness aka "Hey, Mike, STFU!" Challenge (Page 36)

I'm totally jealous. It takes an extraordinary amount of work for me to gain muscle. You don't like that you are able to gain so easily? 

If there's a computer program that holds my hand with that a bit, that would be awesome.  What I probably should do at some point is work with a knowledgeable coach, but I just feel like I should at least try to figure some of this stuff out on my own first.

You gained pretty fast during the tri training!  I'm thinking that was mostly muscle, right?

Originally posted by switch

Originally posted by Asalzwed

Originally posted by switch

Originally posted by Asalzwed

Originally posted by brigby1

Originally posted by Asalzwed

Yeah, I totally hear you about those swim meets. It's kind of like the "all-comers" track meets around here. Small off the radar events with REALLY competitive athletes. Definitely a check your ego at the door type of thing. Which I think is good for everyone. I'm really glad you are willing to put yourself out there.  Wear that DFL proudly

I don't know about your comment about bulking up. I most definitely did when I was swimming. Of course we are talking going from marathon training which is polar opposite (I get pretty small.)

Next year I'll age up and be with probably our fastest guy, and he likes a bit of pre-race banter. Should be interesting, though he does tend to leave me alone with that.

Could you tell how much you gained and about the composition? I was referring more to the thought of developing a massive torso that seems to be the common sentiment swimmers "have". A little bit up in the torso, sure. Which is probably a matter of perspective as well as where one is starting from. And for some reason swimmers tend to carry a bit higher bf% than other athletes do, so some may be in there. Have seen some thoughts why, but not definite. When looking at an elite runner vs elite triathlete, yeah the triathlete is probably going to have a bigger torso of the two, but is still going to be slender in relation to a more average person. A big guy like Starykowicz still blends into a crowd of everyday people. He's massive in the sense of being an endurance athlete. Does this help at all? Kind of a complex question.

Yeah. I see what you are saying for sure. I don't believe that a swimmer is automatically huge or anything. I just noticed it in myself.

Like I said, the contrast was 70-80 mpw marathon training into tri where I was doing less run volume on top of the added swimming. I weighed, get this, 7 more pounds when I am tri training vs now. I don't know the exact distribution but I think my bf was a little under 20 (while tri training,  less when running) but the most noticeable thing was that I had to get bigger sports bras. Not for the good reasons, but because of (what I believe anyway) the lats. 

There may be too many variables to pin it on swimming though. It was just something I thought was pretty crazy, considering I only invested 16 weeks in training.

Yeah, this is why I asked.  When I'm swimming a lot (now) my upper body is definitely different than when I'm just running.  When I'm cycling a lot, my lower body is definitely different than when I'm just running.  lol, see a pattern?  I know I build muscle pretty easily for a woman, but  it is kinda ridiculous. I know that the muscle is being built from calories, so if I didn't consume the calories, I wouldn't be putting on the muscle, but I'm trying to stay "fueled" for training.  Blah! Total first world problem.  I am working to find the balance on this, but not feeling very successful.

Interestingly, lately my BF is either lower or the muscles from the cycling are making me see vascularity in my legs that I rarely see on women. I've always had it in my arms, but never really in my legs.  It's kinda trippin me out. 

I'm totally jealous. It takes an extraordinary amount of work for me to gain muscle. You don't like that you are able to gain so easily? 

If I didn't have to haul that mass up hills on the bike or on the run, I'd be totally down   MY BF is in the "danger" zone for women, but for me to get faster running, I should definitely lose mass, and that means losing muscle.  It's kind of a cyclical problem. 

You gained pretty fast during the tri training!  I'm thinking that was mostly muscle, right?

 

I bet "all that mass" isn't too significant vs the performance you are getting out of it. I'd be curious to hear more about that though.

For me, It was partially muscle. Which is why that part was weird. 

But as I said, it likely wasn't all muscles because my run volume was reduced. I honestly don't think I could ever get into the danger zone short of an eating disorder.

Originally posted by ligersandtions

Originally posted by switch

Originally posted by Asalzwed

And Elesa, try not to get overwhelmed. You can certainly experiment and settle on what you like and what works for you.

In contrast, I don't use anything except a cheap watch with stopwatch function for track workouts when I am solo but that's it. No watch for racing even. 

 

It's all personal preference. 

Yeah, I feel like I'm really struggling with the idea of periodization, recovery and peaking.  If working with TP could help me learn more about that, I am ALL IN.  I think I am still operating on what I knew about my body and what it needed for recovery 10-12 years ago.  I have been too stupid or stubborn to realize that, now, three kids later and at almost 40, that idea needs some severe refinement And with the two new sports, it's like I don't really know "good" tired from "bad" tired at all, and, as we know, I have some issues with that anyway. 

If there's a computer program that holds my hand with that a bit, that would be awesome.  What I probably should do at some point is work with a knowledgeable coach, but I just feel like I should at least try to figure some of this stuff out on my own first.

 

 

You could consider Golden Cheetah. It offers much/most of the same stuff TP does, but it's free. One thing it doesn't have is rTSS or CSS (that's what the swimming one is called, right?). It does, however, keep all of your bike data and creates a PMC (performance manager chart) so you can keep track of your progress, acute and chronic stress, and training stress balance (TSB). One of the interesting things about watching your TSB is that you'll start to notice things....like when my TSB is -XX, I feel heavy and slow. If I take an easy ride and recover, my TSB jumps up to -YY and I feel absolutely amazing....but if I take too many days off and my TSB jumps up to +ZZ, I feel like I can't get into a rhythm and just don't have "it". That said, I'm not sure if GC (or TP) can take TSS info from TrainerRoad or not. I've only been using it for as long as I've owned my power meter, so since September. But I've definitely learned some things.

Curious,  say you have two scenarios 1. your biking volume is high and say, your swimming is low vs 2. where your run is low but swim is high but both have the same TSB, do you have the same "symptoms" or general feelings? 

OK, Golden Cheetah.  Adding. To. List.  That sounds like exactly the kind of info I want to get a handle on.

Do you need to have a PM for GC? 

Originally posted by switch

Originally posted by Asalzwed

Originally posted by switch

I know I've posted that one of my weaknesses that I'm working on is my nutrition and shifting more of my calories to earlier in the day.  I have NEVER been a breakfast eater.  Never.  I actually have a big problem getting anything down before a race.

Eating enough during the day has made the the evenings MUCH easier to control.  Here's a pic of a pretty standard breakfast now:

Eggs, a little warmed sliced, smoked pork, sauteed kale,onions and mushrooms, half an avocado, two slices of 7 grain bread with some jam. It's super awesome.  It's even more awesome that my husband regularly makes it for me  

 

Holy sheeeeeet, invite us over!!!!

 

I LOVE breakfast. I like cooking it and I LOVE eating it. This looks a lot like the kind of thing I generally make before a Sunday long run. 

You all are invited over for breakfast ANY time   though summer time is where it's at.

Steve-- Your hard working body deserves so much better than McDonalds, brotha!

Taco Bell is better anyway!

Originally posted by msteiner

Originally posted by switch

Originally posted by Asalzwed

Originally posted by switch

I know I've posted that one of my weaknesses that I'm working on is my nutrition and shifting more of my calories to earlier in the day.  I have NEVER been a breakfast eater.  Never.  I actually have a big problem getting anything down before a race.

Eating enough during the day has made the the evenings MUCH easier to control.  Here's a pic of a pretty standard breakfast now:

Eggs, a little warmed sliced, smoked pork, sauteed kale,onions and mushrooms, half an avocado, two slices of 7 grain bread with some jam. It's super awesome.  It's even more awesome that my husband regularly makes it for me  

 

Holy sheeeeeet, invite us over!!!!

 

I LOVE breakfast. I like cooking it and I LOVE eating it. This looks a lot like the kind of thing I generally make before a Sunday long run. 

You all are invited over for breakfast ANY time   though summer time is where it's at.

Steve-- Your hard working body deserves so much better than McDonalds, brotha!

Taco Bell is better anyway!

100% agree.

Elesa's head is going to explode.

"I bet "all that mass" isn't too significant vs the performance you are getting out of it."

Well, there's the rub.  It's another thing I just don't know :)

I know it's harder for me to run when I'm heavier.  If that "heavier" is coming from muscle gain in my shoulders and back, that's not helping my run or bike performance, though it's most certainly dropping my swim times.  "Heavy" (strong and lean) cycling legs are going to help on the bike, but probably not on the run, nor on the swim.  As Ben said, good swimmers "tend" to carry a bit more BF, though there are plenty of uber lean triathletes who have it figured out. My thinking is that my body composition is right (or even low) for triathlon, but just too much mass. 

When I look at the competitive women (not that I'm that caliber, but you certainly sort of look to see if you have the body type for your sport), it seems like keeping my body comp but losing a solid 10lbs would make me much faster.  We sort of talked about this with the race weight thread, there's no way to "really" know, but with as much emphasis as people put on race weight, I'm guessing the same would hold true for me.

Interestingly, in my limited experience, when I woman brings up these issues (I did it once on ST), it can very quickly turn into people saying you have eating disorder/compulsion tendencies, which just couldn't be further from the truth with me.  I NEVER see that when it's just guys talking about race weight.  That kind of pizzes me off.  At some point, it just does become part of the equation if the goal is to get faster in this sport.

I just threw up in my mouth a little bit. ;P

In as sensitive of a way I can put this, I don't think it's at all a sexist thing, I just think a significantly higher percentage of women are unhappy with their weight/develop disorders than men do. I think men only make up something like 10%. I think people just worry a little bit. Not that I think anyone should ever accuse anyone of those things as I am sure it doesn't help the situation either way.

I have some teammates who  have dealt with this themselves and have since been alerted to some of the triggers (I had no idea ...)

You are right, it does at some point become part of the equation, but from my (limited) experience, I feel that things tend to trend towards where they are supposed to be with proper training volume, frequency, intensity and a "healthy" diet. I think depending on how long breaks are and off-seasons might be the one place you have to keep an eye on. 

Originally posted by switch

Originally posted by Asalzwed

Originally posted by msteiner

Originally posted by switch

Originally posted by Asalzwed

Originally posted by switch

I know I've posted that one of my weaknesses that I'm working on is my nutrition and shifting more of my calories to earlier in the day.  I have NEVER been a breakfast eater.  Never.  I actually have a big problem getting anything down before a race.

Eating enough during the day has made the the evenings MUCH easier to control.  Here's a pic of a pretty standard breakfast now:

Eggs, a little warmed sliced, smoked pork, sauteed kale,onions and mushrooms, half an avocado, two slices of 7 grain bread with some jam. It's super awesome.  It's even more awesome that my husband regularly makes it for me  

 

Holy sheeeeeet, invite us over!!!!

 

I LOVE breakfast. I like cooking it and I LOVE eating it. This looks a lot like the kind of thing I generally make before a Sunday long run. 

You all are invited over for breakfast ANY time   though summer time is where it's at.

Steve-- Your hard working body deserves so much better than McDonalds, brotha!

Taco Bell is better anyway!

100% agree.

Elesa's head is going to explode.

I just threw up in my mouth a little bit. ;P

FACT: Taco Bell gives you abs!

Someone just posted this over on ST, it's from The Time Crunched Triathlete. 

So let's say you do a trainer ride in the morning that gives you 30 total minutes of LT time, and then a swim in the afternoon that gives you 30 minutes at your CSS (which is like LT), then, uh, what should your recovery look like?  Is that just too much?  One's legs, ones arms/back/core, but they're both using energy and taxing the body as a whole.

Ugh, this is why I need something like TP of GC or just a brain...

Wait, you are doing two LT workouts in one day?

Sorry, all these terms are really confusing to me. 

The terms are confusing to me too.  I *think* CSS is your swimming "threshold" pace (that's what I gather from the the swim smooth website), though I hadn't thought about it as LT before. 

I know this shouldn't be that hard to figure out, but I hear so often that you can push harder in swimming because it's no impact, and that you should push harder to get gains there.  So, uhhh, I really don't know what to say right now, except I think I was thinking about the swim workouts wrong, and maybe that is why I am feeling pretty tired sometimes.

I feel as though I have a pretty good understanding of how to build a solid run program but balancing multi-sport is way outside of my comfort zone. I'm not criticizing you or anything, I am just asking. 

I just feel like doing a threshold type of workout is about taxing that "system." It's not about overworking your arms or your legs or whatever.

As to how much or how frequent (say, two time in one day?) I'm not sure what the rules are. 

I'm working the NBC Kona human interest story thing for next year.  Anything is possible.  IM after McD addiction.

I'm not sure that it estimates ahead of time. At least I didn't see anything like that when still using it. Just that after the fact it can take an estimate based off of HR from the file. For both cycling and running. It will do running as rTSS which is pace based, if threshold pace is entered in, like FTP for the bike. I think this one tends to work better, and it *might* even factor in the grades. Double check on that part though. There is definitely some sort of weighting factor in there, maybe it was just off of pace values? Also, I *think* that 100 rTSS is threshold for 45 min instead of 1 hr like on the bike. Or something along the lines of using 45 min instead of an hour to help them match up better as running is tougher on you.

Somehow I doubt either one of you are looking at 180 or so, just for a little perspective. Train well, eat well, and let the composition take care of itself. If you're fairly lean, I'd just focus on performance and let the muscle mass do what it does. As much as we want performance, this is still just something we do for fun.

Originally posted by switch

Originally posted by ligersandtions

Originally posted by switch

Originally posted by Asalzwed

And Elesa, try not to get overwhelmed. You can certainly experiment and settle on what you like and what works for you.

In contrast, I don't use anything except a cheap watch with stopwatch function for track workouts when I am solo but that's it. No watch for racing even. 

 

It's all personal preference. 

Yeah, I feel like I'm really struggling with the idea of periodization, recovery and peaking.  If working with TP could help me learn more about that, I am ALL IN.  I think I am still operating on what I knew about my body and what it needed for recovery 10-12 years ago.  I have been too stupid or stubborn to realize that, now, three kids later and at almost 40, that idea needs some severe refinement And with the two new sports, it's like I don't really know "good" tired from "bad" tired at all, and, as we know, I have some issues with that anyway. 

If there's a computer program that holds my hand with that a bit, that would be awesome.  What I probably should do at some point is work with a knowledgeable coach, but I just feel like I should at least try to figure some of this stuff out on my own first.

 

You could consider Golden Cheetah. It offers much/most of the same stuff TP does, but it's free. One thing it doesn't have is rTSS or CSS (that's what the swimming one is called, right?). It does, however, keep all of your bike data and creates a PMC (performance manager chart) so you can keep track of your progress, acute and chronic stress, and training stress balance (TSB). One of the interesting things about watching your TSB is that you'll start to notice things....like when my TSB is -XX, I feel heavy and slow. If I take an easy ride and recover, my TSB jumps up to -YY and I feel absolutely amazing....but if I take too many days off and my TSB jumps up to +ZZ, I feel like I can't get into a rhythm and just don't have "it". That said, I'm not sure if GC (or TP) can take TSS info from TrainerRoad or not. I've only been using it for as long as I've owned my power meter, so since September. But I've definitely learned some things.

OK, Golden Cheetah.  Adding. To. List.  That sounds like exactly the kind of info I want to get a handle on.

Do you need to have a PM for GC? 

Training Peaks, Golden Cheetah, and Skiba's program Apollo are all similar to each other in the performance tracking. GC is free, Apollo a one time purchase, and TP a monthly payment to get everything. Free version still has some nice things, but doesn't do all the graphs or over time tracking. GC do something like TR in showing output during a ride. Not sure the others can yet. All of them can track aspects of acute & chronic training load. I don't know that GC can do running as well or swimming at all. Not sure if TP does swimming well yet. Apollo does all 3.

Strava has some power things in there, but are behind in this regard. Where it excels is more in the social nature. The segments aspect is unbelievably motivational for people in trying to get KOM or QOM for them. I use it mostly to analyze the terrain of the rides that I've done. Can figure out grades and hill categories (Cat 4, Cat 3, etc). Can also follow other people/friends. See what their rides are like. I don't look at the power metrics as much there as things have been a bit squirrelly at times. "Weighted" is supposed to be like NP, but doesn't always match what TP or Garmin say, even on rides without a break. Sometimes NP will differ, but AP will be right on.