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Professional triathlete Emma Garrard gives an inside look to 2012 Winter Triathlon Nationals.
Just as you need to have a solid plan for your workouts in the pool (warm up, drills, main sets, cool down) you need to have a plan for your open water swims as well. Yes, you can simply wade into the water with your local triathlon club for the weekly open water swim and get in your LSD (long, slow distance) swim for the week. That works once in a while. But in reality, you should have a workout plan that's equally as structured as your pool workouts to maximize your time and to get the most out of your workout.
As athletes or fitness enthusiasts, we all understand the importance of eating for fuel.
Now is the time of the year when the thoughts of dropping weight and body fat become extremely popular among triathletes.
Goals are one of the hottest topics discussed in training circles and online forums throughout the triathlon community, but who really knows what they are? There are variety of opinions on what they are and what they mean. A common understanding is that a goal represents the purpose, or objective, towards which an endeavor is directed. The intended destination of a journey, if you will. The achievement of a set goal can be one of the most rewarding accomplishments that an athlete (or any person, for that matter) will ever realize.
Athletes who want to build muscles and recover well from workouts are often confused by ads for protein supplements.
When it comes to mental fitness there are typically two primary types of athletes. There are those who are motivated by the avoidance of failure, and there are those who are motivated by the achievement of success. Few can be fully classified as either one or the other, so we must apply different tactics to each type. Just as optimal physical fitness is highly personalized, mental fitness is equally so. What’s good for the goose may not be so good for the gander.
As a Registered Dietitian, I am a member of several organizations to stay in touch with the latest nutrition news and information.
As triathletes, we often think that if we pay proper attention to our training, nutrition, recovery and race fueling/pacing that we’ll just naturally meet our potential. At QT2 Systems, we call these our four cornerstones of success. It’s often the case, however, that we fail to race to our potential, despite tremendous fitness. When this occurs, we must analyze all aspects of our preparations and execution, and perhaps something deeper still. This adds a layer of complexity to the performance package, as our foundation of cornerstones becomes pentagonal. This fifth element — mental fitness — is the least tangible of the cornerstones, and therefore the most difficult to wrap our minds around. Whereas the original four cornerstones all have their basis in the hard sciences, mental fitness brings a level of abstraction because it deals with the human mind.
At the start of the new year, many Americans begin to reflect on the past year — the goals we set and whether or not we achieved them.