Training Update

It struck me the other day that I rarely use my blog in the way that most folks use a blog, i.e. to keep others up to date on the goings on of their lives. Probably because I coach folks who, I figure, are athletically much more interesting than myself J Still, as someone who is also on their own athletic journey, I’m thinking there may be some interest in my own strange split personality perspective as a self-coached athlete. In that spirit, I’m going to start providing occasional brief updates on my own training as I pursue my long term goal of qualifying for Kona.

The story so far…(A brief recap of 2012 training to date)

My big goal at the start of every year (whether talking about myself or the athletes I coach) is to be starting the year completely fresh (ditching the fatigue of last season) but also at a higher level of fitness than the previous year. This is the 3^rd consecutive year that I’ve been able to manage that and I’m very happy about that. For the data-geeks (like me!) starting CTL’s (low points of the year) have been 36, 45, 48 resp.

I started the year with 2 months with a strength focus (December & January) with ~20tons/wk in loading weeks. Those who’ve seen me (& my DEXA scans) can confirm that I can afford to put on a little muscle so every year starts the same way – trying to add a little to this strength base. Results were positive with a kilo and a half of muscle added and a return to decent levels of strength for me.

February was a bike emphasis month, preparing for the Tucson camp in the first week of March. Nothing crazy as far as volume goes – 28hrs of cycling for the month (an hour a day), most of it on the trainer with a mix of intensities. Just enough to keep the fears of an upcoming 30hr week at bay J

March – Tucson camp. Best early season camp to date – 27hrs of total work for the week, 1852TSS, 13,193 kJ of work on the bike with some good quality – CP20 of 312W, CP150 of 249W & CP300 of 231W. I was feeling the positive effect of the strength work & exceeded all of the benchmarks that I had set for myself as ameasure of being ‘on track’. The CP300 was a life  best so very happy all around coming out of camp. Coming out of camp I was feeling fit so I ran an early season 5K as a ‘hit out’. It was a fairly hilly course with a few twists and turns but I was a minute off the benchmark that I had set for myself (22:19 vs 21:19). This, coupled with my first failed MAF test had me deciding that April would be a run focus month.

YTD Totals through to end of March:

Total: 162hrs (~53hrs/mo)

Swim – 15.3hrs (5.1/mo) – Yes, I need to swim more.

Bike – 79.5hrs (26.5/mo)

Run – 50.3hrs (16.8/mo)

Strength – 17.2hrs (5.7/mo)

Last block (April):

Focus has been run more, lose a little weight.

For the running more part I did 2x40+mi back to back run weeks in April, which is a solid amount of running for me. There was some quality in there as well, with a little bit of threshold, marathon pace and VO2 work in each week and I was happy with how I tolerated it (I would have been content to drop some of the quality if load suffered but it didn’t and it was fun to mix it up a bit).

Weight is a touchy one. There is a definite relationship between weight and run speed, at least for me. When I was consistently running around the 18min mark for 5Ks I was 158-163lbs (at 6’4”). This was before I had a power meter. Since working with a power meter, I’ve found that my highest bike power numbers consistently come at a weight of ~176lbs. I’ve also found that I get injured a whole lot less & tolerate the training a whole lot better when my training weight is in the mid 170’s. So there is a trade off. Given that the bike makes up 50+% of the total Ironman race, it’s important not to stray too far from your best bike weight. Similarly, given the importance of tolerating lots of training when preparing for an Ironman, it’s important not to deviate too far from your best training weight!

 Still, considering I need to be running 3:15 off the bike to reach my goal, I need to start getting on track for that and, with a 371W CP5 on the bike in April, I have some watts to spare at this point on the bike. My mean weight in April was 177lb, down from 179lb in March and results have been positive. MAF improved by 20s/mi and I ran a second 5K on a similarly hilly course 10s quicker. Both are still off my planned benchmarks but nothing a few more miles and a few less lbs won’t fix.

April Totals:

44hrs

Swim – 4.2

Bike – 17.5

Run – 19.5

Strength – 3.0

This block (May)

This block is balanced base of an up-down nature, by hrs per week – 21/8/21/8 with a bit of run intensity and a run race in each of the low weeks. With ~200hrs down in the first 4 months and about 600 to go, it’s time to start seeing some of those 20hr weeks!

Unsurprisingly, the swim benchmarks are starting to get a bit tougher to hit, I’ve fallen off my target of 3K in <45mins so late May/June will have a bit of a swim emphasis. Fortunately, the local outdoor pools open this month and swimming outside on a sunny day is so much more palatable.  I’m hoping my muscle memory holds me in good stead until then J

Train Smart.

AC

Dr. Frankenstein's Kona Monster

Alan Couzens, MS (Sports Science)

At the moment, I only use live subjects for the 'experiments' in my basement exercise physiology lab but just in case I ever lose the plot entirely and decide to put together some hybrid of body parts to construct my ideal triathlete to contend in Kona, here’s what I’ll be on the lookout for…

Skeleton: My Kona monster will have a light, ‘small boned’ skeleton of average proportions. He will be relatively tall (~1.8m) in order to:

a)       Have a sufficiently long vessel & long arms to be relatively hydrodynamic in the water.

b)      Have a sufficiently large surface area:body weight to dissipate large amounts of heat; ~1380W of heat energy on the bike (@290W) and 1180W of heat energy on the run (@2:40 marathon pace).

c)       Have a sufficiently large thorax able to hold the engine capable of powering that 290W on the bike.

However, he will also need to be quite light for this height in order to run that 2:40 pace. Under 70kg total (BMI~21.5). To accommodate the weight of the necessary muscle & organ mass to produce the requisite power numbers, the skeleton would have to weigh only approximately 5.5kg, i.e. a very light frame.

Some distinctive features of this frame:

-          Average to short total leg length with relatively long femurs – lower leg length approx. equal to (not significantly greater than) femur length (=decreased bike frontal area without sacrificing leverage/power)

-          Relatively wide arm span (equal to or greater than standing height) with average shoulder width, i.e. long arms (=smaller frontal area on the bike without affecting swim economy)

-          Small to average size feet (=better run economy & decreased FA  on the bike)

All in all, my monster will need a frontal area at or below 0.39m^2 to put in a competitive bike split at 290W. He will need the bike and body geometry to achieve this.

Muscle: “Konie” will have sufficient leg muscle mass to generate ~290W over the bike course. In normal Kona conditions, this represents about as much power as an athlete of this size can generate without overheating. In this case, more is not better. Assuming that his VO2max power would need to be ~400W/5.4L to do so, at 200ml/kg of muscle this would equate to 27kg of appendicular mass. On normal (triathlete) distribution, ~20 of this 27kg of muscle would be distributed to the legs and ~7kg to the arms.  

Cardiovascular system: To fuel  400W of power at VO2max is going to take a significant amount of O2. Somewhere in the range of 5.4 liters per minute. Assuming an a-VO2 extraction of, 16ml/dL, my Kona monster’s cardiac output is going to need to be 34L/min, or at a max heart rate of 180bpm, a cardiac stroke volume of ~190ml, in other words, ‘a big ticker’.

Bodyfat: Doing the math, Kona Monster is going to need to be pretty lean. At 5.5kg frame mass, 27kg of appendicular muscle and a likely visceral/organ mass of ~33kg (average for someone of this frame), total fat mass can only be ~4.5kg or ~6% bodyfat.

Overall:  Konie’s somatotype will be a small meso-ectomorph (1.4/3.7/3.5)

Other: I will also require a set of jumper cables to get this bad boy started :-)

If you want to see how you stack up compared to “Konie” a DEXA scan coupled with a standard anthropometric assessment (girths and breadths) will give you some insight.

Choose your parents (or your sport) wisely & if you see me coming at you with a tape measure, run the other way :-)

Train Smart

AC

Training Weight vs Race Weight

Alan Couzens, MS (Sports Science)

"All we need is just a little patience" - Guns and Roses

As the Summer season is on the horizon, shirts are coming off, 5K’s are being entered and it seems that everyone is feeling ‘a few pounds heavy’. I figured it timely to pen a short piece with some thoughts on the significance of identifying and sticking to your ‘training weight’.

For many, ‘training weight’ is synonomous with ‘out of shape’ weight, i.e. I’m not yet at ‘race weight’ but this diminishes the importance of identifying and holding a good training weight.

There are a couple of studies that come to mind that back up the importance of not being in too much of a hurry to get to race weight. A 1980 study that tracked the British Olympic Road Cycling team over the season found a significant difference in the weight ‘swing’ (high to low) for those who were selected for the team vs those who weren’t. The selected athletes held an ‘off-season’ training weight of ~7% greater than race weight for the first 3 months of the season. This was significantly greater than the non-selected athletes.

A more recent study helps to explain why this difference may have been important. A 2005 study on “The effect of dominant somatotype on aerobic capacity trainability” found a significantly blunted training response in ectomorphs (the skinny group) vs all other groups. The meso-ecto group displayed almost double the improvement in VO2max of the pure ectomorphs over the same period of training. In fact, even the endomorphic group (average 20.6% body fat) exhibited a significantly better training response than the ectomorphs.  I’ve found a similar effect in my own coaching experience…

I track the relationship of fitness improvement versus training load in the form of an ‘F coefficient’ for the athletes that I coach. Without exception, the athletes with the highest F number to date have been of the mesomorphic persuasion (BMI>22). The athlete with the highest F number has a BMI of 24.1! Or, looked at longitudinally, my own highest F coefficient has occurred when my bodyweight was in the range of 176-178lbs (BMI = 21.5-21.7), while my best race performances to date have occurred below a BMI of 20.75.

My larger point is that while there are certainly races in which being light/skinny is desirable (specifically those with an abundance of heat and/or hills), when it comes to getting as generally fit as possible by both handling the most load and getting the most from that load in the early season, it’s important to maintain a little ‘reserve’.

Train Smart,

AC

Time for a lactate test?

Alan Couzens, MS (Sports Science)

As we move out of early season base training into the athlete’s ‘specific prep’ period, I will often suggest that athletes get a lab test with blood lactate analysis completed. There are a couple of significant benefits to this type of test that make the 150 bucks or so that they typically cost worth it:
• Establishing individual training zones
• Determining ‘weak points’ that we can use to direct future training.

1. Establishing individual training zones.
The notion of using ‘zones’ to direct training has become a bit of a contentious topic of late, with some coaches asserting that the delineation of metabolic processes into zones is arbitrary and an over-simplification of the way our energy systems work together. While I would agree that the ‘90s saw us getting to a point where the creation of zones got a bit out of hand (at one point the Australian Institute of Sport used 9 of them), there are a few critical physiological points that need to be determined in order for the training to be at all effective.

The most significant of these is what we call the Aerobic Threshold. If you google this term you’ll see even more disagreement and confusion – Does this point consistently show up on a lactate test? Does such a physiological entity even exist, blah blah blah. Discounting the definitional problems, the practical reality is that when conducting a lactate test from a sufficiently low level of intensity, lactate will remain at a relatively low plateau through increasing work stages until a certain point is reached when it begins to rise. We deem this point the ‘Aerobic Threshold’.

The Aerobic Threshold has considerable practical significance as it represents the lowest intensity level at which aerobic energy supply is challenged. One might suggest that since aerobic energy demand is not challenged below this point that any training done below this level will not disrupt homeostasis enough to elicit a training effect and is essentially a waste of training time. This has indeed been confirmed in studies that have looked at athletes who conducted very high volumes of training at low intensities (less than AeT). For example, 5.5hrs of ski touring a day for 8 weeks resulted in ZERO change in aerobic capacity of the muscle (Schantz et al. 1983). Therefore, knowing this point so that training can be directed at or above it is knowledge worth paying for!

Similarly, knowing the high end of this range, i.e. the point at which blood lactate and the associated exercise limiting by-products begin to ‘over-ride’ the system is very useful information in training and racing as it sets an upper cap of the intensity level at which you can accumulate a significant amount of work, work that is limited by the energy of the athlete rather than acidosis.

2. Establishing weak points to direct the training.

This is the fun stuff!

I’ve talked before about the importance of directing the athletes training towards their physiological ‘weak points’ with respect to their event. My preferred way of determining these areas that are ripe for improvement is via the power-duration or ‘fatigue curve’. By looking at how power or pace drops off as duration increases, we are able to make some conclusions of just how strong the athlete’s fatigue resistance or endurance is when compared to their max power numbers.

The downside of this ‘critical power’ testing is that in order to make conclusions about the far end of the curve, i.e. the endurance of the athlete’s energy stores, these energy stores must be tested (i.e. depleted). There are only so many times in a season that I want an athlete to put out a best effort test of 2.5hrs or more in duration. Therefore, getting enough data points to make any firm conclusion on the far end of the curve can be practically problematic.

Fortunately, the lactate curve offers us a good proxy for the fatigue curve without the extended recovery that comes with assessing the far end of the curve.

In the same way that the fatigue curve can be altered depending on the training undertaken, the shape of the lactate curve is also quite malleable and can literally be molded into a desired shape depending of the training intensity that is emphasized. A good example of this is shown below.



The above charts show 3 of my own lactate tests from different times in the year (times with different training emphases) and how the middle of the curve 'drops' as training is shifted.

The ‘early season’ line is from March of this year, after 4 months emphasizing base training (at or below 210W – the top of my current ‘steady’ training zone. The ‘mid season’ line is from August of last year following a period of mixed intensity training culminating with a training camp. You can see a distinct drop in net lactate production in the middle of the curve (210-290W) following this training The ‘late season’ curve is from October of last year following a block of Ironman specific training. This training yielded the highest AeT point of the year at 240W before a significant rise in lactate occurred. Unsurprisingly, I was doing a lot of volume at race pace (200-240W) during that block.

If we re-frame these charts in the same way that we look at fatigue curves, we’re also able to define these charts in terms of a ‘drop off’ rate, i.e. as lactate halves, what is the % drop off in power? This is a very similar question to what we ask when assessing the fatigue curve, i.e. as duration doubles, how much does power drop off, BUT it has the distinct advantage of not having to go out and ride successively greater durations at a maximal effort! So what ‘drop off rates do we see for the charts above?’



The drop off rates for the respective curves are 21% (early season), 17% (mid season) and 15% (late season)

How does this relate to the standard fatigue curve? Based on what I’ve seen to date in comparing field & lab data of athletes, the % drop off in the lactate curve is ~2x the % drop off in the fatigue curve, i.e. a 20% lactate curve will equate to an ~10% fatigue curve in the field. I’ve said in the past that an elite IM fatigue curve is in the range of 5-6%, placing the lactate curve at 10-12%. In practice, this may look something like 360W/8mmol 330W/4mmol 300W/2mmol 270W/1mmol, i.e approx 10% less power with each 50% decrease in lactate. This would be a typical pattern for a larger elite long course triathlete.

On the flipside, an endurance athlete who requires great anaerobic capacity, e.g. a road cyclist who specializes in the sprint will require a significantly different shaped curve with a much greater ability to generate lactate at high power levels, a curve closer to 20% (La max ~16mmol/L) In this case, the amount of aerobic vs anaerobic training that we want to undertake becomes a real consideration!

This relationship between lab and field is not perfect (and is the reason that as the season goes on I move more and more to field testing centered around the demands of the race) but in terms of getting a quick, relatively painless big picture assessment of where you are with respect to the specific fitness demands of your event, lactate testing can be a very useful tool.

Train smart.

AC

The 10,000 hour rule: Fact or fiction?

Alan Couzens, MS (Sports Science)

"Life grants nothing to us mortals without hard work"
- Horace

There is a great little brouhaha going on at the moment between The Science of Sport guys & Professor Anders Ericsson, founder of the ’10,000 hour rule’ of elite performance.
http://www.sportsscientists.com/2012/03/10000-hours-vs-training-debate-no.html

The 10,000 hour rule basically states that differences in performance across a broad range of fields can be explained to a very large degree by the amount of hours of deliberate practice that the individual has engaged in and furthermore, that elite performers across many fields have a common denominator of 10,000 hours of this deliberate practice preceding these elite performances.

Unsurprisingly, this point of view has met with criticism from experts in athletic science, experts in those things that differentiate the elite from ‘the rest of us’. Specifically, these days, this tends to mean experts in the relatively young field of genetic research.

I present my own case here from an alternative perspective – from the viewpoint of a science based coach, i.e. of somebody who performs his own very long term ‘experiments’ and quantifiably observes their effects. While not as controlled as the lab work of genetics researchers nor as extensive as the observational studies of humanists like Ericsson, I think the combination of ‘real world’ & science can shed some important light on the discrepancy between the 2 parties. Here’s my take…

1. Genetics plays a role
At this point in the game, with the genetics research that has been conducted to date (I prepared a quick review here http://alancouzens.blogspot.com/2009/01/genetics.html ) it’s pointless to argue that we are all the same when it comes to training response. We are not. Below I’ve presented a chart comparing training chronic load (TSS/d) vs Ironman performance for 15 of the athletes that I coached in 2011.



While trends are evident, outliers, i.e. folks who did significantly more work for the predicted performance level or folks who got a high level of performance from a modest level of work are evident.

Of course, Ironman performance is not the result of fitness alone. However, even when comparing pure fitness markers (lactate threshold, power:HR etc) some variability in the load:response relationship remained. I expand on this individual variability in training response here http://www.endurancecorner.com/Alan_Couzens/athlete_type

2. Only a handful of people will ever do enough work to discover any genetic ‘limits’.
We are an immediate gratification society. This is reflected in both our athletic practices and our scientific studies. Unfortunately, we tend to place a lot of weight in these studies, even though they are often..
• Ridiculously short when compared to the real world time frame of training
• Not dealing with athletes as subjects
• Subject to methodological flaws that may not be evident to those without a deep understanding of both the intricacies of the experiment & the topic at hand. See http://www.marksdailyapple.com/will-eating-red-meat-kill-you/ for a great example of this as it pertains to the current ‘red meat debate’.

In the context of research on improvements in aerobic fitness, we see..

Most often: Short term studies of 8-16 weeks, often utilizing high intensity training, that show a rapid improvement in VO2max followed by a relative plateau (e.g. Wenger & Bell, 1986, Hickson et al, 1981) leading to the erroneous conclusion that VO2 max is essentially fixed and can only be improved by small amounts.

Less often: Longer term observational studies of non athletes or recreational athletes that are subject to both a non systematic & often inconsistent ‘training programs’ and many of the recall errors mentioned in the Mark’s Daily Apple post referenced above (e.g. Pollock, 1973)

Very rarely (almost never) do we see studies on moderate-large groups of athletes training systematically over an extended period of time. For this reason, I believe my data set is unique and valuable to this question.

So what is my take on 10,000 hours?

Elite athletics is a multi-year proposition: My experience would agree with Bouchard’s research that, for the ‘average responder’ initial improvements in VO2max are in the vicinity of 0.5L/min per 15-20 weeks of training (1L/min over a 40 week mono-cycle). For the exceptionally high responder, this may be elevated (0.9L) and for the exceptionally low, 0.2L.

This, like all physiological qualities follows a pattern of diminishing returns from year to year. Based on my experience, we may expect only ~60% of this initial improvement in year 2, a further 60% of this in year 3 etc.

Considering world class endurance athletes of average size will have VO2max values of approx 5.5L/min. & most folks ‘on the couch’ VO2max is ~3L/min, A transformation from 3 to 5.5, even for the most gifted would be the product of multiple, uninterrupted, progressively overloaded, intelligently constructed seasons.

Speaking from my own data (presented below), while ‘natural’ athletes may achieve those World Class VO2max values on an accumulated volume of 2500hrs, & 'average' athletes may take 7500, genetics alone is not a precluding factor. There are plenty of instances (both in history and my own brain box) of athletes of seemingly average starting 'genetic material' (i.e. only average aptitude for endurance sports in their youth) going on to compete at a world class level. It is possible to outwork the 'gifted'.

Average Responder Improvement Curve

'Natural' (Fast Responder) Improvement Curve

Furthermore, there seems to be an inverse relationship between athletic ‘talent’ and work capacity, i.e. the athletes who need the most work often fall into the 'workhorse category' - they tend to have stronger constitutions and seem more physiologically able to handle the work providing they are motivated to do so!

So, while, over the short term, genetic differences may be obvious (& frustrating), over the long term, their eventual impact on performance pales when compared to the inverse of the qualities outlined above, i.e.
- Is the athlete consistently building their training load from year to year over multiple seasons?
- Is the athlete subject to interruptions in the load whether through boredom/ lack of focus, recurrent illness, injury or excessively frequent competition?
- Is the volume being progressively increased, so that the athlete is using their increased fitness base to do more work and so on and so forth?
- Related to the above, is the load intelligently constructed & appropriately timed towards a peak or is it ad-hoc?

Athletes who are able to put together the above over a multi-year time frame are significantly more rare than the genetically gifted that we devote so much envy towards. These are the athletes that excite me most as a coach!

In conclusion, I would suggest that there are certainly genetically gifted athletes who become ‘good’ on relatively meager amounts of training. However, among the world class, the best of the best, multiple years of high volume training are a common thread. Whether this amounts to 3,000 hours for the genetically blessed or closer to 10,000 hours for the less so, is kind of irrelevant. Both numbers essentially represent spending the better part of a decade of your life devoted to only one purpose. This is the greatest limiter of all.

Why I'm a fan of Road Cycling

Alan Couzens, MS (Sports Science)

I was fortunate last week to have the opportunity to travel
to Boise to meet with and present a talk for the Team Exergy professional cycling team (pictured above)

The topic of the presentation was “the physiology of road cycling” and the subject matter was reflected right back at me as I stood in front of a group of athletes who were about as diverse as a group of endurance athletes gets, from short, relatively stocky powerhouses to lithe climbers to larger ‘diesel engines’, the diversity in front of me represented an exercise physiologists dream, with clear examples of strengths across an incredibly broad range of physiological capacities. In chatting with the guys, this was further confirmed. The ‘sample’ contained
· Guys with VO2 max values greater than 5L/min
· Guys with relative VO2max values >70ml/kg
· Guys with peak anaerobic power outputs in excess
of 20W/kg

But, as a fan of the sport, more impressive to me than the raw physiological ingredients of this group of athletes is the way that these qualities come together in the course of a dynamic living breathing cycling race, with athletes using their unique abilities in support roles in some instances to augment the strength of their team mates, e.g, the diesel engine using his size and sustainable power output to enable his sprinter to save those few precious watts in the draft that he can put to good use in the last 200m. Or, in other circumstances being able to individually exploit these strengths e.g. in the 'race of truth' - the time trial. Cycling is a true team sport that demands both a team with a unique and diverse range of individual super-human abilities coupled with the humility to know when to use them for the greater good. In short, at the highest level it attracts a group of folks that is both physiologically very special while humble enough to know that without the context of the team these abilities mean naught.

As an exercise physiologist & self confirmed 'data geek', the thing that excites me most about road cycling is that it is a sport on the cusp of a revolution. It is a sport that has taken ‘blue collar’ traditions to the max and is just now beginning to (tentatively) embrace science and technology. This becomes more obvious to me as I chat with the ‘new generation’ of cyclists – guys who know their CDA values & lab numbers by heart, guys who speak fluent WKO+. While triathlon sometimes seems to look at technology as an alternative to full and complete dedication or a ‘short cut’ of sorts, it is entering cycling at a time when the traditions for work have been observed and maximized over the course of decades. This excites me greatly as I see the huge potential for growth, for working both hard AND smart.

As a young, developing team, Exergy is at the forefront of this revolution and I look forward to assisting some of the guys in incorporating science and technology to best effect while watching the evolution of the sport from the front row. First and foremost, I’m a fan!

Thanks to Dr. Jeff Shilt & family for setting it up and hosting me & to Team Exergy for their genuinely warm reception. Here’s to a great 2012 season!

Movement Economy: The D'Artagnan of Basic Limiters

Alan Couzens, MS (Sports Science)

A little addendum to my Endurance Corner article on ‘basic limiters’ today(http://www.endurancecorner.com/Alan_Couzens/basic_limiters) to address a ‘sort of’ basic limiter – movement economy.

In the article, I defined ‘basic limiters’ as those oft ignored elements of performance that are crucial to all athletes (and maybe all human beings) independent of whatever sport they participate in. In summary, those basic limiters are:

· Aerobic Base (Metabolic Fitness)
· Basic Strength
· Mobility/Stability/Muscle Balance

I half considered adding a 4th basic limiter of movement economy to the equation but it didn’t quite make the cut for the EC article so it wound up here on my personal blog :-) This is the ‘almost a musketeer’ limiter in the sense that while it has some elements that are specific to the individual’s sport, it is a general limiter in the sense that no matter whether your event lasts 2 seconds or 2 days, your ability to transfer metabolic energy into forward movement in the most efficient, economical way possible is a crucial ability.

This ‘sort of’ basic ability is made all the more tricky by the fact that many of our most basic movements are, when you break them down, incredibly complex. Take running for example, an economical run stride demands setting the body in the optimal position to utilize the elastic energy of the tendons coupled with an incredibly complex sequencing of rapidly contracting certain muscles while relaxing others so that inter-muscular resistance is minimized.

Swimming is even more of a mess. Not only must the timing of the optimal contract-relax sequences be figured out, but due to the nature of the resistance, the most economical type of stroke changes with different speeds of movement! Having a longer vessel (and maybe even a slight pause in the stroke) becomes progressively more important with increasing speed.

Contrast these with the relatively simple sport of cycling or basic lifting (which both have a much more steady application of force) and you see how there can be quite a discrepancy between 2 equally ‘powerful’ athletes on the bike (or gym) when it comes to swim and run speed/economy for a given output.

You may be movement economy limited if….

If I were a comedian I’d go Jeff Foxworthy at this point but I’m an exercise scientist so straight to the data…
· Your 30s power on the bike is >7w/kg and you can’t break 30s for a 200m run sprint.
· You can do 12 pull ups in 30s but can’t break 30s for a push start 50m freestyle sprint.

Note: I’m deliberately using short (non specific) tests here to take out the complicating factor of aerobic vs movement economy in longer tests, i.e. fitter athletes will get more mechanical work out of each liter of O2 independent of their movement economy (Coyle et al., 1991)

If you think that movement economy may be a limiter for you…

Incorporate things that teach you to get movement from quick force application followed by relaxation both in the water & out – Light Plyometrics (upper and lower), Agility Drills (dryland and aquatic – learn to accelerate!), Kettle bell/Medicine Ball Work, Jump Rope.

Note that movement economy is also contingent on mobility. For example in running, even if you’ve learned to switch the hip flexor off during the drive phase of gait, if you come up on the limits of your flexibility, it will slow you up!

Mobility is even more of a limiter to economical swimming. If you want to be fast as an adult athlete (over any distance/sport) get a basic level of mobility!

If you suspect that economy may be a limiter, the early season is the perfect time to work on these core issues of mobility & learning to move efficiently.

Train Smart,

AC.