Triathlon Training

What you believe is more important than anything when you are about to begin a triathlon.

In freestyle, it is important to have some kind of kick to help you rotate from side to side as you swim, and to give you a small bit of propulsion. However, 90-95% of your propulsion in swimming will come from your upper body and how much you can rotate to slide through the water.

Getting fit and fast is only part of the equation to having a great day, not only do you need to ensure that you peak at the right time, which is on the day of your event, but you also need to arrive fully recovered, that is fresh and without any feelings of fatigue. Peaking and Tapering is about ensuring full recovery while maintaining performance adaptations and it’s a fine balance.

It is a common belief that endurance athletes don't require strength training in order to perform well. Although this may be the case for many talented individuals, the truth is that appropriate strength training can help improve every endurance athlete's performance.

You may have had coaches that make you count strokes throughout the workout, either by mixing it into drill sets, the main set, or at the end of workout. Some coaches recommend making a habit of always keeping track of your stroke count. As a coach of distance swimmers and triathletes, I believe stroke counting is a necessary part of most swimming workouts.

Getting the most out of your training is a fine line between training enough and resting enough to improve but not over doing it and becoming overtrained. Coach Julian Piotto looks at overtraining and some suggestions to help avoid it.

Mark Fulford is a qualified physical education teacher and coach with over 10 years experience in coaching. Having been involved in running at an international level as a junior he switched very successfully to triathlon and has a personal best of 9:12 for the Ironman.

One of the most common wonders of the swimming world is, should you use alternate-side, or bilateral breathing?

Meters away from the finish line of your "A" race, and another age grouper passes you to beat you out for the top spot. How did that happen? You've trained harder and been more diligent in all your recovery than anyone else you know, especially the person that just smoked you to the finish line. Where did you go wrong you wonder?

I have seen many athletes or aspiring athletes start out in a training program that is new to them with the expectations of certain time goals and/or race results. Some of them attain these goals, but most athletes in a new sport have expectations of themselves that are unrealistic.