Trifuel

Reviewed and Updated by ERB member Shawn Dolan PhD

Training, simply, is adding specific stress to the body. Your body then adapts to the stress load, and gets stronger, faster, or more powerful. There are times when completing your work out is detrimental to your training and perhaps your health. Knowing when these times are will reduce your risk of injury, and ultimately make your training more efficient and productive.

There is a miss conception out there that training increases the effort we can sustain during competition. I believe this miss-conception is magnified during race strategy for the bike portion of a triathlon. You believe because you have trained harder and are fitter for your upcoming race that you can swim, ride, and run at a harder level of effort. This thinking is a mistake.

Intro: Talk to ten endurance athletes and you'll get ten different recovery concoctions. Should you focus on protein, vitamins, carbohydrates or simply purchase one of the many recovery products that line store shelves and appear in magazine ads? Most supplement ads tout 'maximum recovery', but it's important to maintain awareness of some key principles with solid clinical research supporting their effects. Keep in mind that no supplement will allow you to go from a sedentary lifestyle, or one with limited training, to a 20 hour per week training schedule overnight.

All athletes train for various reasons. These reasons are what keep us going. It is important to regularly examine your motives and ambitions and to keep them close to you. Without an internal purpose to our training we are like old plow mules; slogging along because we always have. Without a purpose your enthusiasm to train and compete will eventually fade.