Why Do You Train?

Why Do You Train? 

     by Branden Turley, ONE Elite Team Athlete

      

     The days following the Marquee Triathlon were about recovery.  Despite feeling fine the next day, my body was still in need of recovery.  Despite the distance of the race and time spent at threshold pace, there is still a need to focus on recovery and nutrition. 

 

Karp (2015) refers to recovery as one of the most overlooked aspects of training.  While most athletes and coaches focus on the workouts, improvements in fitness occur during the recovery period in between training sessions.  It has been shown that positive physiological adaptations to training occur when there is a balance between stress and recovery.  When stress is applied to the body in small doses the body continues to adapt.  When the stress load is too severe, or applied in large doses with not enough recovery, injury can result.  The most effective adaptations occur when an athlete can recover from the previous workout prior to the continuation of additional stress in the form of training (Karp, 2015).

     The old adage of ‘no pain, no gain’ is accurate to a certain degree.  But nowadays, training should be approached from a more scientific standpoint. In order to make the ‘gain’, there will be a little ‘pain’.  But pain should be followed with a little R&R!     

     Tuesday, back on the bike for some easy hill repeats with Jozsef and Val, we began to assess the next series of training volume and upcoming changes in our training sessions.  After Rocky Point at the end of April, my volume will increase as the focus of training shifts from short course to long course.  After discussing several different types of changes to my training sessions, I began to think about training in general.  This made me ask the question, ‘why do I train, what is my intention?’.

     So many times I hear other athletes talk about their struggles with racing and the disappointment with race results.  With so much emphasis on racing in this sport I ask, ‘how is your training?’.  I have found many other athletes spend more time focusing on his/her racing than on his/her training.  If you don’t train for your goals, how do you expect to reach them?

     Racing should be the culmination of your training.  In other words, racing is the final exam and training is the coursework.  If you don’t train to race then you won’t race well.  With so much going on in the sport of triathlon, it is challenging enough to find the time to devote to swimming, biking, and running so many of us forget about the fourth and fifth discipline of this sport; recovery and nutrition.  Unfortunately, recovery and nutrition seem to be pushed to the bottom of the priority list as swimming, biking, and running become a necessity.  In addition to the loss of recovery and poor nutrition, athletes lose time throughout their week as life gets in the way.  They find themselves struggling to make the training time and soon it becomes about training hard not smart.  Training sessions should be about quality, not quantity.  

     Racing is more than just pushing yourself for the joy of accomplishment.  Racing should be a way to gauge your fitness as it pertains to your time spent training.  Every workout should have a purpose, an intention.  Each training session provides an opportunity to create fitness, but only if the training session is followed with an adequate amount of recovery and nutrition.  What do you expect to gain from your training sessions?  If you can’t answer the question before the training begins, then ask yourself ‘why do I train?’. 

     We are all creatures of habit, and with so many goals for our race season, we need to understand our fitness gains come from the time spent not training!.....That’s right!  Our improvement in strength, speed, and endurance comes from the time spent not training!

 

So, next time you dive in, saddle up, hit the road, or just live to train, ask yourself;

-    - What am I recovering from?

-    - What is the purpose of this training?

-   - What do you expect to gain from this training?

References:

Karp, J. (2015).  The art of post-workout recovery.  Retrieved from www.active.com