Heart Rate Variability and Overtraining

Overtraining is a risk for any person engaging in regular physical activity and is defined as an imbalance between stress and recovery, with the balance shifted towards stress.  Overtraining can be caused by too much physical stress as well as excessive psychological stress.  One of the consequences of overtraining is …

Breath Rate: The least utilized fitness tracker?

Authors of a recent perspective in Frontiers in Physiology suggested that respiratory frequency provides valuable data and argue that wearable respiratory monitors could benefit training. I totally agree. But I don’t think you need a separate device to measure this. You simply need to pay attention! With intentional awareness, you …

Iron Lent

Now that I’m training again, I get glimpses into my past life. Especially recurring ‘phases’ of my training cycle that I repeated year after year. These ‘phases’ were so engrained in my yearly rhythm that the training that went along with each ‘phase’ was as normal as birthdays, holidays, and the …

There is more to VO2 max than performance

VO2max is a popular topic among exercise physiologists and endurance athletes. Exercise physiologists use VO2max to measure the effectiveness of a training protocol. Endurance athletes use VO2max as a marker of fitness and compare values at various times of the season. But an even better use of your VO2max is …

Seven valuable insights

  Each of us approaches this sport with different backgrounds, priorities, and goals.  It is our job as coaches to meet you where you are and help you be the best athlete you can be.  Because of this, there is no one-size-fits all program and definitely no one-size-fits all advice. With …

Three things that will maximize success?

A few years ago I received an email from one of my athletes. In the email, the athlete asked me, “if you had three things that you said are the three things I should change for next season that WILL make me faster at my goal race, what would those three things be? I …

Winter Nutrition Guidelines.

You should have read the “Beginning the conversation on NUTRITION” article now. If you haven’t, check it out HERE The intent with this conversation is to help you improve your diet, improve your health, improve you performance, and help you understand the differences between eating for health versus eating for …

Coming Full Circle

Every so often, we need to take stock of where we are, what we are doing, and see if it aligns with our true intent.  I did this.  Here’s what I discovered. Below are five points. Each point can be read as a stand-alone message, but I encourage you to take …

Five mistakes triathletes make in the off season, and how to avoid them.

Everyone has their definition of ‘off-season.’ My definition of the ‘off-season’ is a time of planned unstructured training that can last anywhere from two to eight weeks (depending on the athlete). The purpose is to take a break from the formal, structured training program and allow for a mental and …