Random Fitness Questions

new2tri19 wrote: »

Well it's laid out there it looks like 4 days a week but it's actually only 3 . The workouts take an hour or a little over so most days I would do something else.

The triathlons are mostly aerobic work so that bulk of the training maybe 80% would be zone 2 it's not too intense . The only thing I seem to find hard is running day after intense leg work , so tempo speedwork would be done before that . I just have to be careful with when I do run and bike intervals .pretty much any day I can do a 2 hour zone 2 bike ride almost immediately after a weight session and if anything it almost helps recovery.

As I've mentioned previously with pool access been restricted / limited there's little point trying to do any decent swim block so swim is very little the odd maintenance swim here and there but I'm resigning myself to no decent swimming for next few months , hence the upper body work should help while I'm out of pool. When things get clearer I'll return to pool and drop assistance exercises and just do main T1 and T2 lifts and some single leg work to help with running and balance.

To do all that plus tri training plus I'm assuming working full time it will be very difficult to get enough mobility work done to prevent or manage injuries. I'd be surprised if you could do all of that and not get injured to be honest.

new2tri19 wrote: »

Yeah am working also , the commute is a big part of training , gotta fit training around your life . Last couple of years I would alternate running and cycling to work . I'd swim at lunch time and then turbo trainer or another run later on. I did that year round . Wasn't immune to injuries but any injuries I got I could track them back to stupid training . I think it's more important what you do than the frequency , I think your less likely to get injured doing 10 hours a week of easy bike run compared to doing 2-3 hours of fast stuff .

In saying all that one of the reasons I moved to lifting was because I felt weak, I think it was a combination of overtraining and under eating and especially not eating enough protein.

It's hard to get the right balance and at a certain point more is not better. I can only go on how I feel and I feel much healthier and stronger doing weight training , if that leads to me having to drop an easy swim bike or run to fit weight training in then so be it. I am not elite by any means .

I think like a lot of things in life everything in moderation is probably the healthiest approach. And I think even if the knock on effect of more weight training results in slower times from a wellbeing point of view i think it's worth prioritising it over swim bike run. I'm 40 now and we do lose muscle mass as we age and I don't want to be taking up weight training at 50+ for the first time. A very large proportion of training partners I train with would have some form of injuries throughout the year I do really feel like the lack of weight training is a factor .

OK, that makes more sense, so you'll be cutting down on your tri training and focusing more on your strength training and making time for mobility? I adore strength training and all my endurance clients, that come in injured are always neglecting strength training.

I hope it works out well for you, you designed a nice program, just don't over do it!!! And do your mobility.

There's a good basis there and calfmuscle is right about mobility work just to make sure everything moves as it should. Its easy to overlook it and with squats and deadlifts in there, it's also easy to let mobility slide around the hips which could end up passing problems up and down stream to knees, lower back etc.

Aside from that, just make sure its balanced and then just monitor how it's going over time and as you start to bring back triathlon specific training

Alex Viada has been mentioned as someone you might be interested in reading about - balancing Tri-training and strength. Here is one of his recent articles - https://www.jtsstrength.com/5-questions-alex-viada/recent

Black Sheep wrote: »

Whatever happened to Brian Mackenzie's CrossFit Endurance? That was all the rage back when I was in CrossFit, but it seems to have gone the way of the dodo. Did it just ... not work?

Same thing that happened to all the other coaches and methods that used to be all the rage for them I guess! Louie Simmons, Rippetoe, Kelly Starrett, Mark Bell, Carl Paoli, James Fitzgerald. All used to be hailed by CrossFit and then were eventually ditched for the next guru.

Ceepo wrote: »

This guy has zero creditable in running and probably as much in triathlon.

His claims of being "elite" runner is total BS. He claims to have a 4.15 mile but has no evidence to back it up as it wasn't in a race, just a training session.
His best official 5k is 26 mins and marathon is 4.17.
Apparently his max lift and running pbs are years apart as well.

https://completehumanperformance.com/2018/08/22/the-price-of-a-mile/

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

To be fair, most of his contributions referenced on this forum (JTS and Stronger By Science) are on the benefits of cardio/aerobic training for strength athletes and practical considerations of combining with weight training and I haven't seen anything that is practically discredited by what he did or didn't say about his own achievements.

To be fair. If you're trying to promote your program of heavy lifting and cardio to the running & triathlon community, announcing that you can run a 4.15 mile sounds a lot better than 6.15 or x,xx.
The problem is when you announce that you can run 4.15, (even if it was a down hill mile) and weigh what ever he did, you better be able to back that up with either some evidence, ie race results or repeat it.

A piece the worte in his blog didn't help his cause either. As it was seen that he was trying to run 4.15 while taking peds.

"But what was built through years of practice and love for a sport (and even then, was not up to par with my current goal) could not be duplicated through months of angry training. Even with the aid of massive loads of drugs, (certain blood boosters, ITPP, AICAR, GW1516, stimulants…), I couldn’t pull it together. I simply am not a true 4:15 miler,"..

Can people lift weight and do endurance events, im sure they can, but don't say your elite at both when you can't back it up.

Ceepo wrote: »

To be fair. If you're trying to promote your program of heavy lifting and cardio to the running & triathlon community, announcing that you can run a 4.15 mile sounds a lot better than 6.15 or x,xx.
The problem is when you announce that you can run 4.15, (even if it was a down hill mile) and weigh what ever he did, you better be able to back that up with either some evidence, ie race results or repeat it.

A piece the worte in his blog didn't help his cause either. As it was seen that he was trying to run 4.15 while taking peds.

"But what was built through years of practice and love for a sport (and even then, was not up to par with my current goal) could not be duplicated through months of angry training. Even with the aid of massive loads of drugs, (certain blood boosters, ITPP, AICAR, GW1516, stimulants…), I couldn’t pull it together. I simply am not a true 4:15 miler,"..

Can people lift weight and do endurance events, im sure they can, but don't say your elite at both when you can't back it up.

He made a mistake, he admits it. It doesn't instantly discredit all of the very good advice he has given to people.

I don't see how him taking drugs makes him any less credible than all of the actual elite runners who are on drugs. The elite in almost every sport are on them.

Mellor wrote: »

I’m sure the advice is good. But I’m with the above sentiment. It’s not about the quality of the advice. The only reason he’s on JTS, SbyS, being mentioned on forums and receiving tons of web traffic is because he made bullshït claims. Ultimately he profiteered off of those claims. So he’s a fraud plain and simple.

It's still doesn't mean you need to disregard the particular message just because of the messenger. The articles on SBS were linked to support a general point combining cardio work with lifting and had nothing to do with the point being made by Alex Viada.

Frankly, I couldnt tell you what he had claimed he had done in both realms because I wasn't particularly interested. I think I assumed that he was just pretty competent as a lifter who could run/do triathlons...his size doesn't exactly lend itself to being elite at running/triathlon.

The explanation doesn't particularly show it all in a good light but I can still separate the message from the messenger with regards to where his name has come up on here.

Mellor wrote: »

The SBS article was in a different thread. (Avoiding Cardio Could Be Holding You Back By Greg Nuckolds). No issue with the general message there.

This discussion started with a link to interview with Alex Vianda. It opens with "PRs of 705, 465 and 700 raw w/ wraps in the 220 class and a mile time of 4:15".

His recommendations in the article;




I don't think anyone would disagree with that. It's all good advice.
But its also absolutely basic, and I mean BASIC AF. Nobody needs to defer to Alex Viada and his PRs and sift through a few paragraphs of self fellatio for that info. Any of a number of posters could have posted that in any number of threads. Certain doesn;t give me any confidence in his coaching packages.

Hadn't read through that JTS article. And several posters have likely given much of the advice.

In any case, was thinking more of the SBS articles. And they're a good read for people who have probably been advised here but people will often want something from outside of boards to support what's said here.

I'd never have thought of going to his website. Most people that ask about lifting and cardio just want general guidelines here.

Again, no interest in Alex Viada per se. I've linked the SBS articles he's referenced in because (a) Greg Nuckols and (b) its solid info.

Grip: overhand is good for warming up and for working grip. But nobody lifts their Max with double overhand. Alternate/mixed grip is what you need. Shoulder will be slightly different due to the rotation. Just make sure arms are locked out and you aren’t pulling with bicep loaded.

Resetting is good. Certainly better than fast bounces that you see. But 3-5 is a bit long. You may better trying to maintain as much form as possible. Try to lower the bar into the correct spot so you can brave and go rather than having to adjust.

Are you fully letting go of the bar or letting gravity take over? Don’t let go, but 130kg isn’t going to be a light touchdown. Trying to lower the bar initial place close to shins will help maintain controlz

new2tri19 wrote: »

A couple of questions on deadlifts if I may , I guess I'm getting near my max now so noticing some things I didn't notice before.

I'm at 5 sets of 3 at 130kg , it's starting to feel hard now to the point I had to talk myself into last set yesterday .

Grip strength is there anything i can do to improve it? It felt hard to hold the bar from rolling out especially on last rep of each set. I've looked up alternating grips ( I currently use overhand grip for both hands ) when I set up in alternating grip I feel like one shoulder hangs lower. I guess if I change grip I should deload to get used to it ?

Second thing is I reset after each rep , I don't stand up but get my breathing correct , shins to bar and concentrate on getting form correct and pull again all in about 3-5 seconds between reps ,I've seen people deadlift and they just lightly tip the floor and go should I be aiming for that ?

And lastly on that similar note my wife actually said to me the noise of the weights hitting the shed floor (not a problem ) but i am now starting to drop the weight at about the last 6 inches to ground I just don't seem to have the strength to lower it slowly all the way down now the last 6 inches to floor is my weakest point .should I reduce the weights so that I can lower it comfortably or is it ok to drop it ? Thanks

As Mellor said double overhand will only take you so far. You basically have three options to use instead of it. The first is mixed grip which you've already used, as long as you aren't actively straining your bicep this grip is perfectly fine and probably what is used by the majority of people. I use it myself. Next you could learn hook grip. This basically uses your thumb as a barrier and is quite painful initially but allows you to keep both hands overhand which some people say helps them use their lats better. Finally you could just use straps. Some people may disagree but deadlift isn't really a grip exercise. If you have no plans of competing in powerlifiting it's totally fine to use straps.

Also if you aren't already using chalk it does make a big difference. If you're worried about a mess liquid chalk is much tidier.

So what you're describing with your reset is the difference between dead-stop and touch-and-go. Personally I think they both have there place in training. TNG isn't just bouncing the bar and is very useful for higher rep sets. It allows for greater time under tension as you have to have it under control each time you lower it. I find it is quite a useful tool for hypertrophy. You're unlikely to be able to properly TNG higher percentages. Dead-stop is very useful if your weakpoint is off the floor which it is for most people on conventional and I think is the best way to train low rep sets.

You don't have to lower it under control. In fact it's probably not going to be possible with every set but I certainly prefer to have some control as I'm doing it. I don't think it's something you have to deload for but have more of a focus on it during your warm-up sets.