Performing high quality workouts - weekend training wrap-up

Like most competitive athletes, Karel and I are extremely dedicated to our training but unlike many, we are highly competitive triathletes who are not too obsessive with the sport. We give a lot of our energy to training but training provides us with more than race day performances as we gain good health, enjoyment, socializing, being outside and pushing our boundaries thanks to training. We can also clear our minds and de-stress. I like to say that we have the ability to turn on and off our training lightswitch very easily so that the light only comes on when we train and then it's back to normal life so that the light never burns out.

One thing that Karel and I do not focus on as it relates to performance improvements, is marginal gains. While we do focus on all of the areas in our life, from diet, to fueling, to strength and mobility, to mental strength, sleep, gear and training in order to gain the competitive edge, we focus on optimizing the areas in our life that have direct performance improvements and don't waste our energy on anything else. In other words, when it comes to our body composition, we don't intentionally try to change the way that we look through diet and exercise. We eat to perform and we train to perform.  

This leads me to the topic of body composition, which is a very popular topic among the athletic world. In a recent article that I wrote for Ironman.com, I talked about making peace with your weight, all season long. 

Far too many endurance triathletes put way too much energy into reducing body fat in order to achieve a specific race weight (or to be lean) for performance improvements. Understanding that changing your body composition will only offer a performance advantage if the goals and methods are suited to individual needs, it should be assumed that if you organize your diet to meet your daily energy/macronutrient and vitamin/mineral needs and you fuel and hydrate smart before, during and after workouts, then you will be able to perform high quality training sessions with your body. Consistent high quality training sessions will maximize your fitness and you may unintentionally see a positive change in body composition. But trying to change the way that you look may not make you any faster, fitter or stronger, if you can't perform high quality training sessions. 

On the flip side, if you are simply trying to "get through" workouts (and life) with an underfueled and undernourished body in order to lose weight, lean up or to burn more fat for fuel, there is a great chance that you are sabotaging your chance of performing high quality training sessions with your body, all in an effort to hope to achieve marginal gains with your diet/exercise approach. 

You see, there is no guarantee that manipulating your diet, getting leaner or avoiding sport nutrition during (or before/after) training will improve performance. There is, however, a great chance that you will not be able to perform high quality training sessions, you may risk health or injury issues and you won't gain confidence for race day by putting too much energy into how you look now and how you want to look on race day. 

Because it is so easy to overlook daily lifestyle habits that can optimizing performance but oh so easy to put a lot of energy into the extreme approach of not fueling properly before, during and after workouts or not structuring the diet to help the body adapt to training stress, I encourage you to take a moment and ask yourself "Am I able to perform high quality workouts with my body, with my current daily diet and fueling methods?"

If the answer is yes, great! Keep doing what you are doing. 

If the answer is no, ask yourself why not? Because many athletes are lead to believe less is more as it relates to how much you eat (or how little) and how much you weigh, your best performance enhancer will come from performing high quality workout with your body - on a daily basis, week after week, month after month. 

As a 11x Ironman finisher, I still have yet to look for marginal gains as it relates to my body composition, like fasted workouts or trying to get to x-weight by race day, to take me to that next level. I have never been on a diet, I don't restrict any foods in my diet, I always eat before workouts, I never workout without sport nutrition and I never ever weigh myself. (neither does Karel). Yet every year, I find myself improving my skills and fitness as a triathlete and somehow, when I get closer to racing season, I see my body changing as I gain fitness. How can this be? 

There are no short cuts to success. It takes time to see results. Put in the work, be kind and respectful to your body, have fun, enjoy the journey, challenge yourself, stretch your comfort zone and focus on the little things in your daily life that can make a big difference and you, my amazing Trimarni follower will also find yourself gaining the competitive edge with your amazing body. 

Saturday training: 
AM - Donaldson center 

BIKE + BRICK RUN
Bike: ~90 minutes - country loop for warm-up

MS 3x's (perimiter loop)
8 minute at slightly stronger than IM effort

3 min smooth endurance

12 min at half IM effort

3 min smooth endurance 

5 min at Olympic distance

5 min EZ

Total: 3:38 hr
Miles: 67.8

Run off the bike:
5 min immediately off the bike, increase effort to half ironman effort

2 min endurance effort

MS:
1 min Z3
2 min endurance

1 min Z3+

2 min endurance

1 min Z4

2 min endurance

1 min Z5

2 min endurance
1 min Z5

2 min endurance

1 min Z4

2 min endurance

1 min Z3+

2 min endurance

1 min Z3
5 min EZ

Total: 35 minutes, 4.75 miles

PM Run: Treadmill50 minutes, 5.36 miles, form focused, EZ running (9:20 min/mile pace)

Sunday AM Long run (treadmill and outside): 15 minute mobility/hip work/dynamic warm-up
20 minute treadmill warm-up
Outside: 40 minutes hilly loop

MS: 

3 x 5 min at half ironman effort w/ 2 min endurance effort (and walk) between

3 x 3 min strong effort w/ 2 min endurance effort  (and walk) between

2 x 5 min half ironman effort w/ 2 min endurance effort  (and walk) between

Cool down

Total: 2.17 miles/20 minutes treadmill
10.5 miles outside/1:35 outside
Combined total: 12.57 miles, 1:55 total

A big thanks to the Trimarnis who I saw out training this weekend in Greenville - Bryan for joining us on the country loop, Thomas for pushing me on the run, Karel for helping me believe in myself and Meredith, for getting out there and working hard for dreams. 

Big results or marginal gains?

Picture Source

Not every athlete trains to win a race but most athletes train to maximize the potential of performing well on race day.

While your definition of race day success may be to simply complete the race distance and have fun along the way, there are a great number of athletes who pursue the many possible methods of getting the most out of the body through training, in order to meet performance standards on race day.

One of those popular methods is metabolically efficiency, which in simple terms, means burning fat in order to preserve carbohydrate stores.

As desirable as it sounds to an athlete to become more metabolically efficient, manipulating your diet and fueling strategies in an effort to become a better fat burner is not a requirement to be a better athlete. 

The idea of marginal gains lies in the strategy (or method) of trying to gain the 1% competitive advantage. In other words, big successes from a small change. 

With lots of confusion on how to properly become "metabolically efficient" or what it means to be metabolically efficient, it's important to stress that metabolically efficiency is much more than one tiny change in your training.

At Trimarni, we don't believe that fasted workouts are the best way to burn fat or to assist in weight loss. Seeing that many athletes have an extremely unhealthy relationship with food and the body as it is, asking/telling an athlete to voluntarily restrict food before and during workouts feeds the desire to be great at food restriction throughout the day. Many athletes are uneducated on the proper training and diet methods of how to be metabolically efficient, simply because there are too many nutrition experts offering their unique strategy, often while pushing supplements/products.

While this concept of metabolic efficiency is not new and there are many scientific truths and notable results in becoming great at burning fat as an endurance athlete, as a Board Certified Sport Dietitian, I don't view this dietary and training strategy as a necessity for all endurance athletes, as it can actually delay athletic development and heighten an already unhealthy relationship with food and the body.

Without proper guidance on how to become "metabolically efficient", it's very easy to assume that not eating before a workout or fueling during a long workout is good so not eating after a workout and restricting food later in the day, is even better.
Metabolic efficiency is not a diet plan - it's a sport nutrition strategy that may take your performance to the next level, but it is not a requirement. And due to athlete non-compliance, results are often positive and extreme in the beginning but do not last long term.  

I my opinion, for the majority of athletes, I see "metabolic efficiency" as a method that provides marginal gains and has more cons than pros.

Whether you want to become more efficient at conserving glycogen or you look to burning fat as a way to remove unwanted body fat and lean up, it's important to remind you that your success as an athlete starts with nailing the fundamentals.

This post is not to disagree with the concept of metabolic efficiency but instead, to encourage you to nail the basics before following a more extreme dietary and training methodology.

You must make smart choices with your daily diet and training regime in order to stay consistent with training while keeping your body in good health.
Eating a small banana with a smear of nut butter before a 90 minute run and consuming 150 calories of a sport drink and 20 ounce water spread over a 90 minute run may not fit the metabolic efficiency fueling standards but it will help you have a great workout and will likely keep your immune system strong during a time when it's very easy to get sick (sick = no training = loss of fitness).

Not eating before a workout or not fueling during a long workout will not help you gain the competitive edge if your training methods are haphazard, you don't sleep well, you have poor coping skills when it comes to stress, your daily diet is inconsistent, unbalanced and you have an unhealthy relationship with food and the body. 

Although it sounds extremely sexy to say that you are "metabolic efficiency training", the truth is that most athletes (even the elite ones) still have a lot to gain from continuing to nail the basics and progressing on with the developmental process, than simply restricting carbohydrates around workouts or performing workouts in the fasted state (as these are the two ways that I hear of athletes performing "fat burning" workouts).

It isn't until you have maximized your fundamental athletic capabilities that you will need to search for and attempt that one ethically safe way to gain the competitive edge.

Perhaps at that time, metabolic efficiency training can be the choice method for achieving the 1% advantage over your competition.

BUT.....until then, you haven't yet reached the marginal gain status of your athletic career.

Until then, make sure your daily diet strategies do not reduce the effectiveness of your training and above all, do not sabotage your overall health.

If you do feel as if metabolic efficiency is necessary in your training, consult with a sport dietitian who is specializes in the area.

 If you consult with me on the topic, you better believe that I will dive deep into your lifestyle choices, training methods, sport nutrition practices, dietary patterns and relationship with food and the body to discuss the many ways that you are not getting the most out of your body as an athlete.

For the majority of athletes that I work with, the missing link as it relates to body composition struggles and nutrition issues in training and on race is not because athletes are not metabolically efficient but because there is a clear limiter in the daily diet or sport nutrition regime...most common reasons include; an unhealthy relationship with food and the body, not using sport nutrition products properly (timing/quantity), poor nutrient timing or consistently not planning healthy and balanced meals.

From my experience in working with athletes, I encourage you to get to the truths of your daily diet and training regime before assuming that working out in the fasted state is the missing link that when accomplished, will improve your health, improve your body composition or improve your performance.

Now is the perfect time to learn how to make great daily nutrition habits as you follow a well laid training regime to keep you consistently training throughout the holiday season.