A little pre-training visualisation.

Visualisation is a powerful tool and can be used to develop new skills or refine exsisting ones. Before this week's technique swim session on Sunday have a look at this video of Jono Van Hazel (Australian Olympic swimmer) on the Swim Types website. Watch it over and over! During the swim session when we ask you to swim 'steady and smooth' or 'hold excellent form' this is the image that should appear in your head. Say to yourself (or out loud if you prefer) 'Just like Jono' as you push off the wall. Go on try it out at least once!

For those of you that join me on Tuesday for the interval session or on Sunday for the long run this week is a 'recovery week'. That means we are dropping the training load down to allow the body to recover and adapt to the last three weeks of training. So our interval session will be 5km max and the long run no more than one lap of Victoria Park from London Fields and return (~8km). Remember the recovery week is as important as the last three weeks of training to improving your performances during the race season and preventing injury. Do not be tempted to do a little more just for good measure!

Most of the London League events are now open. Remember in order to get maximum points we must have five athletes in an event, one must be a female and one must be a vet (+40) or we could have a vet female. These will be great events to continue to build the team spirit within the club (something I think we have done well already) and these races can be a great way to develop race skills such as pacing and transitions etc. We need to enter at least four races including one triathlon. I am signed up for the Dragon Slayer Duathlon and Thames Turbo Sprint Triathlon already.

Two of our club members last week asked me what determines someone's ability to run fast over a given distance. Given that we are triathletes and run anywhere from 5km up to 42km and beyond I will focus on determinants of long distance running performance. Now this is the kind of topic that entire books are written about. I will just scrape the surface here.

The neuromuscular system plays and important role. The recruitment and synchronisation of muscles during running affects both the ability to absorb impact forces and produce propulsive forces. This affects running efficiency and can be trained. This is one reason I insist that everyone performs running drills. It is also why later in the year, as we approach race season, we will intergrate more speed work into our sessions.

There are also physiological determinants of long distance running performance. VO2 max is the maximum capacity of an individual's body to transport and use oxygen during exercise. VO2 max is actually a relatively poor predictor of endurance performance in athletes of similar ability. That is not to say that improving your VO2 max will not improve your running performance. VO2 max can be improved with specific training. This will come later in the year as it is very high intensity work.

'Lactate threshold' is the point at which lactic acid starts to accumulate in the blood during sub-maximal exercise. Lactic acid has an inhibitory effect on a muscles ability to function during exercise resulting in decreased performance. Lactate threshold occurs at a higher % of VO2max in well trained individuals. Lactate threshold can be improved with specific training. The faster you can run at lactate threshold the faster your race pace will be in race distances from a 5K to the marathon. This is what our interval sessions are aimed at.

Running economy is the amount of energy needed to run at a given pace. If you have good running economy, you use less energy to run at a given pace than someone with poor running economy. Running economy can be improved with training. This improvement occurs primarily at your training pace(s). This is one reason it’s important to do some training at and faster than race pace. Over striding can cause poor running economy, but research shows that most runners naturally choose their most economical stride length. Explosive weight training or plyometrics have also been shown to improve running economy.

Psychology also plays a role. Some people can and do push themselves much harder than others in training and racing. Again this 'mental toughness' is something that can be trained using various methods.

Well I hope that was helpful. Rest assured that we are working towards improving your running performance this year. See you tonight and if not see you in two weeks! Don't forget to get a crew together for the London League events. Tim (LFTC coach)

Some feedback from last Sunday

Thanks to our growing team of coaches I managed to capture some video of a number of you swimming on Sunday. This week we will work on a few of the 'swimming faults' that I observed and discussed with Karl and Scott. Here is a list of a few of the faults and the effect of them on your freestyle stroke:

• Unilateral breathing (breathing to one side): This can cause asymmetries in your stroke. You will often see top swimmers and triathletes breathing to one side in certain situations such as when racing. What you don't see is that they will practice breathing to both sides and be comfortable breathing to either side so they can adapt their technique when necessary. What we often see in a habitual unilateral breather is a tendency to over-rotate to the breathing side and under-rotate to the non-breathing side and obvious asymmetry in the water that can lead to other problems such as swimming related shoulder pain and a loss of ideal body alignment.

• Cross-over: A cross-over occurs when the hand enters the water and then crosses over the mid line of the body. This is a common cause of swimming related shoulder pain. It also makes it very difficult to set up for a good catch and pull because of the compromised position of the shoulder. In addition a cross-over can cause other problems such as a scissor kick, a loss of good body alignment and over-rotation especially during breathing.

• Dropped wrists and elbows: As the hand enters the water and extends the wrist drops, the fingers and palm come up and you effectively apply the brakes. An effective catch and pull requires you to keep your elbow high during these phases of the stroke. Dropping the elbow and pressing down on the water lifts you up at the front end and causes your legs to sink. This is something we often see when someone goes to take a breath during freestyle. Have a look at the videos from Swim Smooth here for examples of dropped wrists and elbows.

• Dead spots: The most likely place you will find a dead spot is just as the arm extends after hand entry before initiating the catch. This pause causes a loss of rhythm and often means that you will then rush the catch and pull phase. A dead spot is often followed by the elbow dropping and the arm pressing down on the water.

• Breath holding: A common problem that can be observed in swimmers of all abilities. This can be a major cause of anxiety and tension created by the feeling of being quite literally 'breathless'. Breath holding can also be a cause of 'sinky legs' by increasing buoyancy at the front end of the body. The body will act just like a see-saw and the legs will then sink.

• Loss of ideal body alignment: As mentioned above the loss of good alignment can be the result of other faults such as unilateral breathing and cross-overs. It can also be a primary fault. Your proprioception (awareness of your body in space) is important here. Someone that moves their head from side to side with every stroke may be completely unaware that this is what they do. They may also be completely unaware that this causes their whole body to follow and we see the classic 'snaking' through the water.

This weekend is our 'splash and dash' threshold session but not before we work on the areas above. Fins and pull buoys will be required so please don't forget yours.

A few of the club members are getting together for a ride on Saturday morning. The plan is to meet at Hackney Downs station at 8.30am (there is a train at 8.48am). Take the train to St Margarets in Hertfordshire which takes 30 minutes, cycle 25 miles towards Cambridge ...tea break and then back to St Margarets. An out and back route of about 50 miles. If people are interested they could just turn up or preferably let us know through the blog or facebook before Saturday.

Mixing politics and sport can be both good and bad. If the outcome is either positive for the sport or results in a positive political change I don't have a problem with it. So here is my brief foray into politics. If you eat fish, and let's face it there are many positive health benefits that result from including some fish in your diet, then you should watch Hugh's Big Fish Fight. A three part documentary about the fishing industry and the EU laws that govern it. It is pretty shocking stuff! Raising awareness can only be a good thing so that you can make informed choices. If you feel strongly about the subject you can join the Fish Fight here.

See you Sunday morning! Tim (LFTC Coach)

PS. I have entered the Dragon Slayer Duathlon, Thames Turbo Triathlon Race 1 (both London League events) and the New Forest Middle Distance Triathlon. Come join me in the club's racing strip for the London League events!