- We are talking injuries and triathlon training.
Are your hard days are really hard
and your easy days are really easy?
Just a couple of pals showing up.
- Having a swim.
(pleasant music)
- Morning trainiacs, that was hot.
Its hot.
It was 14 and half kilometers in an hour 10 minutes,
a 450 per kilometer pace.
I had a hard time keeping my heart rate low there.
Holly molly, this is hard to keep my heart rate down.
I don't know if I've ever mentioned it
but one of the things you've got to do
when you are structuring your training program
is you got to make sure that your hard days
are really hard
and your easy days are really easy.
That middle in between its not hard enough or easy enough
to build anerobic or aerobic abilities with your body.
So some days got to go really easy.
Hence the 450 per kilometer pace
because today I got a bum neck and the body is still
just coming back from a long swim.
I want to make sure that I kept my heart rate really low
which was very hard.
I was like just cruising and heart rate was 180 there.
That's what happens in the heat.
I'll actually tell you about the when to go easy stuff
in just about right after some nutrition and hydration.
(pleasant music)
Get showering, apparently there's a treat out here
for anyone who is overheating in
the un-airconditioned house.
Oh my god!
(pleasant music)
Just a couple of pals showing up.
- Having a swim.
- Yeah, alright enough of this tomfoolery.
Got to get pretty.
(pleasant music)
Look out guys, we are talking injuries.
We are talking injuries in triathlon training.
Doesn't concern you Pete.
I know you're all, everyone is excited for the new pool.
It is glorious, it is nice
with everyone obviously ramping up their training
because we are right in the thick of training season,
I'm getting a fair bit of questions
about what happens when you get injured.
What happens when you're sick?
Do you keep training?
Do you dial it back?
Do you completely rest?
Answer isn't always quite as simple as yes or no.
But there are some rules of thumb that you can go by.
Sick is a little bit easier than injured.
Kind of a rule of thumb is that if its a head cold,
plow through it.
You can probably make it through your training
but if its a body cold, and you are achy
that's an indication that's your body is zapped of energy
and just by nature, you are not really gonna be
able to or want to train.
So if you've got a body cold,
you probably need a little bit of rest.
If its a head cold, suck it up butter cup
but that said, if its so bad that you literally can't
bring yourself to get off the couch,
don't do it, but if its just a matter of like having
an excuse to not train.
Get out and train.
Now in the case of injuries,
that's a little bit different.
I'm gonna profess all of this with
go see a sport specific endurance based knowledge based
smart based physiotherapist or massage therapist
that has a lot of history dealing with runners,
cyclists, triathletes, swimmers, and they know
the challenges that we're going through.
With that out of the way, should you train through injuries?
It really depends on the injury.
The easiest one to say yes you can probably train
through it, is a muscle injury.
This is the case if its a muscle fatigue injury
and what I'm talking about in this case
is just sore muscles and what that might mean in your case
if you've gone to more of a mid foot or fore foot strike
you've changed to more minimal shoes,
you've watched the Chi running's technique video,
that I'll link to up.
I always forget there.
Your calves are gonna hate you for probably about
four to six weeks, but that is something that you need
to run through.
No I'm not saying that you need to run at your
maximum distance and set new personal records,
but you just need to keep running because its nothing
but really beatup muscles,
in which case you might want to dial your training back
a little bit to let those beatup muscles recover
but having complete rest isn't really gonna do them
any favors but breaking down of muscle and repairing it
and continuing to train through it is all part of the
training process.
So if its like red muscle fibers, muscle bellies
like sore calves, or sore biceps,
sore lats, things like that, in big muscle belly
muscle groups, that's something that you want to
train through, however, go see your physiotherapist
if you4 are starting to get into things
like tendons, ligaments, ligaments, ligaments
the structure of your body,
that's where it starts getting a lot tougher to say
one way or another if you should keep training
go see your sport specific physiotherapist.
For things like say your neck or your back,
I will almost always take some time off
to make sure that I am not stressing it
anymore than it needs to be.
I will often go and get a massage
which I've found has been one of the best things
for back and neck problems.
Think what happens is when you throw your back
your neck out, you get a ton of inflammation.
All the muscles around will go (imitates pain),
to protect yourself
and that massage helps everything go (imitates pleasure).
Its a very controversial thing
but if you want to listen to some of the most
controversial shit on the internet right now,
go listen to Joe Rogan's podcast with Ivan Dis-something
about how chiropractors are bullshit.
I am not saying that that's what I believe
but its a very interesting take on chiropractors.
For you to decide on.
If you're talking joints,
often with swimming you get shoulder problems.
With running you could get knee problems.
You could get hip problems from cycling.
Things like that tend to need a fair bit of rest.
I often don't like doing outright rest
because what happens is your body kind of gets gunky.
Instead of giving my body outright rest,
I'll switch to one of the other sports.
So when all of a sudden I had a hip problem
a couple of years ago,
I ended up doing a lot more swimming.
Couple of years ago, when I had a shoulder problem
I ended up doing a lot more cycling.
I kept my body being active to keep that
consistent training volume and keeping getting better
and keep those heart and lungs and the cardiovalvular
system pumping and not getting tired, fatigued, lazy
but I certainly allowed whatever was feeling crummy
to rest a little bit and recover.
I typically tend to stay away from painkillers
because it just eats away at my stomach, especially
when I have a sore back and I do Robax a set Platinum.
That's like pour acid into my stomach
but I will use a ton of ice.
If you've got other areas that aren't necessarily a joint,
its not necessarily a neck or a back,
like a specific spot,
its not a muscle belly so you know that its not
like just tired muscles.
It might be a tendon that's often what happens
with things like an Achilles or a hamstring.
In that case ice might not necessarily work
because tendons are white muscle fibers.
White muscle fibers don't have a lot of blood flow
to them.
Blood flow is what you need to repair an area.
So in that case, you will definitely, definitely
see a sport-specific physiotherapist
because there are often movements that they will
recommend that can loosen up the muscles around it.
Maybe break up some scar tissue.
Maybe refire some of the neuromuscular pathways,
that need to be firing that aren't.
Maybe there's an imbalance on your body.
Maybe there's something that needs to be adjusted.
I think Coach Pat once had something, I think he had
something going wrong in his ankle and his guy ended up
coming and adjusting something in his neck.
That's where it gets a lot more complicated
and you definitely need to go see somebody special for that.
So in general, whether you are sick or injured
you want to try as much as you can to stay consistent
with as much as you can.
There's a time three and two years ago
that I had the same surgery in back to back years
and after that surgery, I could not work out for a month.
First year I did nothing.
I took it as a time to kick back, relax,
and catch up on some oranges in the new block.
I had a hell of a time
putting out any sort of fitness that summer.
The next year when I went through it,
I made sure that during that month
I still took the dogs for a lot of walks.
I went for one and two hour walks.
Even though I wasn't working out,
just that walking kept me very fit
and it was last year, I don't know,
I did some really good times in that year
that I did the walking after that surgery.
The key to all this is being as consistent
as you can possibly be.
So as much as you can train around things.
As much as you can suck it up and accept that
sometimes you're gonna train a little bit sick.
Just don't ever over do it.
All trainiacs, sorry for the talking head video.
I haven't done just a pure talking head video in a while
but Kim and I have to go get sugared up and go to a wedding.
Your boy is gonna look good today.
I don't always wear shorts and T-shirts.