Hey what's up triathletes?
Taren here.
If you've just gotten to triathlon, you are going to be slammed with a whole glossary
of new terms that you're going to have to learn.
Stick around because today, in as little time as possible, I'm going to go through 50 of
the most important triathlon terms you need to know.
Going to be quick.
Get ready for it.
Number one, A-Race.
This is your most important race, the biggest race that all of your training encompasses
and is geared towards throughout the year.
Aero, getting aerodynamic.
Often referring to the bike and getting into a very tucked down position getting away from
the wind.
Active Recovery, this is either during a workout or during a rest period of a number of days
or weeks throughout your season.
It's where you are recovering, not by completely taking off, kicking back, maxin' relaxin'.
It's by still doing work but at such a low intensity that you're not really taxing your
muscles so they can still recover.
Often you do this so that you don't stiffen up and take steps back.
A bonk, this is what we all try to avoid.
This is hitting the wall.
Not going good.
A negative split, this is in a race or in an interval or in a run session where the
first half of your race is done slower than the second half of your race.
The time it takes in the second half is less than the first have.
Negative, minus.
Math.
Cardiac drift, this is where over the course of a race or a workout, even though you might
not be working harder your heart rate is gradually creeping up.
Cardiac drift.
Big ring, this is the ring on the front of your bike that turns the chain, the one that's
by the pedal.
Not the little one, but it's the big one that's closer to the pedals, to be used only in case
of emergencies.
The little ring, sissy's use that.
Just kidding.
Use whatever ring you want as long as it's the big ring.
G.I.
issues, these are gastrointestinal issues.
So, if you ever here of somebody having stomach issues or issues that are a little bit further
down the old G.I.
track, that's what they're talking about.
Love a good G.I.
track joke.
To be flat, this is showing up to a race or a training session and just not feel like
you got the mojo for it.
Maybe you're tired, maybe you're really lethargic.
You're just not feeling up to your normal, badass self.
The next one is often one I'll talk about on Instagram where I'm saying, "2 by 400,
3 by 500, 2 by 100."
The 2 by or the 3 by is how many times you're doing that interval.
If I'm saying I'm doing 4 by 400 set, that's 4 times 400 meters.
DOMS, D-O-M-S, that's delayed onset muscle soreness.
That's after a really hard race or workout and a couple days later you're still sore,
you got yourself some DOMS.
I.T.
band, that's ... Am I tall enough?
Nope.
Your I.T.
band starts on the side of your hip, goes all the way down to the side of your knee.
Often runners will have problems with their knees, their calves.
A lot of running problems start and end with your I.T.
band.
That's what people roll out when they're on their side.
Tight I.T.
band.
Your aerobic system, that's your heart and lungs pumping oxygen into your muscles for
long, long, long periods of time at low heart rate.
Anaerobic system, that is your strength.
That's your fast twitch muscle.
That's things like lifting weights or doing sprints.
your base, this is your base of fitness.
This is something different from your race fitness.
this is the fitness that we build from and you want a very, very big base so that once
you start adding specific workouts that gets you ready for your race and that super top
end fitness, you want a nice big base for that.
Cadence, this is how fast or how slow you spin, either on a bike or your legs on a run.
Typically measured in how many times your legs are going around every minute.
A pyramid set, or a ladder set.
Pyramid set is something where you're going like, 100, 200, 300, 400 meters.
400, 300, 200, 100 meters.
Ladder set, basically the same thing.
A brick, this is a workout going from the bike to the run.
I love a good brick workout, as you all know.
Overtrain, this is where you've trained so much that you're actually doing damage to
yourself by training more.
You're starting to get sick, you're starting to feel lethargic, you're not really adding
any fitness.
Typically, this is just a general sense of blah.
A drop set, I'll talk about this a lot in swimming and our drop sets are where you start
with a lot of pool toys, I'll get into pool toys, and then you slowly get rid of them
as the set goes on.
We might be starting with snorkel, band, pole, paddles, and then every few hundred meters
or at some point, some regular interval we're dropping the snorkel, then we drop the paddles,
then we drop the band, then we drop the pole buoy.
That's a drop set.
Century ride, typically a hundred mile bike ride.
Some people do a metric century of 100k.
Chamois butter, this is a little bit of love for your undercarriage.
It's antibacterial, it's antiseptic, it's cooling, it's soothing, sometime it tingles.
This is what you put on your nether regions before a bike ride so you don't get saddle
sores.
DNF, did not finish.
DNS, did not start.
A fartlek, this is a run.
I love a good fartlek.
This is a run where every now and again you pick up the pace and go really fast.
That fast part, called the fartlek.
Fartlek run.
Fartlek.
Kit, this is the clothing that you wear for your cycling.
No better way to look cool than a bad ass kit.
Lactic acid, that's the acid in your body that makes your muscles really hurt when you're
going hard.
Your lactate threshold, gonna read this out because it's science-y, is the intensity at
which lactic acid starts to accumulate in your bloodstream.
This happens when blood lactate is produced faster than it can be removed.
So smart.
M dot, this is the logo of the Iron Man corporation.
Mashing, that's spinning on the bike really slowly and then spinning, spinning on the
bike really fast.
Tapering, that is in the last week, two, three weeks before a race.
Resting up and gradually dipping down the amount of volume and intensity that you have
in your working out so that your body can recover and you become super human.
PB, personal best.
PR, personal record.
I like PB.
Stripper, get your mind out of the gutters, folks.
It's not what you think.
The strippers are the people that are at the swim exit ready to peel your wet suit off
you.
Perceived exertion, this is how fast and hard you feel that you are working.
So while the numbers of how your speed is or how much power you're putting out on the
bike might say one thing, or what your heart rates at, if it feels like it's really hard
that's your perceived exertion.
It's just a subjective measure of how hard you're going.
A split, this is the amount of time it took you to go a certain distance.
When people say, "What's your 5k race split?"
That is the amount of time that it takes you to run a 5k race.
TT, that stands for time trial.
In running you might be doing a 5k time trial, and biking maybe a 20k time trial, in the
pool sometimes either a 400 or an 800 meter time trial, and you're doing this to figure
out how much or little your progressing in your training.
Your time trial splits, because you know what split is now, your splits are getting lower
and getting faster.
VO2 max, more science.
It's the highest rate at which oxygen can be taken up and utilized during exercise by
a person.
How do I put this into normal people speak?
A VO2 max is like a really, really high level of fitness on the perceived exertion scale.
Again, because we're going back to the things that you just learned.
VO2 max, it's another measure for your cardiovascular system.
Coach, person that hurts you.
Drafting, in swimming biking and running you get a little bit of a benefit if you follow
really closely in behind the athlete that's in front of you.
Swimming, somewhere around 13%.
Biking somewhere around 30%.
Running, it's like 2 or 3 I think.
You can end up going the same speed as the person in front of you without going so hard
as a perceived exertion.
Just tying everything together.
Swim toys, these are things like the pole buoy, the paddles, the band.
Use these to help with specific aspects of your stroke.
T1, transition one in between the swim and the bike.
T2, transition two in between the bike and the run.
Not the terminator.
Masters swimming, this is a swim group, you'll often see them really early in the mornings.
It's typically adults, and just because it says masters doesn't mean they're awesome.
These are adults of all skill levels, so don't be intimidated by a master swim group.
Build, this is in an interval when a coach says, "You're doing 400 meters build in a
pool."
That means that throughout the 400 meters, you're gradually getting faster.
Within that interval you're just gradually increasing the speed.
You're building the speed.
Strides are kind of like building in running.
You're doing maybe 1, 2, 3, 400 meters where you're gradually building up speed and you're
stride speed at the end of that stride is a very, very fast speed.
So you're incorporating building into your running interval.
They often do these to warm up.
Stud, this is a triathlon Tarenism that you'll often see on Instagram where I refer to somebody
as a complete triathlon stud.
Can be a man, can be a women.
Basically just somebody who's really awesome.
You're all a bunch of studs in my eye.
Fast finish, this is where the end of a workout you want to finish really fast to remind your
body that you should be trying to negative split and going faster throughout the workout.
You work to make your body go harder at the end of the workout as opposed to training
it to just pittering out.
And tri-Taren, this is your favorite triathlon focused YouTube channel.
You see how I did that there?
There you have it, triathletes.
I hope you are now infinitly, infinitesimally, infinitly, infinitesimally more intelligent
with all these triathlon terms now in your head.
If there are any triathlon terms that I didn't talk about that you want translated for you,
hit me up in the comments below or on social media.
As always triathletes, happy and hard training and good luck in your next triathlon.
Oh my god, that was hard to get through that one.
It was hard, tired, Sunday, batteries.