- Ooh, morning, trainiacs.
Just finishing up a 35 minute ride that we did on Zwift.
Open to everyone Thursday mornings.
And we usually do somewhere between 30 and 35 minutes
of a tad of challenge.
So, beginner triathletes are probably looking at swim studs
like Lucy Charles doing really well in races.
And absolute monsters like Lionel Sanders
doing really well in races.
And then absolute pure, sprinty fast runners,
like Patrick Lange, dominating races
and winning world championships,
and wondering, well, do I just need to be good
at all of swim, bike, run,
or should I focus on one or the other?
So, while you could just say, you know what,
I'm just gonna work at everything.
Well, most beginner triathletes and amateur triathletes,
adult triathletes that have a day job,
a real life, a family, just don't have time
to work on everything equally.
And there is literally a statistically proven demonstration
of how much the swim, the bike, and the run
result in good triathlon times.
But it's not just as simple as
while the bike is the biggest portion,
and the runs the next biggest portion,
and the swim is the smallest portion.
Today, I'm gonna give you a system of knowing
where you're at and where you should be spending your time
so that you know how to get the absolute most
out of your training hours,
based on what you need to work on
and where you biggest opportunities are.
Okay, so, there is actual evidence out there
to show where time is best spent in getting fast.
(upbeat music)
Do strong swimmers, or strong bikers,
or strong runners perform well in a triathlon overall?
Literally, we can do the numbers and find out where this is.
It's like Moneyball for a triathlon.
So, there is a study, and I've always got to read these out
to make sure that you can find them
if you search them online,
Swim Positioning and It's Influence on Triathlon Outcome.
And what they did is they looked at ITU races
and they looked at the correlation,
the association between a fast swim time,
and a fast overall time.
A fast bike time and a fast overall time.
A fast run time and a fast overall time.
Now, for those who don't know what a correlation is,
a correlation of negative one means
that if something goes up,
the other thing goes down perfectly.
A correlation of positive one means that
if something goes up, the other thing also goes up,
right up the same way.
Or they both go down or same way.
Basically, they just move in the exact same direction.
Now, in this study, what they found
was that for both men and women,
the correlation between fast run times
and fast overall times was the most strongly correlated.
That number for men and women, respectively,
was 0.86 and 0.85, really, really strongly correlated.
Not surprising at all because a lot of times, in ITU events,
it comes down to having a fast run.
The bike was the next most strongly correlated, at .67
for both the men and the women.
Which was kinda surprising to me
because you often think that ITU races are swim, runs,
with just a little bit of biking in the middle,
because of all the drafting, but no.
The bike was actually the next most strongly correlated.
The swim was the third most correlated at 0.49 for the men,
and 0.39 for the women.
Just very loosely correlated.
So, in order, run is the most important,
bike is the next most important,
and swim is the next most important.
Now, most of us, however,
are not doing these drafting type events.
So, there's actually a similar study done in Ironman,
which was called Cycling as the Best Sub-8-Hour
Performance Predictor in Full Distance Triathlon.
And what this found was something very, very similar.
But just slightly different.
And what it found was that cycling was the biggest predictor
of a fast overall time, at 0.83, very strongly correlated.
Running was the next most, at 0.72.
Again, very strongly correlated.
And swimming was the least most important, at 0.48.
What this study also found was that, over the years,
race times are getting faster,
cycling times are getting faster,
and run times are actually getting slower.
So, what it's telling us is that there is more to be gained
by becoming a very fast cyclist than there is anything else.
Now, I've actually had access to really big datasets
where I ran the numbers on, I can't remember
how many thousands of finish times we had,
and we basically found the exact same thing,
that cycling was number one,
running was just slightly in behind,
and swimming was a long way down.
This is where a lot of swim coaches
are probably gonna hate me and say, well, hey, you know,
aye, swimming's really important.
I agree.
There's definitely a time and a place to focus on swimming,
depending on who you are.
And what people might be thinking is, well, all right,
should I just forget about swimming,
and focus on cycling and running?
Well, what I'm gonna give you here
is a way that you can approach what you should focus on
to determine where you should spend your time,
based on the type of athlete that you are.
So, first off, with the swim.
The times that I think that you should
focus more on the swim are when you are,
A, completely starting out,
and you are not yet comfortable in the swim.
The reason for this is you can't
really win the race in a swim,
but you can definitely lose the race in a swim,
if you have a really bad experience
and you burn yourself out, or you freak out.
Your heart rate will shoot so high
that you aren't gonna be able to control that swim,
and it's going to ruin the rest of the race.
This is a situation where I think
that actually working on comfort
and capability in the water,
with something like our triathlon swimming foundations book,
will really help out.
Because you could just learn
how to be comfortable in the water and then cruise.
And, you know what, if you swim really easily,
you're probably gonna go about as fast
as if you hammered it.
Because us age group triathletes
tend not to move that much faster in open water
when we work that much harder.
The other time that I think it makes a lot of sense
to focus on the swim is if you become a pro triathlete,
and making those swim pacts, and saving a lot of energy
is a really, really big factor.
For people that are anywhere in the middle,
if you are comfortable with swimming and you aren't a pro,
and you just wanna be faster, I actually say,
put your swim on kinda autopilot,
where you're swimming two, maybe three times a week,
doing some triathlon specific swimming,
to make sure that you are prepared
for the different gear changes that happen in a swim,
with the intensity going up and down,
being able to sight in the water,
being able to go from horizontal to vertical,
and being able to run with things like deckups.
But, once you're at that point,
there isn't a huge amount to be gained
by continuing to swim a lot.
And, in my experience, you need to swim
upwards of five to six times a week
to really experience a lot of gains.
And if you're swimming that much,
that's gonna take away from a lot of bike and run training,
where you can gain a lot of time.
So, now, moving on to the bike or the run.
And, listening to these studies, you might say, well,
hey, all these studies are saying
that the bike is so much more important,
should I just spend that much more time on the bike,
and forget about the run?
Or, you know what, hey, I'm a really weak runner,
and I need to work on my run, which run is right?
Well, I'll actually say both.
Let's say you are equally good at the bike and the run.
And you progress at roughly an even rate
between the bike and the run.
In that case, focus more on the bike.
Because it's a larger percentage of the race.
And, in my experience, it's less reliant on biomechanics
for actually improving.
I think that if you can just suffer really good,
and you've got a decent ability to go in
and hurt in a few workouts,
the amount of return that you get from suffering on the bike
is a lot better than the return that you get
from suffering in the run, which is a little bit more
dependent on your biomechanics.
But let's say you are a different person,
where you're already fairly decent in the bike,
and this is where I was in, say, 2017.
My bike times were roughly around 230,
240, in a half Ironman.
My run times were around 140 in a half Ironman.
So, I was kind of in a similar place between the two.
And you can actually, if you're doing Ironman races,
go to OBSTri.com and you can see what your DPI score is.
Like, how are you, relative to the field.
And you can take a look and see if your bike and run
is balanced, relative to the field.
Like, let's say they're both at 85.
That means that you're equally good in both.
Or if you're in a case where one is 85
and the other one's 70,
well, you know that the lower one
is something that you've gotta work on.
So, let's say you're somebody
who comes from a run background
and really needs to work on the bike.
Well, then definitely work on the bike.
If you are the opposite athlete,
who you're really strong on the bike,
and you're not so good on the run,
that is where I was in 2019,
where I got my bike times down to 213,
over the course of a half Ironman,
but my run times were only, I think, 133.
So, I had more room to go on the run.
It was just harder for me to progress.
But once you get to a 213, 90k bike,
there isn't a ton of benefit.
Maybe I could've shaved off a few extra minutes.
But I probably could have saved five to 10 minutes
on the run, based on what I was doing relative to the field.
Another thing to keep in mind
is that, let's say, the run is just slightly behind the bike
and you're thinking, oh, well,
maybe I should get the run up there.
Something to keep in mind, in this case,
is that a fast run doesn't necessarily help biking.
But a really, really strong bike ability
does help your run ability.
Because you're gonna get off the bike that much fresher.
This is where I was
when I actually raced Challenge Roth in 2019.
And I held back on the bike a lot,
and then kinda let it out on the run.
And if you look at my performance, relative to the field,
the run is where I picked up the most amount of time
on the people that were around me.
Now, I talked to my coach at the time, Dr. Dan Plews,
he said that my standout performance was the run,
and then he said the next question is,
was that standout performance on the run
because you were that much stronger on the run,
or that much stronger on the bike?
And he would actually argue that it was because
I was that much stronger on the bike, not the run.
So, based on these stats, where we know
that over a non-drafting, long course triathlon,
that the bike is the most important,
that the run is the next most important,
that the swim is the least important of the three.
If you are time crunched and you have to choose something
to eliminate, I think you eliminate maybe one swim.
Go down to two swims, make sure that one of those swims
is longer, sufficiently long, so that you're still going to
be able to do the distance.
You work on good swim, for triathlon kind of drills,
with sighting, with deckups,
with different gear changes within a swim.
And then you focus most of your time on the bike,
followed by the run.
All throughout this, I'll add in a little bit of bonus,
at almost every single point,
all the way down to only doing four workouts a week,
I think you still keep in a strength session.
Because, for us aging triathletes,
actually having strength in there,
and doing less of swim, bike, run
will actually improve your times.
As opposed to doing only swim, bike, run and no strength.
Just, again, studies show
that by doing less endurance training,
and adding in strength, you're actually going to be able
to perform a lot better.
So, trainiacs, I hope that that helps.
I know that it's not an exact system.
But this video would be two hours long
to give you the exact system, maybe more.
If you're looking for the exact system,
about when to go in on certain things,
whether it is the swim, the bike, the run,
what times of year you should do that,
where you should put in strength, all of that,
you can go look at our training plans at app.mymotiv.com.
Within about 60, 90 seconds, boom,
you get a customized training plan,
based on your goals, your schedule,
with the workouts that you want to do,
all customized for you, and planned for you
throughout the year, to build you up
so that you can get to your endurance adventures,
feeling confident that you're gonna have a good race.
So, check that out app.mymotiv.com,
you can check it out for free for two weeks.
And, if you aren't already subscribed,
hit the subscribe button below.
Later, trainiacs.