Strength and conditioning for triathlon 1

Exercise selection

When it comes to strength and conditioning for triathlon it is simple to fall into the old body building programmes which is how most sports fell into developing their own programmes and protocols

The demands of the sport are vast and too time consuming to go into each particular bio mechanical demand, stress and requirement of each muscle group, however once you understand the basic requirements of the muscles, exercise prescription and selection should be easy for you.

Firstly we will start from the ground up and look at exercises to increase overall strength in each of the disciplines.
In this article we will look at two types of squat although all squats have unique coaching points to each of them, the basic fundamentals in general are the same

> each squat movement should be initiated with the hips sitting backwards (imagine sitting in a chair) your knees will bend automatically, your back should be kept tight with the abdominals in a braced position, the back must not be allowed to round off at any point, if your lower back rounds a few factors need to be looked at the first and main two are technique and the weight lifted.

> knees must be stable (the knee is a stabilising joint (so allow it to do its job) the knees should not be falling inwards they should follow the line of your toes.

> the descent must be controlled with a slight pause or hold on completion of the downward movement, this allows for a more powerful drive after the initial inertia has stopped. Never bounce out of the squat!

> Your weight must be evenly distributed throughout the exercise your feet should be about shoulder width apart

Exercise 1 Front Squat

The front squat is probably the second least used squat after the overhead owing to a greater degree of difficulty compared with the back squat, the front squat also allows for a bit of variety in your session.

As stated this squat is technical and the biggest obstacle for many people is holding the bar in the correct position.
The bar can be held in the crossed arm position (fig 1) or the clean position (fig 2)

Cross arm position



Flex the elbows and cross your forearms in front of your chest Position the bar evenly on top of the anterior deltoid without use of your hands Place your hands on top of the bar using the fingers (hand open palm down) to keep it in position.
Move the arms upwards so they are parallel to the floor.

Clean position




many struggle with this position owing to a combination of lat and wrist tightness.

Grab the bar with an even closed pronated grip ensuring the hands are just over shoulder width apart Rotate the bar so it rests on the anterior deltoids or clavicles, the hands should be just out with the shoulders with the back of the hands resting on the deltoid or clavicle.

We advocate position 2 as this will be of greater assistance later in the programmes when completing the Clean and Press

Exercise 2


Back Squat
The most commonly used squat and one that probably promotes more incorrect technique than correct technique, mainly owing to the use of a Sissy pad.

Sissy pads promote in correct technique by allowing users to rest the bar using the pad on their shoulders thus promoting incorrect technique by not allowing the user to retract the shoulders making the chest bigger and allowing the back to naturally produce a bed of muscle for the bar to sit on comfortably. if the pad is used it can promote bad posture issues and a loose upper back.

The back squat has two placement positions which is personal to the user dependant on any factors however both are correct and both can be used. All users should regularly attempt to to use both positions in their programme.

Low back position



Grasp the bar and place it across the shoulders in the middle of the trapezius and across the posterior deltoids ensuring the bar is in an even position ensure the grip is closed and pronated and outside shoulder width apart

High Back position





Grasp the bar and place it above the posterior deltoids just below the neck closed pronated grip with hands outside shoulder width apart.

NB for both of the positions the elbows should be raised to promote a shelf with the upper back and shoulders this prevents the bar from slipping.

Strength and conditioning for swimmers 1

Prehabilitation exercise for the shoulders

Prehab is sometimes scoffed at by athletes of various sports, however it is becoming a major and integral part of many an athletes strength programme.

Physiotherapists and sports masseurs have been using pre habilitation to ensure that athletes stay at the top of their game and obviously to minimise the risk of injury and then having to enforce rehabilitation as part of the plan.

One of the best shoulder rehab exercises for swimmers or even upper body athletes is shapes, quite simply the shoulder's make the relevant alphabetical shape during a four movement functional movement pattern. This session can be used as a warm up, part of a conditioning set or on a stretching routine where functional movement patterns form part of the stretching. The following movement pattern may help to improve fine motor skills used during swimming.

Start position - lying face down on a bench or step, ensure your chest down to the top of your knee is supported by he bench, hands hanging down to the front of the bench shoulders relaxed (fig 1)








Execute the following movement pattern ensuring that

Start at the start position for each phase All movement is controlled Perfect technique is conducted throughout the routine for each movement pattern If fatigue sets in do fewer reps

Y (fig 2)





T (fig 3)




M (fig 4)





L (fig 5)



Coaching points

Don't cheat by throwing the arms out
Or moving the chest off the bench
Shrugging the shoulders up towards the ears


Exercise prescription
Start with body weight and progress to light dumb bells no more than 2kg
For best results ensure you start the movement patterns at a different point each time you conduct the sequence, this ensure stat the muscles fatigues at different points.
Vary the sequence as well as in
First time execute one of each movement until required reps sets complete
Next time do only the t's first then the y's and so on.
Also repeat the pattern in reverse.

Variation
Try the movement patterns whilst seated on the edge of a bench ensure the spine is upright and stable.

Watch out for more conditioning drills from T.O.D Coaching.

From Drowning to Swimming!!

Eighteen months ago I decided to undertake my first triathlon to raise money for 500 miles, a charity which raises money for the supply of prosthetics and orthotics for people in Kenya and Mali who have missing or deformed limbs. I wanted a challenge to encourage lots of sponsorship and thought this would be one, especially since at the time I couldn’t make it through 750m of swimming with any stroke!! My first triathlon was Stirling Try-a-Tri Sprint distance in June 2009.

I worked hard for several months making sure I could make 750m breaststroke to at least complete the swim. However, I knew this was not really the best way to complete the swim for my overall tri performance. At the same time I have been trying to learn to swim front crawl. My first attempts were interesting, to say the least. Having had the usual school tuition for training – get in the water and get to the other side of the pool without swallowing all of it – I didn’t really have much idea of what I was supposed to be doing. As a consequence I tended to avoid swimming crawl as it involved an awful lot of splashing, not much forward movement and an ever present danger of a lifeguard jumping in to rescue me!!

In fact I was so bad that when a friend tried to teach me to swim her first suggestion was that I use a float and kick for a pool length. The result was that I went backwards, then couldn’t swim for laughing. So, I obviously needed help. This came first from Andrea, a colleague and friend who as an open water swimmer who has swum the English Channel knows lots about swimming technique.

She very patiently watched my efforts, gave me great advice and spent time helping me get a reasonable technique. Then I joined the TOD team, and one of the huge benefits has been regular training sessions in the pool.

For the first session I almost turned up with a rubber ring and arm bands, but wasn’t sure that wouldn’t get me into more trouble than I was already in. When Brian asked me to swim a length of crawl it was the last thing I wanted to do as I knew my technique was still very iffy, but I knew it had to be done. He was very kind (well, he didn’t laugh) and from that first session has given me great advice and tips. In addition, he gave me a couple of tough swim sessions to do regularly.

When I first saw them and realised the sessions were 80 and 100 lengths I nearly died. The warm up session of 30 lengths was about my total swim distance at the time, but swimming the longer distance regularly has really helped my swim fitness.

My main goal has been to swim the full sprint race distance front crawl without stopping. It has taken me some time to get my breathing together and relax enough in the pool to string a number of lengths together, but a couple of weeks back I managed two sets of 10 lengths in my local 20m pool.
Then it all seemed to come together, I did twenty lengths in one go last week, then yesterday for the first time I completed forty lengths without stopping.

That last length was amazing, it was a bit tricky to swim with a broad grin on my face and the guy in the Jacuzzi did wonder why the lone swimmer was whooping at the end of the length, but the feeling of finally getting the rhythm and having the strength to get the distance is amazing. At 800m this is slightly over the sprint race distance, and at over 23mins it is 4mins slower than my breaststroke time, but I know it will get quicker.

I can now call myself a swimmer at last!!

Denise