A closer look at static stretching

An accomplished triathlete and good friend of mine asked me recently about the proper placement of stretches within his weekly workout cycle.  That got me thinking, and this post was born out of my answer to him.  It is a generally accepted principle that regardless of your status as an athlete, stretching proves to be beneficial.  There are plenty of different methods to apply a stretch to tissue in need- what seems to be the best practice for endurance athletes?

One theory that is enjoying increased clarity from the findings of current research is that static stretching prior to activity can be detrimental to endurance athletes.  Static stretching can be described many ways, but for my purposes I will define it here as holding a single isolated stretch for greater than 10 seconds. Performing targeted static stretches prior to placing demands on stretched muscles compromises the muscles ability to produce power.  One of the proposed mechanisms for the observed loss in power is that long static stretches pull apart neighboring fast twitch muscle fibers.  This unbinding of muscle fibers at the cellular level hampers their short term contractile ability.  I feel like this is something that sprinters have innately known to be true for years- well before there was research to back the theory.  You would be hard pressed to find a sprinter or power track & field athlete performing long, slow, static stretching before an event. 

Let me stress that the negative effects associated with static stretching are found when static stretching is performed pre exercise.  I haven't found much in the way of credible literature that reports negative effects of post exercise static stretching.  One method that I have put into practice is called active isolated stretching, also known as the Mattes Method.  Hold a regional stretch for 3-5 seconds, release, and repeat 5-6 times.  This allows for approximately 30 seconds of stretch on targeted muscle/tissue, and the short stretch/release cycle allows for blood flow back into stretched tissues.  This is important because a prolonged stretch creates a ischemic environment in the targeted muscle, and the stretch/release cycle allows accumulated toxins to be flushed out with each release.

To learn more about active isolated stretching, please visit:  http://www.stretchingusa.com/

To read more about static stretching and it's negative effects on endurance performance, please visit Sweat Science, an excellent resource for athletes of all types. http://sweatscience.com/

Too Much vs. Too Little

After racing just three times in the first three months of the triathlon season, Coach Derick and I have decided its time for a few tweaks to the race season plan.  After a big two week training block that kicked off this past weekend, its time to jump in several races and just let it fly.  Admittedly, I haven't produced any acceptable results in the early going- so now I am going to experiment with some aggressive, more frequent racing.   

Figuring out the right dosage of competition vs training is something that every endurance athlete deals with, and the appropriate answer is often highly dependent on the individual.  It's easy to overdo things with the increasing popularity and explosive annual growth of available races in the U.S.  From March to November, almost every weekend gives you the opportunity to be a rock star- and that is exactly what some overeager triathletes try to do.  Racing is a great way to reach a training stimulus you can't quite replicate on a midweek run, but there does come a point of diminishing returns.  An athlete that races too often risks interfering with the recovery from each race effort.  Sometimes during the cycles of progressive overload that training and competing bring, you have to rest as hard as you race.  Additionally, an athlete that jumps in races two weekends out of every four probably doesn't get to apply appropriate blocks of beneficial training between races.  If you are always in constant flux of recovering from last week's race while trying to apply a taper for this weeks big event, when does the work get done?


Racing too little can prove to be detrimental as well.  As mentioned above, a properly timed race provides an intensity and training effect that you just can't replicate during a normal training week.  An early season race can be a great indicator of current fitness during a build towards an 'A' race, while giving you a chance to work on the sometimes overlooked technical aspects of triathlon- fueling, transitions, etc.  Shorter events can be a great way to integrate bouts of faster than race pace speed into a training block.     


The second half of 2011 will have me racing 7-8 times as it mapped out now, starting with the Morton Plan Mease sprint triathlon down in Clearwater, Florida. 

The MPM sprint is a popular race on the Gulf Coast, drawing 1,000+ athletes while offering a small elite field and a prize purse.  I am really looking forward to seeing my parents on this trip, an added bonus is that I'll get to spend several days riding on familiar country roads and getting some yardage in at the local 50 meter pool.  A couple of July events will be decided upon in the next few days, check back to the race calendar after the weekend and I should have everything updated.

Rock n' Rollman Race Report

If you are not one of the two or three people worldwide that have ever visited my blog, or follow my tweets, you probably aren’t aware that I raced this past weekend in Macon, Georgia.  I will try and fill you in, although I am probably squashing all of the building anticipation prematurely by admitting right here that it was another mediocre performance.

The Swim

The 1.2 mile swim was a one loop affair in Lake Tobesofkee, one big rectangle in the bath-like 86⁰ water.  I had managed to get myself in the Open/Elite starting wave, which was first to go off on Saturday morning.  There were nine of us in the Open, and my tactical plan for the swim was to swim a controlled first 100m and hopefully find myself in 3^rd or 4^th position coming around the first turn.  In a nine man Open field in a regional race like this, I figured there would be at least one unreachable uber swimmer off the front, and a couple of guys getting dropped off the back pretty quickly.  I guessed right, and 400m in, there were two dudes way off the front, five of us (me included) working hard but losing ground in the middle, and two more dudes way back.  I fould Clermont, FL resident pro triathlete Simon Malo about 200m into the swim, and immediately latched onto his feet, where I stayed until the last 200-300m of the swim.  Simon swam pretty consistent, and he took great lines to each bouy, and I thought I was sitting pretty.  I came out of the water in 31:15, which I was kind of surprised- and disappointed with.  Although that is my fastest non-wetsuit swim so far, I was expecting better, and my perceived effort level in the water told me I was going a little harder than 31:00.  I guess next time I need to find a faster dude to draft off of!

The Bike

The Coliseum Rock n’ Rollman website describes the bike course as ‘rolling,’ and ‘not the most difficult course around, but certainly not the easiest.’  False advertising.  Living in Birmingham for a few years, and now in Chapel Hill, will go along way to remove any fear of hills.  Besides- just how mountainous could southeastern Georgia be?  Well, I can say that this was the most challenging bike course I have raced on.  Not really techincal in any way, just lots of long, gradual climbing.  I worked hard and spent much more time grinding up out of the saddle than I thought would be needed.  Coming out of the water in 7^th position, I was alone for almost the entire ride.  There were two or three age group guys that passed me early on, and I just let them go, with thoughts of catching lots of over extended bikers on the hot run.  I tried to put together a consistent, hard effort, and I overtook one Open athlete late on the bike course.  All in all though, it was an unremarkable 2:34 bike split.

The Run

This is where I was hoping my race would be defined.  Coach Derick had advised me earlier in the week that hot races like this would be “races of attrition.”  As I was coming out of T2, Leigh shouted that I was currently running in 9^th position (she is incredible, sooo supportive).  I was pretty confident that there were going to be some meltdowns on the steamy run course ahead of me, as some of the big riders found that they had to pay the piper for their fast bike splits.  As it got close to 11am the temperature was climbing past 90⁰, and I went to work establishing a steady pace to try and reel in some racers.  The majority of my previous experiences racing the 70.3 distance have ended with me fading hard on hot run courses, so avoiding my own meltdown was front and center in my mind.  I clicked off the first four miles in 29:00, taking in fluids trying to settle into a rhythm.  It was pretty strung out at the front of the race, and I found myself alone for most of 13.1 miles.  I was able to catch three guys in the second half of the run, but these were all due to other athletes losing their battles with the course and the heat, and certainly not due to the pace I was setting.  I ended up running 1:38, and after discussing the run with Coach D, (and some post race self reflection) I ultimately was too conservative out on the run course.  I was running scared- waiting for the meltdown that I never came on Saturday.  Had I just put it all out there, could I have run into the top 5?  Perhaps, but 11^th overall was where I ended up after all the dust had settled, 5^th out of 9 guys in the Open/Elite division.

Congratulations to all 200 or so athletes who competed- it was a very challenging day in steamy Macon, Georgia.  A big THANK YOU to my family- my wonderful wife Leigh and my parents, the best support team I could ask for.  Thanks also to Coach Derick of DURATA TRAINING, for helping me disect this race and giving me the tools to fair better at the next one.  Lastly, thanks to Brooks Running for putting me in those sweet orange and blue ST 5 Racers….Go Gators!

Coliseum Rock N' Rollman Race Week Thoughts

It’s Colesium Rock N’ Rollman race week, and I am taking all of the necessary steps to be rested and ready for the physical trials Saturday morning will bring.  Rock N’ Rollman is a ½ Iron distance triathlon in it’s 8^th year in Macon, Georgia.  RN’R features an elite field and a pro prize purse, and roughly 800 athletes are expected to race on Saturday. http://www.setupevents.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=event_detail&eventID=1746 

This week I am tapering, and so naturally, all the facets of the taper have been my mind quite a bit.  Fitness can be undermined and great blocks of training can be sabotaged by too much, or to the same extent- too little training activity in the days leading up to an event.  Being a wannabe triathlete/weekend warrior for a few years now, I have heard LOTS of opinions on the best approach to race week preparation- some of them make physiological sense, while others sound more like unfounded superstition than proven methodology.  Tapering implies a reduction in training leading up to an event, but one thing is for sure- applying a taper does not mean sitting on your rear for several days to ‘rest up’ for your event! 

The degree to which an athlete integrates a taper can be dependent on several factors, below are a few:

·         The current fitness of the athlete- an athlete with high loads of recent training volume is likely to employ a lesser taper than an athlete training to finish his first race at a certain distance.

·         The importance/weight placed on the upcoming race- is this an ‘A’ race the athlete is hoping to peak for, or is the race going to be used as a training stimulus or gauge of current fitness?

For my present goals this includes a gradual reduction in training volume over the preceding 6-7 days, achieved through shortening the scope/duration of some staple workouts, while integrating a couple of rare days totally off from training.  This week I’ve careful to try and preserve what little speed I have with a couple of short, hard efforts in the pool, on the bike, and on foot.  I feel like I have put together a great block of training since May 14^th, and now I am focusing on taking care of the ancillary details of race week- finding the perfect balance of training effort, rest, nutrition, and hydration.  All signs are pointing towards having the fitness to put together a balanced race, so lets see what happens on race day.   

Although we enjoyed some mild, late-spring temperatures well into May here in North Carolina, summer is definitely now here in the southeast, and mother nature is making her presence known with record or near record high temps from Austin to Orlando.   This weekend’s race is in Macon, Georgia- and the forecast high of 100⁰ will surely play a role in the outcome for most of the participating athletes.  The Exercise Physiology gurus at Durata Training recently put posted several excellent strategies for training and racing in the heat, which you can find at the link below. 

 http://www.duratatraining.com/community/?p=1093rel=