# How to Train Like a Professional Triathlete | Ep 486

An episode of [Oxygenaddict Triathlon Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/951501034), 24 Apr 2024, 20 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/ea99f7d8/podcast/play/85786711/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2024-3-23%2F375263905-44100-2-6e7fe31228051.mp3

Have you ever wondered what it takes for professional athletes to be able to deliver the jaw-dropping performances we see? Having spoken to and quizzed many of the world's best triathletes over the years, it's really clear how they train, why they train like that, what they prioritise and why. I share the details n this video, and I can guarantee the things that have the biggest material impact on their fitness and performances aren't what you think! * * * * * * * * SPONSORS * * * * * * * * Like what you heard in this show? Join hundreds of other age group triathletes making the most of their limited training time, training with Team OxygenAddict! http://team.oxygenaddict.com - The most comprehensive triathlon coaching program for busy age groupers. Join the Team Oxygenaddict waiting list and be the first to find out when a space becomes available: https://team.oxygenaddict.com/waiting-list * * * * * * * * * * * * precisionfuelandhydration.com Precision Fuel & Hydration help athletes personalise their hydration and fuelling strategies for training and racing. Use the free Fuel & Hydration Planner to get a personalised race nutrition plan for your next event. And then book a free 20-minute video consultation with a member of the PF&H Athlete Support Team to refine your strategy. Listeners get 15% off their first order of fuel and electrolytes with Precision Fuel & Hydration. Simply use this link and the discount will be auto-applied at the checkout. * * * * * * * * * * * * Watch on youtube Listen on Spotify Listen on Apple Podcasts

## Transcript

[0:03] Hello and welcome to the Oxygenating podcast.
[0:05] We're brought to you every week by our sponsors Precision Fuel
[0:08] and hydration.com. You can personalise your
[0:11] fuelling and hydration strategy so you perform your best with
[0:14] 15% off your first order of electrolytes and carbohydrate
[0:18] fuel. Decode Oxygen 24 at Precision
[0:21] Fuel and hydration.com Welcome to the show everybody.
[0:24] I'm your host, coach Rob Wilby and every week we bring you an
[0:28] episode of this podcast to help motivate and inspire you for
[0:31] your triathlon goals for this season.
[0:33] Listen, a couple of quick things you could do for us before we
[0:36] jump into today's episode. If you do like this episode,
[0:39] please consider following us on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
[0:44] And also if you're watching on YouTube, if you could like and
[0:46] subscribe, that would really help out the growth of the show.
[0:50] It helps the show get shown to more people by the algorithm on
[0:54] on the podcast players and on YouTube, so we'd really, really
[0:56] appreciate that. And secondly, if you're looking
[0:59] for help and advice with your triathlon training, please
[1:02] consider getting in touch with us.
[1:03] You can read all about what we offer at teamoxygenaddict.com
[1:07] and then you can e-mail us at help@oxygenaddict.com or there's
[1:11] a link in the show notes to book a call with me or one of the
[1:14] coaching team. We can discuss how we can best
[1:17] help you out with your triathlon goals for this season on this
[1:22] episode of the podcast. We're going to be talking about
[1:25] how you can train like a professional.
[1:28] Now this episode has come directly from questions that
[1:31] we've been asked and comments that we've had from athletes we
[1:34] coach who come to us extremely, highly motivated and say, look
[1:39] coach, I've got significant flexibility in my schedule.
[1:43] I'm not like a lot of the other age groups that you talk to and
[1:46] that you work with who have got limited time and have got to
[1:49] make the most of their limited time.
[1:51] I don't want you to approach me like this.
[1:54] I want you to train like I'm a professional and often these
[1:58] athletes have got significant flexibility in their day-to-day
[2:02] lives, but often they do still have full time jobs, often they
[2:07] do still have families, and often they have extremely high
[2:12] aims for what they want to achieve.
[2:14] And that's the first thing that I look at when and athlete says
[2:17] to me, I want you to train me like I'm a professional.
[2:20] The way that I look at this is this person is willing to do
[2:24] whatever it takes to get the best performance out of
[2:27] themselves because ultimately that's what every professional
[2:31] who's successful is really out there trying to do.
[2:35] And in this way I can say to an athlete, absolutely we can train
[2:40] you like a professional as long as we agree, as we set out here
[2:45] on what training like a professional means.
[2:47] And here is where the challenge comes in a little bit.
[2:50] Is that what an athlete says and what they mean when they say to
[2:54] me, I want you to train? My professional is very often
[2:58] not what the reality is of how to train like professionals.
[3:01] So it gave me the idea for this episode of the show.
[3:04] There are tonnes of things that we can learn from professionals
[3:07] there are applicable to all of us, no matter how seriously or
[3:11] not we take our triathlon and we can we can all learn from it.
[3:15] Over the past decade or so of doing the podcast, we've had the
[3:19] opportunity to speak to hundreds of the best professional
[3:23] athletes, the best age group athletes, the best triathlon
[3:26] coaches, the best swim, bike, run, strength, conditioning,
[3:31] massage, yoga, experts in the world to build up a body of
[3:35] knowledge to help people. And there's an awful lot of
[3:39] threads that I've been able to draw over the years from this
[3:42] knowledge of the things that will help people.
[3:45] But often it's not the things that you think are going to be
[3:49] the things that help you, that actually get you help.
[3:53] So for example, a lot of the times that I've talked to
[3:55] professionals, it became very obvious in the early days.
[3:58] I used to ask professionals, you know, tell me some of the
[4:00] sessions that you do, thinking that there might be some kind of
[4:03] secret session that an athlete does, that is the reason they're
[4:07] fitter than anybody else. And it became obvious to me that
[4:09] not only is that not the case, that in lots and lots of
[4:13] situations, especially in those where the athlete themselves
[4:17] didn't have a coach, they didn't know what it was they were doing
[4:21] that was getting them to be really fit and really strong.
[4:23] And often, honestly, I think it's the fact that these
[4:27] athletes, it's a case of form fits function.
[4:30] They end up very fast because they're born with fantastic
[4:32] genetics. And in a lot of cases they were
[4:35] performing well in events despite the training they were
[4:39] doing rather than because of it. And lots of other situations
[4:43] where professional athletes were coached by athletes, They didn't
[4:46] really know or understand why their coach was giving them
[4:49] sessions. They would report on what it was
[4:51] they were doing. But then when I spoke to their
[4:52] actual coaches, it became clear that the coach often had a very
[4:57] different reason for giving the athlete that session to what
[5:00] they actually what the athlete thought the session was there
[5:03] for. And often the individual session
[5:05] was part of a bigger block of things that made-up a bigger
[5:09] picture, if you like, along the way.
[5:11] So what became interesting to me was to draw out the underlying
[5:15] threads from what these athletes said.
[5:17] Look at what the habits were. Look at the things that they did
[5:20] on a day by day basis that weren't necessarily how fast,
[5:24] how hard, how long they trained, what the sessions were that they
[5:27] did, but the habits that they did that we can learn from.
[5:31] And this is where I think that anybody can apply these lessons
[5:34] and go ahead and train like a professional.
[5:36] So lesson number one that came out of this was the intensity of
[5:41] the session that professional athlete is going to train at.
[5:44] Now let's be clear right from the off.
[5:46] If a normal age group are tries to train at the same speed,
[5:50] power or pace as a professional athlete, they're very probably
[5:55] going to be training, or almost certainly going to be training
[5:58] far too hard for their own Physiology.
[6:01] And that's not what's going to get them fit.
[6:03] But the lesson we can take from the intensity that a
[6:07] professional athlete trains at is in almost all circumstances.
[6:12] Excuse me? The athlete knows exactly how
[6:16] hard they should be running, biking or swimming.
[6:19] They know the exact pace that they're aiming at, For an
[6:22] interval, for a split, for a long ride, for a long run.
[6:26] No matter what the session is, there's no guesswork.
[6:30] They're not just going out and running or riding on field.
[6:32] They know exactly how hard, how intense, what point in their
[6:37] particular zone they should be training at in that session that
[6:41] day. And that's the number one
[6:43] mistake that I see age group has make when they come in that
[6:46] makes them different professionals is that even when
[6:50] sometimes when we give athletes their sessions and it's got some
[6:53] very clear speed, power, pace, heart rate, guidance in
[6:57] sometimes an athlete will just go off and do what they want to
[7:00] anyway because they feel good that day and I'll get comments
[7:04] in their their feedback box that says sorry coach, I hope you
[7:07] forgive me for this one. I just felt great so I pushed
[7:09] the pace and the honest answer there is look, no I don't
[7:14] forgive you. You could have done this session
[7:16] better, pushing on hard when you feel good one day isn't better
[7:20] than sticking to the zones that you've got.
[7:23] It's quite the opposite. You've made that session less
[7:25] effective than it could have been.
[7:27] And so the number one lesson I want you to take from this is
[7:30] know the intensity of the session that you're trying to
[7:33] train at. And just because you feel good
[7:35] on that day, isn't it a green light to go harder, run faster,
[7:39] bike harder, swim faster, control what you're doing and be
[7:43] disciplined, just like a professional would be.
[7:46] Deliver that session and then use the any extra energy that
[7:50] you may have to recover from that session.
[7:53] The second big lesson that we can learn from professional
[7:56] triathletes is that they know exactly the duration of the
[8:00] session that they're going to go out and do and they're going to
[8:03] deliver it perfectly. They're not going to change how
[8:06] long they're going to go out for a ride for because they feel
[8:10] differently when they're out there in the middle of the ride.
[8:12] They've got a plan and they're going to stick to that plan for
[8:15] the duration of that session. Now, I'm not saying that no
[8:18] athlete changes their plan based on how they feel and a day for
[8:23] the rest of the week. I think it's very appropriate in
[8:26] the right circumstances, an athlete to talk to the coach and
[8:28] say, look, either I felt great on this session, I felt terrible
[8:32] on this session. We need to adjust the rest of
[8:34] the week based on this, but we absolutely don't change the
[8:38] session that we're doing right now based on what we're doing
[8:43] right now. So if your plan has got three
[8:45] hour bike ride on it, go out and deliver a three hour bike ride
[8:50] and it's OK if you're a few minutes short or long because of
[8:53] the route that you're on, we're not going to get caught up in
[8:55] the tiny details of this, but because you feel good and you
[8:59] decide to go and ride for five hours instead of three hours,
[9:03] that's not the right reason to go out and do that extended ride
[9:06] and it's not so much of an issue on the ride.
[9:10] But the particular book bearer have with this is on the run.
[9:12] If you've got a long run schedule, your coach will have
[9:15] set out a progression of long runs and there's a very limited
[9:19] window of how much longer than your previous longest long run
[9:24] is safe to extend it to just because you feel good.
[9:27] Say you had a 75 minute run scheduled that day.
[9:31] Go and deliver that 75 minute run and if you feel good at the
[9:34] end of it, that's great. Put a tick in the box, deliver
[9:38] the run at the right duration and the right pace, finish there
[9:41] and pat yourself on the back. For a job well done.
[9:44] It is not the thing to do to go out and extend that long run to
[9:48] 90 minutes, one hour, 45, two hours, just because you feel
[9:52] good on that day and you feel like you should be pushing
[9:54] yourself more. Now if your coach wanted you to
[9:57] run longer that day, the coach would have set you a session
[10:00] longer that day on that day. So that's the second thing we
[10:03] can learn from professional athletes.
[10:05] They are going to deliver that session duration exactly as is
[10:09] written in the plan, and then afterwards if they need to
[10:12] readjust longer or shorter, they'll do that then, but never
[10:16] during the session itself. And the third big lesson that
[10:20] you can learn from professional triathletes, and this is
[10:23] honestly, this is the biggest one.
[10:24] If there was one big secret professional triathlon, this
[10:27] would be the one. It's the recovery from sessions
[10:31] and how seriously a professional triathlete takes recovery is the
[10:35] number one thing that an age grouper can learn from them.
[10:38] So again, it's not about looking at how many hours in a week a
[10:43] professional does and trying to match the number of hours that
[10:45] they do. I would advise you to look at
[10:48] the way a professional triathlete recovers and recover
[10:51] from what's an appropriate volume of training for you in
[10:54] the same way that a professional recovers.
[10:56] So let's talk about some of the things the professional is going
[10:58] to be doing. The first thing is I guarantee
[11:01] that RO is sleeping more than you every night.
[11:05] I guarantee that if they get the chance, they're going to be
[11:07] having an afternoon nap every day.
[11:09] Now I recognise most age groupers with a fulltime job
[11:13] don't have the luxury to have an afternoon nap, but the number
[11:16] one performance enhancer that you can take that's legal is an
[11:21] extra hour of sleep. It's that extra recovery that
[11:24] you'll get. So if you're listening to this
[11:26] and thinking, oh, you know, that's that's not really any
[11:29] kind of tip as I was hoping for. Something about different kind
[11:32] of tyre compounds. Honestly, if you can get
[11:35] yourself to bed an hour earlier or even half an hour earlier, if
[11:38] you can stay off your phone just before bed and read a book, if
[11:42] you can get that extra 30 to 60 minutes of sleep and a night,
[11:46] you will notice a material difference in the way you
[11:48] perform in your sessions. I 100% guarantee it.
[11:52] And this is a thread that has run through every single
[11:55] professional athlete, high achieving age grouper and
[11:58] professional triathlon coach we've spoken to.
[12:00] It's the importance of sleep and recovery.
[12:03] So if you can do one thing, it's that it's get yourself to bed
[12:06] earlier, stay off the phone just before you go to bed.
[12:10] The next thing they're going to look at in terms of their
[12:12] recovery is their nutrition. It's not the nutrition that
[12:16] they're having within the sessions in terms of grammes of
[12:19] carbohydrate and things like that.
[12:21] It's their day-to-day nutrition and the food that they eat every
[12:25] day. And honestly, this is a this is
[12:27] an area where almost everybody can do better almost every day.
[12:32] So what do we mean by good nutrition?
[12:34] Well, what we mean is eating as many whole food sources as is
[12:38] possible. As many fruits and vegetables
[12:41] lean proteins, as much unprocessed food as possible and
[12:45] avoiding as many of the processed foods and avoiding
[12:49] alcohol as often as possible. And to circle around on the
[12:53] nutrition thing. If there's one nutrition tip we
[12:56] can take from Proterra athletes, it's simply this.
[12:58] Don't drink alcohol. And that's not to be a buzzkill.
[13:01] That's to say, if you're serious about your performance, the
[13:04] number one thing you can cut out of your diet is to reduce the
[13:08] number of days a week that you drink, ideally to zero days a
[13:12] week. Now we recognise people are
[13:14] going to want to live a real life here, but if you're someone
[13:17] who's having a couple of drinks every day, just by cutting out
[13:21] one of those days every other day you will make a massive
[13:24] difference to the way your body recovers.
[13:27] And if anyone tracks HRV and has experimented with cutting out
[13:31] alcohol, you will immediately see the difference that not
[13:34] drinking the night before has on your heart rate variability.
[13:39] And that in itself shows the balance of stress that your your
[13:44] nervous system is under. And it basically is a number
[13:47] showing you how well you've recovered.
[13:49] So cutting out alcohol is the number one thing you can do to
[13:53] improve your nutrition. And after that, just go for the
[13:55] easy wins. Cut out the food that's in
[13:58] packets, cut out the crisps, cut out the things that have got a
[14:01] packet on that. I've got dozens and dozens of
[14:05] different ingredients listed. And try and make yourself a
[14:08] whole food salad every day for lunch with, I don't know, 10
[14:12] different kinds of vegetables. Then you'll find that that makes
[14:15] a really big difference to how you feel and how you perform on
[14:19] a day-to-day basis in your sessions.
[14:21] And guess what, For the people who are looking for a quick hack
[14:25] to get leaner and look a little bit slimmer, eating real food is
[14:29] the number one way to do that and it's a form of its function
[14:32] thing. It's not about trying to limit
[14:34] calories at that point. It's simply your body will
[14:37] change depending on what you feed it and those Whole Foods,
[14:41] fruits, veggies, lean proteins as the number one way to do
[14:45] that. The next thing they're going to
[14:47] be doing pro triathletes in terms of recovery from the
[14:50] sessions. Is there going to be getting
[14:52] body work done as often as possible.
[14:54] What do I mean by body work? Well, I'm talking about massage,
[14:58] I'm talking about seeing a physiotherapist, I'm talking
[15:01] about getting any soreness or niggles treated as often as
[15:04] possible. And again, it's obviously beyond
[15:07] the budget of an awful lot of age group has to go and see a
[15:10] physiotherapist every week or go and have a sports massage every
[15:13] week. But if I could give you 1
[15:15] takeaway here. If something happens, if you get
[15:19] soreness, if you pull up with a calf, pull in the middle of a
[15:23] run, the first thing you should be doing is going to see a
[15:26] sports physiotherapist who understands triathletes,
[15:30] swimmers, bikers, runners, who treats people like you so you
[15:34] can get some feedback, so you can get some treatment and so
[15:37] you can get a rehab plan on that niggle before it becomes
[15:40] something more serious. So don't try and train through
[15:44] it. Don't think resting it for a day
[15:46] or two and then trying to run on it again is the way to go.
[15:48] As soon as you get back from that workout, book in a session
[15:51] to see the massage therapist, all the physio and get that
[15:54] scene too before it becomes an issue.
[15:57] And the last part of recovery that roster ethics are fantastic
[16:00] at is stress reduction. It's reducing the amount of
[16:04] things that they do, the amount of commitments that they've got
[16:07] on a day-to-day basis outside of training, eating, sleeping and
[16:12] recovering from their training. The less things that you've got
[16:15] going on in your life that stressful, the better you're
[16:18] going to perform. So how does that apply to a real
[16:21] world age group situation? Well, what it means is often a
[16:26] lot of the stresses that are in your life are non-negotiable.
[16:29] You have to deal with work meetings.
[16:31] You have to go on the late work nights out.
[16:34] If you're in the kind of job that involves you doing that,
[16:36] you have to deal with the kids after a training session.
[16:39] You have to plan family days out.
[16:41] Your training has got to be planned in around that.
[16:44] So again, train like a professional doesn't mean well,
[16:47] I'm going to get 25 hours of training a week done, and then
[16:50] we'll think about work, kids, family days out.
[16:53] It means plan out what your week is going to look like, plan out
[16:58] what's the maximum amount of training you can recover from
[17:01] and then commit to delivering that amount of training.
[17:04] Because in the long term age group is are no use to their
[17:08] families if they get up really early, go out for five hour bike
[17:11] ride, get back to say well I can spend the day with the family
[17:14] now but they're so tired or they're going to do is lie on
[17:16] the sofa all day. So it's really important to
[17:19] think to make that commitment to have your entire life in
[17:22] balance, family, work, training and have the training fit around
[17:26] everything else. That's essentially what training
[17:29] like a professional is for professionals.
[17:32] The only difference is they've set their lives up so there's a
[17:36] minimum amount of external work and a minimum amount of family
[17:40] commitments around their training.
[17:42] O that's something to really bear in mind.
[17:45] So I hope those three things have trained like professionals,
[17:48] really helped you out today. We look forward to hearing you
[17:52] in the comments. What's the one thing that you
[17:55] could change in your triathlon training, having heard this,
[17:59] that you'll commit to that you think is going to help you out
[18:02] going forward into this season? OK then, that brings us to the
[18:07] end of this week's episode. So here are some discount codes
[18:10] and deals for you over at Precision Fuel and
[18:13] hydration.com. Use the code Oxygen 24 for 15%
[18:16] off your first electrolyte order.
[18:18] And over at teamoxygenaddict.com I think we've got the most
[18:22] comprehensive triathlon coaching programme for busy age groupers.
[18:26] If you've enjoyed what you've heard today and the advice has
[18:28] helped you out, well, great stuff.
[18:30] I hope that's helped put some of your fears at rest, and I know
[18:33] from some of the calls we've had it's helping raise the right
[18:36] questions in the minds of people as to whether their current
[18:40] coaching relationship is working for them.
[18:43] If you're looking for a change or if you're looking for high
[18:45] quality proven coaching for Iron Man or 70.3 Triathlon this year,
[18:49] you can just check out the details of our coaching packages
[18:52] on our website at teamoxygenaddict.com.
[18:55] And then if you're interested, there's a link in the show notes
[18:58] below. You can join our waiting list
[19:00] and you'll be notified if the slot becomes available, and at
[19:03] that point you'll have a chance to book a call with us and see
[19:06] if you'd be a good fit for joining the team.
[19:08] So although we don't have slots available at the moment, we'll
[19:11] make those call appointments available to people as and when.
[19:15] We do have athletes who and their coaching packages during
[19:19] the season, if and when that happens.
[19:21] So remember there's links in the show notes so you don't have to
[19:23] remember them till next week. Have a great safe training and
[19:26] racing week. I'm coach Rob Wilby and you've
[19:29] been listening to the Oxygen Added Podcast.
[19:32] See ya.

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