3 Tips For Triathlon Coaches – From an IRONMAN Kona Coach
Aya Sinay has raced as a triathlete in IRONMAN Kona (Hawaii) twice and has been a successful triathlete coach for over 10 years. In this article, she shares 3 important tips that all triathlete coaches should read. Get ready to boost your athletes’ performance and your coaching business.
Educate your athletes: tell them why
We’ve all coached that athlete who initially made the classic mistake of training too hard on easy days. They plan to go easy, join a group ride and end up being exhausted after 3 hours. But how do you convince them to train differently?
In my experience, the most important solution is to explain to the athlete why they should do what you prescribe. Explain for instance, why they should also train at low intensities and why they should stay below anaerobic threshold in a certain training.
To do so, I always share a bit of basic physiology and science.
Especially when you want your athlete to train at a lower intensity, explaining why this is important makes them more patient and willing to do so. For one of my athletes, that meant he had to seriously change his endurance pace. He used to run 5:15 min/km, “because that’s what everyone uses as an endurance pace”. With INSCYD, I showed him that he should actually be running 6:30 min/km.
If that hurts your ego, putting your Strava on private for 6 weeks can help. Usually, your endurance pace increases significantly after those 6 weeks. And you eventually get to a much faster pace while keeping your heart rate low enough.
When you work with INSCYD performance software, you have the advantage of being able to show the athlete what they need to work on, why they need to work on that, and how they progress over time. This also takes the guesswork out of coaching.
Take both physiology and lifestyle into account
Some coaches are known for their genuine interest in the athlete’s life, and ability to create a training program around it.
Other coaches are praised for their expertise in exercise physiology, science and their data driven approach.
I believe both aspects – lifestyle and physiology and own experience as an athlete – are important when coaching an athlete.
For instance, a 57 year old athlete I coach achieved an incredible performance improvement. From a metabolic profile standpoint:
- VO2max went up by 15%
- anaerobic threshold increased 45W
- FatMax increased 30W
But this would not have been possible if we didn’t look at both his metabolic profile and his busy lifestyle.
First I used the remote INSCYD test to get a better idea of what type of athlete he is. The metabolic report gave me a clear overview of what to work on: improve VO2max and anaerobic threshold.
Then I needed to take into account his life outside of sports. He’s a businessman and a family man, which means he is a time-crunched athlete and time is limited, and (mental) fatigue can impact training.
We’ve discovered that a successful approach involves maintaining flexibility during normal weeks, while adding dedicated training camps periodically.
During those training camps, he can really focus. It’s my job to make the most out of these camps. For instance, by:
Calculating the amount of carbohydrates he burns during each training session, using the INSCYD carb combustion graph. This enables me to make a nutrition plan to fuel the body. Knowing the amount of carbs burned also ensures that the training load is realistic over the course of several days.
Calculating the precise VO2max interval intensity and recovery, using the INSCYD lactate accumulation and recovery graph. This graph shows how long he needs to recover between intervals to clear the lactate, to make sure the quality of the intervals remains high.
Having this actionable data enables my athlete to train more effectively and, as a result, improve performance while having a busy lifestyle.
You’ve just read how a holistic approach to coaching—one that combines cutting-edge science with an understanding of an athlete’s lifestyle—can yield incredible results. Now, imagine what you could achieve with the power of INSCYD at your fingertips.