FEATURES

Are You That Guy?

Saturday, 23 January 2016 00:10

By Matt Dixon (triathlon.competitor.com)

Through his 20 years of coaching, Matt Dixon has identified five common triathlete archetypes that, despite best intentions and total dedication, fall short of realizing individual athletic potential. Could you be making the same mistakes?

I believe that it is too common for athletes and coaches to place a singular focus on the simple accumulation of training miles or hours without considering the critical supporting elements that facilitate successful training. Aspects such as fueling, sleep, recovery and healthy eating habits are often considered mere afterthoughts, with the greatest barometer of training success measured simply in “how much.” This proves costly for many amateur athletes, as most have to balance...

training load with very busy lives at work, with family and relationships, as well as a myriad of other factors. Logging hours of training, at the exclusion of what I call “the supporting cast,” typically leads to the rest of life becoming overstretched. We have so many athletes walking around fit yet fatigued, and not achieving the results of their hard work. Here are the five most common self-sabotaging training scenarios I’ve seen, and how you can avoid the same pitfalls.

Case Study #1: The Busy Executive
Joe is a top executive at a rapidly growing, successful company. He thrives on his leadership role and has to manage an ever-expanding work schedule, oversee a large number of employees and travel frequently across time zones. At home, Joe has two children and a hugely supportive wife, who appreciate (tolerate) his high motivation for Ironman triathlon. He is committed to being a great leader, a wonderful husband and father, but he also wants to excel in races.

Joe often struggles to complete all of the training prescribed, despite scheduling out 15 to 18 hours of time to achieve the work. Often compromising sleep to fit in the training, he has started to feel energy dips in work, as well as an overall feeling of falling behind in the needed training time to be successful in his sport. Travel is his worst enemy, as the eating plan often goes out the window, sleep is further compromised, and his make-up training sessions are often poor quality as they are typically completed right off the plane. He tends to train from race to race, complains that he’s hit a performance plateau and doesn’t feel like he’s thriving in various areas of life. READ MORE