TriDot Podcast .210

5 Nutrition Mistakes Triathletes Make

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Intro: This is the TriDot podcast. TriDot uses your training data and genetic profile, combined with predictive analytics and artificial intelligence to optimize your training, giving you better results in less time with fewer injuries. Our podcast is here to educate, inspire, and entertain. We’ll talk all things triathlon with expert coaches and special guests. Join the conversation and let’s improve together.

Andrew Harley: Welcome to the TriDot podcast. I haven’t said this one in a while so I’m going to lead with this today. If you’ve been listening to our show, enjoying our show, liking what you hear, please oh please leave us a rating and review particularly if you listen on the Apple Podcast app. That just helps with all the algorithms and stuff and helps other people find our show to have fresh ratings and reviews coming in for what we do. So yes please and thank you for that. We appreciate that from all of our listeners. Today’s a little bit different. Today is a one on one session. I’ve got one guest talking about one specific topic and I’m excited about it. One of our favorite recurring guests is Taryn from the Triathlon Nutrition Academy and I asked Taryn, “Hey, would you be willing to come on and just chit chat with me to share the top five nutrition mistakes that you see triathletes make?” She of course agreed to do that. So that’s what we’re going to do on our show today. And if you have never listened to the Triathlon Nutrition Academy podcast, go listen to Taryn’s podcast and then leave her a rating and review just like you’re going to do for us here on this TriDot podcast. Did you like that Taryn? Nice and smooth.

Taryn Richardson: Yeah. Thank you. Love it.

Andrew: If you’ve never listened to our episodes with Taryn before, here’s the background on her. She is from Brisbane, Australia. She is an advanced sports dietitian who specializes in helping triathletes unlock their potential with the power of nutrition through her program, the Triathlon Nutrition Academy. She’s the founder and director of Dietitian Approved as well as the host of the Triathlon Nutrition Academy podcast. She’s worked with endurance athletes for over 15 years spending 6 years as the sports dietitian for Triathlon Australia. She describes herself as a retired age group triathlete herself. Taryn, thanks so much for coming back on the show.

Taryn: Always a pleasure Harley. Thanks for having me back.

Andrew: I am Andrew the Average Triathlete, Voice of the People and Captain of the Middle of the Pack. As always we'll roll through our warm up question, settle in for our main set conversation, and then wind things down with Vanessa taking over for the cool down.

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Warm up theme: Time to warm up! Let’s get moving.

Andrew: There are a lot of kitchen gizmos and gadgets that help us prepare our meals. All of us, there’s things that we all use– you know, forks, spoons, knives, blenders, coffee machines, etcetera– and then there’s things that might be unique and special to our own kitchen. So today, for our warm up question I’m curious to hear from Taryn and all I’ll share myself and obviously we’ll learn from our audience what is that one go-to kitchen accessory, device, whatever, that you just hold near and dear to your heart? You would not want to prep food during your week without this one device. Taryn, what is your go-to pick here for this warm up question?

Taryn: Do I have to pick only one, or can I have a few?

Andrew: You know, it’s just you and me so if you want to cheat and just do like two or three little things that’s fine. We’ll allow it. I’ve got one. I’ve got one to share.

Taryn: As somebody that cooks a lot at home there’s a few key tools that I think are really important that just save so much time and energy in the kitchen. The first one is definitely a good knife which is not a huge investment, like maybe around 100 dollars or less in US. You need a really good knife that you can sharpen yourself and just feels really comfortable in your hand. That is like a no brainer. The second one would be a huge, big chopping board and I love like a big, heavy wooden one with a big work bench so that stuff doesn’t fall off the side all the time and you can do everything in one space. Keep your bench clean as well. The third one would be probably, it’s a bit more gizmo-ie, is a really good garlic press.

Andrew: Okay.

Taryn: I don’t love jar garlic. There’s a whole heep of stuff in there that we just don’t need. It is so easy if you have a really good garlic press to just use fresh cloves. So much better for you, better nutritional value. I particularly like the Dream Farm one which is actually a local Brisbane family owned company. You can get it anywhere in the world though. It’s called the Garject and you crush the garlic with the skin on so you don’t even have to worry about fiddling with the skin, crush it and then it’s got a little eject button that shoots that peel out so that you’re ready to go again.

Andrew: Well that sounds like a riot in the kitchen right there. That sounds like…

Taryn: Total food nerd.

Andrew: …a ton of fun. So I want in my heart of hearts to talk about my Nespresso coffee machine here. I won’t do that…

Taryn: Nice.

Andrew: …because have heard me talk about that on the podcast before. I’m not going to go down that road. You guys know I love my Nespresso, but I’m actually going to say my Traeger grill. My dad was out one time visiting me in Texas and he talked me into buying one and basically he was like, you will be able to– It’s idiot proof. And he is absolutely right. Like I can just like buy some fresh chicken or some fresh pork or some fresh steak and I can just season it with just one or two seasonings. I can throw it on the Traeger and literally I throw it on the Traeger at whatever time and temperature my Traeger app tells me to do. So I’m not even guessing in the dark on that. Like I just punch in hey, I’m cooking steak tonight. It’s like oh yeah, for steak cook it for an hour and a half on this temperature and then the last five minutes bump it up to this and then you’re done. So I just follow like the idiot proof instructions in the Traeger app and all of our meat comes out stupid delicious. Like, it is like– at this point we would rather make steaks at home than go to like the nice steakhouses of Dallas because we can do just as good of a job if not better with like two seasonings and the Traeger and it’s not because I’m good at this. It’s just because the Traeger is that fool proof in terms of just cooking meat really, really well. So that’s the one I’m going to plug here. It’s not a kitchen gadget. Technically it’s outside in the backyard on the patio, but it’s close enough people. We’re going to count it.

Taryn: Keep the kitchen tidy while you’re cooking. Love it.

Andrew: We’re going– Yeah, there you go. Yeah, there you go. We’re going to throw this out to the TriDot family. I’m curious to hear when you are prepping your food during the week, what is that one thing that you just love, you would like to introduce it, brag on it to the rest of the TriDot family? Find the post asking you in the I AM TriDot Facebook group this question. I’ll throw it out there to you guys and we can kind of get some ideas on that garlic press to buy, that Traeger grill to invest in, and whatever else the TriDot audience has to say. Can’t wait to see your answers.

Main set theme: On to the main set. Going in 3…2…1…

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Andrew: Very excited for this conversation today. Our nutrition episodes are always in high demand and I know personally, I know just across the board, there are definitely so many different things we can get wrong with our nutrition and that’s why we love learning from Taryn here on the TriDot podcast and Taryn exclusively. Excited today, especially excited to learn what you consider– this is your list. I asked you “What are the five biggest mistakes that you see triathletes make with their nutrition?” So this is your list that we’re going to be walking through today and just kind of talking through what these mistakes are. So I’m excited to see what they are and dialogue about them. But Taryn, I’m curious before we get to this list of five, you have the Triathlon Nutrition Academy and at this point a fair amount of TriDot athletes have gone through the Triathlon Nutrition Academy and had nothing but great things to say about the program. I’m curious, how much time in the Triathlon Nutrition Academy do you spend helping people kind of unlearn some of the wrong things that they thought were true coming into the program?

Taryn: Yeah, that is a really good question because I have been reflecting on that a lot myself lately. It is a three phase program and each phase goes for 12 weeks. So it’s a nine month education program to really teach triathletes everything that they need to know about triathlon nutrition and I probably spend the first phase debunking myths and getting people’s mindset to shift to more about fueling for triathlon than eating for anything else. Because when we train for three sports in a week and we do 10, 20, 30 training hours depending on where you sit in that, we have to think differently about nutrition. We can’t take our old maybe dieting culture or carb phobia into that and survive/perform to the best of our ability. So probably honestly, I’ve been thinking about this a lot, probably the first phase is just like getting people on board with we need to start to think and do differently if we’re going to fuel for performance.

Andrew: Did you think when you were first crafting that one year long program, did you intentionally kind of build that into phase one or the first time athletes started going through it did you kind of realize you needed to add some stuff in?

Taryn: Uh, the first phase is very much the foundation so day-to-day fueling. I like to teach athletes really systematically. Each week builds on another. There’s 36 master classes in the program and that doesn’t even really cover everything that you need to know. That is a lot of the base, but I always talk about nutrition being a cake that you need to bake and you need to build the solid foundation first which is your sponge. Then you need to ice that which is our phase two and then our phase three we start to put the sprinkles on the icing on our cake. But a lot of triathletes start with the sprinkles first, right? They start doing weird and wonderful things. I can list a long list of things that people do first, but if those sprinkles don’t have any icing or sponge to stick to, then they’re not going to be really effective and we’re essentially just wasting our money on stuff that isn’t as useful. So, I don’t know. I’ve been teaching triathletes about nutrition for a long time now which is why I love this topic today. We get to talk about all the mistakes. I’ve honestly seen everything. Reining me into only five was actually really difficult, but it’s just about layering in your nutrition and sometimes it’s taking a step back from all the stuff and all the crap that you see on the internet. Like, it’s not particularly sexy, but sometimes we just need to think about getting enough nutrients into our life like fruits and vegetables. You know, it’s not as sexy as like taking a magic pill or potion, but it’s those foundations that set us up for success– for long term success– in the sport of triathlon. It’s not just a quick fix.

Andrew: Yeah. No absolutely. Yeah. Great foundation there Taryn and excited to hear which of the five you chose. I’m sure there are very many different mistakes you could have chosen for this episode. Maybe we’ll circle back six months from now and do Taryn’s next five biggest mistakes she sees triathletes making.

Taryn: It’s a long list.

Andrew: But, let’s get into them. The top nutrition mistake #1 that Taryn sees triathletes frequently make is not taking nutrition seriously, ignoring one of the big rocks to being a successful triathlete. Taryn, what do you mean by that?

Taryn: I think when it comes to swim, bike, run, nutrition really is the fourth leg. It’s one of the things that I talk about on my podcast all the time. Once you’ve figured out how to swim without drowning, clip into your bike, and then put one foot in front of the other to run, we need to then really quickly start to think about our nutrition principles and layering that into training. Because the sweet spot, those big rocks for triathlon are: one, training, which TriDot has got you covered.

Andrew: Yeah!

Taryn: Really good individualized, customizable programs, right? You need to train specific to you. Another big rock is sleep/recovery. We only adapt or get fitter and faster from the sessions that we recover from. So if you’re burning the candle at both ends and not getting enough sleep or not getting enough quality sleep then we’re not actually doing particularly effective training. Our bodies are not getting those beautiful adaptations that we’re trying to drive with training out of it because we’re not recovering properly. We don’t need to do like those blow up boots or take magic powders or magnesium and all those sorts of things. We actually need to focus on like a huge rock which is sleep. You can’t do all of those sprinkles and only have four, five, six hours of sleep at night. Then we also need to layer in nutrition. They’re the three big things that you need for success. Training, nutrition, recovery. Tick. But most of us do all these other weird and wonderful things first. I always talk about the supercharged zone. If you think about training being a big circle and nutrition being a big circle, the sweet spot where those both intersect like a Ven diagram, that is where the magic happens. When you’ve got all of your beautiful nutritional strategies laid into your training strategies, that is where you’re actually going to get the magic.

Andrew: I love the analogy of big rocks. A lot of good analogies today between cakes and rocks. We’re getting good stuff already. But, yeah, the training we’ve got you covered there. The sleep and the recovery is very, very important and the nutrition is what we’re here to talk about today. That’s your jam. That’s what you do and I’m curious, as you say that like the #1 mistake you wanted to highlight first was just not taking this seriously. I definitely know our podcast audience takes this seriously. Our nutrition episodes always do very, very, very well. When you’re dialoging with triathletes, when you’re at the races and you hear just people chit chatting, what are some of the things you hear triathletes say? Or what are some things that you see triathletes do that triggers for you that, oh, this person is just not even considering their nutrition as seriously as they should be?

Taryn: There’s so many things, right? That’s why it’s a long list. I think, you know, you can’t out train a bad diet and that is a very common saying that you really need to stop and think about it for a second. Because as a triathlete, you do a lot of training hours and so you can mask some of those mistakes relatively easily compared to somebody that just does maybe a gym program. You’ve got a higher calorie need on a daily basis so you can, in a way, get away with eating more crap food and not having that affect your body composition or the way you feel as much as somebody that does less training. But honestly, the way that you feel when you have your nutrition dialed into training is so much different and sometimes you don’t understand how good you can feel until you do. So you need to think about that. Particularly racing, a lot of people will cross the finish line and they’re like “yep I’m done.” They don’t even think further about okay what’s my recovery strategies after the race and then what does my nutrition look like for the next 24 to 48 hours so I can recover really well? Then, you know, what does post race look like in terms of nutrition? We tend to do everything that we can to just get to the start line and sometimes we have a plan for a race, which is another mistake which we’re not going to talk about, but it’s on my list; like, not having a race plan. The number of triathletes or Ironman distance athletes in particular that I have heard of that don’t even have a race plan like blows my mind! How do you get to that point and not have that side of things sorted. But anyway.

Andrew: I don’t understand it.

Taryn: That’s why I have a job.

Andrew: Yeah, I don’t understand it.

Taryn: So many athletes. But you need to think a bit longer than crossing the finish line. What is your nutritional plan way beyond that? I think that’s one of the key things that I like to teach my athletes. Like, let’s be better and do better at this and go beyond the finish line.

Andrew: Yeah, one of my follow up questions about this point was what does it look like for a triathlete to take their nutrition seriously? I think you just outlined a lot of the things like considering your race plan, considering what you’re doing beyond the finish line, considering what you’re doing to fuel your day-to-day training. Those are the things that triathletes should be doing. I’m curious, as you teach your triathletes in the Triathlon Nutrition Academy those principles, what feedback do you get from those athletes that go through the program? What are those lightbulb moments that really trigger for them oh man, I was not considering this in the way I should before?

Taryn: Aw, this is my favorite part about doing what I do is the feedback that people– like I’ve completely changed their lives. I know that sounds really corny, but they’re like “Oh my god, Taryn!” It’s not difficult, but it just takes a little bit of knowledge and understanding to get it right and I really believe that you’re one day of proper fueling away from unlocking that next level for yourself. Once you actually dial that in for one day and you’re like this is how good you can feel, then it helps to I guess debunk a lot of those myths and get your mindset shift into eating like a triathlete. Like, not eating like anybody else, like a normal general population type person. So definitely energy is a big one and your energy levels will soar when you have your nutrition right. You won’t feel like you’ve fallen into a hole and need a nap in the afternoon. That fatigue and tiredness that we kind of wear as a badge of honor as a triathlete to be honest. People just think, I’m doing an Ironman, I’m expected to feel like this.

Andrew: I should be destroying myself. Yeah, I should–

Taryn: That’s not the case. Yeah, one of my athletes, Lynn, she did Ironman a few years ago. She was probably in low energy availability to be honest, and she was like “I’m never doing that again.” She wore that as a badge of honor because her coach was like “You’re doing an Ironman. Of course you feel tired.” But she’s going to probably do another one again. I can’t commit her to it yet, because she hasn’t registered, but she said she will.

Andrew: She’s tracking that direction.

Taryn: Yeah, because she knows that she can fuel her training lead up properly plus her race nutrition is going to be so different to know that she’ll survive that without running the risk of low energy availability or getting sick and getting injured in the build ups. So energy is a huge one when you have that dialed in for you.

Andrew: Okay, so to avoid mistake #1, take it seriously. Have a plan. Have a plan for your training, a plan for your racing, a plan for your recovery. Lots of resources between the TriDot podcast and Taryn’s podcast and Taryn’s program and several TriDot coaches who are dietitians and nutrition experts. You could definitely be prepped and ready and thwart mistake #1 and not fall victim to that.

So top nutrition mistake #2 that Taryn sees triathletes frequently make is sucking at recovery. Now, I am presenting these in Taryn’s exact words. So Taryn’s exact words are that there’s a lot of triathletes that suck at recovery. Taryn, what do you mean by that? What does it mean to suck at recovery?

Taryn: The majority of triathletes suck at recovery nutrition. Let’s be honest.

Andrew: I think recovery nutrition and recovery, taking care of your body as well. I think we all skip out on that on all fronts.

Taryn: Yeah, you need to think about your body as a high performance engine. Are you putting that cheap, economy fuel in? Or are you putting that premium stuff in? Or gas, sorry.

Andrew: Hmm, that’s a great question.

Taryn: Sorry, I’ll speak in the US terms. Gas.

Andrew: Gasoline.

Taryn: You’ve got to put the good quality gas in. You know, like, we don’t respect our bodies and that probably comes back to point #1. Like, we don’t take things seriously. We just expect to do the training and we’ll be fine, but it’s about respecting our temple– our high performance engine– and putting in the right premium gas into it, not expecting it to perform with the cheap stuff. So, recovery is huge. Like I said right in the beginning, we only adapt or get fitter and faster from the sessions that we recover from. Okay. Do I need to say that again?

Andrew: Please.

Taryn: You need to recover. We need to recover otherwise there’s no point in doing a really hard, high performance session the next day if you are under recovered and under fueled. You’re not going to get the best bang for your buck out of that training session. You’re not going to be able to push yourself to the limit that it’s designed for to make you a better triathlete. So we need to really focus on recovery and it takes 24 to 48 hours to recover from a training session. Now, I don’t know about you, but when I trained I didn’t have two days off in between training sessions.

Andrew: No.

Taryn: You are training every single day. Maybe you have a rest day thrown in your week and there’s often double session days as well. So we need to be constantly recovering and it is the very first module in the Triathlon Nutrition Academy program for that reason because 98% of triathletes that I’ve ever seen in my entire career suck at recovery. It’s not that difficult to get right, you just need to understand the right components that you need in the right amounts for you and getting that timing right so that we can maximize it as quickly as possible so that we can back up and train again in, you know, less than 8 hours or in 24 hours or less than 24 hours. When we just don’t have the luxury of time.

Andrew: Talk to us. When we talk about sucking at recovery I think a lot of folks it’s just like well after that session what do I need to take to properly recover? Do we need to grab a drink that has 45 grams of protein? Should we be balancing our macro nutrients a little bit better than that? What are kind of the leading principles of getting that nutrition right after a session?

Taryn: Yeah, it depends. My answer for a lot of things with nutrition is it depends because it is very individual. So your recovery needs are different to mine as well as other listeners. So there are four R’s to recovery and we need to understand how much of each to have for your individual body type, age, athlete level, where you are in the season, all those types of things. So protein is definitely key. Our protein needs are like a cup and when I fill that cup regularly throughout the day, particularly in that recovery window, but also for our main meals and potentially snacks depending on what your training program looks like. If you were a 50-year-old Harley, then maybe 45 grams of protein is okay.

Andrew: Wow.

Taryn: But if you were a younger maybe male athlete or younger female athlete then that would probably be in the realms of excessive and any excess that we don’t need and absorb at that time we do oxidize it for energy, so we’ll burn those calories for energy, but then the rest we kind of just break down and pee out and make expensive urine.

Andrew: Yeah.

Taryn: Like I said, it’s a cup. We want to fill it. We don’t want to under fill it because then we’re not doing a very good job of recovery when we need to be and we don’t also want to have excess and over fill it because it does kind of spill out and it’s a bit of a waste.

Andrew: Dr. Krista Austin who comes on our podcast a lot to talk about nutrition, you’ve done some podcasts with her on our show before, so I know the two of you know each other well by now. I know she’s a big proponent of if you can get what you need from real food sources, do that first and then supplement where you have to.

Taryn: Amen! Yeah.

Andrew: Do you agree with that or do you have–

Taryn: Absolutely. Her and I are always on the same playing field.

Andrew: Okay.

Taryn: Absolutely real food first because if you think about that protein supplement, all it’s providing is protein. It doesn’t tick off those four R’s of recovery. So it’s probably giving you a fair amount of calories and it doesn’t actually do a complete job. So I find protein super easy to get from real food anyway, even for a vegan athlete, even for an older female who might have higher requirements. Food is going to be better and more beneficial because it does tick other boxes, but also the nutrient value of real food is always going to be higher than something that’s synthetic, manufactured in a facility and we don’t actually know 100% what’s in there, in the actual package…

Andrew: Terrifying.

Taryn: …because they’re not batch testing individual batches to go “Okay, that one actually does have 45 grams of protein.” It might actually only have 35.

Andrew: Wow.

Taryn: But you’re not going to know that.

Andrew: Very, very fascinating. That’s another podcast for another day.

Taryn: So protein is definitely one of the key components that we need in recovery. It is one of the first R’s, repair. We need to do that muscle repair, plus all of our building blocks for our hormones and enzymes are protein too which we need for recovery. Then you need to also refuel. So we want to think about putting carbohydrate back into our glycogen fuel tank and how much you need is very individual. So we need to think about who you are and where you are in your season and your body composition goals and all those sorts of things plus what type of session you’ve just done. Do we need to put a whole heap of fuel back in because we’ve just done a glycogen depleting session? Or have we just done a very short aerobic, easy session where we’re burning majority fat and so we may not need to do as much in the refuel sense. So they’re the two kind of big macros that most people know about; carbohydrate and protein for recovery. The third R which most people suck at, no offense, is revitalize and that is getting all of your vitamins and minerals back in your system as well. We actually have higher needs for a lot of things as an endurance athlete plus exercise is a stress. So we need to mop up the stress of that exercise and that’s why I love Dr. Austin’s mindset around real food as well because we need all of those vitamins and minerals from our foods to help with that recovery process and that is where most triathletes get let down. They just go yep, protein, carbs.

Andrew: Yeah.

Taryn: Eggs on toast, recovery tick.

Andrew: And move on.

Taryn: Protein shake, tick.

Andrew: Yeah and move on to the next thing. Sure.

Taryn: So it’s about building complete meals that have those components on your plate in your individual needs. Then the fourth R which most people are good at, some people still suck, is rehydrating. That is again very individual. Your sweat needs are different to mine. We’ve got triathletes in the Academy who sweat, I don’t know what it is in your method, but like over 3 liters an hour.

Andrew: You can use metric, I’ll allow it. I’ll allow that.

Taryn: Okay.

Andrew: It’s fine.

Taryn: You’ll have to like subtitle me with fluid ounces.

Andrew: We do have listeners all over the world. We do have and I think it’s our fault that we decided to just do our own thing with the system. The metric system makes so much more sense; let’s be honest. It really does. But anyway.

Taryn: You said it.

Andrew: So of the four R’s, the only one– I was trying to guess what they were like as you were going and the one that I did not see coming was revitalize. That was very, very interesting and such a great point right there. So, cool. Don’t suck at recovery people. Consider all four R’s. Make time for all four R’s. Be intentional with all four R’s and you can avoid being a triathlete that sucks at recovery.

Top nutrition mistake #3 that Taryn sees triathletes frequently make is not carb loading. I love carbs so I am all about this mistake and avoiding it. But what do you mean by this? How is it a mistake that people make to not carb load?

Taryn: So most people don’t actually know how to effectively carbohydrate load.

Andrew: I just eat a lot of carbs by default. So am I good? Am I covered?

Taryn: No! Exactly. So you probably suck at carb loading. So carbohydrate loading is where we super compensate our muscle glycogen stores. So we fill up our gas tank, we fill up our fuel tank, but then we shove a bit extra in so that we can go further for longer. We’ve got more fuel on board. So we’re getting to that fatigue point and that point where we’re running out of fuel. We’re never actually going to run out of fuel because we’ll die, but you know, that point where we have to slow down because we don’t have enough carbohydrate left on board. If anybody’s ever experienced hitting the wall or bonking, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Andrew: Yeah.

Taryn: You’ve just got nothing left. You’re basically scraping yourself off the bitumen, but asphalt– I’m getting so much better at the whole American terms for things working with American and Canadian athletes in the Academy. Like, getting something like a Coke or a little candy to get off the pavement to get you back home or pulling a sag wagon. You know, that experience is not very nice.

Andrew: No.

Taryn: I’ve experienced it myself. I don’t know if you have too Harley.

Andrew: I had one ride– there was a group I used to do a lot of rides with. It was a 26 mile loop on Saturday morning and you could show up at 7:30 and do the loop once or you could show up at 6:00 and do the loop twice. There was one time I showed up at 6:00 and did the loop twice and I was on the way back to the bike shop, probably eight miles to go, and I didn’t have anything left and pulled over in a store, called my wife, like, “Hey, I’m in front of such and such store and I need you to come pick me up.”

Taryn: Save me!

Andrew: And she very graciously did and yeah. It’s happened. Yeah.

Taryn: Yeah, so that is where your fuel tank is empty, right? So when we are racing or we’re doing long distance training, we can essentially put more fuel in so that we can go harder for longer. Now it doesn’t mean just eating heaps of carbs. We have to think a bit more strategically around our nutrition…

Andrew: Oh man.

Taryn: …so that we’re hitting the right targets for you and doing it in a way that’s not difficult. Because most of us love carbs, like there’s definitely some people that don’t love carbs, but a lot of us are like “Yes! I get to eat a bowl of pasta before my race.” I’ve got one athlete, Aaron, who loves smashing pancakes at night for dinner. Like whatever. Whatever it is.

Andrew: Cool. Yeah.

Taryn: Whatever your vice is. But eating a bowl of pasta the night before your race is not carb loading. It comes nowhere near the amount of carbohydrate you need to effectively super compensate those stores. So you need to understand how much and the duration and then I guess the types of foods you need to effectively carbohydrate load. Because when we increase our carbohydrate intake, we naturally increase our fiber intake and that can also end pretty badly on race day…

Andrew: Yeah, absolutely.

Taryn: …if we’re doing them together. So my usual advice for people is having foods that are not particularly dietitian approved, but it is being more strategic around those choices so that you are fueling your glycogen fuel tank and putting more in so that we can go and race better in those longer distances of events.

Andrew: Yeah, so we do have athletes who follow a low carb diet for a variety of reasons whether it’s just preference or health or what not. What do they need to be doing to fuel properly even with a lack of carb intake?

Taryn: Yeah, so you wouldn’t want to carb load as a low carb, high fat athlete. That’s not going to end very well on race day either. When you down regulate all your carbohydrate oxidation pathways and upregulate your fat oxidation pathways, putting carbs in the system your body kind of doesn’t really know how to deal with them very well. So I often hear that actually, low carb high fat athletes will then switch to a carb fueled strategy on race day and it makes no sense to me because you’ve just trained in a completely different way and down regulated all of your ability to digest and absorb and use that carbohydrate as a fuel source and then you throw carbs in the system and go, “Alright body. Sort it out. Do what you want with that.” So yeah, definitely wouldn’t recommend carb loading for a low carb high fat athlete. They’d have a completely different strategy which is a whole other podcast episode.

Andrew: Okay, yeah, and we will keep that in mind, but just wanted to give those folks a shout out that are listening right now. There are some athletes that maybe, okay don’t carb load in that case. So just wanted to make sure we clarified that. So when it comes to carb loading, is this exclusively something we do for race day to make sure we have that super compensated tank ready for race day? Are there big training day sessions, your heaviest training days of the week? Should we be increasing the amount of carbs we’re taking in a normal training cycle as well? Or is it more of a race day thing?

Taryn: Oh, great question. So yeah, you never want to try anything new on race day is my #1 rule of racing. So any carb loading strategy that you implement, like I teach my athletes how to calculate their needs and exactly what foods they’re going to have and make sure the logistics work for the travel of races and we need to practice that in training. That’s really, really important. I typically start athletes on a gentler carb load and then we become more aggressive as they get more used to it and their body has more enzymes and carbohydrate digestion channels to deal with it as well. So any long endurance sessions or race sims or race specific things in your leading to a key event, you definitely want to be practicing your carb loading strategy before that event. Not just something you do the day before. Like you don’t want to turn up to the pasta party and go “Yep, I’m going to wing it with this for the very first time and hope for the best.”

Andrew: Top nutrition mistake #4 that Taryn sees triathletes frequently make is underfueling. One word. A one word mistake. Underfueling. You under fuel and your whole day is undone. Talk to us about this one Taryn.

Taryn: Yeah, it’s a big one. I could probably elaborate because we need to think about underfueling as a mistake just in day to day training, but then a whole other mistake is underfueling our training sessions as well. So again, like we’re training for three sports. We’re doing a lot of training hours in a week. We’re potentially doing double, some people I know are doing triple, or like four sessions in a day. We need to think about our day to day fueling and getting that dialed in for where we’re at and I always talk about periodization. You have to eat for the work required. We can’t eat the same on a lighter, rest, recovery type day versus a hard, double session, high performance or a long endurance session day. Our nutrition needs to evolve with the training day that we’re doing and that is a mad skill that most triathletes suck at. Because we come from life before triathlon where we just ate the way that we ate…

Andrew: Sure.

Taryn: …and we’ve had these habits and behaviors our entire life and then we suddenly throw training in and we have no idea how to adjust and adapt our nutrition to support that. So that’s one of the first things that I like to teach athletes is how to do that practically. I’m not a huge fan of counting calories. You can use it as a tool, but you know, we alluded to it a little bit before like what’s on a label is not necessarily what’s in that packet. So it’s a little bit of a gray zone estimating energy in. It’s also a little bit of a gray zone estimating energy out. Using devices and wearables and things gives us some data, but it is algorithms based on a population. It’s not necessarily specific to you. Plus you also extract a certain amount of calories or nutrients from food that is individual. So if you and I ate an apple, we would extract a different amount of calories from that apple based on what our gut does which is like just so interesting.

Andrew: It is. Yeah.

Taryn: I’m a total food nerd. I get excited about these things, sorry. So you need to fuel for the work required in your training week and that needs to evolve with the on season and the off season as well. You can’t eat the same thing all year round and as your training volume builds heading into a race, your overall energy expenditure is going to increase and we need to kind of match that too. There are some adaptations that happen from underfueling certain sessions, but that is definitely more of an advanced strategy and you’re probably pretty good at doing that anyway so it’s not something we need to focus on. You need to get better at fueling training better and I kind of like to teach athletes to book end their sessions with nutrition first and foremost. So what are you doing pre training and what are you doing for your recovery as a priority. Then layering that periodization of eating differently on different types of training days so you’re not just doing the same thing all the time and expecting your high performance machine to perform at a high performance level.

Andrew: So within my TriDot training week I’ll have– the day we’re recording this podcast is a Tuesday. So on my Tuesday I had a 20 minute–

Taryn: It’s Wednesday here. I’m in the future.

Andrew: Yeah, yeah. You’re right. Yeah, Wednesday for you. So Wednesday on TriDot unless someone has changed their schedule, the default schedule, Wednesday is long run day typically. On Tuesday I had a 20 minute easy run and then a 60 minute bike session later in the day. Sometimes we have workouts that are 45 minute runs. Sometimes it’s workouts that are an hour and 25 on the bike. I say that to say, is there a certain length or duration to a workout where– Okay, if it’s a 45 minute run or shorter, you may not need to fuel a whole lot during that session. At what duration do we need to start considering the fueling for the workout itself during the workout itself?

Taryn: Yeah, great question. It depends.

Andrew: Sure.

Taryn: I need to get it printed on a t-shirt.

Andrew: Sure. Always.

Taryn: Always. So yeah, it depends where you are in your season. If you are in your off season then less fuel and throwing less fuel at sessions is okay. But if you’re in like peak race season and your race is a few weeks or a month or two away, then every session can be an opportunity to practice something. Whether that is doing your own hydration testing or trying a new product or trying to crank up how much fuel you have per hour in a really hard run session. Just because it’s short doesn’t mean it’s not necessarily useful from a nutrition perspective. So there’s this cut off of around 90 minutes is where you can sort of start to think a bit more broadly around fueling versus not and that comes from some research in male cyclists where they rode at a certain level of VO2 max. It’s not like full max and it’s not aerobic. It was around, it’s pulling from my memory, but around sort of 75% VO2 max, so sub maximal. They could ride for 88 minutes before they hit the wall or bonked. Where they ran out of fuel. Now that is in cycling. We can kind of extrapolate that research to running, but it’s also in male athletes too. So females we need to treat a little bit differently. But anything sort of longer than an hour you want to start thinking about fueling, but it also depends on what you’re doing before that session whether you’re fueling that or not and then what your recovery looks like. So it’s hard to give you a really clear, cutoff point for that.

Andrew: Sure.

Taryn: I know people get frustrated.

Andrew: No, that was still helpful.

Taryn: Yeah, people get frustrated by my “it depends” answers, but it does depend.

Andrew: And we get those kind of answers, honestly, from anything in the sciences. Whether it’s nutrition or recovery or I mean, even in triathlon training. You know, TriDot training is the way it is, very specific to each person, because it depends. Based on who you are it depends on what you need to be doing in your training. So, yeah. Totally get why that’s the answer. But still some helpful feedback there I think just in terms of some numbers to think about. Some durations to think about on where you should start reaching for– I even like just the mindset of it depends on where you are in your season. If you have that A race coming up, okay, let’s really be fueled properly for every single session we do. If you’re in your off season, that’s kind of where you can play with some stuff, play with the amount you’re taking in. So some good stuff there. Another question I had here is, you say this is a top mistake. It made your list of top five mistakes a triathlete can make is underfueling race day, day to day training, the works. What are some signs physically that should kind of be a red flag to us that maybe we are an athlete who is underfueling in our day to day training?

Taryn: Yeah, there’s quite a few and I think it’s a continuum. There’s no like I’m under fueled versus I’m fueled now or I’m over fueled, but definitely how you feel. So if you have energy right throughout your day and it’s relatively stable that’s a good sign. If you don’t, if you hit like lunch and that afternoon window and you just hit a wall and you either need a nap or you do take a nap…

Andrew: Or an espresso.

Taryn: …to get you through the day. Or, yeah, coffee. Or the other one is sweet things. A lot of people crave sweet in that afternoon window because they’re tired. It’s their body telling them to catch up on refueling because they did a crap job of their recovery earlier on in the day. So energy levels through the day is a big one and not wearing that immense fatigue and tiredness as a badge of honor. If you need to nap every day then that’s problematic. If you’re retired like Kelly and you have the ability to nap every day and you want to nap, great, but you shouldn’t need to nap to get through the rest of the day. That’s a big one. If you are hitting the wall and bonking in those long sessions that’s another big red flag that you are underfueling somewhere. Probably what you’ve done in the lead up, so your fuel tank is not optimal to start with and then whatever you’ve done in that session as well is not optimal. If you’re fading in the backend of sessions too. Like you get to a point where you’re just toast then that’s not ideal. Those sessions are designed to push you hard to get you fitter and faster and if you can push hard through the back end that is where the magic happens, right? If you go and do a long session and you can’t peel yourself off the couch, that’s a good one. Like you go and do a four, five, six hour ride and then you’re useless for the rest of the day. You know, you’re stuck like reading books, watching Netflix, maybe risking divorce because you’re useless. That’s another key one. So it’s just about energy levels and managing that tiredness. The other one is if you keep getting sick and injured all the time. Particularly in a peak race build people always report that they get sick. Like you pick up whatever bug is around or whatever you’ve been harboring for a while. Training is a stress and you’re increasing that stress with that increasing volume. So if you’re constantly getting sick and run down, then that tells me your fueling is not right and definitely niggly little injuries. So that is a continuum of low energy availability and we start to get little feather warning signs that are more soft tissue niggly injuries and then we go further along the continuum and you’re starting to get like louder signs like a brick being thrown at you then maybe it’s a bit more bone. Then further along the continuum is like being hit by a truck is getting things like bone stress injuries and stress fractures and stuff like that. So injured is another big one, but it can just be soft tissue things that are unrelated to bone. Like if your feet are annoying you or whatever is happening. Like you keep pulling things, that could be a nutritional thing that you need to get sorted. And, you know, down the other end of the continuum of that low energy availability is definitely menstrual dysfunction. So for female athletes if your menstrual cycle is a natural one, so you’re not taking any contraceptive of any form, and it’s doing weird things then that is a pretty big red flag that fueling is not right somewhere.

Andrew: No, a great list. Definitely great and very, very important things for people to be on the lookout for. We had a podcast episode early on in our podcasting journey, somewhere in the first I want to say 40, 50, 60 episodes, we did a whole episode on REDS in males and a separate one on REDS in females with Dr. Krista Austin. We actually had an athlete identify while listening to that podcast that “Oh my goodness. This is me. I’m dealing with this.” And he got connected with Dr. Austin. He got the ship slowly started to turn back around on that and so if you’re listening to that list Taryn’s running through and you’re identifying with some of it, start paying attention and don’t suck at fueling. Make sure you’re fueling your sessions and fueling your body. There’s a lot of health implications that go along with that.

Top nutrition mistake #5. Sweet #5 on the list today that Taryn sees triathletes frequently make is getting nutrition advice from the wrong places. Oh my! Taryn, there are so many places to get information from these days. Please, oh please expound on what you mean by this.

Taryn: Yeah, I’ll try not to get all hot and sweaty. This one is like one of my most like annoying bugbears is where people get nutrition advice from. It is like the major reason why I started my podcast…

Andrew: Wow.

Taryn: …because I’m so sick of unqualified punters giving out nutrition advice and elevating sport dietitians as the experts in our field. It just blows my mind that we go everywhere else for nutrition advice first and then things are still going pear shaped or they’re not working then they’re like, “Oh, actually I might actually go and see a professional for this thing that they’re qualified to do.” We don’t go see a heart surgeon for our feet, right? We go to the medical profession for the medical thing we need. Why don’t we go to a nutrition professional for nutrition? Anyway! I’m getting all hot and sweaty. Calm me down. Take a breath.

Andrew: Taryn, how much wrong information do you see on social media from social media influencers who are saying their two cents on nutrition as if they know what they’re talking about.

Taryn: Agh, so much.

Andrew: Yeah.

Taryn: So much. So much. Makes my blood boil. Like, it just drives me nuts. So I guess if nutrition is something that you want to do better with, be better with, actually go and see the right person for that advice. There’s quite a few places where people get nutrition advice from and I think one of them, a main one is older, more experienced triathletes.

Andrew: Yeah, great point.

Taryn: They have spent a lot of time working out what nutrition works for them which is great. Like they, N equals 1 right? You work with you. You work with your physiology and your body and your lifestyle and you figure out what works for you. But that athlete that’s been training for a long period of time has got completely different metabolic needs to you if you haven’t been training for a long period of time. We do things differently when we are beginning in the sport versus having been doing it for 20-30 years. Faster athletes use nutrition principles differently to slower athletes too. So what works for them may not work for you. Sure, they can guide you, but just keep your wits about you. Because I had an athlete who I worked with for 20 weeks heading into an Ironman race and she had her whole plan dialed in, it was well practiced, it was well rehearsed. Everything was perfect and some old dude on the course was like, “Oh, you’re not getting bananas. You need to get bananas. Why aren’t you eating bananas in your race?” So she was like, “Oh, shit. He’s like really good and really fast.”

Andrew: He looks like he knows what he’s talking about. I should have a banana.

Taryn: Yeah and so she did and then spent the whole run vomiting her guts up. I’m like, why would you do that to yourself! Anyway, so you know take their advice with a grain of salt. It is perfect for them and they’re usually pretty noisy about “you should do this because this works for me,” but you need to work out what works for you.

Andrew: I think an interesting thing just within that one anecdote is we’re so quick to want to look at what other people are doing and pull from it and mimic it and this is a true story. I may have told this on the podcast before. I might not have, but I’ll share it again. When I was signed up for my first half Ironman I think I was flipping through like Triathlete Magazine or one of the triathlon publications and there was an article where Jonny Brownlee, a very successful British, Great Britain triathlete, he outlined what he took in for one of his recent 70.3 victories. I remember thinking like, oh, I have my first half Ironman coming up. This guy’s a professional.

Taryn: I’ll just do that.

Andrew: Let me read what he did. And obviously he’s sponsored by a certain brand and so everything he took was from that certain brand and thankfully for me it was a brand I could not get in the United States so I abandoned my plan to copy Jonny Brownlee and thank god, because that would not have worked for me. Because now I know, 1) he’s not going to be on course nearly as long as me, 2) he’s trained his gut to handle a certain amount of carbohydrate per hour that my body can’t handle. But I guess within that my question is, as we’re looking around at what other people are doing and we’re looking around at what other sources maybe recommend, how can we learn what might be good ideas for us to try versus things that okay, that’s probably not for us, that’s good for them?

Taryn: Yeah, it’s a hard one because we do look to the pros for what to do because they are the perfect example of like having everything dialed in or having the majority of things dialed in. But as an age group athlete who probably doesn’t do as much training and trains completely differently, you have very different metabolic needs. So Brownlee, like his gut training would be really solid and his ability to use that carbohydrate as a fuel source is so different to you, Harley, no offense.

Andrew: Yeah. No, yeah.

Taryn: So if you tried to do that, that’s not going to end well. So I think look to the pros for inspiration and motivation, but definitely not for nutrition because they’re a completely different metabolic beast to you and I.

Andrew: Yep. No. Very, very good point. When we’re looking at different sources, and we’re just going to remove like social media influencers from the equation. When we’re looking at information that–

Taryn: Just because they’ve got abs doesn’t mean they know what they’re doing.

Andrew: When we see what maybe brands are recommending or different triathlon coaches or just different entities that we look to– Ironman puts out things, USA Triathlon puts out things– we’re just seeing what the marketplace is saying, how can we filter oh, this is a good quality source that knows what they’re talking about and then this one may be one that I shouldn’t take as seriously?

Taryn: Yeah, the internet is a huge chasm of just irreputable information and so you actually need to have a look at where that information is coming from first and foremost. If you have a look at the big triathlon magazines, like the big websites like Triathlon 220 and Triathlete and things like that, I can’t go on there anymore because all of their nutrition articles are written by no one. Like, they’re not written by sports dieticians which blows my mind. They’re written by like– I’m not going to mention names...

Andrew: Sure.

Taryn: …but age group triathletes that don’t have any experience and degrees in nutrition. So you need to actually have a look at who that article is being written by. That’s really important. If it’s not been written by a sports dietician then you probably need to throw it out. Because otherwise we’re just building this fire of information on information on information that’s not actually evidence based. I’m very much an evidence based practitioner. We look to the research for why do we do the things that we do, but then you apply that to the individual and there’s no point just looking at a blog and going oh, this person has written that so that’s what I’m going to do because 1) you don’t know their credibility and 2) they’ve probably just copied another blog to create that blog as well. So, definitely keep your wits about you when it comes to the internet because we just need to be careful where we’re getting that information from. So look for the qualified professionals that are experts in that space to get your information and if you’re into it, go and read some papers. But then the hard part is then applying that to the practicalities of then what you put in your mouth and that’s why I have a job.

Andrew: I just do what you and Krista tell me to do. That’s all. Whatever Taryn and Dr. Krista Austin say…

Taryn: Too much hard science.

Andrew: …I just do what ya’ll say personally.

Taryn: That’s what some of the Academy athletes say. Just follow what she says.

Andrew: What would Taryn do?

Taryn: Just don’t eval, just trust. yeah.

Andrew: I’m curious. So we worked our way through your initial list of five and we’ll see if we revisit this for Taryn’s next five. But those are the first five mistakes you wanted to highlight that you see the triathlon marketplace frequently make. Are these issues we’ve talked about today, are they unique to triathletes when you work with triathletes or you just feel like these are items that most fitness minded adults probably also get wrong and it’s not necessarily unique to triathletes?

Taryn: Yeah, I guess I’ve worked solely with triathletes these days so it is mistakes that I see them make in particular and it’s very much specific to the sport too. Underfueling is very much an endurance problem typically because we have longer training hours compared to somebody that goes to the gym or is a smaller female and is just doing walking. They’re less likely to do things like underfueling. I feel like triathletes also, we get so heavily marketed to buy stuff and we have this high performance mindset that we don’t want to be left behind, but everything that is out there we want to try. So we spend all this money, add to cart, for all this stuff so that we don’t get left behind and I think it’s really important that we do step back to that cake foundation first and do the fundamentals of nutrition because it is that big rock that is going to make you a better triathlete. It’s not the sprinkles that you add once on race day or you know, a couple of times in your season. It’s literally what you do all day, every day, consistently over time that is going to make you a better triathlete. So I think these are very much triathlon specific ones, but people struggle with nutrition all over the world and it is because they’re getting information from the wrong places or doing things that they think is going to work, but have no knowledge around how to actually apply that to them or how to figure out if it’s actually working for them as well.

Andrew: So there’s a lot of great content today. A lot of actual items for our listeners as we were hearing those five mistakes. There’s a lot of things we can examine in ourselves. Okay, am I being mindless with my carbs? Do I need to be more intentional with my carbs? Okay, yes. I need to be more intentional with my carbs. So many little nuggets like that that people can look at and say, am I doing this right? Am I doing this wrong? Am I making this mistake Taryn’s talking about? From this whole hour long conversation, what is just your #1 overall tip, overarching word of advice when it comes to these mistakes on just how to avoid being a triathlete that makes these mistakes?

Taryn: Do something about it.

Andrew: Something. Yeah. Do something.

Taryn: You know, there’s a lot of things that you can do with nutrition. I think you need to just stop for a second and maybe do some of those unsexy things consistently well for a while and then layer in the next one. So I call it habit stacking, right? So it’s about identifying like what the issue is in the first place because sometimes we don’t really know what we don’t know. You don’t know that you suck at recovery until you understand how to do recovery properly and you’re like, “Oh, damn. I sucked that whole time.” Or you know you feel tired and fatigued, but you just think that’s normal until you actually get your nutrition right and you feel how much energy and how much more supercharged you can feel when you get that right. So sometimes we don’t know what we don’t know. But take one thing and implement it and do that one thing really well consistently over time before you have it stack the next thing in. Because we get so distracted by all the shiny objects and we want to do all the things at all the same time, but it is those daily consistent habits that are going to make us better triathletes. So do something about it, but don’t get overwhelmed by all the things. Like I love to teach athletes really strategically and systematically so that they can at the end of nine months they’re completely revolutionized, but every week we’re just working on one thing at a time so it’s not overwhelming.

Andrew: And on top of all that, make sure you have a big sharp kitchen knife and a big oversized quality cutting board.

Taryn: And get yourself a good garlic press. Oh my god. It’s life changing!

Cool down theme: Great set everyone! Let’s cool down.

Vanessa Ronksley: Hello there everyone! I’m Vanessa, your average triathlete with elite level enthusiasm and I am pumped to bring you the Coach Cool Down Tip. We have Brady Hoover in the house today and he’s going to deliver a sweet strength training tip. Brady has too many certifications to name so we’ll just say he holds rockstar status across many disciplines from strength training to running. Speaking of running, he is blazing fast ya’ll. Not only is he a seven times Boston Marathon Qualifier and a six time finisher, he holds a 2:48 marathon PB and a 16:34 5K PB. He claims that he has slowed down a little bit because he has two insanely energetic little kids. I wonder where they get their energy from? But I’m pretty sure that his current zone 2 is my zone 6, so we’ll just say that he is fast. Brady is a personal trainer for most of the hours of his week and a triathlon coach for the remainder. He has been a triathlon coach since 2016 and with TriDot since 2019. He mainly coaches intermediate to top age groupers who often finish on the podium, I might add, and has helped many a athlete qualify and race in the Boston Marathon. He is a firm believer that strength training is the key to success. But before we get to his tip, something that most people don’t know about Brady is that he broke a lot of hearts one day when he won a 5 kilometer race while pushing a stroller. Welcome to the cool down and tell us how you unleashed the beast to land on top of the podium while pushing a human around.

Brady Hoover: Oh yes. The Apple Harvest Run in west Newbury. Yeah, that one typically draws about 300 to 400 people. It’s a benefit for one of the local schools in town. We were new to town so I said, “I’ve got to go run this thing.” My son was 6 months old at the time. I was training for Ironman Arizona which is November so I would say I was in peak condition. I was peaking for the race and I was probably in the best shape of my life at that time. I had just done a century ride the day before and I said, “Well, what better way to just celebrate that last century ride than to go run the town’s little 5K.”

Vanessa: Wow.

Brady: The course though is a beast which I didn’t realize. It has some hill. It has an elevation gain of just over 300 feet in those 3.1 miles. So you can imagine what that profile looks like. I couldn’t have done it without a strong frame and strong core to be able to push that stroller up those hills and be able to control that stroller with my quads on the descent putting on the brakes.

Vanessa: So what strength tip would you like to share with us today?

Brady: So we are triathletes. We know all about periodization so one thing in consulting a lot of athletes is they don’t have any periodization to their strength training. One thing should lead to a progression to another step to another step and so on and so forth. What I often find in consulting athletes and their strength training is they often lack the why. You know, why are they doing this? What purpose does it serve? What I do find most often when talking with an athlete in hearing about their strength routine is they’re mixing muscular endurance with muscular strength and muscular power. So they might be doing 12 rep split squats and then they’re going to 8 rep squats and then all of a sudden they’re doing box jumps. One is for muscle endurance, one is for muscle strength and one is for muscle power. Your body is confused. We don’t train like that. Every one of our workouts that we do on TriDot has a specific goal whether it’s threshold, aerobic capacity, that zone 5 work. Yes we’re getting zone 2 work as well, but each workout has a goal. It has a purpose and has direction and progression. We need that in our strength training as well.  

Vanessa: I had never thought about that the way that you just described that. I come from a strength training background so you think I should know this, but the way that you just described that in terms of the way you need to group the specific exercises into a session to have one outcome, that makes so much sense and something that I just– Thank you. That was really great. I appreciate it.

Brady: Oh, you're welcome. That’s what I’m here for; to help you all out.

Vanessa: Yeah, right? Exactly.

Brady: Like in triathlon we break everything into phases. We have our– I call it our prep phase or our pre-foundational phase. Those kind of exercises, they should focus on stabilization and stability. Getting strong and moving correctly in our single leg movements. We want to keep it to unilateral movements in that first phase, when we’re first starting out, to be getting really strong in those exercises. Those single leg movements, they’re going to work on stabilization, stability, mobility and usually it’s a muscular endurance kind of phase. You’re training 12 reps, 15 reps, working with light weight, really trying to prep that body to get it ready because in the next phase, that’s our strength phase. We’re going to throw on some weight and that’s where we get to have fun and do those big movements that everyone likes to do. Do the big squat. To do the deadlift. To do the chest press. To do the overhead press. That’s where we get to have fun and develop some actual strength. But you don’t want to stop there. Now that you’ve gained this new strength, you want to start developing coordination. That’s where we can bring in the reverse lunge to overhead press and start developing some coordination. Some core exercises I like to throw in that one would be the bear crawl. You know, you’re moving left and right arms. From there, we want to progress into a speed and power phase, right? So you’ve got pre-foundation strength work, you want to start getting some stability and mobility so now we’re moving forward and back, left and right in that phase and then we’re ready for our speed and power phase. That’s where we’re doing box jumps, kettlebell swings, single arm dumbbell snatches. I mean, that as a triathlete, it gets the heart pumping and that’s where we get to have some fun. That’s my favorite phase. I do like the conditioning phase that comes after that, that short, but I’m getting all that in my other workouts. The conditioning phase is a fun way to bring it all together, but my favorite is that power where it’s like it’s kind of like everybody hates them, the shuttles. I love shuttles. Oh, I love them.

Vanessa: I love them too.

Brady: Because I can feel the benefits of them and you just feel so powerful when you’re ramping up the speed for those 20 seconds. You can feel all those muscles fire. You can feel your glutes. You can feel your hamstrings. You can feel that forward lean that you’ve done in your prep work leading up to that phase.

Outro: Thanks for joining us. Make sure to subscribe and share the TriDot podcast with your triathlon crew. For more great tri content and community, connect with us on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Ready to optimize your training? Head to tridot.com and start your free trial today! TriDot – the obvious and automatic choice for triathlon training.

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