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Workout Wednesday - Glutes and Core

8/28/2019

 
Time for some core! Abs and glutes to be specific. Your running form will benefit from some added strength around the middle. Strength workouts don’t have to take all day, or necessary involve a gym. Take 15-20-minutes a couple of times a week and you will feel the benefits of a stronger core in your running.
Side Lying Hip Abduction
3 sets, 10-15 reps, 2-3 times/week
Lie on your side and lift your top leg to ~45° angle. 
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​Notes on form
  • Start against a wall. Heels, glutes, shoulders and head should all touch the wall while you lie on your side. 
  • Let your head rest on your arm, your hand, or grab a pillow.
  • Roll your hips away from the wall so you can put your fist between your upper glute and the wall. Your bottom glute should still be touching.
  • Keep both heels against the wall.
  • Lift your top leg up as high as you can but do not crunch through your side or move your spine ~45°. 
  • Maintain contact between your heel and the wall. The idea is to have your foot/leg behind you to really target the gluteus medius. Careful not to rotate back during the lift. That’s cheating and using the hip abductors.
Reverse Slide Lunge
3 sets, 10-15 reps, 2-3 times/week
Smooth/hard wood floor and a towel/sock/piece of paper is all you need for this. On carpet? Try a furniture slider/paper plate/cardboard.
One foot on the towel, one foot off.
With as little weight on the towel as possible, slide the towel straight back and bend/lunge with the front knee.
Return to standing by driving through your heal and big toe and squeezing your standing leg glutes on the way up. ​
Notes on form
  • Ankle, knee, hip all in line as you lunge. 
  • Torso upright
  • Avoid your knee collapsing to the inside, leaning to the side, or popping your hip out to compensate. I recommend doing this with a mirror to check your form.
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Single Leg Straight Leg Dead Lift
3 sets, 10-15 reps, 2-3 times/week
Stand on one leg with a slight bend in the knee. With a neutral spine, hinge forward at the hip until reaching 90 degree. Return to upright without setting your foot down. This is a slow and controlled movement. Start without weight and progress to weight as your strength and coordination improves.

Notes on form
  • Stay nice a square, not leaning to one side or the other.
  • Keep an eye on your knee. It should stay straight inline and not fall to the inside.
  • There is no need to go past 90° at the hip.
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Front Plank
3 sets - starting at 30 seconds, but progressing to be able to hold perfect form for 3 whole minutes!
We all know and love the plank, as we should because it is a great core strengthening exercise! This one is a plank on the forearms.

Notes on form
  • Make sure your shoulders, hips and heels are all in line. Don’t stick your butt up, or get too low and arch your back. Also, be conscious of rounding through your upper back. Our TT bikes tend to put us in a hunched position. Not during our planks!
  • Give a little push away from the ground through your shoulders and shoulder blades. You don’t want them to retract together.
  • Also make sure your head is in a nice neutral position with a little chin tuck.
  • Draw your belly button toward your spine and settle in.

Modification - you can start with your knees down, but be sure to get that tush in line so you have great form.
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Side Plank
3 sets - same as front plank.

Notes on form
  • Start on your knees for this one. Really work on getting your body in a nice line. 
  • Shoulder should be stacked, body straight, bottom hip lifts so your shoulder, hip and knee are all in line.

Progression - once you are able to hold this side plank on your knees for 3 minutes, combine this with your leg raises. Focus on getting your leg back to really target the gluteus medius while holding your plank. Eventually, you can progress to side plank on your feet, but that will come with time.
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Thanks for working out with me! -Staci
Staci Bronson is the co-owner of Best in the West Events, a PhD candidate in Kinesiology, a coach of the Oregon State Triathlon Club, and an ultra-runner/triathlete/mountain biker/SUP lover!

Workout Wednesday: Run, Race Pace Repeats

8/21/2019

 
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​Hey endurance fans!
This week's R-U-N & fun workout is brought to you by Blair Bronson, RD, Coach and worlds #1 husband...

This week we look to dial in the pacing for race day, with a little thing we like to call Steady-State Race Pace Repeats: a study on form across the fatigue curve.

Warm-Up:
10 min jog
5-10 min drills, dynamic stretching
4 x 30-second build w/30-second recovery

Main Set:
1-mile at race pace
3-minute recovery jog

Duration and number of repeats can be set depending on current fitness and training level. Recommend building up to at least 50% of your race distance. Example if training for a long course with a 13.1-mile run, do at least 6 repeats logging 6 miles at race pace.

Workout Goal: Focus on maintaining form and pacing throughout the workout, dialing into what the pacing feels like with varying levels of fatigue. 

Bonus Strategy: Come into this workout off of a bike ride and practice your race-day nutrition throughout. For example, we'll be having Hammer Nutrition products on race course, including HEED Sports Drink and Hammer Gels; practice and find out what works best for you!

Feel free to reach out with any questions: 
blair@bestinthewestevents.com
Now, get out & get after it!
~ Coach Blair

Workout Wednesday: Over/Unders, Bike Threshold Training & Race Simulation Efforts

8/14/2019

 
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This week’s #workoutwednesday comes from Race Director and Coach, Blair Bronson. 

Grab your bike and take to the hills this week with an over/under threshold workout for race simulation efforts. This workout can be done once through, multiple times through, or as a pyramid. 

Working the hills for race simulation efforts. 

Warm Up: 
-15 minutes easy riding

-5x30 second spin-ups with 30 second recover: In an easy gear, gradually spin your legs from a normal cadence to about 120 rpm. Remain seated and focus on smooth rotations. If you feel yourself start to bounce on the seat at a higher rpm, engage your core more.

-5x30 second build with 60 second recovery: Build from slightly over your warm-up pace to just shy of an all-out sprint gradually over the course of the 30 seconds. The minute recover is done very easy with a slightly high cadence. 

-Spend a few minutes to get to the base of your favorite (or least favorite) hill. Preferably one that takes you at least 5 minutes to climb.

Main Set: Race pace climbing with over threshold efforts

If you aren’t sure what your threshold is, use your race pace to guide your effort. The “overs” are harder than race pace for the distance you are doing. You should only be able to sustain the “over” pace for a couple of minutes at most.

The main set of this workout can be adapted for the athlete and the race distance by adjusting the duration of the interval, the number of intervals and the intensity of the interval. For this example, we are going to assume the climb takes about 5 minutes to complete. If pacing correctly you should get faster from Climb 1-3. 

The focus of this workout is to be able to settle back into race pace after an extra effort is required. When settling back into your race pace see how quickly you can relax and try and bring your heart rate down.

Climb 1:
-2min race pace (RP), 30 seconds over threshold (Over), 2min race pace, 30 seconds over 
-Descend and recover for 3-5minutes

Climb 2:
-90sec RP, 30 seconds Over, 90sec RP, 30sec Over, ~60sec RP or until you reach the top
-Descend and recover for 4-6 minutes

Climb 3: 
-60sec RP, 30sec Over x however long until you reach the top. 
-Descend and recover for 5-7 minutes. 

Depending on fitness and training level repeat or use as a pyramid. Those training for a sprint race might do fewer repeats, but the level of race pace effort should be much higher. 

Cool Down: ~15 minutes easy riding with a focus on good form and smooth pedal strokes.


Now saddle-up & get after it; we'll see ya out there!
~ Coach Blair

Workout Wednesday: Swim Technique & Drills by Coach Staci Bronson

8/7/2019

 
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This week’s S W I M workout comes from Best In The West’s very own RD, Staci Bronson. 

Speed in the water doesn’t always come from yards upon yards. Technique is paramount to a smooth, effortless stroke. The less bubbles, splashing and the more you can focus your power on forward motion, the faster you’ll become - even at the same level of fitness.

Today we bring you a swim workout that has a lot of drills mixed in. Doing drills throughout one of your swim workouts each week can help maintain your form, even at the end of a swim when you are starting to get tired.

This workout will take you longer than the same distance on a speed work day because drills aren’t fast. Focus on excellent form and using the drill to help improve your arm/leg/head position and not on how fast you do a lap. With that, there are no sendoff times or goal times.
This week, we will focus on your stroke and leave the kick out of it. If you have a pull buoy handy, this will help keep you streamline (your legs up) while allowing you to focus on your arms.

Warm Up
200 yards normal swim.
100 yards fast - work out the kinks

Main Set
5x 200 yards - 50 drill, 50 focus
(For a longer workout, 2 x through)

Each 200, choose one drill. During the drill 50, try to get the drill perfect. Don’t go for speed. On the next 50, go back to a normal swim speed but focus on the part the drill was trying to correct. Return to the drill and repeat. Then move on to the next drill. 

Drill 1 - Catch Up
This one is for glide. Leave your arm out and gliding until your other arm comes around and enters the water. Before initiating the pull, both arms should be out in front of you. 

Drill 2 - Eyes up entry
Look up. Look at your hand entering the water, look at where it enters and where it is going. Crossing over - Does your hand cross the center line? It shouldn’t. If you see it crossing over, try to correct and get it to make a straight line from point of entry to the wall in front of you. Crossing over slows you down. Depth - Does it stay at the top of the water? Does it go all the way down below you? The ideal depth is right around one foot to 18”.

Drill 3 - Bubble Free Entry
Try to get your hand and arm in the water without any bubbles. This one is for a smooth entry. Lift your head position slightly and watch your hand come in the water. If you do get bubbles, glide them away before starting your other hand. You can image there is a circle about a foot from the top of your head that you have to slide your entire hand and arm through in order to get in free of bubbles. 

Drill 4 - Wrist, Elbow, Pull
Segmented stroke. Many people have a straight arm stroke. For this drill, we really segment the stroke to try and get you to a better arm position. Start at the pool edge. Place your hands on the gutter and push yourself up out of the pool. Notice where you put your hands for the most strength. Notice the bend in your elbows. This is a similar position to what we want underwater. You want to push the water back behind you. At the end of the glide, bend your wrist. Get it to 90°. Next, bend your elbow. Get it to 90°. Now start your pull and keep your forearm and hand parallel to the back wall until your hip. Bring it around and then start the other side. When you first try this drill, there can be some sinking. Grab a pull buoy so you can go nice and slow. Your wrist starts at 90° flexed but ends completely extended if you are keeping that hand parallel to the wall all the way through.

Drill 5 - Fist Swimming
Close your hand into a fist, nice and tight. Swimming without the surface area of your hand will force you to use your forearm to move forward in the water. Turns out, your forearm has a lot more surface area than your hand. Remember to get a good 90° elbow bend like you just practiced with drill 4.

There are many more drills you can incorporate into your routine, have a look online for more.

100 yards fast - try to un-segment and swim with great form.
​

Cool Down
100-200 easy with EXCELLENT form.




Threshold Thursday: Core Strength Training Program From Taz

7/24/2019

 
The Core Strength Training program shown below is what I have personally been doing for my triathlon weight training for the past 10 years. The exercises shown work on developing your core muscles. The training is broken into 4 segments that are done over a 6 month training cycle. Find a gym with an adjustable cable weight machine and follow the descriptions and photos for your Core Strength Training Program.
ENDURANCE PHASE
6 weeks - 2 x per week
light weight
20-30 reps
1st wk - 1 set
2nd wk - 2 sets
3rd - 6th wk - 3 sets
30 sec rest betw sets
STRENGTH PHASE
6 weeks - 2 x per week
increase weights per set
3 sets
set 1 - 15 reps
set 2 - 12 reps
set 3 - 8 reps (to exhaustion)
90 - 120 sec rest betw sets
MUSCULAR ENDURANCE PHASE
8 weeks - 2 x per week
moderate weights
3 sets
15 reps
30 - 45 sec rest betw sets
MAINTENANCE PHASE
6 weeks - 1 x per week
moderate to heavy weights
2 sets
15 reps
​30 - 45 sec rest betw sets
D1 Extension
front foot forward
toe toward weights
rock to back foot while pulling with opposite hand beginning palm up and finish at hip palm down
finish toward floor
keep shoulder back
Single Arm Lat Pull - High
front foot forward
toe toward weights
back foot for balance 
front leg bent 90 degree at knee
pull with opposite hand while rising and twisting  
minimal rise from high position
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Single Arm Lat Pull - Horizontal
​front foot forward
toe toward weights
back foot for balance 
front leg bent 90 degree at knee
pull with opposite hand while rising and twisting  
full rise from horizontal position

Single Arm Lat Pull - Low
front foot forward

toe toward weights
back foot for balance 
front leg bent 90 degree at knee
pull with opposite hand while rising and twisting  
full rise from low position
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Extension Rotation
stand perpendicular to weights feet slightly toed out 
hold handle with outside hand first
pull with outside hand & push with inside hand
cross close to body
rotate head while crossing
pull up & across body while rising from squat position

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​
Flexion Rotation
stand perpendicular to weights feet slightly toed out 
hold handle with outside hand first
pull with outside hand & push with inside hand
cross close to body
rotate head while crossing
pull down & across body to inside of opposite knee while lowering to squat position
Horizontal Rotation
stand perpendicular to weights feet slightly toed out 
hold handle with outside hand first
pull with outside hand & push with inside hand
cross close to body
rotate head while crossing
pull across body from a standing position
​legs slightly bent
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Workout Wednesday: Running Strides from Coach Taz

7/17/2019

 
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This is a great early season run to develop power without going too hard for too long in the beginning stages of your training. The total distance and number of repetitions can be modified to fit your endurance level. Happy running!

40 minutes total run time
 
Run at a steady moderately-high foundation pace (high Zone 2) for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes run a 20 second relaxed sprint at speed intensity (Zone 5 or fastest pace you can hold for 1:00 - 1:30) then slow down and run 40 seconds active recovery (Zone 1). Repeat for 6 intervals (or adjust to fit your endurance level). After you have completed your sprints, run for approximately 5 more minutes at Zone 1 recovery pace for a total running time of approximately 40 minutes.
 
Thanks to Coach Taz of T3 Coaching for this workout!

Workout Wednesday: Bike Ride with Short Hill Climbs

7/10/2019

 
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This is a great early (or mid) season ride to develop power without going too hard for too long in the beginning stages of your training. The total distance and number of repetitions can be modified to fit your endurance level.

75 minutes total ride time

Ride at foundation pace (zone 2) for approximately 30 minutes to your favorite hill. The hill should have a moderate grade (4 – 6%). Perform 8 x 60 second short climbing intervals done in an efficient gear for climbing quickly. You should climb hard and fast enough to just push into Zone 5. Recover between intervals by coasting back down the hill and pedaling easily for two minutes of active recovery. Then repeat for the number of intervals indicated. After you have completed your climbs, ride home at Foundation pace for a total riding time of approximately 75 minutes.

Thank you to Coach Taz of T3 Coaching for this workout!

Workout Wednesday: Swimming with Coach Taz

7/3/2019

 
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This swim workout comes from Coach Taz, who coaches the OSU Triathlon Team swim practices 3 times a week, every week, no matter what!

This type of a set helps you with your pacing and build endurance by using the 100’s as active recovery from the fast half of the longer negative splits. This workout is perfect for swimmers at any level, as there are send off times for a variety of paces. 

All of the times in the main set correspond to the 100 yard send off times at the top of each column. If you can swim a 100 yards at a moderate, steady pace in 1:30 then you should use the times in the 1:40 column giving you approximately 10 seconds rest per 100. Choose you send off column based on that formula.
 
Swim the 100’s at a moderate, steady pace (en1) and really work the second half of the longer negative splits (NS).

Warmup:
 
4 x (125 free/25 back)                                                            4 x (100 free/25 back)
 
600                                                                                                                     500
 
Main Set:
                                     1:25        1:30        1:40        1:50        2:00
3 x 100 en1                 1:25        1:30        1:40        1:50        2:00 - 1 x
1 x 200 NS                  2:50        3:00        3:20        3:40        4:00 - 1 x
3 x 100 en1                 1:25        1:30        1:40        1:50        2:00 - 1 x
1 x 300 NS                  4:15        4:30        5:00        5:30        6:00 - 1 x
3 x 100 en1                 1:25        1:30        1:40        1:50        2:00 - 1 x
1 x 400 NS                  5:40        6:00        6:40        7:20        8:00 - 1 x
3 x 100 en1                 1:25        1:30        1:40        1:50        2:00 - 1 x
1 x 500 NS                  7:05        7:30        8:20        9:10       10:00 - 1 x
 
 
Total : 3200                                                                            1800
 
Cool Down:
 
200 EZ                                                                                    200 EZ
 
Total: 3400 yards total                                                         2000 yards total
 

Workout Wednesday: Run From Rogue Tri Performance

6/26/2019

 
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This is a great workout to add some discomfort into your program. It helps the body and mind get used to running at higher intensities with shorter rests.
 
Training at higher intensities provides the physiological stress needed for increased mitochondrial biogenesis. In short, this helps build more mitochondria (the powerhouse of the cell). More mitochondria means you can produce more energy and process the byproducts of metabolism, even at higher intensities. This allows you to race faster. Plus, these workouts are tough mentally which will help prepare you for race day.
 
Adjust the times according to your race distance and increase the times as you progress.
 
If you don’t already know your threshold pace, you can do this workout at an 8 out of 10 on the rating of perceived exertion (RPE) scale.
 
Warm-up:
  • 15 min including 400m jog and mobility drills:
  • Lunge Circle / Fire Hydrants / Donkey Kicks / Lateral Leg Swings / ABC Skips
 
Main Set:
  • 1 minute above threshold pace (zone 3/4)
  • 2 minutes aerobic pace
  • 1.5 minutes above threshold pace
  • 1.5 minutes aerobic pace
  • 2 minutes above threshold pace
  • 1 minute aerobic pace
  • 2.5 minutes above threshold pace
  • 30 seconds aerobic pace
 
Repeat for desired miles or time
 
Cool-down:
10min stretching/foam rolling

Thank you to Rogue Tri Performance for this workout. Check out their website!

Workout Wednesday: Strength from Rogue Tri Performance

6/19/2019

 
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This is a strength workout you can include into your training almost anytime of the year. Having a strength program integrated into your triathlon specific training plan can help keep injuries away, recovery faster, increase strength which will help you become faster. As I tell my athletes whether they are beginners or advance “in order to become faster you must first become stronger”
 
The warm up should be done with full range of motion and a steady pace. Do not rush through the warm up but if you are lacking time do at least 4 of the mobility drills and ease into your main sets.

WU:
Each movement is 10 reps each side (if pliable) and the WU should be done 2x.

  • Wall Angels
  • Iron Cross
  • Plank to Squat
  • Quadratic T-Spine Rotation
  • Lunge Circle (each leg)
  • I T Y Shoulder mobility (hold each pose for 2 seconds)

MS: 
Power:
40sec rest between sets / 2min between rounds.
  • 4 x 5 Box Jumps 
  • 3 x 8 Medicine Ball Toss - This is to be done against a wall. Catch the ball in a 1/4 squat position then throw the ball up against the wall. This is to be a fast movement.
 
Strength:
  • 90 sec between sets / 3min between rounds.
  • 3 x 8 Box Back Squats - Set a box behind you so you hit the box when your legs are parallel. Drive through your heels, keep your chest up and core tight to prevent your back from rounding.
  • 3 x Max Pull Ups (assisted w bands if needed)
  • 3 x 10 Kneeling (lunge stance) 1 Arm Shoulder Press - If your left knee is touching the ground, the weight you are pressing should be in your left hand also. This helps with instability so make sure to keep your core tight and torso upright. Limit lower back extension.
 
Accessory:
30sec rest between sets / 2min between rounds
  • 2 x 10 Barbell RDL
  • 2 x 10 Staggered Stance One Arm Row (cable or band)
 
Core:
30sec rest between sets / 2min between rounds
  • 2 x 12 Barbell Roll Out
  • 2 x 20 Russian Twist w medicine ball
  • 2 x 14 Superman/Superwoman
 
CD:
10min light static stretching & foam rolling. Hydrate and refuel your body with nutrient dense foods. 

Thank you to Rogue Tri Performance for the strength workout! 
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