Unless you have been very fortunate, your body has rebelled against your athletic endeavors. When this happens, you will often hear me talk about visiting a good physiotherapist to get checked out.

They are the experts and can make athletics more enjoyable by helping you build a strong foundation or by addressing problem areas.

Wendy, Nadine and Nadine at Form Physiotherapy have been my go-to team for several years now. They have graciously provided the following list of reasons to visit a physiotherapist:

Starting a New Exercise Program?
Picking a New Activity Goal?

4 Reasons to Have a Physiotherapy Assessment
1. You are post natal and want to return to your fitness plan. Find out how stable you body is and how ready you are to return to a pre-pregnancy fitness regime; most importantly be certain you know how to selectively contract the muscles that make up the “inner unit” of your core.

2. You are an ‘aging’ athlete: find out how muscle length, muscle mass, balance, and function can be improved/maintained/maximized given your past history and current fitness levels.

3. You are making substantial changes in your fitness plan or goals, an assessment can help provide some guidelines to help you enjoy the process injury-free.

4. If you have always been ‘hand-cuffed’ by pesky overuse injuries that have marred previous fitness/goal attempts. Ignoring symptoms in the early days of a fitness program can cause goals to be aborted/altered excessively, later on.

A full assessment, treatment plan and home exercise regime can be offered in a 60 minute appointment. In order to book this online, simply make two consecutive 30 minute appointments, for example: 10:00 and 10:30. Please visit our website at www.formphysiotherapy.com to book an appointment or to learn more about our practise.

So, you call yourself a triathlete. Why? Because you swim bike and run? There’s more! In this article, I’m going to give you a few pointers on being more than a triathlete. In fact, I’m going to show you how to be Superman (or Superwoman if you prefer). You see, in the beginning, we are just a bunch of Clark Kents. What does Clark need to become Superman? That’s right, a phone booth.

I’d like you all to become acquainted with your own personal phone booth called transition. Specifically, we’ll be looking first at T1 and then at T2.

First, a note on how to move quickly. You want to move in an efficient manner, more so than in a hurried manner. Knowing what you plan to do ahead of time and being organized will allow you to have confidence in your transitions. Preparation = Confidence. Confidence = Efficiency. Efficiency = Speed.

It seems to me that the theme of the swim-to-bike transition at most triathlons is “Where the heck am I?” You see people doing full stops and looking around as they exit the water. This is not the makings of a fast transition. My take on this is that you have just been horizontal for a significant amount of time, with blood pumping to your arms which are doing most of the work. Suddenly, you are vertical, with blood trying to get to your legs since you are up on them. Also, your system is trying to thermo-regulate after being in a different environment. Add to this that you have been turning yourself from side to side and you may feel a little dizzy or out of sorts.

T1 starts before the exit. Don’t blast toward shore, but rather keep the pace steady. Swim until you are touching the bottom with your hands. Just before you stand, pull the neck of your wetsuit open a bit at the front and let in some water. Then as you stand and run those last steps out of the water, you can unzip your suit and the extra water will aid in pulling off the suit. Lift your feet out of the water rather than dragging them through as you exit the water. Make your way efficiently to the wetsuit strippers or to transition. You can easily have the top of your wetsuit off while moving toward transition. It may be faster to pull the bottom off at your bike and skip the wetsuit strippers. Your choice. You don’t need to run unless it is safe to do so. Fast walking is good too, but keep moving.

Keep T1 as simple as possible. Wetsuit off, helmet on, sunglasses on, un-rack bike. Move efficiently out of transition.

A note on footwear. Socks on the bike are personal preference as are shoes-on-the-bike or shoes-on-your-feet. For socks, roll them up so that they are easy to pull on. For shoes-on-the-bike, only if you have practiced in training. It is a good idea to use elastic bands to hold the shoes horizontal on the crankarms if you plan on going that route. Again practice this in training.

On to T2

It is with great fondness that I recall my first attempt at running off the bike in my first duathlon. I’m quite sure I made every mistake imaginable. I had never tried it in practice. I tried to run as fast as I could right away and I nearly fell over as I started to see moiré patterns in front of my eyes from lack of oxygen. Then I slowed down and suffered with legs of concrete for most of the run. Sounds fun, doesn’t it?

My first pointer is to practice. The best way to get used to the feeling of running after biking is to try it a few times. The simple act of having done something before makes it easier to repeat in a race situation. Athletes I coach will see these workouts in their schedule. That’s right – BRICK workouts. Bike/Run/ICK.

Next is stretching. The run should start in your mind while you are still riding. Don’t leave everything you have on the bike course. Notch back the effort a little so you don’t arrive completely beat for the run. Within the last kilometer of the bike leg, get out of your saddle and stretch out your hip flexors. An easy way to do this is to stand with one leg at the bottom of the pedal stroke and the other at the top and move your pelvis forward. Switch legs and repeat. This will help prevent some discomfort when you get off your bike and try to run.

When you do get off your bike, be quick and efficient in transition, but don’t rush. There’s a big difference between fumbling around with your shoes and clothes in a mad rush versus quickly and methodically making the change. Practice this as well during your BRICK sessions. You can also try leaving the shoes on the pedals and doing the “speeding bullet” transition. Remember to practice this before doing it in a race.

I like to have my hat and anything else I want for the run all wrapped up. I just start the run with this in my hand and organize it while I’m running.

As you begin to run, your brain has been accustomed to going bike speed and will attempt to imitate this speed while running. Now unless you are an exceptionally fast runner, it is unlikely this will work out well. Force yourself to run comfortably even if it feels slow. You are moving faster than you think.

Each person will adapt at his or her own rate, but very shortly, your legs will feel less weird and the blood in your body will have redistributed itself to where it is needed. You’ll be running happily, red cape flowing in the wind.

Try these suggestions out in practice and let me know if you have any questions (or tips) that are specific to you.

Preparation = Confidence. Confidence = Efficiency. Efficiency = Speed.

Why do we train?
To gain physical and mental benefits.
To get stronger.
To get faster.

All this requires something called “progressive overload.” Simply put, we slowly introduce more volume and intensity so that our muscles will respond by getting stronger and more accustomed to our efforts. Then we repeat the cycle, hoping to coax more out of our bodies.

As endurance athletes, the volume of training can get quite significant. Our competitive nature has us bumping up the intensity fairly regularly as well. All this can end with us feeling “wasted.” Since we are often more fit than our average couch potato friends, it is tempting to think we are somehow super-human. I have news…we are not!

The fact that we often lose sight of is that exercise breaks muscle fibres down so that they can be rebuilt to deal with the extra demand we are placing them under. That rebuilding takes place after the exercise is finished. This time should be treated as top priority if we want to realize the gains we’ve worked so hard for. There are three areas I think are important to concentrate on here so that training is not “wasted”:

Rest – Sleep and time away from training need to be a priority. Be honest with yourself and your sleep needs. If you are constantly tired, try to find a way to schedule more rest. You may find you need even more sleep as the volume and intensity increase.

Nutrition – Stay hydrated. We’ve all been guilty of going for coffee when we should be drinking water, juice or sports drink after a workout. The same goes for nutrition. Find out your recommended intake from a nutritionist or knowledgeable coach. In a nutshell, endurance athletes need more carbohydrates than sedentary people, among other nutritional considerations. Try to find quality food that is less processed wherever possible. Start with Canada’s Food Guide (see link on the right).

Self-help – If you are able to, get massage for those sore muscles. There are also self-therapy ideas you can try. Elevating your legs after a bike ride or run. Wearing compression socks after long runs. Ten minutes in a cold water bathtub after a run. These can all help speed recovery and have you feeling ready for your next workout.

I’d like to leave you with a challenge: Get a logbook and each day, rate your rest, nutrition and self-help on a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being best). A little awareness will help develop good habits of taking care of yourself.

When preparing for an event, there is no replacement for the physical preparation in the preceding months. You do the best you can in this time to be prepared. Sure, you miss the odd workout for one reason or another, but generally speaking, the work is done and you are ready.

So why is it that in the days immediately before the event, doubts about our fitness and ability begin to show themselves? It’s called “fear of failure”. We’ve spent so much energy in gearing up that we now are afraid it might all fall apart and we will either not finish or be much slower than expected. Enter the Head Games.

Head Game #1 – Use imagery. I know, this sounds kind of flaky to some of you but trust me it works. In the days before the race, imagine the finish line and how elated you are as you cross it. See an image of yourself running comfortable and strong. It is helpful to form this image on a training run when you are feeling strong. Soak up that feeling so you can bring it back to your mind when you need it. During the race, when you’re hurting or doubting yourself, bring back those mental images.

Head Game #2 – Talk to yourself (Try not to answer yourself or they may lock you up). Self-talk is a great way to get yourself in a positive vibe. “I WILL finish”, I AM strong”; whatever works for you. I recall someone once told me to repeat “breathe in strength; breathe out fear”. I thought it sounded stupid, but it made me laugh enough to get me thinking positive thoughts anyway.

Head Game #3 – The Grim Reaper. This game is especially fun. The rules are that anyone who passes you is inconsequential. Anyone you pass is considered another head for the Grim Reaper (that’s you). Count heads as you pass people since it makes you feel so fast each time you do.

Head Game #4 – Smiley Gloves. As seen in the photo above, I sometimes race with a pair of gloves that have a smiley face on the back of the hand. When I feel lousy, I look at them and force myself to smile or say something nice to a volunteer or someone who is cheering. You can use anything you like to remind you to “get happy”, a ribbon, a hat, whatever. If you fake a smile or say something kind, it’s hard not to feel a little better.

You can even try a combo of the Head Games. For instance, use #2 and #3 and repeat, “I am the Grim Reaper” as you pass people. Try not to let anyone hear you.

There are numerous reasons why someone would choose to be more active. For some it is to lose some weight. Others may have friends who are into a sport like running and they’d like to give it a try. Whatever your reason for getting started, I want to talk about ways to keep at it and keep improving.

As a kid, I loved to run. For me, it was all about the competition. During gym class when we had to run outdoors, I would try to be the fastest. I didn’t often succeed, but I sure tried hard. This continued until high school where my circle of friends informed me that athletics weren’t very cool. If I wanted to be cool, I should smoke cigarettes and drive a cool car, so I did. I thought I was the Fonz or James Dean or something. I even had the black leather jacket. Once school was done and I entered the working world, I worked in the restaurant industry. Long hours, lots of cigarettes and now the addition of rich food and world-class wine. For a few years, I enjoyed what I thought was the good life.

It was during this time that I began to notice more of my friends and relatives developing heart disease, diabetes and a host of other ailments, many caused by “the good life”. It became very clear to me that if I didn’t change my lifestyle, I would be heading down this same path. So about fifteen years ago, I started making changes. I cut back on the rich food and alcohol. I stopped smoking. I started running.

Have I faithfully exercised every week since then? No. Have I eaten perfect meals every day? Of course not, but what I’ve managed to do through the advice of others and a lot of trial and error is gain a balanced lifestyle.

So what is a balanced lifestyle? Well it starts with a step in the right direction. You all have taken that step by signing up to train for a goal event. For that, you all deserve credit. What comes next is crucial in achieving balance.

It starts with something I call A.S.A.P. Appointments, Small Steps, Appreciation and People.

Appointments – Some people employ a personal trainer or coach, because they know the trainer is expecting them to show up on certain days at certain times. The trainer designs an appropriate program for them, but beyond that, they know someone is checking up on them. My wife, when she first began her running career, hired a personal trainer. She admits to being a naturally lazy person when it comes to exercise. So she hired a personal trainer and met with him twice a week. She knew he would expect her to be there and to have done her homework. In time, she was into a routine and didn’t feel she needed a trainer. She had developed new habits that she was able to stick with. You could accomplish a similar effect by promising to meet a friend or co-worker for a run on a certain day every week. They are expecting you and you are expecting them. That’s an appointment worth making.

Small steps – Once I tried abruptly switching to nothing but undressed chicken breast, unbuttered vegetables and brown rice. I wanted to eat perfect meals. It lasted about three days. Then I tried an approach that has actually worked. I took small steps with my diet. I printed a copy of the food guide for Canada. I started with eating a couple pieces of fruit a day. Once I was used to that, I increased a serving of something I should be eating and decreased something I shouldn’t be eating. I changed slowly over a few weeks. I allow myself occasional treats. I enjoy food and I try to eat well eighty percent of the time. I’m still making minor modifications all the time, but the bottom line is, I’m balancing my food lifestyle, not dieting. The same goes for how far and how fast you run. I lined up for my first Ironman triathlon in 2002 having trained appropriately and feeling ready for the distance. For those who don’t know, Ironman is a 4-kilometer swim, followed by a 180-kilometer bike and then a full marathon. I met someone before the race who had never done an Ironman. He hadn’t even done a triathlon before. He said he hadn’t trained all that much, but he was signed up and was going to “give it a shot”. I only hope he actually knew how to swim. He would be a good example of too large a leap. So remember, small steps.

Appreciation – Running is an enjoyable thing to do if you let yourself enjoy it. Several years ago, a friend of mine, worried that I was working too hard, told me I should “stop and smell the coffee”. I think she meant roses, but I actually like coffee too so what the heck. Her point is a good one. We live in a beautiful city with countless scenic running routes. Enjoy them all. Plan coffee shop runs with your friends where you end up at a café for a post-run treat. Stop in the middle of a run to look at the scenery. We always seem to stop only when we are near a bathroom. Next time, stop in the middle of the Lion’s Gate Bridge for two minutes (don’t do this in your car). It’s a gorgeous view. Appreciate it.

People – Surround yourself with people of like mind. Is there someone at work who also runs? Seek them out and maybe you two can run together. Socialize with people who are also athletes. Encourage your family to stay fit. Join a running club. Find out about what group runs your local running store offers. These are all ways to surround yourself with people who will encourage you and inspire you to stick with a healthy lifestyle. These same people will congratulate you and share in your joy as you accomplish all your fitness goals.

So live a balanced lifestyle. You need to do this ASAP.