Why a body composition change isn't just part of December, but is necessary
Here coach Philip discusses why he wants to see a relaxation in his athletes before they restart the next season. Training continually is stressful; if you don't recover adequately from it, how will you be ready for the next season?
Body composition is probably one of the hidden distractions of endurance sports. I remember racing at the World Championships in Kona one year and looking around me thinking that pretty much everyone I saw looked like an infinitely better athlete than I was. I had never even thought about body image before, let alone allowed myself to be distracted or have negative thoughts around it. Yet, given my overall final position, the perception that "everyone looked better than me" was proven to be substantially a fallacy when it came to actual performance (I was certainly closer to the top 15% than the last 15%).
Therefore, body composition is a discrete distraction that may affect nearly all of us.
In a sport where we spend most of our time in lycra or neoprene, triathletes will be very aware of how they look. Furthermore, (it may be an incorrect conjecture, but) they will be mindful of how they compare to the peers they are around and certainly to social media accounts. This judgment leads us to an unrealistic expectation of what you need to look like to be a successful triathlete. The reality is that triathletes come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and the adaptions we see are as a result of their performance aims, not of how they want to look.
As we approach the traditional off-season; we hear the same old stories about putting on loads of weight in December, and struggling to fit into their wetsuits in spring. Which highlights just how in tune people are about their body composition. (To the wetsuit point, my wife managed to continue through to about 7.5 months into pregnancy in the same wetsuit she won races in only a few months before. I struggle to believe that the weight gains that most people are talking about reflect the truly fascinating body morphology that pregnancy can do!)
Why is a body composition change necessary over winter?
As a coach, unless the athlete is explicitly targeting weight-loss through body composition change, I want to see an increase in fat percentage: which may lead to a perceived shift in body composition or even a slight increase in weight. This may sound counter-intuitive where we know that leaner usually means faster, but this goes beyond performance, this looks at health.
Spending a prolonged time at lower body-fat percentages or at the leaner end can result in a decrease in health, which undermines any performance gains. Essential fats protect your organs and joints from damage as well as act as a source of fuel and keep you warm. Fat also acts as a chemical communicator to enable normal body functions. If you sustain low body fat percentages for a long time, you see changes akin to over-training as well as a reduced immune response.
It also takes some discipline to sustain leanness both in training and in eating habits, I want to see my athletes enjoying an off-season and decompressing. This will mean a slight break from habits and routine, which is healthy and relaxes the mind as well as the body. It also shows a little looseness to the rules and discipline. If typically, we work in the season to 80% being a performance focussed decision, that may flip and be only 20% for performance, and 80% "letting your hair down". This shift may be a subtle change or, it may be reasonably significant; it depends how hard your season was and how far you extended. When you restart training, you will bounce back to training you, but it provides you with a buffer to get through the winter, which will be much needed. Finally, a carrying little bit of extra weight now will mean you end up training a little harder and make the shift into peak training seem even better, which can only be a beneficial outcome!
Therefore, as a coach, that change in body composition is necessary because it shows the athlete has relaxed, and not been too focussed on training related "things" and will be more focussed and ready to take on the next year.
About the Author
Philip Hatzis
Philip is the founder of Tri Training Harder LLP. He’s a British Triathlon Level 3 coach, and has been coaching for over a decade and is involved with mentoring and developing other coaches.
Philip has have coached athletes to European and World AG wins, elite racing, many Kona qualifications, IRONMAN podiums and AG wins. See his coaching profile here.
We’re here to help
Tri Training Harder are one of the leading Triathlon coaching providers in the UK, using our wealth of experience to unite scientific and technological research with already well-established and successful best practices, to create a formula for triathlon and endurance coaching that works.
The result is an honest, dynamic, yet simple new way of constructing an athlete’s training to allow them to reach their potential.
If you’re planning your next season, just starting out in the sport or are looking for extra guidance at the very top end of the field, we are here to help, and our coaches would be delighted to hear from you. You can contact us via the website, and one of the team will be in touch.