Changing the rules of the game – become a better athlete
Here Coach Philip discusses how viewing lockdowns, limits on training stresses and intensities as ‘control’ is only going to lead to pushing back against the rules and trying to do what you have always done. Instead, view these new boundaries as a challenge and an opportunity, and suddenly, you can see that you are learning and developing far quicker as an athlete than ever before. Yes, there is a change in the landscape; yes, there is a change in the rules; yes, there is a change in the attitude we need to adopt. However, there is no reason to change the approach of deliberate and diligent practice seeking better versions of ourselves.
The COVID-19 situation is clearly terrible and challenging. However, as someone who enjoys learning, I have been interested in reviewing why it is that some people are coping better with this sudden change to the world they know. As a collective coaching team, we have spoken a lot about re-framing and setting new goals to help people code and adapt at this time. As a business, we have made it very clear that we should avoid over-reaching fitness at this stage due to the increased and the severity of the risk to athletes. Doing anything else is irresponsible.
We have begun to explain this concept to athletes by using the analogy of ‘a field of play’. This concept is helping our athletes obtain and use a growth mindset in this challenging situation and helping them grow as an athlete while others are deciding to ignore advice on protecting their immune systems and ‘smashing’ themselves. If we take this concept of playing our sport in a defined pitch of field of play, all that has happened is that suddenly the rules have been changed, or the space available to play in has been reduced. We reveal two sorts of athletes: those who don’t see this as an opportunity and continue to bludgeon on with the same fixed mindset: ‘more is better’ and generally have an air of invincibility about themselves. Then we have the smart athlete. The smart athlete starts to evolve and work better with what they have got, they grow and develop.
In sports coaching, many skills require a technique to progress and develop. When coaching, we can use four variables, or resources to make an activity simpler or harder to aid in developing the athlete’s skill set: Space, Task, Equipment and People.
For example, let’s take the triathlon skill of mounting a bike. We may teach athletes how to do this in an open car park or tennis court – a safe environment. Once taught the basic method to challenge them further, we ask them to do it from the other side of the bike (task). Then we get them to run side by side with someone else (increasing the number of people) then we may reduce the width of the mount line (space). Then, we may ask them to do it using someone else’ bike (equipment). With each of those variations or progressions, we have made the task harder and improved the participant’s skill set by challenging them. Their skillset has evolved.
Brazilian footballers famously develop their skills with the sport of Futsal using a heavier, less manoeuvrable ball. Eddie Jones had his full-backs and wingers catching rugby balls which had been covered in washing up liquid to improve their catching skills. Golfers will choose a very specific target to land the ball on. Suddenly missing an umbrella from 100yards away means missing the green is less likely. In each of these cases, we see that by challenging the participant to improve a skill, they end up finding the final required skill more natural. Finding space in a crowded football field is hard means finding space in a full-sized pitch becomes effortless. In none of the examples above was the answer ‘do more’.
If we take the above example of mounting the bike, now, in a race, they are accustomed to mounting in a crowded, tight mount line and it doesn’t matter which side they jump on.
Back to how this relates to the pandemic, lockdown and our sport. Guidance is clear that excessive exercise (the sort of which that will provide typical overload) is unsafe. So, we have changed the rules. Suddenly, the boundary (this is especially pertinent when you think of the intensity of training) of what we can do has shrunk. We no longer want to be spending time extending fitness at the extremes of our endurance or seeking time trial and personal best results at intensive levels.
Interestingly, we can take the same principles of training we have used before, but we are challenging ourselves to improve our skills. At other times, it may be ideal to ride three century rides a week to help build endurance. However, work got in the way, so we use different methods to get a fitness result that is comparable or effective. In this instance, work has, for many people, been removed. However, we have new rules to play by. Instead of spending time trying to challenge these new rules, why not spend the time challenging ourselves? It looks like we will have many weeks of this. We will probably have longer until racing can take place, so, for now, what can we do better than before? How can we challenge ourselves?
From a triathlete’s perspective, there are so many useful things one can do and work on and track within these new boundaries. For example: Improve our efficiency factor, point of aerobic decoupling (where the HR required to sustain a given power or pace suddenly increases), technical cues on the bike, swimming or cycling, or holding the aero position. The list is extensive even before mentioning all the strength, conditioning and prehabilitation work that we can do to become a stronger and more resilient athlete. Change the focus and see the opportunity for appropriate challenge.
However, the most significant challenge at the moment is to our coaching and athletic mindset. How do we cope with change, how resilient are we, how reliant are we on ‘training’ do we have a healthy relationship with our sport? Are we self-determined athletes or are we reliant on social media and social verification and validation of our actions? There is a lot of value on becoming a better athlete by working on ‘athlete skills’. If an athlete is someone who relies on social media, ‘big miles’ and thumbs up to determine how well their session went, how can we help that athlete to become less reliant on bragging to sustain their identity and self-worth? How can we make them more resilient to change and challenge? How can they become self-actuated, independent, intrinsically motivated learners who are empowered by and engaged in their athletic journey? How can they build an understanding that the game they used to play has changed and has a new set of rules? How can we help them flourish in this new field of play?
Inevitably triathletes have a vast list of what they want to do to get better; they love training hard and long, they dislike training smart. Triathletes in general love the bragging right of the number of miles swum, biked, or run, to tell you tales of when things go so hard, but they bravely soldiered on. Perhaps, now is the time to remove the shackles of pride and focus on the small things that make a big difference. Albert Einstein said the definition of insanity is repeatedly doing the same thing expecting a different result. All too often in endurance sport, the next race is round the corner, so we are forced into following the same trodden path of building for the next event. We have been given the gift of time and breathing space. Let’s use it to improve our skills and athletic potential at a time when otherwise we would be expecting a different result with the same tactics. Now let’s use this time to become the athletic version of ourselves we deep down believe we can be. Now let’s take on this new challenge.
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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.