Tri Talk Triathlon Podcast

The audio for this podcast can be found here.

The Triathlete Coefficient of Determination can be found here.

The Triathlete’s Coefficient of Determination, and is a high max heart rate good, or bad? It could be the best Tri Talk episode ever! Will it live up to the hype? Let’s find out, today on Tri Talk.

Welcome to Tri Talk your podcast source for triathlon tips, training, news and more. Notable new listeners come from Albania and New Zealand. In Albania, thanks for pointing out that Eric Schwartz, the former US National Duathlon Champion and occasional Tri Talk host, is not 38 years old as he claimed, but in fact 37. Why someone would lie about being older than they really are is beyond me. In New Zealand, I’m begging you, begging you! Please send me some warm weather. Just take a box, open it up to the sunshine for a few minutes, and mail it to me. My goal at Tri Talk is to help you swim, bike, and run faster, to meet your personal triathlon goals. Whether you are an elite or amateur triathlete, we cover sprint distance to Ironman distance. I’m your host, David Warden, and this is Tri Talk Episode 58.

There is quite a bit of pressure today for me to live up to the teaser best Tri Talk episode ever. But let me put it this way: I have never been more excited about presenting a topic on Tri Talk than I am today. I’ll be sharing some information that has been in the works for nearly a year, and tell you all about the Triathlete’s Coefficient of Determination. Plus, is a high heart rate good or bad? Or, is their such a thing as an optimal heart rate, and can you do anything about it. This is an interesting topic and we’ll spend a few minutes on that at the end of the show.

You can send in your questions and comments to david@tri-talk.com, or visit the website at www.tri-talk.com to take advantage of the episode transcripts, videos, forums, or free resources like the Tri Talk Top 20 and the advanced nutrition calculator. Or maybe just stop by the website to see what the heck I look like.

Episode 57 generated some good feedback on the Tri Talk forums. In that episode I suggested that since a study concluded that cyclists had larger hearts than runners, and since larger hearts also were highly correlated to a high VO2max, that perhaps cycling would help to increase your VO2max, via a larger heart size. The user Mad Dog on the Tri Talk Forums pointed out:

“I think there may be a problem with a conclusion you made in the latest episode. Cyclists have larger hearts than runners, larger hearts translates greater VO2 max. Okay so far. But that doesn’t mean that cycling made their hearts larger. Couldn’t it be that cyclists who have succeeded in their sport had larger hearts to begin with and that those who didn’t, didn’t go on to become well-trained cyclists.”

Mad Dog is, of course absolutely right. My suggestion that cycling created the large heart is incorrect logic, because the cyclist could have become a cyclist in the first place because they had a large hear to begin with.

The user Chris on the forums also wrote in on this same topic, reminding us that:

“Optimum cadence on the bike is 80 to 90 rpms, optimum stride rate (running) is about the same. …it’s easer to train for a fast leg turnover on the bike than it is performing speed work. If the cyclist trains and races in the 80 to 90 rpm range then, not just his legs, but his whole body is accustomed to this motion i.e. cardiovascular and respiratory… As a way of cross training, you place him on a bike and have him paddle at a high rpm using light gearing and he will be able to maintain that cadence for a much longer period of time… Speed work is very important for a runner but cycling is an effective cross training method for developing leg speed.”

Thanks for your thoughts, Chris. This is just a sampling of the content out on the Tri Talk forums. You can have your question answered by myself or one of our power forums users like RunDougRun, Nate, and Coach Cummings. Not only that, but since the Tri Talk forums only has a few hundred active users, that display name you always wanted is waiting there for you. You know the one you wanted, but was already taken on the other mega forums? Yes, you can be SpeedoMan, Elvis, or Albert Einstein, all these names are up for grabs on the Tri Talk Forums.

Let’s get onto the good stuff! This is a long episode today, and we have a lot to cover. Stay with me cause I’m going to go fast. Hang on tight!

I have to admit I am a bit concerned with presenting this topic. First, because I have hyped it as the best Tri Talk episode ever. You may finish listening to this topic and say, “What the heck? That was David’s version of the best Tri Talk episode ever?” Many of you might find it quite boring. Second, it may only be appealing to those of you who really like to analyze data, and who try to squeeze every last second out of their performance. If you really like numbers, this is the episode for you. If not, fast forward for about 25 minutes, or just read the second half of the show’s transcript on the blog. I can assure you again, however, that I have never been more excited to present a Tri Talk topic, and therefore to me, this is the best episode yet.

Several months ago I introduced a survey on the Tri Talk website. My goal was to try and gather some non-traditional data on athletes, and correlate them to race times. What I mean by “non-traditional” data is information that you typically don’t see on a race results listing. It is easy to get data on race times and correlate those to age and gender, because every race listing has that information as part of the race results. But what about other factors such as height, income, years of experience spending, or weight? How do these factors influence race results? Is height or weight a bigger influencer on performance? How much does your income really mean to your performance? Do you get faster at certain distances if you are a little bit older? These are questions that many of us think we know the answer to, but wouldn’t it be nice to see some data behind it? Although we can infer some correlation on weight by using the Clydesdale division, that is a binary input. You are either over 200 pounds or not. It would be even better to see the granularity of all athletes’ race-day weight to get a better correlation of the influence of weight on performance.

Many of you have already taken the survey, so to you please forgive me as I review what the survey asked for the other listeners. The survey asked for the athletes’ age and gender, but also annual income, triathlon spending, years of endurance training, years of triathlon training, and height. The athlete was then asked at which triathlon distances he or she had been the most successful. For those distances, the athlete was asked to put in the exact distance of all 3 legs of that race. As you know some Sprint-distance events are shorter or longer than others, as with all the other distances. The athlete had the chance to adjust the distances so that we could get an accurate benchmark of their Sprint, Olympic or IM event to compare to the other athletes at that distance. The athlete was also asked how fast they were that day, and their race-day weight. Based on this information, I had a database of hundreds of athletes, and their best race times at multiple distances. I could then correlate race-day performance with a host of data points.

Now, before we start to share the results, let me tell you all the flaws in this study. First of all, it is not really a true study. It is not peer-reviewed. The data inputs are voluntary. No one independently verified the athletes’ height, weight or race times. We depended on the athletes’ memory and honesty for all the inputs. What about weather and course topography? Not all Ironman courses are equally difficult, and the time of one course could be much longer than another. I had to use a proprietary formula to “normalize” any distance that was not a conventional distance. Although there is a good sample size of several hundred race times, the margin of error is arguably still too great to be valid. These are all confessed flaws in this study. By the way, all the statisticians listening to the show just fainted. They couldn’t take all the flaws in the data collection process.

So at best this is an interesting exercise that possibly creates more questions than answers. At worst it is a cheap ploy to generate more buzz around the show and gain more listeners. There may be some truth to that.

Therefore, we can’t say for example, athlete’s who had an income of x dollars were faster. We can say that athletes with a reported income of x were reported to be so fast. Or athletes who declared a height of x had a reported speed of y. In short, this is not really a study, it is exactly what it says it is. It is a survey. But a survey that has some fascinating results. To be fair, this is not really data on triathletes, it is really information about triathletes.

Before I share the results, I have to give you a brief overview of statistical correlation, because that is the way I sliced this information, and you will need to know about it to understand the data. Stay with me here, I’m going somewhere with this! It’s worth the wait! This part will take less than 3 minutes.

A correlation coefficient is used to describe the direction and the degree or strength of the linear association between data sets. A correlation coefficient can be positive or negative. For example, let’s say we take 365 days of average high temperature for a certain geography. Let’s say we also take the same 365 days and look at snow cone sales. As the temperature becomes warmer, the sale of snow cones increases. There is a positive correlation between warm weather and snow cone sales.

Items with a negative correlation can still be strongly correlated. Over that same 365 days, we could also find that as the temperature gets warmer, the sale of sweaters goes down. That is a negative correlation. Negative correlation does not mean no association, it just means that the linear relationship between the data sets is opposite, whereas with positive correlation the data sets increase together. There is also neutral correlation, where there is no association between data sets. For example, as the weather gets warmer, the sale of CDs from the singing group ABBA does not change. I do love ABBA. The correlation coefficient is always displayed as a number between –1.00 and +1.00, with numbers closer to the either end having a higher correlation.

From the correlation coefficient one can then calculate what is called the coefficient of determination, which is simply the square of the correlation coefficient. This number is displayed as a %, and is also referred to as the R-squared or the R2. And this is the value, the coefficient of determination, that I’ll be using to share with you how an athlete’s overall profile information affects their performance. What we will be doing is looking at what % of the variance in speed can be attributed to height, weight, age, income, experience or spending. Perhaps this will all make more sense if I just get started. Again, this represents the data from hundreds of athletes, which is an excellent sample size. Unfortunately, I had to make a judgment call, and decided that there were not enough samples of athletes at the Ironman distance for the sample size to be statistically significant. I feel really good about the Sprint, Olympic, and Half Ironman data, but there was just not enough Ironman entries for it to be included in this analysis. But stay tuned, I have a way to fix that later in the show.

I’m going to give these numbers to you in no particular order, but in an order that I found interesting. Let’s look at years of experience in triathlon, vs. years of experience in overall endurance sports. At the sprint distance level, the coefficient of determination, or the R-squared between sprint-distance performance and years of tri experience was 8.64%. Meaning 8.64% of the variation in speed at sprint distance could be attributed to how much experience you had in triathlon. While only 6.84% of the variation in sprint-distance performance could be attributed to your overall endurance experience. What this means is that if you are training for a sprint-distance race, you are more likely to perform better if you have triathlon-specific experience than if you have other endurance sport experience. No real surprise. The pattern is the same for Olympic-distance racing. While 10.96% of the variation in Olympic-distance performance could be attributed to your overall triathlon experience, only 5.53% was based on endurance experience. So the gap between triathlon vs. overall endurance experience at the Olympic-distance level is even greater. The take-home point is that if you are feeling like you are slow at these distances, just stick with it for a couple of years and you’ll get faster.

What about the half Ironman distance? While 2.24% of the of the variation in half Ironman distance performance could be attributed to your overall triathlon experience, 3.25% was attributed to your overall endurance experience. Meaning at that longer distance, the experience type is reversed. A longer base of endurance experience is more influential than specific triathlon experience at the half Ironman level.

So, given 2 similar Olympic-distance athletes, one with 3 years triathlon experience and 3 years endurance experience, would likely outperform the athlete with 5 years endurance experience and 2 years triathlon experience. But at the half Ironman distance, the roles reverse, although not separated by much.

Let’s move onto another comparison. The catalyst for this whole project was the ability for me to find out the correlation between height and race performance. Those of you who have been with me for a long time know that I have issues with our current competitive division system. Particularly that we have a division based on weight but not one based on height. This survey and analysis was to be foundation of this argument, and to prove that a weight-based system was unfair to athletes with other physical limiters.

It turns out I was wrong. But, the good news is I was only half wrong.

At the Sprint distance level, 6.76% of the variation in performance could be attributed to weight. Only 0.13% of the performance variation could be attributed to height, which really is 0. At the Olympic distance it becomes even greater, when the R-squared was a whopping 11.84% for height, and only 0.25% for height. Based on these surveys, at least for these several hundred athletes, at the Sprint and Olympic-distance level, height showed almost no correlation, and weight at the Olympic distance level was one of the highest correlations to race performance in the analysis. Again, these conclusions cannot be made universally, but it does mean that of these several hundred self-reported surveys, height played no factor in Sprint and Olympic distance racing, and weight had a small impact.

But, at the half Ironman distance, things change. At that longer distance, only 2.66% of the variation in performance could be attributed to weight, while 3.94% could be attributed to height. This is very consistent with my findings when looking at Ironman race results, where I did spent quite a bit of time analyzing races at that level, and found less than a 5% difference in the performance between Clydesdales and non-Clydesdales, in fact the Clydesdales as a whole were sometimes faster in the swim portion of the Ironman event than their non-Clydesdale competitors as a whole.

Based on these surveys and my own research, it seems that weight becomes less of a factor at the longer distances. I think that part of this can be attributed to the fact that the amount of Clydesdales competing at the IM and half IM distances is much lower than the amount of Clydesdales competing at Sprint or Olympic distances. But, it still does not change the fact that given this same number of half IM athletes, height was a bigger factor than weight at that distance. I hope to be able to get some more surveys back from athletes who have competed at the Ironman level, and we can add that fourth distance to the list to compare.

Let’s take a look at age real quick. It turns out it was actually one of the smallest factors. Only 0.15% at the half IM, 2.21 at the Olympic, and 1.55% at the sprint. However, the typical Tri Talk listener who submitted this survey tended to be a bit younger. Although I got a great cross section of surveys for the other factors, there was a much narrower range of ages, and that would have effected the results. It is interesting to note that although the age of a half IM had the lowest coefficient of determination, it had a negative correlation. Meaning, as the age went up, the race times went down, or the athlete was faster. Whereas with the Olympic and Sprint, as the age went up, the race times went up. Again, with a very small delta, the survey responses indicated that at the long distances, you might actually get faster as you get older, up to a certain point of course.

What I think is the most fascinating part of this survey is the financials. Two financial questions were asked: the athletes’ income and overall triathlon spending. Of all of the 7 factors I looked at: height, income, spending, tri experience, endurance experience, weight and age, the lowest correlation to performance was - income. That’s right, at all distances how much the athlete made had the least impact to performance. With results at 0.87%, 1.03%, and 0.68% for half IM, Olympic and Sprint distances, respectively.

But listen to this. The most influential factor to performance, practically across the board was how much the athlete spent, with results at 5.51% 16.32%, and 8.87% for half IM, Olympic and Sprint distances.

Now, before you freak out, don’t draw any conclusions on this yet. When I shared these results with my wife, she instinctively felt I should not share them. She was worried that it would discourage athletes who can’t afford to spend a lot on the sport, and thought I had a responsibility to research it more before I shared the information. She felt that it would taint the sport. I don’t agree. That same day, at dinner with my brother and sister-in-law, my sister-in-law pointed out something brilliant but obvious. The amount of money spent is likely a parallel to the athlete’s commitment. She didn’t see performance linked to money. She saw performance linked to commitment. Those that spend more, are likely to be more committed in terms of training hours, diet, coaching, research and planning. Especially when you couple that with the fact that having a high income had practically no effect on performance, it was how much you spent, or as my sister-on-law pointed out, how committed the athlete was.

The only conclusion that can be drawn here is this. I’m an idiot. I’m an idiot because when I first created the survey, I should have seen this issue. So, to take this further I have edited the survey to ask 3 more questions. 1) how many hours of training were you performing prior to the event 2) on a scale of 1-10, how committed would you rate yourself to performing well at this event and 3) what your placement was in your competitive division, for example 20th of 50 in your age group division. The first 2 additional questions were added to introduce both a numeric and subjective way to measure commitment, and the 3rd question was added to correct the problem that the race conditions and topography in each race will effect the race time, even for the same distance. By looking at both race times and what % the athlete finished in their age group, I can get a different relative picture of performance.

Now, this is the part where I need your help. People frequently ask me what they can do to help Tri Talk. What I am asking you to do for me in return for this free resource in is to go to the website, and take this survey. I don’t want hundreds of surveys to analyze, I want thousands of surveys to look at. We have the listener base to have up to 14,000 surveys returned. Would that be an incredible sample size or what? The survey system I use also gives me stats for how long the survey took each user. 80% of all of the surveys taken took under 10 minutes to complete. With these 3 additional questions, it will probably move that figure to 11 or 12 minutes. So go there right now to tri-talk.com and click on research.

To those of you who have already filled out the survey, thanks! You’re reward for your altruistic contribution and loyalty to the show has resulted in me asking for - more work! I made several changes to the survey, in addition to that 3 new questions, and I hate to ask, but if you have already done the survey, can you do it for me one last time? This is the ultimate version of the survey, and you won’t have to do it again.

By the way, I’ll have a table on the Tri Talk blog at this point in the transcript that shows the results in a format that is more easily assimilated than via audio, and you can browse the survey results at your leisure.

I have some good news and bad news for you. The bad news is that PowerTri.com sold out of the Tri Talk Episode Archive CDs. The good news is: I made more! If you are new to Tri Talk, or want to have your very own copy of every Tri Talk episode that is not currently published, this is the CD for you. This collection of 25 episodes of Tri Talk is sold exclusively through PowerTri.com. Or, you can even buy archived Tri Talk episodes for just .99 each! Never duplicated, always relevant information. And while you are at PowerTri.com, check out their collection of wetsuits, triathlon apparel, compression clothing, helmets, bikes, wheels, books, anything you need to outfit yourself for training and racing. Would it be irresponsible of me to suggest that this ad was placed just after the data on spending more to go faster? Absolutely not!

Moving on.

This next topic was inspired by 2 of the athletes I coach. Both of them had recently done a lactate threshold HR test protocol to determine their new lactate threshold HR (LTHR). It’s a good idea to test this every 4-8 weeks as it will often change for each sport as your fitness levels increase, and if you use your HR for training or racing, this is critical information.

Both of these athletes express a concern that their LTHR had not changed, and were disappointed with the results. They were worried that they were not increasing their fitness because their HR had not changed. I quickly pointed out that in both cases, the speed at which they had completed the 30-minute protocol had significantly improved, and that was the ultimate indication of fitness improvement. Ultimately, we don’t train just to improve out LTHR, or VO2max, or respiratory exchange rate. We train to get faster, no matter what those indicators of fitness say.

Still, the question is a good one. Why did the performance significantly change, but the HR data did not? The first answer would be environmental conditions, which often have a significant effect on HR, even when working at the same speed or power. I’ve written and podcast extensively on that subject, so we won’t review it again here. The second reason would be fatigue or the amount of recovery before the test. Performing the same test in the same environmental conditions, but on fresh legs would significantly change the HR compared to fatigued legs. Assuming that in this case, the environmental conditions and recovery were the same for both tests, why then would the HR have not changed if the performance did?

Although there could be multiple reasons, including improved economy which was not mentioned, here is what I think happened in this case. There is often confusion in the endurance world that a sign of fitness is a high max heart rate. That is incorrect. It is a sign of fitness to be able to maintain a high % of your max heart rate. Someone with a max heat rate of 200, and who can only hold 87% of that, or 176 beats, for 30 minutes is generally less fit than someone who has a max HR of only 174, but who can maintain 90%, or 157 beats, for that same 30 minutes. Yes, the ability to hold a high heart rate is good, but it is all relative to the percentage of the individual’s max heart rate.

This is supported by the fact that as an athlete begins to train more, his max heart rate begins to come down, not up. According to Wilmore and Costil’s Physiology of Sport and Exercise, a sedentary male with a max HR of 185 will drop his max HR by 2 beats after only minimal training. And, in the same chart in that book, it lists a typical world-class will have a max HR of 174.

This does not necessarily mean that if you have a naturally high HR you are out of luck. With the genetic lot you have been given, you goal should be able to increase the % of that max heart rate that you can maintain, regardless of what your max HR is.

In the case of my athletes, even if their LTHR did not change, if their max HR went down by 2 beats in between the 4-8 weeks, and their LTHR did not change, they were able to increase the % of their max HR that they could maintain, since that max HR theoretically went down.

Now, I bet you might be saying, “This doesn’t make any sense. If my heart beats faster, doesn’t that mean I’m pumping more blood and delivering more oxygen, therefore a higher HR should be good.”

Actually, no. What matters to the heart during exercise is not total beats, but volume of blood passed per beat. If your HR is too high, not as much volume per beat is passed to the muscles.

To demonstrate this, think of your heart pumping blood the same way that your lungs process air. If I were to ask you to inhale and exhale the most amount of air possible in 15 seconds, how would you do it? Would you take 45 breaths as fast as possible, or 10 very deep breaths? You would find that your total volume of air would be highest at the slower, deeper rate. Or, consider when you run, you don’t fall into an extremely high respiratory rate. You take long, steady deep breaths. Your heart works the same way, which is why elite athletes actually exhibit a lower max HR, because it is a more efficient way for the heart to deliver the maximum amount of blood at the lowest cost.

The pitfall I see athletes fall in to is basing their race pace on a HR from the same event the last year, or even from earlier in the same year. For example, if you ran a marathon and averaged 164 beats for the event, you might come into the same event the next year thinking that you should be able to do that again. But if you have been training well, and your max HR is down by several beats this second year, you could be redlining by trying to maintain a much higher % of your max HR than you are ready for.

Don’t get me wrong. The increase of average HR in a LTHR test is always a good sign. Whether your max HR has stayed the same or not, an increase in the average HR over a fixed time means you are now able to maintain a higher % of your max HR. that is great! But, if you find that your HR is staying flat after significant training, that does not mean that you are not making progress. If your times are improving, it is likely that your max HR is coming down, and that is also good.

The take-home point is this. Test yourself often under as similar conditions as possible. Don’t worry about what the actual number is, but use that number in your workouts until you test yourself again. The ultimate feedback from a test like the LTHR test is improvement of the speed or power produced, not the HR number itself. Often perceived effort has to trump the HR monitor when things just don’t add up.

By the way, this discussion is totally different for resting heart rate, and we’ll talk about that another time.

That’s all for this episode, I’ll be back the middle of next month for the next episode. There is one person who deserves a shout-out on the show who has never gotten one. To my wife, Rebecca, thank you for all of your support in my crazy training and business endeavors. I love you, Bec! See you next time.

The audio for this podcast can be found here.

The slowtwitch.com article referenced can be found here.

Conjugate sequence training, aerodynamic aerobar positioning, and cycling for a running PR? No kidding! All that, today on Tri Talk.

Welcome to Tri Talk your podcast source for triathlon tips, training, news and more. I want to specifically say hello to listeners from Mason City, Iowa and Columbia, Missouri. In Iowa, I have heard great things about the Mason City Multisport Club, also known as MC-squared. In Missouri, I can’t thank the Columbia Multisport Club enough for their loyal following of Tri Talk, and want to say hello to one of the stars of Columbia Multisport, “Ted Z”. My goal at Tri Talk is to help you swim, bike, and run faster, to meet your personal triathlon goals. Whether you are an elite or amateur triathlete, we cover sprint distance to Ironman distance. I’m your host, David Warden, and this is Tri Talk Episode 57.

If I had a theme song, I think that would be it. Just like me it is groovy, a little bit cheesy, and made in the ‘70s. That’s cjacks with Rolling in the Hoopty. It is good to back after 6 weeks away from the show. I can’t thank Eric Schwartz enough for covering for me and for doing such an outstanding job for the last 2 episodes. As much as I love my coaching, writing, and training in the world of endurance sports, being away for the last 2 episodes made me realize how much I do love doing this podcast. Mainly, I think, because I love the sound of my own voice.

Today on Tri Talk we have three hardcore, scientific topics to indeed help you swim, bike, or run faster. We’ll lead off the show with a review of data that is from tri-geek heaven. How the position of your aerobars affects your overall aerodynamics and power. Also, have you had enough on periodization over the last 2 months? We’ll that’s too darn bad! Because I have some research on an alternate periodization technique called conjugate sequence periodization. For some athletes, this method of training could be the missing piece to their peak performance. It’s risky, but we’ll take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of this different form of training. Finally, lot’s of talk lately around running less to run faster. I’ll spend a few minutes on some research around why this might work for you.

You can send in your questions or comments to david@tri-talk.com.

Before we get onto the good stuff, I’d like to take a moment and talk to you about two charitable organizations that need your help. Picabo Street’s Ski Challenge and the Sangamon County Child Advocacy Center. Both charities are working for a goal we can all agree on, and that’s combating and easing the pain of child sex abuse. These charities have teamed up with beginnertriathlete.com to form a silent auction on the beginnertriathlete.com forums. If you have triathlon gear sitting in your closet, please donate it to the auction. If you are looking to get a good deal on new and used triathlon gear, with the proceeds going to a good cause, you wont’ want to miss this auction. The auction runs for the month of February on beginnertriathlete.com forums. For more information on how you can donate, please go to the Tri Talk website and click on the link to the auction information, or visit beginnertriathlete.com. The proceeds from this auction will go exclusively to Picabo Street’s Ski Challenge and the Sangamon County Child Advocacy Center.

Let’s get onto the good stuff! Many of you may have already seen this data, but it is worth a prime spot on today’s episode. Slowtwitch.com is probably the coolest site out there for a triathlete. Tri-talk.com is pretty cool too, but if I spend the next 10 years building up my website, I hope that it is 1/10 of what slowtwitch.com is today. Back in November of last year, John Cobb from slowtwitch.com published some data on aerobar positioning and the impact to aerodynamics which included, if not necessarily startling results, at least some very interesting results. All the data listed below is based on a moderate 40K ride at 19.17 miles per hour, or your basic age grouper speed.

For example, completely unrelated to aerobars, they wind tunnel tested the impact of leaving your jersey’s zipper open while riding on the brake hoods. You know those guys who ride with the jersey zipped all the way down? They probably shave their chest just for the occasion? They look cool, but it turns out it is not so fast. You’ll lose 56 seconds over 40K from leaving the zipper down. Yikes! So, it is better for you, and it is better for the rest of us to keep your chest to yourself on the ride.

Now what about aerobar positioning? When I talk about aerobar positioning, I’m referring to the angle of the aerobars in relation to the ground. A flat aerobar position would be the bars close to parallel to the ground. John Cobb took a look at bars high, bars medium and flat, with high having the wrists being just a few inches from the head, and medium being a more reasonable 20 degree angle in relation to the ground.

In these first 3 positions, the elbows pads were placed about thigh width, or fairly wide. What was somewhat surprising was that the fastest times were recorded with the high hand position. That’s right, not flat, but very high. In fact it was 9 seconds faster than the flat position over 40K. It is interesting to note that this article came out in November, but back in September I met with Steve Hed of Hed cycling at Interbike, who spent time trying to convince me that the high aerobar position was in fact the best position for many cyclists. I never included that interview in the podcast, because frankly I didn’t believe him. This wind tunnel test helps support Steve Hed’s theory that the high aerobar position can be faster.

However, there is more. John Cobb also tested aerobar position with the arm rests fairly tight, no longer at thigh width, but bringing in the arms in to a very narrow position. At that point, the fastest position was not the high aerobar, but it was still not he flat position either. At that point the best position was the medium position, this time by a significant 35 seconds over the flat position. That is some serious time savings, getting awfully close to he savings from an aero wheel over a 40K. Note that in both tests, again, the flat position was never the fastest compared to the medium or high.

Does this mean that you should go and move your aerobar positioning to a medium or high position? Not necessarily. First, although the medium aerobar height was the fastest with the narrow arm position, it was the slowest with the wide arm position. If you ride with the elbow pads at thigh length, this test would indicate the medium is not so good. The medium was only the fastest with the narrow arm position.

Second, since we are talking about as much as 35 seconds in aerodynamics, the best aerodynamic position also needs to be weighed against your power output. Your ability to generate power could also be significantly different in each of those aerobar positions. A best-case scenario would be for you to look at your power output for a given HR in each of the 3 positions, even if you had to use the poor-mans power meter setup from episode 54. If you have significant power drop in the medium or high aerobar position, its not worth it.

Finally, comfort. Especially for long-distance racing. If you can’t handle the narrow arm position for more than 90 minutes, just set the arm pads wide. It’s no good to be in aggressive aero position if you keep coming out of the aero position because its not comfortable. The best aero position is one where you are even more comfortable in the aero position than you are on the hoods or drops.

Going back to the power generation from your aerobar position for a moment. I have ridden with my aerobars at medium height for 2 years now. I did it because I found that for speedy time trailing, such as for Olympic distance or less, I can generate more power when my aerobars are up a bit, and not flat. This is because I really grip those bars and use my upper body to generate power, even in the aero position. Now, distance triathlete purists will say, “no, no, David, your hands and biceps need to be relaxed on the aerobars.” Yes, for half and full Ironman racing, I would be worried about energy expenditure. But, for Olympic distance racing, I’m only going to burn 2,000 calories, which I have already stored as glycogen and ready to use. I can afford to be less efficient and more fast. When I grip those bull horns, and really use my upper body to help generate power, it makes a huge difference in my power output. Again, I bring this up because for me, I can generate more power as a result of the medium aerobar position than the flat position. I just can’t engage my upper body as much when the aerobars are flat. By the way, this is also exactly how Tour rider Levi Leipheimer sets his aerobars up when he time trails.

Moving on. I recognize that 3 of the 6 podcasts prior to this episode all already had at least one periodization topic in the episode. Tri Talk has indeed been heavy with periodization topics, but there is no better time to discuss periodization than early in the training season (with all due respect to our great listeners in the southern hemisphere). Plus, periodization is so broad and so deep, that it touches many of the elements we incorporate in our day-to-day training. However, this periodization discussion will be very different from what you may have heard before.

The classic periodization process is also referred to as “linear periodization”. This is due to the staggered but ultimately linear increase in volume over a period of several mesocycles, a single mesocycle typically representing a 4-week block of training for an age-grouper in classic periodization. Again, the concept of classic periodization is to progressively shock the body into an adaptive response that ultimately increases performance on race day.

There is a proposed alternative method to linear periodization called conjugate sequence periodization. This method of periodization follows the same broad look at periodization, which is planning the year around peaking at competitions, separating the training year into periods of microcycles and mesocycles with early gradual increases in volume. But, there is a difference in how those mesocycles are managed. By the way, if you are new to Tri Talk or to periodization definitions, you may want to listen to Episode 52 as a refresher course on the definition of periodization cycles, which might make this next part easier to understand.

In linear and in conjugate sequence periodization, the mesocycle is broken up into 4 distinct microcycles. But unlike linear periodization, where the 4 microcycles are essentially the same with small increases in volume, conjugate sequence uses an almost reverse volume increase technique. Also unlike linear periodization, where the microcycles are all the same duration, let’s say 7 days each, conjugate sequence has varying durations among the 4 microcycles. Before I give you an example of what a conjugate sequence mesocycle would look like, let’s discuss the science behind why it would work.

Conjugate sequence takes advantage of a phenomenon called the Long-Term Delayed Training Effect, or LDTE. LDTE occurs after a period of high training volume, when training volumes return to “normal”. At that time, strength and endurance improve. Although this effect was first observed in weightlifters, two studies in 1992 from the European Journal of Applied Physiology and Medicine and Science in Sport and Exercise both revealed the existence of performance gains from the LDTE in endurance runners and cyclists. LDTE occurs basically after a dramatic drop in volume. Unlike a classic taper, where the volume decreases gradually, LDTE occurs after a fairly immediate drop in volume.

LDTE is unlikely occur in classic periodization, because there is never a long enough drop in volume for the phenomenon to occur. A typical rest week in a 28-day linear periodization mesocycle is about 7 days, and then the athlete returns to the previous volumes. In conjugate periodization, the drop in volume lasts up to 20 days of a 28-day mesocycle cycle, allowing enough time for LDTE to occur.

But, most of those 20 days are not easy days. While taking advantage of the performance improvement from LDTE, the amount of intensity increases in that microcycle far more than would occur in linear periodization.

So let’s look at an example of conjugate periodization mesocycle. In this example, the mesocycle is 28-days, or 4 weeks, similar to a linear periodization mesocycle. The first microcycle of the mesocycle would last 8 days. And those 8 days would be devoted to volume, training at low intensities of 60-80% of your aerobic capacity. This is Zone 2 and very low Zone 3 types of intensities for those 8 days. The second microcycle lasts from 2-5 days, and the focus is speed sills and rejuvenation. This is the time to focus on swim drills, cycling drills, like one-leg drills, and running drills. The volume is cut in half from the previous 8-day microcycle. The purpose is not only to focus on speed-specific drills, but some recovery needs to take place from the accumulated fatigue of the previous cycle to prepare for the upcoming intensity of the next cycle. After the second speed skill microcycle, an intense 5-8 day intensive endurance cycle begins. Again, the volume is half of the volume from the first 8-day endurance microcycle, but the intensity now includes race-specific intermittent or intervals training, or competing in low-priority races. It is critical that during this 3rd intense cycle that recovery is watched carefully, which will be a real challenge. The final microcycle is essentially and easy week focusing completely on active recovery, lasting 4-7 days. The total conjugate sequence mesocycle would therefore last up to 28 days, or 4 weeks.

Just like in linear periodization, these 4-week blocks can be repeated and placed back-to-back, creating a 12-week cycle that can easily be placed into your annual training plan. You should not do more than 3 of these mesocycles for a total of 12 weeks.

OK, now that we have defined conjugate sequence, and how it could increase your performance through taking advantage of the Long-Term Delayed Training Effect, should you really use this?

This is a risky training alternative. It is risky because it is rarely used, and therefore it is tough to gauge how well it really works. It is primarily risky because of those 5-8 days of significant intensity. Injury red flags are flashing all over the place.

So who should consider conjugate sequence periodization? I would only recommend this training technique under a few conditions.

First, only for advanced athletes with several years of training and racing. These athletes know their bodies, know how to listen to their bodies, and are better in tuned to how this change will effect them. Second, only athletes without a history of injury from intensity. Some athletes are more injury prone from volume, but some are more susceptible to injury from intensity. The density of the intensity used in conjugate sequence is significant. Third, only after you have spent several months developing a solid aerobic base in the season. Going straight into conjugate sequence at the beginning of the year introduces many risks. It is best reserved for the Base 3 or Build mesocycles. Fourth, only if as an advanced athlete, you have found that after using the classic linear periodization for a few years, you feel that you have maxed out and are burned out with the same training routine, and just aren’t getting any faster. Some athletes simply respond better to higher intensities, and you’ll never know if you don’t try.

If you found yourself getting lost in this topic, you can read everything I just said at tri-talk.com, where all the recent Tri Talk episodes have transcripts on the Tri Talk blog.

I have to thank Joe Friel who provided me with the data behind conjugate sequence periodization. This is the kind of information that the coaches from TrainingBible Coaching have access to. If you are interested in becoming a TrainingBible Coach, or would like to be coached by a TrainingBible coach, send me an e-mail or visit TrainingBible.com.

Can I also just tell you that I accidentally referred to conjugate sequence as “conjugal sequence” about 50 times when I tried to record this topic. I can’t tell you how many takes of this section I had to do as a result. This is why I am not ready for prime time radio. For those of you who don’t know why conjugal sequence is funny, then bless your heart and your beautiful clean mind.

Let’s wrap things up. I’d like to spend a few minutes on a topic that has generated quite a bit of buzz lately. There is a book out from Runner’s World called Run Less, Run Faster. I have not read this book, but I love the concept. The idea is to train at only 3 runs per week, with the other 2 workouts being a quality cross-training workout. Is it just me, or have we triathltes known this for years. I should have written this book first. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen this take place, where a triathlete is only running 3 days a week, and still makes a marathon PR because he was training for a triathlon at the same time. In fact, the free on-line running plans out on Runner’s World have gone as far as reducing the runs from 5 to 3 in their plans, with 2 days of cross training. I totally believe in this concept.

Having not read the book yet, I thought I would do a little research of my own into why this would work. There are probably a ton of reasons. Injury prevention, recovery, mental variety to name a few. But, I found at least one link between cycling training and a reason behind how that could help you on the run.

A 1996 study in the International Journal of Sports Medicine took 204 well-trained cyclists and runners and measured the size of their hearts. The size of cyclists hearts was overwhelmingly larger than that of the runners. It is probably because you can cycle for much longer than you can run, thus spending more time in a highly aerobic state. OK, you say, that’s nice. But so what? When you combine that with a second study published in the American Journal of Cardiology which took a look at the correlation between heart size and VO2max, then things get interesting.

There are many variables that determine your VO2max, unfortunately most of it is genetics. But, this second study I just mentioned found a high correlation between heart size and VO2max. In the fact the mathematical correlation was r=.80. A quick review on the how the correlation expression works: All correlation is measured between –1 and +1, with –1 begin a negative correlation, +1 being a positive correlation, and 0 being no correlation at all. A r=.80 correlation is considered a very high correlation, and would be sufficient enough to conclude that large heart size is linked to a high VO2max.

So to bring this topic back full circle. Theoretically, if you were to spend some serious time cycling, probably years of cycling, this could change your heart size, and therefore increase your VO2max and subsequently your run times improve. Lance Armstrong’s first marathon, which he completed in under 3 hours, is a pretty notable example of how cycling cardiovascular endurance can translate into other sports.

There are a few problems with this argument. First, there are lots of ways to increase your VO2max other than increasing your heart size. You could invest just as much time in interval run training and get the same results. Second, it goes against the principle of specificity, which says that you will always perform best when spending the most time training in your specific sport. The truth is that Olympic runners spend 95% of their aerobic workouts just running. This Run Less Run Faster concept has not been proven beyond the age-grouper or even lower-level elite athlete. I think this does work well for new runners, but for runners who are looking to squeeze out that last 15 seconds of speed off of their 32-minute 10K, you don’t need to bike, you just need to run.

But again, for us mortals, I think that this concept has huge potential for application, and is worth incorporating into your next running plan. Even if not for the potential in increased VO2max, which might take years, as mentioned, the injury prevention, recovery, mental variety in your training might make it all worth it.

That’s all for this episode, I’ll be back at the end of January for Episode 58. You know, I spent time today telling you about slowtwitch.com and beginertri.com, but you know what, Tri-Talk.com is a pretty darn cool website too! Come check out the Tri Talk Forums and get your individual triathlon question answered today.

A quick hello to the rest of the TrainingBible coaching team! I hope to see you next month at our TrainingBible Coaches Meeting in Arizona! See you next time!