endurancecoach

Hitting the Wall or Hitting Your Stride?

Music’s Impact on Endurance Training and Racing By Coach Maria Simone I love listening to music when I train. Give me a good beat, and I’ll be ready to run through brick walls to get that workout done and dusted. Many athletes feel similarly, and we’ve come to rely on music to help us drown[…]

The Year-Round Advantage of Heat Acclimation for Endurance Athletes

By Coach Lindsay Zemba Leigh As endurance athletes, we are always searching for that extra edge—be it better nutrition, more effective training, or innovative recovery strategies. While many athletes focus on heat adaptation only in the lead-up to warm-weather races, the true power of heat acclimation lies in its ability to benefit performance year-round. Integrating[…]

Jump around! Can plyometric training give your performance a boost?

By Coach Maria Simone In high school, our crew team started each session with a warm-up routine that included 3 sets of 20 tuck jumps. Coach called them “jumpies.” We stood with feet shoulder-width apart, jumped as high as we could, tucking our legs toward our chests, and repeated the movement as quickly as possible[…]

The Missing Piece in Your Training Plan: Why Athletes Need Better Sleep

By Dr. JoAnne Bullard Sleep is a significant component of any athlete’s training program, but it is often the one aspect that doesn’t receive the proper attention it deserves. When thinking of areas to expand the hours in the day, many allow their sleep to be compromised to work longer, accomplish other tasks, or wake[…]

Is Your Smart Watch Making You Dumb?

By Coach Maria Simone For a self-professed data geek, this may be a curious article for me to write. As much as I love data, I know an over-reliance on our gadgets can impede our training progress by leading us to make choices that don’t match a workout’s objective, by making incorrect judgments about our[…]

A Coach’s View of Structured Workouts

By Coach Maria Simone For those interested in optimizing their fitness, structured workouts in TrainingPeaks offer a detailed approach to training. I’ve been using TrainingPeaks for well over a decade. During that time, I’ve worked through a series of updates on the platform – some changes I love, some I can definitely do without, and[…]

Are You Overtrained?

By Coach Maria Simone It was July 2016, and I wasn’t feeling right. I had just finished a 100-mile race, but it felt awful (well, more horrible than it usually does). Most of my training leading into that race was subpar as well. I experienced months of extreme fatigue, so bad that I was falling[…]

Is This Pain Telling Me Something?

Learning how to differentiate between “good” and “bad” pain By Coach Maria Simone As athletes, pain is a companion from time to time. In fact, a substantive portion of our training is designed specifically to help us learn to tolerate discomfort and to work through suffering. If we are going to achieve our big dreams,[…]

Feeling Bloated?

Here’s Why & How To Fix It By Coach Lindsay Leigh If you’ve been training and racing endurance sports for long enough, you’ve likely experienced bloating or swelling. There are many causes of bloating, so figuring out the problem isn’t always black and white.  In this article, I’ll review the causes of bloating or swelling,[…]

Open Water Swimming Tips

By Coach Lindsay Zemba Leigh ‘Tis the season when triathletes can branch out from pool swimming and get into the open water. To be ready for our best race day, learning how to maximize both safety and performance in open water is crucial.  For many triathletes, the open water is the most anxiety-producing aspect of[…]

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