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Injuries and setbacks

By Laura

While we often discuss achievements in sport and the benefits of training, we don’t always talk about the darker side- when things don’t always go quite right. The things that lead to tears and disappointment in sport.

As athletes, we might have heard of the phrases “No pain, no gain” and “Go hard or go home”. We might have even used such phrases as part of our self-talk. So when is hurting not appropriate in sport?

Knowing the difference between discomfort to gain fitness and that nasty niggle is so tough. It can be hard to notice the differences between the two, and not knowing what is just that little bit too much. I’ve also heard of a number of people breaking bones just lately too, perhaps through falling off their bikes or participating in a race.

“How long will I be out for?”, “When can I get back to X session” or “I hope I’ll still be able to race in X”.

Do any of these questions sound even a little bit familiar?

Being injured is exhausting. Not only is the body physically trying to piece itself together, we’re having mental battles with ourselves. How much is too much? When will I be better? Who am I if I’m not training?

Is there anything we can do to manage our recovery and come back stronger- both physically and mentally?

A lot of the information in this blog comes from Foundations of Sport and Exercise Physiology by Robert S Weinberg and Daniel Gould. The book has helped me to understand injury and why an athlete may feel a certain way towards the injury.

How injuries happen

The primary causes of injuries are overtraining, muscle imbalances, high- speed collisions and physical fatigue, however, there are also some psychological aspects that we don’t always consider. These include: personality factors, stress levels and certain attitudes that make us susceptible to injury (Rotella and Heyman, 1986; Weise & Weiss, 1987). Ultimately, if we live a stressful lifestyle, we can be predisposed to injury. Such stressors can be big- like a divorce or house move, or a number of smaller stressors like getting stuck in traffic and other daily hassles.It seems to be that while personality may have an affect on whether an athlete is predisposed to injury, an athlete that experiences high-stress is more likely to become injured than those without stress.

A coach can help athletes to manage stress and training for a successful balance of both, at PeteWilbyTriathlon, we coach with the LENS philosophy to support our athletes..

L- Life

E- Endurance Training

N- Nutrition

S- Strength

We believe that a successful athlete operates with all of the above.

Psychological Reactions to Exercise and Athletic Injuries

Despite taking precautions to avoid injuries, whether you have employed a coach, risk assessed your training sessions and followed a healthy lifestyle, sometimes, injuries happen. Injuries are always a risk.

Psychology experts noticed that after becoming injured, athletes will follow a five-stage grief response.

Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression , and
Acceptance and reorganization

(Hardy and Crace, 1990)

However, these stages do not just come one after the other, athletes experience them at different times and you can flit from one to the other (Brewer, 1994).

Although emotional responses have not been proven to be fixed, injured athletes can expect to feel the following:

Injury-relevant information processing “What’s the extent of the injury?”, “How did it happen?”
Emotional upheaval and reactive behaviour - feeling shock, disbelief, denial and self-pity.
Positive outlook and coping- positively accepting the injury and dealing with it.

Other reactions to injury can be

Identity loss.
Fear and anxiety.
Lack of confidence.
Performance decrements.

Signs that an athlete is poorly adjusted to injury

The following symptoms are warning signs that an athlete is not well adjusted to injury (Petitas & Danish, 1995).

Feeling angry and confused
Obsession over when one can return to the sport
Denial
Repeatedly coming back to soon and experiencing reinjury
Bragging about accomplishments
Dwelling on minor physical complaints
Guilt
Withdrawal from significant others
Mood swings
Stating that recovery will not occur

How can sports psychology support recovery?

Sports psychology can support an athlete through each injury phase.

The injury-illness phase, the rehabilitation phase and the return to full activity phase.

If you are looking to speak to a sports psychologist, we can thoroughly recommend Sophie Gibbs Nicholls.

References

Rotella and Heyman, 1986. Stress, injury and the psychological rehabilitation of athletes.

Weise & Weiss, 1987. Teaching Sportsmanship and Values.

Hardy and Crace, 1990. Dealing with injury.

Petitas & Danish, 1995.The Sport psychologist-athlete relationship.

A Coaching Note or Prose

Coaching note

As triathletes and open water swimmers at PeteWilbyTriathlon our number one underlying value is, to be healthy.

Healthiness, when viewed through our LENS, taking a holistic perspective, is built on the foundations of a healthy planet. The air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink and swim in — the environment — all affect our health.

We have the power to maximise healthiness.

Maintaining mental health is like riding a bike, running on the coast path or swimming in the sea. We fall from time to time, some worst than others. But the feeling of the natural external and internal forces on our bodies is invigorating. We allow vigor to be our mood. And when we fall - and we will - mood states like tension, depression, anger and confusion will arise. We actively should accept all of these moods but always search for vigor.

When we train there should be a purpose or aim for every session, so that every session can be executed with intent. The sessions sit within a goal-driven endurance training plan, containing good healthy habits, such as a RAMP warm-up.

Strength training every week - lifting heavy stuff - increases the forces we can produce and improves our mobility. Not only so that we can go faster and keep going longer but so we are more capable for life.

An intake of necessary nutrients that our body will accept to fuel our growth and activity is like electricity is to a modern car. There is no point in risking falling to the side of the road because the battery is flat. Food and drink power training and training invigorates.

We are not distracted by any outcome, coined heroism, or rhetoric of what would be great if we achieved it in the future. We seek to maximise healthiness. We focus on the NOW.

And in the words of John Cooper Clarke: "Imagine this, how deep would the sea be if there weren't any sponges?"

Happy Triathlon-ing,

Pete

A Review: The Marginal Gains Handbook

Introduction

The purpose of this blog is to briefly review The Marginal Gains Handbook – Practical ideas to survive and thrive in the age of Coronavirus, which has been written by R.Archer & A. Jamieson and published in The Career Phycologist.

My aim is to give a short insight to some of the subjects and take some helpful tips for your marginal gains when thinking about life during the C19 lockdown.

The article itself is well worth looking at and reading through. It is layman’s format and has videos to help explain things. The tips and advice are part evident based and partly the personal advise of the experience and qualified author. You can find the link to the full article in my reference at the bottom of this blog.

The article covers many topics including: dealing with anxiety, isolation and loneliness, working from home, parenting in lockdown and mental health and wellbeing amongst some other topics. In this blog I will look at what is written on loneliness, mental health and anxiety.

Loneliness

A topic in the article is loneliness. The very sad reality is that the majority of people could very likely be feeling far more lonely during lockdown. It explains how loneliness is a serious problem with horrible effects, physical as well as mental. The effects are so impactful that it has been found that loneliness ultimately leads to mortality. That said, it is crucial that we, as fellow triathletes and open water swimmers, rise up to help ourself and those in need. The article sets out how this loneliness emotion would work in ones mind.

Loneliness is at one end of a spectrum range of loneliness to overstimulated. The natural instinct is to remain somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, where you feel most comfortable. Whilst people are forced to the loneliness end of the spectrum during lockdown, the answer, or cure, is to seek people who share similar perspectives to talk. The problems that also come with feelings of loneliness is a heightened lack of trust and less desire to talk to people when possible, which you could imagine, would be a vicious spiral. Things are never simple huh!

A key take away point on loneliness for me is that, by reaching out to those around me, that could be feeling lonely, I would not only be helping them, but also helping my own mental health.

Mental Health and Wellbeing

When on the subject of mental health and well-being the article uses a quote from Hayes, Wilson and Strohsahl, 1999: “the single most remarkable fact of human existence is how hard it is for humans to be happy“ . The article defines mental health and well-being using the definition from the world health organisation (WHO) as: a state in which every individual realises his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to her or his community.”

It sets out three steps for moving towards improved mental health. These were:

Step 1 - start by exploring what a ‘good life’ looks like to you. In what ways might you make a ‘meaningful contribution to others’? What does ‘realising your potential’ mean to you?

Step 2 - next consider how you can move in the direction of your most important goals and values. This usually means being willing to experience difficult thoughts
and emotions, as if we are not willing to experience the difficult things in life, then we start to narrow our lives and minimise the chances of reaching our potential. This is called experiential avoidance.

Step 3 - is about committed action. This means getting out there and doing the things that move you towards your main values and goals, even in the presence of difficult thoughts and emotions. What does committed action look like for you, even in this global crisis?

Anxiety

The article defines the difference between anxiety (being anticipation of future threat) and fear (being the emotional response to a real or perceived immediate threat e.g seeing a snake). When relating to C19 the uncomfortable feeling for people is of anxiety not fear. This is due to it being generated by thoughts. The problem people face when in a state of anxiety is how to deal with it. It would be natural to try to escape the anxiety as one would respond to fear, however, this would lead to becoming anxious about being anxious. There is nothing we can do about the C19 anxiety. We must accept it and continue to stay focused on our goals. The five evidenced based things it sets out to deal with anxiety are:

Accepting it
Pivot towards what matters
Be selective about the information you consume
Use daily checklists
Break it down and make a plan

Conclusion

I hope that this blog helps to highlight how so many people are in a similar situation during this pandemic. By talking to one another, during the Zoom S&C on a Saturday morning or for a meet up to train, it will really make a big difference. We should all watch out for each other and be certain that no one is forgotten because these emotions, amplified by the lockdown, will lead to recluse and self inflicted isolation if we do not. The one thing we share as a community is triathlon and open water swimming training.

References

R.Archer & A. Jamieson. The Career Phychologist. The Marginal Gains Handbook – Practical ideas to survive and thrive in the age of Coronavirus.

https://www.thecareerpsychologist.com/the-marginal-gains-handbook-practical-ideas-to-survive-and-thrive-in-the-age-of-coronavirus/

Programming to Avoid Injury

While 2020 has been crazy year, hindered by C19, it has nonetheless opened up a new, virtual form of racing and training among many triathletes. Now the racing season in the northern hemisphere should normally of ended, programming the training for next year, can begin.

Winter is the perfect time to iron-out any little niggling injuries that may have developed. By properly programming your training it is possible to reduce the chances of injuries in the future.

In this blog I aim to set-out five training priorities. The purpose is to help you reduce the risk of having an injury as well as to help you excel in 2021.

Two categories of injury

Let’s first begin by highlighting typical types of injury. These fall into two categories: intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic injuries would include tendon strains or overuse injuries such as stress fractures or tendinitis (from general training, normal events) Extrinsic injuries might include sprained ligaments, fractures or cuts, abrasions or dislocations (from falling off the bike for example).

There is no way to completely avoid getting injured. Certain things will be completely out of your control. However, it is possible to program your training to better reduce the chance of injuries.

Some causes of injuries

Intrinsic injury’s could be caused by:

• your range of movement not being sufficient for the disciplines,

• your technique,

• previous injuries,

• inappropriate training,

• insufficient fitness

• or insufficient levels of strength.

Some common causes associated with extrinsic injuries are:

• increased training load,

• bike crashes or trips out running, or getting dumped by a big wave.

• lifestyle factors such as lack of sleep or bad diet

Programming to reduce the likelihood of injury

Generally, getting an injury is bad luck but the chances of getting injured can be reduced. Two key factors mentioned above: bad diet and lack of sleep, could be complicated but still improved by simply highlighting that they exists in the first place and then monitoring using separate interventions, such as using a metrics log in TrainingPeaks or in a food diary.

Let us here look at how programming training can reduce the risk of injury and help you to excel next year. Below are five priorities taken from a pyramid. You should start with number one (the bottom, largest layer) and keep it as your first priority all the time. Each priority should layer on top, to take less emphasis than the one before.

1. Technique: Firstly and most importantly is to practice proper technique. This is ideally done with the help of a technical triathlon coach or a swim, bike run coach per discipline. Now isn’t the only time but now is the best time to work on technique. Always prioritise good technique first.

2. Mobility and Stability: Secondly we need to work on mobility and stability. It could be very helpful to recruit a physio or strength and conditioning coach to highlight areas that need mobilising or strengthening in the gym.

3. Strength: Thirdly, strength is a key attribute to reducing the chances of injury and increasing performance. Once proper technique is learned and the required range of movement is achieved, strength training should be layered on top. You can use over gearing or swimming with paddles to help increase strength. Lifting heavy weights in the gym will train the body to cope better with the forces inflicted through training. Whilst at this time of year it is best to swim, cycle and run at low intensity, the strength eliminate should be hard and heavy. Once more, technique is the number one key, followed by mobility and stability, only then should the strength be layered on top.

4. Power: The fourth consideration - which requires a good level of strength - is power. This is achieved by a combination of the force applied to the pedal when cycling, the ground when running or water when swimming, combined with the cadence or stroke rate. In the gym this would be lifting medium to heavy weights but lifting them fast. Becoming more powerful is not only going to reduce the risk of injury but it will make you perform better.

5. Speed: The fifth and final consideration should be speed. By spending enough time at each stage set out above and layering on the next stage as you earn the right to do so, you will be safer, less prone to injury and more robust when going at speed. Going at speed puts lots of stress through the body. If any of the above priorities have not been programmed into your training, going at speed will pose a far greater injury risk and could prevent the continuation of the training program right when you are getting ready to race.

Conclusion

Every person is different and has various strengths and weaknesses. Whilst the bullet points and could broadly provide a sort of systematic clarity, it is important to be dynamic. It might be possible to do power training in some areas whilst solely work on technique in others, it depends on you, the individual. A complete beginner could use pure technique to achieve completing his first triathlon. Likewise some athletes could include speed training to their program, all year.

The key point to this blog is to encourage building strong foundations before progressing. Smart programming will not only help reduce the chances of you getting an injury but it will help you to excel next year too.

Happy Triathlon-ing

You Can Use Mental Strength To Improve

In triathlon and Open water swimming you need commit to training in order to get the best out of your performance. That very commitment is a mental strength.

The purpose of today’s blog is to use an athlete I coach as a real life example to highlight how the mental approach to training could be used to help you to excel. My aim is to expose a growth mindset (Dweck, 2015) and a widely-utilised goal-setting model GROW (whitemore, J. (2002). This blog demonstrates how the mental approach to open water swim training helped my athlete to excel. I will also explain how I have helped my athlete continue his progression.

Let me first define the GROW Model which I became interested in after reading the book called Coaching for Performance by Sir John Whitmore. The acronym GROW stands for: goal, realistic, opportunity & will. As I apply this model to my athlete you will see how you could apply this to most things in life.

The Growth Mindset is when an athlete understands that their abilities can be developed. As I belatedly mature and slowly, so slowly, begin to develop an inclining of self awareness, I embrace this ‘growth mindset’, intent to improve myself and my work as a coach. I have become interested in the growth mindset after researching the work of Carol Dweck, who first coined the phrase. This mindset defines the cheerleaders and excited parents or family supporters from the hard but true, up front and honest coach. If an athlete doesn’t do well, I’ll tell them and I won’t pretend. By doing this we open a dialogue on how to ‘grow’, improve, be better. I encourage everyone I coach to practice a growth mindset. For the purpose of this blog I will highlight how my case study athlete, used these approaches to move forward with his quest.

..............

Meet John; 47 years old; not an athlete but generally fit and healthy; average height and build.

In the summer of 2014 John took up swimming lessons with me in a private lane at Teignmouth Lido. Tentatively he described to me the barriers placed in front of him which, had so far in life, stopped his swimming. John had been totally put off swimming by his school teacher who stood on poolside yelling instructions at him when he was younger. He really wanted to learn front crawl. His solution to the fear barrier was to find a coach who would do tuition in a private lane so he could learn at his own speed.

John had a goal to learn to swim front crawl. He had hired me as his coach to give him a realistic chance. He was willing to give it a really good try. After just a couple of lessons the fear of old was a distant memory and a new passion was born. John started to get it.

He found the stroke became more and more comfortable. The opportunity was to swim further and further each time he practiced. He began to set himself new, realistic goals. At first just a length, then 10 lengths, then 50. When John reached 100 lengths he realised he could go on much further if he wanted.

The goal had changed from learning the core skills of balancing horizontal, exhaling into the water, rhythmically breathing to the side as the arms swung over. The challenge now was to be fitter from the swimming, to be faster, and test himself, to be better. John had already worked through a GROW model with an initial goal, made realistic by navigating barriers and hiring me to coach him. The opportunity to swim and the will power to keep trying, had helped John become a swimmer.

I presented John with the opportunity to adapt his new found passion to the open water. Spring of 2015 John joined the PeteWilbyTriathlOn beginner open water swimming group. He took to the additional challenges that beginner open water swimmers face like a duck would to water (pardon the pun). John was on his quest to be better. Now, in addition to the timing of the strokes with the rhythm of the breaths, he was glancing up ahead to sight the next buoy. He was corkscrew turning. He would adjust his position in the group to make best progress. He was conquering his fears. He was becoming aware of the things going on around him as he swam. John was getting good. John was being better and he felt better than ever before.

The thing John displayed throughout his progression was a great commitment to his training. John had the will to embrace mistakes and search for feedback from me as the coach as well as his peers. If he did not at first succeed, he’d keep trying.

During that winter, after open water had come to a close, John continued to work on his technique in the pool, always challenging himself, setting realistic goals and progressing. The next spring he joined the PeteWilbyTriathlOn experienced open water swimming group and started to plan goals to do in open water. As a dedicated PeteWilbyTriathlOn athlete he started doing adventure swims, each one further than the last. The new goal became the next adventure swim. The realistic distance always increasing an achievable amount . The opportunity for John to see the coastline, connect with nature and be a long distance athlete. The initial will, John used to re-expose himself to swimming, had motivated him to explore new places, enhance his fitness and to excel as a beginner swimmer, by becoming, a long distance athlete.

John started looking outside of PeteWilbyTriathlOn, entered open water events and challenged himself more and more. He embraced what he failed in as well as what he achieved. He reflected on the reality with a vision to be better next time. John displayed a growth mindset. He would critic what went well and what didn’t and strived to accomplish any barriers that got in his way.

So let’s summarise Johns progress so far-

1st summer, learn to swim in the pool

2nd summer, adapt to swimming in the sea with the beginner group

3rd summer, swim in the sea with the experienced group and complete long adventure swims

4th summer, enter open water events and marathon swims

At this point John had come along way from that first nervous swim lesson with me, when his only goal was to learn front crawl. Now John has completed several 10km swims. He even completed a 10 mile marathon swim, albeit very slowly and being completely shattered by the end. But, after a week or so to recover, John felt like he could swim forever given the opportunity.

...........

I hope that by reading this you too can see how the grow model was used multiple times in various orders during Johns career to date. You might also see how John could visualise that next, realistic goal, because he didn’t take the pat on the backs, the “well done you are great”. Instead, John kept it real. When there was a barrier, he recognised it and planned ways over, or around. The opportunities for John have always been endless but the realistic ones are always changing. By setting the right goal and having enough will to commit, each goal leads to the next and the next and the next.

Phases for starting back

Eight weeks ago I shared up to date sports science on some of the worrying effects that hard, or long training, could have on the immune system, and encouraged you to train in zone two during the height of the pandemic.

I feel really positive today because the sports science I want to share is to help you go on longer. This is a medium length newsletter, but if you make it all the way through to the end, and want a link to the research, drop me a line and I will send it to you.

Today I would like to share the plan for starting back in phases; set out four Adventure Swims for 2020; and - now the COVID-19 infection risk is lowered - help you to prepare your nutrition for those longer sessions.

A key point is that the dates in my plan are best case scenario and may have to change. I will keep the website up to date but everything is depending...

Please also note, you can currently still sign up to be a member for FREE for three months. This deal will be removed on 15th June. It is important that you know this because the adventure swims are going up in price slightly but members will get £12.50 off. You can cancel at any time.

Please read on to see my starting back plan, get some long distance nutritional advice and get a great energy bar recipe.

Phases One For Starting Back

11th July

Start the EXPERIENCED OWS group for training (every Saturday at 08:30) on 11th July.

Phases Two For Starting Back

25th August

Additionally opening the ADVENTURE SWIMS (every other Sunday), the BEGINNER OWS group and 121 OWS for all ages.

Long Distance Nutrition Advice

Many times I have been approached about gut problems when running. In many cases it is long distance athletes who are using gels to keep the carbs topped up. It is common knowledge that gels work. The simple sugar is quickly absorbed and keeps the body going longer. However, the intake of gels can also have a detrimental effect, causing stomach cramps or an emergency number two.

The text books say that it is only possible to absorb 60g of carbohydrate each hour. More than that will be unused and sloshing about in the stomach which could be the cause of an upset stomach. As the body is exercising more blood is pumped to the working muscles and less to the gut. In fact, only the brain maintains a normal blood supply, everything else is forfeited to keep the exercising muscles going. This makes the digestive system much slower and therefore, absorbing a gel would take longer and longer as you go longer and longer. In the meantime it will be sloshing about which could cause cramps or an emergency poo!

Some of the latest research on one-hour cycling time trials using carbohydrate mouthwash identified that just the taste of something sweet can give you energy (Jeukendrup 2004). The research concluded that the sweet taste caused an increase in central drive motivation, leading to significantly better results on the one hour cycling time trials. Much more research has provided evidence to support this theory. Chambers et al (2009) found results suggesting that the improvement in exercise performance that is observed when carbohydrate is present in the mouth may be due to the activation of brain regions believed to be involved in reward and motor control. The findings also suggest that there may be a class of so far unidentified oral receptors that respond to carbohydrate independently of those for sweetness.

We can use this research to fine-tune our current nutrition plan for long distance racing. Based on this research, my advice to you is:

Try to find a more natural alternative to gels. Something solid that will line your stomach, provide you the right sort of fuel, and be portable enough to eat on the go. Check out this book: Feed Zone Portables by Thomas and Lim·

Eat little and often – If you are taking on gels try to spread them out. Sip it from a bottle rather than taking it in one go

Start eating earlier on in the race, long ride, swim or run, when you can absorb more effectively

Try holding the sweet things in your mouth a few seconds before swallowing. This will not only absorb quickly without problems but the sweet taste will also have a positive effect

Lastly, a recipe: Savoury Sweet Potato Snacks with Oats… (or FLAPJACKS!!)

There is no need for refined sugar and fat. With this recipe your flapjacks will be sweeeeeet.

Ingredients

500g of porridge oats

½ teaspoon of salt

1 tablespoon of set honey

250g of pitted dates

250g of raisons

500g of sweet potatoes

Method

Skin potatoes and boil until soft. Whilst they soften, finely chop the dates and raisons into a medium pan. Add a splash of boiling water. Add the honey. Then add the soft sweet potatoes and mash together. Gently heat and mix to a lumpy syrup.

Pour the oats and salt unto a large mixing bowl. Then add the simmering syrup from the pan. Get a wooden spoon and mix it in really well. Lastly, press the mixture into a greased oven dish – slice it in the dish - and bake in the middle of a high oven for 20 minutes. Done!

Happy Triathlon-ing,

Carter, J. M., Jeukendrup, A. E., & Jones, D. A. (2004). The effect of carbohydrate mouth rinse on 1-h cycle time trial performance. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 36, 2107-2111.

Chambers, E. S., Bridge, M. W., & Jones, D. A. (2009). Carbohydrate sensing in the human mouth: effects on exercise performance and brain activity. The Journal of Physiology, 587(8), 1779-1794.