Athletes in the time of COVID

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My current strength coach has a saying that goes like this, “I don’t train individuals. I lay out what is required to achieve the goal.”

I used to say something similar about the World Ironman Champs, “Kona doesn’t care about your schedule.”

As an under-40 athlete, the recipe for success was clear => large doses of specific training load with recovery enhanced by life simplification.

Eat, sleep, train, repeat.

While we do that, we pay attention to the unforced errors and weed those habits out of your life.

Years ago this was our set up => 9-week camp => SwimBikeRun the USA, every_single_meter! That’s my buddy, Clas, on the VasaTrainer. There was a perfectly acceptable lake just out of the frame. He was put off by the dead trees sticking up out of the water and the nuclear power plant just around the corner…

Well, the events are gone, and going to stay gone, for a while.

Your status quo => of preparing for your next big thing => is gone.

The removal of the end-goal, provides an opportunity to think in terms of years, rather than months and seasons.

Getting yourself really fit to cyber-race a stranger with a hacked powermeter… might not be the best use of your time.

Two things for you…

You can’t train a muscle fibre you don’t have.

For the next year (at least), there is ZERO penalty for putting on size, boosting immune function and getting strong.

If you’re in the Northern Hemisphere then I doubt you’ll need to do much race specific training until the Spring of 2021. There aren’t going to be any races.

Back in the day, I’d be tempted to avoid my Max Strength phases because they would screw up my sport-specific numbers and leave my legs feeling flat.

These days my heavy days are a lot of fun. My endurance load is reduced due to COVID and it’s nice to work my way through a long session with decent rest.

The anaerobic stimulation, combined with reduced chronic-aerobic beatdown, has my hormonal profile (expressed through mood and sex drive) feeling great.

A small increase in lean body mass can result in a large improvement in the way you feel inside your body. I’m up ~4% and feel gigantic!

Universal gyms have come a long way since the 80s. The gear in this photo was 2/3rds the price of solar panels, and a similar monthly savings when my wife dropped her pilates membership. I’m told it’s called a Megaformer.

Be wary of becoming a single-plane athlete.

I’ve set a lifetime annual record for indoor training and I’m 18 weeks into this journey.

You need to be thinking forward to this winter, when flu season returns. If you spend your days bouncing between a treadmill and an indoor trainer then you’re going to lose athleticism.

This loss of multi-plane function will leave you exposed to injury – as you age… as you return to normal training.

So consider… how best to develop my agility?

Answering that question, in a way that challenges your neuromuscular system, will be time well spent. It’s also going to give you something where you can experience improvement.

Getting better at something will perk you up.

We could all use a perk up!