The Do's and Don'ts for Triathletes in the Gym

TDP 355 – Do's and Don'ts For Triathletes in the Gym

Andrew Harley: Welcome to the TriDot Podcast. Really great show today. I have a triathlon coach who is an ACSM certified personal trainer. And he and I are going to have a conversation about what triathletes should and should not be doing when slash if we go work out in the gym. So excited to see what we can learn from our coach today about that. Our coach is Brady Hoover. He's a triathlon coach, he's a run coach. Like I said, he's a full time personal trainer.

Brady Hoover: Thank you. We'll see what we can do.

Andrew Harley: so this is right up his alley. Brady, thanks for coming on the show to talk to us about what to do in the gym.

Brady Hoover: I'm so excited to be back and I love this topic as a personal favorite of mine because everybody should be strengthening.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, j declarative statement right at the top here. Everybody should be strength training. yep, that's good. I'm Andrew the Average Triathlete, voice of the people and Captain of the Middle of the Pack. As always, Brady and I will start off with our fun warm-up question, settle into our strength training main set conversation, and then we'll wind things down by asking an audience question to Coach Brady on the cooldown. Lots of good stuff. Let's get to it. For our warm-up question today, Brady, you've been in the sport for a while. I've been in the sport for a while. We know that when it comes to things like running shoes and swim goggles and bike saddles, bike helmets, cycling shoes, a lot of these pieces of gear that we have to have, you know, you can find a favorite, and then as soon as you do, that brand discontinues your favorite or changes your favorite, or you can't buy your favorite anymore. and so we're constantly having to search for that next pair of go-to running shoe goggle, etc., etc. So my question today, Brady, is at this present time, if you had to replace your go-to swim goggle, your go-to running shoe, or your go-to bike saddle, which of those would you rather have to replace? Like every single one of them on the face of the planet was eviscerated in a fire, and you had to find a new one today. What do you what are you looking for?

Brady Hoover: this is such a tough question. I mean, they're always swapping out running shoes. So I used to have my go-to and that changed. So I found something else and I love that, you know, that shoe. And if that changes, I can probably find something else. But I love my go-to running shoes. Like that's my background. I would have to say swim goggles and I actually just changed them out. I had been swimming in the rocket science ones for a long time and I can't find those anywhere. So I was forced to make a change. So I went with the Roka R2s. if you had asked me, that was last week, if you asked me to replace those now, and this would be a totally different ball game because I am liking those R2s.

Andrew Harley: Okay. Yeah, so I yeah, my answer here will be a little bit different. I if I had to replace one, I would most want to replace my bike saddle. And that's largely because I've never loved a bike saddle, right? You just kind of find what bike saddle your butt can tolerate for all of your triathlon training. And there's three or four that that do okay for me, but you know, none of them are like amazing. None of them like make my butt totally happy all the time. And so I'd rather just have to swap that out. I have when it comes to swim goggles and run shoes, I have a very picky, like right side of my body. Like I can put any swim goggle on in my left eye, it doesn't leak, it feels comfortable, tappy. In like 98% of swim goggles, I get a leak right here in the corner on my right goggle lens. In like every swim goggle model except for one. So I don't want to replace those ever. If they ever stop making those, it's a pair of arena goggles. If they ever stop making those, I'm out of luck in the pool. and same thing for run shoes. Like my left foot, I can put on almost any run shoe and my left foot feels good in it, feels comfortable. My right foot like is so picky and I don't know what the difference is. and so there's only two or three run shoe models that my right foot feels comfortable in. So I I don't like having to go search for a new go to run shoe or a new go to swim goggle. So my answer here is the bike saddle. We're gonna throw this question out to all of our listeners. Make sure you're a part of the I Am Trotted Facebook group. Or if you're watching on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts, leave a comment right below in the comment section and let us know. fun little would you rather question. If you had to replace your go-to run shoe, swim goggle, or bike saddle, which one would you be willing to replace?

Brady Hoover: If you're watching on YouTube No, I got a shoe for you, Andrew. You and I tend to like the same shoes. You like the Rebel 3, right? Which is still my all-time favorite shoe that they don't make anymore. The new Audios Evo SL. Highly recommend it. Feels a little bit like that, a little bit more cushioned. So if you do happen to have to change, that would be my recommendation to you.

Andrew Harley: What is it? What is it? Yeah, I'm in the Rebel V five right now. and I like that more than the four. I liked the three. The four is okay. but I'm just yeah, I'm not I'm running some, but not I'm not running enough to need like three different shoes in the rotation. I'm just kind of doing zone two ish stuff around the neighborhood, or the treadmill. So that Rebel V five is doing just fine for what I'm doing right now. Yeah. Okay, means it. Into our main set where Coach Brady is going to walk us through the do's and don'ts of being a triathlete, working out in the gym. and Coach Brady, you've been on the show quite a few times before. We've talked about your strength training background. That is your full time career. You're also a triathlon coach and a run coach. what inspired you in the first place, years and years and years ago, to make your career your full time thing being a strength trainer in a fitness center?

Brady Hoover: This is a great question. Gosh, it's kind of a long story. I'll try to make it brief. So I went to college for marketing and it was my senior year, senior year of college where I needed an elective and there was a nutrition 101 elective. I loved that course. It was my favorite class to go to. I learned so much. In college, I was playing recreational soccer. decided I don't want to I don't want to go out for the UMass soccer team. It sounds like too big of a commitment. First college experience. I transferred in with two years left. So when I was doing the general electives, I picked up nutrition and I loved it. I loved what I was learning and I said, I'm a senior. My path, my career is it's written, right? I can't make a change now. Now here I am today.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, it's locked in. Yeah, it's locked in.

Brady Hoover: Yeah, so I decided to go down the marketing route and always liked fitness, always liked, know, cardio fitness, always liked in, in my college years, I was, I was a gym rat. I was there to, you know, build muscle to look good. Right. Um, but I kind of knew what I was doing. I always liked it. I always liked to learn. Like I, I'm a lifelong learner. So I got Arnold Schwarzenegger's book. I got the bodybuilders training Bible. think it was called and it really get into the nitty gritty, the how, the what, why. Um, and I just loved it. And I would get results. then, you know, my peers would ask me, Hey, what are you doing for a strength training program? And, so I started helping them out and I just, I just loved it. especially when they started getting like results, they were doing the same old, same old kind of strength training program. And it's like, no, you need variation, like variation variety is a spice of life. so fast forward to career, you know, I worked for a couple of marketing companies or I worked in the marketing field. It was pretty much a territory manager for Milwaukee Tools. And then, you know, the time came where my wife was graduating and I wanted to move. So I moved, you know, back home. I was living in Connecticut at the time, but I had to take a new job. didn't have, Milwaukee didn't have a territory management position for Massachusetts. So, you know, cut ties with that and went into another, you know, another company where I was account manager and... worked there for a year, then went to work for a startup. with loyalty and rewards, it was one of the first sales systems or first loyalty reward systems that we integrate with point of sale systems. So you knew what customer was coming in and what their purchasing habits were so that you could market to them on, you know, say I'm going into fire and ice, which was one of our clients. I could run a report on all the customers that ever purchased a Sam Adams beer. We're hosting a Sam Adams event. Well, I know who to market to, pull in here. based on people's own purchases habits. I like that job, but I never felt fulfilled. You know, I would help companies grow their business and stuff like that, but it was never really fulfilling. I was going to the gym and I met this trainer named Mark at the YMCA in Melrose, Massachusetts. He still trains to this day. And he just really inspired me to go down that road. I never felt satisfied, fulfilled. So I asked him questions about, can you make a living doing this? How long have you been doing this? What's it like being a trainer? What are the hours like? All of this. Because I did have a passion for fitness and helping others. So he took me under his wing and he said, yeah, shadow me in a couple of classes. Here's my schedule. I'm training some clients this week. Let me just see if you can shadow me. And I did. And I just was all eyes. I just loved it. It was rewarding. And I said, You know, here I am, I think I was 28 years old at the time. Like if I'm gonna make a change, now's the time to do it. We were starting to talk about kids in the future and moving and it's like, if I'm gonna make a change, now's the time to do it where we can, I can take an income loss, because it takes a little bit to build a clientele in the strength and fitness world. You don't just like get your CPT and then you can go and start training. Well, you can go and start training, but to start getting clients and stuff like that, it takes time and then you your clients get adults and you know next thing you know they're referring other people and then you can build your business to a point where you get to full time. So yeah it was in I finally felt like my life had a purpose. I was helping others whether it was to just move better you know maybe and it wasn't weight loss just move better I want to keep up with my I'm getting older I need to keep up with my grandchildren my grandchildren are getting heavier I don't want to I need to learn how to move correctly I hurt my back bending down to pick them up. So teaching them the correct movement patterns and stuff like that. And now I love what I do. So now I got up to a point where I was full-time, well full-time personal training, then part-time coaching, and then more full-time coaching and part-time personal training. And then TriDot reached out to me and said, hey, with your marketing background, we have a position for you. And the rest is history.

Andrew Harley: And now you're here and now we hang out all the time. yeah, no, I didn't know half of that. So that was that was thanks for fill filling us in on that. And so now that you are part-time personal training and full-time triathlon, right? So you're working with triathletes as a triathlon coach, you also behind the scenes, just so people know, you help new coaches. if there's a new, if there's a coach, a triathlon coach out there that wants to be coaching with tried out, you are one of the people on our team that will talk with that coach, explain tried out to them. Help them move their business over to tri dot, run dot. and so you that's you also do that quite a bit for us, but you coach triathletes as well. And so when you're working with your triathletes, that you're helping them get ready for events, you're helping them improve as a triathlete, you've got this strength training background. Do you kind of like write individual personalized plans for all of your athletes to carry into the gym, or do you just have them do the tri-dot strength workouts, or is it a mix of the two? How do you handle strength training when it comes to your coach athletes?

Brady Hoover: That's a great question. Yeah, so it's kind of all the only above. I'll write them a custom workout. They'll follow the TriDot strength training. It really it depends, right? I have a couple tiers for coaching, right? All my services, you know, and it goes down like all like all coaches. Okay, you pay my premium package like everything's included, right? And but since I have this knowledge, depending on the athletes, you know, comfort level, price level, package level, if you will. I believe I need to do a movement screening on everybody now because I have that knowledge, I have that background, I'd be doing them a disservice if I ignored that. So what I'll do is I'll movement screen and I'll tell them their strengths, weaknesses, and dysfunctions and I'll give them a correction, maybe some correctional exercises. I see your... your own ankle mobility is poor. So your squat pattern is affected by that. So, you know, you can't really load a squat. So here's what you here's how to fix it, right? Here's some exercise. Here's some stretches you need to work on. And here's some, you know, correctional exercises that will help you out. I could build you a strength training program and show you exactly what to do. We could change your package or I could do a, you know, a consult fee, which, you know, sometimes I'll do consultations for athletes as well. And then I can build them a program. So really, you what's best for them? If they're on my top tier package, every, every. six months or so we are re-screening after they've gone through this program we are re-screening and seeing what has changed, what hasn't changed and then I can fine tune their strength training program. I think the TriDot strength training is it's great especially for that athlete that's not doing strength training and it pops up on their schedule and now they're doing it because no matter what you're you know no matter what you're doing if you're not doing strength training three exercises is better than none like none and you're gonna notice a difference in your performance in your mechanics. So I highly recommend some form of strength training. The one thing that TriDot strength training won't really recommend is weights because it doesn't know how your body moves. It will give you those exercises that a triathlete should be doing. A lot of it is core focused and stability focused where you're doing split squat lunges. Yeah.

Andrew Harley: Yeah. It it's always a good, like well rounded, like full body. It hits like a little bit of everything. for me, I get them twice a week and it's a nice little well rounded full body without it’s a good supplement to the tri training without being too much. right. So I like the way you're framing it as a great starting point. And then if you wanna take your strength journey to the next level, you need to work with, you know, a coach, you know, like yourself who can just hone it in on your actual bodily needs.

Brady Hoover: Yeah, yeah, you're not going to see like deadlifts in there because it's, you know, if it gives you a dumbbell deadlift, well, who's to say you were, you know, your man mechanics are correctly and that's the one that athletes are injuring themselves mostly on because they don't hip hinge correctly. So they, know, if, if, that was prescribed and it's like, it's a potential injury. you know, so it's prescribing the safe, safe, but effective strength training. So highly recommend the TriDot strength training for all you athletes out there.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, very, very good. So, Brady, what I did is I I tried to think of when I go to the gym, what are the different things I see people doing? Like what are the different machines that are there? What are the different workout options that are there? What are the things that a triathlete could stumble into when they go to a gym? And I just want to run through with you just several questions on just for each of these options in the gym, what would you say are the do's and don'ts for triathletes? and so the first thing I'll bring up is just like scheduling in strength training. This is something that I historically have found difficult because if I if I strength train too often or if I go too hard on a strength session, it sabotages my swim bike run sessions for the rest of the week. But then if I if I undercook it, I'm leaving performance, you know, on the table, right? I'm not improving at the rate that I could be. So what is

Brady Hoover: Good. you know, on the table. Right.

Andrew Harley: What are your do's and don'ts when it comes to frequency, duration, intensity? How often, how much strength training should we be doing as triathletes and where should we pull back in reference to our swim bike and run sessions?

Brady Hoover: Yeah, great question. Yeah, a couple of questions in there. So place to start, I mean, if you're not doing anything, doing that first TriDot strength training, it's going to leave you sore. Some of that's not strength training. I say don't add weights to it. Just for the next three weeks, do body weight. Do it with bands. maybe even skip it unless it's like a row or something that needs some resistance. But if it's a squat pattern, it's a lunge, it's a single leg deadlift, you can do that and do muscle activation and that's gonna make you sore, right? That's gonna challenge the body. It's a stimulus that it hasn't seen. So starting there, starting with maybe two sets, you I know the gold standard is three sets or when you're in the lift heavier phase, it's four sets, but starting with two sets again, coming from nothing, you don't have to go out there and go to that gold standard right away, kind of ramp yourself up to it. Maybe if you're a little timid with the strength training, start with, and you're worried about being sore, start with one set of everything that's being prescribed. Don't add weights to it. Use a resistance band for your rows or something like that that you need to. If it's recommending a rep count, do what feels right. Don't bury yourself. Let your muscles kind of condition. It's going to take two or three weeks for the body to say, this is what I'm doing. And that delayed on muscle soreness sort of kind of goes away. If you're wishy washy on one week off another week with the strain training. Yeah. It's like every other week when you're coming back to it, the body's like, what is this again? Okay. It stressed me in a way that it has to respond. So you're going to get that delayed on muscle soreness. Where I like to put it in an routine, I like I have this general rule of keeping easy days easy. prior to like an easy bike like Wednesday if you're if you get like the regular prescription you know usually I like to have the athletes strength train on Wednesdays after their hard run because they're gonna have an easy bike the next day or on their or if we're okay with taking away from the bike, maybe Tuesday we do a lighter strength session, okay we can still run, it's gonna take a little bit away from the run but after a couple of weeks when your muscles adapt you barely notice. Like you just notice, okay you know I have three by six minutes at zone four, I just strength trained last night, okay my legs are a little heavy but I can still hit the targets, I can still get the time in zone, my RP might be a little bit more but the heart rate and everything else is right on point. That does, it does get better. If you practice it the body knows and it's like you wake up the next day and it's like you haven't skipped a beat. But I like to keep those easy days truly easy.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, and that's interesting, Brady, because I I think my tendency is, today's an easy day. I've only got like a forty minute zone two run or a twenty minute zone two run. I've got more time today, I've got more energy today. Let me put out a a solid strength session. And you're really flipping that, and I think for good reason. That's really interesting.

Brady Hoover: I think they have got more energy today. Yeah, and how I'll have my athletes do that. What time of season are we in? One workout is gonna take away from the other. So if I do a hard bike today, it's Tuesday, well that hard bike's gonna take a little bit away from how much I can lift in the gym. It's not much, right? It's a couple of pounds. Maybe it's five, 10 pounds. Whereas if I strength train earlier in the day and I do my hard bike later, that strength training session is going to take a little bit away from the bike, but I can lift a little bit heavier weights. So we kind of flip flop between the seasons. Okay, we're in season, we're training for a big race. We want to prioritize our swing, bike and run where strength training is necessary, but secondary in the off season. Let's flip that around. We want to get a little bit stronger, maybe get a little by a high, high birth with the, going on a little bit of muscle growth. Okay. Get the most of it out of our strength session. Let's do that earlier in the day. and let's do our bike workout later in the day. And then this way we can still keep those easy days relatively easy. Did I answer it?

Andrew Harley: sorry, quick break. did you want to go through your notes on like what a solid strength session should include? That's on this question, right? Yeah, I can lob it up to you for that too.

Brady Hoover: Yeah. Yeah. For those that aren't following the TriDot strength or want to do something, feel they need to do something else, like where should I start? Or they're on lifestyle, right? And they don't have strength turned on.

Andrew Harley: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, good point. Okay, I'll pick up. So Brady, I I agree with you that the TriDot strength sessions are a great place to start. If you want to start working that in, they'll definitely work it, they'll definitely get you a little sore. for an athlete that maybe is on a lower tier subscription, doesn't have the strength in their program, or somebody that just wants a routine on top of what tried out prescribes, what would you tell an athlete to do at home as maybe a good starting point, well rounded triathlete style workout?

Brady Hoover: Good. have strength in their free will. to do. Yeah, kind of keep it simple. Think about compound movements. Don't have to get too crazy when you see folks in the gym and they're in there for over an hour. Those are typically your bodybuilders, right? They're starting with their big movement patterns. They're starting with a squat. They're starting with a deadlift. And it might be a leg day, so they're all focused on legs. So they go for those compound movements first, and then they isolate to smaller and smaller muscles. Their last leg exercise might be like calf raises, right? So they're squatting, they're deadlifting, and then they're maybe doing some hamstring curls, some leg extensions, things like that. We're not bodybuilders, we're triathletes. just, you we wanna move better. We wanna kind of injury proof ourselves. So keep it simple. A full body is a great way to go. Cause we're not, we'll put on a little bit of muscle that way if the weights are heavy enough and we're gonna get everything done that needs to be done. So really five kind of main movements. You've got a knee dominant. So for leg focused, you've got knee dominant exercise. Those are your squat like patterns. Those are like squats, Bulgarian split squats, reverse lunges, forward lunges, step ups. Those are what we would call a knee dominant exercise. So you want one of those in your program. Hip dominant exercise. So those are where you're going into hip extension. So think deadlift. That's where your butt is traveling backwards. That is a hip extension. So different forms of that. You've got deadlifts. You've got single leg deadlifts. You've got bridges, hip thrusts are a couple that come to mind like right off the top. any one of those will do just fine. So there always wants to be at least one of each in there. Then you've got your push exercise. So compound movement, a push up, right? Push up is gonna work your chest. mainly, but it's also going to work your triceps and shoulders, right? So if a bodybuilder's in there doing a upper body day, you know, they're going to start with a chest press or something like that, and then they're going go to a strict, you know, just a shoulder exercise, just a triceps exercise. But you can hit all those muscle groups with something like a pushup or a dumbbell chest press. So you want some sort of horizontal push. Then you want some sort of vertical push overhead, shoulder raise, something along those lines. Then you need a pull movement, so where you're pulling the weight towards you. So that could be like a seated row, a bent over row, a pull up, right? You're pulling that bar towards you and getting your head above the bar. So there's your pull exercise. A pull exercise is going to engage your biceps and your back. then you can get it to isolation, but we don't really need isolation. We don't have a why, maybe in the off season, right? But for the everyday triathlete, keeping it simple like that, that's sort of that four movements I just mentioned, then you need a core exercise. So five exercises right there, that's a great place to start.

Andrew Harley: Yeah. Well. Yeah, no, I I love that 'cause I I think I think you go to a gym and you see the people who look strong doing all these things and getting on these machines and loading up with weights and you just think like, Whoa, that's not what I'm supposed to be doing. Jeez. And to hear that actually you can, but you we certainly don't have to do what we need to do in the gym as a true athlete. That's really helpful.

Brady Hoover: Yeah, and then I like to switch up so we're in there two different days. So when it comes to leg dominant exercise, or sorry, knee dominant, hip dominant exercise, right? If we're doing a squat and it's two legged, not a split squat, you know, we're to be able to lift more weight there. If we're doing a split squat, well, we're not going to be able to lift as much weight, but it's more functional when it comes to triathlon. because now we're working our stabilizer muscles. So if you're on a single leg, you're on a split squat, you're gonna feel your stabilizer muscles going, your adductors, adductors, they are involved in your traditional squat pattern, but you really don't notice them and you don't stimulate them the same way as a single leg. So my recommendation is when it comes to a leg exercise, you have your day one and your day two. So day one for your knee dominant exercise, let's say is a goblet squat. Then the hip dominant exercise I like to pair with that might be something like a single leg deadlift. I want to put that athlete on a single leg and get some stability in there. Day two, I'm going to kind of flip that around a little bit. Now we're going to do a traditional deadlift or a hip thrust or a bridge two legged exercises where we can lift more weight. And then I might put the athlete in a split squat. So we're still getting that stability component on there. And you'll notice that that translates well to running, right? We're all on running. There's never two feet on the ground. It's always one foot. Your body doesn't, you don't notice it when you're running that there could be all this compensation going on. But when I screen an athlete and I put them into a forward lunge or a reverse lunge and they're wobbling, I'll point that out to them. You don't notice this when you're running, but if we can get you to own these movements, think about how much more energy and how much more efficient you're going to be when you're out there running. or same with cycling, right? If there's compensation going on, your body is so good at compensating that when you kind of trim it down like this, you can work on some of those lower hanging fruit.

Andrew Harley: Yeah. No, very, very interesting. S something I want to ask you about. I've y you show up to a triathlon event from the pro field to the age group field. There are some guys and gals that are muscular and look strong, look a little beefier, and put in strong performances in endurance sports. And there's also kind of this like longstanding belief that, if you're an endurance athlete, you shouldn't be too beefy because you're just carrying more weight. You know, it's muscle doesn't s you know, float in the water, right? Muscle sinks in the water. and so there there's kind of this two-tier of like there's clearly some athletes out there that look strong and are strong, and there's some athletes out there that look lean and are lean and are fast because they're lean. Do you have an opinion? Is there kind of a right like amount of muscle mass we should be shooting for? Because I think when it for most of us, when we think of going into a gym and doing a workout, There's just like, you're a runner, you don't or you don't want to get too big. Is that is that a real concern or is that kind of like an outdated myth?

Brady Hoover: Kind of, yeah, you don't want to get, it's kind of outdated. You don't want to get too big. I'm thinking like professional triathletes. So you get Kristen Blumenfeld, more muscular guy than say Patrick Lange, right? But both put out phenomenal times. I, you know, I know this guy, he runs Boston every year and he's 185, 190 pounds all muscle, right? Lean, lean. He can run a 230 marathon.

Andrew Harley: Can we talk about TriDot coach Matt Sommer? Shout out to Matt Sommer, his podcast regular.

Brady Hoover: Yeah, Matt Sommer. He was in my notes here. Matt Sommer, real big dude. he's running functional muscle. I he just ran in Boston, 303. He's a little bit bigger than I am. yeah, it just goes to show that if you're going to add muscle, let it be functional muscle, you don't want to outlift your swim back and run. So what I'm saying there is if you're lifting five days a week,

Andrew Harley: He's got some great muscle mass and he's way faster than I am. Yeah.

Brady Hoover: and you're only swimming, biking, running one day a week, yeah, you're gonna put on more muscle size that could potentially slow you down, whereas if you're lifting two to three days a week and you're doing those other disciplines, you're swimming twice a week, biking twice a week, running twice a week, your body is gonna adapt. And every time you add a pound, you're still gonna see your FTPs going up. Your 5K times going down, right? I call that, that's functional muscle. It's serving a purpose. where an athlete gets into trouble is when they just go all in on strength training and they really limit their swim, bike, and run. So then they come back to their season, say all winter long, they just focused on the gym. They come back and they were wishy washy with their swim, bike, and run. They come back, they've put on five, eight pounds of muscle over the winter. Eight pounds would be a lot, unless you get those newbie gains, but they put on five pounds of muscle. All of a sudden, how you balance on the bike becomes a little bit different. Or your rotational axis when you're running, right? You are rotating through the air. You got a broader size. Well, that rotation is going to take a little longer. It's going to, it's going to feel a little weird running in that new, I call it a new body. so yeah, by all means, like in the off season, increase your strength training, your volume, your frequency. but don't take away too much from your swim bike and run. Otherwise, your body will adapt, right? If you make that, I'm not gonna call it a mistake, right? Athletes have different whys, right? It will just take longer to get back to get, okay, this is what running feels. It was feeling hard and I can't figure out why. And it's like, I put on five pounds and I'm not used to running with that extra five pounds. Well, now my body's gonna relearn that. So nothing wrong with putting, yeah.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, interesting. Yeah, really interesting. I remember when I I graduated college and moved to Texas, started my career. I wasn't a traffic yet, so I would I would get off work and I would go for a run. And I would go home, do dinner, do like my evening routine, and then I would go to the gym at like I was like a 10 p.m. to eleven p.m. gym guy at the time in my twenties, right? That that was my gym time. And I remember like when I started lifting weights and getting kind of into gym culture, you see guys and gals in the gym that are clearly gym rats, like doing all these things with nutrition that I don't think we as triathletes do. And so I want to bring these up and see should we be doing any of this or should we leave this to the gym rats? And a couple things that come to mind are I would see people like mixing like pre-workout mixes that were like supposed to give them energy and like you try it and you just feel like you're buzzing as you're starting your workout. sometimes they're like downing pills. I don't even know what the pills are, but they're downing pills before a workout with our pre-energy mix and then going and doing their workout. I've seen guys and girls literally drinking protein out of a shaker bottle, like while they're walking around the gym doing stuff. Whereas like triathletes, we do our recovery drink after our workout, right? Not like mid-workout a couple times. then you see some folks walking around with like gallons of water and they will drink a gallon of water. As they're walking around doing a full workout routine. and so I there's these habits aren't triathlon culture habits. They're clearly like gym culture habits. When we as triathletes go to the gym to do a workout, should we carry any of these things into our routine or should we leave that to the gym crowd?

Brady Hoover: and I do. pretty much leave that to the gym crowd and I can, I can dive into them a little bit to kind of make some sense of it. so yeah, that pre that pre-workout. Yeah. Yeah. The pre, the pre-workout, the pre-workout drink and capsules, if they're taking pills, it's probably got the same, I'm not familiar with all the products, but, it's pre-workout mix. It's it pretty much it's, it's caffeine or some other type of stimulate to give you energy. so.

Andrew Harley: Okay. I'm not crazy, right? Like they these are things that you've seen too.

Brady Hoover: Do we need that? Not really. If you feel kind of like you're dragging and you need a little something to kind of boost you, yeah, a pre-workout thing might give you that energy. I would rather turn to like an apple and peanut butter about an hour before I go into the gym as my kind of pre-workout thing. I don't feel the need for caffeine or those other stimulants, especially if it's like later in the day. If I'm taking something like that at say three in the afternoon, I'm gonna have a hard time falling asleep at nine o'clock. that evening. Some people work better than others, but if you're working out after work, you might have trouble kind of falling asleep. So yeah, pre-workout drink. Don't really need it, not for what we're trying to accomplish. The bodybuilders, they're going to be in there for a little bit more than an hour or sometimes two, depending on where they are in their lifting cycle. Just like swim, bike and run, there's periodization, and I'm sure we'll get into that too. Protein shakes, if you see them walking around with protein shakes, chances are they're gonna be there for longer than an hour. So yeah, if you're putting in that much volume, that you're in the gym for over an hour, yeah, some protein, you're like, think about all the damage that the bodybuilders are doing to their muscles, all those micro tears and stuff where protein mid workout makes sense so they can get there. You they're lifting a heavy weight, say they're doing three reps to failure, now they gotta wait for four or five minutes before they can repeat that again. And they're doing say, five to six sets of that. And then if they're doing a leg day, well, you when they're doing those compound movements, leg presses, deadlifts, squats, those things, and they're doing that heavy weight, well, a lot of the time there is rest. So they're going to be there a lot longer than an hour. So protein makes sense. For most of us triathletes, we're going to be, if you're sticking to five exercises, you're going to be done in like 30 minutes, especially if you're smart about time and we'll probably get into that where you can do, you know, where triathletes, right? So our cardiovascular system's really good where we might be able to do a dumbbell chest press and hop right up and dumbbell chest press to fatigue and then jump right up and go into a seated row, right? We can do those back to backs, different muscles, right? As I mentioned, push-up is triceps, chest, shoulders. What's going to happen is your heart rate's going to rise, but where triathletes were conditioned, We can go to a seated row right after that and save time, then rest, and then repeat that set for two sets, three sets. Where the pre-builder is doing that a little bit differently, getting more rest. So for us, protein mid-workout doesn't make sense. Even after workout, maybe, maybe not. If you're going to be eating in the next hour after your workout, don't eat the protein shake. can, I'm a big believer as you can get everything in through food, nutrition, you know, a regular green smoothie.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, look at us. Look at us.

Brady Hoover: with some good sources of protein in there. Yeah, you could throw in some protein powder if you want that extra boost. But if you're good about, you know, your diet and stuff, I firmly believe you can get everything for the most part through your diet, maybe some supplementation. If you're going to be longer than an hour, that's when a protein shake after the gym makes sense. Now when it comes to water and the gallon size jugs, I think it's more of a convenience thing because those guys are going to be there for your bodybuilder that's doing a leg day, that's, you know, they're going to be in there. Yeah, that's just it. I think it's a convenience thing that they're not, you know, they don't have to fill up their water bottle. Sometimes I'll go through in an hour strength workout. I'll go through 33, I'll go through a liter of water. When you're lifting heavy weights like that, yeah, your need for water increases.

Andrew Harley: They're so big, Brady, they don't have to walk to the water fountain. That's too much work. Yeah. Ha ha ha.

Brady Hoover: These bodybuilders are also taking creatine, so water helps with the creatine. It helps store the water in the muscles. So that's why they're walking around with these kind of big jugs. But I think it's more for convenience. So they remember the drink and they always have their water with them.

Andrew Harley: Yeah. No, super helpful. So it sounds like we can just carry our triathlon fueling habits over to the gym and not adopt the gym bodybuilder habits. So that's super helpful to know. now when we walk into a gym, there's always several different types of strength training we can do, right? There's usually areas where there's machines, there's areas with free weights, there's areas that that might have a variety of bands and floor mats and stuff you can do on the ground with medicine balls.

Brady Hoover: and the VCRs as well. Yeah. to affect the viewpoint areas where there's movement.

Andrew Harley: are any of these areas or types of strength workouts better for a triathlete than others?

Brady Hoover: Yeah, so as the one thing I hate to see people doing, it makes sense for bodybuilders, but for your everyday athlete or everyday general population, most of us sit for everything we do. We sit the work, we sit the drive to the gym, we sit the drive home, we sit to eat all our meals. Now we're gonna go to the gym and we're gonna sit on a machine. I'm not a big fan of machines. They definitely serve a place, especially if form like a, maybe your squat pattern's not all that great or your hip hinges need some work and not quite ready. That's when a machine may make sense. But there's other alternatives that we can do like on the mat. Like say we don't have the correct hip hinge yet for a deadlift. Well, we can probably do a bridge, right? And that's laying down on the mat and just getting our feet flat on the ground and. engaging our glutes, hamstrings, and quads, and lifting our butt up, you know, as high as, essentially as high as we can. The next exercise that gets a little bit more into hip extension would be your hip thrust. You're doing that similar movement as a bridge, but you're doing that elevated. So your back might be resting on a bench, or even before a bench, something kind of a step, right? Like those, you know, Reebok step things from back in the day. might be there, so you get a little bit more range of motion through your hip extension. You start to learn that movement pattern, and then I have some exercises to teach the hip hinge, then you might be moving on to a deadlift. So I like to see people, and I always recommend free weights. Free weights, T or X, because that's more functional, right? That's moving in a way that our body moves when we swim, bike, and run, when we walk, when we play with our kids. We're trying to mimic some of that in the gym. when it comes to the machines, those operate in pretty much one plane of movement where it's fixed. So you get to the chest press machine and I'm sitting there just like I'm sitting in the chair. I can adjust the chair up or down, but when I press out, it's not gonna move up or down, it's just gonna go in one plane of motion. Maybe it moves in a curve, but it's fixed. We're not stabilizing that, all we have to do is press and we're looking for maximum power. We're not even engaging our stabilizer muscles. So I would rather see somebody go to a pushup or if they can't own a pushup yet, go to a bench and do a dumbbell chest press. I say the machines are kind of two dimensional, if you will. Whereas if you go to the free weights and you do that same movement pattern, now you've got your stabilizer muscles going. If you get under a barbell, well, there's less stabilization that has to happen because it's one bar. You can lift more force there, whereas I rather triathletes, your everyday population, do dumbbells because you're getting more bang for your buck.

Andrew Harley: Yeah. Yeah. L li lift a little less weight in one motion, right? So it doesn't look as sexy, but you're doing more for your body in one go. Love it.

Brady Hoover: Yeah, we want the most bang for a buck. limited. We want to get back to our swim, bike and run. So how can we maximize what we do in the gym? And a lot of the TriDot strength workouts are just like that. You won't see machines in there. You see, you know, split squats instead of squat. You see your occasional squat too, but you see split squat. Split squat is working your stabilizer muscles more. If you can get really strong on one leg. So you're working on single leg deadlifts or split squats. you get really strong and you get really good with that movement. Imagine if I give you two legs and say, okay, now go under a barbell and do a barbell squat after we've spent three weeks working on our split squat. How much weight you can do, because your stabilizer muscles are working, but not only that, you're on a more fixed position, you get a lot more power. Now imagine how that relates to when you're cycling, when you're running, and that extra power that you can get.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, no, love it. super helpful again, 'cause it you know, I think it's you know, i if a triathlete knows what they like to do in the gym and they have some experience working out in the gym, they're probably set. But for a lot of us, you walk in and you know, there's so many options, right? There's so many things you can do, especially if you're at a a really tricked out, you know, fitness center. it can be a little overwhelming to okay, where do where do I even start? And so just hearing, okay, free weights, practical body exercises. What I've done personally When I you know, as I do the try-dot strength workouts, if I get to a try-dot, you know, i in in the app, it's gonna give if it gives you six moves to do, right? And over the course of 30 minutes, you can click on the videos and watch how to do them correctly. And over time, like if they're if I needed a piece of equipment for a certain strength move, you know, next time we were out shopping, I would buy it. And so over time, you've accumulated all of the dumbbells you need, the kettlebells you need, the resistance bands you need, and all of a sudden

Brady Hoover: Thank you for your attention. So go over to the website and click on the video to see we do them correctly. Love it.

Andrew Harley: Hey, anything Tradot tells me to do, I can do it right here at home without even going to the fitness center. That makes it even easier. But you've definitely steered us in the right direction for when we do go to the gym. Where do we start? the next thing, folk, go ahead.

Brady Hoover: That makes it bit easier. Yeah, I want to touch on one more thing too. The one caveat to machines, I do like cables because cables, do give you that kind of three dimensional, if you will, because you are working your stabilizer muscles. So if you're doing a cable chest press, you know, it's just like a dumbbell. You're in a more of a fixed position where the machine's going to help you almost press it the right way, but you're still working your stabilizer muscles. I also like the resistance of when you're coming back. Right, the cable's pulling with that nice even force where, you know, dumbbells are coming down with gravity, whereas a cable is gonna pull you back. So I do like cables. Where I tend to stay away from is those machines unless I'm really tired or an athlete's really tired. Yeah, then a machine might make sense, but that's my last resort.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, no, super helpful. Now, something else that athletes will see when they walk into a fitness center or a gym is there's usually classes that are offered that we can jump into, right? And often there's entire rooms dedicated to these classes. And so even if there's not a class happening, you can see, what happens in there? a class. And now you know it's an option. things like Zumba, Pilates, Yoga. there's spin classes that obviously look appealing probably to tri athletes. These kind of offer a form of communal workout experience. You get in there with other people. They pump some music and it motivates you. definitely valuable, definitely a legitimate way to get a good workout. Can these be beneficial for tri athletes or is it too separate from our swim, bike, and run, and we should probably just leave it to the side?

Brady Hoover: that's a good question. I'm torn. I do like them because if it gets you into the gym and gets you moving, some of the more popular classes that I like to recommend. Body pump, you you're working with a dumbbell, I mean sorry, a dumbbell, a barbell. And you'll have a couple of weights, but everything's high repetition. It's still cardio workout, you know, you got some resistance in there, but you're doing like sometimes 20 repetitions, or you're doing compound movements, but with a lightweight. some of the movements I see in there sometimes I'm like, gosh, I got to look away. Someone's going to hurt themselves. But I say when you get into body pump, go slow, go slow. Don't rush it. Everyone else might be doing 20 repetitions. Take your time with it. Right. It's nice to have that camaraderie and motivation. And if that, that helps you get to the gym and strength train. Yeah, definitely go for it. Tabata is another one that's very popular in the gym. And a good, a good instructor is going to incorporate some weights in there too. So you're doing, maybe you're on the ground. because you're on a mat, you're on a ground with some light dumbbells and you're doing chest presses. know, one Tabata set, Tabata's protocol is 20 seconds on, 10 seconds rest and you'll repeat that eight times and then you'll get a one minute rest in between before moving on to the next group. So a lot of where I used to teach... a lot of the group exercise instructors would, you know, have upper body, lower body, core, cardio focused. So in the course of an hour, 45 minutes to an hour, your first Tabata step might be laying on the ground and doing chest presses for 20 seconds. Then you have 10 seconds to stand up. And then the next 20 seconds, you're doing bent over rows. And then you're back on the ground. At the end of that four minutes of Tabata, you've gotten four sets of chest presses and four sets of rows. Then you're moving on and maybe it's the legs that are coming next. and they're doing a hip hinge and a squat pattern or something like that. So it is most of the time it's going to be well balanced. I can't speak for all gyms and all instructors, but usually they're taking, you know, full body into consideration there. Yoga is great. We could all use a little bit of yoga in our lives too. yoga is one of those things I'll do on my own, but I prefer to do it in a class. There's just something about the ambiance and just being with other people and taking yoga and all doing good for our body. Flexibility, you you're gaining some muscular strength. When I do yoga, I usually opt for, getting, I'm doing my strength training, so I'm usually opting for the modification. So instead of getting in runner's lunge, I'm getting in runner's lunge and I'm dropping my knee. I want the flexibility. I don't need the strength component. I'm still getting that elsewhere. Interesting. Spin classes are great. That camaraderie, it gets you going. It can translate to swim, bike and run or your cycling. But in spin classes, it's more punchy. It's more 30 seconds of power recover. So it's not too sp- triathlon specific where we're more about sustainable power. But if you need that in your routine every once in a while, I'll have athletes, you know, I like to take spin class on Tuesdays. Great. I'm going to make some changes to your, you know, your routine or I'm okay with you taking classes on Tuesday to swap your interval bike because that gets you going, but you cannot do that on your Saturday or Sunday long ride. And you cannot do that on your easier day on Thursday, you know, those kinds of things. So, you know, a little bit of trade-off. off. You what's going to get us the best results is consistency over time. So if you're going to skip a bike workout, but you won't skip a spin workout. Yeah. Go take that spin workout. It's better than a skipped workout. Zumba. That's the only thing that I'm like, the one thing I like about it is they're moving laterally, which we don't get enough of. Like in our lives, we're all walking to the car. We're walking here. We're walking to get the kids. We're in one plane of movement. don't very rarely move laterally. And when we swim, bike and run, we certainly don't move. So that's the one thing I like about Zumba is you're moving laterally, you're moving in ways that you don't typically move. But it's pretty much all cardio and dance, is great, but we're triathletes. So we're getting all that cardiovascular benefits from our swim, bike, and run. I would say select one of those more weight-focused classes or yoga when choosing one of those other classes. Yeah, I could go on and on. There's all kinds of different offerings. Yeah. Yeah.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We don't need to cover everything. the other thing I'll ask about though, just and I mainly think of this because my wife is moving in and out of the office as I'm as we're having this conversation. My wife really likes doing it formerly it was called Beach Body, it's just called Body, right? And so she subscribes to Body Workouts Lib Workout Library, and on our TVs, she can fire up a body workout routine and right there in the living room do it's kind of like joining a workout class from your home, right? And There's times where I've been doing like a stretch session in our home gym while she's doing a body workout on the TV. And like I'll finish my stretching and she's got 15 minutes left in the workout. I'm like, let me let me try this out for a little bit and I'll hop in for just a little bit and do what she's doing. And there's it's it can really burn your muscles. Like that it's some good stuff. And I think back to like I think I was in high school and college when P90X, you remember P90X, like it was like a DVD set.

Brady Hoover: It was funny, it was crazy, it like, I couldn't... yeah.

Andrew Harley: that you'd have to trade out the DVDs halfway through your workout to finish the workout. so that there's some at home options, right? Through just like YouTube workouts, Apple Fitness. There's those things that can stream a workout class right into your living room. Is that very similar to what we're talking about with gym classes and should be approached in a similar way?

Brady Hoover: of the fact that those things that we frame work. Yes, yeah, with the body it's been a while since I've been on that app, but I believe they have everything from, know, Shanty's Insanity, P90X, P90X, I think there's up to P90X3, maybe even 4 now. They have shredded or ripped or something like that. So yeah, there's lots of different options and you don't need a lot of equipment. If you're building out your home gym, of different sized kettlebells, a light one, a medium one and a heavy one for you. And then you can get for about $50, you can get dumbbells that go from five pounds to 25 pounds. And then if you have a little bit more money in your budget, the Bowflex dumbbells will go from five pounds all the way up to 52 and a half. And that's all you really need, that and a mat, and you're good to go. Maybe a pull-up bar that hangs in the door frame, and some resistance bands if you're not able to do pull-ups just yet. So definitely something to save time, not have to have the monthly gym expense. There's plenty you can do at home too. I have some athletes that don't have access to a gym and we just, you know, they just equip themselves with what they got and then I'll write them a program based on that.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, so something else that gyms and fitness centers have that we can't skip over, and I want to do a longer podcast episode about this because we are triathletes and most of our time is spent swimming, biking, and running. Gyms have cardio equipment, they have treadmills, they have spin bikes, they have recumbent bikes, they have different types of treadmills, right? And so there's a number of ways to get cardio workouts in when you're in the gym.

Brady Hoover: The whole time is spent swimming. Thank you.

Andrew Harley: and triathlete can use that in in a number of ways to replicate our swim bike and run. And again, I want to do like a full length episode about this so we don't have to go too deep into each individual piece of equipment and how we should use it in our routines. But just in general, is should this be like a last resort for a triathlete and we should do most of our swim bike and running outside, or is this a viable place to supplement our swim bike and run training?

Brady Hoover: Yeah, we know, we know from the professional triathletes when it comes to the bike, most of them do all their cycling indoors, you know, on the bike trainer. That's where they're getting the quality. They're not getting coasting. They're not coming up to stop signs. Right. So yeah, using a spin back at the gym, no problem with that at all. using a treadmill, well in the winter time here in New England, sometimes it's just, you know, we got, we had a lot of snow last winter where getting out the next morning for a, for a run, which just wasn't possible. do mine early in the morning. So treadmill is a great place. we actually have one now. but I used to just go drive to the gym and use that treadmill. Also for those easier days, easy run where I'm focused more on heart rate. Elliptical or walking on an incline of treadmill is a great supplement, substitute. You're not going to get the impact, you can still get the cardiovascular benefits. so doing a little across training. Yeah, no problem with that. It's just kind of working it into where, where and how it makes sense. And that's where, you know, a coach can kind of help guide you. I, my just runners, right? That run that want to want to be active six days a week. say for two of your runs, I want you on an elliptical or I want you on a bike, you know, go to the gym, you have a gym membership. Okay. Go and use an elliptical, get that running stimulus in that running like motion, but without the impact you're going to get. more quality out of your quality days.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, so this one, Brady, is kind of my like catch all question because you've spent a lot more time in a fitness center than I have, and you've seen a lot more of what athletes do there, right? To train and to get stronger. So what have I missed? What have we not talked about? What have what habits and training mechanisms have you seen in and out of a fitness center that we can learn from, benefit from, and what have you seen that we should leave to decide? What should we think about, not think about, that we haven't covered so far in my the questions I could think of.

Brady Hoover: gosh, this is a great question. Gosh, you walk into a gym and you might see somebody doing burpees with weights and you go, what the heck are they doing? Do I need to do that? No, you don't. They're doing metabolic conditioning. If you were going to do something I like to call the man eater, right? It's called a man eater. Look it up. You start standing, you drop to a pushup, you got two dumbbells. You push up on those dumbbells. When you get to the top of that pushup, you roll with the right arm, roll with the left arm, hop yourself in. Stand up, curl those weights and press them overhead. Right, that is a lot of movements. You can break that down a lot simpler, right? We don't need to be doing that. We shouldn't need to be. Yeah, it looks, it might look good for Instagram, right? And for those influencers, but it's not what our bodies need. And there's a lot of risk for injury, right? You're doing these under fatigue. Your heart rate's getting sky high. If your movement pattern's not there, risk of injury, right? You may also see somebody, and I like this form of strength training, circuit training, where you might pick, let's just say those five exercises, right? where you might grab a set of dumbbells or a kettlebell, a kettlebell and two dumbbells, and you might go and do a squat, and then you'll do a bent over row, and then you'll do a pushup, then you'll stand up and do a deadlift, and you'll finish with a bicycle crunch, right? you'll do five exercises before rest. Gonna get the heart rate sky high, but a great way to rip through a routine really quick, and you're working on different muscles with every movement, and then you finish all five and then you rest. That's something you'll see often in the gym. Great for cardiovascular training at the same time as resistance training. Do I recommend it? Only when time is tight. You're gonna get a lot more from just the basics, keeping it simple. You know, I took several Mike Boyle's classes. Mike Boyle, big name in the industry. He worked at Boston University. Yeah, Boston University. He worked with the Boston Red Sox. He trains. some of the team, the female team USA hockey players. He trains NHL players, football players. He just sticks to the basics, right? I need to get these athletes to move better. I need to get them strong and I need to reduce risk of injury. Keeps it super simple yet super effective, right? Just back to the basics, getting your body to move right. that is, you know, he is one of the pioneers of, you know, bringing strength training into sports. You know, some of our younger folks might not know that name, but you know, anyone 40 and above probably knows that name, Mike Boyle. He's written so many books. He travels the United States and the world. Yeah, great, great resource. And all his programming is super simple. He's got his, okay, we're gonna do a squat pattern. Well, what's right for Andrew? What's right for Brady? What's right for Kyle? What's right for Melissa? we're all doing some sort of squat pattern. I might be doing two-legged, you might be doing a split squat, Melissa might be doing a Bulgarian split squat. We're all doing the same movement pattern, just what's right for you, what's right for me kind of thing, and maybe where we are in our season too.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, la last question in our main set. this has all been super helpful. I've learned a lot today, Bertie. I appreciate the conversation for you personally. You're an active triathlete racing a couple times a year. You're an active marathoner, just ran Boston a little ways ago. Like you, you are, you are getting after it every single day for yourself as an athlete. I know you work some strength in there. What does strength training look like for you alongside your swim bike and run?

Brady Hoover: Yeah, great. That's a great question. I'm happy to shed some light on that. So in season, which for me in season is pretty much from, you know, March all the way through to October, doing two days a week of strain training in that kind of minimum effective dose where I'm doing, when I'm hitting all my basic movements and I'm doing what's right for my body. So, you know, knee dominant exercise, hip dominant exercise, core exercise, push pull. overhead press five exercises real quick. I can get it done in 20, 30 minutes. I'm usually doing what we call supersets to save even more time where I might do, you know, a chest press followed by a row and then I'll rest instead of doing a chest press, rest, row, rest. But you know, play around with that. You may not be ready to super sight yet because your heart rate gets really high or you may notice your heart rate's not getting that high, but it feels like your out of breath and it feels like your heart beating is a lot. That's called stroke volume. The amount of blood that your body is pushing through your body is more liters per pump. you know, so that can give that perception of my heart's beating really fast, but wait, no it's not. So once your body's adapted to that, you could do some of those things that might save you a little bit more time. In the off season. Sometimes I'll trim down my one hour workouts to 40, 45 minute workouts where I do the warmup, I do the main set, and then I'll do a shorter cool down to allow for a little bit more time in my strength training. And I might bump that up from two days a week to three days a week, or if I stay with two days a week, which is more often than not these days, because my kids are getting older and busier, I'll go from a five exercise routine to somewhere between eight and 10 where... then I might be doing a two-legged squat pattern, a split squat, a two-legged hip hinge pattern, like a deadlift or a hip thrust, followed by a single leg hip extension exercise. So I'm just getting a little bit more volume in on those muscles. So generally that's what it looks like for me. Nothing super complicated, no fancy movements, just the basics.

Andrew Harley: On to our cooldown for today's episode where we ask a question from the audience. And I pulled a question from Vasso. She's from Toronto. she's Facebook friends with me. She's part of the Tradot community. And she, Brady, is a spin instructor. I know this because we're Facebook friends and I see her posting about her spin classes all the time. So while we're talking about being in the gym, shout out to Vasso, who is a TriDot athlete and a spin instructor. she wants to know: Does anyone practice running coming out of the water? Into T1, like a swim to run brick. I find it tough coming out of the water to run, especially when the distance from swim to bike is long. Is there value in practicing this?

Brady Hoover: Short answer, yes, there's value in practicing. It's just like anything else, right? It's gonna make you quicker muscle memory, if you will. Why people don't talk about it much or don't do it much, it's the setup, right? I gotta go to the lake and now I gotta bring my bicycle and I gotta leave my bike there unattended or lock it up. It can be a lot for a new triathlete. absolutely we need to practice those things. know, short swim in the water come out. I kind of practice a little bit, some physically, some mentally every time I go for an open water swim, where I'm 300 yards from the shore. I'll pick up the pace a little bit, but then that last hundred yards or so, those last like minute and a half, two minutes, I'm slowing down the pace, right? I'm fighting for that exit position, but then I'm slowing down the pace as I come into the shoreline. Cause that's going to get my heart rate lower. What happens is a lot of athletes want to sprint. They want to sprint out of the water. I see it. I got a hundred yards to go. I'm going to pick up the pace. They exit the water and their heart rate's at s- let's say 160, as soon as they stand up it jumps to 170 and now they're out of breath. So I try to account for that spike by slowing it down that last minute and a half to two minutes before I exit the water. This way my heart rate maybe is at 150 instead of 160. When it spikes, it spikes to my threshold and not my aerobic capacity zone five heart rate. So practicing that. So what I'll do is I'll envision as I come in swimming, as soon as my hand touches the water I'll stand up and I'll practice just running out of the water. I'll run up the beach and then I'll visualize, okay, if I was in a race here, what are my next steps? I'm going in, I'm finding my bike, and I'll visualize those things. You don't necessarily have to bring your bike to the lake or the pool, but you could set up... outside the pool, outside the lake, your helmet, your cycling shoes, anything you need for the bike, and you can practice that while out of breath. That's a little bit easier than bringing the bike, but it's not something that we usually talk about too much, but there's definitely value in that.