What I disagree with for Paulo and Rapp is they seem to think their is Elite and Hack with no in between. I think of both of them a pretty damn good as a coach and athlete. But neither of them is absolute top teir. If IM was in the OG they wouldn't be a favorite to make the team or coach a athlete at this point. So yes by their own assesment they are hacks, but in the eyes of most everyone else certainly not.

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Styrrell

Back to the OP... I don't know how you can really avoid them. You'd have to try really hard to avoid bricks. I do 4-5 swims, 5 bikes, and 6-7run's a week. Eventually I'm doing brick workouts. I'd have to make a serious effort to stop training for a few hours and train again later. But I'm sure according them and some others, half my workouts are crap and I shouldn't be doing them because they have no intensity and are meaningless anyway.

If you're time-crunched, or simply have nothing better to do after your bike ride, then by all means run to your heart's content. When compared to the running that you would do following a standard recovery period, the exertion and stress will be comparable but the quality will be lower. So, why not save that 4 miles for later in the day, or the next morning when your run quality more closely resembles the RPE? That is the truth of day-to-day training. You will inevitably find yourself working through fatigue, but you don't necessarily sandwich all of your weekly workouts into a 2-3 day stretch, conceding that "I'll be tired anyhow, so I may as well just get them done." You implement day-to-day recovery. Sure, you never end up with completely fresh legs, but that down time gets you a hell of a lot closer to your true potential.

The problem with brick running mentality is that nearly everyone using them thinks that they contain some super-concentrated running benefit that simply doesn't exist. The original intent was quite practical: get off the bike in a hurry and make your legs turnover. The transition period from cycling legs to running legs is very brief, unless you've severely fouled up other elements of your race execution. The human body is extremely efficient and highly adaptive. The faster you brick, the faster your legs will make the transition. So, if you've accomplished the goals of the workout in 5 minutes, why continue to pound out further mileage on tired legs?

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"The right to party is a battle we have fought, but we'll surrender and go Amish... NOT!" -Wayne Campbell

I won't disagree with paragraphs 2 & 3 at all. Paragraph 1 though... they advocate no swimming in the off-season. More on that in a second but that's part of the problem with some of the EN hating on this forum is because of irresponsible statements like what you typed. Someone reads that who doesn't know any better and makes the assumption that there's no swimming in the EN plans at all. Which couldn't be any further from the truth. The short course, HIM and IM plans are chock full of swimming that you'd expect from any training plan. I'd argue that there's too much swimming in the short course and HIM training plans but that's my opinion.

As for the off-season no swimming advice - they feel you get a much bigger bang return on your time in the off-season by killing yourself on the bike and run. They also feel the off-season is a time to decompress, enjoy the holidays and re-acclimate yourself with your society. Off-season weeks are about 6 hours per week of workouts. The workouts are ass-kickers but there's no more 10-15 hour weeks of workouts we're accustomed to during the race year. I think it's hard to argue with any of that reasoning.

Swimming is the shortest duration event of a triathlon... by far. The ratio is "generally" around 10% swim, 50% bike and 40% run - give or take. The EN philosophy is that much greater strides can be made concentrating on the two events that are a) less technique dependent and b) account for 90% of one's race. Once again, kind of hard to argue with that. People around here often perpetuate the myth the EN coaches completely frown upon swimming in the OS and lash out at those that do. That couldn't be further from the truth. What they say is there's no sense in swimming for three hours per week for two or three months in the OS unless you're going to make a real concerted effort to become a better swimmer from a technique perspective. Assuming fitness is not the issue (and it shouldn't be for any EN athletes following the training plans), a 2:20/100m swimmer swimming on their own with their flawed technique isn't going to get that much faster. Why waste three hours per week for three months to get a minute or two or three faster when you could run or bike more and certainly gain far more than that. The EN coaches applaud anyone who seeks proper swim coaching in the OS. They're all for swimming in the OS if the return is there. If that 2:20/100m swimmer takes some lessons, learns some better stroke mechanics, swims a ton and comes out a 1:50/100m swimmer... the EN coaches would be very happy and applaud the effort. That made sense. Flailing around in the pool for three hours per week for three months to go from a 2:20/100m swimmer to a 2:16/100m swimmer - they'd probably see that as a waste of time.

I don't 100% subscribe to the no swimming in the OS philosophy. I like it as a form of exercise. I don't get any faster though. I've pretty much reached my adult onset swimming technique ceiling and I'm looking to do something about that this winter.

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Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

IM LOU 2009: Swam year round=1:04
IMLOU 2010: Swam year round=1:04
IMLOU 2011: Took off 4 months in Winter=1:02

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Michael in Kansas
"Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit"
"Its not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up" Lombardi

Professionalism is key to having a good discussion. Here is a great example of "keeping it classy": http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...post=1468474#1468474

Here's another data point.

Since fall 2009, I have missed 6 months of swim training (3 months via injury, 3 months by choice).

A progressive decline in my swim performance, culminating with what I consider to be a rather embarrasing swim in Kona a few weeks ago.

I can't avoid the 3 months I missed due to injury in early 2010, but you can bet I won't be taking 3 months off of swimming ever again.

and, actually, swim-bike

Aha! The Brick that no one talks about!!

Now we are getting somewhere.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

I think that a lot of the confusion in this thread comes from associating bricks with back-to-back workouts. A brick is designed to emulate T2 in a race. Get off your bike, throw on your sneakers, and run like hell until your legs change gears. Back-to-back workouts are a scheduling strategy that tend to have a relaxed transition (5 minutes, an hour, etc.) and a more conservative start because the intention is to complete at least two full workouts. I do lots of back-to-back workouts (with only a handful of minutes in between), but they are seldom bricks.

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"The right to party is a battle we have fought, but we'll surrender and go Amish... NOT!" -Wayne Campbell

Not sure what the point of this is....
What were your bike and run times for all those years as well?

Interesting comments...
my .02 is this: specificity in training is key. Doing a run after the bike in training does have a preparation benefit for the same situation in a race. Same reason I do "swikes", i.e., swim then a bike. Don't need to do 'em frequently, or even regularly, but if you want optimal performance, you better have done 'em. And a not well known principle for race-prep imagery- it will not help you learn a new skill, merely improve what you already know how to do. Which is another great reason to do an occasional workout as a mini-tri; even if you've been doing 'em for 15 years, never hurts to refresh muscle and cognitive patterning.

Another basic rule, we all know, probably have all broken it at least once, is you don't do anything for the first time in a race (unless it's set a PR). And the prinicple of specificity in training is well-established in research, in both exercise physiology and sport psychology.

Especially in terms of mental preparation, NOTHING beats the ability to say, at the start line, that you are COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY PREPARED. For me, that means my physical prep, mental preap, nutritional prep, has been as thorough as can be. That's when I can confidently race. If I haven't been able to prep well enough that I can honestly say that to myself, I still race, but my race will be based more on my ability to adapt my abilities on that day to the race demands. For me, that means the occasional brick. Even if it only means a 1% improvement, I still want it.

QFT:



Has anyone demonstrated that a training adaptation occurs following bricks that alters the neuromuscular differences between running and running-after-cycling?

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"Go yell at an M&M"

Personally, I want to be running my fastest/best at mile 16-26, not at mile .001. Bricks won't help me reach that goal.

You just convinced me to get back in the water after my two+ year hiatus..... asshole ;^)

Not sure what the point of this is....

Mark,

The point is that people seem to put stuff in silos and don't think that it is at all interrelated. The knee-jerk recreation is that, Wow I swam half of what I normally did for half the time this year and went 2 minutes faster! When it's most likely it was the two solid years of swimming that lead to the 2 minute improvement, not swimming less in this last year!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

I think this is an issue with individual interpretation. I've known Rich since 2006, and I've always felt he has good things to say, although I'm not sure he always says it in the best possible way. I have noticed that for EN articles, he and Patrick tend to write a little sensationally, probably to spark exactly the type of debate that's going on now. However, knowing Rich, I'm pretty sure he doesn't think his way is the best way for everyone. In fact, ask him and he'll probably tell you that. EN is not designed specifically for the person who wants to devote his/her life to triathlon in order to become great. It's a framework for those of us who have significant time commitments outside of triathlon (work, family, other interests, etc.) and enjoy the sport and want to improve, but want to maximize our ROI. I think ChrisG said it very well. For 95% of us who are average, MOP AG triathletes, the low-hanging fruit is the bike and the run. It simply doesn't pay to spend 3+ hrs of precious time to improve our swim by 5 minutes when we could hit the bike or run for 10+ minutes each.


That said despite how they write these articles and the interpretation of the masses that EN espoused no OS swimming, no lifting and no bricks, I think you'll find relatively few EN athletes who actually do none of all three of these things. Inside the community, you'll also find many people (myself included) who challenge these ideas.


As far as the "elite" label, I think this is much ado about nothing. If you guys want to piss and moan about what makes an "elite" coach, then fine. Makes no difference to me.

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Steve Perkins

Aw man, you ruined it!!! I was hoping he would come back stating that swimming less made him swim faster....buzzkill. ;)

It's amazing how many peoples' feelings are hurt because someone who is a "certified Elite" called someone else in the industry who is a "self-proclaimed Elite" a hack. That is not a "personal attack"; it's simply an honest critique given by an accomplished, proven professional.

Well crap - sorry!

2010 Bike: 6:16 Run 5:10
2011 Bike: 5:59 Run 5:01

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Michael in Kansas
"Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit"
"Its not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up" Lombardi

You have a swimming background don't you?
Did you leave out 2009 on purpose?

Or the fact that IM Lou is in the Ohio River with varying current over the years. But yeah, it was the 4 months off from swimming that made him faster....

Hmm...that statement is logically inconsistent. You obviously don't think that the EN approach is worthwhile, since you want everyone in your age group to follow their advice. Yet when Jordan calls them out on it, you get all bunched up? If you were having a casual conversation with someone, and they asked your opinion of EN stuff, what would your response be?

Jordan's a professional triathlete. From everything I have seen of his performance and writings, he is actively trying to improve the sport for all participants. He stands by that, and is not afraid to call people out on it.

Is everyone upset by the word "hack"? Look at the definition, and ignore the social "stigma" of the word.

Hack: A writer or journalist producing dull, unoriginal work: "a hack scriptwriter"

I would say that the EN coaches certainly fall into that category. They are, however, first class marketers. As far as their success, if you have 400+ athletes (Really? Two coaches with 400 athletes, and you think they are really giving individual attention?), then some of them are certainly bound to have success. After all, if you throw a bowl of spaghetti at the wall, some of the strands are going to stick. Nature of the beast.

I daresay that I could write four or five canned plans, put them up on a website and sell 1000 of them. Out of that 1000, I would bet that 50-100 athletes would have excellent success. Some because the plan suits their body, adaptation and response, etc. Some because it's at least structure and consistency where they didn't have that before. Would that make me an elite coach ala the EN guys? No. It'd make me a hack with good marketing.

John

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Top notch coaching: Francois and Accelerate3 | Follow on Twitter: LifetimeAthlete |

Scott, was that because your swim fitness/endurance wasn't there or are you saying your technique went south? Or a combination? I think swim fitness snaps back pretty quick. I was at my absolute best level of swim fitness prior to IMFL last year. Swam a 1:05 there and didn't touch water again until mid-January. Within a month I was more or less back to my IMFL swim fitness level.

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Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

Sorry about that....I reread it....doesn't make sense does it! I was trying to imply that I hope my competition does NOT join EN. I need an advantage.

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Michael in Kansas
"Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit"
"Its not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up" Lombardi