Everything I seem to be reading lately in tri books or mags have us doing drills for the majority of swim, bike, run workouts. Whatever happened to basic workouts with medium intensity and decent mileage–particularly for the age grouper who has limited time for workouts? Didn’t Tinley, Molina, Scott, Allen just put in the mileage w/out all the technical stuff? These workout suggestions are just confusing me, or maybe coaches think they need to be unique.
Swim, bike, run, repeat has been practiced and proven. There’s no money left in it. Consequently people make up other things so that they can sell more books.
Swim, bike, and run if you want to get fast. Train using drills, power, heart rate, and plenty of Total Immersion personal coaching sessions if you want to support the tri industry.
I don’t do drills. Huge waste of time. Just train. Go fast once in a while. Lots of base. Simple and effective.
Lot of people take extra time over the winter to work on drills. Their periodization has them doing drills and low heart rate base periods now with build ups in speed and distance later in the spring for the beginning of the season. My guess is that’s why you’re seeing more of this right now than usual.
Dont worry, innovation is on the way. And following in the steps of RC’s, there will be a way to get good form in all 3 disciplines without having to work for it.
I disagree with people who thinks that drills are waist. I always do drills before my main swimming set (during the warm-up) and before my long runs (no more than 10 minutes of drills)… It’s very helpfull to improve running/swimming economy and also a good warm up.
I think drills are good depending on where you are at with each of the given sports. Unless you are a competitive swimmer or from a competive swimming background you should absolutely be doing drills to improve your efficiency. I like doing strides or some pick ups at the end of a run to work on form. In the winter I’ll work on one leggeds on the bike. Obviously every workout will not be drills or you would go crazy, but mixing them in will only help.
I agree, I include running drills/plyos 1-2x per week and bike drills of some sort 1x per week. The only reason you shouldn’t include drills is if you have perfect form and win every race you enter.
I think drills are fun. They break up the monotony in long distance training.
If you do not come from a swimming background a few drills can take you a long way. Look at the big picture, learn what makes swimmers move fast through the water:flexibility (ankles, toes and shoulders), hip rotation, proper hand entry, arm recovery close to the body and a slight catch up in the stroke. Work with a coach periodically and get videotaped. Read a variety of books and articles on swimming written by different “gurus”. Focus your attention on what you are doing. Ask a friend to watch you swim. Describe your stroke to your friend and the ask for feedback. Extra eyes are wonderful. do the same for our friend.
By the way, I coached professional triathletes in the 1980s and they all did drills!
Learn your craft,
Doug Stern
There’s a difference between doing drills as part of a workout or warmup/cooldown, and using them instead of a workout. I interpreted the original post as a reference to recent coaches advocating primary emphasis on drills. 10-15% of yardage is reasonable, but 75% is stupid. There is no way around hard work.
Monotony isn’t necessarily bad. I love doing long rides/runs/swims, but the next day I like to do my training in a different way just because the fun of change and variety. + I believe that drills are not a waste of time for anyone. Skip one of your medium length/medium effort sets and do drills instead for the same amount of time and stay active in between the drills. That should give you the same aerobic benefits and at the same time sharpen your technique. Well…
personally, I think drills suck, and they are just busy work.
for me, I want to do it–and I mean really do it. not play around and fling water with my fingertips, run like a jackass, or bike like I have only half of one leg.
kc
We do drills as part of our warm up. It is the time to get cerebral and think how the stroke works and create new patterns of behavior.
The workout is time to observe and groove in those new patterns. You need lots of yardage to groove in the new stroke. NOTICE that when you do your swim your repeats or long steady swim that your stroke will probably fall apart and the come back together again. Do not think too much when you workout, just observe what you are doing. Remember the adage, “paralysis through analysis.” Think during the drills and focus on the changes they make.
You can also do drills as a transition from one set to another. They help put your stroke back together and provide for some rest.
Drills teach the patterns - yardage grooves them in.
Training should fit into your life and not the other way around.
Doug Stern
for me, I want to do it–and I mean really do it. not play around and fling water with my fingertips, run like a jackass, or bike like I have only half of one leg.
Heh Heh. I rmeember one of my teammates doing one-arm swinging drills in practice when a coach walked by and asked, “You hit like that in a game?” “No”. “Why do it in practice then?”
People need to make sure they select the drills that actually transfer improvement to the real thing. It is more important to be good at the real thing than it is to be good in drills. I’m speaking mostly from other sports, but I am assuming that triathlon is like that too.