This is going to be all about numbers. Many times we focus on more intangible aspects of our health and lifestyle based on how we feel or what we can overcome. That is nice and feels good, but sometimes, we really do just need to take a look at the numbers. Here are a few numbers you need to be aware of to ensure you are succeeding in your efforts to look good, feel great and reach your goals.

1)  Get 7-8 hours of SLEEP- every night.

2)  Drink 96+ ounces of WATER- every day.

3)  Eat 7-9 servings of VEGETABLES- every day.

4)  Intake 30+ grams of FIBER- every day.  (Which won't be hard, by the way, if you eat your vegetables)

5)  Eat 1 gram of (clean, lean) PROTEIN per every lean pound of muscle you have... every day. (so, if you have 100 pounds of lean muscle mass, eat 100 grams of lean protein)

6)  Based on pure numbers, it takes 3500 calories to burn 1 pound of body fat. So, you need to control your caloric intake to match your metabolic needs by being aware of how MANY CALORIES you are eating every day and then ensure you don't overdo it.  (If you don't know your base metabolic rate, you can go to a BMR calculator like: http://www.stevenscreek.com/goodies/calories.shtml and it can give you a basic idea).

7)   1 gram of protein is 4 calories.  1 gram of carbohydrate is 4 calories. 1 gram of fat is 9 calories. Those are some useful numbers to be aware of.  Of course, you need the fat (especially the Essential Fatty Acids we have spoken of in past articles) just make sure you get the right fats in the right amounts. Same as your carbohydrate intake and quality proteins. It's not just quantity; the quality is of utmost importance!

8)  Your WEIGHT is a number that can give you feedback on how well you are doing.

9)  Your BODYFAT is (in my opinion) an even more important number to be watching and ensure it is in a healthy range. The American Council on Exercise (ACE) recommends men maintain a body fat under 25% and women keep their body fat under 31%.  Those numbers are being quite generous- aim for mid to low 20's% for most people.

10)  Your CIRCUMFERENCE measurements are also a very effective way to track how well you are managing your health.  If you are carrying excess girth/fat around your midsection in particular, you are at a higher risk for increased cardiovascular/heart disease.  So, watch
those numbers!

11)  Finally, keep up your 90% on track nutrition with your 10% off track nutrition to ensure you keep your numbers where you want them!

Now that you've been given a few numbers that can help you regulate and monitor your health and fitness, it's up to you to determine which numbers are going to be the most beneficial in that quest. If you know that your lack of sleep is directly affecting your body's ability to release growth hormone and thus improve your weight loss or recovery, then that is THE number you should be working on improving. If you know that you are most definitely NOT getting in 7-9 servings of vegetables every day, or you are far below the 30 grams of fiber every day then you should spend this next week focusing on getting those numbers up to par.

How about your water intake?  Think you are hitting that 96 ounces or more number?  If not, you are not giving your body the help it needs to flush out toxins and aid in weight loss, recovery and becoming the best you can be. You need to know your body composition (particularly how much fat and muscle you are made of) because that is also going to help you determine how many grams of protein you are going to aim to consume every day.  That is an extremely important number to know to ensure you are feeding your body the supremely important protein that is going to build and repair muscle and increase your body's metabolic rate.

If you really want to succeed at maintaining your goal weight, keeping your body fat and circumference measurements healthy and living a vibrant lifestyle, you need to RECORD what you are doing. Studies show that people that keep a nutrition journal lose more weight than people who don't.  In fact, in a study of 1,685 dieters conducted by a health insurance company, the best predictor of weight loss throughout the first year was the number of food records kept per week. Another recent study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that dieters who tracked their food intake in a "food diary" lost twice as much weight as those who didn't track their food. Those should be some pretty convincing numbers! So, pick your numbers this week. Do your best to improve that number and make it a GREAT week!!

Coach Keena is a regular contributor at TriEdge and has 15 years experience coaching and training hundreds of individuals. She is a USA Triathlon Certified Coach and holds additional certifications from the National association of Sports Medicine (NASM) and the American Council of Exercise (ACE) as a certified personal trainer. If you would like to contact Coach Keena go to: www.coachkeena.com.

There are many experts and articles that discuss ways to improve your endurance. In this article I will explore the relationship between strength and endurance; how to develop strength, hence developing greater endurance. Developing strength and endurance simultaneously will result in maximum power, the best combination to compete and do your best in swimming, biking and running.

SWIMMING
Resistance is one of the best ways to develop and stimulate strength. The best way to achieve resistance in the water is by either using a kick board, placing all the demand on your legs/feet or to use a pull-buoy in between your legs, relying on your arms & your stroke, and or by using fins.  By eliminating a body part, you create a form of resistance and a greater demand on one part of the body.

Once you’ve decided to include these as part of your workout and or training, you can begin to time yourself. By tracking your time and challenging yourself to go faster during each lap or length of the pool, you are developing your endurance and strength at the same time.  You can use any of these techniques while using your whole self, just your arms, or just your legs.

See if you can do one length of the pool at 80% maximum effort, then 60% maximum the next lap.  See if you can maintain alternating the two for 10-20 laps/lengths of the pool.  Then see if you can do some sprints: ½ lap 90% ½ lap 75%.  Can you repeat this for 6-10 laps?  Next, see if you can challenge yourself to find your 80% maximum, and be able to maintain for an additional 6-10 laps/lengths of the pool.  Then you can try being at 90% for 3 laps.  Then perhaps 80% for 3 laps?  By trying different lengths and levels of effort during your sprints you are developing your strength and endurance. Notice I have used different percentages to increase your strength.  It is very important at this point in your training to learn to rely on yourself and knowing what percentage of effort you are putting out instead of relying on a watch.  What you feel is a much more accurate way to measure yourself than time.  Now is a great time to start practicing becoming aware of the feeling. Ask yourself: What is 80% maximum for me?

You can also add variety to your swim program by adding in different strokes.  Take backstroke or butterfly for instance. By adding them into your training routine, your freestyle will become much stronger.  Why?  You’re stimulating as well as using muscles in a different way, which adds over-all strength to your traditional use of the muscles during freestyle.   

BIKING
I think the greatest way to begin developing a feeling for your strength and endurance on a bike is by spinning.  A spin class gives you the opportunity to monitor your pace, and power. See if you can find a gym, or facility that provides spin classes, and has monitors attached to the bike.  Certainly the instructor will have a program designed for the class; however, you can work within their program to suit your own needs and desires.  Or, you can always do a spin class for yourself on your own. What is so useful about using monitors is that they show you your wattage (which is power) and your RPMS (which is speed and endurance). To begin with, I highly recommend keeping your RPMS up between 80-120.  I know this may seem high, and many may disagree, but I will explain why.

Begin by getting onto your bike and setting your monitor.  Once you begin to start spinning, get your RPMS up to at least 100 within the first 2-3 minutes.  Then within six minutes take your level to 110 RPMS.  Once you are feeling comfortable spinning your legs at 110 RPMS, start to add on watts by increasing the tension.  You should already be at 110-120 watts. Go very slow adding just a fraction on at a time, and watch your watts come up.  Continue to maintain the 110 RPMS while striving to reach 180-200 watts within your first 15 minutes of being on the bike.  Now you can begin to settle in to this level of riding and your warm-up has begun.  Now it is time to develop strength & power (which is also your watts), while maintaining a continuous level of training (RPMS).  There are a few ways to develop strength and power.  One is to bring in hill climbs; second is to add in sprints.

Hill climbs can be set for a minimum of five minutes up to a maximum of 8 to 10 minutes long.  During a hill climb you add a much greater amount of tension to the bike, however, maintaining no less than 75 watts.  I know many instructors who will say it is okay to drop down to 60 watts, but this allows for too much pressure to be placed on your knees.  By keeping  at 75 RPMS, you must add a little less tension, yet you are allowing for a smoother and more consistent cadence. This will build your strength and your endurance at the same time.  Trust me, your knees will be happier, and this is closer to what you do outside on your road bike.

During the hill climb you can always challenge yourself to add small amounts of gear, but never allowing yourself to drop below 75 watts.  This will truly develop both strength and power/endurance while climbing a hill. During a hill climb you can also add ½ turn & stand in the bike keeping your RPMS at 75.  Again, watch your watts jump up.  Try standing for 30 seconds then returning to sitting for 30 seconds (these are called intervals) while spinning.  See if you can do 6 sets of interval training of 30 seconds each.  Then try one minute intervals for 6 sets. You can either increase the time of the interval training or the number of sets to challenge yourself more.

Sprints are another way to develop strength and endurance. A perfect time to interject sprints is right after a hill climb. I’m not much into allowing for rests, because when do you rest when you are out on your road bike?  Almost never.  Maybe occasionally coming down a steep downhill hill, but that is about it.  So allow for no more than 30-90 second rests before jumping into the next sprint.  Prior to the sprint, remove some tension to get your RPMS back up to 100-110, yet maintaining close to 180- 200 watts at this point into your ride. Once you have found that sweet spot where you can maintain 100-110 RPMS and 200-260 watts, (or enough tension on to know your working), you are ready to begin sprints.  What is nice about the monitors is the show you your time, and you can start and stop exactly on 30 seconds. Begin your first sprint, and bring up your RPMS to 120-125.  Maintain your RPMS for the full 30 seconds and watch the watts go up. 

Hopefully your watts will get close to 300.  Repeat this for a minimum for 3-6 sets.  In between each set give yourself a 20 to 30 second rest and then back off. Back off means returning to 110 RPMS (no lower).  After completing about 6 sets of sprints return to the 100- 110 RPMS, and see if you can maintain this pace for 5-10 minutes again keeping your watts close to 200-260. During this period of time if you are feeling strong, you can add a small amount of tension.  Again, watch the watts shoot up, keeping the RPMS at 100-110. You can repeat a hill climb, or add in more sprints to continue developing strength and endurance. I like to alternate hill climbs with sprints. Try 3 sets of hill climbs for 10 minutes, alternating with sprints.  One set of 8 sprints at 30 seconds, another set of 5 sprints at 1 ½ minutes, another set of 4 sprints at 3 minutes.  During each class or training time while on the spin bike you can challenge yourself to maintain your RPMS while adding small amounts of tension.  To truly develop your endurance, you need to be able to go faster for a longer period of time.  Usually 40 minutes into my ride after some hill climbs and sprints I find my rhythm, and the pace I can maintain. At this point I am usually between 80-90% of my maximum, this I know by my heart rate, my watts and maintaining my RPMS.  I call this my “humming spot” -  the sweet spot where I can stay for roughly another 30-60 minutes.  This is like your long flat road.  Being able to maintain at your 90% level for at least 30-45 minutes will tremendously develop your endurance.  To even further develop your strength, you can add in surges during this period of your ride. Add a one-minute surge in for every 5 minutes.  During the surge you amp up to 120-125 RPMS and maintain for the entire minute.  If possible add a small amount of tension, most importantly keeping those RPMS up at 125.  As you get stronger you can try 6 one-minute surges with 30 seconds rest in between. This is the type of power you will need to transition outside onto your road bike.  Those of you who have been spinning and have your RPMS at 60-80 are not training hard enough.

By beginning your training inside on the spin bike you will develop a sensitivity and awareness for your RPMS and will develop a level of comfort being there. You must be able to feel where you are to maintain what you feel on your bike. To be the best, you must be able to maintain power for a long period of time, which becomes endurance. This is key when on your road bike.  If you don’t have a monitor currently on your road bike, you may want to consider getting one. This will make your training much more efficient and useful to you. 

RUNNING (my favorite)
How do you increase your power, strength and endurance in running?  Similar to riding your bike, we can use hills to develop power.   Many of you may not like the hills, but they truly are your best friend to develop greater power and strength.  Embrace the hills and have them become your best friend.  When first approaching a hill refer to the earlier articles on breathing, pacing and rhythm.   Always slow down your pace to regulate your breathing and find a new rhythm.  This should feel natural, and almost automatic to do.   This is essential when beginning a hill climb.  Trust me, you may need to go slower than you think to find a rhythm you can hold onto and maintain. Over time, by repeating hill climbs, you will gradually begin to increase your speed up the hill.  This is why I like to repeat hills, because I develop a sense of the hill, my rhythm, my pace, and the ability to increase my speed knowing the hill.    

You may need to start with just a 10-minute hill and gradually build up to 20, 30, 40, even 50 minutes of hill climbing.  The longer the hill, the more opportunity you have to build your power and endurance.  Being able to run 45 minutes to an hour up a hill takes tremendous endurance. Repetition, as I have mentioned before, is key here.  While climbing a hill, you can look for moments where your experiencing ease.  It is at these moments when you can increase your pace.  Maybe start with 15-30 seconds and then back off to where you were before.  By doing so, you are developing additional power and strength.  Remember, there is no need to look at your watch for time.  Develop a sense of awareness for yourself about time.  Ask yourself: What does 15 seconds feel like?  What does one minute feel like?  What does a mile feel like? By developing a sense of time through awareness, you will be able to rely on yourself having a much clearer sense of timing and self-regulation which in itself will become a great strength and asset for you. 

 
 Running downhill will obviously feel like a breeze.  Here too, it is critical to find a pace, and rhythm that you can hold onto.  If you go too fast, you will run out of gas.  You will find pacing essential to maintaining a comfortable rhythm, one that you can hold on to.  

Lastly, are the flats.  They can go on and on, this is why hills add in variety as well as an opportunity to improve your strength, power and endurance. First and foremost find your breath and your rhythm.  Once again, it is best to go a little slower to begin with, finding a comfortable pace where you can maintain your breathing.  From here, you have loads of time so use it wisely to add in more power and endurance.  On the flats is another great place to insert surges. The easiest way to begin a surge on the flats is by moving your arms faster.  I think of pulling my elbows backwards at a quicker pace.  Automatically your legs will become quicker taking a larger stride to maintain balance.  How cool is that?  The power of your arms will increase your stride.  Next, ask yourself it you can sustain this surge for one minute.  In a run, this is a long time.  After the surge, back off to your comfortable, rhythmic pace where you were before the surge.  Remember you have loads of time on the flats to insert surges.  Try to surge for 30 seconds to one minute every 5-7 minutes.  See how that goes.  You can even try to lengthen a surge up to two minutes every 7-8 minutes while running the flats.  Maintaining a surge for two minutes takes a tremendous amount of strength and power. Then see if you can build up to surging for an entire mile and repeating a mile surge every 3-5 miles.  Again, the longer the surge, the greater power and endurance you develop for yourself.  Alternating and playing with different lengthens of surges while on the hills, downhills, and on the flats will develop your strength, power and especially your endurance. Remember, whenever you begin to loose your breath, back off, slow down, reset your pace, and in time you will be able to build back up to a stronger rhythm, a faster pace, and maintaining for a longer period of time.

Sharon Starika is a runner and triathlete with over 20 years of competitive racing experience. She is a Guild Feldenkrais Practitioner and lives in Park City, Utah where she has a private practice. She teaches classes and clinics around the country and offers instructional online workshops so people interested can practice her methods anywhere. For contact information go to www.sharonstarika.com or  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

As you well know, the Ironman world Championships take place every October. The history of Ironman is a spectacular story. Many of us have heard this story, but let’s tell it again anyway. In 1978, during the awards ceremony for a Hawaii running race, a debate ensues among competitors about who is more fit, runners, swimmers, or cyclists. One of the participants, Navy Commander John Collins and his wife Judy, dream up a race to settle the argument. They propose combining three existing races together, to be completed in succession: the Waikiki Roughwater Swim (2.4 miles), the Around-Oahu Bike Race (112 miles, originally a two-day event) and the Honolulu Marathon (26.2 miles). Whoever finishes first, they would call Ironman. Fifteen men participate in the initial event held on February 18; 12 complete the race, led by the first Ironman, Gordon Haller. His winning time: 11 hours, 46 minutes and 58 seconds. As a side note, I would argue that the success of Ironman has been the primary source of growth behind the expansion of triathlon in general, at all triathlon distances. But that is another topic.

Over 20 years later, science may have taken some of the suspense out of the bet that changed the athletic world. Who is more fit? Swimmers, bikers, or runners? Before I share with you the data, we have to come to a consensus on what fit and fitness mean.

In reality, measuring fitness is all relative to the sport you are observing. As triathletes, we generally think of ourselves as fit. However, if we were to enter a shotput competition against athletes who regularly shotput, we would likely be significantly outperformed. On the other hand, Shaquile O’neil is an awesome basketball player, and his fitness in that discipline is outstanding, but I’d put money on the fact if we raced tomorrow, I could probably cross the finish line before him in an Ironman.

So, as triathletes, we can only really determine fitness within our own sphere. I would propose to you then, that in the realm of triathlon, fitness is defined by cardiorespiratory and muscular endurance. Or, in simpler terms, how long and how hard you can exercise. This definition of fitness is backed almost unanimously by researchers, who use measures of cardiorespiratory endurance to categorize levels of fitness in their test subject. For example, when I talked about the research on caffeine, I mentioned that the researchers used competitive runners. How did they determine what “competitive” was? They based it on the subject’s high cardiorespiratory endurance. Stay with me here, there is a resolution to all this background I’m giving you. The measurement used to determine cardiorespiratory endurance is a term called maximal oxygen uptake, or more commonly called VO2max. Now, I could spend a whole post on V02 max, and maybe I should, but I don’t have time today. Let me just say that in the world of physiology, a high V02max is considered the best measurement of cardiorespiratory endurance, which we have defined as fitness in the context of triathlon.

So with that background, is it possible to settle the original Ironman bet regarding which type of athlete is the most fit, using measurement techniques that did not exists 28 years ago? If we accept that fitness can be measured best by cardiorespiratory endurance, I suggest that we can.

I have the results of VO2max measurements from athletes in 21 different sports, not only including swimmers, bikers, and runners, but including sports such as wrestling, canoeing, soccer and ice hockey. See, I love this stuff. My left-brained mind loves to categorize things, and order things, this stuff is right up my alley. Anyway, the results are as follows. Between swimmers, bikers, and runners, the athletes with the highest average V02max are runners. Followed closely by cyclists, and then swimmers. Overall, the athletes with the lowest V02max were softball and baseball players, who came behind horse jockeys and ski jumpers. Of the 21 sports researched, cross country skiers had the overall highest V02max. Makes me want to consider x-country skiing as part of my off-season training. One interesting note. Although runners had a higher VO2max, cyclist had bigger hearts.

David Warden is a 3-time USAT All American and Elite Coach with Joe Friel's TrainingBible coaching. His work has been published in Triathlete and USA Triathlon Life magazines. He is the former Vice-Chair of the USAT Rocky Mountain Region, and the host and producer of the #1 triathlon podcast, Tri Talk and part owner of  www.powertri.com.

Today’s topic is fat loading. Fat loading! Sounds like a dream come true! I envy the athlete who got to be in the research study for that one. When I first heard this my left brain immediately scoffed and dismissed it, but then my right brain said, “Hey David, fat is the primary source of fuel at lower intensities. Would this help for longer distance races?” So, I took a look at the research.

A 2003 study published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise took 11 athletes and had them take in a high fat diet of 53%, and the other group with a low fat diet of only 17% for 5 weeks. Glycogen content was slightly lower in the high fat athletes, but not considered statistically significant. VO2 max was not statistically different between the two groups. Cycling 20 minutes all out, followed by a half-marathon, showed no statistically significant performance decrease in the high fat diet.

Now, I’d like to point out that I am a firm believer in statistics and margin of error, and something being statistically significant or not statistically significant. But if you were to take the times of the top 5 finishers in a Olympic-distance triathlon, and their times are likely only separated by 1 minute or less, and run a statistical analysis on those 5 times, the result would be that there was no statistically significant difference in their times. But, the fact is 1 person was still faster than the other 4. A race director is not going to buy the argument that the second place guy was within the statistical margin of error, and should therefore share first place. So I’m not trying to dilute the importance of statistical analysis but in this study, VO2, glycogen stores, and performance were all just a bit higher in the low fat vs. high fat, although within the margin of error and so in the scientific world there was no difference between the two groups. Perhaps no benefit from fat loading but there was certainly no disadvantage in this study.

In another study from Australia looked at 7 cyclists that took in either a high carb or high fat diet for 6 days, the high fat diet taking in 4.5 times the amount of fat compared to the high carb diet. The researchers found that although there was no difference in performance, the high fat diet used more fat for fuel, which is exactly what you want to train your body to do, specifically for long-distance events.

Finally a 2003 study from the University of Otago in New Zealand seemed to indicate some possible benefit from fat loading on endurance racing. Again, 7 cyclists took in either high fat or high carb diets over a 14-day period followed by a 15 minute time trial and then a 100k (62 miles) time trial. There was a slight decrease in performance in the high fat group on the 15 minute time trial.  But in the 100k time trail, there was a slight increase in power and performance in the high fat group, although the researchers concluded that it was not statistically significant. As in the Australian study, fat was used more for fuel in the high fat group. The researchers concluded that although the main effects were not statistically significant, there was some evidence for enhanced ultra-endurance cycling performance relative to high-carbohydrate.

My opinion on this is that I am not qualified to have an opinion. Seriously, it tends to go against conventional nutrition strategy but convention has been challenged many times in sports physiology to prove what we thought was wrong. What I do know is that no study has shown any performance improvement in fat loading over short distances and only possible improvements over long distance. However, all the studies I looked at failed to tell me the effect on an athlete’s body composition from the fat loading. Did this increase their overall body fat? I can’t imagine that it would not have had some effect on body composition.

Remember that these tests were performed on stationary bikes, so although the performance gains may have been neutral to slight on a stationary bike, any weight gained would not affect the study. Whereas, when cycling outdoors, where you are forced to accelerate your own mass, a 2-pound gain from fat loading would in fact have a negative effect on your performance. I say the jury is still out on this one, there just isn’t enough conclusive proof to do it. If you do choose to try fat loading remember that in the two studies that showed possible benefit for long distance racing, fat loading only took place for the 6-14 days prior to the time trials. Don’t go out and perform a 6 month fat loading plan.

David Warden is a 3-time USAT All American and Elite Coach with Joe Friel's TrainingBible coaching. His work has been published in Triathlete and USA Triathlon Life magazines. He is the former Vice-Chair of the USAT Rocky Mountain Region, and the host and producer of the #1 triathlon podcast, Tri Talk and part owner of  www.powertri.com.

"If you are human, your body will move better, improve it's ability to recover, tolerate increased physical effort and just feel better when you have improved elasticity."

"The fastest path to both physician and mental domination in Ironman triathlon is to race and compete in triathlons during your build-up to the big day."

When I do my two triathlons a year it’s not uncommon for me to hear, “On your left!” or even “Watch out!”

While I may be one of many people who clog up the street during your triathlon this article will help you identify the person hurting your performance the most: Yourself. Performance psychology consultants call it self-sabotage, or in other words killing your performance by what you think, what you say to yourself, and how you act.

How do I know if I’m suffering from self-sabotage?

Answer the following questions to yourself:
•    Do you attribute your success to your competitors having a bad day?
•    Does your self-confidence hang on how well you perform?
•    Do you constantly complain about things?
•    Do you hate hills, wind, open water swims, transitions, etc.?
•    Do you use phrases like “I can’t…”, “I have to…”, “I must…”?

If the majority of your answers are “yes” then you are more susceptible to self-sabotage. That doesn’t mean there is something wrong with you, you’d be surprised to know that many of the elite or professional athletes I work with are also hard on themselves, so you’re in good company. For those of you who answered “no” to most of those questions don’t finish reading the article! You might find something you’ll want to share with a friend.

Self-sabotage is a fancy way of saying that you are getting in the way of your own performance. Many of your worst performances were not only due to equipment malfunction but an untrained brain.

How do I get out of my own way? Studies show that elite athletes think differently than less successful athletes. I have addressed thousands of individuals during speaking engagements and have spent numerous hours one-on-one with athletes training them how to get out of the way and perform freely. Here are three strategies that can help:

#1- Awareness
The fact that you are reading this article will help you get out of your own way and minimize the adverse affects of self-sabotage. The reason people are getting in their own way is because they don’t realize it! They don’t realize that a simple negative thought, an innocent complaint about how they feel, or a seemingly meaningless comparison to another racer will hurt their performance. Beware and be aware.

#2- Focus on what you can control
I tell this to my athletes all the time: Refuse to allow tomorrow’s worries and yesterday’s failures hurt today’s performance. We get in our own way when we begin to give emotion to things that are outside of our control. Focusing on what you can control empowers you; it ignites confidence, and fuels motivation. Worrying about things outside your control is like increasing the weight of your shoes, it will bog you down.

#3-Have a plan for when you mess up!
You’re human so you’re going to have a bad thought once in a while. You’re going to complain occasionally. Chances are very likely that you will have moments where you will get in your own way despite reading this article. Now, what are you going to do about it? Chances are you have a back-up plan if your tire pops, you know what to do it you start cramping up. Why not have a plan for when you notice you are sabotaging yourself? I develop focus plans with all of my athletes. It’s simple; you decide right now what you want to think and how you want to act when adversity strikes. Be specific and consistent.

Elite athletes do things on purpose that mediocre athletes leave to chance.

There you have it, three tips on how to get out of your way. Best of luck on your next triathlon and remember, trust your preparation and let it happen don’t try to make it happen.

Justin Su’a is a performance consultant, key-note speaker, CEO of Su’a Sport Psychology, LLC and is a member of the Association for Applied Sport Psychology (AASP). Justin’s Masters Degree is from the University of Utah in the Psycho-Social Aspects of Sport with an interest in the nature of peak performance and confidence enhancement. He is a former Division I All-American pitcher from BYU, and currently teaches elite athletes, celebrity performers, university teams, and business professionals how to think and perform at a high level.
For daily tips and insight to enhance performance you can follow Justin on Twitter and Facebook

Have you ever been out in a race and heard someone, somewhere say those two words?  Or if you haven’t heard those words, maybe you’ve seen a handful of athletes with a purple jersey.  And I can almost guarantee that if you have been to a huge event like a Rock n’ Roll marathon you have seen a sea of people in those same purple jerseys.  If all this doesn’t hit home, then by the time you’re done with this read you will become a fan.