Newest Technology Means Faster Performances?

The US Olympic trials are in full swing. I watched the swimming trials and aside from great competition, what caught my attention were comments regarding the new Speedo LZR swim suit. Supposedly, it provides 5% less drag in the water. Rowdy Gaines, 1984 Olympic Gold medalist, talked of the suit. He tried it on (said [...]

Performance and Comfort Zones

In sports psychology a comfort zone is a zone in which an athlete continues to perform at a level which may not be indicative of their capabilities. They find it difficult to reach that next “breakthrough.” Sometimes it shows when we practice but most definitely shows while racing. The athlete may self-destruct on the verge [...]

The “Just One More” Focus

I was at the track this morning. Anytime I know it will be a challenging workout - my common refrain is “just take it one at a time” and as we progress further into the workout - “just focus on this one.” That happens to be what I started this morning’s session with when I [...]

Getting Mentally Tough Does not Require High Altitude

Sometimes, you get the most interesting quotes and observations about sports psychology from non-psychologists or professional mental game coaches. In a Arizona Republic article on the Center for High Altitude Training in Flagstaff headed up by the legendary physiologist jack Daniels, a couple of key quotes probably overlooked by readers offer insights into performance improvement. 
Jack [...]

Distant Star Rupp to Get Sprint Training

The byline from Track & Field News: Oregon distance redshirt Galen Rupp intends to travel to Orlando this spring to work on power and accelereation under the tutelage of USATF High Performance coach Brooks Johnson. Former Stanford head Johnson, the ‘84 Olympic women’s coach, has long touted optimizing biomechanical efficiency as a cornerstone of training [...]

Aqua Running Beyond Rehab Conditioning

Here is an interesting inquiry sent to me as a follow-on to aqua jogging (or aqua running or deep water running):
I’ve just read your September 2007 Aqua Jogging posting. I was particularly interested in some of your comments in the 15 Responses, especially your “I wish I did have some concrete research based info on [...]

Do Long Miles at Low Heart Rate Build a “Better Engine”?

Here’s a summary of a question from Chris D.: I overhear an accomplished triathlete (HI Ironman) giving advice to people who want to run a marathon to spend months running below a certain heart rate to “build a big engine”.  “It’s all about aerobic capacity.”  He states you will get faster and faster at that [...]

The “Hard” Part of Hard-Easy

I previously wrote about the easy part of the hard-easy pattern of training. Here are some issues I’ll address regarding the hard part of training.
How hard is hard? How much is too much? What are the effects on your body from hard workouts? What else impacts what “hard” is?
Hard can be subjective. For some people, breathing [...]

Identfying Your Self-Talk

In a previous post I reviewed the importance of our self-talk and how it can affect performance. Recognition is a critical first step to improve our self-talk. This is actually easy to do. Take out a piece of paper and make two columns. On the left side list the different aspects of training, racing or [...]

Faith in your Training Take II

In my first post on this topic I posed that belief in your training program and your coach is an essential element to success. If that “coach” is you then you have to believe in how you apply all the information you have found. If you coach others, it’s critical to build confidence in your [...]