Do you start when something goes wrong, breaks down or wears out. It’s a far better plan to schedule regular maintenence as a preventative measure. It’s not cool to be injured, getting sympathy from those close to you, when you miss out on that important race.

Do you visit a physio when you become injured? The best way to use a physio’s talents is before you become injured. Visit a physio to have him/her screen your body for flexibility issues, strength imbalances. A good physio can identify weaknesses long before you become injured. Simple things like upper thoracic flexibility can help you to swim faster and time trial for long distances on your bike without your neck seizing up. You’ll actually go faster in the water, then ride faster because you can hold the aero position longer, if you address your lack of flexibility in the upper back.

Improving your core strength can mean that when you get off the bike with all that time you’ve gained by being more flexible, you can run efficiently straight out of T2. You’ll be able to hold an efficient stride rhythm for the whole length of the run. Some athletes could gain half an hour in an Ironman race by doing no more training. Just becoming more flexible, and developing some core strength. Yet many buy a more expensive set of wheels instead.

Every training expert preaches about the importance of being consistent in training. If you don’t get sick, you can keep training. You don’t have to train as much each week, if there are no weeks off for illness. Training a little less and keeping your immune system in great shape will produce better results through consistency. 

The best time to boost your immune system is not when you get a cold. Do the things which boost your immunity before you get any symptoms of impending illness. Good nutrition is like insurance. I hear people whinge about the cost of certain supplements, saying they produce expensive urine. What does house and contents insurance produce? Big profits for the insurance company? I just paid over a thousand dollars to insure our house for a year. I don’t care if I don’t get to claim, I don’t care if the money goes to the shareholders of the company.

Sometimes a lot more strength and speed can be gained by doing less training and more resting. Taking the right supplements, and feeding/refuelling better after key sessions. And having a massage or acupuncture once a week. Every week I visit my chinese herbalist/acupuncturist. She checks my pulse in several different positions, looks at my eyes, tongue and asks a few questions. She then gives me whatever acupuncture or herbs she wants me to take. I don’t even ask what’s in them, I just boil them up and drink them. She’s working with me to get the best out of this body.

As an athlete gets older and things don’t spring back quite as quickly as before, they become more responsive to better recovery procedures. But if it helps an older athlete, and professional athletes take advantage of every recovery tool available to them. Why don’t the younger athletes get serious about maximising gains?

A few things we could all do better.

* Have 20-30% protein in every meal. Body builders know about recovery. They’re experts at it. Their sport is all about recovering muscles after breaking them down. But so is ours, we’re building strong lean muscles which can keep doing the same task over and over for a long time. While the body builders are just building them to look at. The same recovery processes work.

* Have a nap after your main big session of the week. Just an hour is great to give the body a chance to recover. Look at how racehorses are treated. They’re on the best diet money can buy. Just the right amount of training, a shower, a rub down and back in the stall to rest. They spend 80% of their life resting.

* Borrowing from the raceorse again. “Just the right amount of training”. No serious trainer is going to flog his horse with more and more hours of training, just to make his diary look good. These guys train for results. More is not better. Just the right amount is usually best.

* Different athletes have different nutritional needs. Back to the racehorses. My wife has a horse. It’s an ex racehorse, a thoroughbred. It shares a paddock with two other horses. The others just eat grass, and they stay in good condition (no ribs showing) they’re all healthy and happy. Sandy’s horse Dolly is like a big brown vacuum cleaner. She eats grass all day and if she’s not fed pellets and lucerne every morning and night, she starts to lose weight. In fact she has had to have a coconut meal added to her feed to keep her ribs covered. She weighs 50% more than the other horses, and she eats 50% more. She is beautiful, but it’s a bit like having a cancer growing in your bank account?

* Balancing hard days against easy days. Most of my athletes have  two key sessions in a week, some have three. In between these key sessions, we’re working on technique and recovery. I’ve had a lot of athletes who’ve trained with me for one or two seasons and had great results. When they’ve moved on, and often done more training, they’ve generally had worse results.

* Having a coach/trainer who can protect you from yourself. Even though I’ve coached hundreds of athetes to Ironman races, I have a coach for myself. A week ago I did a time trial up a mountain. I was definitely stronger than the previous time I climbed it. I got to the top and my time was 4min slower. When we examined my power figures I had gone too hard in the first half and given all my time back in the second half. I said to Trent (my coach) that I wanted to change my plan for Thursdays interval session and do the mountain again.

He talked me out of it, the interval session was forty minutes of hard stuff, where the mountain was 1hr 20min, he said, “Stick to our plan”. I knew he was right, but my ego wanted a PB. I did the interval session and recorded the best figures I have for four years. The following Sunday I rode a 100km time trial, recording the best time for a year. Sometimes we need a coach to step in between our Ego and our plan. When you make a plan, there’s a good reason for everything on it, don’t change it.