Holistic Strength Training for Triathlon
by
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INTRODUCTION
The body knows nothing of muscles, only movement. During the constant adaptive changes that must take place in order to preserve our equilibrium while moving, the body is constantly activating an array of muscles in patterns of coordination in which muscles lose their identity. —Karl Bobath, MD
I never said thank you.
My first race after being diagnosed was the St. Anthony’s Triathlon down in St. Pete, Florida. Racing was so much harder than I remembered, yet so much… I don’t know… more. I can’t tell you what it meant to be competing again. To have an actual line to cross to tell you that you’ve made it. I ran across the finish and fell into my wife’s arms and we cried together, me hiding my face in her neck. I don’t know if it was happiness or sadness or relief or what. It was probably just the fatigue from the race. And the deep, raw tiredness from emotions that can only be described as… alive!
And I was truly alive. I ended up placing in my age group and regret to this day that I didn’t say something at the awards ceremony when they called my name. St. Anthony’s is a big Team in Training event and the efforts of everyone involved in that organization raised over two million dollars that day for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. I should have said thank you; but really I was just too scared. I don’t like talking in front of people. I don’t really shine in the limelight. But all of those people deserved to know that this Team in Training thing really works.
This book is for them.
I’ve wanted to write this book for years. But I needed my opening line. I had to find my muse before I could make something of all the information I have: as a twenty-year veteran of cycling, as a professional cyclist in both the US and abroad from 1994-1998; as a multiple All-American triathlete, a Hawaii Ironman, and a cycling/triathlon coach for many seasons; as a personal trainer for over ten years, a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist since 2000, a Corrective Holistic Exercise Kinesiologist since 2001, and, most recently, as a leukemia survivor since August of 2004.
This book is my thank you.
If there’s one thing cancer did for me, it gave me time. Funny to think that—that a disease which could so callously steal a person’s years away would give me anything in return. But it has. It’s given me a chance to work in instead of working out. It’s allowed me to realize that the only time we truly have is Now. And now I’m going to take the advice of one of my college professors and write what I know.
I know triathlon. I’m familiar with the figures—ones which show that, in a five-year period, 90% of triathletes suffer an injury which results in the cessation of training. That’s well above the average for athletes engaged in other endurance sports. Guess this kind of blows that cross-training argument out of the water. After all, aren’t triathletes, by definition, cross training two-thirds of the time? True. But all this really means is that triathletes, of whom more than half are relatively inexperienced, have to navigate blindly the orthopedic demands of three sports instead of one.
People need to realize that exercise is powerful medicine. If you take the wrong drug, you’re not going to get any better. Yet people are getting their prescription from their subscription! Triathletes, desperate for that competitive edge, are flipping through the pages of the latest multisport rag for some secret shortcut to the finish. Yet most of this information is general at best. Even the books specifically devoted to triathlon training usually have no more than an abbreviated chapter on weight training, with antiquated programs whose influences from the world of body building are plain to see. As two dimensional as the page it’s written on, the program does little to prepare a person for the three-dimensional demands which triathlon places on the body.
It’s time to take the strength-training program off the page, out of the gym, and into the competitive arena. How can you swim, bike, and run onto the podium if you can’t even get to the starting line in one piece? Woody Allen said that 80% of success is just showing up. Yet apparently only one out of every ten triathletes can do this with a clean bill of health. Their preparation is lacking. One wouldn’t just go out and play football with three-hundred-pound linemen without spending some structured time in the gym. But at the word “GO!” triathletes will try to tackle 6.2 miles in a fatigued state with impact forces during the course of the run amounting to well over five thousand times their own body weight! To stay healthy, the triathlete must be strong.
This book will show them how.
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
Much more goes into a successful strength training program than reps and load. How one thinks, breathes, eats, drinks, and sleeps has just as much impact on a person’s vitality as how one moves. Indeed, failing to get the biochemistry right dooms even the best exercise prescription to failure. While most others treat the athlete as though the musculoskeletal system functions as an island. Andrew’s approach is Holistic—inclusive of all key systems of the body & mind. Holistic Strength Training for Triathlon will teach the reader what is often neglected in both their pursuit of wellness and their pursuit of a place on the podium.
About the Author
A native of Atlanta, Andrew Johnston has been involved in personal training for over fifteen years. He originally got into the business for self-improvement, arming himself with knowledge to combat the performance-enhancing drugs that inundate the sport of professional cycling. The strategy worked, and in 1992 he was invited to be a resident athlete at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. Upon graduation from Eckerd College in 1994, he turned pro and took his ambitions to Europe to race for the Belgian Haverbeke GB team. After the 1996 Olympic Trials, he moved to Spain to race for the Palafrugell and Homs squads until 1998. Andrew devoted his full attention to personal training in 1999, after a crash ended his cycling career just as he was entering his prime. But his competitive juices were quenched for only a year before he discovered an interest in triathlon. In his first full season of triathlon competition, he was the 2001 Olympic Distance Champion of Georgia and fifth overall at the National Long Course Triathlon Championships, earning All- American status as well as a slot on the US World Triathlon team. Andrew founded Triumph Training in 2000, turning his athletic experience and insatiable appetite for knowledge into a successful athletic and rehabilitation training business. Not content with having obtained his Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist degree, arguably the most respected credential in the fitness industry, Andrew became the first Corrective Holistic Exercise Kinesiologist in the state of Georgia in 2001. His passion for the body and its limitless potential has since grown only stronger, with Men’s Journal naming him one of the “Top 100 Trainers in the US” two years in a row. By practicing what he preaches to his clientele as well as various audiences throughout the Southeast, in 2006 Andrew became the first Leukemia Survivor to qualify for and finish the Hawaii Ironman World Championships. The award-winning documentary Living is Winning captures the events leading up to that race and takes the audience deep into the life of an aspiring triathlete. Now Andrew uses his knowledge as a Holistic Lifestyle Coach and CHEK practitioner to guide people in their pursuit of wellness, ultimately helping them to realize that the only limitations they truly have are the ones they impose on themselves. For more information on coaching, training, or speaking, Andrew Johnston can be reached by e-mail at Andrew@triumphtraining.com.