Tips for being a self-coached athlete
My name is Andrew Edge and I’m a member of the STAC Performance ambassador team. I’m 37 year old and am focused on the Aquabike distance. I’ve competed in many races in the Multisport Triathlon Series in Ontario, as well as the 2018 ITU Multisport World Aquabike Championship in 2018 (6th place). I’m a husband and father to 2 children, 10 and 8 years old, and I’ve been self-coached since starting to race in 2015. Many ask me why I decide to do all my own programming; it’s common in endurance sports for athletes to have a coach. To be perfectly honest it was a financial and trust decision. Having 2 kids, there was not enough left in the budget, after we covered all of their activities, to afford a coach for my training. I also found it difficult to find a coach that I could trust with my personal goals. Call it the Lionel Sanders mentality, I just wanted to be in control of my goals and plans. This way I only had me to blame if it all went south.
I get a lot of questions about my programming and training, so I thought I’d take over the STAC Performance blog today to share in hopes of helping someone out who may be considering a similar approach to their training. Here are my top 5 tips for being a self-coached athlete
Find a training group
Being a self-coached athlete I think this is one of the most important things that you can do. The long hours on the bike, in the pool, and on the trails can get long and boring when you are training by yourself. A group is going to connect you with like minded people that share the same love and passion for the sport as you. They are going to push you to be a faster and a better you. They will also give you the opportunity to bounce ideas off of other athletes.
I belong to 2 groups; the Aurora Master Ducks and the Newmarket Eagles Cycling club. The Ducks are a swim group that provide stroke correction and drills that I supplement my lane swim time. The Eagles are a cycling group and there is no better feeling then riding your bike with a like minded group while even picking up some “fun” races or hammer rides.
I find there is nothing like a group atmosphere to find a new threshold point.
Get a “Smart Trainer” for your bike.
Getting a smart trainer like the STAC Zero Halcyon trainer is the ideal way to train indoors, in my opinion. With a smart trainer, you can focus on your cadence and goal for the workout without worrying about hitting a power target as the trainer will automatically adjust the power for you as you change your cadence; no more shifting gears! You can also avoid purchasing a power meter for each bike that you have. I primarily ride my TT bike indoors but like to change up my position from time to time by putting my roadie on the trainer. With a smart trainer, I do not need to have a power meter for each bike!
Listen to your body
I would have to say the key thing a self-coached athlete needs to do is listen to their body. When we are self coached, there is no one there to put the safety brake on and slow you down when the injury signs start flashing. You have to be able to see when you are getting close to injuring yourself and need to take a recovery week. I like to keep a training and sleep log. When I begin to notice that workout after workout I am writing down things like “little tired today” or “legs felt flat” or “didn’t sleep well last night” it is definitely time to take a recovery week, even if one is not planned. Sometimes it is not because of the training stress but rather the life stress that we go through therefore we have to give our body a rest to avoid possible injury.
Get on a structured training plan
For anyone looking to reach new peaks in fitness, there is nothing like a properly structured training program. A structured program will incrementalize your training stress in a manageable fashion. It is a lot of fun to get online in the winter to do a Zwift race but you can not make every workout on the bike a full out race or else you are going to get burnt out and start taking days off the bike and instead of getting faster; or worse yet you could get injured. For a nominal fee, there are many great plans out there from TrainerRoad, Zwift, Sufferfest and many more. My Halycon trainer pairs perfectly with my TrainerRoad or Zwift App. Not to mention when I’m not feeling up to braving the elements, Canada being cold 6+ months of the year, I can just hop on my trainer.
Do not forget about strength training
With all the time we dedicate to cycling and endurance training, it is very easy to forget about our strength conditioning. A good strength conditioning program will strengthen not just your pedaling muscles but will also work assisting and opposing muscles to help prevent injury . Power on the bike is derived from the core and a weak core will make you inefficient on the bike and prone to injury. 30 to 40 minutes 2–3 times a week is all you need create a strong foundation and keep you riding injury free. You don’t need a gym membership either. When you first get started with strength training you body weight is all you need; there are many variations of exercises that will increase or decrease with difficulty to keep you improving.
A common question I get: “How do you plan your seasons?”
I like to look at my program in terms of a year, starting mid October and ending mid September at the Niagara Falls Barrelman Aquabike race. This is the Ontario Championship and the venue is absolutely amazing!
With this in mind, I take out my calendar and plan all my A events. A events are my focus races of the year. I like to stick to one or 2 “A” events or event and tailor my season so that I am in peak fitness for these moments in time. If possible, I like to space these events 8 to 10 weeks apart so I can recover for a week, have 5 to 6 weeks to re-peak, and then 1 to 2 weeks for a proper taper.
After I’ve got my A races in, I put all the B events down and I generally do not taper for these events but simply dial things back the day before the event as I consider these races more training events.
Once my events are planned, I begin filling in the months in between my events. Working backwards from my first A race, I take 8 weeks for a peak and then 2 weeks to taper. The next 8 weeks back are a build phase where I ramp up my distance and intensity, focusing my fitness towards the distance I want to race. The rest of the season, I spend in a base phase. I always take a 2–4 week break from any formal training after my last A race and focus on recovering from the season.
So now that you have these blocks planned, how do you go about filling in the workouts?
Once I have my training blocks planned, I then turn to TrainerRoad and select one of their base, build or specialty block plans that fit into the goals and time that I have to train. Once I have this basic plan in place, fit around “life”, I then start to tweak the workouts to improve on my weaknesses and fit it around work and family commitments.
You can follow Andrew Edge on Instagram @aquabikeguy or on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/aquabikeguy/
