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Single Sport Focus– by Lance Watson

We all have areas we need to work on. Triathlon is a complicated sport to train really well at. It’s not just a matter of swimming, biking and running. You have to consider when to work on run speed, or hill climbing and descending skills on the bike, or stroke-rate or technical proficiency in swimming, etc. There are always areas to improve upon and that’s what makes our sport so challenging and intriguing.

At some point you will want to improve a single aspect of your game. The athlete’s natural tendency is to like what they are good at, and therefore they tend to train with a little more intensity or focus in their area of expertise. I regularly incorporate single sport focus or emphasis phases in my athlete’s training, to hone an individual event or an specific aspect of that sport.

About The Focus Phase: A natural time for this is in the fall. Take an early September active rest of 10days or so, and then start laying down some foundation in your sport of need, your “focus sport”. Keep up the other 2 events, but limit them to 2-3 aerobic activities in each per week. Increase frequency in your focus sport, but not dramatically. You don’t necessarily have to do a ton more work, just make sure you are fresh more often for your focus sport sessions.

To have long term impact on your ability in your focus sport, the phase needs to be 12-16 weeks. Pick a meaningful event to end the phase with, such as a cyclocross race, a masters swim meet, or a half marathon. Try and plan a couple more “building block” events along the way to work towards the goal event, and to keep you excited. Finally, participating in individual sport competitions, you learn some tricks of the trade from single sport athletes that might not be apparent in triathlon competition.

Keys for progressing in your “focus sport”

• Pick a meaningful goal event for the end of the focus phase.

• Incorporate 3-4 weeks of base work (i.e. long endurance sessions) in the focus sport. Add one extra base session than you normally would in that sport during regular triathlon training

• Do the first “building block” competition at the end of the 3 week phase

• Move into 4-6 weeks of threshold emphasis (i.e. short-rest intervals). Still do base once a week. Do one more threshold session per week than you would normally do in your triathlon training for that sport

• Do 1-2 more “building block” races in the threshold emphasis phase.

• Move into 2-3 weeks of speed emphasis (i.e. high speed, long-rest intervals). Reduce base, maintain 60-75% of your threshold work, and do 1 more speed session per week than you would normally do in regular triathlon training

• Taper for 7-10 days and your goal competition.

Other thoughts to help you along the way:

• Seek someone with technical expertise in the focus sport during this phase, and put more energy into improving your form and biomechanics.

• Build your training plan around your focus sport. Put them down on paper first. This will help you emphasize the focus sport sessions, and turn up rested and prepared for the key practices.

• Pick 1-2 aspects of the focus sport you want to emphasize: i.e. run endurance, cycling hill climbing ability, body alignment in the swim, etc.

• Think like an elite single sport athlete. “I am a distance runner…”

• Learn everything you can about your focus sport during the phase while you are immersed in it.

• Enjoy meeting new people at different sporting events!

Finally, when you are in race season, stay true to your planned-out, balanced triathlon training plan, but still stay in tune with how you are doing in all three individual events. With some slight adjustments in training you can freshen up for a couple of key workouts. You can also increase emphasis in one sport for 10-14 days and get a “boost” in that sport. If you work with your coach to carefully dissect the individual components of your training, come race day you should be ready to put it all together for a great result.

LifeSport head coach Lance Watson has coached a number of Ironman, Olympic and age-group champions. He enjoys coaching athletes of all abilities who are passionate about sport and personal excellence.

Contact LifeSport: coach@LifeSport.ca; www.LifeSport.ca for coaching enquiries.