Our first coaches corner where you can see us!

We had super fun today on coaches corner; our first time using Skype and I sense that the competition is on now for best hat and mug combo. Mitch won today; with Ian in sensible grown up clothes coming in a firm second.

We have built up a real treasure trove of resources for cyclists and triathletes; so if you are interested in having a listen to other podcasts you can find there here to stream in any format that suits you best and also here on YouTube. I have also detailed many of the podcasts here: (I may have missed a few).

Here is today’s awesome podcast 🙂

Today we discussed:

  • Early (warning) signs of health crashing and tips about what to do to prevent getting sick and return to full form as quickly as possible.
  • Indoor vs outdoor powermeter and what to do with your numbers – also, if you do not have a PM outdoors – how to pace yourself?
  • Theia offers words of wisdom on “failure- or is it?” I felt like she was speaking to my soul given the personal context for me; thanks Theia! Her words are worth listening to. I really enjoyed the tip on  “what am I going to give in a race” and I learnt that for me the importance of holding my health sometimes has far greater meaning in the context of my work and home life. I need to be healthy for what matters; and crushing this in a race just isn’t worth it.
  • Concept of a “Floor” in our Training Peaks numbers – and how to use it.
  • This week in the LAB.

As promised here are my words of advice regarding what to look out for and what to do when your health starts to veer off track:

Warning signs:

I have kept it light hearted; if you wish to read the official consensus on Prevention, Diagnosis, and Treatment of the Overtraining Syndrome: Joint Consensus Statement of the European College of Sport Science and the American College of Sports Medicine click here and another topic close to this and equally concerning is relative energy deficiency in sport and here is the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Consensus Statement on Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-S): 2018 update.

Normal warning signs and symptoms that I see when training stress starts to ramp up are the following – without getting too in-depth!

Respiratory tract:

  • Allergies and asthma
  • Sinus infections
  • Head colds
  • Sore/ tickly throats
  • Constant cough
  • If really unlucky chest infections or pneumonia and viral conditions (that don’t need an antibiotic) worsening into bacteria complicated infections (that may need an antibiotic).

Gastrointestinal tract:

  • IBS type symptoms
  • Looser stools
  • Greater difficulty managing nutrition and feeling like food isn’t digesting well
  • Reflux and indigestion
  • More frequent food poisoning / gastritis incidents
  • Poor nutrient absorption – iron and B12 deficiency

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1 Comment

Sport nutrition video blogs, podcasts and good stuff

This is the post that you want to read for resources, tips and advice!

Hi all,

Life has been fast and busy, apologies for the hit and miss entries. I have been training persistently and consistently; putting in the ground work under the watchful eye and intuitive guidance of my coach Annchen Clarke in preparation for the coming year and my main races.

I have been throwing my heart and energy into my clients in the clinic, and I have been thoroughly enjoying my involvement with the coaches Ian, Theia, Mitch, and Jason at the Endurance lab.

In the clinic I am moving more into my areas of expertise, I encourage all my clients to shine in their unique and individual ways and it is important that I do also.

So what are my areas? Intuitive medicine and energy healing (your body speaks a unique language and I am good at interpreting this and instead of spouting off a list of A-Z I can tell you the specific ABC that your body needs for health and well-being, balance and optimal performance at that specific moment in time), a whole mind-body-spirit approach to chronic health problems (notably energy, gastrointestinal and immune problems), tailored holistic approach to the care of the athlete and trouble shooting to get you from where you are to where you want to be.

I also work with plant, tree and crystal energies to create healing essences and work with the nudges of the energies of land and people; we are all connected and intertwined and to think that each of us walks alone is daft. Everything is energy, and our energy is connected to everything (person-animal-place).

I am not a meal plan writer, general nutritionist, food and supplement faddist or a calorie cruncher; this type of work is argued left right and centre on the great world of social media, I prefer to see my role as advisor and support, listener and in return giver of answers, guide and educator. You work with me for a while; grow, heal, become empowered and fly off 🙂

We work together on the more complex stuff; I have a lifetime of education and experience and I am here to share what I have with you. Use my time and education; I have many skills and resources to share!

Of course there is also the balance, my boy, my puppy, my ‘me’ time and the great outdoors; the crucial things for health and well-being!

To keep you on your toes, please do check out the recipe section here on this blog (e.g. a recent one), my facebook endurance group and also these video blogs that have gone up lately.

Enjoy,
Andrea

PS Please try to listen to the entire podcast of Coaches Corner; the coaches give invaluable tips so the listen is very much worth it.

Fuelling:

So here are tips on how to gain some insights into what fuelling your training sessions may need, which can come from clues about what zone you are training in and for how long you are in these zones.

Consider that your carbohydrate demands of the session are along a sliding scale of intensity – Easy, Endurance Pace, Tempo, (Sweet Spot), Threshold, VO2, multiplied by the time spent in these zones. The longer you are training, or the harder you are training, or the longer and harder you are training the greater the percentage of carbohydrates that you will be oxidising (and hence will need to top up your blood glucose once your liver and glycogen stores start to diminish).

Your fuelling is never an all or nothing between carbs and fat. (We also have the top end anaerobic sprint work that uses a different energy system called the phosphocreatine/ phosphagen system. We never just train there as endurance athletes nor could we for longer than a few seconds, it is worth knowing that this is a different system and it is here that we teach our bodies how to tolerate and recover from lactate generation and the subsequent shift in cellular pH from hydrogen ions). When doing sprint work you must take into context what other work you are doing in this session as it will help dictate your fuelling needs.

At lower intensities you will be oxidising mostly fats with some carbohydrates, and at tempo and threshold (and towards your max) you will be oxidising mostly carbohydrates with some fats and the ratios of these, and where these percentages lie will depend on several factors. It is tricky to know exactly what gram per hour number you are for carbohydrates, so instead of trying to over-science it, learn to listen to what your body is saying and tweak it from there based on getting the basic principles of training fuelling correct while also being cognizant that your body has needs for many other things that we find IN REAL FOOD.

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