Exercise Science & Coaching – A New Perspective
When Rod Cedaro asked me to write an article on sports science for TMSM, I initially thought, "What the hell do I know about exercise physiology and biomechanics?" However, as Rod pointed out, over the last 10 years I’ve probably been poked and prodded by more doctors, physios and exercise scientists than most athletes see in a lifetime. So once I got on a roll the following flowed pretty easily.
If I was asked to write this article 10-to-12 years ago I would have said, "Yeah, sports science, that’s what those other guys that are always behind me have as part of their coaching support network." Up until the mid- to-late 1990’s I’d always been self coached. I’d spent some time over in South Australia at the South Australian Sports Institute – with now coach of the Adelaide Crows AFL team (and exercise physiologist) Neil Craig. I’d also had a few months down in Canberra at the AIS when Rod Cedaro was working there, but in general terms I simply trained harder and dug deeper than my competition in training and racing.
Pure and simple, that was my secret.
That was of course until I started getting a little older. Sessions that I could normally back up within 24 hours started to take 48 to recover from. I can still remember doing a threshold session on Rod’s Computrainer down in Canberra. Based on some earlier testing he’d done, he wanted me to be at a heart rate of around 180bpm and a power output of 350 watts. Regardless of how hard I tried, the heart rate wouldn’t break 150bpm and my power output languished at around 275 watts.
"Croc, you’re tired, let’s make it a recovery session," Rod told me. "Nah, I’m hammering, this is doing me good," I barked back. "Gimme your hand," Rod said. "Ouch what the hell was that?" I winced. "I’ve just taken a blood lactate sample, if the lactates are around 4.0-to-4.5mmol, you’re getting the physiological benefits you want out of this session. If not, you’re tired and you can’t train a tired body. Given your heart rate and power output, I think you’ll have a lactate of around 2.5mmol," Rod told me.
60 seconds later the lactate analyser registered 2.8. Maybe there was a little more to this than I first gave it credit for?
That night I ate up on carbs, had a good night’s sleep and came back the next day and hammered out that session the way it was supposed to be done.
Listening to your body is one thing, and it is very important. However, often, when you’re highly motivated, it is tough to be objective with yourself and how you’re feeling. Gadgets like lactate analysers, power and heart rate monitors, Computrainer, etc. have their place in being able to objectively measure what’s going on. Now that I’ve started doing a little more coaching I’m realising, particularly with age-group athletes, that they have a tendency to do way too much of their training too intensely and too often. Often they come into the sport having been very successful in some other aspect of their life (e.g. business) where they’ve had to work long, hard hours and they equate the same mindset to their training – they hammer it. Then they race and see their performances go backwards. So rather than take stock, they think they can’t have been training hard enough, so back into training they go, smashing themselves again and creating a vicious cycle until something gives – either their health or an injury.
