On-Line Training

I am often asked how does on-line coaching for fitness and/or competitive sports work? It is really quite easy with the help of TrainingPeaks.com. As your coach I would first send you a "Coaching Invitation" to your email account. If you were to accept the invite you would be added to my "Coaching Client Account" and have a free TrainingPeaks.com membership compliments of me. From this point you would then complete several questionnaires on TrainingPeaks.com and several emailed from me in order to help determine your strengths and limiters, time available, work/family schedule, fitness goals, and any events you are interested in particpating in.

Once we have an idea of where you are currently at and where you would like to be in 3-6 months we then begin to build your Annual Training Plan. This is you customized plan that is built around your goals, strengths, limiters, and any events you are considering. The "Annual Training Plan" drives your "Weekly Calendar" (please see above). The calendar depicted above is several weeks of training that is developed by me as your coach. This plan is a living organism that changes based on your schedule, response to training, and your goals and objectives. Each of the workouts depicted above are emailed to you daily. You are able to comment and download workout results directly back to me in order for me to determine if the workout met our goals. Each workout has meaning and a purpose. This promotes motivation, goal based training, and a way to accurately measure progress.

The most common way of measuring your response to training is by using a heart rate monitor. We initially have you do a field test to determine your 30 minute average heart rate (Lactate Threshold Heart Rate) and from here we determine your heart rate training zones in the run and/or the bike. Daily workouts are based off of heart rate training zones in order to precisely communicate to you what level of exertion you should be putting out for that given workout. If you are a triathlete we do not use a heart rate monitor to measure effort in swimming but use pacing and stroke rate to determine levels of exertion in the pool.

If you have a GPS system for the run or a power meter for the bike I am also able to closely track your progress, response to training, training stress, and race performance. Examples of these types of analysis can be viewed within this blog.