Training for an Olympic sized triathlon

I remember when I was a kid, my mother bought me a wrist watch for my birthday. On that watch was the word Ironman. I asked her what that meant and she said that it was the model of watch. Timex had named their model after the Hawaiian sport where insane endurance athletes swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles, and then finish all of that off with a good old fashioned marathon (26.2 mile run). As a fat little porker of a kid I had no comprehension that I would one day aspire to be an endurance athlete. I hated running, didn't like to go far on my bike, but I did enjoy swimming so long as there was a slide.

Training for three events plus lifting weights would be impossible with out knowing how to periodize workouts for maximum effectiveness which is why I would like to show everyone what an example of a balanced week of workouts looks like.

	Swim	Bike	Run	Lifting
Week 1-2
Monday	50 meters		12 min
Tuesday		2 miles		Stage 1
Wednesday	50 meters		15 min		Swim Bike increased
Thursday				Stage 1
Friday	50 meters	2 miles
Saturday			12 min	Stage 1
Sunday		2 miles
Week 3-4
Monday	100 meters		15 min
Tuesday		2 miles		Stage 2
Wednesday	100 meters		17 min		Run Swim increases
Thursday				Stage 2
Friday	100 meters	2 miles
Saturday			15 min	Stage 2
Sunday		2 miles
Week 5-6
Monday	100 meters		17 min
Tuesday		3 miles		Stage 3
Wednesday	100 meters		20 min
Thursday				Stage 3	Bike Run increases
Friday	100 meters	3 miles
Saturday			17 min	Stage 3
Sunday		4 miles

Note how each exercise is done three times a week with a day off in between, except for when there are two days off in between. No more then two exercises are done on a given day and two days of the week I only have one exercise. The most intense exercise is my full body weight lifting work out. While weight lifting it's important that I not over train, which is very easy to do while running, swimming, and biking. This is why I periodize my weight training.

Stage 1 is a light intensity I do each exercise with light effort. Often I will decrease the weights a full increment. I judge the intensity based on my ability to complete the last few repetitions in a set. Stage 2 is moderate, the last few reps are more difficult but my pace is steady and I still feel great after. Stage 3 is intense, my muscle are close to failure if they don't fail. I don't try to make them fail but I push hard to accomplish that last repetition which I tacked on because I knew I could do it.

There is also Stage zero which I do before I begin my 6 week cycle. Stage zero is very light intensity that I use to learn an exercise. The first week of performing an exercise you don't need to put much effort because your gains actually come from training your muscle memory. Since your muscle memory is not trained your more likely to hurt yourself trying to have an intense workout.

Your more likely to overtrain then you are to not train enough. Most people when they exercise want that awesome body NOW! The way they think they'll get it is by training hard.

No pain, No gain.
Pain is just weakness leaving the body.
Be all you can be.
I can't believe I bought this $1000 a year gym membership I hardly use it anymore, that's painful!

Over training is what causes you to lose interest in your exercise program. Signs of over training are:

• Decreased performance.
• Lack of motivation.
• Poor coordination.
• Loss of appetite.
• Chronic muscle soreness.
• Chronic stiffness at the joints.
• Chronic headaches.
• Longer recovery times.
• Loss of concentration.
• Reduced self esteem.
• Depression.

http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/3524/1/How-To-Know-If-You-Are-Overtraining.html
Don't let that happen to you periodize your periodized workouts!

Running, Swimming and Biking together means that they have to share your gains. Notice how I only increase the distance or time of two of my exercises at once. This is of course ignoring the weight lifting which has it's own schedule. In addition to this I am always looking out for the signs of overtraining. If I feel like I have overtrained I take a day or two off and I might go back a week in each exercise.