THREE on the benefits of creating structure in training and in life
Most people who lived before the digital age will remember penning (or No. 2 penciling!) lecture notes into a ruled notebook. The evenly spaced horizontal blue lines guided how big to write, and the red vertical line indicated how much space to leave on the left-hand side of the page. If you remember this setup, then it’s likely you took that page organization for granted. Structure, whether it be on the page of a grade school notebook, in a swimming pool with lane lines, or through a typical summer competition season, is something most of us don’t fully appreciate until it’s gone.
Adding some self imposed structure becomes even more important when framed in the context of the 2020 race season. Without the familiar construct of races most weekends, training meetups, and pool swims, it’s likely your fitness is not where it normally would be at this point in the season. You might even be grateful that social distancing doesn’t allow for others to get a close-up of your summer body!
In the absence of structure, we must create it ourselves. Open water swimming, for example, can sometimes feel like taking notes onto a page with no lines at all. Without lane ropes to keep you straight, walls to keep your distance accurate, and a clock on the wall to consistently monitor your effort, open water offers far less help in structuring a set or a workout.
Check out my tips in the “Train” section for 3 of my favorite open-water swimming workouts.
There is little certainty that this season’s remaining races will go forward as planned. You need to step up and take this opportunity to create your own goals. Sure it would be easy to chalk this up as a lost season and to let your fitness drop a few rungs on the priority ladder. Athletes do not chase what is easy—we chase progress. Progress cannot be achieved in the absence of a structure—a goal, a timeline, and a plan of action. Reflect on the core desires that drive your training, and identify goals that speak to those desires. Introducing structure to your hourly and daily actions will give you certainty through these uncertain times.
Joe Maloy, 2016 U.S. Olympic Triathlete, Co-Founder and Editor-at-Large
• Swimming in the open water can be disorienting for any swimmer. It's an uncontrolled environment that provides completely different feedback when compared with swimming in a pool. In a special training column published this week, THREE Editor-at-Large Joe Maloy outlines three guidelines to keep in mind if you’re looking to make progress outside of the pool, along with three sample workouts to get back in the water, become more efficient and boost your aerobic swimming capacity.
• Summer officially started this past weekend and the weather is starting to heat up. Most of us tend to have an optimal outdoor training temperature and usually that temperature starts to fade away in the summer. In fact, several studies have shown that the perfect marathon running temperature for non-elite runners is somewhere between 49 and 52 degrees Fahrenheit (~10 degrees Celsius). If you’re an athlete who hates the heat, Trail Runner Magazine put together this heat acclimation guide to prepare your body for warmer temperatures.
“Heat stress can begin at relatively low temperatures for unacclimated individuals.”
Trail Runner’s heat-acclimation tips include making use of a hot tub, hot yoga, wearing extra layers, using the sauna and even training in peak heat. Still, it’s important to note, “heat stress provides a big cardiac strain, so even more than other training discussions, heat acclimation should be discussed with a health professional before undergoing any protocol.”
• As we touched on in the introduction, the benefits of goal setting can be realized in many aspects of our lives, not just athletics. Positive Psychology outlines five proven ways that goal setting is effective. “In the end,” they write, “you can’t manage what you don’t measure and you can’t improve upon something that you don’t properly manage. Setting goals can help you do all of that and more.”
• If one of your goals is to take advantage of reopened pools and beaches this weekend, you may be encouraged to know that there are mind-body benefits to pushing through the initial discomfort of a cold, open-water swim, or reconnecting with the community at your local pool. In fact, The New York Times reports, in these times of protests and pandemic, the basic act of swimming is an act of perseverance that “can ease the struggle through an uncertain time.”
“Resilience is about sticking your head in water every day, for an hour or more, year after year. That’s the challenge right now — not to put your head down and ignore the world, but to put your head down and absorb it. To remember how to float, in spite of the burdens you carry.”
• Last week’s column on sleep interested a lot of you, so we’re posting a new sleep analysis from Team USA: Why Sleep Is Key In Letting Both Mind And Body Recover For Athletes And Non-Athletes Alike. In a recent article, sportswriter Todd Kortemeier writes that “sleep has more than just physically restorative benefits. Keeping a good sleep schedule can improve mental health. Gold medals are not won through physical strength alone.”
• Not only is sleep important for peak physical performance, according to United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee Senior Sport Psychophysiologist Lindsay Shaw, it helps with the intense focus and mindset that athletes require. Shaw recently interviewed Paralympic swimming gold medalist Mallory Weggemann and Olympic BMX racing gold medalist Connor Fields to discuss how sleep impacts elite athletes in this YouTube video.
Tell us your story.
Reply to this email with your most memorable open-water swimming experience or a great story of resilience. We’d like to share it in our next edition. Until then, be well. We hope to see you on a starting line soon.
