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News
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Oct 15, 2014
Is the Triathlon Base Period 3.75 to 8.25 Training Plan a Good Way to Get Back in Shape?
Read more →Good Afternoon Gale, I just purchased your plan called Triathlon: Base Period (Winter, Off-Season) 3.75 to 8.25 hrs/wk. I didn’t find information on the strength workouts or the file for the Heart rates, intervals, etc. Can you send me this information? I will be doing Ironman Mont Tremblant next August 2015 and want to use this as my base to get back into working out, because I haven’t done much in last year and a half. I did my first Ironman before that. Do you think this is a good way to start? Thanks for your...
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Oct 14, 2014
Questions on a swim workout, preparing to kick butt
Read more →Q: Hi Gale, I recently bought your book “Swim Workouts for Triathletes.” I’m afraid as someone without a swimming background I am stuck on the first drill terminology: in the 30-minute #1 workout (beginner) it reads halfway through the workout: 4 X 50 2-2-2 :10 RI. (For the advanced it has 6 X 50 2-2-2.) The part I don’t get is the “2-2-2.” I have scoured the book and can’t find an explanation. Why are there three “2”s for four intervals?? What does it mean? Please help. I am an age grouper who recently did the Malibu Olympic distance...
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Oct 07, 2014
Should all intensity be removed from winter workouts?
Read more →My short answer is – no. On Sunday's group ride, the topic of winter riding volume and exercise intensity came up. "Should triathletes, road cyclists and mountain bikers remove all intensity during the preparation or base phase of training? What does research support?" You know my short answer, now let's look into the answer in more depth. Before going further, let me define "intensity" for the purpose of this blog. I consider "intensity" to be any effort above an aerobic heart rate. (What I define as Zone 1 to 2.) Very high intensity is short duration (60 seconds or less)...
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Oct 03, 2014
Gale Bernhardt Consulting Selected as One of Top 6 Online Trainers
Read more →Today I was pleasantly surprised, humbled and honored to be selected as one of Men's Fitness Magazine's top online trainers. The honor was for providing dedicated workouts and advice for athletes. In the magazine, they pulled a nice quote from the Tough Love blog written in August. I must say it feels great to have triathletes, mountain bikers, road cyclists and runners value my training plans and advice. For the recognition, thank you Men's Fitness ~ Note: What I didn't catch in the original tweet to me is that it is an international honor - Men's Fitness Magazine, U.K....
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Sep 30, 2014
How to get back to lifting weights, a sample routine
Read more → When the weather is nice enough to ride and run, it is tough for most endurance athletes to lift weights. I'm in that category. Last week, I realized it has been four-and-a-half months since I lifted weights. What?! How did that happen? Yesterday I forced myself to get back to the weight room and, like always, once there I was glad to be at it again. I usually use some variation of the exercises suggested on my supporting documents for triathlon and cycling training plans. I do add some balance exercises as well. I also like to add...
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Sep 09, 2014
Sleep deprivation impairs performance an average of 11%
Read more →Most endurance athletes know that getting adequate sleep is important to top performance in training and races. At the same time, many competitive age group athletes are juggling careers, families, volunteer obligations and perhaps extended family care. Add the hours up for responsibilities and what remains is the daily budget for exercise, eating and sleep. It is not uncommon for busy endurance athletes to dashboard dine. That is, eating while driving or while doing work at a desk. This practice of distracted eating can lead to consuming too many calories, but that is another discussion. In my experience, a high...
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Sep 03, 2014
How to make next season your best yet
Read more →After you have had the last race of the season, it is a great time to reflect on accomplishments. Many athletes begin by being self-critical of all the things that could have been better. We'll get to that later. First, take the time to list all the things that went well during the past year. That includes your entire training plan, off-season, race preparation period and the race season itself. Include supporting items such as nutrition, family, massage, etc. Hopefully this is a long list. Leave it open-ended. That is, allow the list to grow as you think of more...
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Aug 27, 2014
Can snotty molecules make total knee replacements less invasive?
Read more →If you are a candidate for total knee replacement surgery, you know the surgery is anything but routine. Surgeons break out the power tools, literally, to saw off the end of your femur and tibia. This is followed by drilling holes into the bones in order to glue and hammer into place the metal surfaces that replace these parts of your joint. Between the two surfaces is a plastic piece that takes the place of your meniscus. A good animation video for total knee replacement can be found here. The life of these artificial joints used to be around 10...
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Aug 25, 2014
Comparison of gear inches for a 1x11 on a 29er and 27.5 mountain bike
Read more →In the last post, I included a gear-inch chart for comparing 1x11 and 2x10 gear inches for a mountain bike with 29-inch wheels. The post generated plenty of good discussion and comments on the blog and Facebook as well. One of the comments was that switching from 2x10 to 1x11 is made easier on the low range of the gears if you also switch from 29-inch wheels to 27.5-inch wheels. So, I created a chart so you could see the comparative differences for gearing. The discussion of going from one wheel size to the other is an entirely different blog....
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Aug 22, 2014
Gear Inches Chart for 29er Wheels – 1x11 v.s. 2x10
Read more →I've had a lot of questions from mountain bikers about gearing. Riders wonder if they should go with a 1x11 or 2x10? There are many factors that go into this decision, not the least of which is the actual gearing. I'm going to use myself as an example. Right now I am running a 2x10 setup with a 22x38 on the front and 11x36 on the rear. On the gear inches chart below, you can see that my granny gear (22x36) provides 17.7 gear inches of travel. This is my low gear for climbing. My big gear for pushing speed...