Triathlon Training Tips | The Key to Making Gains & Progress with Andy Potts
Triathletes spend a lot of time training. After all, there are three different disciplines to try to master – swimming, biking, and running. Having a good workout program is important, but there’s something else that you need to be doing as well. Pro triathlete Andy Potts shares the key that will make you stronger and more successful with your triathlon training plan.
How to Make Strength & Endurance Gains
Many athletes dedicate a lot of time and effort to their triathlon training program, but ignore the second half of the equation – muscle recovery. While training, muscles break down and become weaker. During the recovery cycle, your body rebuilds itself and becomes stronger than before. Both are essential pieces of the puzzle that will allow you to get stronger and continue to make progress. Additionally, muscle recovery is important for a variety of other reasons, which include:
- Enhanced performance: when your body is recovered and feeling good you can give 100%
- Maintain proper biomechanics
- Prevention of overuse injuries
- Keeps your body healthy and capable of doing the activities you love in the long term
What’s the Best Way to Recover from Triathlon Training?
There are a lot of recovery techniques and tools out there, but very few of them enhance all stages of the muscle recovery process. For example, compression boots may help get rid of some waste, but their benefits are even limited with that, and they fail to improve any of the other steps. Icing is another common technique; however, it’s been found that icing actually delays healing and possibly causes additional damage. The only technique that is proven to effectively enhance all stages of the cycle is low-stress movement, also known as active recovery. Research shows that active recovery provides the necessary muscle activation that’s required to increase nutrients and supplies, remove waste through the lymphatic system, produce and release myokines for tissue regeneration, and effectively remodel the repaired tissue.
Marc Pro Placement
Pro triathlete Andy Potts uses Marc Pro to make sure he’s fully recovered. Marc Pro creates non-fatiguing muscle activation to provide the benefits of active recovery in an easier and more effective way. One of Andy’s favorite ways to use Marc Pro is to place the pads of the gray lead wire on the lateral quadricep (one pad on the left leg, one pad on the right), and the pads of the black lead wire on the bottom of the VMO (one pad on the left leg, one pad on the right). Andy has found that crossing the channels gives him a better muscle contraction and better blood flow.
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