To help athletes with this problem, Lidia Garcia uses hypnotism. “Regardless of their training, if athletes have a doubt in their minds, what they’re focused on is probably going to come true,” says the hypnotherapist and running coach from Toluca Lake, Calif. Through hypnosis, Garcia can desensitize the fear until athletes are ready to race with confidence.

Most of Garcia’s clients fear “the pack”: getting beat up by fellow swimmers or missing a breath because water splashed in their mouths. Under hypnosis, she guides them through race day step by step. As soon as they show signs of anxiety, she’ll go through the fear over and over until the athlete can pass through. “It’s just like going on a rollercoaster,” Garcia says. “The first time it was scary, but the 20th time it’s like nothing. As soon as the water fear comes up and they get anxious, I replace that feeling with something else.”

Sports psychologists across the country are using hypnosis to help prepare athletes for competition. Runner Kara Goucher works with a sports psychologist who uses mental rehearsals, mantra reciting and anchors (triggers for emotional or physical changes), all techniques Garcia also incorporates.

Garcia starts sessions with an interview process to understand how your fear was manifested and why it’s holding you back. From there, she’s able to create suggestions to change the ideas you have in your subconscious mind.

If you’re thinking, “I can’t be hypnotized,” take note: Garcia says athletes are actually easier to hypnotize because of the mind-body connection they have from doing an individualized sport. And hypnosis doesn’t involve the pendulum-swinging “you are getting verrrry sleepy” scenario that leads to dancing with a broom in front of a room of strangers. She says everyone is hypnotized on a regular basis—those moments where you forget the past five minutes while driving, or when you’re crying during a movie, or how you feel right before you fall asleep, are all trance-like states.

Overcome Your Open Water Fear

• Create a vision board. Include photos of a goal race PR, your planned reward after the race (i.e. Coldstone) or a cutout of your head on Chrissie or Macca’s body. “Look at it for 15 minutes in the morning, 15 minutes at night. Meditating on it will change how the subconscious mind sees the result,” Garcia says.

• Put “anchors” in place—decide on a motion that reminds you that you’re safe. (Touching two fingers together is a common one.)

• Come up with a mantra that’s present and positive. “Keep moving forward,” for example.

• Do a full mental rehearsal of your race from alarm clock to finish line. The more often, the better.

• Try a session with Garcia if you’re in the area (starting around $80), or contact her for a recorded hypnosis that you can listen to pre-race. Lidiamgarcia.com

More swim training articles from Triathlete.com.

Photo: Paul Phillips

Cycling is an extremely repetitive sport that involves long duration and high-intensity training—which can ultimately lead to injury. Much like changing your car’s oil allows it to perform better and last longer, these five injury prevention techniques can help you perform at a higher level and reduce your risk of overuse.

1. Pre-workout: Perform dynamic stretches for 5–10 minutes, such as leg crossovers and scorpions to open up the hips and spine. They will help reduce joint and muscle stiffness prior to hopping on the bike.

2. During the workout: Keep your cadence at 90 rpm or greater to reduce stress on the knee, specifically the patellofemoral joint (kneecap area). High-intensity training at lower rpm may have rewards but also comes with greater injury risk.

3. Post-workout: Use the foam roller to reduce muscle soreness and tightness. Focus on the iliotibial band, quadriceps and piriformis (a deep gluteal muscle).

4. Gear: Assuming that a professional bike fit has been done, keep well-documented measurements of saddle height and fore/aft position. Always check measurements when traveling with the bike and after a bike crash.

5. Shoes: Tighten cleat screws/bolts, as they sometimes loosen and cause the cleat to shift. Once you have the cleat in the ideal position, make sure you outline the cleat in permanent marker. Overuse injuries can be created if the cleat shifts too far forward or back, increasing stress on the knee.

More cycling articles from Triathlete.com.

Professional triathletes may have more time to train than age-groupers do, but that doesn’t mean we can’t take their best ideas and make them our own. You can copy how the pros structure their training using a smart plan with clear-cut goals for your next iron-distance race. Here’s how to do it.

Creating A Plan For Success

When training Ironman champions, I break each training block into three-week portions, or training mesocyles, providing an emphasis and theme for each mesocycle. While the demands of the race course and the developmental needs of each individual dictate the specifics of the weekly program, age-group athletes can benefit from taking a similar general approach to training, starting with a basic outline that also includes some specific goals within each mesocycle. When age-group athletes sign up for an iron-distance event, it tends to be their personal “championship” event in the sense that it is the focal point of their season. Working backward from an iron-distance race, here is an example of creating mesocyles. Note that you can formulate a similar plan for all distances by adjusting volume and intensity.

Photo: Nils Nilsen

I have my athletes do broken sets—rather than one long continuous swim—for testing. I find that it’s easier for swimmers to pace themselves during the test, making the results more accurate for use in workouts. In both of the test sets (one for sprint racers and the second for Olympic distance or longer) the goal is to swim the fastest sustainable speed for each repeat. Avoid sprinting on the first repeat only to fade on the last one, resulting in a big discrepancy in times. After the test, you’ll know your T-pace (test pace) that you can apply to future workouts.

For both tests, warm up with your choice of swimming, kicking and pulling for about 15 minutes. Near the end of your warm-up, include 4–6 x 25 at goal pace or slightly faster with 10 seconds’ recovery between each.

Sprint test: Swim 3×100 fast. Recover for 20 seconds between each. Note your time for each 100, aiming for no more than 5 seconds’ difference between each one. Your T-pace per 100 is the average of all three times.

Olympic, half-Ironman, Ironman test: Swim 3×300 fast. Recover for 30 seconds between each. Note your time for each 300, aiming to have less than 15 seconds’ difference between each. Average the times to determine your average 300 pace. Your T-pace per 100 is that number divided by 3.

Once you have determined your T-pace, use it to design swim workouts. For example, let’s assume your T-pace is 1:45 (105 seconds) per 100. If you’re a sprint distance racer, swim a set of 5–8 repeats of 50 on a repeating send-off of 1:15. Your goal would be to swim each 50 faster than your T-pace (105 divided by 2, or 52.5 seconds). By swimming shorter segments faster than T-pace, you can work toward improving your speed over longer distances. Retest your T-pace every six to eight weeks so you can make adjustments to your workouts.

Gale Bernhardt co-authored Workouts in a Binder: Swim Workouts for Triathletes and coaches amateur to elite athletes through Galebernhardt.com.

More swim training articles from Triathlete.com.

McGlone on the run in the 2010 Ironman World Championship. Photo: Kurt Hoy

Q: I want to mix up my training and join some group workouts such as Masters swims and the local shop ride. What should I know before showing up so I don’t anger the natives?

A. I train in Tucson, Ariz., where besides spectacular weather, you will find some of the best group workouts in the country, including a large and competitive Masters program and the Shootout, a weekly road ride (read: race) that has been rolling out Saturday mornings for more than 30 years. If you don’t observe some specific rules of etiquette you can quickly find yourself under a barrage of tri-dork jokes and ridicule. I spoke to Jim Stites, the head coach of the Ford Aquatics Masters squad at the University of Arizona, and he gave me the dirt on the top 10 group swimming faux pas:

10. Finishing a swim and not moving over to allow others in the lane to finish to the wall.
9. Executing a turn on the “finish” side of the lane.
8. Disregarding the pace clock.
7. Disrupting the flow of a lane by not following the set design (ex.: starting out too fast or too slow).
6. Leaving 5 seconds behind the swimmer in front of you (10 seconds is considered the rule
unless the lane is particularly crowded).
5. Repeatedly touching, grabbing or groping the feet of the swimmer in front of you without passing.
4. Talking or socializing while the coach is explaining the set.
3. Leading the lane without understanding the set or intervals.
2. Arriving to practice after the main set has begun, forcing a side-by-side lane to circle.
1. Choosing the wrong lane (too fast or too slow).

If it sounds like swimmers are anal retentive, some cyclists take elitism to a whole new level. Here are some key things to remember when riding in a pack or organized road ride:

- Don’t ride a triathlon bike on a group ride if you can help it. Bring a road bike or if you must ride a TT bike stay off the aerobars in the pack.

- No one cares about your VO2max or your lactate threshold. Obsessively checking your heart rate monitor to make sure you are “in the zone” is also out. Go with the flow of the ride and leave the gadgets at home. Watts are the only numbers that count.

- Drafting is legal and encouraged in cycling. Don’t leave a big gap between you and the rider in front. Point out obstacles, bumps, potholes and road signs for the riders behind you. Do not swerve suddenly at the last minute to avoid something in the road. Learn how to bunny hop.

- If you puncture in the pack, raise your arm to signal that you have a flat tire and pull smoothly to the right, out of the group and onto the shoulder of the road to fix it.
Look a few riders ahead to see when the pack is accelerating or slowing down suddenly. Be aware and ready to respond to anything.

- Compression socks on the bike are a no-no. Cyclists use them but they are considered strictly post-ride recovery attire.

- Store stops are your friend. Take the opportunity to rest and fuel up or you will get dropped by the caffeinated, sugar-rushed pack on the way home.

Don’t be discouraged by these long lists of rules. Most training groups operate under a “more is merrier” philosophy and are happy to have new members. Smile, introduce yourself and chat with the locals. Mention that you are new to the group and ask the more experienced athletes for some tips. There is no faster way to make friends than to ask an athlete to share his vast knowledge (accurate or not) with a rookie.

Photo: Nils Nilsen

Goal setting is one of the defining characteristics that separates athletes from exercisers; we set our sights on specific targets and we strive for performance. As you get ready to put your 2012 goals down on paper (which I highly recommend), here are some guidelines to keep in mind. I’ve divided these goal-setting tips into categories based on three groups of triathletes I frequently talk to. You may fit squarely into one category or identify with more than one.

“I want to be a contender.”

“I coulda’ been a contenda,” lamented Marlon Brando in “On the Waterfront.” But he wasn’t, because as a fighter he didn’t have anyone looking out for him and he went for the easy buck instead of the long-term gain. If you want to step up your performance in 2012 and stand atop the podium, get yourself:

A coach. I know I’m biased, but during the natural ups and downs of the training process athletes benefit from external guidance. Coaching is not just a training program or data analysis; it’s the relationship that guides you through the dark days, when fatigue causes self-doubt and insecurities to cloud your judgment.

Performance monitors. If you want to win, invest in a power meter for the bike and a GPS-enabled heart rate monitor for your other activities. Even more important: Download the data and use it. You’d be surprised at the number of athletes who have the gear but do nothing with the useful information it provides.

Speed. Endurance gets you to the finish line, but speed wins races. If you want to win you have to put your time into high-intensity speed work on the track, cycling intervals above lactate threshold intensity, and VO₂max intervals in the pool.

RELATED: Meet 5 New Male Pros

More videos from Triathlete.com.

For the past two years Swedish professional triathlete Lisa Norden has travelled to Kenya to participate in run training camps. The trips were instigated by her Australian coach, Darren Smith, who recognized that Kenya produces the best runners in the world and wanted to learn the secrets to their success directly from them. I asked Norden to name the most important thing she learned during her time there and she said—unexpectedly, I must say—that it was the importance of balance.

“When we got there we struggled to stay upright,” Norden said, citing the uneven dirt running surfaces as the reason. “The Kenyans don’t fall over. We put our feet in beautiful shoes with a lot of support, we run on asphalt roads, and we lose so much [balance]. You lose so much power when you don’t have that contact with the ground.”

Balance is extremely important in running, and balance is easy to take for granted as a runner. One of the reasons human beings can’t run until they’re two years old is that they lack the required balance. Think about it: When you run you’re either airborne or have just one foot on the ground at all times, and your center of gravity, or balance point, is continuously moving forward. Only half of the energy your body uses during running actually goes toward forward propulsion. The other half goes toward preventing yourself from falling down.

You need two things to avoid falling down each time your foot strikes the ground during running: stability and balance. They sound like synonyms but in this case they are not. Stability refers to a state of the body where little active balancing is required. It comes from the alignment of your body as your foot makes contact with the ground and the ability of the muscles whose job is to prevent your joints from collapsing on impact to do that job properly. Balance refers to the neuromuscular skill of activating the muscles and adjusting your body alignment to keep yourself upright. It comes from the ability to anticipate and react to challenges to the body’s postural equilibrium.

Running experts talk a lot about stability and how to improve it, but they don’t talk a lot about balance. Obviously, the two attributes are interdependent. The more stable you are, the less balance you need. By wearing the right shoes, getting your stride right, and strengthening your stabilizing muscles, you can increase your stability as a runner and thereby reduce the energy you have to put into maintaining your balance.

However, you cannot eliminate the need for balance, and most runners—or at least most Western runners—are underdeveloped in this skill, such that they actually waste energy on balancing themselves. One reason may be the one Lisa Norden pointed to: We get artificial stability from the smooth, paved roads we run on and the $125 shoes we run in. These factors act as crutches, almost literally, that enable us to get away with failing to fully develop our balancing skills. Whereas Kenya’s runners, who grow up running mostly barefoot on unstable surfaces, develop terrific balance and are thus able to devote more of their available energy to forward propulsion.

The essence of balance is, after all, relaxation. Consider the example of standing on a paddle board on the water. The first time you do it, you will pour tremendous amounts of energy into tensing muscles throughout your body in the effort to stay upright, because your body has not yet learned how to skillfully anticipate and react to challenges to your equilibrium in that environment. But after you’ve done it a bunch of times, not only will you have far more success in staying upright, but you will do so with a much smaller dedication of energy to the task. You will feel and be more relaxed on the board. Running is the same way. The better your balance becomes, the more relaxed you will run, and the faster you will be able to run with an equal dedication of energy to the overall task.

So, how do you improve your balance? Easy. Lisa Norden has already hinted at one way: Get off the roads occasionally and run on trails. Also do some barefoot running if you can. This will improve your balance while you run, without any need to perform “balance workouts” outside of running. You can also train your balance by incorporating equilibrium-challenging exercises into the strength-training sessions you’re already doing. For example, single-leg squats. Finally, you can add just one or two specific balance-training exercises to your existing strength workouts, such as standing on a wobble board.

That’s all there is to it.

Sara: With family and work schedules, very few people have the ability to train with a coach. Instead, it’s much easier to purchase a DVD or book that they can follow at their own pace. Most are cheaper than a session with a coach, plus you can also find free videos on YouTube.

Tim: Most triathletes have Type A personalities and they are very driven by schedules. Getting together with a coach for an hour is not a huge hurdle to overcome. Newbies are often lost in the mountain of data. With so much to think about, they don’t have a logical progression to follow as they start their journey in the pool. A coach can break down the individual skills and move on only when they have mastered them.

Sara: Triathlete recently outlined a simple way to create your own underwater video camera. You can film yourself in the pool and analyze your technique each week as you progress. Compare your video to professional swimmers online.

Tim: Athletes can videotape themselves, but the feedback is delayed. They have to wait to download the video and spend time comparing. Trying a skill, having it analyzed by a coach, learning the corrections and trying it again is compressed into minutes—not days. This progression is worth the extra couple of bucks.

RELATED: How To Analyze Your Own Swim Stroke

Sara: I’ve coached some athletes who just won’t listen to what I say, even if I’ve told them a million times. They finally end up figuring it out themselves and when that happens, it sticks. Learning on your own forces you to think about what you are doing and why you are doing it.

Tim: The swim usually creates the most stress for a new triathlete. A coach is able to mentally help out by being there in this new environment. I swim with many athletes the first time they are in open water, “holding their hands” as they get comfortable. No video or book will reassure them when they first encounter a breaking wave or a plant wrapping around their hand.

Sara: I can’t really argue against having a coach with you for your open-water swim training. Other than going with a very experienced friend, I don’t recommend any athletes trying open water without some support system nearby.

Tim: Empowering the athlete is excellent. Athletes who really want to reach that next level of competition need to have a high level of investment in the process. One of the best ways for athletes to learn is to combine video of their practice with analysis of the technique. Many athletes I have coached have finally “got it” when they can see with their own eyes.

Triathlete final thoughts: Videos and books can get you started, but a great coach can take you much further in your swim training.

More videos from Triathlete.com.

You don't necessarily need a bike to get in a solid brick workout. Photo: Kurt Hoy

If you need to get a brick workout in but don’t have the time to get on your bike, or you just want to add something new to your track routine, try this workout from Coach Tom Piszkin, the UCSD Masters Triathlon Coach and creator of TitanFlex bikes.

“Poor Man’s Brick”
After a thorough warm up and form drills/strides, run 8 x 500m at your 5km pace, running backwards for the middle 100m of each 500. Recover by walking on the side of the track back to the start (100m).

“This workout simulates the bike to run transition because running backwards works the quads and calves more than running forward, which works the glutes and hamstrings,” Piszkin says. “The key is to run backwards at the highest intensity your coordination will allow for 20–30 seconds. Followed by forward running at the same 5km intensity will simulate an aggressive run start.”

Photo: Triathlon.org

Winter running breeds some interesting misconceptions, so we decided to get the straight story. We enlisted the help of one of the key scientists studying cold-weather workouts: John Castellani, Ph.D., research physiologist at the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine in Natick, Mass. See if you can separate the truths from the lies below—and stay warm and fit all winter.

More videos from Triathlete.com.

JackRabbit Sports
New York City; $50; Jan. 8 and 22, Feb. 4 and 19, March 4
This Big Apple tri shop hosts five events around the city and the top finishers compete in a championship.
Jackrabbitsports.com

Life Time Fitness
Various U.S. locations; $25 for members, $30 for non-members; see website for dates.
The gym chain hosts outdoor events during the tri season and indoor races throughout the year. Lifetimefitness.com

Progression Triathlon
Tolland, Conn.; $25 for members, $35 for non-members;
Jan. 8, Feb. 5, March 11, April 15 and May 6
Every month the distance increases, ending with the final race—an 800-yd swim, 28-mile bike and 7-mile
run.
Starhillsports.com

Tri to Help
Maryland, Connecticut, Pennsylvania; $40 individual, $90 team (early registration); Jan. 14, Feb. 12 and 25
This series raises money for Stroup Kids for Kids  Epilepsy Foundation, and hopes to expand to 4–5 states next year.
Tritohelp.org

Give It a Tri
Duncan, Okla.; $35 individual, $90 for team; Feb. 26
A 300-meter swim, 8-mile stationary bike and 3-mile run, with two race options for kids.
Drhhealthfoundation.org

RainMan
Seattle; $45; April 1
A slightly different format—15 min indoor swim, 30 min ride with your bike on a trainer, then a 2.97-mile run around Green Lake.
Trifreaks.com

More videos from Triathlete.com.

Photo: Paul Phillips

You don’t have to swim, bike and run year-round to have success in triathlon. In fact, you’ll probably be most successful if you take a short break from training once a year to let your body recuperate and recharge your motivational batteries. Six-time Hawaii Ironman champion Mark Allen used to do nothing but surf for five or six weeks between his last race of the season and New Year’s Day.

With time off comes a loss of tolerance for the volume of swimming, cycling and running that one can handle in peak shape. So when the time comes to start training again, it’s important to ease back into it. The risk of overuse injuries is higher when an athlete is ramping up training after time off. This risk is greatest in running, thanks to its high-impact nature. For this reason, Mark Allen advises his athletes to do as he says, not as he did, and continue running a little through the off-season.

“You can take time away from the bike and the swim,” he says, “but running is important to continue even in the off-season. However, don’t make it true training, but rather just go out for easy, short runs to get some fresh air, to sweat a bit and to move your body. Don’t keep track of pace or weekly miles as you might during the season; just run for fun and recovery. This keeps the tendons and ligaments strong so you will be able to handle the workout impact when you return to real training.”

Good advice. But what if you take some time off running anyway? Use these three guidelines to avoid getting hurt when you start running again:

Do the two-step. Divide the process of getting back into running shape into two steps. The first step is to gently allow your body to readapt to the stress of repetitive impact. Schedule only short, slow runs, preferably on soft surfaces, for the first three weeks. Don’t worry about building fitness. Save that for step two, which follows your three-week adaptation period.

Obey the 72-hour rule. Your bones, muscles and connective tissues need time to recover and strengthen in response to the stress of each run. For this reason it’s best to run less frequently than you might normally do during the first few weeks of running—once every three days is a good rule of thumb.

Listen to your body. Stop running and take an extra day or two of rest whenever you feel worrisome pains. A little restraint here will spare you from a much longer forced break due to injury.

Surprisingly, the rhythm of a healthy heart is irregular from beat to beat, and emotions can strongly influence those rhythms. Negative emotions, such as fear or stress, trigger a fight-or-flight response that produces irregular heartbeats—whereas positive emotions, like empathy, gratitude and love, create rhythmic heartbeats that slow heart rate, lower blood pressure and increase respiratory flow.

Studies of athletes in the zone have shown that they have smooth, even heart rhythms. HeartMath, a company in Northern California specializing in neurocardiology development, calls this metronome-like pattern “coherence.” Sara Gilman, a psychotherapist in Encinitas, Calif., likens it to a “strong Internet connection” where information flows unimpeded from the heart to the mind, and then throughout the body. By achieving coherence, an athlete can operate at high efficiency even when under stress.

HeartMath created a system called the Quick Coherence Technique to help athletes control heart rhythms during competition. Gilman has helped elite athletes using this method, and recommends practicing the method at bedtime, when waking up and before and after training for at least three weeks before a key race.

The Quick Coherence Technique

Heart Focus
Focus all of your attention on the heart muscle.

Heart Breath
Imagine you are breathing through your heart. Feel your chest rise and fall slowly for one minute.

Heart Feeling
Think of a positive experience you’ve had in racing or training and try to re-create those feelings with visualization.

HeartMath’s emWave product ($229, Heartmath.com) gives a visual measurement of coherence. For more information, contact Sara Gilman at Saragilman.com.

RELATED: Sage Rountree’s Recovery Video Series

This workout was taken from the book "One-Hour Workouts: 50 Swim, Bike, and Run Workouts for Busy Athletes" by Scott Molina, Mark Newton, and Michael Jacques, available in bookstores now.

The respiratory system works to provide your body the oxygen it needs. You may be astonished to know that we breathe more than 20,000 times a day, so any respiratory problems are going to be exacerbated when you’re training.

As a percentage of your body’s energy expenditure, breaths can reach double digits under heavy effort loads. Amazingly, we pay more attention to training the muscles that demand oxygen and little to no attention to the respiratory system that delivers it.

Endurance Run With Nasal Breathing
Time/Distance Description

10 min. Easy running RPE 1

4 × 5 min. Nasal breathing (NB) intervals RPE 3

5-min. running recovery Take a break from NB work and run at a moderate effort.

10 min. Easy running RPE 1

Nasal breathing workouts are ideal during the base period as you are focused on improving your cardiovascular system. You can mix NB intervals into your normal base runs. Here’s a good progression to get you started:

Week  Interval                 Recovery
1            4 × 5 min. NB          5 min. normal run
2           4 × 6 min. NB          4 min. normal run
3           4 × 7 min. NB          3 min. normal run
4           4 × 5 min. NB          5 min. normal run
Click here to download the PDF version of this workout.

See also:
One-Hour Triathlon Base Workout: Cycling
One-Hour Triathlon Base Workout: Swimming

This workout republished with permission from “One-Hour Workouts: 50 Swim, Bike, and Run Workouts for Busy Athletes” by Scott Molina, Mark Newton, and Michael Jacques. The book is available in bookstores, tri shops, and online. Learn more and download free workouts at VeloPress.com.