Hektor and Eneko Llanos: “After the World Championships, Vitoria-Gasteiz has to keep on being an international triathlon reference”

By Iñigo Mujika on May 14th 2012
Hektor Llanos, Iñigo Mujika and Eneko Llanos

Hektor Llanos, Iñigo Mujika and Eneko Llanos.

Long Distance Triathlon World Championships will be raced in Vitoria-Gasteiz in a couple of months. The fact that this important event takes place over here is in a great part due to the impulse given to the sport by Vitoria-Gasteiz born triathletes Hektor and Eneko Llanos over the past few years. I have been fortunate to spend ten years collaborating with them as a coach and physiologist, between 2002 and 2011, and although I am no longer in charge of their preparation (Hektor has now given up the sport as a pro and Eneko has taken his training in his own hands in 2012), I am extremely proud of what we have achieved together over the years, and will continue to rejoice at their sucess, both athletic, professional and personal in the future.

I leave you with a recent interview in relation with the World Championship.

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Elementary Anatomy and Physiology (III)

By Iñigo Mujika on April 26th 2012
Petra, Jordan

Petra, Jordan. (Photo: Inigo Mujika)

In my lectures and presentations to coaches and students, I often emphasize that I do not consider training as a single isolated event, but as a cycle including the time spent training and the subsequent phase of recovery. For many years, a lot of emphasis has been placed on how to train better, harder, longer, while recovery was somewhat neglected. In the past few years, however, there has been a growing interest on recovery, with major training and sports research centers around the world building recovery facilities and studying how to improve athletes’ recovery.

These ideas on the training-recovery cycle are certainly not new. Here are some quotes from Hitchcock & Hitchcock’ 1860 book Elementary Anatomy and Physiology for Colleges, Academies and Other Schools.

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Fitness determinants of repeated-sprint ability in highly trained youth football players

By Iñigo Mujika on April 9th 2012

Matt Spencer, David Pyne, Juanma Santisteban, Iñigo Mujika.

International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance. 2011 Dec; 6(4):497-508.

Variations in rates of growth and development in young football players can influence relationships among various fitness qualities. Purpose: To investigate the relationships between repeated-sprint ability and other fundamental fitness qualities of acceleration, agility, explosive leg power, and aerobic conditioning through the age groups of U11 to U18 in highly trained junior football players. Methods: Male players (n = 119) across the age groups completed a fitness assessment battery over two testing sessions. The first session consisted of countermovement jumps without and with arm swing, 15-m sprint run, 15-m agility run, and the 20-m Shuttle Run (U11 to U15) or the Yo-Yo Intermittent Recovery Test, Level 1 (U16 to U18). The players were tested for repeated-sprint ability in the second testing session using a protocol of 6 × 30-m sprints on 30 s with an active recovery. Results: The correlations of repeated-sprint ability with the assorted fitness tests varied considerably between the age groups, especially for agility (r = .02 to .92) and explosive leg power (r = .04 to .84). Correlations of repeated sprint ability with acceleration (r = .48 to .93) and aerobic conditioning (r = .28 to .68) were less variable with age. Conclusion: Repeated-sprint ability associates differently with other fundamental fitness tests throughout the teenage years in highly trained football players, although stabilization of these relationships occurs by the age of 18 y. Coaches in junior football should prescribe physical training accounting for variations in short-term disruptions or impairment of physical performance during this developmental period.

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New book: “Endurance Training – Science and Performance”

By Iñigo Mujika on March 23rd 2012

Endurance Training. Science and Practice.This book is the result of many months of hard work from my part and that of the more than 50 international experts who have contributed to write its 29 chapters. Endurance Training contains the most complete and up to date information on this topic, its scientific bases and practical applications. This book will help you improve your knowledge on endurance training, but more importantly, it will help you improve your performance and/or the performance of your athletes.

Enjoy the read!

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Athletes and coaches on a mission

By Iñigo Mujika on February 20th 2012
Sunset in Sierra Nevada

Sunset in Sierra Nevada (Photo: Inigo Mujika)

I just returned from an altitude swim camp with the Spanish team at the Sierra Nevada High Performance Center. It is a perfect setting for this type of training camp: a place where athletes and coaches can focus on the task at hand and work without interference in their quest for an Olympic goal that is getting closer and closer.

These camps are often characterized by long training days including several dryland and pool sessions. Here is an example of a typical day for an elite swimmer:

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Block periodization and polarized training: a new challenge for coaches (II)

By Iñigo Mujika on February 9th 2012
Eneko Llanos, ICan Mallorca 2011 Triathlon.

Eneko Llanos, ICan Mallorca 2011 Triathlon. (Photo: Inigo Mujika)

In the second part of the article published in the magazine Trisense I describe the main characteristics of block periodization and polarized training. You can read the first part of the article here.

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Block periodization and polarized training: a new challenge for coaches (I)

By Iñigo Mujika on January 30th 2012
2
Swim leg, ICan Mallorca 2011 Triathlon.

Swim leg, ICan Mallorca 2011 Triathlon. (Photo: Inigo Mujika)

A few months ago I wrote an article for issue number 5 of the triathlon magazine Trisense. Here you can read the first part, which represents an introduction about the need to look for alternatives to the traditional models of training program design:

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