Daring to mention the T word

Triathlon gets a bad rap among cycling’s single-minded purists, but is it time to broaden our horizons? Paul Knott pulls on a tri-suit and heads for the sea to find out

The ‘T’ word has long been considered blasphemous among ‘serious’ cyclists. Even within the walls of Cycling Weekly Towers, refusing to acknowledge the existence of the ‘impure’ multi-event sports has become something of an injoke. But it’s time for us to open up! Yes, I admit it — for ages I’d been tempted to give triathlon a crack. I knew my running ability was half-decent, especially over the shorter distances; my cycling was solid — and OK, my swimming needed work. Anyway, I wanted to test the possibility that mixing up training over three different activities could benefit all cyclists, not only specialist triathletes. My mind was made up: I was going to take down the haters and bust the taboo. Back in the summer, I took the plunge (pun intended) and entered the Brighton and Hove Triathlon (see panel on p84). My main fear was the swim. Despite having been a pool lifeguard once upon a time, my 25-metre sprint certificate probably wasn’t going to count for much in the open water off Hove beach. Nonetheless, I was looking forward to working on my swimming — it would be an enjoyable experience, and could become a welcome form of off-season training. Let’s just hope those judgmental cycling gods aren’t watching over me…

What is it with cyclists shunning other sports? I asked a man well versed in both triathlon and cycling.

“There has always been a great divide between triathletes and cyclists,” acknowledges Matt Bottrill, former multiple national time trial champion and now full-time cycling and triathlon coach. “When I made the switch, at the peak of my powers having finished second in the National 10, I went into the swimming pool and couldn’t even do two lengths. So that was initially a bit of a shock!”

After retiring from top-flight

TT racing, Bottrill spent two years contesting triathlons. He enjoyed the training and wonders what could have been had he deployed similar methods during his cycling career.

“If I’d known two or three years ago all the stuff I know now, I could have been an even stronger cyclist. The sport is evolving, and you need to start thinking

outside the box. Are you going to get fit just by riding your bike?”

According to Bottrill, cross-training is becoming more and more important for cyclists. “When you’re getting close to your limit, you need to look at different things to get more speed, more power, more agility. That is going to come from strength and conditioning and agility work,” he explains

Conventional strength-andconditioning training is no doubt effective for cyclists, especially for pros who have S&C coaches on hand, but Bottrill believes that, for amateurs, swimming can be a useful weapon during the off-season.

“As cyclists we have this one focus, riding a bike, but swimming — especially if you learn to do it correctly — is quite technical,” he says.

Having thrived on stringently honing method and technique during his time trialling career, Bottrill approached swimming with the same attention to detail.

“It makes you focus mentally and learn the process. There is lots of stuff within swimming that is going to enhance your breathing, so it is complementary [to cycling]. I learnt a lot from 25-, 50-, 100-metre intervals, and it is a great way to build up cardiovascular fitness over the winter months.”

Of course, swimming and cycling aren’t 100 per cent complementary. The greater emphasis on upper body power in the water can have unwanted effects.

“You do start to build up bulk [from swimming], especially if you do it wrong — you’ll start building up muscles around the neck rather than around the lats [back].”

Does thickening up your neck and shoulders really matter?

“If you’re a time triallist, yes, because frontal area is an important factor. But if you want to improve your sprinting, then putting on some bulk from swimming is not a bad thing.”

Adding variety

When calculating the benefits of doing other activities besides cycling, the fitness gains may be quantifiable but the psychological and overall wellbeing plus-points are more difficult to measure. For Bottrill, adding variety to his training was enormously beneficial, given that he had been focused on time trialling for many years.

“Mentally, I needed that challenge,” he explains. “The thing I enjoyed more than anything was that I could always do something else other than ride — go for a run or a swim, and it enabled me to switch off, which was great.”

Mere mortals may never reach Bottrill’s level of commitment, but the prospect of gritting it out on the bike in the cold and wet (or sweating it out on the turbo trainer) may make crosstraining seem a little bit more appealing. The biggest question for most cyclists is: will running and swimming harm my cycling performance? Alan Chorley from Powerlab Coaching thinks the effects vary depending on the individual cyclist’s mindset.

“You don’t particularly need to take a break from cycling in the off-season,” says Chorley, “but there are definitely health benefits from running and swimming as a means of maintaining cardiovascular fitness, which is a lot harder to earn than muscular fitness. Getting a mental break from the bike can be a big benefit.”

Mixing up your training now can reap rewards come spring, believes Chorley.

“Having a break from the bike while maintaining fitness gives a certain freshness upon returning to cycling,” he explains. “Time it right and you’ll feel keen to get back on the bike — no longer dreading it.”

“Swimming is a great way to build up cardiovascular fitness over the winter months”

Economy effects

A study published earlier this year in the European Journal of Applied Physiology (Swinnen, Kipp and Kram) investigated the ‘Comparison of running and cycling economy in runners, cyclists, and triathletes’. The method consisted of comparing the participant’s efficiency while running at eight-minute-mile pace and while cycling at 200 watts. The results showed that running economy was significantly better among runners, whereas cycling economy showed no particular difference between cyclists, triathletes or runners — implying that running economy improves with practice, whereas cycling economy does not.

From this bombshell discovery, it’s not unreasonable to hypothesise that off-bike training won’t harm — and may even improve — your cycling performance. As the study notes: “Cyclists who typically spend many hours riding their bike could seemingly replace some timeconsuming cycling training with shorter sessions of running training without experiencing negative effects on their [cycling efficiency].”

Of course, this is a stand-alone study that focused on easy-paced running and cycling — its findings may not apply at faster speeds — but it does give some reassurance that a dose of endurance training off the bike probably won’t diminish your cycling economy.

Taking a quick glance across the Strava activity logs of professional riders over the off-season reveals many taking part in swimming, running and crosscountry skiing. BMC’S Richie Porte, for example, has long used swimming as part of his rehabilitation and off-bike tuning-up, owing in part due to his triathlon background.

Unfortunately there is no guarantee that dabbling in the three disciplines will improve your cycling. Bottrill admitted that his threshold power dropped by 50 watts once he’d begun training hard for triathlon. And no one wants to be a ‘jack of all trades, master of none’.

“The high impact from running really battered my cycling power. I was running 20 to 30 miles a week, and it definitely