On Sunday, a few NEMS members attended a lecture by Dr. Philip Skiba, a world class triathlon coach at Landry’s bikes in Boston. Dr. Skiba was a great speaker and was very informative. Seeing how Dr. Skiba’s day job is working in labs doing scientific research, all of his theories and principles are based purely off scientific data. During his lecture, he discussed a lot of training theories and the proven results his clients have had from following them. His clients include Ironman World Champions and Olympian Joanna Zeiger, Ultraman World Champion Jonas Colting, and cycling powerhouse Bjorn Andersson. To find out more information about Philip, please check out his bio.
Dr. Skiba went into great detail about a lot of different training issues. He started off defining some key terms like VO2 max, VO2 peak, and lactate threshold. Lactate threshold was discussed in great detail and considered a key factor in his training and racing philosophies. He talked about how to determine and lactate and then what to do with it once you have it. Philip is also a firm believer in training by power and not heart rate. He feels there are too many variables that affect your heart rate to use it as an accurate tool. We unfortunately did not get to see it in action, but Skiba has also developed a software program that will help athletes with their training and racing.
My favorite quote from him was, “Practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.” He’s not the first person to say this, but this statement holds a lot of value. Every workout should have a purpose. Whether you are working pushing yourself during a hard tempo run or just doing a easy ride in the small ring on the bike, you should always be focused on having good forum and have a purpose. He also stressed the importance of constantly monitoring your fitness and making sure you’re improving. By doing so, you can see if what you are doing is working or not. If it is, great, keep doing similar training. If it isn’t, the type of training you’re doing doesn’t appear to be right for you and you need to make some adjustments. This should be relatively obvious, but a lot of people overlook that.
It was a real pleasure listening to Dr. Skiba and it made us a believer in his methods. To purchase one of his training books or his software, please go to his company’s website. We would also like to thank Landry’s Bikes and Jorge Martinez for making this event happen.
I hope everyone had a great month. The outdoor racing season will be here before we know it!
-Colin