Currently, anyone can call themselves a “triathlon coach” because there are no established standards or requirements. This disservice affects the reputation of both the sport and its coaches. Heart Zones USA, the national training, education, and coaching company founded by professional triathlete and best-selling author, Sally Edwards, CEO, Heart Zones USA, is changing that. Those completing the course work are entitled to use the classification of “Certified Triathlon Coach” or CTC as part of their professional credentials. To assure their competencies, Heart Zones USA requires the following ten proficiencies:
Experience participating in the sport of triathlon
Complete the Heart Zones triathlon coaching certification course work.
Hold complimentary certificates: CPR, emergency first aid, and others.
Adhere to the United States Olympic Committee’s ethics policy.
Hold a current coaching insurance policy.
Demonstrate coaching skills in communication, program design, mental and emotional support.
Prove a knowledge base with continuing ongoing education - taking additional courses, reading the literature, and following the research to stay abreast.
Validate strong communication skills in both listening and instructing.
Demonstrate the ability to coach the “whole” athlete and not workouts.
Develop a caring attitude with clients and towards the sport of triathlon.
Do You Have to Be a Great Athlete to be a Great Coach? There is a belief that only great athletes make great coaches. In fact, you don’t have to be a great athlete to be a great coach. And, great athletes don’t always make great coaches. They are two very different competencies. The requirements to be a great coach are listed above, not be a great athlete. It isn’t often that the two competencies are held by one individual and they don’t need to be. If you are shopping for a triathlon coach, check out their credentials and see if they possess the ten requirements listed above. If they have all of them and they resonate with you, hire them.
Tracking your workouts to see if you do enough exercise is key to insuring that you are getting the right amount of physical activity. Currently, adult health guidelines promote about 30 minutes (about 3,000-4,000 steps at 100 steps per minute) of moderate-intensity daily aerobic activity such as brisk walking. And, walking is one of the best activities for you because of the ease, low cost, accessibility of brisk walking. How much exercise is enough? How many steps a day should you walk and what is your effort-level, your intensity for a brisk walk?
How Many Steps? In the July 2008 issue of Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise journal, researchers concluded that the slogan of 10,000 steps a day adopted from a popular walking program in Japan in the 1960’s is about right depending on your fitness goals. Choose your adult fitness level and then match it with the number of steps as follows:
Highly active: more than 12,500 steps a day
Active: 10,000-12,500 steps a day
Somewhat Active: 7,500-9999 steps a day
Low Active: 5,000-7,499 steps a day
Sedentary: more than 5,000 steps a day
What is Moderate? Slow or easy walking, also called low zone walking, doesn’t provide the same cardiovascular or heart-healthy benefits as moderate walking. Moderate walking is at or more than 100 steps per minute or a heart rate zone that is 70%-80% of your maximum heart rate or 60%-70% of your threshold heart rate (go to www.heartzones.com and read the articles under “Free Resources” to provide you with the field tests to measure maximum or threshold heart rates). Use your heart rate monitor to stay in the moderate or brisk walking zones.
If you want to get healthy, start doing a brisk walk – that means Zone 3 at 100 steps or greater a minute for a minimum of 30 minutes a day.
Tudor-Locke, C.Y. Hatano, R.P. Pangrazi, and M. Kane. Revisiting “How Many Steps are Enough?” Med.Sci.Sports Exerc., vol. 40, No 7S, ppS537-S543, 2008
If you have been thinking about buying a Wii system, don’t you want to know if it is good for you first? And, don’t you want to know if it as good as The Weal Thing? One of the first studies* comes from Carl Foster**, Ph. D. and fellow researchers from the University of Wisconsin found that the Wii Sports was not as good as the real thing but better than nothing because it increased heart rate, oxygen use and perceived exertion. Yes, if you play Wii you burn calories, but you burn more calories doing the activity:
Reasons to buy a Wii:
Gets traditional gamers “off the couch”.
Better than sedentary games like bingo or Monopoly.
Can be more “fun” than the real thing.
Can use your heart rate monitor and see your zone.
Reasons not to buy or use Wii:
No substitute for real sports
Doesn’t burn as many calories as doing the real sport.
Most Wii sports are Zone 1 which is 50%-60% of your maximum heart rate so little cardio-metabolic results.
Just how many calories are burned depends on which activities you do. Here’s a run-down from the study:
Wii
Sport
Caloric Expenditure
(30 minutes)
Percent of
Maximum
Heart Rate
Heart Zones
Golf
93 calories
50%
Zone 1
Bowling
117 calories
52%
Zone 1
Baseball
135 calories
55%
Zone 1
Tennis
159 calories
59%
Zone 1
Boxing
216 calories
74%
Zone 3
What does Sally recommend? Get up. Get out. Get going. If Wii makes this happen for you then play Wii sports. If Wii is a kick off to your fitness program – buy it. Use it. But, don’t trade real tennis for Wii tennis. Don’t quit real sports for Wii sports.
Sally’s Challenge. Don your heart rate monitor and see for yourself. Play 30 minutes of tennis and measure your caloric expenditure using your heart rate monitor. Then, play 30-minutes of Wii tennis and see for yourself that real sports trump Wii sports in the real world every time.
* Meet and join Carl Foster at the Active Healthy Living Conference sponsored by Heart Zones USA November 14-16th, 2008 in Denver Colorado.
** Click here for the full report:
For the past 15 of 19 years that I have served as the National Spokeswoman for the Danskin Women’s Triathlon Series (DWTS), I have volunteered, and now it is mandated in my contract, that I cross the finish line last–that my chip go across the finish line so that no other woman has to finish last. The DWTS, which appeals to everyone from first-timers to elite athletes, is the worlds’ largest and longest-running multi-sport series and has taken place since 1990. In 19 years, 210,000 women have registered for this race. Though I have seen it all from first to worst in the Series, I have found inspiration from the women at the back of the pack who struggle and are challenged more than those gifted few who synergize their DNA with their competitive spirit to finish at the front. Several weekends ago, at the Danskin Triathlon in Webster, Mass, a close friend of mine finished 45th from the last. Her name–Peggy Allen–demonstrates the spirit and some of the differences from racing to finish to racing for first place. Peggy, who has struggled with weight and had bariatric surgery in 2002, has never been an athlete. She has registered every year for the past four years but had never made it to the starting line getting struck down each year several weeks before the race with cancer of the appendix, a torn muscle, and re-occurrence of cancer. This year was her first competition at the age of 58, and she resisted those who thought that she could not be a triathlete. As she entered the finish chute, 50 yards from the finish, I watched her reach down, grab her singlet, lift it over her head, expose her body in full view of thousands, and wave her shirt around in circles over her head screaming “yahoo” like Brandy Chastain when she scored the winning soccer goal in the Women’s World Cup. Peggy fought the odds of survival of her Stage IV cancer with a 0% survival rate in 10 years.–the doctors gave her a 5% chance to live a year and she has lived 5 years beyond that diagnosis. Peggy is my heroine–example of someone who got up off the couch and now has a finisher’s medal and a new attitude—she’s a triathlete.
More than the cost of smoking or the costs of problem drinking, corporations are now footing the bill for the healthcare costs of millions of obese Americans. This year, that expenditure is estimated to be $45 billion that are added to the cost of their products and services. One way to lower your costs from the fuel pump to the food on the table is to get America fit. But, how? Education alone doesn’t work nor does any single popular diet or exercise program. What’s the solution and how do we reduce our health and financial costs? The answer isn’t simple. Getting America fit and healthy is a complex matter that must be solved by a combination of government, individual, and corporate focused efforts. There are fewer smokers today than 10 years ago – same with drinkers - and I’ll bet you know why? Answer: focused and arduous effort from this triumvirate of power brokers. If it takes the price of gas surging above $4 a gallon to get public transportation useage and bicycle transportation – when do we reach the threshold for the obesity surcharge to kick in to force the triumvirate to focus on health and fitness as their primary and #1 public enemy?
Reach deep into your pockets to pay for the financial cost of the American lifestyle of high stress, high calories, and high inactivity - $45 billion. Then, meet the obesity surcharge - the corporate cost connected to higher medical expenditures, work loss, etc. according to the Conference Board, a global business membership and research organization. The rate of obesity in the U.S. has doubled over the last 30 years. Doubled. The statistic is 34% of Americans or one in three qualifies as “obese”. The surcharge, $45 billion, is more than that produced by either smoking or problem drinking.
What can you do? You can attend the Heart Zones USA ACTIVE HEALTH LIVING Conference and attend the workshops, workouts, and keynotes that can make a difference in your health and that of our entire country. www.heartzones.com
You are at work. Your company wants to lower business health care costs. The enterprise is secretly monitoring your blood pressure and heart rate – your mental and physical condition. Your health wanes or you have marital problems. You are fired because of the potential health increase in premiums because you are a health risk. This scenario is totally possible with the publication of Microsoft’s patent on software that can continually monitors and analyzes your facial expressions, body temperature, heart rate and blood pressure to chronicle your psychometrics. And, it doesn’t stop there. According to Microsoft’s patent-pending publication, the hardware-software combination can be used with laptops, mobile phones, and PDAs. The software uses the animated pop-up assistant used in Office – Clippy – to offer suggestions like, “Are you feeling depressed today?” Big Brother might soon have you roll into your cubicle, strap on a bunch of monitoring devices, and then just lock onto every aspect of your work habits to determine your job performance. Is that invasion of privacy or is that sound business practices?
There is a rush on new pills to solve America’s obesity epidemic. Don’t expect dramatic results from these medications. Three weight loss drugs* were reviewed by Canadian researchers with 20,000 participants in three different trials. The participants weighed an average of 220 pounds. And, the results from those taking the medication were disappointing – an average of 5 percent of total weight or less than 11 pounds. The good news is that other research shows that a drop of 5 percent body weight can have a positive health effect with improvement in blood pressure and improvement in cholesterol and blood sugars.
What to do? The best medicine for weight loss is healthy active living. Period.
____________________
*The three weight loss drugs were: orlistat (marketed as Xenical and Alli), sibutramine (Meridia) and rimonabant (not available in the USA)
There’s a dramatic increase in the number of girls and women participating in sports today. The negative term “tomboy” for athletic females has almost vanished. For 75-years, females were gaining on male performance records in the short distance swimming, running, skating races. For example, in 1936 sprinter Jessie Owens set the world record of 10.2 seconds for the 100 meter dash. Helen Stephens, that same year, lowered the women’s record to 11.5 seconds. Yet, in 2006 the men’s 100 meter record stood at 9.77 seconds and the women’s records was 10.49 seconds. After studying the historical data, the rate of improvement for males now exceeds that of females. The gender difference in races that take 10-60 seconds is no longer narrowing. Why has the trend reversed itself with males getting faster than females? According to Heart Zones faculty member, Carl Foster, Ph.D., the widening in gender performance differences appears to be the result of pharmacological agents not differences in training methods, equipment improvements, or cultural improvements. Twenty years ago some researchers reasonably predicted the eradication of gender performance differences. It now appears that these predictions were wrong. Recent data clearly shows and indirectly proves that the gender difference is widening with the widening use of illegal performance –enhancing drugs.
Stephen Seiler, Jos J. De Koning, and Carl Foster. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise: Volume 39 (3) March 2007 p 534-540. The Fall and Rise of the Gender Difference in Elite Anaerobic Performance 1952-2006.
Using a Heart Rate Monitor for Deer Hunting is Dangerous for Both of You
Hunting deer for those at risk for heart attacks might get you before it gets the deer according to a report of 25 middle-aged male deer hunters. Pulling the trigger kills the deer but the activities associated with it might be the demise of you as well.
Deer hunting activities include stressful walking over rough terrain, adrenaline rush, exposure to cold weather, and dragging a heavy carcass a long way. In the study reported in the American Journal of Cardiology, these activities boost the risk of heart attack or cardiac arrest. In their research, they discovered that these activities led to potentially dangerous heart-rhythm disturbances or restriction of the oxygen supply to the heart. In the study, ten of the men exceeded their peak heart rates deer hunting than they did vigorously running on a treadmill.
Deer hunting causes excessive cardiac demands so avoid it at all costs.
SOURCE: American Journal of Cardiology, July 15, 2007.
Sally Edwards is a 101-time Danskin finisher, author of over 20 books (including the only book on women training for triathlons, Triathlons for Women), a professional triathlete, a motivational speaker, an exercise physiologist, and the founder of Heart Zones USA, a training and education company. She resides in Sacramento, California.
More than the cost of smoking or the costs of problem drinking, corporations are now footing the bill for the healthcare costs of millions of obese Americans. This year, that expenditure is estimated to be $45 billion that are added to the cost of their products and services. One way to lower your costs from the fuel pump to the food on the table is to get America fit. But, how? Education alone doesn’t work nor does any single popular diet or exercise program. What’s the solution and how do we reduce our health and financial costs? The answer isn’t simple. Getting America fit and healthy is a complex matter that must be solved by a combination of government, individual, and corporate focused efforts. There are fewer smokers today than 10 years ago – same with drinkers - and I’ll bet you know why? Answer: focused and arduous effort from this triumvirate of power brokers. If it takes the price of gas surging above $4 a gallon to get public transportation useage and bicycle transportation – when do we reach the threshold for the obesity surcharge to kick in to force the triumvirate to focus on health and fitness as their primary and #1 public enemy?
You are at work. Your company wants to lower business health care costs. The enterprise is secretly monitoring your blood pressure and heart rate – your mental and physical condition. Your health wanes or you have marital problems. You are fired because of the potential health increase in premiums because you are a health risk. This scenario is totally possible with the publication of Microsoft’s patent on software that can continually monitors and analyzes your facial expressions, body temperature, heart rate and blood pressure to chronicle your psychometrics. And, it doesn’t stop there. According to Microsoft’s patent-pending publication, the hardware-software combination can be used with laptops, mobile phones, and PDAs. The software uses the animated pop-up assistant used in Office – Clippy – to offer suggestions like, “Are you feeling depressed today?” Big Brother might soon have you roll into your cubicle, strap on a bunch of monitoring devices, and then just lock onto every aspect of your work habits to determine your job performance. Is that invasion of privacy or is that sound business practices?
There’s a dramatic increase in the number of girls and women participating in sports today. The negative term “tomboy” for athletic females has almost vanished. For 75-years, females were gaining on male performance records in the short distance swimming, running, skating races. For example, in 1936 sprinter Jessie Owens set the world record of 10.2 seconds for the 100 meter dash. Helen Stephens, that same year, lowered the women’s record to 11.5 seconds. Yet, in 2006 the men’s 100 meter record stood at 9.77 seconds and the women’s records was 10.49 seconds. After studying the historical data, the rate of improvement for males now exceeds that of females. The gender difference in races that take 10-60 seconds is no longer narrowing. Why has the trend reversed itself with males getting faster than females? According to Heart Zones faculty member, Carl Foster, Ph.D., the widening in gender performance differences appears to be the result of pharmacological agents not differences in training methods, equipment improvements, or cultural improvements. Twenty years ago some researchers reasonably predicted the eradication of gender performance differences. It now appears that these predictions were wrong. Recent data clearly shows and indirectly proves that the gender difference is widening with the widening use of illegal performance –enhancing drugs.
