QUICK NEWS – TUE 5th JUNE
WHO IS DAVEY BLACK?: Davey Black has been trying to find itself as a business and identity recently. Thanks so much to Anna Truong and Charlotte Forbes and their team of experts, the future is looking good for the club and studio to continue to grow and keep providing the highest levels of personal coaching in a fun but performance oriented environment both inside the Fitness Studio and out on the Tri course. To help deliver our commitment to each member, we will be making a few slight changes to make things better and run more smoothly. Our first change is you will see a definite split between the Studio and the Triathlon Club now. If you havn’t already, jump on and follow us on all our social media platforms: Davey Black Tri Club Insta / Davey Black Tri Club Facebook / Davey Black Fitness Insta / Davey Black Fitness Facebook
PERFORMANCE TRAINING CAMP: This will be an amazing camp and will be structured to cater for any level of ability so if you want a spot, jump in here now before we advertise to the rest of the Tri Community. Places are filling fast. 10 down, 10 left… jump on if you want to come along. BOOK CAMP
TRAFFIC LIGHTS ATHLETE S&C: The Davey Black Coaching Team are going to work more closely this season to ensure that triathlon sessions and S&C sessions are balanced better and you are gaining the highest possible outcome from both. To help this process, there will be a traffic light system in place for the studio. As you walk in you can grab a RED, YELLOW or GREEN wrist band so that the Coaches know if you need to reduce intensity for any reason. RED – Injured, Tapering for an A race, Back after a long time off, Raced on the weekend – lets you drop weights, reduce reps or duration or skip a block. YELLOW – Tapering for a B race, beginner to S&C, sore – Lets you drop weights but maintain reps/duration. GREEN – Good to go – no excuses!
SWIM CHANGE 13th JUNE: Due to pool availability, on Wed 13th June, the swim will be at 6:15pm in the indoor 50m pool.
TRAINING PEAKS: I would love everyone on TP if possible please. The free version is fine, there is no need to upgrade to premium. It means I can get an email from you and alter your sessions on my phone instantly rather than having to wait to get back to a computer, and it also gives me excellent data feedback. COACH STEVE ON TRAINING PEAKS
QUOTE OF THE DAY: “People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing — that’s why we recommend it daily.” — Zig Ziglar
QUICK NEWS – WED 30th MAY
TEAM PHOTO: Orders close today. If you want one then hit the link now: PURCHASE PHOTO
PERFORMANCE TRAINING CAMP: This will be an amazing camp and will be structured to cater for any level of ability so if you want a spot, jump in here now before we advertise to the rest of the Tri Community. Places will be limited to 20 between both states. BOOK CAMP
PERSONAL SEASON PLANNING: Get your goals ready, get your ideas down and don’t be afraid to tell me the good, the bad and the ugly. More sessions available and added to each week, so check in and book your slot. BOOK PSP SESSION
PROGRAM SCHEDULE: We are currently in week 4 of a 6 week build phase before we start with a full training program schedule. In Week 6 (w.c. Mon 11th June) we will be doing some testing to set individual training targets to. Please ensure that watches and heart rate straps are in full working order and you know how to use them before week 6.
MELBOURNE TRIATHLON LEAGUE: As you might have seen, I have set up the Melbourne Triathlon League to try and foster a sense of community within the Triathlon Clubs of Melbourne and try and get a bit of excitement happening around just training and racing. It’s a chance to expose yourself to race conditions more often, as well as push and be pushed by more athletes around your own specific ability. I will plan these free events around our own testing weeks and these will be TT’s, Threshold testing, Handicap racing & Relays. A bit of fun for all athletes of all levels of ability and a chance to build something really unique within our Tri world. Keep up to date with info on FACEBOOK and INSTA. Feel free to share the pages. The more people that learn about it, the better quality event you will experience.
TRAINING PEAKS: As a communication tool, Training Peaks does everything that I have tried to do with Dropbox, but better. It allows me to see what you’ve done, when you’ve done it and how well you did it. It also allows you to add comments after a session and for me to reply. Now that I have learnt how to use the software myself, I would like everyone to use Training Peaks to better improve the coach/athlete communication channels and to help me to write your session for exactly what you need according to the data. This is of course completely optional, and if you are happy on Dropbox, then I am happy for you to stay with that. If you would like to join TP, please follow this link: COACH STEVE ON TRAINING PEAKS
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAVEY BLACK: FYI Davey Black turns 1 year old on June 11th. Amazing.
QUICK NEWS – FRI 18th MAY
Welcome to the pre-season. We are 2 weeks in now, and it’s great to see so many enthusiastic faces at training each session. As you will have seen from last season, the program is excellent, but adherence to the program is what produces results. My GOAL is to make every single person better – my PROCESS is to train your weaknesses, utilise your strengths and fit the best style of training for your individual ability and athletic type around your work and life. It does take a lot of time and effort for me to get this right and balance who is doing what and when while also trying maintain a group squad training feel by having everyone in the same place at the same time doing the same style of session.
This season, Davey Black is going to evolve to a more efficient way of doing things so that I have more time to be more accountable to each one of you and spend my time value adding to each athlete rather than wasting time double dipping doing things that no-one cares for or uses. So with a bit of reflection, here is how Davey Black Tri Club is going to be better this season, and how I will be changing things up to make sure that everyone gets the full focus they deserve and the best program on the market.
PROGRAM STRUCTURE
This season we will run on a 4 week cycle of training as outlined in the link below. It will change slightly as we start racing during the season. There will be less TT’s during testing week and more threshold training instead. This format has multiple benefits to every athlete, especially age group athletes with full time jobs & a life to live.
- Because it is stretched out over 4 weeks, it means if you miss a few sessions due to work, illness or family commitments, or you always have to miss a particular session or two, there is less of an impact on your training as you have the ability to slide back into the squad and build momentum again as there are more squad sessions more often.
- It allows for a greater spread of recovery, giving you more evenings where you can enjoy yourself without worrying about being up early for training in the morning. The more spread out recovery also allows you to train at a higher level in the quality sessions more often.
- There are less long sustained blocks of solid training where you fatigue physically and mentally. This will give your season longevity as you can plan life around training much more easily and not have the burden of leaving all those auxiliary things until the off season.
- It allows us to taper up and down for races more easily through the season without sacrificing large chunks of quality training time as we used to do.
- It allows us to have more testing more often (this is described in more detail next)…
MORE TESTING, MORE OFTEN
Using heart rate is a great way to train and ensure you are hitting the correct zones that are working the correct physiological targets… if you have an accurate Max Heart Rate (MHR) and use it correctly. This, in my experience, is rarely the case, and there is not much a coach can do about seeing, reviewing or adjusting an athlete training on heart rate.
The MHR test is a good guess, but so many things like stress, fatigue, sleeplessness, etc can affect the result. It is a great way to keep yourself in check, but if you have a time to hit, then coach and athlete are accountable and can provide instant, on the spot feedback. Having more testing more often is a great way for you to see yourself improving, and builds a more ‘Race Ready’ athlete so your race days can be far more enjoyable… and fast.
For these reasons, we will have a Time Trial week every 4 weeks, and I will use the data from these to set your training times to. That way you are always being pushed at the correct resistance and individual accuracy for where you currently are with your fitness.
TRAINING PEAKS
I am going to start using Training Peaks for those people who want to use it. If you don’t want to use it then you’ll continue with the Drop Box version as normal. I need a while to get my head around it and learn how to use it correctly, so if you are one of my guinea pigs on TP now, you can skip the “Coaching Feedback” section below as long as you leave your feedback and notes in TP. If you would like to use TP in the future once I have figured it out, then let me know and I’ll add you as soon as I am confident in its use.
COMMUNICATIONS
I have to admit I struggled to keep up last season with Insta, FB messenger, Whats App, Text and Email questions that required a reply from me. This season if you ask me a question that you need a reply to, it has to be via a phone call to me, or email only so I know where to find it when I come to answer it. (efficiency). If you are running late or need to tell me something that is for my information and doesn’t require a reply then Messenger, What’s App or Text is fine.
I will keep this website link as a rolling news update, and simply post this link via email and whats app whenever there is information to be communicated outside of the weekly newsletter. This way all info will be collated here and you don’t have to look for Facebook groups and scroll back through emails etc.
Whats App: Coach’s Info (DaveyBlack) – This is my instant info update emergency page. Keep it on active so you can hear a notification come through, please try not to ask questions on here and defiantly don’t let discussions begin… The Social Club (Davey Black) is for discussion, gifs and bitmoji. Keep this one on silent. If you have questions about anything I post on the news feed move it to the social group so people can choose to read it if they want to without being pinged every 30sec. If you aren’t on one or the other and would like to be, please let me know.
THANK YOU ALL
Thank you everyone involved in this club in any capacity over the last 11 months. The awards night really brought home to me what an amazing bunch of people who ARE Davey Black. Its a weird sensation putting your heart and soul on the line only to see it returned with interest. Every one of you are not only amazing and dedicated athletes & coaches, but also exceptional human beings. I have been lost for words several times this year when trying to convey my appreciation for everything you have done, and continue to do. The official 1st B’day for the Davey Black Tri Club is the 11th of June so if anyone has any ideas about how to celebrate, please let me know!
As always, if you have any questions, email or call me any time.
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