TT009: Joe Friel Interview Part 2 | Swimming Death Move | Ageing | Joe’s Coaching Career

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Here we go with part 2 of my interview with Joe Friel.  If you missed part 1 be sure to check out Triathlete Training episode 8.
Swimming & the Death Move
Ninety percent of triathletes have problems with their catch.  It’s a result of what we’ve been taught.  Joe calls the biggest mistake the death move.  This is when your elbow is below your hand and your arm is extended in front of you.   In that position there is no way to catch the water unless you are extremely talented.  A top level swimmer can go into that position and immediately correct it, but most triathletes aren’t able to do that.  The goal is to teach swimmers not to do this in the first place.
Aging
Performance drop is mostly linear until about age 70. At age 70 the drop in performance becomes more pronounced.  Detraining can be confused with aging. Measured performance drops in broad groups are probably heavily skewed by detraining. The subjects they are testing are training less, or not at all, when compared to younger subjects.
Research tells us there is a 1% drop in VO2 max every year.  But when people train it’s only .5%. Joe’s fitness has been relatively unchanged over the last five years from age 64 to 69.

Joe’s Coaching Career
Joe stopped coaching individual athletes as of 2012.  I asked Joe what contribution he is most proud of, and this was his very modest response:



“I don’t know if I’ve really made a contribution. I wouldn’t say anything I’m doing is new.  I think maybe the only thing I’ve brought to triathlon, perhaps, is planning training.  Not that I was the first to do it. But when I wrote the Triathlete's Training Bible I think it caused people to start thinking more about the subject of periodization.  That has grown tremendously.  That may have been my contribution.  Perhaps I introduced more athletes to the concept in triathlon.”

Joe is working on a book covering aging athletes.  It’s not near completion as of June 2013.