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Unlock Peak Performance: Smarter Training with Benn Harradine
"Are we making ourselves tired, or are we making ourselves better?" - Benn Harradine
SWIM NERD
October 08, 2024
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Unlock Peak Performance: Smarter Training with Benn Harradine
Benn Harradine, a 3x Olympic discus-thrower and coach, recently shared his top lessons from his career as an elite athlete and high performance coach.
Benn discussed his groundbreaking study on cortisol and training stress and what it means for athletes. He talks overtraining syndrome and how systemic it has become in sport. Benn also opens up about his transition to coaching in Sweden.
In this podcast, you can find gems such as the “High-Low-Medium” Principle, protocols for balancing sleep and training, and techniques to get the best out of your athletes (even if it means getting underneath their skin…)
Here are some of the most valuable takeaways that coaches can use:
Key Takeaways for Swim Coaches
Here are a few of the things that I took away…
NEVER OVERTRAIN! (Ever)
“We should never be more than two weeks away from a good performance. If we are, we’re too deep in training.”
QUALITY over QUANTITY
"If we can spend just one minute training and have success, we're doing the right things”
Sleep is “MAKE-OR-BREAK”
“The biggest takeaways was sleep
Sleep was make-or-break for a lot of people”
Enjoy!
Time Stamps:
00:00 Hello Benn Harradine 01:34 Swimming in Sweden 02:41 Harradine Performance 04:10 Learning from people in swimming 07:06 Differences in Swedish Coaching 10:28 Modern Education in Swimming 12:50 Benn’s work in training stress 15:30 Sleep 16:51 Balancing sleep and training 23:58 High low medium principle 28.06 Allowing more rest in swimming 41.17 How can we change this? 44:15 Systemic Overtraining 49.03 Mentors in track and field 55.16 Losing it with Fred Bousquet 57.37 Thanks Benn
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