PowerUp Tri Podcast Episode 26: Michellie Jones

The PowerUp Tri Podcast is hosted by former pro triathletes Matt Lieto and Jordan Rapp, who lend their in-depth knowledge of the multisport to the Zwift Tri audience.

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Michellie Jones is an absolute legend in the sport of triathlon, with multiple world titles to her name. But beyond that, she is also a very accomplished and respected coach! With COVID-19 coming into our lives there is no doubt our racing seasons and training habits will change greatly as we adjust to the changing world around us. We decided there was simply no one better than Michellie to help shed some light on the best ways to adapt training around the current sub-optimal situation. 

She first suggests taking a step back and “resetting” a bit, as we don’t really know when things will get back to normal training-wise. There is no sense banging on, training like you have a race around the corner if your racing has been delayed for months. Putting your mind back into a base training phase could be beneficial as there is less pressure on your training. Plus, trying to hang onto peak fitness for an undetermined period of time is a recipe for severe overtraining and burnout!

Getting back to the basics and working on the workables including technique work, strength, and flexibility is a great use of this time. Taking the extra time at home and using it to work on the things we don’t often make time for like core work, flexibility, and technique is also a great idea. Don’t just fill up the extra time in your day with volume and monotony; really look for ways to improve your training that you may often overlook.

Michellie really loves swim cords as they aren’t just a swim replacer and tells us, “You’re working on strength, fitness, and technique, and they are good for shoulder health.” She also blew my mind when she told us she has her athletes attach the swim cords above them to keep their body in line while they use the cords.  

Jordan suggests looking at indoor training differently than you would normal outdoor training. “Do not try to recreate your outdoor training indoors. What are the things that I can do best indoors and let me do that rather than saying, ‘How do I take the session I was supposed to do outdoors, and do it indoors?’” If you just recreate outdoor training indoors you could really be missing out on some of the benefits of Zwift and indoor training in general like specificity, overgearing, or technique-specific work.  

This episode includes lots of great tips from the three of us on how to adjust your training in these times, but as always, there are some good laughs and random facts as well. Here’s one from Jordan, telling us about his recent level 50 accomplishment: “I gamed the system that I helped design.” 

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