IRONMAN Lake Placid recap

We had an amazing time last weekend in Lake Placid and thankfully the weather turned around and the storms seemed to push through just in time for race day.

Thanks to everyone for coming out to visit us at the expo! A special thanks to our sponsored athlete Haley Johnson, of the US Biathlon National Team and 2010 US Olympic Team. She brought by some huge and amazing chocolate chip cookies, which didn’t last long! Team Timex made an appearance as well and Marie Danais took time to tell us how she makes a habit of keeping her Trigger Point massage products right next to her running shoes so she’s sure to use them after every workout.

The energy and excitement on race day was fantastic and we were thrilled to see Austinite, Amy Marsh, take home another win. Read the full Ironman Lake Placid race report here.

Check out a couple of the shots our good friend and photographer, Larry Rosa, captured from the expo. Thanks Larry!

Trigger Point Office Workout! SMRT-Core is Hard-Core

We’re launching our new SMRT-Core Bootcamp and CardioFit classes at Atlanta Mania this month, so of course the office had to be the first to test it out and let me tell you these new SMRT-Core classes are quite the full body workout!

We did squats, lunges, P3 push-ups, mountain climbers, planks, you name it. Our new instructors, Claire and Tiziana, put together a routine that challenged us all. The entire Trigger Point team participated in the sweat-sessions and I think we were all surprised at the level of intensity you can achieve using the Grid. Everyone was sore for the rest of the week and asking for another class. To see us in action, click the image below!

Another exciting media mention!

We were really excited to see the Grid featured on Vital Juice. The website dishes the latest and greatest in health, fitness, nutrition and wellness. Trigger Point’s Grid was highlighted in the Wellness section and we couldn’t be more pleased. Check it out below!

July 14, 2010

Hip to Be Square

This gizmo soothes aches–and strengthens your core.

All workouts and no play make you a sore girl.

But you can tackle two body bummers in one fell swoop with The Grid ($39.99), an update of the foam roller. Makers claim that squares along the surface get deeper into tissue than a traditional roller, mimicking a massage. Just roll it over the body part that aches; choose from three grid patterns to adjust the intensity. One section is designed to feel like fingertips, another feels like a firm forearm and one feels like your fingers and thumb. At just 13″ in length, it can be stashed in a suitcase or gym bag for an anytime rubdown.

When you’re ready to get back on the workout wagon, use The Grid to make basic moves like squats or sit-ups more challenging–and see results faster.

Feeling kinky? Click here for videos of massage moves and sample workouts.

Buy it here.

Crowie- Life Time Fitness Triathlon

Congrats to Craig Alexander who placed a strong third at the Life Time Fitness Triathlon in 1:49:45 over the weekend.

The Life Time Fitness Triathlon set in Minneapolis, MN, attracts over 3,500 amateur participants each year. The course itself begins and ends at Lake Nokomis and ventures out to the Mississippi River and Lake Harriet – part of the famous Minneapolis chain of lakes.

To read more about Crowie and check out his race schedule click here.  Looks like it’s off to Ironman 70.3 Racine next!

Ironman- Changing the Game?

Proposed new rules in Ironman may change the game for many pro athletes. Read what slowtwitch.com’s Dan Empfield had to say about it.

Ironman’s proposed architecture

“Ironman has clearly been frustrated by the lack of quality athletes toeing the starting lines of many of its events.  The new proposed framework attempts to address this.

The framework can fix several problems. Calibrating races according to their de facto importance just makes sense.  Pros, like AGers, vote with their feet.  If, year after year, a strong starting field defies generation even though a $50,000 purse is offered, isn’t it rational to give that purse a haircut, bestowing a historically well-attended race with the largesse it deserves?

But WTC must guard against abuse of the process.  These $75,000 purses should go to the better, and better attended, events.  WTC shouldn’t try to engineer good fields, rather to reward historically good fields.  This process of athlete input should include asking the athletes what races should be awarded the higher prize purses, rather than larger purses being used to bolster an otherwise underperforming race, or to honor a financial deal cut with a city or convention authority.

We also feel WTC’s pain on the issue of qualification. Should a pro make the starting line at Kona through the accident of a cherry pick? No.  if WTC is going to pare the field from 180 pro athletes to 80—which it intends to do and will do irrespective of what the pros think (count on this)—then WTC is right:  It needs the world’s best 80 pros, and a qualification process makes sense. This, if executed against the backdrop of fairness and egalitarianism.

SERIES QUALIFYING
This is an artful and shrewd idea.  Its result, by design—or at least by effect—sucks up all the energy and oxygen available to all athletes seeking to qualify for Kona and Clearwater championships.  Through creating a yearlong points competition culminating in a dead sprint ending on the first of September, few but the very best athletes can spare the time to race in a Challenge, an Abu Dhabi (IMG) or Rev3tri event.

This is high risk for Ironman.  Starting 15 years ago Euro pros increasingly decided against racing Kona, even if they qualified for it, because the prize money was so low; if an athlete didn’t finish 3rd, he couldn’t pay for this travel expenses to Kona.  That trend hasn’t abated.  A process designed to keep athletes from racing events other than WTC events may well backfire, and marginalize the talent on Kona’s starting line. WTC needs to take care not to overplay its hand.

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP STATUS
Yes, the Hawaiian Ironman has been granted the legal right to be called a world championship.  What’s more important, however, is whether the world considers these races world championships. Up until this point, that race has have earned the right by virtue of the stature of its starting field.

Yes, you historically qualify for Kona through racing WTC-aligned events. But there’s always been room in a professional’s calendar to do a few no-WTC races. This new structure places that flexibility in peril:  It actively works (whether or not this is the intent) to keep athletes from competing in other events altogether.  This marginalizes WTC’s claim that Kona is, in fact, a world championship.  Rather, it renders it more like a series championship.

THE CALCULUS FOR WTC
This qualification stampede right up until the bare weeks before Kona is cynical and maybe even dangerous.  Has the sport advanced enough to provide viable alternatives to Kona?  If so—and we think it has—WTC is playing fast and loose with its brand, treating it in a cavalier way. Certainly, if our recommendations below are adopted, there may be fewer athletes racing its races in July and August, and more of its athletes able to compete in events owned by competing race producers. But if WTC keeps to this exclusive qualification method, it demonstrates a body language that says it’s fearful of the event brands IMG and Rev3 are building.

RECENT HISTORY
Let us remember that WTC has made judgment errors in its policy several times over the past year—all policies from which it’s had to step back:  the 8 percent rule; compression wear; enacting rules prior to USAT dispensations.  These were small, tactical errors that did little to damage WTC’s brand.  But these changes contemplated here are in a different category.  How they are implemented, and executed, could bring the world’s great triathlon brand down to the level of the others in its competitive set.

Or, its new policy can raise the Ironman brand to further heights, depending on the care it takes in formulating these changes.

EXECUTION
Our recommendation is for Ironman to resist trying to wring every tactical advantage out the construction of this qualifying and prize money framework. WTC has already gotten from the pros a gift of several hundred thousand dollars per year (maybe more) through giving up 100 slots on the Kona pier. Those 100 slots largely “fund” St. George and The Woodlands with AG slots that give these races legitimacy.  This legitimacy allows WTC to earn all the revenue that these two races provide it.  In return, WTC should honor the sacrifice its imposing on its pros, and, we think its proposed scheme can do that.  But it needs to hold true to certain principles. This new framework should increase the worldwide prize purse, not simply in the aggregate, but in the average purse paid out per race or, at least, per important race; it should grant Kona its best possible starting field; it should honor races that deserve money with money.

Our recommended structural enhancements  to the framework are two:

1)  Establish a point threshold that guarantees Kona and Clearwater entry. If WTC does its homework properly, perhaps 30 men and 20 women will hit that number prior to September 1, and will not be forced into the mad August points rush, the prospect of which demeans the very pros WTC wishes to have attend its events.  These athletes can then make travel arrangements at greater leisure, and train for Kona in a way that honors that world championship with top performances by dozens of Kona’s pros, rather than only by the top few.

What should this point total be?  Look at the 15th through the 20th best men who competed in Kona last year, and the 10th through the 15th best women. What were the totals accrued, when the point system contemplated is applied to their performances during the season?  The average point totals achieved by these high performing men and women would be threshold point totals for automatic Kona qualification status.

2)  The time-honored tradition (going back to 1978) of allowing top Kona finishers an auto-requal to Kona is going to be scrapped, based on the published document.  That’s regrettable.  But it’s worse than that.   According to the proposed framework, every other Ironman past September 1st—except Kona—fulfills the requirement of a completed Ironman in order to race Kona.

There is a middle ground.  If WTC is going to scrap the auto-requal benefit to a top-10 Kona finish, then at least make a top-10 Kona finish count as the Ironman race the athlete needs to perform prior to the subsequent year’s Kona race. Requiring an Ironman to be raced in addition to Kona—in order to be eligible for Kona—smacks of a desperate attempt to fill unattractive races through a coercive and anti-competitive process.

Ironman is a great brand, and it’s been well-husbanded throughout its ownership, by Valerie Silk, by Dr. Gills, and now by Providence Equity Partners.  But WTC’s management team has exhibited a recent history of decisions from which it’s had to embarrassingly crawl back. This, because it announced structural or rule changes without thinking them through; and by taking only its own counsel, rather than by first talking to stakeholders who might not have a corporate blind spot.

WTC’s new architecture can be a big step forward.  We applaud the thought; we applaud the effort; and we stand behind the theme.  At the same time, WTC needs to remember that it routinely fails when it doesn’t listen to its customers before making a myopic decision.  So, we also applaud this period of input.  But it needs to be more than perfunctory.  It needs to be a true partnership with its customers and, for the purpose at hand, the customers are the pros who patronize and legitimize these world championship events.”

Trigger Point – Team Radio Shack – Tour De France

This weekend our products were featured on Versus during the coverage of the Tour De France. Watch the video below to check it our.

The Lateral Lower-Leg

The lateral lower-leg is predominately comprised of the peroneus longus and peroneus brevis muscles.  Both originate in the fibula and insert on the metatarsals and are responsible for plantar flexion and eversion of the foot.  Poor tissue tolerance within these muscles can lead to peroneal tendonitis, lateral leg compartmental syndrome, shin splints, and lateral foot and ankle pain.

In addressing this area, you can use either a TP Ball or Footballer.  You will want to position one leg bent out in front of you, while the other leg is bent behind you (hurdle sit).  This position will allow you to lean your body weight over your front leg.  Next, place the TP tool on the ground and make contact with the lateral portion of the lower leg by resting it on top of the TP tool. Using both hands, apply pressure to the leg above the TP tool. One hand can also be used to hold the foot and offer guided pressure (see image below).

Trigger Point Performance Therapy can offer relief to this area though the following manipulations:

• In a slow and controlled fashion, move leg over TP tool to locate adhesions.
• Apply pressure, as tolerated, onto the lateral portion of the leg.
• Take several deep breaths and allow the muscle to relax.
• Create small circles over the top of the TP tool while maintaining pressure

This manipulation should require approximately 2 minutes per leg.

Armstrong- Says goodbye to the Tour and hello to Ironman

Competitor.com had an interesting article below. We think anyone in the triathlon world, specifically Ironman, will want to hear this.

Lance Armstrong to race triathlon in 2011

by Ben Delaney

Although this Tour de France will be his last, Lance Armstrong isn’t finished with elite-level racing just yet. The seven-time Tour champion is planning another comeback next year — in triathlon.

A teenage Armstrong got his start in the swim-bike-run sport and quickly found success. He isn’t deluded about his chances against the world’s best triathletes for next year, but he does plan to do some Ironmans and perhaps even the world championships in Kona.

The plan is to race triathlon under the RadioShack banner.

“I’ll do some halves, too,” Armstrong told VeloNews late last year, referring to the half-Ironman distance of a 1.2-mile swim, 56-mile bike and 13.1-mile run. “But at my age, I can’t go back to Olympic distance [1.5km swim, 40km bike and 10km run]. Those guys are running 32s. They run fast. And it’s draft-legal in a lot of them. Between wetsuits, draft legal — it’s just a 10K. I need to focus on the longer distances and focus on the races that have tough bike courses.”

Armstrong said he was still considering doing some bike racing next year, too.

On the eve of the Tour de France, Armstrong’s manager Mark Higgins said Armstrong had not yet made specific plans for triathlon races.

“The rough idea is that in 2011 I do a little bit of both,” Armstrong told VeloNews late last year. “No triathlons in 2010. We’re going to try to win the Tour. To do that, you have to be totally focused on that. In 2011, you could still do Tour Down Under, California. I wouldn’t want to go back and do the classics or Paris-Nice. We could go do Cape Epic in South Africa. The idea is to take the sport, or take your story around the world to different places, and still do the tri’s. You can’t do the three-week races because then you can’t run, and you don’t want to miss three weeks of running. I’ve put some thought into this.”

“I’d like to give it a go,” Armstrong said. “I don’t know how fast I can go, but I’d like to give it a try.”

Armstrong said Ironman France — which is in Nice on roads he’s well familiar with — could be a target in June.

“In 2011, we’ll ride the road, we’ll ride the dirt, and we’ll do some tri’s,” Armstrong said. “And we might do a marathon, too. What the hell?”

Read more: http://competitor.com/2010/07/other-sites/news/lance-armstrong-to-race-triathlon-in-2011_5861#ixzz0sXV555wm

Lindsey Corbin- Smashes Ironman Coeur d’Alene

Check out Lindsey’s blog about her big win in Coeur d’Alene over the weekend. She’s such an inspiration!

Linsey Corbin – Ironman Champion.

It still doesn’t seem like that’s me – Ironman Coeur D’Alene Champion! I only slept a few hours after the race and when I woke up I had to make sure it was true – looking at the photos from the paper to believe it. I thought just finishing an Ironman was an adrenaline rush. Let me tell you – winning one takes it to another level. In my finish-line interview, I told the crowd it was such an awesome feeling that everyone needed to win one!

For me, winning Ironman Coeur D’Alene was about chasing your dreams.

In January my coach, Matt Dixon and I set out a crystal clear path of where I want to go in the next 2-3 years. For this year, a dream was to come to Coeur D’Alene, win my first Ironman, and set a new course record. Along this journey I have doubted but I have come to learn, Matt is always right (darn it!). On Sunday, all of this happened. Finding a dream, following the journey and having the courage to chase it, and then having it happen just might be the best feeling on earth!

There are a few things that make winning an Ironman so awesome but a highlight for me included sharing the day with so many friends & training partners, my mom & dad, Chris Corbin, the Hutter family, Meredith Kessler, and many of my sponsors. Race week in Coeur D’Alene was effortless. The Hutter family made me (and my family and friends) feel right at home. They made sure I was always smiling…. Headed into the race I was feeling relaxed and ready for fun!

Race morning came and into the Xterra Vendetta I went. The swim start was the usual panic-y blur until we all sorted ourselves out. I found a nice draft after missing a few feet that would have been nice to swim with. At the turn buoy I realized the nice draft was provided by my friend and training partner and also the fastest dentist in the pro field, Adam Jensen. Onto loop #2 and Desiree Ficker pushed a hard pace that got us to shore in about an hour. It could have been faster, but it could have been much slower as the chop was thick in Lake Coeur D’Alene.

I knew Ironman is a long day, and my swim would only compromise a small part of my race – so onto my racing bike I went. I was happy to hear that although my swim was slow, my defecit to the lead of the race was not too far – 6 minutes or so. The early miles of the ride just ticked away and I felt right at home on my Scott bike. SRAM, Zipp and FSA made sure things were mechanically turning over and I was cutting more and more time into the lead.

At mile 40 of the bike, I took the lead for the first time ever in an Ironman. I was grinning from ear-to-ear as my dream was becoming my reality. Reality set in though as I had no clue what to do in first place (other than ride my bike as best as I could!). Riding through town in first place was huge. The crowd went nutty and I had to remember to play my Ironman patience cards right: eat every 20 minutes, take salt tabs on the hour, don’t blow my pacing.

Out onto loop #2 of the bike and into the hilly section I went. Meredith Kessler powered up one of the hills and passed me in amazing fashion. I had to let her go as I stuck to my race day plan. I really felt I biked within my means, even-splitting both loops of the bike and putting up the fastest bike split of the day. Yes, the Scott Plasma is smoking fast.

Which could be saved for an entire other race report would be my amazing cheer squad that spectated the race. The Chris & Chloe show bee-bopping around on Sue’s scooter. Super mom doing jumping jacks on each corner. The Missoula crew that amazingly popped out and up on every climb, corner, and hill donning cowbells, cowboy hats, and I can’t forget Ben Horan, who was nice enough to run alongside me with a yellow umbrella to provide shade at one point during the bike – it cracked me up!

Next up it was out onto the run course with Meredith leading the charge, myself in second and amazing runners behind me. I found my rhythm, took care of myself nutritionally, and ticked away the miles. At first I wasn’t cutting much into the lead and I just kept reminding myself to be patient and thinking how cool my neon-orange Saucony Kinvara running shoes were. Into town at the half way point and my marathon legs came good. I never run off a pace or GPS – its always been off feel. Tick, tick, tick away I went. Now that I was half-way through the run I was onto the cola the aid stations were offering, so tasty!!

Earlier this year, my long-distance training partner (we share the same coach) and good friend, Meredith Kessler and I exchanged a few emails. Wouldn’t it be cool to go to Ironman Coeur D’Alene and deliver a 1-2 punch!?! One can always, dream – right? On Sunday, while racing in second place, I passed Meredith (although she was hiding out in the porta john!) at mile 17 of the marathon. Our dream was about to become a reality. We both plugged away the last hour of the race, and if you could see sheer joy and excitement we shared at the finish, you would have to wonder where all this extra energy came from!?!

The last few miles of the race was all about digging deep. I was soooooo close to my goal finishing time of 9 hours and 15 minutes. My legs were in a world of hurt and it was a give-and-take of making deals with myself. The crowd support got me to Sherman Avenue where I knew my cowboy hat was waiting.

You will notice there is only one photo from the day attached, and that is my finish line photo. I can only hope that it properly portrays the sheer joy, gratitude, amazement and genuine happiness I felt when I crossed that finish-line in a record setting time of 9 hours and 17 minutes on Sunday.

A special thank you to mom and dad – its not every day your parents get to watch you win an Ironman. And then there is Chris Corbin. Chris has taught me that the sky is the limit and to be relentless in all you do. I wouldn’t be an Ironman Champion if it weren’t for my amazing support network: Chris, family, friends, Matt Dixon, sponsors and all of you.

I wish you all the best. Follow your dreams and never give up!

Linsey

PS – Stay tuned as later this week I will post about why Coeur D’Alene is such a special place for me. Race week memories!!