Mark Fulford writes: Recently I presented a talk to a group of budding athletes, with majority of this group are focused on completing their first Ironman. Some members of the group had a reasonable amount of sporting experience while others were starting from scratch. A good portion of my talk focused on getting a Warrant of Fitness (for those of you who don't know what this is, a Warrant of Fitness (W.O.F.) is like getting a road worthy on your car).

Pretty much the first thing you look for when you are purchasing a car is whether it has a W.O.F. By having a W.O.F a car should be able to do it's job and get you from A to B. Without one, it wouldn't be unreasonable to find yourself in a spot of bother somewhere between points A and B. To translate this to athletes, think of your body as the car and think of point A as your starting point (now) and point B as your goal event - it could be a road race, cross country race, off road race, marathon or Ironman.

What you need to find out before you start training is whether your body is capable of training. We at EnduranceCoach get all our athletes to fill out a Medical Questionnaire prior to signing on. The medical asks questions such as whether they have suffered from chest tightness, palpitations or irregular heartbeat, dizziness, been light headed or passed out during or after exercise or suffer from high blood pressure or cholesterol. If the athlete answers yes to any of these questions or similar questions and look like they may be putting themselves at risk should they start training, we send them off to the doctors for a check up - the first part of a W.O.F.

Dr. John Tickell, an Australian medico refers to "the dangerous decade" between the ages of 42/43 to 52/53. In this decade of life according to Dr. Tickell it is not uncommon for people to literally drop dead when they start exercising. This can be due to heart abnormalities that have never been picked up. Physiologically it is the time when the heart can give up the ghost and unfortunately exercise can trigger this. To prevent a tragedy such as this occurring an EXERCISE ECG test (as opposed to an ECG test while resting) is recommended. In my opinion, it is wise for athletes of all ages to undertake one of these tests whether they have been inactive or not during their life.

Further down the road, it is also a good idea to pop off to the doctors a few months before your big event, before the heaviest training gets underway. During this visit a blood check up is a good idea to make sure those iron levels and so on are sitting pretty (or getting back to the car analogy, to check your oil!).

Once the doctor has given the all clear it's onto the chassis. Recently I've recommended a few of the athletes I coach make an appointment with the local physiotherapist to see if their body is structurally sound enough to train. Typically I would expect the physio to assess the athletes' core stability, muscle range of movement (R.O.M), and whether the muscles are activated through their R.O.M. Basically you need to know each muscle is able to do its job.

As an example, take the muscles primarily involved in hip extension, the Gluteal (butt) muscles. These are large muscles that are needed to produce a lot of forward motion when running. If the muscles on the front of the hip (hip flexors) are tight then the Glutes may lose their R.O.M., or if the Glutes are not activated during their entire R.O.M, other muscles are needed to produce hip extension and the power needed to drive yourself forward when running. Often in this case it is left to smaller muscles such as the calf (Gastrocnemius) muscles to generate forward motion. This can lead to these smaller muscles being overworked, which can lead to calf strains or tears and/or other problems such as Achilles tendonitis.

A good body mechanic, whether they are a physio, doctor or other practitioner should be able to assess your body then offer methods of correction. Often flexibility needs to be addressed so a good stretching regime may be in order. In other cases core stability exercises and muscle activation exercises, which can be one and the same, are needed.

A few years back my Physio suggested (none too subtly!) that I sign up for Pilates. Having now attended a few ten-week block sessions of Pilates classes I can vouch for their effectiveness. One thing I did find however was that 40 minutes was about as long as I could do the exercises correctly before I ran out of gas. For this reason I would suggest two or perhaps three 40 minute classes involving core strengthening, pelvic stability and R.O.M exercises per week to get the chassis in good condition.

Once the Chassis is in good condition you are then pretty much ready to start your training program. Hopefully your W.O.F will enable you to get underway with peace of mind and will help prevent injury and allow you to reach your goal with good form and efficiency.

One could say this is an added expense which isn't entirely necessary, but my response to that is it's better to pay a little now to prevent problems rather than pay a lot later trying to patch things up, or worse still, not even get onto the start line. I am happy to say a number of the budding athletes I was speaking to in my seminar are booking themselves in for a warrant before they start their journey.