Spending your allowance wisely

“Waste is worse than loss”
- Thomas Edison

After the positive feedback on my ‘forest for the trees’ blog (it seems there are a lot of folks out there like myself who were frustrated by the lack of applicability of the PMC chart to day-to-day training), I have decided to expand upon one of the concepts mentioned, that of a fitness ‘allowance’.

Let me elaborate – if you are a good little boy or girl, and you do all of your chores; get a good quality and quantity of sleep, eat right, stretch, receive regular massages, stay organized and manage life stressors, every 3-4 weeks your body will pay you an allowance of additional fitness (we can express these ‘fitness dollars’ as additional points added to your CTL #), that you may choose to invest, gamble or spend.

Now, before I go on pointing out the consequences of your decision as to what to do with your ‘fitness dollars’, I should point out that if you are a bad little boy or girl and you fail to do your chores for the week, you won’t get your allowance for that week, i.e. if you let work stress get the better of you, if you let the quality of your sleep trail off etc etc, don’t expect to get a fitness payout for that training block.

As mentioned in the previous blog, a fair allowance (something that is appropriate for the work you do without sending your parents bankrupt) is ~10-20TSS/d every 3-4 weeks. Now, you can choose to do any of the following with this payout:

a) You can invest in more fitness by putting your allowance towards your foundation. Placing it in a savings account that offers a very slow but assured increase on the investment that you make, specifically, we are talking about aerobic base training, with the bulk of training below the athlete’s Ventilatory Threshold 1. As Colwin points out in his book Swimming into the 21st Century, this training is anabolic & builds the swimmers ‘adaptation energy’, i.e. it builds you up, while some of the other forms of training are catabolic and tear the swimmer down.

b) You can take your allowance to Vegas and gamble it on some ‘speedwork roulette’. Earlier this year I went down to Vegas to meet up with my Dad and Brother, who flew in from Australia for a fun vacation. My brother found an affinity for the slot machines while we were down there and, at various times, was ‘up’ by a good amount. This weekend was the tail-end of a month long vacation that my brother had been on and he had some spending money that he still needed to ‘blow’. By having sufficient reserve to be able to afford to ‘play big’, if he had have timed things appropriately and walked away at his peak, he could have taken home sufficiently more money than he arrived with (of course, like most of us, he didn’t and gambled it all on ‘just one more’ proverbial roll of the dice :-), but the potential was there). On the flipside, Jen and I went down there with a limited budget, a limited foundation, and so while we had fun playing the games, we simply didn’t have enough of a reserve to ever really expect a big ‘pay out’.

c) You can spend your allowance on some fun, i.e. races. Now, nobody likes a scrooge, someone who hoards their foundation, afraid to ever use any of it. After all, the point of building your fortune is not in the actual pieces of paper that lie in your wallet or bank account, but rather on the fun and freedom that they potentially represent. However, keep in mind that from a fitness perspective, any time you race seriously (as opposed to B & C races that fall more under the ‘gamble’ category), you are running at a loss. You are using fitness that will take a significant time of base/foundation training to get back. This is not to say that we shouldn’t race, after all, racing well is kind of the point. But we should be prudent in how much of our annual salary we devote to something that we know offers no return.

So, you decide to invest your allowance. Smart choice. However, just like the real world, you have options in what to invest in. Different strategies for different levels of risk tolerance and different individual preferences. You have an extra 10-20 TSS/d to invest. What should you invest in?

Easy training: Your 10TSS/d will buy you about 2hrs of easy training to add to your week. This is a very low risk way to spend your allowance. However, as explained in my last blog, it doesn’t offer the same ‘bang for your buck’ as the following investment….

Steady Training: Your 10TSS/d will buy you about 90mins of steady training to add to your basic week each month. Steady training has a solid interest rate and for most folks offers the best return on their investment.

Mod-Hard Training: A little more risk here. Your 10 TSS/d will buy you a 1hr mod-hard main set to add to your training. This strategy is probably too risky for those with a limited foundation. However, for those who’ve been at the game for a while, there is some real benefit to diversifying your portfolio and devoting some of your fitness dollars to Mod-Hard training.

Hard Training: Your 10TSS/d will buy you a 40-50min AT workout. This is a very risky investment for those with limited foundation. However, for those with some money to play around with, training in and around the anaerobic threshold offers excellent potential return on the money invested. If you ever want to be sitting at the ‘high rollers’ table, there will come a time when placing a calculated risk on expanding your foundation with hard training will become appropriate.

So, how do you know what an appropriate investment is for you? Of course, as a coach, I’m going to say that you would be best served listening to the objective advice of your ‘financial advisor’ :-). However, for those who want to keep an eye on their own portfolio, analyzing the main sets of your training each week and seeing how balanced they are across the training spectrum (see my article on appropriate balance for Ironman athletes), looking for potential weak spots or plateaus will enable you to appropriately allocate your resources each month.

Train Smart.

AC

Endurance Physiology 101: The Basics

In preparation for the launch of the official Endurance Corner website (stay tuned), Gordo has asked me to compile a couple of concise, core articles that will give our readers a background in the endurance exercise physiology behind some of the triathlon terminology that we use and the training philosophy that we espouse. Terms such as the aerobic threshold, the fat oxidation threshold, the lactate threshold and the anaerobic or functional threshold are regularly thrown around and unless you have a background in exercise physiology, they may leave your head spinning (even those of us with a background are not immune to the occasional head spin :-)

So, this first article will present a brief review of those essential physiological concepts that have real, practical significance to you as an endurance athlete and the future direction of your training.

Let’s begin our ex phys 101 class with a brief review of one of the most important concepts, that of muscle fiber type.

Fiber Types

Just as the chicken has both dark meat and white meat, we humans also have muscles (meat) that is white, or dark in concert with it’s purpose. The ‘dark meat’ is made up, primarily, of slowtwitch fibers. Whereas the ‘white meat’ is made up of more explosive fast twitch fibers.

A good portion of our leg meat (for example the Soleus muscle of the lower leg) is predominantly ‘dark meat’, full of oxygen processing mitochondria (and the associated red pigmented cytochrome complexes) and myoglobin. Whereas, muscles responsible for more explosive movements, for example the ‘pushing’ muscles of the upper arm (triceps brachii) contain more fast twitch (white) fibers. In a very real sense, form dictates function.

Just as there are differences between different muscle groups within one human body associated with the muscle function. There are also vast differences between humans in the proportion of slow twitch and fast twitch fibers within the ‘prime mover’ muscles. Elite endurance athletes may exhibit 80% or more slow twitch fibers, while power lifters will show a majority of fast twitch fibers. Most of us will exhibit a fairly even 50-50 split.

Science generally comes to the conclusion that the proportion of slow twitch and fast twitch fibers within the body is largely genetically determined. That is, shortly after birth the number of slow and fast twitch fibers within your body is fixed. This can be a depressing revelation for the aspiring endurance athlete, but fear not. There is hope on the horizon, a subtype of the Fast Twitch Fiber group, the Fast Oxidative Glycolytic (FOG) fiber can change dramatically to take on characteristics very similar to the slow twitch fiber, i.e. you can start with a bucket full of KFC’s white meat and with a few hundred thousand waves of your magic wand, it can be miraculously transformed into dark meat.

The Aerobic Threshold

Not surprisingly, this transition between using your “dark meat” and your “white meat” is a critical training intensity.

Also unsurprisingly, there is limited upside in making your dark meat more dark. There is a lot more benefit to spending your precious training time devoted to turning your white meat (fast glycolytic fibers) into dark meat (fast oxidative glycolytic fibers). This transition typically occurs somewhere between 40-60% of your VO2max as displayed in the chart below. However, this represents a pretty wide range. For a 40 year old male, this would typically mean heart rates of anywhere from 90bpm to 130bpm. Now, remember, this is a critical point. While there is certainly no harm training below this point, there is limited upside to making your dark meat more dark.


Well, if that’s the case, you say, I’m going to shoot for the high end of the range. The problem with this approach is that there is another critical threshold that most of you will eventually bump up against.

The Fat Oxidation Threshold.

A typical lactate curve, showing the Aerobic Threshold, the first rise in lactate levels above baseline is shown below (at ~60% VO2max)

On the following chart, the range of the athlete’s maximal fat oxidation is transposed. This range of fat oxidation, with a peak at ~50% VO2max is fairly common. Therefore, this is an example of an athlete with very good low end cardiovascular fitness and average metabolic fitness.

You can see that if this athlete were to train at the high end of the aerobic threshold zone (60% of their VO2max), they would be performing most of their training outside of the safety umbrella of their maximal fat oxidation range. The problem with this is that due to the finite nature of carbohydrate stores, the amount of training that the athlete will be able to accumulate within a week will be compromised and the their white meat won’t become as dark as it could have if they had have adopted a more moderate approach. The fat oxidation threshold has a wider span than the aerobic threshold in accordance with the athlete’s training, diet and genetics and can range from 30-75% of VO2max (~80-150bpm for our hypothetical 40 year old!!)

So, does this mean all of my training should take place in this sweet spot between my Aerobic Threshold and my Fat Oxidation Threshold? No. If you’re a ‘normal’ intermediate Ironman triathlete, the bulk of your training should occur here. However, there are a couple of additional factors to consider.

1) What if your maximal rate of fat oxidation is below your Aerobic Threshold?

As mentioned in the ranges above, particularly for novice Ironman athletes, this is a possibility. In this case, most of your training needs to be ‘easy’ training, below the Aerobic Threshold until your metabolic fitness catches up with your cardiovascular fitness and you can ‘graduate’ to more steady training at or slightly above your Aerobic Threshold.

2) Do you plan on doing any races above your ‘steady’ zone?

Perhaps with the exception of Ironman racing, most races will occur at a level beyond the athlete’s ‘steady’ zone (that sweet spot between the athlete’s Aerobic Threshold and Fat Oxidation Threshold). An athlete who performs all training in this zone will be unprepared & untrained for higher intensity efforts.

3) Do you plan on getting better?

If you ever plan on pushing 300 watts aerobically, training day in and day out using your 250W fibers isn’t going to get the job done. A sprinkling of training done at your long term goal pace (with more and more as your metabolic tolerance to this training improves) is going to be necessary.

Hence, including some training above and below the ‘steady’ zone is a good idea. So let’s take a look at the next step up.

The Lactate Threshold

As you continue to carve a little deeper, by increasing the workload, eventually you will come upon the dedicated white meat, the fast glycolytic fibers. These are fibers that are resistant to turning into dark meat because of, #1) their size, #2) they demand a lot of carbohydrate and it is therefore hard to provide enough fuel to perform sufficient contractions to induce this transformation. Still, particularly for the short course athlete (Half IM and less), this shouldn’t stop you from trying, because even making these white fibers a little more dark can have tremendous performance upside because it will affect the net amount of lactate being produced and delay the onset of blood lactate accumulation.

For most athletes, the lactate threshold represents the 'yellow light' in the training spectrum. Due to the glycogen cost of training above this point, athletes should be preparing to stop when this warning signal sounds. Efforts above the lactate threshold should be used sparingly.

The Onset of Blood Lactate Accumulation (OBLA) or the “Anaerobic Threshold”

Eventually (irrespective of your willpower), if you continue to increase the intensity of exercise, the increasing acidity within the muscle will prevent contraction. The point at which this lactic acid (and the associated hydrogen ions) begin to accumulate is deemed the OBLA or anaerobic threshold. Consequently, there is a big difference in the amount of exercise time that you can accumulate just below this level versus just above it. For most folks, this is a ‘red zone’ of training, offering limited return with extended recovery time.

However, this is the zone that offers the greatest upside to improving oxygen delivery to the muscles. Therefore a limited amount of this training should be included in serious athletes programs, particularly in the ‘peaking’ phase.


So, now that we know a little more about how important it is to distinguish between the different physiological points, the question becomes, how do we practically do so in the field or the lab?

The Lab

In the lab, we will typically use lactate assessment during progressive exercise to identify ‘jumps’ in the lactate curve that are indicative of the above points.

For those labs who have access to high-end metabolic carts, breath by breath analysis will reveal similar jumps in ventilatory measures that correspond with these points on the lactate curve. This association between physiology, lactate and ventilation leads to some key indicators that the athlete can use in the field.

Breath Markers

The astute athlete can pick up the key physiological shifts using breath markers as described below:

Aerobic Threshold: Breathing through the nose alone (mouth shut) becomes uncomfortable and loud.

Lactate Threshold/Ventilatory Threshold 1: Breathing through the mouth becomes loud and rhythmic, particularly the exhalation phase of breathing

Anaerobic Threshold/Ventilatory Threshold 2: Breathing through the mouth picks up in tempo and becomes uncontrolled panting.

While the fat oxidation threshold is harder to specifically determine, it is typically within 10 beats (above or below) of the AeT and is strongly indicated by your tolerance to training at each intensity. If you can’t get to the lab, the ‘old school’ advice of starting your basic week with predominantly ‘easy’ (AeT-10bpm to AeT) training and progressively incorporating more steady training (AeT to AeT+10bpm) as tolerated provides a good starting point.

Being familiar with the physiological points mentioned above: The aerobic threshold, the fat oxidation threshold, the lactate threshold and the anaerobic threshold, and the associated implications provides you with the first step in planning your triathlon training appropriately and systematically.

The Forest for the Trees

“Man is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness from which he emerges and the infinity in which he is engulfed.”
- Blaise Pascal

One of the interesting aspects of being a full-time triathlon coach is the number of different ways of looking at training that you are exposed to. Coaches that I have consulted with, long term athletes that I train and sports scientists all have different ways of looking at the training for their athletes. Many are on a completely different wavelength.

I have had opportunity to see firsthand the interaction between coaches and scientists at institutions such as the Australian Institute of Sport and The Olympic Training Center here in the U.S. In both cases, I have seen, to some degree a lack of ‘buy in’ from the coaches to any advice given by the scientists. In a very real way, both are speaking different ‘languages’, largely because they are working on 2 very different levels of understanding the training process.

If I had to come up with one key trait that defines the very best coaches in the world from the herd, it would be the ability to rapidly shift on a daily basis between a big picture understanding of the athlete’s development with the day to day design of training sessions that fit in with the long term goals, the athletes life constraints and the athletes day to day physiology.

Many ‘old school’ coaches specialize in the latter, they have an uncanny knack for ‘eyeballing’ their athletes and seeing what they need on any one day and coming up with the training for the day accordingly. In some ways, these coaches have a hard time seeing the ‘forest for the trees’, i.e. how each of these days are going to build together to achieve the goals of the season, the year or the athlete’s long term developmental aims. Athletes and coaches who follow this method may ‘arrive’ at a high level of performance but will have a hard time identifying the ‘trends’ that got them there and, thus, may have a hard time getting back there or getting others there. Intuition and memory are poor substitutes for long term planning, record keeping and analyses.

On the flipside, there are the more technical coaches who understand all of the principles of the tools of long term planning, who understand the nuances of the latest technology – TSS scores, Performance Management Charts etc etc but fail to optimally integrate these big picture tools to affect the day-to-day training prescription. In some way, these coaches and athletes fail to see the ‘trees for the forest’.

I had a really interesting discussion with one of my athletes, a Kona qualifier, who also happens to be a pretty darn good coach, Shawn Burke. Shawn made the point that, while the Performance Manager Chart generated by WKO+ is a neat chart to ‘keep an eye on’, esp with regards to preventing overtraining, its usefulness as a planning tool leaves much to be desired. Like the spider-monkeys of the rainforest, moving from the forest canopy to the forest floor (day to day application) is a perilous, difficult journey :-)

One of the most dangerous ‘trap doors’ of athletes/coaches who become too focused on the TSS approach to training is thinking that training load is the be all end all, irrespective of how that load is accrued. In many ways, this coaching methodology is no better than coaches who coach purely based on intuition. The objectivity of TSS is a ruse, as one coach may accrue 500TSS points in a week with 80% of their training as interval workouts, while the other may do it with base training. In order to use this tool effectively, the coach/athlete must, in the traditional mathematic sense, ‘show their working’. Failure to do so will result in the same problems as the ‘intuition coaches’ – yeah, it took us a chronic training load of 120 TSS/d to get a Kona slot but how did we do that again? What training intensity did we use? What main sets did we use? Etc etc.

So, in that spirit, I’d like to show how I move from big picture analytical and forecasting tools to the day to day individualized programming for the athletes I work with using the metaphor of the different levels of the rainforest.





























Level 1: ‘The Canopy’

First step, below is a PMC (Performance Management Chart) curve for an athlete that I work with, a Kona qualifier, who exhibits one of the highest chronic training loads (Joe Friel would call this fitness) of any of my athletes.

























From this chart we can see that in the athlete’s current build (after a 5 week “off season” his CTL has reached in excess of 120 TSS/d. This is interesting from a pure curiosity perspective but, in and of itself, of limited use to us in prescribing the athletes training for the next month, day or year. In order to get to that point, we need to ask some more questions/make some more crucial decisions. For example, what combination of volume and intensity made up this overall Training Stress?


Level 2: ‘The Understory’





Volume/Intensity Curve

This curve provides a little more information than the PMC chart as to ‘how’ the training stress is distributed. It is clear that, in the Ironman game the training load is primarily manipulated by altering volume while maintaining intensity. This is a critical training principle that I have chatted about in the past. While volume is the “big player” in the Ironman game, intensity must never be sacrificed.

The ~75% intensity number of this curve falls into a narrow range of 70-80% that I have seen among all of the top age groupers and elites that I have data on. These numbers tie in well with what I would expect based on the minimal training intensity required to elicit a training stimulus (see my ‘how easy is too easy’ blog)

Level 3: ‘The Shrub Layer’

Taking it to another level, there are many ways to create an average training intensity of 75%. For example:

a) 100% Z2 = ~75% average intensity (e.g. a Maffetone program during the aerobic phase)

b) 60% @ Z1 + 40% @ Z4= ~ 75% average intensity (e.g. a specific preparatory program for a very well conditioned short course athlete)

c) 40% @ Z1 + 25% @ Z2 + 15% @ Z3 + 10% @ Z4 + 5% @ Z5 = ~75% average (e.g. a ‘balanced’ ironman program during a build period)

For each athlete at each point in the season there is a ‘right’ combination that addresses their personal limiters and the specific requirements of the event, and, perhaps most importantly best fits within the athlete’s life.

In this example, you can see from the chart below that the athletes typical weekly breakdown during this Build was ~20% Zone 1, 45% Zone 2, 28% Zone 3, and approximately 8% at or in excess of Zone 4.



In this particular case, the athlete has a relatively high proportion of Zone 3 work in their program. This was planned and deliberate due to this being identified as a relative ‘weakness’ during the physiological testing that we performed in the early season for this athlete.

Level 4: “The Floor”

And, thus, we come down to Brass Tacks – pulling the information from the above charts to construct a ‘basic week’ that is:

a) appropriate for the athlete’s current fitness level
b) sufficiently intense to stimulate adaptation/cause fatigue
c) appropriate to the athlete’s current strengths and weaknesses.


Step 1: Create loading and unloading cycles for the next block of training.

In this case the athlete’s current Chronic Training Load (CTL) is in and around 120 TSS/d. Thus, to maintain current fitness, the athlete needs to accrue approximately 120 TSS points per day. For the uninitiated, here’s a ready reckoner to convert approximate TSS points to real world sessions:

30 TSS points = 1 hour of easy/recovery training
50 TSS points = 1 hour of steady training
70 TSS points = 1 hour of moderately-hard training
100 TSS points = 1 hour of hard/threshold training.

OK, so back to it. 120TSS points per day (840 per week) will maintain what the athlete’s got.

To freshen up, based on my experience and current data, for a race or will require 1-3 weeks at or below a TSS of 30 points below your normal training level, in this case 90/day (630 for the week) This will create a training stress balance of +5 to +15. Obviously, less fit folks will be able to afford less time at a low training level and so taper times should be reduced.

Now, to load up, to create fatigue and a stimulus for more fitness will require 2-3 weeks 10-20 TSS/d points above your normal training load. This will add 2-3 points to your chronic fitness number each week. Any more than this and (based on my experience) you are asking for trouble. After these 2 weeks you return to your maintenance fitness level for a week, regroup and summon your reserves for the next offensive.

So, in this case a loading week for an athlete with a CTL of 120 TSS/d would be 130-140 TSS/d or ~980 TSS for the week.

Step 2: Distribute the appropriate training stress in accordance with the phase of the year and the athlete’s strengths and weaknesses.

It is important to constantly keep in mind that TSS is a training tool rather than a training model (as is any coach who uses the acquisition of TSS points as their training model :-)

A summary of my personal training model was given in last weeks blog. In TSS vernacular, this can be summarized as follows:

1. Increase easy-steady training volume until ‘optimal volume’ (or the time constraints of the athlete’s basic week) is reached @ 10-20 TSS points/15-30 minutes of training per day every 3-4 week block (followed by a recovery week @ 2-3hrs/10-20TSS/d less than the prior weeks).

2. Increase the steady-state component of the basic week by using your 10-20 TSS point budget on an extra 30-60 minute main set on 3-4 days of your basic week up to 50% of your weekly volume

3. Spend your TSS budget on appropriate main sets that address the athlete’s personal weaknesses across the intensity spectrum.

In this case, during this athlete’s specific prep period, based on his strengths and weaknesses (noted above), we will initially divide his 980 TSS training load as:

Zone 1 – 20% (196 points)
Zone 2 – 45% (440 points)
Zone 3 - 30% (294 points)
Zone 4 - 5% (49 points)

Or, using my ‘ready reckoner’ from above:

Zone 1 – 6.5hrs
Zone 2 – 8.8hrs
Zone 3 – 4.2hrs
Zone 4 – 0.5hrs

Once this relationship is established, it is easy to manipulate subsequent blocks of training in accordance with observed strengths and weaknesses while keeping the over-riding aim of not ditching fitness (chronic load) until the time is right at the fore-front.

E.g. Dude’s Zone 3 power still sucks in the context of his other critical power numbers, so we choose to ‘spend’ our 20TSS points from the next loading block on adding an extra 15 minutes of Zone 3 to one of our main sets. On the flipside, if we start to see his power #’s for the long rides start to drop, we can add an extra half hour of aerobic work to the week. In this way, the athlete’s strengths and weaknesses are continually improved without compromising the general goal of improving the athletes tolerance to work, which in the end of things will ultimately limit his/her long term development.

In the end, TSS (and TRIMPS for that matter) provide a convenient way of giving the coach regular ‘aerial views’ of his athlete’s long term development. This can help greatly in determining overall progress and ‘gaps’ in the forest. In the end, though, it is still a matter of rolling up the sleeves, getting down on the ground and planting seeds in the right places. Whether by intuition or with aerial assistance, this will remain the most important task of the astute coach.

Real World Periodization IV: The Need For Speed

“I feel the need, the need for speed”
- Lt. Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell (Top Gun)

It’s been a while since my last post on one of my favourite topics – periodization and long term planning. So, first, a recap on the story so far:

I am a big advocate of long term periodization, however, I firmly believe that for all but elite athletes that the progression through the typical phases is a multi-year rather than a multi-month progression. This runs counter to most of the popular literature on the topic, including that of folks like Joe Friel and Gale Bernhardt.

That said, I do like the general phase delineations advocated by Friel and I find them more definitive and practically applicable than those proposed by the periodization ‘forefathers’ – Bompa and Matveyev.

In a nutshell, the progression is as follows:

Base 1 (General Prep):

An emphasis on progressively habituating the athlete to achieving and then consistently hitting their ‘basic week’. At all times during this phase intensity is completely incidental and falls way down the list of priorities when compared to volume and consistency. Throughout this phase, constraints are minimal. So long as the athlete is able to get the heart rate above 60% of their max/AeT-10 (with a cap of 80% max/VT1), I’m a happy coach.

Base 2 (Specific Prep I):

So, the athlete is hitting their basic week on at least 3 of every 4 weeks. Next step is to begin observing and then pushing the aerobic quality of the training. This means that I start to ‘tighten the screws’ and move from my “whatever Brah” coaching methodology closer to my goose-stepping Nazi persona that my athletes will be familiar with when they reach Base 3 and beyond. In practice, this means we introduce the following concepts:
- Training on measured courses (less important for my athletes who use Power)
- Observing and improving average training speed over said courses
- Adding back-end loaded steady state main sets to each of the longer days.

Base 3 (Specific Prep II):

When we reach a point that the athlete is achieving a majority of training in their steady zone, I will begin to add more challenging mod-hard (and in some cases, hard) main sets to the shorter days, so long as (and this is important) the quantity and average speed of training are not compromised with the addition of this intensity. The amount of mod-hard that each athlete can tolerate is incredibly variable and is related to such factors as gender, size, muscle fiber composition and general constitution and can range from 10-30% of the athlete’s basic week.

So, that’s the story so far.

Now, as we go along, after we have established some measured courses that we perform regularly from phase 2 on, I become more and more aware of what a ‘good time’ is for each of the sessions/courses. It is only after a multi-month plateau on said courses that I will even think about introducing a dedicated speed phase.

The exception to this would be if an athlete has targeted a short distance race as an “A race” for this season. However, I strongly advise developing athletes against doing this. In the long run, what you give up for the 3-5% of extra speed that you may gain by specifically preparing for your short distance ‘A Race’ is quite simply not worth it and, IMHO, the emphasis on regular (short course) racing is the primary reason that we have seen a significant stalling in the times of World Championship events from Ironman to National Track Racing over the past 20+ years. E.g. Peter Snell’s 800m time from 1962 would still place him 2nd at the 2008 US National Championships (in an Olympic year)!! Mark Allen’s winning Ironman time from 1989 would place him 1st at the 2007 Ironman (and has only been beaten by one athlete in the 18 years since)!!

But, for the sake of argument, let’s say that you are one of those athletes who:

a) Has hit your target volume for 40/52 weeks for the past year.
b) Is doing the bulk of their training at or above their AeT
c) Has incorporated mod-hard to hard training within their basic week to the limits of their individual tolerance without compromising training volume.
d) Has witnessed a plateau in the aerobic main set times from his key weekly sessions.

What’s the next step?

I feel the need….. the need for speed.

Purpose:

The primary purpose of speed-work is (arguably) to improve central
(cardio-pulmonary) adaptations by providing added
stimulus to increase blood volume and consequently increase stroke
volume and VO2max (Seiler, 1991). By improving these factors,
greater oxygen is made available to the muscles for aerobic energy
production at all submaximal (aerobic) intensities. These adaptations
are the opposite of those peripheral adaptations sought with long, slow
distance training.

Phase Length:

Numerous studies have shown that the desired adaptations plateau
after a period of 10-14 weeks (e.g. Fox, 1975, Cunningham, 1979).
This duration of speed training has been confirmed in the field by
coaches such as Lydiard (running) and Carlile (swimming).

Intensity:

Intensity of training is a key component and should range from
90-100% of VO2max (3K-10K pace).

Frequency:

3-4 sessions per week are required to elicit improvement in well
Trained athletes (VO2max greater than 50 ml/kg/min). 2 times per week is
Sufficient for athletes with VO2max less than 40ml/kg/min.

Duration:

For well trained athletes, total training time at 90-100% VO2max
should tally 30-45mins per session. Time trumps intensity and even
if the athlete cannot maintain 90% VO2max for 30-45mins, the session
duration should remain (Wegner and Bell, 1986).

During this phase of training, overall volume is reduced as necessary to accommodate intensity. Total volume of 66-80% of max volume is sufficient to maintain long term peripheral adaptations. Reductions greater than this should be avoided due to the time it takes to re-gain peripheral vs. central adaptations (Mujika et al. 1996).

If a speed phase is warranted/used within the annual plan, I would still recommend a return to a high volume Base 3 cycle (with 2 maintenance speed sessions each week) prior to tapering for an Ironman race.

I’ll chat through my thoughts on the taper in my next instalment on Real World Periodization.

Newtons' Laws

"Habit can be the best of servants or the worst of masters”
- Nathaniel Emmons

You may be thinking there is a grammatical error in the title of today’s blog but you would be sorely mistaken. I actually want to pay tribute to two Newtons today.

The first is Arthur Newton (pictured below), ultra runner from the 1920’s and 1930’s. Newton won 5 of the 6 Comrades Marathons in which he competed. He has also been cited as a major influence of folks like Percy Cerutty and Ron Clarke. In short, he knew his stuff. He was also someone who went against the prevailing belief that, World Class endurance athletes were born, not made. At 38 years of age, Newton set out to discover his athletic potential using a similar trial and error approach to that of another 30-something year old named Arthur Lydiard some 30 years later. Interestingly, they came to some strikingly similar conclusions.

In fact, Chuckie V’s recent post on information overload got me thinking about how little useful information we’ve uncovered since Newton penned his 9 laws of running training back in the 30’s (Chuckie, you’d like Newton. In addition to his running exploits, he walked 47,000km in his lifetime!!).

I thought now might be a good time to remind ourselves of the simplicity of what is really ‘required’ for training to be effective by looking at Newton’s 9 Laws of Training (Note: TSS scores, variability indexes and PMC charts don’t make the list :-)

1. Train frequently year round.

“First, practice your event as often as possible, paying less attention to other activities. If you want to be a good athlete, you must train all the year round, no matter what. What is really required is a little exercise constantly; this will benefit you permanently to a far greater degree than single heavy doses at long intervals”

2. Start gradually and train gently

“Second, never practice anywhere near ‘all out’. You ought never get really breathless or to pant uncontrollably. So in running, as in most athletics it is essential to ‘take it kindly’.

My advice is this – train gently and comfortably. Nearly all of us dash into it hoping for and expecting results which are quite unwarranted. Nature is unable to make a really first class job of anything if she is hustled. To enhance our best, we need only, and should only, enhance our average. That is the basis on which we should work for it succeeds every time when the other fails.”

3. Train first for distance (only later for speed)

“If you are going to contest a 26 mile event, you must at least be used to 100 miles a week…. As it is always the pace, never the distance, that kills, so it is the distance, not the speed that must be acquired. In the early days of training, you must endeavour only to manage as great a distance on each practice outing as you can cover without becoming abnormally tired. Your business therefore is to develop your ordinary standard by continuous practice.

Your aim throughout should be to avoid all maximum effort while you work with one purpose only; a definite and sustained rise in the average speed at which you practice, for that is the whole secret of ultimate achievement. This enables you to build up considerable reserves and to add continually to them. You must never, except for short, temporary bursts, practice at racing speed.”


4. Don’t set a daily schedule.

“Don’t set yourself a daily schedule; it is far more sensible to run to a weekly one, because you can’t tell what the temperature, the weather or your own condition will be on any one day”

5. Don’t race when you are in training and run time trials and races longer than 16km only infrequently.

“I decry such things as time trials…I am convinced that they are nothing but a senseless waste of time and energy. They can’t tell you any more than the race itself could.

I am convinced that it doesn’t help in any way at any time to practice sheer speed. Actual racing and running or all out exertion in any form of sport should be confined solely to the competition for which you are training. Your business is to build up, not to break down. You will find the speed is there and doesn’t need practice.

But by all means, enter a race every now and then, but beyond making a good shot of it, leave time trials and anything of that sort very much alone.

Racing, then, should be the only time trials, and should be run only every 2 weeks, preferably 3. 6 weeks between events would be more suitable for a marathon man, once in 2 months is probably better.

Remember to ‘bank’ your racing powers until you seriously require them, and you will then find that the interest is there as well as the capital when you start to draw on the account; there is no safer, saner or surer method of training.”

6. Specialize

“Specialization, nowadays is a necessity. Modern exponents have raised the standards to such a height that nothing but intensive specialization can put a fellow anywhere near the top.

Before the 1914-1918 war, the marathon was considered an event for only the favoured few who had unusual toughness and stamina.

It takes anything from 18mths to 3 years to turn a novice into a first class athlete. You will have to drop the bulk of your present recreations and spend the time in training; anything from 2 to 3 hours a day will have to be set aside. Athletics must be your major engagement for at least 2 years on end, your business or means of making a livelihood being at all times of secondary importance.

To drop anything at any time during that period whether for a holiday or anything else is to throw overboard part of your hard-earned ability: The longer the holiday, the more serious your relapse.”

7. Don’t over-train

“Perhaps one of the chief points is to regulate your training so as to be sure of always being on the safe side: The least trifle of overdose if persisted in will surely lead to trouble of one sort or another….

Go so far every day that the last mile or 2 become almost a desperate effort. So long as you’re fit enough for another dose the following day, you’re not overdoing it. But you must never permit yourself to approach real exhaustion, you must never become badly tired.

A good way to judge whether you are overdoing it is by your appetite. A really fearsome thirst is a definite sign that either the pace or distance has been too much. Not only are you unbearably thirsty, but your appetite has entirely disappeared for many hours after the event. Curiously enough, it is almost always the pace that is to blame.”

8. Train the mind.

“The longest and most strenuous mental and physical exertions all come at the start; get on with it at once and you will soon be through the worst. If you can stick it out for a few months, things will become altogether easier, because, by that time,…your active mind will have handed over to the subconscious a whole series of almost interminable details in the form of habits; and what formerly necessitated a continual effort will then become more or less automatic. Stamina seems to me to be just as much a mental attribute as a physical one.

Make your mind healthy and it will do the rest. If it is not normally healthy, you will never make a decent job of anything. Success depends far more on what use you make of your head than anything else.”

9. Rest before a big race.

“You should cut out all racing of every description during the last month of your training…you will need certainly 3 weeks to put the finishing touches to your stamina and reserves of energy..When you consider what a vast amount of work you have already gone through you will admit that a fortnight or so longer is a relatively trifling matter.

Endeavour to keep your spare time fully occupied with reading, writing or anything that will keep you still-anything to divert your mind from harping on the forthcoming event.”

As valuable and directly applicable as these laws are, the first law of the other Newton is, in my humble opinion, even more applicable to the bulk of age group athletes (myself included):

I. Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.

You may ask, what does this law of physics have to do with making me a better triathlete? Well, as Arthur Newton alludes in his 8th law, Sir Isaac’s (pictured below) first law of motion is not just a law of physics, but also one of human psychology.

After a very familiar discussion with Gordo the other day, on the merits of devoting some of my training time to improving my flexibility and consequent bike position via yoga, I was left asking myself why I had not made a focused effort to do so in the months since the G-man first suggested it. Is it because I don’t believe it is a limiter? No way. Is it because I don’t enjoy yoga? Nope. I actually really get into it once I get going. The only reason that I can come up with is that it is not yet habitual to me in the same way that going for my morning run or ride is.

For those who have had a test done in our Endurance Corner Lab, you’ll be very familiar with the following analogy….

In the EC lab we have a Velotron bike ergometer with a mammoth fly wheel. I think it’s 80 pounds or so. Anyhow, in order to get the flywheel moving, even on a minimal wattage resistance, to overcome that initial inertia takes some serious (sometimes discouraging) effort. However, once the flywheel is up to speed, the first few jumps in intensity are considerably easier than the initial effort of putting the wheel in motion. In a similar way, while getting a new habit established can take some considerable effort, once it is established it is much easier to keep it rolling. Even ‘uping the ante’ is significantly easier than that initial stage of putting the new habit in action.

As Charles C. Noble observed:

“First we make our habits, then our habits make us”