Raise your standards.

I was re-reading Tony Robbins “Awaken the Giant Within” book earlier this week. I am a big fan of his. I like the whole concept of Neuro-Linguistic Programming and it strikes me that there is great benefit to being an active programmer vs doing what most of us do and let society type the code for our lives. But I digress….

In the first chapter of the book, Robbins makes the following statement:

“If you don’t set baseline standards for what you’ll accept in your life, you’ll find it easy to slip into behaviours and attitudes and a quality of life that’s far below what you deserve”

This past week, I’ve been thinking a lot about how this applies to athletics. The concept of setting minimal standards, expectations that you resolve to hold yourself to seems like a very common trait among winners.

Gordo has spoken frequently about the importance of out-performing the expectations that you set for yourself. And yet, so many of us keep falling into the same habits and making one of the 3, what I consider, critical errors that hold us back from expressing our potential:

1. Failing to set standards
2. Setting unachieveable standards
3. Setting overly complex standards

Let’s look at the first. For many of us, triathlon represents a recreational pursuit or a hobby. In the big picture of what’s important in our lives it may not rank at the top of the list. Because of this, many of us don’t get to the point where we set the same standards for the athletic role in our life as we do for some of our other roles.

For example, you may have impeccable work standards (whether implicit within your employment or not) that include:

* I will be on time for work each morning
* I will be productive throughout the day
* I will dress professionally

Maybe even:

* I will move up the corporate ladder by consistently out-performing my peers

Likewise, at home you probably have standards for yourself as a father or mother that ensure that your end goal of raising a happy and productive child is reached.

In both of these roles, the end goal dictates the standards that must be followed. If you stop showing up on time for work each morning, your goal of a long and happy career will probably be compromised.

Yet, all too often, as athletes we set goals with passion and good intentions but no accompanying standards.

Not only do I find this to be a shame as a coach, but I also think it largely ignores the importance of physical fitness to your larger goals. It may be worth checking out the angiograms of the CEOs of the fortune 500 before deciding that you want to join them!

Put simply, irrespective of how important triathlon as a sport is in your life, the importance of physical fitness to your larger life demands that you set some minimal standards for yourself.

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Now, on to the second common error when setting standards, the all too common “New Years Resolution” syndrome…..

The couch potato rises from the sofa on January 1st and declares: “This year I’m going to work out 4 hours every day and race the Hawaii Ironman.”

Honestly, this is a better goal than most folks set because it at the very least contains some assessment of what the goal setter ascertains the ‘cost’ of the goal to be. We could say that this is a SMAT goal, but it’s missing one key element that would make it a SMART goal – Realism :-)

And so, the goal setter is left with a good intention rather than a standard and so the goal is abandoned and the cycle goes on.

Appropriate standards are built upon previously demonstrated performances not pipe dreams.

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And, finally, the problem of setting overly complex standards. This stems from not having a firm understanding on what elements are essential to the goal.

First a personal anecdote on this one: A couple of years ago I went through the goal setting process with the G-man. I rocked up to our meeting with notes and notes about what I thought I needed to do to achieve my goals. I took out what I had written on health and nutrition. I’m sure I had set goals for every macro and micronutrient known to man. Gordo took a pen drew a line through it and wrote this:

“Eat more. Eat more often.”

Point taken.

Occasionally I will have a novice athlete tell me that they couldn’t complete a workout because they; forgot their heart rate monitor, didn’t have access to a pool to complete the scheduled swim workout, weren’t able to run on their usual measured course etc.

To be sure, I love data and equally love measured, controlled workouts, but even I would be ready to admit that these elements are not essential to achieving your athletic goals.

A standard such as: “I will achieve 2hrs of aerobic training each day” is much more likely to happen than a standard of: I will accomplish:
- One threshold swim per week for 3000m at 1:30/100
- One hilly bike w/10x30s hill repeats at 200-240W
- One track workout of 10x800 with each under 3:00
- Etc.

This is not to say that these session goals are not appropriate or optimal but, in the name of compliance, especially when starting out, it is most important to distinguish the optimal from the essential by answering that one important question “what will it really take to make me a better athlete?” As Pareto observed, where my athletes are concerned, 80% of their improvement in results will be explained by 20% of the suggestions that I give during our many hours of conversations. While I spend a lot of my time optimizing my athletes’ programs (largely because I get a kick out of it) hopefully I also do a good job of distinguishing ‘the essentials’.

Put simply, the essentials that matter for most of my guys are:
- Doing more work than last season
- Focusing more of the work on your weaknesses
- And for more advanced athletes, distributing the work more intelligently, with more attention given to appropriate recovery

This leads to the following list of day to day standards that really do matter….
· I will get 8hrs of sleep every night
· I will eat real foods away from training and only use sports nutrition for the long stuff
· I will get 2 strength sessions completed each week
· I will do yoga 3x per week
· I will do 1-3hrs of aerobic training each day
· I will do one big day each week.

While standards should be set based upon a 100% compliance intent, it is important for the sake of your own integrity that acceptable exceptions be ‘put on the table’ from the outset. Often these exceptions can be headed off at the pass before they become an issue. Either way, the important people in your life (your partner, your boss, your kids, your coach ;-) need to know what they can expect from you and more importantly, you need to know what you can expect from yourself.

For the closing word, I turn back to Tony, somebody who transformed his life from that of a depressed, unemployed, out of shape, single guy living in a run down studio apartment to living the life of a multi-millionaire with wife, family and all the trappings….

“When people ask me what really changed my life 8 years ago, I tell them absolutely the most important thing was changing what I demanded of myself. I wrote down all of the things that I would no longer accept in my life, all the things I would no longer tolerate, and all the things I aspired to becoming”

When it comes down to it, the key to every PR you set in life doesn’t come from discovering a new secret tool or program, but rather from progressively raising what you expect of yourself.

Train Smart.

AC

Recovery/Timing

“The hardest thing for an athlete to do is not train. You can’t sit still. You feel like you should be out there working”
- Graeme Obree (former 1hr cycling world record holder-pictured left)

“The bottom line is that the body does not get fitter through exercise. It gets fitter through recovery”
- Peter Keen (coach of Chris Boardman)

“Recovery. That’s the name of the game in cycling. Whoever recovers the fastest wins”
- Lance Armstrong

“I have had many outstanding races after a forced rest. This illustrates the crucial role rest and recovery play in getting the most from training”
- Emil Zatopek (18x World Record Holder)

“There is a time to train and a time to rest. It is the true test of the runner to get them both right.”
- Noel Carrol (Irish Olympian and running coach)

“I take a nap almost every day. I couldn’t do without my nap”
- Scott Molina

Among the core training principles, perhaps the least understood is the principle of recovery. I know that, personally, it has only been relatively recently that I have come to fully understand the importance of getting work:recovery cycles right.

I think back to a comment on one of my older blogs from a reader making the observation that my posts tend to focus on that 4 letter word – work. Make no mistake, I still see total workload as a central, almost determinant factor in endurance sports. However, I am now much more tuned into the intelligent distribution of work (and my athletes are seeing faster progress because of it!)

One of the hardest things for an athlete to grasp is that, like the ever-shifting economy, your training ‘buck’ differs in value throughout each training cycle. Let me elaborate….

We are all familiar with Hans Selye’s stress curve, or, in other terms, the curve of diminishing returns (see below)

Work applied at the beginning of a cycle (whether the first key session of a microcycle, the first week of a mesocycle or the first month of a macrocycle) initially has a net negative effect as the body experiences an ‘alarm reaction’ to the load.

Following the alarm reaction, the body summons it’s adaptation reserves and (providing the workload isn’t excessive) overcomes the resistance of the stressor (for our purposes, the stressor = Coach AC :-). This key period, the second half of the ‘A Block’ on the chart represents the point in the training cycle that the body is most able to deal with load.

Following this, the body progressively habituates to the stressor and, gains less and less performance benefit from a given stressor. Until, eventually, the chronic training load surpasses the body’s adaptation reserve and performance begins to plateau, then drop, and if the training stress is continued, chronic fatigue eventuates.

At the extreme, planned recovery obviously helps to avoid reaching this chronic fatigue state. However, the benefits of planned recovery within each cycle extend far beyond that.

The Macrocycle (Season)

As mentioned above, if the Macrocycle (or season) is excessively long, eventually the athlete will experience a plateau, a performance decline and eventually chronic fatigue. Obviously, the time span before this happens is related to individual peculiarities with regard to absolute load, constitution, level of the athlete, even the sport in which the athlete participates. However, generally speaking a relative plateau can be expected after 3-5 months and a relative decline in performance can be expected with 5-7 months if no recovery cycle is planned (Morton, 1991).

Even if the athlete is smart enough to include recovery within the season before chronic fatigue is reached, this still does not necessarily equate with optimal training. In accordance with the principle of diminished returns, a given session offers less performance benefit as the season continues. For a given training load (e.g. 100TSS/d), the relative fitness benefit to a typical athlete at different points in the season is shown below.


Or, put another way, by 3 months of a given load (or when a plateau is observed) the athlete has usually habituated to the load and is receiving little fitness benefit. At this point, it is time to either:

a) Peak up the central systems and compete
b) Insert recovery and begin a new cycle at a higher level.

We all know what my preference is for a developing athlete ;-)

You may have noticed that to some extent some of the core training principles are contradictory. For example, recovery can be considered somewhat antipolar to consistency. Variety can be considered somewhat opposite to specificity. In all things, balance is key. So, this bring us to some practicalities: What is the optimal balance between consistent training and recovery blocks?

The optimal length, volume and intensity of this cycle is a function of the level of the athlete and the training load. In practical terms, long term monitoring of fitness and training load offer the coach/athlete the opportunity to optimize this cycle for each athlete.

For example, below, I have a summary chart of my own training volume over the past 2 and a bit years with a line chart showing how my run fitness has changed over this time (for my key aerobic sessions in m/heart beat)

My recovery blocks are clear. Month 7, 12, 18 and 23-24 represented significant reductions in training volume. As you can see, in my case, a reduction in monthly volume of ~40-50% seems to keep my fitness at or above the starting level of the previous cycle (a key long term training objective). Whereas, my last recovery block after Ironman Arizona (3 week taper + 5 week recovery) seemed to be too little volume (~20%) for a little too long. These #’s fit in nicely with those of Troup (1989) who found that performance can be maintained for 5 weeks on 60% of normal training volume in elite swimmers.

Microcycle/Week

The same principle applies to structuring work and recovery within the week.
I have used the following chart from Olbrecht in past blogs about applying the adaptation curve to structuring weekly sessions.

I often have athletes asking the question “is it OK to move my sessions around this week due to some work conflicts?” The short answer is, in most cases, no. It’s not OK. The timing of your weekly sessions to allow appropriate recovery between them is one of the key elements of training smart.

There is an individual window after each key session in which the following key session must be completed if improvement is to be expected.

For example, for a typical athlete, a basic ‘medium’ aerobic session (total CHO cost of ~700kcal) should optimally be planned for every 8-12hrs. If more than 24hrs passes without basic aerobic work then the athlete returns to homeostasis and the previous day of training is essentially wasted. Hence, the importance of consistency (no zeroes!!)

Obviously, on the flipside, if the athlete tries to fit in the second session of the day while still in the recovery window from the first (0-6hrs), the athlete is merely digging a deeper hole rather than hitting the training at the right time to ensure a ‘bounce’ to a higher level.

Of course, if a harder session is undertaken in the am, then the pm session becomes a recovery/maintenance (~400kcal CHO) session rather than a developmental session.

The timing of training and recovery for each individual athlete is one of the most important training principles to get a handle on. As Noel Carroll observed, “There is a time to train and a time to rest. It is the true test of the runner to get them both right”.

Train smart.

AC

The Wisdom of Johan Bruyneel

The book, ‘We might as well win’, authored by the mastermind behind Lance’s 8 (and possibly more :-) TdF victories, Mr Johan Bruyneel, made it to my reading list this week. The book is a (necessary) departure from my regular reading list of ex phys journals and texts that can sometimes leave me forgetting the cold hard truth that knowledge is nothing without action and, that the most important knowledge is the one which inspires action. On this front, Bruyneel’s book has so many gems that, as much for my own benefit as anyone else’s, I felt the need to summarize some of them for the sake of posterity.

1.We might as well win.

The title of the book, we might as well win, is also the first lesson. Bruyneel explains it as follows:

“…if you’re going to try something, if you’re going to expend that first block of effort and energy to participate – whether it’s riding the Tour, applying for a new job or coaching your daughter’s soccer team – you might as well go ahead and do whatever it takes to win (whatever ‘winning’ means to you). I mean, I’m going to be there no matter what, right? Why not go ahead and get the victory?”

A twist on the old theme of, if a job’s worth doing….

In a lot of ways, we are a society that emphasizes participation above excellence. I am not sure if it is an extension of the tall poppy syndrome, or a genuine societal humility, but we habitually understate our ambition (and potential) to be great in those fields that we are the most passionate about in order to remain good in all of the fields that fulfill societal expectations. I am here to remind you that there is nothing wrong or anti-social about making the commitment to identify your true passion/s and commit to them 100%.

2. Follow your heart, but bring your head along.

Passion is a great starting point, but as Johan points out, our moments of true magic occur when we equally utilize our heads and our hearts in pursuit of a goal.
He provides the example of his stage win in the 1995 Tour De France and how, despite possessing a physiology that was inferior to a good portion of the peloton, he was able to ride off the front of the pack on that fateful day via a combination of 100% belief and a superior, almost obsessive attention to detail that few choose to possess.

Our true power as Human Beings is so much greater than our physiology. In fact, compared to our mammalian brothers and sisters, physiologically, even the best of us are kind of the runts of the litter and yet, from an evolutionary perspective, we were able to overcome much stronger competitors via our mental faculties. The same is true in sports.

As a sports scientist, my greatest source of frustration comes from seeing athletes with unquestionable physical strengths fail to address their weaknesses. Even at the elite level, most athletes are far too proud of accomplishing things ‘their way’ to consider the possibility that to move to the next level they may need to try another way.

Like making hard decisions (see below), thinking - analytical, unbiased, completely open thinking is real work and it demands a maturity that few possess. That is why most folks are unable to do it. However, being one of the few athletes who not only takes the time to continually get information, but also act on it, will enable you to evolve beyond those who rely solely on the innate strengths of their physiology.

3. Don’t be afraid to leave a few dents.
Johan talks about some of the hard decisions that he has had to make in order to lead a Tour winning team. Decisions that while not popular, were always right (in alignment with his personal mission).

The harsh reality is that, in this world, there are some very strong willed folks with very strong personal agendas that we bump against on a daily basis. It is also often true that if you are not diligently heading toward your own goal, you generally wind up supporting someone else’s.

Making hard decisions is…well…hard. That’s why many folk avoid doing so at all costs. I know that in my own life, in order to continue to follow my passion, I have sacrificed a marriage, 3 well paid jobs, being geographically close to my family, not to mention the numerous little sacrifices that happen every day. and, despite these necessary dents, I don’t regret a single one of these decisions. Life is about enjoying the ride, not arriving at the end-point in pristine condition. A few dents are inevitable!

4. Lose a little to win a lot.

“Avoiding the complete loss of all you’ve worked for can be a sweet victory amid even the cruelest defeat”

We all remember Lance’s toughest hour on a bike, as he slowly ascended the Joux Plane and fought valiantly to minimize his losses as his body simply ran out of juice.

As Bruyneel points out, it is not the sprinkling of moments of domination that define a champion, but rather the many more plentiful small acts of courage that we make each day that minimize our losses and keep us on the path.

The decision to down a recovery shake and take a nap after a disappointing ride rather than writing it off and heading for the nearest Mickey D’s are the kind of decisions on which champions are based.

5. Trust people not technology

“For me the real million dollar pay-off was the reminder that at the heart of winning lies heart. Technology can help you win. So can a team bus. A solid recruiting program. An inspiring mission statement. But none of these things actually do the winning. A million dollars can’t ride a bicycle. Neither can a million bits of data. It’s people who perform – out on the roads and all across the world, whether their ambition is to win the Tour De France or open a restaurant. And it’s the people who have the heart to ignore the distractions - of money and technology and managers and everything else that clamours to be a part of our lives – who wins the most.”

This is one of my favorite passages from the book. A reminder that winning is a verb. It is not a noun that can be bought or recruited. Nor is it some secret short cut. It is bred from the daily actions of winners, folks who have defined their personal victory and spent their days all-encompassed in the necessary actions associated with it, sometimes at the expense of the desires of those they bump into along the way but never to the detriment of their personal destiny.

6. Find a victory in every loss

“Sometimes if you stare long enough at a loss without blinking, you see an edge that you might have missed if you merely excused your failure and moved on”

Truth be told, I hate to lose. I have always hated losing. Growing up in the world of competitive swimming, losing is an amplified experience. After all, in a typical swim race there are only 7 other kids in the race. Statistically, there is a much better chance of winding up last or close to last than there is in mass start triathlon. I think my sensitivity and this background led me very quickly to coming up with reasons for each major loss as quickly as possible after it occurred. Note that I distinguished reasons from excuses. Excuses are justifications attributable to the world around you. Reasons, on the other hand are the causes of the loss. Excuses should be avoided whenever there is an inkling of even a possibility of personal responsibility for a loss. To voluntarily give up responsibility is to give up personal control. Chronic learned helplessness is but a step away.

Johan comes to the same conclusion when relaying the reasons for Lance’s loss in the 2003 in the long time trial. Fans will remember the picture of Lance with white salt caked around his lips finishing obviously dehydrated, a close second to big Jan Ullrich (in the process losing 15lbs over 1hr of racing!!) It is probably surprising that rather than spending the evening purely relaxing and rehydrating, Lance and Johan spent the evening ruminating over time splits and data. It was absolutely crucial at that point in the race that Lance came to the conclusion that he was the best time trialist in the field despite some bad hydration choices in that one time trial. In Johan’s words, it was important that he “admit the loss” so that they could go about identifying the reason before “crafting their next victory from the ashes of this defeat”.

This acuity and consequent pure confidence is a trait of all champions and it stems from never admitting the words “it just wasn’t my day” but instead “I will achieve my goal next time by correcting the following mistakes…”

7. Everything but winning is a distraction.

Do what is necessary to foster belief, lest you wind up a self-fulfilled prophecy.
Bruyneel talks openly about keeping the faith in a sport in which it is generally acknowledged that a portion of the upper echelon of the professional ranks are ‘on something’. We all face similar challenges, whether we see our competitors as superhuman due to ergogenic aids, superior constitutions, superior genetics, take your pick. Whether real or not, once a commitment is made, any focus that detracts from your belief in your own abilities is a harmful one.

Truth be told, nothing, save the extent of your resolve to overcome limiters, is absolutely deterministic in the world of endurance sports. Even, in the scientific fraternity, it must be understood that the conclusions that researchers have arrived at on the ‘trainability’ of a given individual inherently infer trainability, often for one measure of fitness, with one short term training protocol. Personally, I’m going to need a lot more than that to give up on my athletic dreams. What about you?

Well, that's enough potential copyright infringement for one article :-) So, I’ll close with a recommendation. Buy the book. Johan is one of those positive voices that you can never have enough of, whether on the bookshelf, or in your life.

Train Smart (and think smart :-)

AC

Planning your Season

“Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes, but no plans”
- Peter Drucker

The pic above is of one of the foremost experts in the field of seasonal planning, Professor Tudor Bompa.

I spend a lot of time writing about the ‘whys’ of my particular training philosophy, the scientific rationale behind some of the decisions that I make in my day to day dealings as a coach to a wide range of athletes. I presented a summary of these ‘why’ considerations in regards to planning a season, a month and a week in previous blogs.

I thought it might be timely in this blog to talk a little more about the ‘how’. How I apply the research and training theory into a step-by-step approach to formulating the athlete’s Annual Training Plan.

So let's roll up the sleeves, leave the theory behind and dive into the practicalities of constructing your 2009 training plan.....

Step 1: Determine cycle volume

Look at last years volume, your non-training life, your fitness level and your recovery profile to determine volume goals in 2009. Some general recommendations on typical volume increases from the previous season:

- Novice: Plus 20-30%
- Intermediate: Plus 10-20%
- Advanced: Plus 0-10%

So, that’s step 1. Come up with a realistic # that’s not based on your goals or what you think you may be able to do, but is instead based on what you’ve proven you can do. In this way, both your habit, your body and your belief in yourself are progressively strengthened.

Note: While volume increases represent the central component to your long term development as an athlete, they must not occur at the expense of recovery (sleep, good nutrition, stress management etc.) for some athletes who are already pushing their recovery limits, their best route to further improvement will come from addressing specific limiters rather than simply adding volume.

Step 2: Determine phases in line with non-training calendar and competition schedule.

As mentioned in a previous blog, I favor a 5-7 month cycle with a basic structure along the lines of the following:

Month 1: Transition (Objective: Shed fatigue)
Month 2: Preparatory (Objective: Very gently progress back to normal training volumes – at reduced intensity)
Month 3-5: Basic (Objective: Build fitness with an appropriate maximal yet chronically tolerated training load)
Month 4-6: Specific /Sharpening (Objective: Consolidate basic fitness and maximize central fitness and specific race execution)
Month 5-7: Taper/Competition (Objective: Freshen up for your best race result)

For advanced Ironman athletes, particularly for later cycles in the year the basic and specific cycles can be consolidated to allow for 3 annual peaks.

One Annual structure that I particularly like, because it goes a long way towards maintaining athletic 'balance' is a longer cycle with a short-course or HIM focus early in the year followed by a shorter dedicated IM prep later in the year.

Of course, the race distance that the athlete should focus on for each peak will ultimately be more related to their preferences and (more importantly) their personal strengths and weaknesses.

Step 3: Determine performance goals (along with physiological component goals)

Probably the most important thing for the athlete to track throughout the year is performance. It is only by monitoring performance that we are able to accurately assess the relative benefit of different training means for an individual athlete.

In absolute terms, it’s a pretty simple matter to determine reasonable performance goals for the season based on average rate of improvement over the previous seasons.

In a general sense, performance, like most physiological mechanisms follows a curve of diminished returns. Similarly, performance response, like most physiological mechanisms is quite individual. However, based on what I have seen, some typical seasonal rates of improvement (in relation to training age)

Year 1: 10-15%
Year 2: 5-10%
Year 3-5: 3-5%
Year 5-10: 1-3%

It is also important that the athlete understands how performance is likely to change over the course of the training season. In particular, intermediate to advanced athletes can expect performance dynamics along the following lines:

Start of period: Last season peak performance minus 25-30%
End of base period: Last season peak performance minus 10%
End of specific period: Equal to last season best performance
End of peak period: Last season best +3-5%

Expecting big early season performance decrements and expecting relative mid-season plateaus can help the athlete maintain confidence throughout the season despite some apparently ‘funky’ performance responses to similar or increased training loads.

Over the long term, the best indicators for an Ironman athlete are aerobic (steady-moderately hard) testing. This testing can be done throughout the season and is also the most specific to actual Ironman performance.

While general performance dynamics are illustrated, these are very individual and it is only through watching the athlete over a number of seasons that a true ‘feel’ of an individual athlete’s performance dynamics and consequent performance goals is established.

Step 4: Determine volume for each week and phase

The optimal volume distribution will differ with the athlete. However, general guidelines would be to start the volume during the preparatory period at 30-50% of the peak volume for the season and to build to at least 80% at the culmination of the prep period. That steep ramp rate (~10%pw) is (contrary to popular belief and popular literature) not maintainable ad finitum. It is important to remember that maintainable long term volume increases are in the vicinity of 10-20% per season, not per week!!

With the exception of your initial volume ramp during the prep period, any volume camps and your planned rest/test weeks, your weekly volume should remain relatively stable throughout each respective phase.

Step 5: Determine time in zone and consequent intensity for each phase.

Look at your training threshold, last year’s intensity, your volume limitations and your fitness level to determine intensity goals for 2009. Some intensty suggestions based on what I’ve found to typically work for various phases:

- Prep Weeks: 70% intensity
- Base Weeks: 72% intensity
- Specific Weeks (IM): 72-75% depending upon race demands/level of athlete
- Specific Weeks (HIM/Oly): 75-78% “ “ “ “
- Sharpening/Peak Weeks: 78-80% intensity
- Transition/Off-Season Weeks: ~60% But wearing a HRM in your aquarobics class is kind of dorky :-)

Visually, if we compare volume and intensity for an early season peak into a traditional Bompa Chart of the Annual Training Plan, it may look something like this:



With volume (hours) along the left axis and intensity (% max) on the right.

Look at specific limiters to determine how this breaks down into personal time in zone. Some typical e.g’s:

Prep week (70% average intensity)
Easy: 75% of total volume
Steady: 25% of total volume
Mod-Hard: Zero volume (i.e. Mod-Hard cap)

Basic week (72% average intensity)
Easy: 55% of total volume
Steady: 25-40% of total volume
Mod-Hard: 5-15% of total volume

Specific week (advanced age-grouper: 75% average intensity)
Easy: 30% of total volume
Steady: 40-50% of total volume
Mod-Hard: 15-20% of total volume
Hard: 5-10% of total volume

Step 6: Determine weekly structure based on life, single sport limiters and physiological objectives of main sets.

As a general rule, my main sets will fall within the following ranges:

Steady: 45min – 4hrs
Mod-Hard: 45-90mins
Hard: 20-40mins

These should be sprinkled through your week in accordance with your own zone breakdown (derived on the basis of personal limiters) and your own life schedule.

In my opinion, a hard-easy approach is an absolute necessity, with only 2-3 ‘serious’ workouts per week, 2-3 maintenance workouts and 1-2 easy or OFF days. For this reason, it is all the more important to determine what the athlete's personal limiters are and what physiological quality the 'serious workouts' should focus on.

Step 7: Test the plan.
Keep track of what you actually achieved vs what you plan to achieve and what impact this has on your performance dynamics and modify as needed.

A plan is only good if you can:
a) Do it
b) Get better by doing it.

The plan needs to be flexible enough that you are able to modify it through the year in accordance with your life and personal training response.

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If you are looking for some help in formulating (and sticking to) your training plan for the 2009 season, drop me a line. I have 2 athlete openings on my roster for 09. I work with a wide range of athletes from first time IMers to pro’s and welcome the opportunity to work with you!

Train smart.

AC