Daniels for IM

“Ignorant people see life as either existence or non-existence, but wise men see it beyond both existence and non-existence to something that transcends them both; this is an observation of the Middle Way.”

-Seneca

From the times of Zatopek and Lydiard, there have remained 2 basic schools to endurance training – the ‘far before fast’ school (Lydiard, Viren, Seiko etc) and the ‘fast before far’ school (Zatopek, Peters, Pirie etc).

Advocates of the latter school have often claimed that the athlete who is most successful at the shorter distances will ultimately prove most successful at the longer distances. With the recent marathon success of athletes such as Haile Gebresellassie (an athlete with a sub 3:50mile best), it is hard to argue with this perspective.

One modern day exponent of this approach is the man pictured above, the ‘Godfather’ of modern day distance running, Mr. Jack Daniels. In fact, Daniels has gone so far as to draw up mathematical predictive tables that estimate what an athlete will run for the longer distances based on what they are able to do over the short. In the triathlon world, a similar approach has been used by Hunter Kemper’s coach, Mr George Dallam.

A number of somewhat less astute Ironman coaches have proposed a similar relationship for Ironman racing e.g. ‘give me an athletes 40K time & I’ll tell you what their IM split will be’. The reason that this approach is far less accurate/predictive for Ironman is that it crosses physiological systems. Let me elaborate by presenting a table from Australian physiologist John Hawley, that shows the ergogenesis (source of energy contribution) of different events.



You can clearly see that for the performance durations that Daniels tables are looking to predict, i.e. 4min to 2hr, there is a very high contribution given by one energy system – the aerobic glycolytic system, with 81-92% of energy demands of a mile (a 4 minute event) to a half marathon (a 1 hour event) made up from this energy system.

However, given the fact that success in Ironman events (and for most folks, Half Ironman events) is more dependent on aerobic lipolytic power (i.e. ‘fat burning’ than it is on aerobic glycolytic power, using durations that represent close to 100% glycolytic contribution as predictors is subject to a good deal of error.

Rather than relying on performance in aerobic glycolytic events exclusively, a better prediction can be gained by looking at this number along with a representative measure of the athletes aerobic lipolytic power, i.e. training performance over long sessions and over the course of the training week. In this way, the Daniels tables can be modified to better represent equivalent performance standards for IM.

In studying data from a number of ultra runners and ultra-distance triathletes, I have found that the relationship between short distance performance and Ironman performance is not a natural logarithmic function as postulated by the Daniels model, but rather a curvilinear function with a modified ‘tail’ due to the increased contribution from alternative energy production mechanisms, i.e. aerobic lipolysis, or ‘fat burning’.

In the Ironman world, knowing one point on the curve, as Daniels suggests is not sufficient to predict performance. Even knowing 2 points on the curve, as Dallam suggests is insufficient. While the power of the athletes aerobic glycolytic energy system certainly plays a part, to create an accurate model of Ironman performance, it is important to know how the athlete performs not just in the glycolytic energy systems, but also the lipolytic.

This difference in the nature of the curve for a large data sample of Ultra distance athletes vs. Long distance athletes is shown below.



The gap between the red line and the blue line is indicative of the extra fat burning capacity required by athletes who participate in ultra-distance events.

In a practical sense, this information can be used to modify Daniels’ original running formula to ensure that appropriate attention is being given to both the aerobic glycolytic and aerobic lipolytic energy systems and that the Ironman athletes development is progressing in a ‘balanced’ way.

In terms of periodization and actual programming, this table can be used as a ‘checklist’ where the athlete achieves each of the performance standards in each fitness row before moving on to the next fitness level. To ensure that the athlete has an appropriate level of ‘far’ and ‘fast’ at any point in his/her training development.

So, without further ado….

Here is a scaled down version of Daniels original table:

Daniels Original Tables









And a modified version in accordance with ultra-distance athletes relative strength over the longer durations of the curve.

Daniels for IM









The ‘tipping point’ between the two tables occurs in between the Threshold and Marathon Pace categories, i.e. the point where fat oxidation begins to make a significant contribution to the energy demands of the event.

In addition to the practical applicability of these tables, some sports scientists have suggested that the ergogenesis table listed above can be used as a good starting point to determining % weekly breakdown during the specific preparation period (Bompa, 1998). In other words, for an event that is 50% lipolytic and 50% glycolytic, half of the weekly sessions should be at or slower than Half IM effort, while the remaining 50% should be in the glycolytic range (5K pace to Threshold efforts). This approach makes logical sense and has a good deal of ‘real world’ support from athletes like Seb Coe, whose 800m (~2min duration) specific training was broken down into 60% aerobic/40% anaerobic sessions (Coe, 1991)

In a previous blog (Big A’s Dojo), I had presented some general recommendations as to appropriate levels of performance for the various physiological systems that indicate a generally balanced development. For the Ultra-distance athlete, these can be (slightly) modified as follows in accordance with the above tables.

Yellow Belt (VDOT 45-50):

- A 30mi (flat) run week in less than 4:36

- The ability to execute a functional strength routine with good form and optimal range of motion
- The ability to do 6x200m strides (pain free) in <50s/200

(Total Glycolytic=0% of weekly total)

Blue Belt (VDOT 50-55):

- A 40mi (flat) run week in less than 5:24 including:

- A 14mi long run in less than 2hrs

- 6x200m strides in less than 46s/200

- 6x1mi intervals in less than 7:00/mi w/1min rest

(Total Glycolytic = ~15% of weekly total)

Black Belt (VDOT 55-60):

- A 50mi (flat) run week in less than 6:30 including:

- A 20mi long run w/7mi @ MP in less than 2:40

- 6x200m strides in less than 42s/200

- 6x1mi intervals in less than 6:20 w/1min rest

- 4x1200’s @ 9:00 w/a 800 jog in less than 4:30/1200

(Total Glycolytic = ~30% of weekly total)

You will see that the above provides practical recommendations in accordance with appropriate strengths and weaknesses and the ergogenesis of the event(s). For athletes whose race duration is in and around 12hrs, the contribution of energy via glycolysis is negligible and therefore almost ALL training for athletes with a base training pace of >9:00/mile should be focused on improving the athletes lipolytic capacity (slower than marathon pace training).

As athletes get progressively faster and the glycolytic component increases, the need for marathon pace and faster than marathon pace training increases. However, even for speedy athletes or short course specialists, the amount of glycolytic training that the athlete can tolerate is directly affected by their ability to spare glycogen via fat-burning. For that reason, achieving the long duration benchmarks during the early season is always the first priority.

As Peter Coe points out in his landmark book “Better Training for Distance Runners”, these relative performance tables can not only point out relative weaknesses that should be given attention during the specific preparatory phase of training, but they can also provide useful information as to what event the athlete is best suited to. If, after a prolonged period of attention, the athlete still has a hard time hitting the relative performance levels of a balanced Ironman athlete, they may find greater success in events that better fit their natural energetic balance (e.g. short course racing or ultradistance/adventure racing). That is one of the great things about the diversity of sport. If you look hard enough, we all have a particular sport or event that was created for someone (and probably by someone) just like you. The trick is getting to know yourself as an athlete well enough to find it.

Train smart.

AC

Complex Training: The principle of variety and multilateral development

“It is easier to do many things than to do one thing, continuously for a long time”
- Marcus Fabius Quintilian

We open today’s blog with a pic of my country man and one of the greatest marathoners of all time – Mr. Robert DeCastella. Deek, as he is fondly referred to back home, was, at his time, arguably the greatest marathoner in the world and a multiple world record holder.

Deek and his coach, Pat Clohessy, were a part of the ‘new order’ of marathoning that really began with Buddy Edelen. These coaches were characterized by their pot pourri approach to training in which, rather than exclusively adhering to the successive, phasic periodization approach of Lydiard or the meticulously controlled interval method of Gerschler, these coaches recognized the merits of both and implemented both concurrently throughout the training year.

Deek describes the method as follows:

“Complex training involves the same basic routine all through the year, year in year out, with only slight modifications for racing. Other methods break the year into sections (hence the name ‘interval’ or ‘block’ training), each aimed at developing specific aspects of running. When racing, I put more emphasis on track sessions, while during heavy training, I put more emphasis on long runs”

In practical terms, Deek’s key sessions included every week were:
* A hilly long aerobic “strength” run
* A long steady aerobic “rhythm” run
* A shorter, faster tempo run
* A track or hill repeat workout
* A leg speed workout
* Easy recovery runs

This was Deek’s weekly menu day in, day out, year in, year out. It was standardized to the point that he would run the same courses for the workouts each and every week to get a feel for form and improvement.

Almost year-round ‘speedwork’ coupled with high mileage training would characterize the methods of all of the ‘big names’ of the 70’s and 80’s – Deek, Salazar, Bill Rodgers, Frank Shorter etc. etc.

Physiologically, this is not surprising. If one were to pick up a copy of any of the big selling recreational training books of the 90’s and beyond, you could be forgiven for thinking that you can expect to devote 4 weeks of maximal strength training to take yourself from Mr. Puniverse to a 600lb leg press or 8 weeks of ‘build training’ in which you take you Anaerobic Threshold from 60-90% of your VO2max. The reality, of course, is that most physiological adaptations, perhaps with the exception of central VO2max, are very long term adaptations. What do I mean by long term? Things like maximal strength, anaerobic threshold, (and especially) fat oxidation are at the very least, multi-month, and in the case of fat oxidation, multi-year adaptations (see the chart from Jansen, 1987, below).


Additionally, particularly the last 2 follow that annoying rule of physiology that the adaptations that take the longest to train are also the quickest to de-train. In short, all of these qualities demand vigilant, year-round attention. The easiest way to do so, is to incorporate all of the training methods to some extent within the athlete’s basic week throughout the training year.

To further the point, studies on training monotony (e.g. Foster, 2001) have shown that too much similarity between training sessions within a week of training is a strong correlate of over-reaching and over-training. IOW, not only does providing a mix of training serve to address all physiological systems, the variety alone helps with recovery and improves the total workload that you will ultimately be able to tolerate.

In triathlon training, a good mix for a recreational athlete would be:
* A long aerobic swim (possibly with gear or open water)
* A technical/drill swim mixed with basic speed
* A descending aerobic swim with some threshold
* A long steady bike
* A medium strength (big gear) bike descending to mod-hard or AT
* A shorter high cadence recovery bike w/some aerobic maintenance
* A long hilly run
* A descending flat run
* A couple of recovery runs with strides and drills.
* A traditional strength workout
* A functional strength circuit + yoga

Now, that is a lot to fit in a week. To fit all of this within the time and energy constraints of a typical athlete will require that some sessions be very short and easy. To this end, as Deek points out, there is a change in emphasis put on different sessions in accordance with the time of year and the race schedule, e.g. harder and longer long runs during the base period, harder and more interval reps in the speed period. This said, some level of all types of training is included throughout the year. Let me elaborate more on how I use this principle within my own coaching practice.

Within most weeks of my athletes training year, some sessions will be ‘hard’, i.e. above your normal average load, some will be ‘maintenance’ sessions that equal your average load and some will be ‘recovery’ sessions that are lower than your average training load, giving you a ‘freshening’ affect.

This is not to say that hard sessions are always fast. If you’re used to a weekly 90 minute long run, a 2hr long run could be your ‘hard’ session for the week. As Deek points out, the decision of which sessions are going to be your hard sessions for any week is a function of the time of year and your own specific weaknesses. In my ‘forest for the trees’ blog and my ‘spending your allowance wisely’ blog, I give some guidelines as to how to use TSS points on the macro level to plan your training. I suggest that a loading week should be 10-20TSS/d above your CTL (your normal training load). As the monotony studies cited above point out, the best way to distribute this load isn’t to add 15TSS/d to each day, but rather, in line with the hard-easy principle to have 2-3 days that are 30-50 TSS/d above the norm, while the others are normal/maintenance or recovery days. For instance, if your normal CTL is 120 TSS/d, a big day may be 160TSS. In the early season, this may be a 3hr steady-mod long run. In the competitive phase this may be a 2hr descending run with the last 40mins just under threshold. Either way, this represents a ‘hard’ session.

I’ve presented a number of arguments for the incorporation of variety within the athlete’s basic week, including remaining true to the time course of training adaptations and avoiding training monotony and overtraining. However, perhaps the best argument is made by the Roman rhetorician quoted in the opening of today’s blog. As a former personal trainer, I have seen first hand the difference in effort put forth and the difference in session enjoyment between highly structured & monotonous ‘traditional’ strength sessions and sessions that incorporated multiple exercise modalities (bands, balls, slideboards etc.). When it comes down to it, not only is variety an effective training principle - it is just plain fun!

Train smart.

AC.

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”

Lessons from the Meatheads

After last week’s blog, that emphasized the magnitude of the time commitment necessary to reach the top of a sport like triathlon, I thought that it might be a good time to throw out a reminder that, while in the long term, all athletes who are successful in the triathlon world will wind up doing a lot of miles, it is important not to lose sight of the fact that the goal of those miles is to make us more fit, not simply more tired. In a volume focused sport like triathlon, it is very easy to lose sight of this simple fact.

One of the things that distinguishes triathlon from other sports is the uncontrolled nature of the environment in which it takes place. This is both a positive and a negative. Being able to experience all kinds of environment; lakes, mountains, beaches, forests, in the context of a sport is one of the most enjoyable aspects of triathlon. In fact, one may argue that it is the aspect of triathlon that makes the immense volume that I alluded to last week tolerable. However, for the athlete who is not coming from a competitive sporting background, it can be very easy to confuse this ‘touring the countryside’ with athletic training. My buddy JD wrote a blog about this distinction a while back and it is a principle that I keep coming back to with my own training and with the athletes that I work with.

It is important as an athlete to remember that the only way that you are going to witness an improvement in your average race speeds is with a concomitant increase in your average training speeds.

This principle is something that is very easy to enact and monitor on a daily basis in a sport in which the environment is controlled: The lap pool of swimming, the track for running or, the velodrome for cycling. Perhaps the extreme example of control in a sport occurs in the training environment of our cousins on the other side of the force-velocity pond – the strength and power athletes.

We can learn a lot from the years and years of logbook entries from athletes in whom the training environment and protocol is absolutely and completely controlled. After all, the only way that we can make conclusions on the effectiveness of any training manipulation is if we completely control all of the extraneous variables. How often as triathletes will we:

a) Increase our training miles while not paying attention to a drop in training speed
b) Add speedwork to our weekly running plan and notice a drop in energy/speed for our other aerobic runs.
c) Add a myriad of swimming drills to our program without ever assessing if we are able to improve our stroke length while maintaining our stroke rate, or are our drills just making us look more ‘pretty’.

Yes, as much as we make fun of the ‘meatheads’ in the gym, in the grand scheme of things, these folks are training much more intelligently and systematically than most triathletes (or triathlon coaches) could ever dream of.

I mean, do you ever hear the following conversation take place in the weight room:
Gymrat 1: So, what’s on the schedule today?
Gymrat 2: Oh, I’m just going to bust out an easy 500 reps.
Gymrat 1: What weight?
Gymrat 2: Oh, I don’t care. Today’s just a long easy day.

Quality is ALWAYS part of the equation.

This is not to say that every session is hard. Those of you familiar with weight training, will know that the bulk of training typically takes place at 70-80% of 1 RM, only a moderate load. However, the load is always fixed.

On the flipside, I will often hear athletes say, “I don’t get it coach. I’ve been doing the same amount of training as Johnny over there. I’ve been running my 40 miles a week, the same as him but he’s running 3:30 off the bike. What gives?” Of course, the element that the athlete is missing is that Johnny is running his 40 miles at sub 7:30 pace, while my disillusioned buddy has to slow down to 8:30 pace to accommodate the same mileage.

In fact, the years and years of trial and error experimentation in a controlled setting has yielded a number of training principles on the response of the human body that carry across well to endurance training.

One of the foremost authorities in distilling and applying these principles in the world of strength and conditioning is the strength training guru, Charles Poliquin:



Here are a couple of Poliquin’s principles that you may find particularly applicable to you as an endurance athlete:

1. The ‘critical drop-off point’

The basic premise of the critical drop off point is that a coach should never increase the quantity of a given stimulus at the expense of quality. It is pointless to do sets in which the resistance is lowered so much that (a) sufficient tension is not put on the muscle to elicit performance gains, i.e, the load is below the training threshold (b) the targeted muscle fibers are no longer being recruited/trained. These additional “garbage sets (miles)” would impede recovery by putting excessive strain on the nervous system, energy stores and neuro-endocrine response. The cumulative effect could be overtraining.

In practical terms, when pace or power is diminished by 5-7% from the goal, shut it down. This ties in well with Friel’s comments on decoupling, Coggan’s perspectives on the number of reps to perform during interval training and (kicking it old school ) with Lydiards comments that if an athlete cannot return at the pace in which he went out that the distance is too great.

2. To prevent overtraining cut back first on volume rather than intensity.

The body is very well equipped to not overtrain by intensity – it will simply decrease the neural drive and not allow the body to undertake a load that is too heavy for its current reserves. It is not well equipped to deal with excessive volume. Therefore, when tired, it is better to decrease the volume until the athlete is able to equal or better his/her usual training load. This can be a hard thing for the addicted triathlete to do and provides good impetus to be proactive in recovery.

3. Vary load by only 10-12% within a given training session.

A typical scenario for the AG athlete: Jimmy goes out for a steady 6hr endurance ride @ 170-190 W. He’s not feeling great in the early stages so he decides to prolong his warm up and rides for 90 minutes at an AP of 155W. All of a sudden he meets up with his buddy, Fred who has an FTP about 20W higher than Jimmy and decides he could do with some company. He gets on Fred’s wheel and has to hold 200+W just to stay there. Fred makes a turn for the hills and Jimmy hangs on for dear life, ultimately doing 5x2 minute climbs at a little over his FTP of 240W with 5 min recovery between climbs.

All told, a session that had a desired range (after warm up) of 20W, winds up with a range of almost 100W! The problem with this is that there is not enough stimulus at any one training intensity to elicit a training effect. But, there is sufficient overall training stress to fatigue the athlete. Bottom line, know the purpose of the session and stick to that intensity band.

I really could go on all day about the lessons that we can learn from strength coaches and athletes but I have a 2hr aerobic ride at 170-190 Watts with my heart rate under 150bpm to do. :-) 

Train for fun & IMPROVEMENT.

AC

The Grey Zone

“While there is a place for the 8 hour-a-week swimmer, the job of the coach is to sell the dream to the athletes doing 10-12 hrs a week and persuade them to commit to the 18-24 hrs a week they need to become successful, competitive athletes”
- Bill Sweetenham

This blog is a bit of a counterpoint to the G-man’s recent blog on ‘adding it up’.

Most athletes are familiar with the concept of the ‘grey zone’, that intensity band that is too hard to be able to back up day to day but to easy to elicit any of the physiological benefits that come with high intensity training. It is my suggestion, based on the experiences that I have had as a coach that a similar zone exists in relation to weekly volume. This point is alluded to by former Aussie National Swim Coach, Sweetenham in the above quote.

This whole concept is related to the larger issue of being clear on your motivation for being a triathlete.

You can achieve optimal health (perhaps more optimal than your high volume counterparts) with good nutrition and an hour of training a day. You can get yourself in sufficient shape to enjoy the experience & camaraderie that comes with participating in recreational short-course triathlons and, with a short period of long distance training, increasing your volume to 12-15hrs/wk you can even get to the point of completing an Ironman triathlon.

On the flipside, you can experience that thing that few of us ever will, the joy of winning – be it winning your age group at a local race, qualifying for Kona or even getting your pro-card and mixing it up with the big boys by simply doing what others won’t, i.e. training 20 hrs per week, 3hrs a day today, tomorrow and the next.

Or…….., you can do what the majority of the field does and live in ‘the grey zone’, where you have the negative feelings that come with feeling like life is just a perpetual transition from one set of workout clothes to a business suit and back, without the accompanying positive feelings that come with the joy of the ‘pay off’ for all of your hard efforts. Or, as Sweetenham puts it

"This amount of swimming is too much training to be fun but not enough to produce a competitive result. The swimmers in this middle ground never feel good, and in time they become frustrated. We call this the competitive swimming twilight zone."

In order to ensure that the sport satisfies its’ desired role in your life, it is important that you get clear on what that role is. Or, put another way, are you a ‘completer’ or a ‘competer’

Note: I make no judgement that one role is more worthy than the other. However, I do get a little ticked off when an athlete doing the work of a ‘completer’ adopts the expectations of a ‘competer’ (Regardless of the commitment that a 12-15hr week may ‘feel like’ in the context of the rest of the athlete's life).

Speaking from experience, like the island prison of Alcatraz, the grey zone is a fine place to visit but not a place you want to live:

I, like many of my clients, are making a brief stopover there at the moment, but we are not under the illusion that our 12-15hrs of training a week will get us anywhere close to our potential. Sure, we may complete an Ironman or 2 along the way, but for us, it is simply a means to an end, a stop-over on the road to reaching our maximal tolerable training load and consequent potential. Sweetenham calls this point “breakpoint volume”. While, I’m not sure that I totally dig the connotations that come with reaching your ‘breakpoint’ (actually, if I’m to be honest with myself, I do dig it a lot! :-). It does bring home the truth in TS Elliot’s timeless quote – “only those who risk going too far can truly know how far one can go”.

What will 15hrs a week 'get' you? 95% of your potential? Nope. 90% of your potential? Probably not (I mean we're probably talking 30mi of running a week, if you were a marathoner how close to your potential would you expect 30mi a week to get you?) In the end, 15hrs a week of training will get you one step closer to discovering your breakpoint volume. That's it. For some of us, that's enough.

While I’m in a ‘quote happy’ mood, here is another than is particularly relevant to this piece:

“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, for they live in the grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”
- Theodore Roosevelt

The Stotan Code

I will be in the city of sin next week, if I am to be honest with you (and myself), I will probably be working out or sleeping while the rest of the city’s populous (including my brother, who is visiting from Australia) is sinning in one way, shape or form :-). I think I have always found more lasting joy in Asceticism than sin. I was pleasantly surprised, during my first road trip with the G-man, to discover that Nevada offers plenty of both. I’m looking forward to returning.

Anyhow, not sure how much time I will have to write next week so I thought I would throw up a second blog for this week. Speaking of asceticism, in this post, I am going to reproduce (blatantly copy) one of my favourite, & most inspirational pieces of writing on the subject: Percy Cerutty’s Stotan Code.

I gave a brief history of Cerutty and his ‘Stotan’ philosophy in a former blog. I was pleased to hear that it resonated with a number of readers in the same way it does me (I have highlighted some of the lines in this piece that most speak to me). I hope the following post provides more ‘fuel for the fire’ for the week of training ahead.

See you out there.

AC

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The Stotan Code
Percy Cerutty
‘Maker of Champions’

A Stotan is one who hardens, strengthens, toughens and beautifies the body by consistent habits and regular exercises, which are consciously and irrevocably made part of the life plan of the individual, as well as consciously determining that the mind will be cultivated upon such abstractions as purity, beauty and logic. Erudition, in as complete a degree as possible shall be the lifelong aim: Truth, in relation to all aspects of life, the unending search.

Stotans will, by virtue of their philosophy, be nature lovers, with a respect and appreciation of all evolved or created things. They will appreciate the sanctity of creative effort both in themselves and in others. They will strive to understand the significance implied by reality, will be able to discern the real from the spurious, and see no anomaly in nudity, either in body or mind. But neither will they cast pearls before swine.

Stotans, for all the reasons that their philosophy stands for (viz: hardness, toughness, unswerving devotion to an ideal), would look upon the sea (or mountains) as their pristine element and endeavour to associate themselves with their primeval source by immersing themselves at least once per month in all seasons of the year. No practice is disposed to toughen, both the body and the morale, more than this.

Stotans believe that neither the body nor the mind can be maintained at a high pitch of efficiency unless sufficient and regular rest is obtained, and aim at a daily average of of 8 hours sleep. Stotans, also, will not be found in social places after midnight. Stotans shall so regulate their lives that at the end of a period, varying with the intensity of effort, each shall realize that they have attained, without conscious striving, to a state of knowledge, and a position of leadership within the community. It is axiomatic that only the pure can understand purity, only the cultivated appreciate beauty, and only the strong truly measure their strength. Therefore, only the self-disciplined can command genuine respect.

A program shall be aimed at which shall be designed to [train each Stotan]:-

(a)… to withstand physical hardship, to accomplish feats of strength and endurance, to understand orderliness, and the true meaning of intelligence.

(b) To know himself as an organism and a personality

(c) To emerge, eventually emancipated, from all dogmas, creeds, and beliefs, as well as worldly and unworldly hopes and fears.

(d) To habitually function upon the highest planes of thought and physical effort.

(e) To place the objective of an alert, informed intelligence, and a perfected body, as primary in Life. And to arrive at the conclusion that all else will follow on.

(f) To learn that on this basis, the whole world, and all that it has to offer, opens out as a vision, splendid, normal and realizable.

(g) To understand that Past, Futures, Fates, Fears, Death, Selfishness, Egoism, Pride, Envy, Hate and Prejudice can be replaced by Intelligence that controls emotion, dominates destiny, manifests completeness and exults in Life.

(h) To understand that, in actuality, evolved man is a King, but without the trappings. That Kingship is his right and his destiny. That we can make ourselves, in time, all that we would. That we honour real men but are subservient to none.

In addition, Stotans shall train themselves to withstand, stoically, personal criticism, also, scepticism as the necessity or wisdom of such a Way of Life. In this regard, Stotans soon learn that they command knowledge, experience and ability not available to the prejudiced, the ignorant or the slothful.

Also, having embarked upon the Stotan Way of Life, like the Spartans, one must go through with it to the end. There is no giving up throughout life. The first pre-requisite for a Stotan is tenacity. The next is to understand that his loyalties are towards making the most of the material that is his, to the expansion, or at least the manifestation of the Life Force, and a constant identification of himself with his Life Force through his Way of Life.

To live this Way of Life is hard. It is not for weaklings. It is the Way that is travelled by all the truly great ones. It requires strenuous effort of body and mind.

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The passage above is taken from the Graem Sims biography of Percy Cerutty, entitled “Why Die”. It is one of my favourite reads.

Onward Stotans!!!

AC.

Calling all STOTANS!!!

"You only ever grow as a person when you spend time outside your comfort zone"
- Percy Cerutty
The pic above is of one of my all time heroes, Aussie track coach Percy Cerutty, leading one of his charges, a young guy by the name of Herb Elliott (who went on to hold the world 800m record!!) up one of the sand dunes that made up Percy’s ‘international athletic center’, in reality a couple of shacks on a beach in Portsea, Victoria.

Percy’s athletics was backed up by a fundamental philosophy that resonates loudly with me. He even had a name for his philosophy and accompanying code of conduct. He called it the STOTAN code. The word stotan is a composite of two words:

Stoic: A philosophy based on deriving pleasure from virtue and being unmoved by necessary hardship.

Spartan: An ancient greek culture based on loyalty, discipline and acting for the greater good.

I have had some recent conversations with Gordo that have forced me to look at what motivates me both as a coach and an athlete and I keep coming back to these principles.

I recently had an athlete put in a breakthrough performance and qualify for Kona. Of course, I was eagerly watching the web on Sunday, checking out his performance and I knew he was on the verge of something special. When he finished the race, I was excited to know that he was on the cusp of a Kona slot, and even more excited the next day to hear the news that he had secured one. But the real ‘lump in the throat’ moment for me came when I read his race report and realized just how much tenacity he showed out there, how deep he had to dig and how far into himself he had to go to reach a level he had never reached before. A level of athletic achievement? Yes. But it’s more than that, to me, in a lot of ways, it is those moments of pushing your previous limits that personally define us.

When Gordo asked me why I was in the sport, my initial knee-jerk was “to get better, to improve my performance.” But, the more I think about it, the more I realize that, while I want to get better, in the end, the thing that keeps me going is, as Pierre De Coubertin suggested, not the triumph but the struggle. It’s a weird thing isn’t it? But it’s almost common for athletes, especially truly great athletes to have a penchant for “the hard way”. If my time in Aussie swim squads taught me nothing, it taught me that the smile that creeps over the coach on pool deck often has nothing to do with faster times for a set or the thought of a possible medal at the next meet, the smile is all about those principles that I mentioned above; an inspiring display of loyalty, discipline and athletes who are unmoved by the necessary hardship of athletics.

On the surface, there is obviously a certain joy that comes from knowing that you are doing something that others aren’t willing to do. On the deeper level, I think that this emotional satisfaction stems from something that the Eastern religions realized long ago, that to become an individual with a soul, a spiritual entity independent of our brain and material shell, occasionally we must act independently of them. We must do things that challenge our body, we must do things that challenge our rational thoughts, e.g. jump on our bikes and ride 5hrs up a mountain despite the fact that we know rationally that with a base of 2x1hr trainer rides a week, it’s probably not a smart thing to do :-), just to prove that “I” am more than my rational thoughts. For whatever reason, call it God, call it destiny, call it whatever, some cosmic force has determined that “I” am an athlete.

It is also probably fair that I let my athletes know that this is also what motivates me as a coach. Of course I want you to get better. I want you to achieve your athletic goals. I want you to get healthy. All of that. But I also want you to experience those moments where you bust through your own self concept. Those moments of self-control and fortitude that show you that you are so much stronger than your emotions and your whims. You are so much more. Every time you complete a basic week. Every time you get out of bed and get ready to train as soon as your alarm clock goes off. Every time that you hit the supermarket instead of hitting Mickey D’s not only makes me proud of you as an athlete, it also fulfils me to know that I am helping you discover a self that is independent of your thoughts, your whims, your cravings. I am helping you discover your true self. In answer to Gordo’s question…. THAT is why I am a coach.

In retrospect, the title isn’t totally apt, I’m not calling all Stotans, just one :-) I have one slot left for coaching over the next year. If what I have said strikes a chord, drop me an email.

Also, I just headed over to my buddy Chuckie V's website and he posted an awesome blog along a similar line. Talk about cosmic force!!

The Ultimate Success Formula for Triathletes

Part 1: The Theory
Alan Couzens MS (Sport Science), CSCS, PES

“The only secret of those of us training at Caulfield and Ferny Creek was the consistency of our training. None of us ever missed a day. As a result, all of us were improving. Although each of our sessions would physically stretch us, we never finished a day so exhausted that we were unable to train to the same standard the following day.”
- Ron Clarke (18 time World Record Holder in Distance Running)

I just got back from a trip to Australia to visit the folks and see my sister get married. It really is a long, awful flight and even now, 4 days back I am still feeling the effects. On the positive side of things, I did get a lot of reading done on the long flight. One of the books that I re-read was Jack Canfield’s Success Principles. I am a big fan of the personal development genre and within this genre, Canfield’s book has to be one of my favourites. When reading one of the chapters on “paying the price” it got my mind thinking about the similarities between Canfield’s message and that of another of my favourite authors in this field, Tony Robbins.

Tony Robbins has to be one of the most well-known success gurus of this century. I am a big fan of his in general, but one of my favourite Tony Robbins’ principles is something that he calls the “Ultimate Success Formula”. The thing that I really love about this formula is it’s simplicity. Basically (paraphrasing), it goes something like; there are 4 key steps to success in any endeavour:

1. Define your outcome
2. Model the behaviour of those who have achieved your outcome
3. Take MASSIVE ACTION
4. Develop the sensory acuity to know the results you are getting and modify your actions accordingly.

In my opinion, this formula can just as appropriately be applied to the field of triathlon as it can to anything else, business, relationships etc. As a coach, the thing that is striking to me is the rarity that most athletes actually follow through with the most important step - #4. Just about every semi-serious triathlete out there has a goal of some description. Many of them have also sought out a mentor, in the form of a book or a coach, to help give them some clues of how to go about achieving their goal. The serious ones also don’t have a problem taking ‘massive action’. Some also do a fantastic job of obsessively logging the details of their workouts. However, the air is starting to get pretty thin when we look at the peak triathletes who actually analyse and use this data that they collect to determine the future direction of their training.

For many of us, the process of devising a training plan is analogous to the following scenario: You decide that you want to take a trip from Orlando, FL to the tiny mountain town of Nederland, CO. So, being a relative novice traveller, you go to the map store and buy a large scale map of the continental US. You set off from Orlando and follow the interstates on your way to Colorado, but when you reach the border, you are shocked that you can’t find Nederland anywhere on your map. So, rather than taking stock of where you are and pulling into a gas station to refine your search with a smaller scale map, you decide that Rand McNally doesn’t know what he’s talking about & you go searching for a different map of the continental US from a different publisher. Of course, this map doesn’t have your final destination on it either. End result, you jump from one guys large scale map to the next without ever paying attention to where your current route has landed you or refining your search to determine your future direction and you never make it to your destination.


The best athletes around get this. I first met Gordo at Epic Camp 2006. I was coming off a couple of pretty solid months of training, including 2 x 30hr weeks and I was feeling pretty good about my ability to keep working with a high volume approach. At the first opportunity I had, I spoke with Gordo about my recent training and where I should go from here. His first question and one which, to a large extent, inspired this blog, was “is it working for you?” It shocked me, but I really didn’t have a solid answer to the question. Sure, I was obsessively monitoring the details of every workout, but I wasn’t, at least in any measurable way, taking the time to analyse the data to determine what training stimuli yielded the greatest improvement and, whatsmore, my plan for the future was based strictly on my assumption that more volume = more results. I was following 2 of the 3 steps in the Training Peaks ‘monitor, analyse, plan’ credo, but my plans, in no way, shape or form were influenced by all of the data that I was monitoring.


Even now, the tendency is always to believe that I could do more than I currently am, if only....

For a good portion of the past 12 months my basic goal has been 3 hours a day of training. Did I base this on my average volume for 2006? Nope. Did I take into account that I was little more than a month out of a wheelchair after my hip surgery when I set these lofty goals? Nope. My plan was based solely on the volume that I believed I would need in order to be competitive in my age group over the Iron Distance in 2007 and 2008. This is one of the most common and harmful mistakes that I come across as a coach on a daily basis. Type-A age group athletes typically let their goals for the season dictate their rate of improvement rather than letting their rate of improvement dictate their seasonal goals. This is one of the reasons that it is so difficult to develop over the long term as a self-coached athlete. It is true that, as a society, we have a tendency to greatly overestimate what we can accomplish in a year, while grossly underestimating what we can achieve in a decade purely by applying unrelenting patience and persistence.

Hopefully by now, I have convinced you that in order to ‘train smart’ in ’08 and beyond, it is important to determine the efficacy of your training plan to this point. In order to do this a couple of questions need to be answered:

1. What was your training methodology in ’07?
Pay attention to the word methodology, as opposed to plan. What you intended to do at the start of the year is far less important than what actually got done.

Note: With improved sensory acuity the gap between what you intend to do and what you do will shorten. This can make a big difference to your confidence and your belief in yourself as an athlete.

2. Did your training methodology bring about the desired results?
The 2 results that I definitely want to achieve for each and every athlete, each and every year are:
a) A rise in the athlete’s ability to tolerate work, measured by an increase in volume AND intensity from year to year.
b) An improvement in the athlete’s performance standards from one year to the next.

Stay tuned for part II of this article, where I will outline some of the specific numbers that you can track in your log on a daily basis in order to effectively answer these questions and how to track these metrics over time to determine what is working for you.

Real World Periodization II: Phases & The Annual Training Plan

Alan Couzens, MS (Sports Science), CSCS, PES.

I had an interesting chat with Gordo, the other day, about the difference between what a ‘long-term plan’ means to a swim coach vs. a recreational tri coach. I had the fortunate experience of working for a couple of years under Aussie swim coach Col Jones. Jones Swimming is a household name in the age group swim scene in Australia, with multiple state titles and a score of athletes who have gone on to compete well at both the national and international level. The reason lies in the incredibly structured developmental program that they have in place.

When a child signs up for swim lessons at Jones, they begin, knowingly or not, an 8-10 year process that creates some of the best swimmers on the Aussie scene. From the moment they take their first push and glide from the wall, they are being watched, not only by their instructor, but also by the squad supervisor, who determines if and when the child is ready to move up to the next level. In the beginning, this decision is based on simple technical criteria, e.g.:
- Straight arm recovery
- ‘Chop off the ear’
- Water on the eyebrows
- ‘Boil the water’ with the feet.

The technical criteria becomes progressively more advanced and demanding through the learn to swim phase (~ages 4-8) and eventually transitions to more performance & attendance based criteria as the child makes the transition to junior squads (ages 8-12), for example:
- Complete 10x100 FS @ 2:15
- Complete 10x100 IM @ 2:45
- Attend 5 of the available 7 sessions each week.

And, if they show promise, eventually to the results based criteria of the high performance squads e.g.
- Make state finals
- Qualify for Nationals.

The point is, Jones, and other successful swim programs that I have had the opportunity to observe &/or be a part of, recognize that the acquisition of technical competence, basic endurance, basic strength, threshold endurance and specific race speed is a process that takes 8-10 years. The swimmer does essentially the same training day in, day out in the squad that is appropriate for their current developmental level for as long as it takes to move up to the next one. This could be 10 weeks or 6 months. Sure, some kids get bored along the way and are able to convince their parents that this swimming thing is not for them, or that they should transfer to a different coach (who generally promises that if Sally was in my program, she’ll be making State within a year). Either way, the program doesn’t change to accommodate their whims. The squads roll on, with or without them. And, with only a few exceptions, those who persist and stay a part of this program for the 8-10 years are rewarded with a very high level of performance.

I make the point above that long term improvements in endurance take long term periods of focused development and that, while it is normal to get bored along the way, the solution is not to switch sports or switch coaches or switch training methods. The solution is always – stay the course.

In Tudor Bompa’s landmark book, Theory and Methodology of Training, he speaks of the staircase of athletic development and how the step height and step length are both functions of the biomotor ability that the athlete is seeking to improve.

For example, endurance vs. strength.

Or, put another way, to paraphrase Bompa, while flexibility can be overloaded and improved from day to day, and strength from week to week, improvements (and graduations in the training stress) for endurance should be considered month to month.

Because Bompa’s primary area of focus was strength and power training, much of the rest of the book was framed in that light, e.g. macrocycles were designated as 4-6 week periods of a given training emphasis, while microcycles (or loading blocks) were designated as periods of ~1 week. This may be entirely appropriate when we are talking about optimal duration of training blocks for an experienced strength athlete, however, in my opinion and experience as a coach of endurance sports, it significantly misses the mark when we are talking about developing the core biomotor abilities of the sub-elite endurance athlete.

So, in Friel-speak, when we are looking at the key training cycles, e.g. Base 1, Base 2, Base 3, etc…, for a novice to sub-elite athlete, it is my opinion that these blocks are better used as 4-8 MONTH periods of development, rather than 4-8 weeks.

It may be interesting to look at what phase of athletic development you are currently at in your long term development as an athlete.

Base 1
“Training to train”

Typical Performance Level:
12-17hr Ironman (although, it is worthwhile noting that athletes at this level can be quite quick at short distance racing, some of my “Base 1” athletes are 5 hours or better for a half but unable to break 12 for a full).

Limiters:
- Technique
- Basic Endurance
- Body Composition
- Basic Strength
- Basic Flexibility/Injury Prevention

Typically this athlete will come in 30-50lbs overweight, and despite what they may have “benched” or “squatted” back in high school, will be surprised when we get them in the weights room & they struggle to get a good # of reps with 2 plates on the bar. This level of athlete will benefit most from a prolonged training block focusing on improving their basic biomotor abilites, which also happen to be their specific race limiters.

Good improvements can be expected if the athlete devotes 4-8 months training at this level. It is not unusual to see someone drop 50lbs in this time frame and strength improvements for this level athlete can generally be expected to be 50-70%, putting them close to Joe Friel’s strength/bodyweight goals by the end of the year.

The year may culminate in a “just finish” Ironman or a big hiking trip or bike tour. Either way, this “training to train” year sets the athlete up well for Base 2.


Base 2:
“Training to perform”


Typical Performance Level:
10-12hr Ironman

Limiters:
- Steady State Endurance
- Steady State Speed

Our serious athlete, who has completed several Ironman events and is ready for a “breakthrough performance”, often after multiple races where they underperformed relative to their shorter race distance performances. Despite the athlete’s insistence that they need more speed work, this athlete can most benefit from a long period of training with a focus on maximizing the amount of steady state training within their basic training week. Again, this basic adaptation requires a long time (multiple months) to optimize. It is a reality that most untrained/poorly trained individuals will struggle to hold their AeT pace/power for much more than a half-ironman effort, the ability to hold this effort for the duration of an Ironman race is not something that should be taken for granted. For the average 10-12hr IMer, extending your aerobic threshold endurance to equal or exceed your predicted race duration is the adaptation that offers the greatest “bang for your buck”.

Base 3:
“Training to race”

Performance Level:
9-10 hour Ironman

Limiters:
- Muscular Endurance
(the amount of the race that they can devote to Zone 3-4 efforts)
- Tactics
(where to best place these efforts to ensure the greatest return).

When the Ironman athlete gets to the point that steady state endurance is no longer a limiter, it may make sense to insert periods of effort above average race effort that are tactically advantageous in accordance with the athlete’s strengths, e.g. for an athlete who is a strong climber, it may be beneficial to move into a Zone 3 effort on a key climb in the race where they will be able to generate more speed for the additional watts than if they were to expend the same amount of energy on the flats. Similarly, depending on the race, it may prove useful to expend their ‘reserve energy’ during the swim, in an effort to bridge up to a group of swimmers that is more in line with their cycling ability (to minimize the extra effort associated with passing slower cyclists). However, it is important to note that by the time you are ready to tactically race an Ironman, you’re already at a pretty elite level and, as Gordo is fond of saying, you have spent many years getting ‘fit’ before worrying about getting ‘fast’.

So, that’s my take on the appropriate duration of mesocycles or “focus periods” for the endurance athlete. Now, what about the appropriate duration of overload steps (or microcycles)? As previously mentioned, as a biomotor ability, endurance has relatively long, shallow steps in the developmental staircase. From practical experience, I have found that the optimal length of these steps is anything from 4-8 weeks of one consistent training stimulus before further overload is applied. This ties in nicely with the “basic week” concept. In other words, I give my athletes a fixed training stimulus (a basic week) that they are to repeat 4-8 times before we re-evaluate what adaptations/improvement has occurred and, if applicable, add a slight overload (generally no more than 10%) of whatever stimulus is appropriate for their current developmental level. For our Base 1 athlete this may be a 10% increase in pure volume or a 10% increase in total work completed in a strength session. Either way, the increase is quite modest and conservative and patient by most other coaches’ standards. It does, however, represent the appropriate time frame for the athlete to get some real, measurable improvement that is specific to their own personal limiters.

The progressive transition through these developmental levels is, at best case, a 3 year process, and that assumes consistent, appropriate training on a week-in, week-out basis. Just as the kids who made it through the Jones’ program were the one’s with the parents who recognized the difference between a child’s whims and genuine discontent, if you are to truly succeed in this sport, when you are considering giving up or changing approaches or looking for the next best short cut, it may serve you to be your own best parent and remind yourself how important it is, both in sport and in life, when in doubt, to stay the course.