Ralph
Heath, a 62-year-old cyclist and former client of mine, asked me recently if
what I was suggesting in my previous posts is that older athletes should do
high-intensity training even in their “off seasons.” In other words, was I now proposing
that as you move into your 50s, 60s and beyond that fast intervals should be
included in the Prep and Base periods. After all, I didn’t come right out and
say it in the blog although it seemed to be implied. And this way of training wasn’t included in my Training
Bible books.
My
answer was that occasional high-intensity workouts should probably be included
weekly and year-round as we get older to maintain aerobic capacity which
appears to decline rather rapidly with age, and probably at a greater rate when
the system is not challenged. This is probably more important for experienced,
serious athletes than for those new to endurance sport. For novices, simply
putting in the time will maintain and even boost aerobic capacity. For the
seasoned veteran this high-intensity training doesn’t have to be frequent or
done with structured intervals as described in a previous post. I suggested to Ralph that
he might consider doing short “fartlek” workouts (fartlek is Swedish for “speed play” and essentially means unstructured: go as fast as you want,
when you feel like it, on whatever terrain you enjoy, for as long as you want,
with recovery whenever you want it, and stop when you’ve had enough) once a
week in those early season periods to help maintain aerobic capacity.
These
don’t have to be grueling workouts that leave you wasted for a couple of days.
In fact, in the Prep and early Base periods it’s probably best to avoid such anaerobically
produced, deep fatigue – as is often the case with Anaerobic Endurance intervals as described in my Training Bible
books – in favor of developing a broad base of aerobic fitness through less
strenuous but long, steady workouts.
And,
by the way, there is no research I’ve ever found which even suggests that there
is “damage” done to one’s aerobic development in the Base period by doing infrequent
high-intensity training. Some athletes and coaches use this as a reason why
anaerobic efforts should be avoided early in the season when Aerobic Endurance is the focus. But I do believe there is a limit to how much of this you should do in Base as it can make
for a long season and put you at risk of training-related breakdowns. Doing
high-intensity interval training week after week throughout the year can also become
monotonous and de-motivating. (My next post here will be on the subject of
age-related training breakdowns.)
