In the next few weeks I’ll drop a few fairly brief comments here about things that go through my head on training. One of the things I like about coaching, and sport in general, is that things are always changing, usually for the better. That’s good. If we never considered new ways of doing things in sport it would be quite boring. Keeping up with the evolution of endurance-sport training is what makes it fun for me. It keeps me thinking. This first “thought” I want to tell you about has to do with keeping things simple.
Thought #1: Keep It Simple
I’ve written about this topic here before.
And I know what you’re thinking. “Simplicity” seems like a strange description of my writing. But I really do try to make complex things easy to understand. I suppose there are different degrees of simple and my way of presenting training concepts is, perhaps, not the simplest. But then there are a lot of coaches who take a truly simple topic and make it complex.
There is stuff I read from coaches on Twitter and elsewhere that are not easily understood at first read. They have to be read twice. Too many unexplained abbreviations. Too much science jargon. They seem to assume that everyone understands their lingo (one of my pet peeves with every profession when speaking to “outsiders”). If I don’t catch right away what the coach is trying to say I just give up and go on to the next post. It’s not the reader’s job to try to figure out the author’s thoughts; it’s the writer’s responsibility to make it easy to understand.
The point I’m trying to make is that training doesn’t have to be complex. Keep training as simple as you can. There are some simple “rules” that if followed will lead you to better performance. Here are just a few.
Training should be mostly easy.
This means zones 1 and 2. This simplicity rule will give you a big aerobic base, which is literally at the heart of training. Everything else that has to do with endurance fitness depends on it. There are no more important workouts you can do than the easy “aerobic endurance” sessions found in my Training Bible books. If you decide that hard workouts are the only key to your fitness and do very little aerobic endurance training, you will not even come close to your potential. You’ve got to go slow a lot in order to go fast occasionally.
With this in mind, most of your training days should be easy. And I mean really easy. Not that zone 3 stuff you usually do and pretend it’s easy. It’s not. I’d strongly suggest that you train only in zones 1 and 2 for five days each week. These five days may include a day off. In fact, that’s a good idea. The other two days in your week should be hard. What does “hard” mean? That usually means zones 4 and 5. But if it feels hard to you then it’s a hard workout regardless of whether it’s aerobic capacity intervals or a very long, slow session.
Bottom line: avoid zone 3 throughout the base period. And train there in the build, peak, and race periods only if you are preparing for a race that will be done in zone 3. Otherwise, zone 3 training is truly the junk workout of your training — or even worse, a setback. It doesn’t give you the aerobic benefits of zones 1 and 2 while leaving you just a bit too tired to do truly quality workouts on your two weekly hard days.
Training should become more like racing as you go.
Your workouts should become more like the A-priority race you are training for the closer you get to race day. That doesn’t mean racing in every workout. What it does mean is that you should occasionally (twice weekly) do segments of the race at race intensity — but only in the build, peak, and race periods in the weeks just preceding the race. This does not mean to do race intensity workouts also at race duration/distance. It’s race segments only.
In the base period, which should be a few months before your race, workouts are not like the race (for example, you won’t lift weights in the race). After the increasingly race-specific build period, be sure to allow for a couple of weeks of reduced training volume (intensity remains race-like) right before the race (peak and race periods). That will eliminate fatigue so that you come into “form” on race day — fresh and full of fitness.
Do the least amount of training that will produce the desired result.
For example, if you are training for a one-hour race there’s no reason to do a three-hour workout. That’s just self-flagellation. Doing more than is needed is a sure way to end up extremely fatigued, mentally burned out, injured, sick, or overtrained. Be wary of the urge to be greedy with excessive training. High performance, not self-destruction. Just do what’s required so you come to race day ready, not worn out.
Take breaks in your training.
Every third or fourth week you should take a significant break from serious training. That typically means rest and recovery for three to five consecutive days. This is another good chance to take a day off and to otherwise do short and easy workouts. You don’t have to use a calendar to tell you when it’s time for a few days of rest and recovery. I’ve written about “recovery on demand” before, which I’ll come back to in a later “thought.”
In the next post on this topic I’ll comment on what I call “limiters,” or you can skip ahead to the training thought that you’re most interested in:
- Thought #1: Keep It Simple
- Thought #2: Limiters and Acts of Faith
- Thought #3: Consistency Is Key
- Thought #4: Persistence, Patience, and Time
- Thought #5: Motivation
- Thought #6: Plan for Success
- Thought #7: Little Things That Get in The Way
