Five Fundamentals of Training

This is the time of year when most endurance athletes are starting to think about and perhaps even plan for the coming season. That makes it a good time to remember what’s most important when it comes to training for peak performance – the basics. Here are five fundamentals I frequently remind myself of when designing a training plan. There are certainly more than five concerns, but I believe these are the most basic. I’ve linked each of them to a previous, more expanded discussion in case you want to learn more.

1. Train with moderation. Frequently doing extreme workouts that leave you tired for two or more or days afterward do more harm than good. If you’re not recovered from most of your training sessions within 48 hours of their completion then you’re not training with moderation. This will eventually catch up with you. Over the long term, the body responds best when the adaptive changes required are slight. This is not to say you should never do extremely hard workouts. In fact, it’s been shown that a block of several days of pushing one’s limits results in a greatly increased level of fitness once adequate recovery has also had time to remove the resulting fatigue. In my Training Bible books  I call this “crash” training. For most athletes this should not be done more frequently than once every six weeks.

2. Train consistently.  If you follow the first fundamental in your training then this one probably won’t require anything more of you. It will more than likely take care of itself. Moderation usually results in consistent training. That means you don’t miss workouts. In training, zero is a big number. If you have a lot of them in your training log then you are giving away hard-earned fitness. Sometimes zeroes simply can’t be avoided. With the holiday season now in full swing it’s likely you’ll miss a workout or two. The good news is that it’s probably several weeks until your first A-priority race of 2013. Zeroes in the last 12 weeks prior to your race significantly degrade performance.

3. Make workouts increasingly like the race. As the training year progresses your workouts should become increasingly like whatever it is you are training for. What you’ve done in the last six weeks of build period training before the race has a greater impact on how well you will perform on race day than what you did in the first six weeks of base period training. If those last six weeks were devoted to race-like sessions then you will be ready to race well. If the workouts were unlike the race then you are giving away performance. That seems apparent to most athletes and yet this time of year I read of a lot of athletes following what they call a “reverse” periodization plan. What this means is that their workouts are race-like in the base period but not like the race at all in the build period – training becomes less like the race as the season progresses. It’s reversed. That’s what true reverse periodization would be (periodization is correctly based on what you are training for, not the modulation of absolute intensity and duration). What I think most of them mean is that they are training with high intensity now and will do more miles later in the year. For events like an Ironman that is not reversed at all. That’s becoming more race-like. But for a cyclist who does crits that could be disastrous at the first race. Lots of miles done slowly in the last few weeks before such a short, high-intensity race is a sure way to race poorly.

4. Intensity is the key. Sports science hasn’t been around very long as compared with the other sciences. There are only a few things we have definitively learned from it about training. Perhaps the most common lesson is that the key to performance is how you modulate the intensity (power, pace, speed, effort, heart rate) of training. Performance is not dependent on how many miles or hours you do in a week - volume. Unfortunately, most athletes seem to think volume is the Holy Grail. For the experienced and serious athlete, in their order of importance, the keys to performance are 1) race-like workout intensity, 2) race-like workout duration, and 3) weekly volume. In fact, #3 is a distant third. I think the reason volume is so revered by athletes is that it’s easy to measure. Just add up the daily miles. Intensity, on the other hand, is hard to quantify. Now I should point out that this holds true only for the experienced and serious athlete – those who have been training with a performance focus for three or more years. Novices do benefit remarkably by focusing on duration and training frequency (volume). That’s because any intensity – including very low – will prove beneficial for them. They just need to get to the finish line.

5. Rest when needed. If you employ an appropriate training load you will frequently need to reduce the stress of training in order for your body to recover and adapt. Continued stress without rest eventually results in a breakdown of some sort – overtraining, illness, injury, or mental burnout. How often you recover and what exactly you do to enhance recovery is an individual matter. Some athletes recover quickly, others slowly. Some recover with light exercise; others need a day off. So there is no set pattern that all of us should follow. For some the best plan is to have no plan – recovery on demand. Recover when your body says it’s time and until it’s ready to go again. Unfortunately, many athletes are extremely poor at listening to their bodies and are likely to disregard the common indicators of fatigue thus pressing ahead in order to get their weekly miles number in the training log. These folks need a plan for when to rest. Such a plan should include weekly, monthly, and annual rest periods.

Comments

[Steve M]

great piece, I'm savin it
Steve

[George Coffey]

Joe, Another good article. Do you have a feel for any concrete signs of over training? The psychological symptoms are subjective and at least for me would be hard to apply. The physiological symptoms would be easier to monitor. Is there a resting HR increase that you would find suspect, say a sudden 10% increase that didn't go away after a few days? I've never seen you write anything about orthostatic HR. Do you feel it can be used as a reliable indicator of over training? I've read that if your HR is markedly above or below what it would normally be at a given effort, that can be an indicator. Finally, do you think that a sudden weight loss that isn't in line with any dieting you are doing might indicate over training?
Thanks, George Coffey

[Joe Friel]

George C--HR by itself is not a good indicator. In fact, sports scientists have been studying this for decades trying to come up with good gauges and indicators. They've not been very successful. OT seems to vary considerably between people and even in the same person as there are many training and lifestyle matters that can affect it. I made a list of these in each of my training Bible books.

[Allen Lopez]

Thank you for the article Joe. I especially enjoyed the 5th point on "Rest When Needed". Having a coach here helps me b/c id probably feel a little guilty putting up a zero without his conscent. question: How long do you suggest a taper should be for a full and 1/2 IM and what should be the intensity for those weeks? Thank

Allen

[Will Barlow]

Joe, Great read thank you. One question in relation to "make workouts increasingly like the race". In the last 6 weeks before an Iornman my cycling watts on long rides are very similar to my actual race watts, my swim pace on long intervals is very similar to my actual race pace. However, my regular run pace is about 8'30"/mile. My actual race run is more like 9'30"/mile. So assuming I did not go too hard on the swim/bike, I can see one of 3 options to be true.
1) In the last 6 weeks I should do some long runs at 9'00"-9'30"/mile.
2) For some reason I am not running to my potential
3) Running is not the same as biking/swimming.

Can you help me out?
Thanks,

Will Barlow

[Joe Friel]

Will B--The key to a "fast" run is to get as bike fit as possible and then hold back on the bike. The issue is how tired are you before starting the run - not how fast of a runner you are. http://www.joefrielsblog.com/2012/11/how-to-have-a-personal-best-ironman.html

[Joe Friel]

Allen L--How long you taper depends on a few variables such as how your training has gone, how tired you are, your level of fitness, etc. The intensity should be race like or slightly faster.

[Kurt Lao]

Great article John. But why isn't diet part of the equation? Isn't healthy dieting as important a part as the training regimen itself?

[Joe Friel]

Kurt Lao--Yes, nutrition is important. So is sleep, strength, range of motion, lifestyle stress, etc. Got to draw thew line some place when only talking about 5.

[Kurt Lao]

Fair enough Joe. Regardless, it's a great list. Happy New Year!

[Alfonso Carrón.]

Hi Joe;

I begin to train for a 6 hour A-prority race duration with a selected annual volume for goal of "finish the race" of 500 as you suggest in The Total Heart Rate Training. And is very simple to asign the weekly and distribution time with the daily training hours.
But in the race week the table indicate 10,5 and the daily training hours for that 10,5 week indicate 2,5 / 2,0 / 1,5 / 1,5 / 1,0 / 1,0 / 1,0.
Since my race is of 6 hours and the longest workout for that race week indicate 2,5 should i substitute it and follow the others training hours as indicate 6,0 / 2,0 / 1,5 / 1,5 / 1,0 / 1,0 / 1,0 or modify the 10,5 hours distribution including 10,5 minus 6 (race time instead of long workout)= 4,5 hours remaining to do the rest of the week? and if the answer is the last one, how to distribute the remaining 4,5 hours in the week?
6,0 / ? / ? / ? / ? / ? / ?. (Race and long day on sunday).

And i see that are modifications of the hours and a rest day every week in my book The Ciclist Training Bible tables (4th Edition). Wich plan is better to follow the THRT or The Cyclist Training Bible? In the last one, the race week for 500 is 7,0 instead of the 10,5 in the THRT wich is worse if i substract the 6 A-priority race hours time minus those 7 hours week, give me only 1,0 hour to train the rest of the week.
Excuseme for the english, best regards;

Alfonso, from Spain.

[Joe Friel]

Alfonso--Your English is much better than my Espanol. So no problem there. I would suggest _not_ doing more than 2 6hour rides in the last 12 weeks. 4hrs is adequate for most of the weeks. You won't gain any more fitness from the extra 2hrs. 6hrs is mostly mental just to satisfy your question of "Can I do it?" Redistribute the remaining hours by taking an additional day off. The _don't_ have to add up to exactly what the table says the total is for each week. Take the table as a suggestion, not a requirement.

[Shmish]

Happy New Year Joe,

I used your Cyclist's Training Bible to good effect years ago (my opinion!) and I now have your companion book.

My goals for the next year or so are quite simple: improve FTP and muscular endurance. I don't plan on racing, but I enjoy strenuous mtb and road rides with friends.

It is difficult for me to train with TSS values that get up to 100, for reasons of lack of time and a winter bike, and maxing out on the bike trainer at 1hr. My bread and butter workout is something like a 2x20min Z4 session on the trainer (TSS around 50). Does it make sense to include some Z5 drills at the same time for some workouts, in order to increase TSS? I'm thinking about what you wrote here for your TSS and workouts: http://www.joefrielsblog.com/2012/09/the-aging-athlete-more-about-me.html

I also commute to work, which I don't really treat as training but obviously it adds to physiological stress. Each trip (2 a day) is TSS of 12.5 and IF of 0.6.

thanks
Doug

[Alfonso]

Thank you for the answer, the blog and the twitter. More than excelent resource are an inspiration too.

[Joe Friel]

Shmish--if you are finishing the 1hr workout feeling like there's a lot left in the tank then adding my intervals wold be fine. But don't do it if the ride leaves you tired already.

[Armi Legge]

Thanks for another great post Joe.

Do you think it makes more sense to put LT training (e.g. going for 20' as hard as possible on the track) after shorter Vo2 max intervals (e.g. 6*5min efforts) as it would be more specific to the demands of the race?

[Joe Friel]

Armi--Yes, I've had athletes do similar workouts, although I usually define the intensity of the 20' relative to goal race intensity. But all-out could work well in some situations.