Destructing your Annual Training Plan - Part II

“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.”
- Bruce Lee

In my last post I outlined a light framework for creating a response-focused Annual Training Plan. The focus of the plan being simply to simplify - to cut planning down to its essentials to maximize the potential for individual responsiveness. For review, the points that I considered key prior to ‘getting out the door’ were:

1. Determine competition dates and phases
2. Determine number of peaks
3. Take a conservative guess at your starting load
4. Come up with a balanced weekly schedule of mixed methods at an appropriate load.
5. Get out the door and train! Repeat! Repeat!

In this follow-up article I will take a look at some of those factors that I look at to ‘get to know’ an athlete individually and to determine the response to (& future direction of) the program.

Once I start an athlete on a new ATP, the first question I am looking to answer in the early weeks is how long is it going to take this guy to get tired? This brings us to Step 6….

Step 6: Train until you get (a little) tired.

You’ll remember that in the last post we took a guess as to appropriate starting load for the coming season. How do we know if this was ‘right’?
Simply, the right training load will make you a little tired within 2-3 weeks (generally for a novice athlete, 2 weeks, for an advanced, 3 weeks), leading to a slight reduction in performance (5-10%)

If the load that we estimated was too light, the following will happen:



You’ll notice a slight drop in performance over 2-3 weeks (usually <5%) followed by a marginal improvement in performance following your recovery week but performance will not recover to ‘baseline’ standards.
If the load we estimated was too heavy, the following will happen:



You’ll notice a MARKED drop in performance (+>10%) over 2-3 weeks that doesn’t recover with 1 week of recovery. Again, performance does not recover to baseline standards.

If the load was ‘just right’ you’ll notice a slight drop in performance (5-10%) after 2-3 weeks followed by a performance boost above baseline standards after 1 week of recovery.



You’ll recall that I recommended we be quite cautious with the initial estimate. The reason for this is that it is far easier to ‘up the ante’ on a load that is too easy, than recover from a load that is too hard. You can see from the trend of the ‘too hard’ curve after one recovery week that if we overdo it, we can spend a month or more recovering from one cycle that is too ambitious!!

So, if the load turns out to be ‘too easy’, quite simply, increase the load as we normally would for the next cycle until you get a little tired.

The choice of what type of session to use as a benchmark of ‘performance’ is up to you. There are pros and cons to each method. Personally, I prefer short duration, aerobic heavy sessions, e.g. solid 1500 run for time. You’ll note that I recommended scheduling one of these sessions at least every other week in the athlete’s ‘balanced’ week.

These sessions are sufficiently aerobic that they respond to base training but sufficiently short that they can be regularly completed at a solid effort. Tests at a fixed HR can also be used, however, if so, consideration to & control of extraneous HR influences should occur (e.g. temperature, resting HR)

Step 7: Rest, recover, then increase the load appropriately for the next block.

Assuming we ‘got it right’, as we begin the next block of training we are looking to increase the training load by an amount that will result in a similar level of tiredness/performance drop to the first block.

A part of identifying appropriate load increases through the various cycles is coming up with some idea of load equivalents for the different types of training. To this end, I’ve found it useful to equate different volumes of the respective training intensities into training ‘units’ of somewhat equivalent training load. In this way we can say that if we have 1 training unit to ‘spend’ on increased load in the next block, we could choose to spend it on 20 minutes of steady training or 10 minutes of threshold training or an extra 2x800’s on the track. My equivalents for 1 training ‘unit’ are shown below:



So, now that we have a common ‘currency’ for training load, what does a typical athlete’s ‘paycheck’ look like from cycle to cycle? How many extra training units does an athlete have to spend from one block to the next?

Again, this is a trial and error process and one in which it is best to err on the side of caution until appropriate load jumps are established. However….

A couple of guidelines that I have found from my own experience:

- Athletes can handle larger load jumps in the early season when they are relatively ‘fresh’.
- The higher the starting load, in relation to last year’s peak volume, the smaller the load jumps (Note: advanced athletes should begin the season with a higher % of their peak volume than novice athletes).
- Counter-intuitively, the more advanced the athlete, the smaller the load increases, i.e. the closer the athlete gets to their maximal absorbable load the smaller each loading jump should be.

Specifically, here are some guidelines in terms of an increase in training units for different athletes at different points in the season. Please keep in mind that these are simply guidelines and the true ‘proof in the pudding’ will come from whether this load makes the athlete ‘appropriately tired’ as described in step 6. If in doubt, err on the side of a smaller load jump and If the athlete is not improving from block to block then change the load!



Step 8: Identify Strengths and weaknesses and where to devote the load increase

So now we know how much we want to increase the load, we’ll need some idea of what type of load we want to use to ‘up the ante’ for the next block. This comes down to 2 things:

1. Identifying current strengths and weaknesses
2. Identifying where you are in your season (general vs specific preparation)

a) Strengths and weaknesses:



In the above table you’ll see what I consider to be balanced standards across swim, bike and run for criterion measures of a similar time duration (numbers are in minutes for 400m swim and 1500m run and watts for CP5 bike). This sort of table can be a useful tool when determining what discipline is more deserving of additional training load from block to block. The numbers are based on VO2 equivalents across the disciplines for athletes of good (but not elite) economy.

For instance, if an athlete can generate 450W for a CP5 but struggles to break 6 minutes for a 400m swim (the situation for one of the athletes I’m currently working with) you can rest assured, he will be carrying a permanent smell of Chlorine with him for the next few months :-)

The other area of ‘balance’ that I am concerned with when deciding what areas to work on with a given athlete is that of their balance across pace and power durations. I have addressed this topic in a previous blog and offered some suggestions on expected ‘norms’ across the pace/power curve for Ironman athletes vs shorter duration specialists. (link)

b)Indentifying where you are in your season (General vs Specific Preparation)

The second consideration when determining where to add load relates to where you are in your season, or more specifically, how generally fit you are.

All load is not created equal. Some types of load, e.g. steady endurance work build you up, while others, e.g. intensive track work, tear you down. The more aerobic base work that the athlete has behind them the quicker they will recover from more intensive work. Therefore, in order to ‘earn’ the right to spend your new fitness how you choose, you need a foundation of general fitness behind you. I call this the Suze Orman rule.

Those of you familiar with Suze Orman’s financial advice TV show will be able to relate. Folks call in, tell Suze what they want to purchase along with what their current financial situation is and Suze either approves or denies their purchase. Unsurprisingly, the more financial foundation that folks have behind them, the more latitude Suze is likely to give with what she ‘approves’. I am the same way. If an athlete comes to me with a 100 mile/wk run base and tells me they want to work on their 5K speed, I am likely to approve it. On the flipside, if an athlete with only a year of running behind them tells me they want to do 3 track sessions a week to improve their VO2max – DENIED!

Specifically, I follow Jack Daniels recommendations on this topic, with upper % limits set for each type of training. These ‘upper limit’ percentages in relation to percentage of total weekly mileage for each type of training are shown below:



A concrete example, let’s say an experienced athlete is preparing for a competitive marathon at which they aim to run sub 3:00. Based on experience, I would expect the athlete to be able to complete a Marathon Pace run of at least 2/3 race duration at target pace by the end of the specific preparation – in other words, 17 miles in <2:00. However, in order to have ‘earned the right’ to attempt/absorb such an intensive session, I would expect the athlete to have built their easy-steady base mileage to ~100mi/wk i.e. so that the intensive session represents <15%. These general ‘preparatory’ objectives, can thus have substantial bearing on where I choose to ‘spend’ the athletes fitness even if they don’t immediately relate to the athletes weaknesses or the specific needs of the event.

In summary, the 3 steps mentioned in this piece are all quite fluid and demand a good amount of flexibility on the part of the coach/athlete in order to optimize. It is impossible to predict, at the start of the year, with any practically applicable certainty, the level of load/volume that is going to make an athlete appropriately tired 10 months down the track.

Likewise, it is impossible to determine how many blocks of training it will take to rectify an athletic weakness, or indeed if that will still be a weakness 6 months down the track. I have seen some funny things in my years of coaching – strengths become weaknesses and weaknesses strengths within relatively short periods of time. The intelligent athlete/coach must always remain fluid and adaptable to the utmost.
Re-read that Bruce Lee quote 3 more times and…….. :-)

Train Smart

AC

Destructing your Annual Training Plan - Part I

“The best laid plans of mice and men go often askew”
- Robert Burns

It’s that time of year again. The end of the old season and the beginning of the new means that coaches and self coached athletes throughout the country are buying their notebooks, double clicking their excel spreadsheets and picking up the training manual du jour for the 2010 season.

Of course the training manual du jour of the 2010 season will likely be the same one used in the past recollectable seasons, Joe Friel’s Triathlete’s Training Bible. Joe is a magnanimous guy and as such is offering additional information in a new blog series on ‘constructing your annual training plan’ for 2010, the part inspiration for the somewhat pithy title of this piece.

No disrespect to Joe or his training philosophies at all are implied by this article. 95% of everything I know and do as a coach is related to concepts either espoused or invented (!) by Joe. However, you may find some interest in the 5% of things that I do a little differently to many of the coaches out there.

********

The other polar opposite inspiration for this post comes from a comment made by my good buddy Chuckie V in the comment section of one of his recent stellar blog pieces, where he says (in response to a question about Chrissie Wellington):

"Chrissie is a product of Brett (Sutton) and I work pretty closely with him. He doesn't "believe in" periodization or have much to do with planning. He simply finds the right template for the athlete and puts them to work. Over time, I've migrated to this line of thinking more and more.

So many coaches tout the merits of having a good plan (after all that's how they survive, by providing plans) but our body doesn't respond to plans (only our minds do, though not always favorably). Sometimes you just have to learn to listen to your body's needs and what your goal races require; these two considerations don't always sync up however!

An athlete can ruin a whole career on planning; it's best to get to work."

-V

I find myself and my own coaching method smack bang in the middle of these 2 perspectives. I am a planner by nature and yet I have come to realize that no rigid annual plan ever works out even close to 100% for my athletes. Furthermore, as Chuckie suggests, attempting to adhere too rigidly to a plan can severely compromise an athlete’s performance potential. And yet the absence of any plan can also compromise an athlete’s potential.

Races happen on a schedule therefore some attempt must be made to gel the athlete’s ‘body clock’ with the race calendar. The difference in the two approaches of overplanning vs underplanning can be likened to rocking up to the train station without even glancing at the timetable then arriving to find that the next train doesn’t come for an hour vs planning your jaunt to the train station rigidly around the time table and arriving 5 mins early, seeing the train and deciding to wait for the next one because that’s what your schedule says to do. Some responsiveness and reactivity is needed in order to get where you are going as fast as possible.
So I find my approach to be one of controlled chaos or organized anarchy. While I really can’t in all good conscience draw up the blow by blow details of any athlete’s annual training plan, I can quite accurately describe ‘the method’. This is going to be the subject of this blog post and likely a couple of others to come. I want to describe some elements of the practical application of ‘the method’ so that you may choose to use them in the destruction of your old concept of the ATP and the construction of your new one.

Step 1: Determine Competition Dates and Phases.

In my world, phases of preparation are largely about when you concede basic development. In an Ironman sense, for a novice to intermediate athlete there comes a point 8-12 weeks out from the race in which, irrespective of how high the athlete’s aerobic threshold endurance, we must put that on the back-burner and succumb to the reality of the athlete’s true race pace. It is certainly my goal at the beginning of any season to extend the athlete’s aerobic threshold endurance to the extent of their race duration, however, for Ironman, this is a loftier goal than many athletes are willing to concede and so, for lower volume Ironman athletes (less than ~500hrs/year) or athletes with a young training age, I frequently arrive 12 weeks out from the race with the athlete yet to ‘prove’ their ability to hold AeT endurance for a good chunk (more than 2/3) race duration. At this point it’s time for a reality check and a recognition of what true race pace is likely to be.

Similarly, for a short course athlete, even for those athletes in who aerobic threshold endurance is relatively weak, there comes a point at which the athlete must start training for the specific speed and demands of their event. Therefore, 12 weeks out, truly specific training (training over close to race duration at close to race pace) begins irrespective of where the athlete is at and to a large extent, irrespective of their strengths and weaknesses. It is the nature of this specific training that is largely determined by how diligent the athlete was in rectifying these weaknesses in the basic preparation phase of the season.

In addition, there comes a point 2-4 weeks from the race date at which work has a net negative effect on performance due to the fact that the athlete will generate fatigue that he/she cannot shed by race day. Therefore a peak/taper phase should be implemented.

So, in summary, step 1 is a simplified ‘traditional’ approach:
• Identify race date
• Count back 2-4 weeks and begin the peak/taper phase
• Count back an additional 6-8 weeks and begin the specific preparation
• Count back an additional 12-32 weeks and begin basic preparation.

For short course athletes, a further option is to insert a short precompetitive phase devoted to VO2 enhancement. However, for the vast majority of sub elite folks, the basic development that you give up while VO2 training makes its emphasis a bad deal in a long term development sense.

The wide time span in the last summary point brings us to the next task:

Step 2: Determine whether you will have 1, 2 or 3 peaks this season and how long the peaks will last.

It is a simple but oft forgotten fact that for every peak performance the athlete gives up valuable training time in the form of taper and recovery. In relative performance terms, an athlete can expect ~7.5% less relative performance improvement over the course of a year for every additional peak (assuming a 1-2 week taper and 2-4 week transition/prep period after each). In other words, if the athlete could potentially improve their performance 10% with one annual peak, they will likely improve only 9.25% if 2 true peaks are attempted, this is down to 8.5% for 3 peaks etc etc.

Additionally, while in theory, a relative peak can be held for a competitive season of 6 months (as displayed by the performance of ‘career triathletes’ on the ITU circuit) maintenance and improvement are 2 different things. It is only when the athlete reaches the limits of their own personal performance that such a strategy is appropriate. With the small differences separating Olympic medals, one could argue that in an Olympic year this strategy is not even appropriate for these folk!!

Generally speaking, the intelligent developing athlete should plan one true peak with a full taper and active recovery period each year. This is not to say that they shouldn’t race B and C events during the year, in fact, I recommend a mid-year B event for most of my athletes in order to mentally break up the season. However, the important thing is that if the highest levels of improvement are to be attained, these B and C events should be performed relatively untapered and should be sufficiently short that they don’t require extended recovery (much longer than a normal key workout). Additionally, in an ideal world, these races will be selected to support the training aims of that mesocycle.

In summary, plan 1 true peak period of only 2-4 weeks and be careful with the effort level of your B and C events!

Step 3: Take a CONSERVATIVE guess at your starting point (load)

Plain and simple, this is where a lot of athletes go wrong. For year to year improvement to occur, an athlete needs to let A LOT of fitness slide in between training seasons. Consequently, the starting load of the following season should be very low in comparison to last year’s peak. This is a tough pill to swallow when we’re talking a 50-70% reduction in tolerance to training load in the space of 6-8 weeks but believe me, IT IS NECESSARY. In fact, for a lot of good age group & neo-pro athletes it is the difference between remaining ‘good’ in the following season or becoming GREAT!

Some suggestions related to peak volume in the preceding season.



These numbers are assuming a couple of things:
1. We’re talking about sustained volume, not one off camp weeks.
2. We’re assuming the bulk of training is easy-steady aerobic training
3. We’re assuming that peak volume occurred within the past 3 months

And, most important of all…
4. We’re assuming the athlete took a month off serious training at the end of the season!!

Step 4: Come up with a balanced (general) weekly program that represents mixed training methods at an appropriate load.

Even at the beginning of the year, providing the athlete is healthy (getting rid of any niggles is a high priority of the transition period), some training content from all intensity zones should be included:
- A BULK of easy-steady aerobic training
- One slightly longer session each week in each sport (~1.5x average)
- Gentle whole body strength/circuit training 2x/wk
- An up-tempo effort on at least one of the aerobic days (5-8% of weekly total)
- One solid effort at least every other week (<5% of weekly total) – a timed 1500 run or CP5
- A small amount of regular fast training – reps, strides, jumps, sprints in each sport(<3%) of weekly total

So, for a novice triathlete (training for anything from a super-sprint to a long course triathlon) with a peak weekly load of ~40hrs/mo in the previous season, an initial basic week may look something like….



Step 5: Get out the door and train! Every day!

The above 5 steps represent the limit of my preliminary planning.

The direction you will take from here depends on:
- Progressively moving towards the specific needs of your event
- Revealing your current strengths and weaknesses (a moving target)
- Figuring out how your body responds to training (another moving target)

There is only one way to answer the last two questions – Get out there!

Tune in next time for more on ‘the method’ and above all else…

Train Smart.

AC

The Fatigue Curve

A big part of understanding the training process comes down to understanding all there is to know about being tired. After all, in order to ‘supercompensate’ to a level of fitness above the ‘norm’ requires the athlete to take on more work and become more fatigued than they would ordinarily submit themselves to.

However, fatigue in and of itself isn’t enough. If the athlete doesn’t allow sufficient time to supercompensate from a given training session, in other words, if the athlete decides to ‘kick himself while he’s down’, all he or she will do is get more tired rather than more fit.

To complicate matters, there are all kinds of ways of getting both tired and fit and to train effectively, the coach or athlete needs to have some rudimentary understanding of them all. For example, no serious athlete can afford to wait for full structural recovery (repair of muscle fibers and functionally disturbed mitochondria) between sessions. To do so would mean that the athlete would be reduced to performing about a session a month. Even the fast responder must concede that it takes more than 6 miles of running a month to achieve anything in endurance sport!! And so the athlete is left to only allow partial recovery between most sessions. This brings us to the concepts of ‘residual tiredness’ & the ‘fatigue curve’(below).



We can ostensibly divide the recovery from fatigue into 4 key periods.

Phase 0: High-Energy Recovery:

Refers to recovery within the session, i.e. the recovery of muscle ATP and Creatine Phosphate stores, resaturation of muscle myoglobin stores with O2 and general repayment of the classic ‘O2 debt’ that comes with vigorous exercise and enables us to repeat this vigorous exercise with relatively short rest. This is the basis of interval training.

Phase 1: Metabolic Recovery

However, even allowing for recompensation of the body’s O2 needs, if sufficient steady-state training or a sufficient number of intervals is completed, eventually the athlete will begin to run low on glycogen. This phase of fatigue (phase 1) requires longer to recover from - 24-96hrs depending on the level of fatigue, the muscle fibers involved and the content of the athlete’s diet. This is the basis of ‘hard-easy’ training within the microcycle or week.

Phase 2: Structural Recovery

Yet, even applying an intelligent approach to structuring your weekly training isn’t sufficient when it comes to recovery. With every one of these tough sessions, a residual muscular damage is carried over from session to session. In other words, the 48-72hrs between hard sessions, while sufficient for supercompensation of the body’s glycogen stores is insufficient for repair and supercompensation of the muscle fibers and intramuscular components which represent a large part of the long term performance improvement in endurance sport. It is both desirable and necessary to do structural damage that will eventually compromise performance within the mesocycle or loading block. This is providing these ‘beat down’ cycles are accompanied by a ‘worthwhile break’ at the completion of the cycle. This period may be 7 days, 10 days or 14 days or more depending on the recovery needs of the athlete. The important thing is that the athlete recovers their performance potential once each cycle. You may notice that this aspect of fatigue comprises about 50% of the fatigue curve. Therefore this aspect of recovery is the key component in the training response.

Phase 3: Neuro-Endocrine Recovery

And, still, even the use of appropriate recovery between sessions and between cycles is not enough to prevent an eventual performance plateau in long term training. In addition to the issue of residual damage, the athlete must also deal with the habituation to stress that comes with long term load cycles. In the interests of protection from stress, in an organism who is perpetually involved in the stress response, the body will eventually habituate itself to higher stress levels so that it literally doesn’t wear itself out. Eventually the body will ‘run out’ of stress hormones or the body’s stress receptors will become less receptive to these hormones (Lehman et al. 1993). This represents the poorly understood fatigue of the neuro-endocrine system. Therefore the response to training is blunted. When performance begins to plateau, the smart athlete rests. This represents the final phase of the fatigue curve. Periodically, a multi-month recovery period will be needed to avoid carrying this small amount of habitual fatigue from one training year to the next.

If we accept Gordo’s saying that, when it comes to training, getting tired is the point then surely a big part of being an intelligent coach and athlete is about understanding what it really means to be tired. Hopefully, in addition to helping to better elucidate the concepts of periodization, in the same way that Eskimos have 100words to describe snow, this article has added to your vocabulary of being able to define your own tiredness :-)

Train Smart.

AC

The Science of Decoupling

Those of you familiar with the training philosophies of Joe Friel (the guy decoupling big time in the shot above :-) will have no doubt come across the concept of ‘decoupling’, i.e. a shift in the power: heart rate relationship as a workout goes on.

An example of this, from one of the athletes I work with, in the form of a rise in heart rate and a drop in power as the session progresses is shown below.



Clearly, as time went on the gap between the athlete’s power and heart rate widened, to the point that by the end of the session, the difference in power:HR compared to the start is 26%. Or in other words, it is taking this athlete an extra 30 beats/min to generate the same power!!

Detailed info on the calculation of decoupling can be found here, but the general gist is; we take the power/heart rate for the first half of the session and divide it by the power/heart rate for the second half. E.g. if that athlete did 105 watts at 100bpm in the first half (power/HR = 1.05) and 100 watts at 100bpm in the second, i.e. he lost 5 watts (power/HR = 1.00), then his decoupling would be 5watts/100watts = 5%.

When you think about it, this is a pretty perplexing phenomena. We assume physiologically that a given effort requires a given amount of energy, which requires a given amount of oxygen, which in turn requires a given amount of heart beats, at least for a particular individual! So what are the causes and implications of a need for more heart beats at the same workload?

To illustrate, let’s start with a typical ex phys scenario:

Say that I start pedaling a bike at 260W, a level of power that on average requires approximately 3.5 L/min of Oxygen. As I start the exercise & my muscles figure out “we’re gonna need more O2 captain”, my body goes to work transporting O2 to the working muscles.

Let’s assume that I have 12g of hemoglobin per deciliter of blood (an average amount) Assuming 100% saturation, this 12g/deciliter carries 16ml of O2, so 160ml of O2 per liter of blood. But I need 3.5 L of O2, so it’s going to take me about 22 liters of blood per minute to keep up with the demand (3500/160). Assuming I have a cardiac stroke volume of 150ml, it will take my body 150 beats per minute to pump these 22 liters (to the ex-phys geeks, yes I’m ignoring the a-VO2 difference for the purpose of simplicity).

Pretty simple, eh? A given workload requires a given O2, which requires a given amount of heart beats. So, if the workload stays constant but the heart rate changes over time, what’s going on? At what step in the chain is the breakdown occurring?

The obvious one and the most commonly cited cause of increased heart rate for a given power is a change in stroke volume due to dehydration. If my cardiac stroke volume all of a sudden goes from 150ml down to 140ml my heart would need to beat 10 beats faster in order to get the same amount of blood per minute to the muscles. So, for my 260W, I would now be putting out 160bpm instead of 150bpm. The most common cause of this drop in stroke volume is a drop in blood volume via dehydration. For this reason, cardiovascular drift frequently occurs under hot conditions where some of the body’s fluids must be devoted to cooling rather than maintaining the integrity of the blood volume.

However, can an increase in heart rate for a given power reveal more?
Joe suggests that not only is decoupling of power and heart rate a sign of heat stress, he also uses it as an indicator of aerobic fitness. Is there a possible mechanism by which this metric could be used as a sign of not just heat tolerance, but also aerobic endurance?

Thomas and Chapman (2006) may be able to help answer the question of the validity of decoupling as a training metric. By observing VO2 during prolonged downhill walking on a steep grade, they saw a progressive rise in VO2 uptake with no change in body temperature or stroke volume. OK, you say, “the sweat thing made sense but what’s going on here?”

The break in the chain under these conditions occurs not in Oxygen transport, but Oxygen demand, i.e. at the top of the chain. During the eccentric exercise, as muscle damage occurs, the legs are forced to recruit larger, less economical muscle fibers. These fibers require a greater amount of O2 to exert a given level of power and the heart rate goes up for a given power output when the more economical fibers begin to fatigue.

In fact, type II fibers require ~twice the O2 for a given power output. Therefore, small fiber shifts result in relatively large differences in heart rate for a given power output (Coyle, 1992)

As we know, muscle damage isn’t the only cause of muscle fatigue. When a muscle fiber runs out of fuel (glycogen) it’s out of the game. Thus, decoupling can serve as an indicator of how our targeted muscle fibers are doing, both in terms of muscle damage and fuel stores.

As the targeted muscle fibers become stronger and more fatigue resistant, the time before the muscle fatigues to the point that it needs to call on it’s ‘big brother’ fibers increases. Therefore, as an athlete’s muscle fibers become more trained, decoupling over a training session decreases. In fact, the researchers above found that the effect disappeared when athletes were trained in downhill walking for a period of weeks. Or, in other words, as fitness for a given task increases, decoupling decreases.

Additionally, if we accept that HR:Power can indicate muscle damage and fuel depletion, we can also then use this metric to help determine if an athlete is adequately recovered for a key workout. If we know that typically an athlete takes 140bpm to run 7:00/mi (after warm up) we can use this number as a ‘check-in’ before key sessions. If the athlete takes 147bpm for the same pace (a difference of 5%) it may suggest that recovery is incomplete and the session should be postponed. Chuckie V wrote a great post on the practical implementation of this concept here.

Incidentally, a swing in the opposite direction can also indicate incomplete recovery via other mechanisms. In fact, over-reaching studies have typically found either decreased power/pace of ~5% for a given effort (e.g. Coutts et al. 2007, Jeukendrup et al., 1992), OR a decreased heart rate of 5% for a given power/pace (e.g. Hedelin et al, 2000). Therefore, ensuring athletes are within +/-5% of ‘normal’ power and HR is a good policy.

While it’s true that heart rate is subject to more confounding variables than other measures, it is not, as some coaches would suggest ‘useless’ as a training metric. The confounding variables can quite easily be accounted for by a good coach with effective communication and athlete knowledge. When used with a given athlete over a period of time, observing power:heart rate relationships offers the coach a fairly objective indicator of both the athlete’s base fitness and their readiness to work (two things that athletes notoriously over-estimate when left to their own devices). For this reason, in my opinion, decoupling is a key concept of science-based coaching.

Train Smart.

AC

Trust No ONE

My post on “What it Takes” from a couple of weeks back generated a good deal of discussion both in my inbox and on some internet forums. I didn’t comment on any of the forum posts because I find it much more interesting studying the psychology from afar than attempting to influence it. It is my experience that the bulk of internet ‘discussion’ is more about a proverbial peeing contest than a true attempt to learn anything so, as a general rule, I stay out of it.

It certainly was interesting, though, to watch it from afar. To watch how some good athletes were hell-bent on proving to themselves and others that they lacked ‘what it took’ to be great. The psychology is still a little puzzling to me. Even more puzzling is how they interpreted my last post to be somehow pessimistic. Let me be frank. If the thought of ‘having’ to put in 10 years in this sport in order to discover your potential is in any way depressing, then find yourself another vocation.

My curiosity turned to anger when the discussion moved to the deterministic implications of genetics. If you want to limit yourself, go ahead, but don’t generalize that others are equally limited. The logic goes, well I’ve done ‘everything I can’ over the past x amount of years to fulfill my potential in this sport and I’m still not world champion. Must be genetics.

I took a look at what the genetic research has to say on the topic of endurance sports in this post. For mine, not all that impressive and certainly not equivocal. Ironically, the same folks who took issue with the sample size of the Baker and Cote 10 year study seem to have little problem with a genetics study that uses a similar sample size trained with a high intensity 12 week training program to infer levels of ‘trainability’ for the Ironman athlete! But my hunch is that the opinions of these ‘dream crushers’ are not based on perusing the genetics research literature and weighing it against long duration physiological studies and theories on deliberate practice. Rather, my hunch is that these folks are throwing out their opinion based on a sample size of n=1.

The central problem with any n=1 opinion in endurance sports is, as the old Edison quote infers, any ‘failure’ is just as attributable to the one training program that you are following than to failure of the principle of training as a whole:

"I have not failed 1,000 times. I have successfully discovered 1,000 ways to NOT make a light bulb."

Put another way, be very careful when perusing the forums that you don’t mistake the failure of one athlete to come up with a successful method of making their light bulb for the impossibility of light bulb making as a whole.

Additionally, recognize your failures quickly and CHANGE, lest you become ‘one of them’.

The further problem is illustrated in the following story from my swim days:

I have always been a cerebral kind of guy. Always on the look out for ‘the answer’. In my swim days, I was under the impression that ‘the answer’ was technical. I remember one day before practice I was chatting with one of the superstars of our squad. This guy was the most technically beautiful swimmer than I have seen to this day. Every stroke was textbook. I would watch the guy underwater to try and work out the nuances of what he was doing with his stroke that was enabling him to swim 6s or so quicker than me in a 100 sprint. So, anyhow, conversation was slim, so I took the time to ask him, what do you do underwater that gives you such an efficient pull? His answer? I don’t know. Of course, that wasn’t enough. I asked him to demonstrate parts of the pull. When he did, his actions looked nothing like they did underwater. This guy really had no clue how he pulled off swimming as fast as he did. I’m sure never missing a session helped, but that’s the topic for another blog :-)

My point is that the same is true of most elite athletes that I have known and worked with over the years. It takes pretty dramatic consequences to enforce a 100% logbook policy in a swim squad, even an elite one. Most athletes want to do the work, not write about it. As such it is my experience that many of the best athletes have only a very vague idea (based on memory) of how they got to the level that they are at. The very best elite coaches on the other hand, record everything and have notebooks going back to the dark ages on their training programs. Unfortunately, in triathlon, there are so few truly elite coaches that provide accessible knowledge that we tend to believe verbatim the generalities of the athletes that are based on their best recollection of how they trained.

Chuckie V’s most recent blog on “How to become a champion endurance athlete” is a flat-out gem. Through the entire post, the importance of self-belief is highlighted.

Make no mistake, spending time on the forums listening to folks banter on genetics based on their limited recollection of their own n=1 sample is not just harmless web-surfing. It is life altering. With every n=1 reference that you take on, your belief in your own potential is damaged. Fortunately my own ego and pig-headedness makes me pretty immune to what others say, but if you are in any way susceptible to this stuff, keep the following in mind:

• Any ‘failure’ is purely a failure of the one program or protocol that the athlete personally selected.
• Many athletes have a very limited idea of what their selected protocol was !!

So, who do you trust? Well, I’m a pretty good starting point :-) Primarily because I have an obsession with collecting real-world data for all levels of triathlete that borders on OCD!!

But, that doesn’t sit well with the File-O-Phile in me, so in the end, I would tell you to trust RESULTS. Every athlete is an experiment of one and any ‘truths’ about the human training response are typically based on limited samples, limited time frames, along with the limited assumption of human conformity, which I am dead-set against. Every athlete is different. Your best bet for success in this athletics game is to X out the forum window, open your spreadsheet and keep detailed personal records on your personal response to a given training stimulus. In addition, keep that picture of Edison and his light bulb firmly engraved on your screen saver, along with the caption “Persistence conquers all”.

Train Smart.

AC

More on athletic balance....

How to use power curves to help determine athletic strengths and weaknesses

One of my key objectives as a coach is to address and rectify the athlete’s weaknesses with respect to the demands of their event.

The first step in addressing is assessing, i.e. determining where the athlete is physiologically weak. I use multiple means in making this assessment, including laboratory testing (which I have written about at length) along with field data, which will be the focus of this article.

One of the key principles within my training philosophy is that of athletic ‘balance’. This is no doubt, at least in part, bred from the testing that I have performed on a wide array of athletes of different events of different duration. In all cases, the general ‘athleticism’ of these athletes shines through, to some extent, irrespective of their specific event.

This is more than just platitude. In the communist GDR for example, all athletes from marathon runners to Olympic lifters to 1500m swimmers, first had to pass a ‘general athleticism test’ in order to be considered for the sports schools that would enable them to eventually practice their specialty. The criteria for a male 13 year old was as follows (Arbeit, 1997):

• Height: 1.71-1.76m
• 30m sprint: 4.0s
• 3x hop: 6.0-6.4m
• Ball throw (165g): 54-60m
• Shot Put (3.0kg): 9.0-9.5m
• 1500m Run: 4:40-4:50


My first personal ‘aha’ moment on the notion of athletic balance came ‘way back when’ during my college days. Our sports science class represented a cross section of elite athletes from a wide variety of sports, ranging from body builders to tennis players to swimmers to distance runners. It is an understatement to say that I was frequently surprised by who ‘topped the charts’ in the various physiological tests. Our body builder had the highest VO2max, a pro skateboarder topped the pull-up test and, just as surprisingly, when we took to the track for running field tests, our elite 10K/marathon runner came in top 3 in running tests of ALL DURATIONS, ranging from a 5K time trial down to a 60m dash!!

This pattern has since been confirmed as I’ve gone about my business as a coach of elite and AG swimmers and triathletes.

World class 1500m swimmers will beat National class 100m ‘specialists’ in a 100m race. Likewise, world class Ironman triathletes have surprisingly high 5sec power numbers, beaten perhaps by equally world class road and track cyclists, but certainly equal to or better than a Cat 2 ‘specialist’ sprinter (incidentally, the use of my inverted commas is an attempt to convey my view that a Cat 2 racer shouldn’t be a ‘specialist’ at anything, but rather should continue to focus on general development, but that is the subject for another blog…)

So, second to my central job of getting my athletes fit enough to train, my next job is to make sure that the training is focused on long term athletic balance, which will eventually lead to the athlete fulfilling their potential in their most genetically appropriate event. Of course, this implies that I have some idea of what ‘ideal’ balance is.

First of all, let’s throw out the epitome of athletic balance by looking at world best powers over each duration (Wilson, 2004):



Of course, despite the importance of balance that I have outlined, we wouldn’t expect a world class Ironman to also have world class anaerobic capacity. While the general shape of the curve will be the same for all athletes, parts of the curve will be warped to favor the athlete’s strengths/primary event. For example, below I have overlayed actual power data from a world class Ironman athlete with that of a similarly world class male road cyclist.



The differences are evident. While both have very strong curve ‘ends’ (in fact their maximal power is separated by less than 100W and their 4hr power by 12W!!), the difference in the middle of the curve is obvious. The anaerobic capacity of the road cyclist shines through in a significantly higher curve in the 1-20min time frames. This is the result of an athlete with very good basic strength and endurance specifically preparing for the decisive demands of their event.

On the flip-side, while not as obvious on this curve, as the duration increases, a trend is evident, the Ironman athlete loses very little power, while the road cyclists curve is on a steeper descent. Again, the result of an athlete with very high levels of strength and endurance (at least to the 4hr mark), developing the economy and lipolytic capacity to prepare specifically for the demands of their event.

If you look at the curves above, you will notice that beyond the 10 minute mark, the curve drops at a pretty steady rate (with the exception of the 30 minute point for road cyclists which falls within the range of TT performance and is therefore typically stronger than the other points). Beyond 10mins, the curve drops in a pretty linear fashion. Practically, then, the ‘steepness’ of this descent can be quantitatively defined. In fact, several coaches have developed rules of thumb that assess an athlete’s endurance via their fatigue rate. You may be familiar with Jack Daniels 2.2+10s rule, which implies a fatigue rate of 10% as the distance doubles. Joe Friel suggests a fatigue rate of 5% as the duration doubles in the Triathlete’s Training Bible, while George Dallam introduces a similar concept by looking at individual fatigue curves in Championship Triathlon Training. Based on the numbers that I have seen, here are my own rules of thumb regarding the gradient of this fatigue curve:

• Athletes with very strong endurance or who are long duration specialists, exhibit fatigue curves of ~6%. In other words, as the distance doubles, athletes with strong endurance lose ~6% of their power.

• Balanced athletes with average levels of endurance or mid-duration specialists (Time Trialists, Olympic Distance Triathletes etc.) exhibit fatigue curves in the realm of ~8%.

• ‘Top end strong’/Anaerobic athletes exhibit fatigue curves of 10% or more.

These numbers imply steady-state endurance (@ ~60% VO2max) of 90minutes+ for anaerobic athletes, 3hrs+ for mid-duration specialists and 12hrs+ for long distance/IM specialists.

Delving into this fatigue curve in a little more depth, from the database of field data that I have collected on a large number of top AG and pro athletes, I have compiled the following ‘ideal’ power-duration curve for (male) Ironman athletes.




The first number on each point represents the power duration (in minutes, for example, 0.1=6 seconds), while the second refers to the % of max power held for that duration.

So, using these numbers, in a basic development sense, if an athlete lacks the strength/power to hit max power numbers better than 4x their 2hr numbers, strength/power may be limiting. On the flipside, if an athlete is unable to hold 1/4 of their max power for a 90min session, endurance may be limiting.

Following this basic assessing and addressing of the foundational qualities, consideration can be given to specific development towards the athlete’s event. In the world of Ironman racing, this means both training to hold progressively higher % over longer durations and, just as importantly, since this is a long term project, identifying the % that they will realistically be able to hold for the next race.

For an elite Ironman competitor, this may be 21% of their maximal power, for a fit but not fully ‘Ironman developed’ athlete, it may be closer to 18%. For a novice athlete with a longer race duration, still working on basic preparation, it may be closer to 15% (lower than their ‘basic training’ intensity!!)

Ironman athletes are fundamentally, strong, fast, fit athletes (who are powerful but shy of world class short duration power) who then lay down ~6,000 hrs of specific endurance training to increase their economy, their fat oxidation and the consequent power that they can hold over the tail end of the curve by 15% or more.

In terms of development then, rather than focusing on a particular event, an athlete with a young training age is better served focusing on one of 2 general athletic weak points. Put simply, if you lack the ability to put out 4x your 2hr power in a maximal effort, focus on the strength end of the curve. If you lack the ability to hold 22-26% of your max power for sessions in the 60min to 4hr range, focus on the endurance end of the curve.

I find the power-duration curve to be a very useful ‘check-in’ tool with the athletes I work with. I hope you also find some value in this approach.

Train Smart,

AC

What it Takes (Part II)

“A dream doesn’t become reality through magic. It takes sweat, determination and hard work”
- Colin Powell.

I was in the unfortunate position over the last couple of weeks to lose 2 athletes that I had been working with one-on-one over a relatively long period of time. It bothers me on a ‘gut’ level when an athlete changes coaches. Probably harkens back to my swim coaching days when it was common for the best swimmers in our squads to abandon ship when they were either ‘poached’ by one of the less ethical coaches that made up our competition or they became impatient with the amount of work that they were putting in vs the perceived lack of results that they were achieving.

So, I decided to write this piece as a bit of a ‘reality check’ for those athletes who do aspire to reach their full performance potential in the sport of triathlon. This is in no way suggesting that reaching the front of the pack or the top of your age group is the only worthwhile goal. As Molina says, “take a look around, the fountain of youth doesn’t come easy”. Staying in fantastic shape and having fun are worthy goals.

Nor is it suggesting that the MOPers are ‘slacking off’. For your first 2-3 years in the Ironman ranks, the middle of the pack is an important developmental stepping stone on your Ironman journey. However, for those folks who’ve been in the sport for a while and are thinking about taking it to the next level, I offer the following reality checks.


Reality Check #1: There is very little difference in commitment between the top of the age-groups vs the Open Elite.

The guys who are racing Kona are doing so by getting top 10 at the most competitive Ironman distance races around the world. These folks are very serious competitors that make athletics a large part of their lives. Additionally, a surprising number of them are in a financial position to live a ‘pro triathlete’ lifestyle. In actuality, perhaps the only difference between the pros and the elite AGers is that maybe they started a little later than the pro athletes or had a period of their life that was career focused that caused them to miss their absolute window of opportunity in a physical sense. But make no mistake, these athletes aren’t holding back. They are 100% committed to reaching their potential in the sport.

Reality Check #2: It still takes a long time to get good.

Baker, Cote and Deakin (2005) studied the developmental patterns of expert, mid-pack and back of the pack Ironman athletes. They found that on average there were 12,000 hours of training behind a 9:30IM performance. Developmentally, these training hours must occur before age begins to negate performance improvements, i.e. by age 40-45. So, for an athlete who begins competing in Ironman triathlon at 25-30, they have about 15 years to accrue 12,000 hours of work. This equates to an average of 800hrs/year for 15 years!! For an athlete who goes in with some single sport experience, maybe they’ll get there in 10. For an athlete with endurance experience who commits to doing nothing but train, eat and sleep, maybe they’ll get there in 5 :-). Most of us don’t have this option.

Additionally, there are intensity limits that constrain just how ‘rushed’ this development can be. In order to challenge your aerobic abilities, a bulk of your training must be above the aerobic threshold. The glycogen cost of training at this point limits most folks to 2.5-3.5hrs/day of training. In other words, if you’re going to get ‘serious’ start now.

Now, the pattern of performance improvement illustrated by Cote’s study is both interesting and potentially discouraging, see below:



By the time the average athlete gets to a 15hr IM they have 4000hrs of training under their belt (5 years of single sport @~300hrs/yr + 5 hrs of triathlon @ ~520hrs/yr). By the time they ‘graduate’ to a 12hr ‘midpack’ performance, the average athlete has 6000 hours of training in the log books (an additional 2000hrs of training over 2.7 years for a 3hr performance improvement). However, to graduate from mid-pack (12hrs) to FOP (9:30) requires an additional 6000 hours of development!! Or, put another way, an additional 6-8 years of ‘2 a days.'

This is not unusual to the single sports. In the world of swimming, for instance, a kid with realistic goals of swimming open nationals will begin 2 a days at age 13-14 and have 6 or 7 years of these under their belt before reaching their peak performances at the national or international level in their late teens to early twenties.

Of course, one big difference is that our developmental period as long course triathletes is later than it is for swimmers and this poses some significant ‘life challenges’. Despite how it feels at the time, our lives are much more ‘simple’ during our high school years. Get up, eat, go to swim practice, go to school, leave when the bell rings, go to swim practice, eat, sleep. This is much more challenging in adulthood when other responsibilities are vying for attention. Still, this does not negate the fact that this (simplicity) is the path to success and that if you really want to compete with the guys at the top of the sport, that’s how they’re living.

Perhaps the other difference is the performance expectation that comes with 2-a-day training. I remember my promotion to the “A Squad” when coming up through the swim ranks carried with it a feeling of privilege to finally be ‘swimming with the big boys’ rather than something I needed to suffer for x amount of years in order to ‘get somewhere’. A 6 year period where long periods of high volume training offer very modest improvements in performance can be hard to take if it’s all about the ‘end game’. In fact, with the non-fitness related variables involved in the Ironman game coupled with the fact that most athletes will only race 1-2x per year, it is likely that athletes will experience seasons where despite increasing training load, performance regresses. This can be tough to deal with if you’re not getting a good deal of intrinsic motivation just from ‘living the life’.

So, what does it take?

• Persistence (irrespective of bad races)
• A lifestyle that supports 6-8 years of ‘serious’ training. What is serious training? 18-24hrs/week of aerobic training (3hrs/day, 10 sessions a week, 48 weeks a year).
• A deep love of the process

That means that, to achieve ‘your best’ in triathlon, for almost a decade, you need to be willing to put other aspects of your life in maintenance mode. It is difficult to climb the corporate ladder and the AG ranks at the same time. That doesn’t mean you need to ‘drop everything’, it just means you need the type of job (and the assertiveness) that enables you to block out time for a morning and evening training session most days for the next 6-8 yrs (see Gordo’s latest blog for more on this).
It also means, as an athlete with nothing better than an 11-13hr IM to your name, you need to have the courage or the naivety to ‘back yourself’.

This is a common decision among the majority of the guys (top age-groupers and pros) that I know who have ‘made it’. My buddy, pro triathlete, Justin Daerr comes to mind. At our last camp he recounted how, as a 12hr IM guy he planned his college class schedule around the needs of his 20+ hr training week not because of his pro ambitions, or an impending Kona goal but simply because “he enjoyed riding his bike”.

Maybe in the end, the answer to ‘what it takes’ to reach the top of the sport is to not care about ‘what it takes to reach the top of the sport’. Rather, to realize that you are committed to being a lifelong triathlete and committed to the life that it entails irrespective of performances (good or bad) or life demands at any point in the journey. A commitment to a life of consistent training offers so much more than a trophy or a ticket to Kona. As a buddy of mine says, the journey is the destination.

Train smart.

AC.

As mentioned, I have 2 open one-on-one coaching slots available for athletes who are willing to work with me for the next 5 years or so to discover their potential in the sport (athletes in current coaching relationships need not apply – I’m no poacher :-)