You train hard. You put in the hours and the effort day after day. Effort is rarely the limiting factor to an endurance athlete’s performance. Efficient allocation of that effort, or training hours, can be.
Athletes’ regimens
often consist of a combination of hard efforts (Functional
Threshold Power(FTP), Threshold, VO2 and anaerobic work) and easy efforts
(easy endurance mileage) arranged depending on schedule, available friends or
group rides, time and how they feel.
They often repeat
this schedule consistently throughout the year rather than periodizing their
training to focus on specific physiological, physical and psychological
adaptations required for success in their races. Furthermore, athletes are
often not progressing their training toward the specific effort level required
on race day.
While this
approach can result in fitness gains, especially in less trained individuals,
it will eventually lead to a plateau in performance and ultimately fail to
optimally prepare an athlete for the specific demands of their race.
Specificity is
arguably the most important aspect of training that is often overlooked or
ignored. A well-structured training plan will progress through multiple phases,
each designed to elicit specific physiological adaptations, becoming
increasingly more specific to the upcoming race. The combination of these
phases will result in the compounding of performance improvements that will
ultimately lead to the athlete’s optimal performance on race day.
The human body is
an incredible machine and is capable of immense adaptation. This adaptation is
determined by the stresses and strains we place on it. If we teach our body to
perform at a specific intensity for a specific duration, it will adapt and
improve at that task.
What it will not
do is improve at a task that we almost never introduce into our training. While
it is necessary to train all the energy systems during training, it is the
timing of specific training stimuli that will determine race performance.
A coach or
athlete must start with a “needs analysis” of what is required on race day and
assess the athlete’s current fitness, as well as their strengths and
weaknesses. The result of this analysis will guide the design of a plan to
maximize adaptations for success. This plan must evolve to become increasingly
more specific to the race demands if one is to expect success.
An Example
In the case of
long course triathlon racing, race intensities for age group athletes tend to
be around 80 to 85 percent of FTP for IRONMAN 70.3 distances and 70 to 75
percent of FTP for IRONMAN distance bike legs.
It is all too
common, however, for athletes to never experience these intensities for
anything close to race-like durations during training. Most of the training
will be focused at FTP and VO2 intensities (100 to 120 percent of FTP) or “easy
pace” (55 to 65 percent of FTP).
Specifically,
there will be interval sessions with low durations and high intensities and
there will be endurance sessions with low intensities and high durations. What
will be absent is race-like intensities for increasing durations. Why do we do
that? What will the body adapt to?
It would be more
logical to introduce race-like “stress” into training to allow the body to
adapt and become better at handling it. We still want improvements in VO2 and
FTP but, as we get closer to race day, we want our training to become
progressively more specific.
That is why
introducing race-specific sessions is such a powerful tool in an athlete’s or
coach’s toolkit. These sessions can be based on Training
Stress Score® (TSS) and evolve from low intensity and high duration to
race-like intensity and race-like duration. Over time the body will adapt to
the stress and become better at handling it.
Leverage
Technology
Technology has
made remarkable advancements in recent years and has provided us with an
abundance of tools to accurately measure our efforts. Why not take advantage of
these tools to ensure all our hard work pays off on the big day?
Power meters on
the bike allow precise measurement of our effort, making specificity in
training easier than it has ever been before. Heart rate monitors and GPS on
the run have been a staple of training for years now and allow real-time
feedback to guide training and racing.
Power for the run
is a relatively new tool, but it promises to revolutionize the sport by making
that feedback even more valuable, increasing the level of precision in training
prescription and analysis as well as race pacing.
With all these
tools at our disposal, it becomes a matter of understanding, planning and
implementation to create tailored and race-specific workouts and training plans
that will vastly increase the probability of success on race day.
Use the Data
We now have the
capability to precisely measure the overall training stress placed on our
bodies. With this knowledge we can forecast race demands with considerable
accuracy and structure our training to prepare our bodies for them.
Moreover, we can
create a long-range plan and monitor actual adaptations versus what we have
forecast. This will provide insight on the specific individual characteristics
of each athlete, making precise adjustments to their training to further fine
tune their race preparation.
We can discover
that the “plan” for race day is either too aggressive or conservative,
depending on how an athlete responds and progresses through training. We can
also track an athlete’s adaptation to the required race demands over time to
reinforce their confidence that they are making progress toward their goal.
On the flip side,
the data can also alert an athlete or their coach to the fact that the current
training plan is not preparing the athlete for the demands of their race. The
data won’t lie!
For example, an
athlete who is preparing for an IRONMAN race but who likes to join his local
cycling group one to two- hour road race style ride will see fitness gains on
the bike, but will those gains be the ones that will be the most appropriate
for their ultimate race goal?
I would argue that
the answer is “no.” The data will bear proof to this by showing improvement in
the ability to repeatedly produce power for a break—a useful trait in a cycling
road race—but not in the metrics that matter for an IRONMAN, such as four to
five hour smooth power production.
Fitness can be
described and measured in countless different ways. It all depends what you are
trying to achieve. A power lifter is fit, so is a track and field sprinter and
so is an IRONMAN athlete. However, most of
us would agree that if you put any of those athletes in the others’ competition
they would do rather poorly. Therein lies the concept of specificity. Your body
will excel at what you train it to do. Your training should create the aerobic,
anaerobic and muscular foundation to maximize your (or your athlete’s)
physiological and physical potential and then fine tune it to specific race
demands.
A well-designed
training plan will create this framework in a logical and organized manner.
This will guide an athlete through the multiple cycles, addressing all the
energy systems, each timed specifically to build upon the previous one to
maximize the overall performance gains.
As the race draws
near, the training should transition to ever more specific race preparation to
optimize the adaptation to the particular demands of the upcoming competition.
Any athlete will gain confidence by seeing their performance improve. This
confidence will be a powerful motivator to adhere to the training and ultimately
result in their best performance on race day.
We are all
familiar with and live by the saying “don’t try anything new on race day,” so
why would we try a new intensity level? How will your body respond to a “new”
stimulus on race day? The answer is “probably not that well.”
A
well-constructed training
plan will encompass all the primary energy systems but will become
increasingly specific to race intensity as the race approaches. This will not
only allow for specific adaptations that will benefit the athlete on race day
but will also build confidence that the specific and planned for pace is known
and sustainable for the duration of the race. The end result will be an
athlete’s optimal performance on race day!
