Noise
Getting back to the writing as I received some good feedback recently when i wrote with a little more opinion on things. There is a LOT of noise in the endurance sport space of late and I want to help you identify what is good noise and what is bad. Then how to traverse the space to get the best deal for you.
Unfortunately the key to this piece’s success will be it’s brevity. We are conditioned to click off if it’s too long to read. That information “fast food” called instagram has conditioned us to devour our education in 10 second pieces. No longer will we read a long form article. How sad.
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Hey Coach ! Your athletes have hundreds of coaches in their pockets. Everyone of them selling something. A hack. A method. A bombshell.
Hey athlete ! Stick to your basics. There are no hacks. There are only endurance training core principles.
Reading or watching yet another “tip” is not helping you - it is eroding your belief in the basics.
HPT is built on core principles. Volume, intensity, specificity, technique and patience.
Training Volume : We are now finally understanding the volume piece a lot better. It doesn’t matter what level you are at volume works. BUT ! The better you get the more you need. Yep - for athletes on low fitness small volumes improve fitness. For athletes on higher levels of fitness you need bigger volume stimulus to get similar levels of adaptations (or more focus on some high intensity intervals).
Training Intensity Distribution : Pyramidal ? Polarised? What model to use? The answer is we use both at different times of the yearly training cycle and it will be different for every single athlete. Be wary of advice / sales techniques that leads to “dogma”. That a certain method is the answer to your needs.
Specificity : Make sure you are training in specifics. The trainer is a great example. It is a valuable training tool that allows us to train conveniently at any time and in any weather conditions. But races aren’t done on the trainer and you need time on the road focussing on speed … NOT power. Likewise the pool. 100 and 200 intervals are great to develop fitness and keep you stimutlated but you NEED longer pieces of work. Races aren’t 15 x 100 on 10sec rest.
Technique : This is the largest part of the information overload market. Why ? because it’s sooo easy to grab a camera and do a 1min reel on what you should be doing in the pool - post it - and then watch the “engagement”. It’s dopamine for coaches. Good technique takes years to develop. Hundreds of coaching prompts. Repeated conversations and messages. Looking at a 1min video doesn’t mean you will take away a 10sec improvement in your 100m time the next time you get in. Trust proven systems.
Patience : Endurance sport has so many variables. You need to get your basics right and keep applying them. Be patient with them. Identify your areas of need and create a hierarchy. If swim is your need then prioritise it and talk to your coach about it. If you are serious about it you willl invest the time and energy over years. Nothing great comes from a quick fix.