Trap 9: The Terrible Toos 3 - sameness

Training is simply the accumulation of repeated exercise or training sessions. That doesn’t mean that you should repeat the same types of sessions week in or week out. Of course, practical and life constraints make daily/weekly structure – more accurately, routine - imperative for most. 

But, within that, your training sessions can and should vary in their nature, structure and content on a daily, weekly and mesocycle basis.  They should reflect the objectives of the block or phase you’re in, your training age and developmental stage, and any necessary daily flexibility. Don’t base them on whims, group agreement, a squad approach, what you did last week, nor lazy/slack planning.

·      Too much haphazard training repeated week after week (see Traps 1, 2, 5, 6 & 7).

Get out: Follow the plan that gives direction to your program and sessions

Prevention: Have a plan, not just a program. Work the plan, not simply follow a program

·      Too much emphasis on weekly volume (kilometres or hours), and too little focus on meeting individually planned aims, objectives and performance-related criteria

Get out: Numbers don’t dictate success; they simply fuel pride. Train with purpose, flexibility and joy. Don’t’ confuse progress measured by training-based numbers with development by performance-based criteria

Prevention: have an individualised plan. Work your plan

·      Too little direction: goals that are too lofty or too general

Cure: some training is better than none. Be realistic in relation to where you’re at, the time and resources available, and the progress you’re likely to make.

Prevention: get a coach, or mentor. Review your past, plan your present and progress toward your future

·      Too few priorities

Get out: focus upon 1 or 2 key elements per session, and do these well.

Prevention: Priorities should change dependent upon your strengths & weaknesses, your previous training load/s, and the objectives of your training cycle or phase

·      Too little variety in sessions (structure), locations, loading, routines and programs.

Get out: think, and create. Aim to do 1 thing different each session for a month.  

Prevention: Training loads can and should be systematic, progressive and varied. This isn’t the same as trying to go further or faster each week

·      Too much (run-) training when tired. Learn to ‘train to run when tired’, not simply ‘run when tired’

Get out: don’t beat yourself up too much with racing, run-training and complementary training. They’re all pieces to a puzzle. Watch the ‘quality’ of your running (ie. technique and form) when fatigued. Bad mental, technical and physical habits will return when fatigued during competition

Prevention: Train for improvement over time, not all the time. Make the time to learn, understand, practise, rehearse and train ‘running well’ when tried. Remember ‘better is better’.

·      Too much emphasis on ‘survival’ rather than ‘performance’

Get out: don’t beat yourself up physically and mentally with training or racing. Be wary of the language, thoughts, approach and habits you use in your approach to training and sessions. Think and train for performance, not simply surviving

Prevention: Build success into your program and progress, not failure. Use your log/dairy and plan to reduce the impact of the lows, and increase the duration of the highs

·      Too much reliance on the ‘squad’ or ‘group’ approach.

Get out: there is also a “u” (you) in sqUad and groUp, ensure you’re catered for.
Prevention: if you’re not catered for, move on. A good dose of solo-training isn’t a bad thing – race it, train it.

Do you fall into the sameness trp?

Running Trap 6: Is More Better?

Through 2010-14 I have held discussions, meetings, race and program reviews, and constructed strategic performance plans with over 700 runners and coaches (and 350+ triathletes). Here are the Top Ten Run-training Traps as a summary. There’s also a cure or ‘get-out’, and a long-term prevention strategy for each.

Remember, what works for the pros and what are promoted as “the best”, “the most effective”, “the ideal”, “the latest” or “short-cuts ” are rarely what they are made out to be. They simply don’t work for most. Perhaps these are your traps?

Trap 6: ‘If some is good, more is better’:

With the accumulation of experience and training volume (and appropriate footwear), without an endurance background, you’ll improve for your first 2-3 years regardless of what you do. Unfortunately, there is no universal truth to ‘if some is good, more is better’. Most runners learn this the hard way, yet experience is often a great teacher. Just ask 2012 Hawaii Ironman World Champion Pete Jacobs, too. It took him a few years to figure out “for me, it’s best to train less than everyone else”.

Doing more – there is a time and place, and it changes. Sometimes, little and less is more.

Get out: Avoid aiming to simply do more each week or session. Indulge true hard training occasionally, and easy training more often. Respect all your commitments: time, energy and emotion, and balance ambition with (current) ability

Prevention: aim to find your individual “sweet-spot”. Not all training plans and programs, volumes, intensities and sessions work the same way for all people. They don’t even work the same way for you the next and the next and the next time around. Strategic and systematic variation and progression over time will allow you to find your own “sweet-spot”

Too much of the same type of running (or structured routine) too early. Running is an economical, efficient and effective way of getting fit. Running for health and fitness, is necessarily different to run-training for performance – although ‘good’ programs for each are based upon the same principles. The same type of running, on the same terrain (flat), on the same surface/s (even, hard), at the same speed/s, in the same patterns teach and train us to get better at that. Running hill repeats makes you better at that hill, not necessarily a better hill runner. Your body adapts to routine and habits (and your mind to myths, fallacies and beliefs) too, not just training

Get out: Learn and use other speeds, surfaces, terrains, hills, structures and even time of day., even if initially as warm-up and warm-down. They’ll add spice, variety and options to training. Think about some non weight-bearing (pool, bike, elliptical), and targeted or functional strength training too.

Prevention: See a run coach. Record your running. Ask & find out the differences between run mechanics, technique and form. They’re not the same things, and too many people and lay magazines and books use the terms interchangeably. Review, analyse and train to improve them. They’ll improve your “feel”: feel more comfortable running; feel of running; and feel how changes in your posture, stride, head position, arm-action, pace, and breathing can and need to be catered for in different run-situations. Use ‘Other Run’, ‘Medley’ and ‘Strength’ blocks or cycles in relevant phases of your multi-year and year plan(s) to guide your program and sessions.

For the record 'doing better is better', not necessarily 'doing more is better'.

Which are you better at? 

Running Traps 5

Through 2010-14 I have held discussions, meetings, race and program reviews, and constructed strategic performance plans with over 700 runners and coaches (and 350+ triathletes). Here are the Top Ten Run-training Traps as a summary. There’s also a cure or ‘get-out’, and a long-term prevention strategy for each.

You want training to be what you want it to be, and effective. Yet, amongst the technology, self-professed gurus, and Coach-google, basic training errors are still made: many out of running’s present culture, some out of habit and ego. Are you trapped by these?

 So far, we've looked at:

Trap 1: Training Habits - as your, goals, capacity and experience change so your planning, and training should.
Trap 2: No Plan - plans provide direction and guidance, and shouldn't be confused with your program nor weekly routine
Trap 3: No Log, Journal or Diary - they're different things. Construct your own (by hand) and use the the feedback to feed-forward to plan, train and run better.
Trap  4: Lack of Athletic Intelligence - develop your smarts for, of and from your running, training, races and performance. Become a smarter, better runner.

There some traps that relate directly to your training, and are good follow-ons from Traps 1 & 2...

Trap 5: The Mish-Mash, Hodge-Podge or Bitsa training week: 

An interval session, a tempo or threshold run and a long run per week don’t make a run program. A swim session or deep-water session here, an elliptical or cycle session there, don’t make cross-training; a cross-fit workout here a boot-camp there, don’t make purposeful or targeted functional strength training. Training sessions organized as a weekly routine aren’t a program, nor a plan. They are simply a smattering of varied sessions – bits-of-this and bits-of-that,  ‘in hope’ of getting better:

• Get out: Train with purpose, flexibility and enjoyment. Appreciate that not all types of sessions need to be done each week, nor given the same emphasis each week of your program or plan. Avoid the same session that your entire squad does week-in week-out

• Prevention: Are you caught up in run-training culture and can’t see the forest for the trees? Construct or revisit your plan, and work your plan. The nature, structure and content of your sessions should be individualised, progressive and cyclic, and change (become more race specific) as you move through your development and season or year.  

     If you do little bits of everything you're likely to achieve a whole lot of not much. 

     How does your week, program and plan look? Bits of this and bits of that?

Planning: from Hope to Happening

“Plan your work, then work your plan.”

“Failing to plan is planning to fail.”

You’ve heard them all before – the mantras about the importance of planning. You plan your holidays, plan your budget/s, plan a weekend away, plan a night out, plan a trip to the countryside or the city. You most likely follow plans at work. And, have plans for your kids’ education.

What about your training? And racing? Are they planned?

Maybe you follow a weekly training schedule or routine out of habit, and then “hope” that you race faster. Or, a monthly program rehashed from the internet, a magazine, or a squad coach, again provides your race-day “hope”.

Most recreational runners (triathletes, cyclists) simply want to be fast(er) now. They think that if they train a little further or longer, a little harder, for more days of the week, and take less rest, that they can have those big PB’s, stay ill-health and injury free, have life-balance, and get better from year to year. All in “hope”.

During running Performance Reviews, Program Revisions, and in developing Strategic Performance Plans for individuals, I always ask to see their  (current) training plan.

In some cases, I get a vague outline of a week’s training sessions. Sometimes I see a print-out of a loose schedule or routine. Or, 3-4 week’s of sessions presented in A4 landscape. Beyond going a little further or faster each week, each session is essentially the same. Again, in “hope”.

Sometimes I can tell the software program, book, or squad they’ve got it from. “Thanks, a program. Yet, where’s your plan?”

I often get “Oh, I thought this was a plan?”. Let’s clarify:

A training plan is a bigger-picture guide. It may be a Long Term Athletic Development plan over 6-8 years for a very good junior athlete/runner. It may be an Olympic or quadrennial plan for an elite competitor. It is usually an Annual or Yearly that guides and directs most triathletes toward and through their next competitive season. A triathlete that travels from north to south hemispheres may have two race-season planned into a year. These, along with extended lead-up periods of time to (longer events) of, say, 16, 20, 24 or 26 weeks duration, are usually referred to as macrocycles. Each of these plans are premised upon an aim, training objectives or outcomes, and various (objective) performance goals.

A training program supports the direction of your plan. It commonly, but is not limited to, 3-4 weeks of structured training sessions aimed to support key elements of your performance improvement. The sessions should not be ad hoc, nor should they simply require you to go further or faster in a weekly format. Each program should be reviewed, assessed and revised at it’s end, and the outcomes fed into the structure, content, methods and loading of the next program – yet, still based upon the direction of your plan. Ego interferes here.

A training schedule is a 5-14 day period of time where various training sessions are completed to meet specific outcomes. For most, given the structural demands of modern life – a job, family, study etc – a 7 day schedule is used. Different sessions, methods of training and loading (patterns) are used on different days to develop or maintain particular training outcomes.

A training routine is a training schedule where the same type of session is followed on the same day of the week. For some, it’s the same session from Monday-to-Monday or Tuesday-to-Tuesday and so on with 1 or 2 more reps, a few extra kms, or the same reps a little faster.

A training session is the working and practical component of your schedule. It’s work time. It, and it’s smaller training units, are what over time, should take you from HOPE to HAPPENING.

All that said:

•  a novice - a newbie - to running or, in particular, triathlons, without much of an endurance fitness background, will get better regardless of what they do – some training is better than none
• runners and triathletes improve over their first 2-3 years as they accumulate race-experience, and their body adapts to the increased demands of regular training
• habits are set up over the first few season/years too – some positive, some aren’t. The most common habit that has infiltrated running and triathlon training: “if some is good, more must be better”
• plans should not be too prescriptive. Providing guidance and direction, they’re structured to ensure you do appropriate types of training and recovery in optimal proportions, at strategic times, for defined periods of time…to ensure improved performance “happens”
• not all sessions should be strictly defined and have measurable outcomes. Many runners do train for enjoyment, fun and social reasons – don’t lose perspective on these
• a good plan, program and supporting schedule or routine, has built in flexibility

If you’re serious about getting better and being more competitive - plan your training, then train to your plan. Enjoy your training and racing more, and minimize burnout, boredom, ill-health and injury – plan your training, then train to your plan. Planning training and training to their plan/s – is bread and butter for true competitors and the elite. They make it “happen”.

Train smart. Train with purpose, and enjoyment. Plan. Training to ensure you don’t race in hope, train to ensure you improve and the racing will take care of it self. Make it happen.