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Understanding Athletic Performance
Like all great athletes I have met, Dave is passionate about protocol. In fact, the strongest similarity between top athletes lies not in their programs, but in the powerful belief they have in their program. Across the week of our Boulder camp we had presentations from Marilyn & Chris McDonald; Laura & Greg Bennett; Bobby McGee; Dave Scott and Justin Daerr. One of the challenges facing a passionate athlete is the fact that every speaker will talk about a different approach -- some speakers will also share multiple approaches that they have used across a 10-30 year athletic career. This can be confusing! Let's start with the basics: What work-rate is required for YOU to achieve your goals? For me to go sub-4 in a Half Ironman, 275 watts of average output is likely to be required (at least!). The word "average" is important there because, to optimize my race, I will need to be able to recover below that effort and sustain extended periods above that effort. One school of thought is to build the capacity to hold that exact level of output. Looking at my lactate profile, you will see that level of output is a Threshold effort for me. Click to blow these charts up in a lightbox
FUEL Chart (June 09)
Where It Can Go Wrong You sit down with a piece of paper and work out the exact work rate required to hit your goals. However, too often, we fail to pay attention to: 1 - What are the factors that impact capacity to do work? See below. 2 - How can I reduce the work-rate required to achieve my goals? Strategic race pacing. 3 - For how long do I need to sustain this work-rate capacity? We only need to be in race shape on race day! If you want to optimize your personal performance (or the performance of your athletes/clients) then it is worth understanding the wide range of tools available: Quantitative Methods
As coaches, each of us will have a bias against some, or all, of the quantitative methods. Be wary of letting your intellectual arrogance hold back your athletic wisdom. As athletes, each of us will tend to gravitate to the quantitative method that most flatters our self-image. If the data indicates a personal limiter that is a fundamental aspect of performance for your event then training against preference could be beneficial. Qualitative Methods
Basing your program on "Goal Work Rate" could fry you long before race day. A top-down fitness program is ignoring the realities facing a working athlete with kids & marriage. It also ignores that fact that most of us share bottom-up limiters to athletic performance (see below). Work done, plus the factors above, plus my personal genetics, plus a reasonable plan... feed together to produce my capacity for work-rate on race day. This is a long way of saying -- consider, then address, the factors that limit your capacity to do work. What Factors Limit My Ability To Do Work? I also have a belief system that makes it difficult for me to let-things-slide. If I ramp my training load up too quickly (either volume or intensity) then things start to slide and my mental capacity is diminished. My bike test indicated that my top end endurance was superior to my bottom end fitness. The lactate curve that you see above (June 2009) is the common shape for an agegroup triathlete. It's a linear curve. My metabolic fitness (measured by the "black" above) is a good thing to have (when fit) but dangerous to have when highly motivated and detrained. My capacity to oxidize fat means that I can fuel personally devastating training! If you have superior anaerobic capacity then you are able to wreck yourself (just differently from me!). Meeting my non-triathlon goals (Monica, Lex and Endurance Corner) requires me to be emotionally stable, and mentally capable. These aspects of my life also have a direct impact on my capacity to do work when it most matters. Taking all of the above -- and considering that I would like to maintain an option to be blazing fast every few years for the rest of my life... ...a phased approach to endurance training makes sense. Put another way, I can feel great and meet all my responsibilities with a moderate program that consistently builds my capacity to do work. Frankly, that's enough for me to be pretty happy! If I choose to go the next step (bumping my work rate) then it only takes a few weeks of specific preparation to get there. Strategic Overview Swim - I do the EC program as designed. The overall goal is to make the swim "energy neutral" (see Alan's blog on Energy Pacing). My swimming involves some high HR training. Honestly, I think that I might be hitting it a bit too intesely. However, the EC program is based on what I've learned from Monica and it works. I have not (yet) had any workout compromised by my swim intensity. Because swimming involves less muscle mass and is non-impact... I might be tolerating the higher work-rate training better than I expected. Bike - My cycling is low-standard deviation best-average riding. I'd like to build my capacity to hold 200w "forever" before I start moving up the curve. While I could ride more intensely, I'd be up around 3 mmol of lactate and would not be able to meet my marriage/fatherhood/work goals as effectively. Besides, I'm rolling up decent kilojoules and I don't want to be "really fast" until November 2010. Why make life tougher than it needs to be? Run - This is where I am doing my intensive aerobic work. Similar to my cycling, I could sustain some higher intensity work but capping at max aerobic heart rate (145 bpm) is working well for me. While I could insert some faster running, I think that it would impair my capacity to roll up "steady" running. Again, why make it tough on myself. Strength - I have potential biomechanical limiters in my feet as well as my knees/hips. So you'll see that I am hitting the gym quite strongly. The day before I rode up Mt Evans (14,000 feet), I went heavy in the gym (squats to 225 lbs and leg press to 540 lbs). This was psychologically VERY tough for me. Before a race, test or TT... it is always tempting to freshen up. However, if I freshen then I might impair my capacity to do work (which depends on superior leg strength). Aerobic Benchmarks
Until I can tick-the-box on all of the above, there's not much point for me to shift focus on LT/FT work. Even when I can tick-the-box... my AeT power/pace will have likely shifted and I'll need to keep working on my bottom end. I have achieved the middle "box" for each of the benchmarks above. I have to achieve the benchmarks without material decoupling or recovery being required. There is a qualitative aspect of this that you'll see me reference in my training log entries. The training camps and low-priority races that I have coming up in August & September will provide me with ample high intensity stimulation and protocol variability in my program. I will keep you updated with my progress - having to report to you makes it easier for me to stick to the plan! g
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We were very fortunate to have Dave Scott as our special guest to close out our July Boulder Camp this week. Dave made the observation that, more than protocol, what defines a Master Coach is the ability to get an athlete to do work.
