Steel City Endurance Racing

Hey Team,

This post is an introduction to the concept of training stress, which incorporates both duration and intensity of not only a single training session, but also of multiple training sessions over a period of time (frequency).  I’m not even going to apologize for not being brief as I realize that’s impossible for me.  You may, however, want to print this out and read it while at (or pretending to) work (wink).

First some basics. Fitness is gained in both a stepwise and periodic fashion, sometimes in quantum leaps and sometimes you’ll experience stagnation and fatigue.   In order to gain fitness you must provide a progressive overload to your system, and then allow time to recover. Progressive overload means that you gradually expose your body to more work and effort than it was previously exposed to.  The initial outcome is fatigue and tissue breakdown. But with proper nutrition and recovery, the body responds by building stronger muscles, connective tissue and bone, and ready to handle that same workload again. By alternating periods of work and then recovery on  a day to day, week to week , month to month and even year to year cycle, you will see gradual improvements in your fitness.

This raises 2 questions in my mind:
1)  How do you measure fitness?
2)  How do you create progressive overload?

The first question I addressed in last week’s post regarding testing. As Aaron pointed out, there are a number of additional tests that can be done if you have a power meter. If and when you aquire one I’d be happy to discuss all this with you.

A far more interesting question is…how do you create progressive overload? I’m just going to go over some really basic points here, that may be review for you especially if you’ve read Friel’s or Carmichael’s books. But I want to be sure we’re all on the same page. The next part in the series will be the fun part, and is where my philosophy on structured training differs from what you read in the Training Bible. I’ll explain the concepts of base, what “junk miles” are or aren’t, and further explore the concept of training stress and how to apply it to your own training.

(In the examples below, I’ve used running, but the same principals apply to cycling, although the 10% rule applies mostly to running).

To understand training stress, you first need to understand the three basic components of training that you can manipulate to create progressive overload. The mnemonic you can use is F.I.T.

Frequency
Intensity
Time (or Duration)

Frequency refers to how often you exercise … 3 days a week? 4 days? 6 days? Two a days?

Intensity is typically measured in training zones that are defined by heart rate, pace or power. Most schemes divide intensity into zones that fall above and below a “threshold” effort, or the maximum effort that you can sustain for a long period of time (yep, the definition is frequently that general). There are 3,5 and 7 zone intensity scales, as well as Perceived effort rating scales that can go from 1-5, 1-10 or 6-20. Regardless of which zone system or rating scale you use, just be certain that you use it consistently and that you understand (roughly) how your scale fits with scales that other athletes or authors may use so that you can perform workouts at a similar effort as prescribed.

Time refers to the length of the training session usually measured in total hours and minutes, as an alternative, some people choose to measure time/duration in miles, but I find time to be a better metric to use, since the distance covered will vary with the intensity, but the time spent exercising won’t vary.  That is, you can do 30 minutes at race pace or 30 minutes at endurance pace…it’s still 30 miutes but the distance covered varies with the intensity.
Any one of these three variables can be changed singly, or in combination in order to increase the overload on an athlete’s system from week to week. For example say an athlete is running 3 miles, 3 times a week at an easy “conversational” pace.  (i.e. the athlete is not breathing hard at all).  In order to create a week of trianing with progressive overload the athlete could change any one of those three parameters:
Frequency:  Increase the number of days running from 3 to 4 days a week.

Intensity:  Increase one of the runs from an easy “conversational” pace to a “tempo” pace where speaking is still
possible, but sentances are a few words at a time

Time: Increase the time  (or distance) spent running for one of those training sessions.

Here are three examples of how Suzy the Runner can take her 3 miles/3 days a week/conversational pace workout week and slightly increase the overload:

1)   Increase Frequency:  Run 4 days this week instead of 3.  Make the 4th running day very short and easy so as not to increase the total by more than about 10%.

Monday: 3 miles easy
Tuesday: Rest
Wednesday: 3 miles easy
Thursday: 1 mile easy
Friday: Rest
Saturday: 3 miles easy
Sunday: Rest

2)   Increase the intensity of one of the runs slightly

Monday: 3 miles easy Tuesday: Rest
Wednesday: 3 miles as follows (1 mile easy, 1 mile moderate, so that breath is short but not labored, 1 mile easy)
Thursday: Rest
Friday: Rest
Saturday: 3 miles Easy
Sunday: Rest

3)   Increase the time (distance) of one of the runs

Monday: 3 miles easy Tuesday: Rest
Wednesday: 4 miles easy
Thursday Rest:
Friday:  Rest
Saturday: 3 miles easy
Sunday: Rest

Notice that in each example, the increase is very slight, but because it is more than the athlete is used to, she will be forced to adapt to that new workload.  Also notice in each case that there is an extra day of rest following the increased workload (ie, 2 days rest after running 2 days in row, 2 days rest after increasing the intensity of the midweek run, or 2 days rest after increasing the length of the midweek run.

There are a few rules of thumb to follow in order to avoid injury. Notably for running since there is so much impact and stress on the body is to avoid increasing the total distance or duration by more than 10% per week.  That’s why the extra run in example 1 is only 1 mile long. It may not seem like much, but for our sample athlete, 1 mile represents slightly more than 10% of her current weekly mileage (9 miles per week/mpw).

When increasing intensity, however, it becomes much more difficult to measure how much of an increased stress the athlete undergoes. The time (duration/distance) of the workout has stayed the same, but the intensity has increased.  How much to increase intensity from week to week is difficult to account for and it obviously depends on how intense the added work was.  In this case, 10% of the athlete’s weekly mileage is being done at a slightly harder intensity. While 10% of high intensity work per week is high for someone doing a lot of mileage, in our 9 mpw Suzie Runner example, she has to start somewhere. If she finds that she is noticeable fatigued the next day, or if during the effort she feels far more tired than she expected, she can simply make the effort ½ mile (5 minutes) instead of a mile. The following week, she can try that same effort level again, or
incrase it by 5 -10 minutes and see how she feels.

In this way, building fitness requires that the athlete monitors her progress and how she feels from day to day and from workout to workout…making a training long vital.

Chew on that information for awhile and let me know if you have questions. Like I said, this may be basic review for some people, but new to others..  Stay tuned.

Coach Suzanne