gsmacleod wrote:
So are you saying that if I do a race that the stress of the event does not result in any fitness gains? Further, that it is impossible to arrive at the beginning of race season and through both training and racing finish the season with better fitness than at the beginning?
No, of course not on both questions.
gsmacleod wrote:
So the question I asked was how much, of what type and how often? Since the higher intensity sessions erode endurance, how many of these sessions should be prescribed per week so that the athlete builds fitness instead of regressing? What intensities will be appropriate in order to build fitness? Shane
Are you wanting a training plan? Surely you're not expecting me to spell out a generic example of progressive workload over the course of a base/build/peak cycle?
As I've said in my last few replies, get an athlete to peak fitness. Are you going to build off that peak fitness? No. Because it's a peak. Now maybe you have an athlete who continues to improve and never really has a discernible peak. That's certainly plausible and most certainly not unheard of. But a concerted training plan with a focus on achieving a peak will have an athlete in a state of peak performance for an event or for a block of races for a short amount of time. And you're not going to build fitness on top of that peak without a large shift in intensity (and adequate recovery, too).