In Reply To:
“IMO, THE number one benefit to low intensity training is that it minimizes the amount of stress you put on your body, thus allowing you to do MORE running. Running, unlike cycling and swimming, is a high impact activity. IT BEATS YOU UP! You need to, among other things, build up your body's tolerance to the activity.” You group all triathletes in a certain category and assume that every individual has the same physiology and responds exactly the same way to training stress. That’s bullshit. Many athletes respond very well to high intensity training early in their development. Others respond later. And some people don’t. But to take the physiological adaptation to training stress and act as if there is a LSD recipe for everyone’s success is insanity. You assume that all athletes get ‘beat up’ by even minimal forms of high intensity training and further prescribe more low intensity training when they are at there prime when you don’t even know who you are dealing with. What about an athletes individual physiology?
Many applicants to Navy Seals, Marine Recon, Army Rangers go from being schmucks to bad motherfuckers in less than 6 months. And they don’t get to where they are in that short period of time by ‘minimizing the amount of stress they put on there bodies,’ and these dudes have none or very few “miles under their belt” They don’t get much rest, they don’t eat very well, but they are continually overloaded with intense, prolonged physical exertion within the first eight weeks……….and they all adapt very quickly.
Civilians, on the other hand; rest when they please, eat whatever and whenever they want, never do a workout that takes them out of their comfort zone, will keep on doing LSD shit and wonder why they suck.
What's up with this ‘Frailty’ approach to training as if it applies to all athletes? Some athletes have superior genetics, incredible thresholds of pain…. have an extraordinary capacity to suffer and an equally extraordinary capacity to recover and improve. But if they listened to guys like you they would never push themselves and they would never improve.
To a degree I think some of your points are valid, however, you seem to be interpreting Barry's post on one very extreme side of the equation. This is why I really dislike terms like LSD. Using terms like that are completely dependent on the athlete's interpretation of slow vs steady vs fast running. As we know, running 30sec/mile slower can make a relatively big difference in recovery and, potentially, in development too but I'm quite certain that how one interprets LSD to pace (relative to fitness) will vary widely from athlete to athlete.
Personally, for anyone who isn't really time restricted (less than < ~15hrs/week?), I like a max-steady-state (MSS) approach in the early years of tri development (eg first 2 to 3 years). I see this approach as a very slight variation of what Barry is talking about. It's quite easy to execute yet will push anyone out of their comfort zone and will likely find the edge of where they get fried too. However, you're never running that fast -- mostly 'easy' to 'steady' pace. In addition, I don't care who you are or how genetically gifted you are (not), you will definitely improve leaps and bounds as long as you
execute your program consistently. Yes, at some point you will probably plateau and mixing things up to some degree will be required. However, there's so much for a new athlete to learn about balance in those early years I see no reason to throw any fancy interval training into the equation.
Of course, so much comes down to time available to train and consistency in execution.
Thanks, Chris
