"I think the slow and long first and then fast and shorter later discussion is a bit of a red herring for athletes with multiple years of base."

if you never take any time off, then you don't really lose fitness. of course, it's hard to get faster without periods of relative inactivity occasionally throughout the year. i think greg welch is a case in point. for years in the late 80s and early 90s he'd race the aussie season, the north american season, aussie, north american, and he'd do well -- up to a point. 3rd was his high water mark in kona. then he got injured, twice, in early 93. and he was forced to take his first rest in many years. he had to come back from a pretty deep hole. and then he won in 93.

so, if you never take any time off, then, no, the need for building a base is less urgent. but if you do take time off, then you atrophy. i don't care how much base you have, you'll lose a day of fitness for every day you take off (more or less). so, if you take pretty much 6 weeks off, it's going to take 6 weeks to get back. if you do take 6 weeks off from cycling, how do you think your ass is going to feel after 2 days of riding 3hr a day? if that happens to your ass, why do you think it doesn't happen to your connective tissue? if you want to start out balls to the walls, fine, but you're asking for trouble.

and there's no need to take that sort of risk. everything you lose is going to come back, but stronger, if you give it time to build. somehow 50 years of collective wisdom in the world of running, cycling, and more recently triathlon, has been forgotten with you guys. what happened?

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Yes. I was laying out one possible approach from a big picture (ie career evolution) perspective. From a seasonal perspective, I most definitely subscribe to the move from 'general' to 'specific.' Mind you, general can be quite subjective but I think we both agree on the details within both periods.

Thanks, Chris

That's the mistake that comes from this argument all the time. It's not an "either/or" argument. It's an issue of training load. There are multiple ways to get there. Load is the currency, and load (despite the fact that we often use things like mileage, hours, etc. as the most common currency) is really not the same thing as miles/hours. The guy who has 10-15 hours per week, which is a LOT of time (despite what some people here may argue), is not going to get his best performance from mimicking the plan of a guy doing 35 hours per week, but just with reduced volume.

Generally speaking, the structure of periodization for endurance athletes has started to change a great deal. I wish I could recall the article, but if someone has a link, that'd be super. It talks about Kenyan marathoners, and the reorganization of the classical "pyramid" periodization plan with the "strength" phase coming earlier in the year. I think a common misconception is that strength and speed are the same thing when it comes to training.

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

This is an interesting discussion. As an athlete that has passed my physical peak I find that the one thing that I have in spades is aerobic power. Every year of consistent training brings improved power at low heart rates, the thing I don't have anymore, and used pour out of me like water, is speed. It takes a LOT of work for me to get fast, and the term "fast" is a relative term these days. It also seems like it takes more time and effort, year to year to get to some place a little suckier than I was last year. I am experimenting with more speed efforts this winter to see if it helps.

"can you find me an abstract showing that looooooooooooooooooooong and easy is as effective at raising one's pVO2 as specific training for raising pVO2."

you were a national caliber swimmer. i came up via a different route, through a running program, with a running background, as have some others on this forum. i'm not the star runner here. my times were paltry compared not only to other triathletes, but to other forum members. paul thomas put my times to shame in his younger years. nevertheless, i think paul, and both simons, and kenny souza, may be the only people on this forum who ran faster, even in their adult years, than i ran as a 16 year old (i have to think of who all is on here, i'm sure i'm missing some). early success is part of what made me an expert in injuries -- not treating them; getting them.

this is mostly because i oftend trained the way you suggest, which is much more fun than the way i suggest. if you'd like to base your case on what sort of protocol is best for generating pVO2, rather than arguing the point ad nauseum, i'm prepared to concede to you. not because i think you're right, but because that's not the low hanging fruit, when advocating for long slow base building. old schoolers like mark allen, dave scott, jurgen zack, and pretty much all the guys and gals i listed in my last post, did not simply race fast. they raced a long time, because they built their schedules around programs that sanely led to a predictable, injury free, peak.

i keep in touch with many of the guys i used to race with when we were all starting out as teenagers -- guys those little rascals over at letsrun consider legends and heroes. it's very hard to find even one of them who's capable of running today. and we're not all 85 years old, we're all in our early 50s. most of them would like to run, but they haven't been able to, for 10 or 20 years, because of injuries caused by the requirements of division I XC/track programs that did not allow runners the luxury of base and building.

if it's just swimming you're talking about, fine, i have no quarrel. but when cycling is involved, and even more so when running is involved, training the way you advocte is like unprotected sex. it's great until it's... not great. you're, what, 28? by all means let's have this discussion now, but it would be nice to have it again when you're 48.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Hey Dan, OK you got me there. Agreed, if you are coming off time off, then yes, there is a need to gradually ramp....my only point is that months on end of slow and easy perhaps is not really required for multi year base guys. But downtime is good. The question is how much down time does the 7 hour per week age grouper need, vs the 15 hour per week age grouper vs the 30 hour per week pro?

wrt complete time off, since I am constantly rotating through sports, I would go through months on end with no swim or bike and months on end with no XC ski or speedskate. I always ran 3x per week all year, simply because this sport is too hard to come back from after going cold turkey. Now I make sure that I bike and swim at least once per week all year, although there are still 7 months with no XC ski (and yes it take a number of weeks before being able to really go hard regardless of how much tri fitness I may have).

I think what you will find that the guys saying that "there is no off season" will be coming around to your thinking in several years (might be a decade or two). I'm not saying that there is no off season, just saying that on the swim and bike front, we can perhaps afford to go harder in the winter when the weather does not support long workouts and when the weather gets good, we can ramp the bike to go longer.

On the run front, no arguements.

...this is pretty well what we have done in Canada for years, and I think the proof is the all round age group success that our guys have shown...they show up to St. Croix and wildflower in the spring and kick ass...Canadian pros can afford to go down south and do the big volume off seasons like other pros, but as age groupers, we are stuck making the best of what we can do with our time and climate.

Dev

1) "Fat burning" is a red herring. It is highly trainable, but it is a red herring nonetheless.

2) The notion of training fast before training long is hardly new...the first person I can recall advocating it (back around 1980) was masters world road race champion Dr. Steve Johnson.

"Dan, apparently you claim that it's an either/or issue. I believe there are a number of us who believe it depends on the individual."

when you're younger, your speed, strength, technique, all accrue and increase from one year to the next. most good athletes who've had long and successful careers take some time off a couple of times a year, and start building anew. this doesn't mean they go back to zero. it just gives their bodies time to renew. then they start again.

then what happens? in practice, it's the opposite of what most people here are either afraid of, or warning of. most athletes who've gotten fast don't need to eschew base, they can eschew speed. most fast athletes who take time off and then start back with longer, lower-intensity rides, or rides that build strength and endurance, are are not speed-specific (no motorpacing, no running track repeats), find that their prior speed returns without speed-specific training.

i remember when mark allen had his undefeated year in 1989, and he was shocked when he pasted mike pigg at the chicago triathlon by something like 5 minutes. he fully expected to lose the race, because he had done no speedwork. he was base training for hawaii. he was very surprised at the speed he had.

if you're a runner, let us say, and you take time off to renew, when you come back you'll come back quicker, and stronger, and in a position to do more speedwork (if you want) to gain more footspeed (if you want). but you won't get much faster if you try to keep this relative speed you have ad infinitum.

i don't think mark and i disagree on periodization, he just thinks the periods are in different places than i think they ought to be. my concern is based more on staying injury free. but also i think your high quality workouts are going to be that much more high quality if you do them at your race weight, while you're fit, after having gotten to that place through building your fitness starting from low-intensity, long duration workouts.

that established, if it's IM racing you're talking about, there are X number of long rides you ought to engage in in the 6 weeks prior to your taper, and that's probably 4 to 6 100 to 120 mile rides during that time. again, as i said in my original post, there's no need to reduce your mileage as your season progresses. i just don't think you can safely increase your intensity until you're sufficiently fit and trim and ready for those workouts.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

 
It's simple. Build to a volume, add some specific intensity, repeat.

"my only point is that months on end of slow and easy perhaps is not really required for multi year base guys."

i don't think it's a case of how many weeks or months, rather that: 1) it's generally considered a good idea to take 6 to maybe even 10 weeks at low-boil, training minimally, in an off-season; and 2) that you engage in high quality work when you're ready, and there are base miles to do in order to get ready.

quite a few athletes respond either badly, or very quickly, to high quality workouts. in both cases, quality is playing with fire. now, i've also known athletes -- greg whitely, a former triathlete i sponsored, and prior to that a national caliber 5k runner (13:24); and michellie jones, before she was a long courser -- who did very well off a regimen of high-quality, low-mileage work. i just think that's rare in the world class world.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Andy,

Just last night I was doing some looking and didn't find any longitudinal studies showing that % fat burning at the same relative intensity is trainable in men. I DID find some cross sectional studies of athletes and non-athletes showing lower RER in athletes at the same %vo2peak, lots of evidence of lower RER at a given absolute intensity, and even a nice point - counterpoint on glucose marker infusion with Coggan and Friedlander.

From the lack of evidence in longitudinal studies I was pretty much ready to call that over and done with, RER at a given relative % vo2 is not trainable in men with aerobic exercise.

So as a serious question, did I miss something?

Whether or not fat burning is an issue w.r.t. iron distance racing, is a bit of a different question.

"the typical athlete has neither the time nor the patience."

well, let's pursue that. i don't know that i'm willing to leave it there. a lot of triathletes here believe that anything more than bare and minimal swimming is a complete waste of time. are you ready to leave it there? that because this is what a large number of people think, and because it's how they prioritize their training time, that you and i should adjust and tailor our advice to that reality?

i note that more than 200 people have run 30 times in 43 days. that averages to 7 running days out of 10, if those runs are performed once per day. that's some pretty hefting running. 70 of those people have run once per day for the last month and a half.

what do you do with that information? do you say, "well, these are the hard asses." or, do you continue to hold this up, and show what is possible, and what is happening, and invite people to do their best to join in.

if you run slow, and i mean very slow, it is remarkable how far you can run, especially if you endeavor to do this on trails. it is not that much to expect, with a little buildup, that a person can run a 25 or 30 mile weekend. or a 150 or 200, or even 300, mile riding weekend, over presidents day, or the MLK weekend, or over easter. even a 25 mile ride is a base ride if its done on a mountain bike, on trails, over 2.5 or 3hrs.

i'd rather not give advice to the lowest common denominator. i'd rather give advice to someone who aspires to get better; safely; and without injuiry.

"Cycling says you need to spin 100rpm. ST says that you should probably spin 100rpm. But, a look at the top IM athletes and they are riding about 80rpm and riding steep at that. That's contrary to cycling lore."

well, you're not listening. pretty consistently i've said, and jordan has said, that you should ride a cadence that matches your effort, and they increase or decrease in tandem. i just did a little forum search on myself and found several instances over the years where i've written that. specifically, i wrote that 85rpm is a good one for ironman racing, and lo, that's what we see when we look at the SRM data of riders like cam brown and faris al sultan. i love 100 rpm, but i love it for a 40k with no swim before or run after.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Again, I think it depends on the individual. Someone who has a 4+-year solid base under their belt is clearly in a different position than someone who doesn't. The "general rule" pitch just doesn't apply, imho.

I have no issues going short & fast from Dec to Mar and I typically put on about 10lbs in the off-season (from 145 to 155lbs). However, I don't think there's any way I could do what I'm doing today back in '04. But then I'm a 43 yo dude too.

I definitely like the general to specific approach. I find it much easier to start my long riding with a solid block of 2 x 20 intervals under my belt. Same goes for the run. Also, from a schedule perspective it works great for most of us in the northern hemisphere too. We just don't have the daylight hours to do the long stuff. Not to mention, riding long in the cold and rain gets old real fast. I know because I did that a lot in '03 - '06.

Btw, here's a dose of reality... There's no way I could put in a series of 2 x 20 FT intervals and/or a series of track workouts/tempo runs during race prep if I kept my volume constant (as you claim). For me that would be 12 - 15hrs/week of riding and ~5hrs/week of running. I can barely hang on just maintaining L2/L3 volume during that period. I would crumble big time. And if I maintained that kind of volume between Dec - Mar I would be divorced, not to mention, over-trained.

Thanks, Chris

"Again, I think it depends on the individual. Someone who has a 4+-year solid base under their belt is clearly in a different position than someone who doesn't."

if you can do high-speed, high quality work, and you can do it with good technique, hard, without injury, then you're ready to go. but for most of us mortals, that requires some preparation in the form of low quality work. and i don't think 4yr of base is very much. by the time i had that sort of base i was 17 years old, and i wasn't even close to having the base necessary to do anything big time.

"There's no way I could put in a series of 2 x 20 FT intervals and/or a series of track workouts/tempo runs during race prep if I kept my volume constant (as you claim)."

i hope i don't give you the impression that i think quality means a lot of quality. one of the pitfalls i think bedevils triathletes is an abundance of quality workouts. even if you're doing 12hr a week, there's a lot of opportunities to put yourself over the edge with high HR workouts. heck, if you swim masters 4 x wk, and get sucked in, those are your highest HR workouts you'll do right there. i wouldn't do more than 2 high HR workouts total during the week, ride and run combined, even during a period of near-peak fitness, if you're going to be that hard at it in the pool.

and the older you get, the fewer high HR, high quality workouts you'll be able to handle, even when you're really fit. i'm running and riding only right now. i'm going to start swimming again this week. but none of it will be high HR (the swim will be the highest HR, just because breathing is metered in swimming, and you have to swim with a modicum of technique, and that takes aerobic power).

your weather is colder than ours. but i got up this morning to snow on the ground. i wanted to ride. oh well. so i ran. i went to high school at lake tahoe. it was regularly teens and 20s in the morning, when i did my morning run. sometimes single digits. so you run. you don't ride. what's the problem with spending your early season gaining a good running base?

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeert *sound of a car screeching to a halt*

Let's pause for a moment here.

We are in agreement on the running thing. Durability comes first! That is a given. I would not advocate any sort of intensity before that is firmly established.

What I am mainly getting at is your selection of LSD on the bike. <further down>


Does not MA hold the record for the Carlsbad 5k by a triathlete? Did he not then race the USTS tri series throughout the summer... only once that was completed did he up the volume (and decrease the intensity of the program) to get ready for IM Kona?

To a certain degree the idea of racing fast then long was dictated by money.


Cycling is a zero-g, no impact, "stupid" technique sport (stupid in that everybody is locked into the cranks and the action of pedaling dictated by the machine). So I'm a bit miffed in your saying that going hard on the bike early is like unprotected sex? How do you figure that?

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
Garmin Glycogen Use App | Garmin Fat Use App

your sig line... how good is that stuff?

<i know... totally irrelevant to the convo here but trance is the best for rides>

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
Garmin Glycogen Use App | Garmin Fat Use App

Whether or not fat burning is an issue w.r.t. iron distance racing, is a bit of a different question.
**********************************
Simple... eat more of it... burn more of it. :)

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
Garmin Glycogen Use App | Garmin Fat Use App

I've seen this phrase a lot lately, mostly from the "new-school" training crowd, and it confuses me.

The principle of specificity with relation to training originally referred to specific movements. Meaning that early in a training cycle you could train for "general fitness", but later you should progress to the movements and speeds specific to your sport. The application of this principle to triathlon seems to apply to a training plan in the sense that early on you can, for example, spend 50% of your time doing stuff like X-C skiiing, weights, tantric sex, etc, but then as you approach your "A" race that percentage approaches 0. And the extra time is spent doing more swimming, biking, and running. And as you get closer to the "A" race you spend more time at race speed. (the old-school definition talked about speed, but not much about distance/time - maybe because endurance sports weren't really the focus of the original inventors of periodization training).

Now, to me, that sounds more like Slowman than you.

Your methodology seems to be "specificity all the time, and the fitter you get, the more it you can handle." Building to the volume you need on race day. There is no "general" You're always doing race movements at race intensity. (always meaning incorporating it year-round, not literally all the time).

I'm not criticizing. That actually seems like a reasonable approach to training, particularly in triathlon where there are so many different things we have to train that there's little time for "general."

Or did I get it completely wrong?

"if you can do high-speed, high quality work, and you can do it with good technique, hard, without injury, then you're ready to go. but for most of us mortals, that requires some preparation in the form of low quality work. and i don't think 4yr of base is very much. by the time i had that sort of base i was 17 years old, and i wasn't even close to having the base necessary to do anything big time."

Again, it think it just depends on the individual. If you spend ~4 yrs doing consistent, yet slightly conservative, year-round training then that will build a solid base. But it's all relative, right? So much depends on how consistent your are. Let me give you a sense of my definition of consistency: When you can count the number of consecutive days not training on one hand.

"i hope i don't give you the impression that i think quality means a lot of quality. one of the pitfalls i think bedevils triathletes is an abundance of quality workouts. even if you're doing 12hr a week, there's a lot of opportunities to put yourself over the edge with high HR workouts. heck, if you swim masters 4 x wk, and get sucked in, those are your highest HR workouts you'll do right there. i wouldn't do more than 2 high HR workouts total during the week, ride and run combined, even during a period of near-peak fitness, if you're going to be that hard at it in the pool."

Likewise, all I'm talking about is one 2 x 20 FT interval and a tempo run per week during race prep. Like I said, I couldn't do it and maintain my L2/L3 volume (which would break down as L2/L3 volume on the bike and just L2 volume on the run). It would just put me over the edge. And a track workout would be out of the question.

I think we have to be very specific when we talk about these issues. People get this idea that it's one extreme or another. Only when my volume is at ~7hrs/week can I insert a 20min L4 interval on the bike or a 20' M-pace or possibly T-pace (more like 2 x 7') on the run every workout. Everything else is L2 with the obvious warmup around L1. Once that volume builds beyond 10hrs/week then it moves to something like 2 x (2 x 20 FT intervals)/week and maybe a couple of tempo runs or one tempo run and a track workout (eg 6 x 3' at I-pace). This is as crazy as it gets for me.

"what's the problem with spending your early season gaining a good running base?"

In general? Nothing at all. In my case, I just find that I have a reasonably solid running base already and I much prefer the time efficiency of going shorter & faster. Keep in mind that I don't have a lot of experience running short & fast in the off-season/general prep. This is something I started doing last year with great success until life intervened and forced a break in my training. Biking's a different story though. I can definitely say that I've had great success with starting short & fast and moving to long & slow.

Like I said though, I don't know how people can do the long stuff through the winter and hold the volume through race prep. Admittedly, I did that for almost 3 years ('03 through '05) and almost ended up divorced (slight exaggeration), not to mention, mentally drained (no exaggeration).

Most everything works as long as your consistent and good at implementing progressive overload. Hell, I even think you can simplify the specificity down to spending as much time in the aerobars as possible if you want.

Thanks, Chris

Uh... yea... completely wrong on lots of accounts.

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
Garmin Glycogen Use App | Garmin Fat Use App

it would seem that the word "tradition" (and in this case your use of the word culture) clouds the minds of men not allowing them to think beyond the boundaries of what has been done. my approach... blend what we know has been shown to improve human kinetics in a lab with what we know makes people fast in the field. put that together and you get a winning combo. Sit on your haunches and do what culture or tradition tells you to do and you wont get anywhere. Innovate or vegitate. Your choice.

ah, the sweet hubris of youth. so, you innovate rather than vegitate. you do it for 5, 10, 20 years, perhaps. you learn a lot. you even bother to write it down. the next generation, someone does the same thing. and in the next. and the next. and then finally along comes another generation and for some reason, someone feels able to say if you "sit on your haunches and do what culture and tradition tells you to do [ ] you won't get anywhere". your "innovation" is now a dead weight that "clouds the minds of men".

yes, new scientific studies cast new light on our understanding of physiology which in turn can impact training regimes. and even without new discoveries, just the ability to collect so much data on an athlete has a certain kind of impact on how to train. but fundamentally what cannot be written down by any coach whether they were living in ancient greece or just yesterday is how a *specific* athlete should train for a *specific* race (and if they are podium-quality, a race involving other *specific* athletes). as a coach you have two areas of "wiggle room". you can break with tradition because of the specific athlete(s) you work with, or you can simply declare some part of tradition to be wrong. and no doubt, from time to time, it is. nevertheless, a lot of the "innovation" you're striving for is really just stuff to make a newer generation feel that there is still something to discover. the biggest contribution a coach can make to their athletes? the combined history of many other athletes, carefully tailored to that athlete. some would call that tradition.

"tradition is a static defense against a chaotic community, and what would we save by destroying it?" - Anne Peacock

I'm a fat burning machine!!!!!

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<If you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough>
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i take it you just got back from the "all you can eat almond butter buffet" at safeway, right?

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
Garmin Glycogen Use App | Garmin Fat Use App

that was a lot of words to not really say anything.

we've got two gens now in tri... the "then gen" who applied the throw eggs at a wall approach... and the "now gen" who, with the help of ex phys, has a better idea about how to fine tune the system

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
Garmin Glycogen Use App | Garmin Fat Use App