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Why Plan Workouts
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Hello, I've been experimenting with different places to upload my workouts and am wondering what the benefits for a person with no training plan or coach to plan workouts on a site such as on Garmin Connect. I do intervals and such, and usually just note what I did in the notes section, but will planning workouts help?
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Re: Why Plan Workouts [Standbyzero] [ In reply to ]
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Standbyzero wrote:
Hello, I've been experimenting with different places to upload my workouts and am wondering what the benefits for a person with no training plan or coach to plan workouts on a site such as on Garmin Connect. I do intervals and such, and usually just note what I did in the notes section, but will planning workouts help?

Do you remember what you did last week for workouts? How about last month or last year? If not, how do you know what did or didn't work?

John



Top notch coaching: Francois and Accelerate3 | Follow on Twitter: LifetimeAthlete |
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Re: Why Plan Workouts [Standbyzero] [ In reply to ]
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It depends. If you are interested in long term development then it is definitely worthwhile to keep track of as much as possible so you have the information to look back on. When planning any training block I always find it helpful to look back at what I did for previous builds, determine what worked and what didn't and then build on that. Also, I find it useful for writing notes on specific races and performance tests so that I can tweak those in the future.

If you are talking about the feature where you input a preset workout into your Garmin device then I can't provide any feedback, as I typically approach a workout with what I am going to do in my head and just adjust according to how I feel that day. However, I can see where it may be useful for certain people that need a more structured approach.
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Re: Why Plan Workouts [Standbyzero] [ In reply to ]
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I plan my workouts on Excel (actually Google Docs now). I'll start from my A race, plot back two weeks for taper and then 6 week sections to work on something specific.

It may go something like this:

1. Race week
2. Taper
3 to 8 weeks out Race specific
9 to 14 weeks out plan workout to help with weaknesses for the upcoming race.
15 to 20 weeks out endurance training across all 3

Any further out is either endurance or winter time.
When I get to that six week period I write out my goals for that block and then write 3 weeks of workouts at a time.

Are you doing anything like that?

Can you use Garmin Connect for that...sure but it seems kind of a hassle to me. Do you know how to make them and how you are alerted to the workouts?

Is it convenient for you? Personally I haven't used it but that's cuz I already have a system.

Planning helps, especially around life events and your limiters whether they are physical or just time consuming.

jaretj
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Re: Why Plan Workouts [jaretj] [ In reply to ]
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Lets take a step back here and ask, why you don't have a plan.

For me, no plan means no clearly defined goals, no plan to improve, and less effective or inefficient training.

I had no plan for many, many years. I did well. I had fun racing. I had a little hand written journal to log mostly mileage. It didn;t really tell me much other than provide me with a little carrot to train more or make me feel like shit if I slacked off that week.

Then I stepped up my game and got a plan. I did really, really well, had a lot more fun.


TrainingBible Coaching
http://www.trainingbible.com
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Re: Why Plan Workouts [motoguy128] [ In reply to ]
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I don't have a training plan because I'm only a junior, and didn't think I would need one. I've only done two duathlons this year, and plan to start swimming in the new year. Would a training plan make that big of a difference? What are some good places to get a training plan? Also, I do cross country and plan on doing track, so would a training plan conflict with the workouts that my track coach gives me? Thanks.
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Re: Why Plan Workouts [Standbyzero] [ In reply to ]
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A training plan is always helpful, in that it will lay out what you are trying to accomplish and serve as a roadmap to get there. If you are mixing in vasrity track and x-country, then it becomes even more important.

What you need is a plan which is designed around your own specific needs. You are unlikly to be able to just "get one", as any of the canned plans don't have a sweet clue when your races are, what your strengths and weaknesses are, and what other sports you are doing. Either you do it yourself, or get a coach to help you, but if done right it will not conflict with your track and xc.season, but rather complement them.

How much of a difference will it make? It depends on how good you are at going with a plan vs without one. Some people can train fabulously on feel alone, others need everything mapped out. Some just need a general direction to work towards and a rough outline of what the week or month of training will look like.

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Re: Why Plan Workouts [Standbyzero] [ In reply to ]
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A plan still help you manage you goals, training load, and most important your recovery more efficiently. You'll have a better idea when too much is too much, and how recovery is beneficial.

On the flip side, the biggest thing for juniors is making sure it's still fun, but for a competitive person, what the most fun is reaching or exceeding your goals and expectations.

I've said it on here before, but I'm a big fan Trainingpeaks and reading through The Triathlete's Training Bible as a good starting point for understanding how you build fitness and then recover and time the recovery to race well. You have to be flexible, but I think you can follow the track workouts and at the same time work in just a little bit of swimming or cycling, but you're best off for now probably just being focused on one sport at a time. Are you on the swim team in the winter too?

So what I'm saying is that tracking you training load is probably the more important element more than having a planned training schedule. You can start to learn and feel how different workouts impact you and how a run on Monday impact your run on Saturday... and how the running your doing in March, impacts you fitness in June. Then why some days you need to go slow and others you need to really push yourself.


TrainingBible Coaching
http://www.trainingbible.com
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Re: Why Plan Workouts [Standbyzero] [ In reply to ]
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OK, making some sense now.

It really depends on how competitive you want to be. If you are in High School sports, they only last a short season and the coach may have you training hard all of the time because of the limited time of the season.

In triathlon you have a summer racing season then many months of off time that you can use to get better at each sport. You can use that time to train for triathlon or use that time to study and socialize in school, it's really up to you what you are interested in. IMHO social development is very important as a junior. If you have a lot of friends that train like you want to, that would be a good social activity.

Because of all that extra training time you can plan what you want to do, see how it helps you and move on to something else instead of training hard all of the time.

jaretj
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Re: Why Plan Workouts [Standbyzero] [ In reply to ]
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your plan should be to be consistent with your training and build gradually.

I would focus on track/cross country and once those are over with apply the principles used from those seasons to a triathlon or duathlon season such as base, strength, speed, racing blocks.

if triathlon, get a good coach to teach you proper swim technique at the start and build from there to maybe 1500m 3x/week.

cycle 4 times per week and keep the rpms high at about 100rpm. you may find that the high cadence helps your running while a low rpm will rely mostly on strength and may add bulk to your legs. i wouldn't go much longer than 60 minutes if you are doing sprints, 90 minutes max for a long ride.

don't burn yourself out by going hard all the time either. its a nasty habit and takes discipline to control.


have fun and good luck.
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