LSandersTri wrote:
I think we will have to agree to disagree. Philosophically speaking, I believe that everyone is unique, the sample size is always N=1, one size does not fit all, nothing is ever proven, and any other way you can hash that same idea. I think a good program is guided by scientific reasoning, advice from sound sources, etc. but never dictated by it. While on the topic of philosophy, I believe much of this is in the mind anyway. Once you come even remotely near to your limits, any further gains will come from your mind. Thus, once you've reached a certain degree of proficiency, I'd say do more workouts that give you confidence and build mental strength. This will be your best shot at reaching your "limits."I think we can all agree on the part in bold about doing SOME workout that give you confidence and mental strength. If we can strip down the two purposes of training, the first is to make the body physiologically stronger, then once that is done, then it's about using the mind to optimally extract as much race day speed as possible out of the maximally optimized physiological state. The question really is about what needs to be done to get to that physiological state while also getting to the mentally optimized state. In the quest for the latter, you don't want to give away any of the former.
With respect to nothing really ever been proven, if anyone agrees with that, it would be me....however after a long period, we find that certain hypothesis end up solidifying with a large number of data driven observations from which we can draw some solid conclusions...in that vein, as Dan Empfield has said, we are all more alike than we are different and the N=1000000 results like apply equally well to your N=1 sample size, in other words, while you may be an outlier in some areas (the top line numbers of our engine), you're likely not an outlier when it comes to how basic human physiology is maximized. So do you really want to waste potential performance upside by experimenting on yourself, or do you want to get the most out of you.
If you want to maximize the mental game, go spend some time with Macca (well when he as on), Whitfield or Peter Reid. These guys are masters of this. No need to experiment much. Anyway, consider another path. You might be unbeatable if you do.