Before anything else - it is good to hear that you are having a specific sport focus + if you live in The Northern Hemisphere from now until March is the time to try this out.

To try and answer your question, I think it depends on the depth of an athlete's fitness in the disciplines they are putting on the backburner.

For example, a few of the folks I know who were "swim club kids" say that they can stay out of the water for a few months, and it only takes them a couple of weeks to get back to their usual speed.

Where are you at for all 3?

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http://www.fitspeek.com the Fraser Valley's fitness, wellness, and endurance sports podcast

Thanks for replying. The other thread on how to improve in the offseason is what made me start this thread, it wasn't my original idea.

I'm a 49 year old guy. I was active as a kid, intermittently active as I got older but I have been training for the past five years consistently 8hrs per week. I didn't race last year, but feel like my fitness in all three is solid at the level where I am. I have only raced locally but usually place top 10% biking, top 20% running and am a midpack swimmer. Per training peaks, I have spent the most time on the bike(45%), then swimming(25%), then running(20%), the remainder is weights, rowing, and other misc activities(boxing, calisthenics).

The obvious answer to improve race performance is to swim more. But health and quality of life trump race performance for me. Running when the weather is good makes me happy, so here in OH that would make for a 6 month run focus. Then I figure I can do 3 months of bike and 3 months of swim since I rarely ride outside. Just trying to figure out how to handle the programming of the nonfocused disciplines so I can keep progressing.

Looking at that breakdown I actually don't know if swimming would really be the key area for you to focus on. 25% training time swimming seems plenty. In most races, you're biking/running for a greater percent than you currently train at. In a 70.3 it's around 10% swim/55% bike/35% run. Consistent 8 hour weeks is great. I would try to bump to 10-12 before cutting back somewhere. Going from top-10% biking & top-20% running top top-5 biking & top-15 running is going to get you a lot more time back than swimming a little bit better. Plus the time to get better at swimming for marginal gains isn't worth it imo with your current training.

But the original question was what do you need to do to keep fitness. I would say 2-3 activities/week keeps some sort of baseline. It's going to be close to what you already might be doing.

It may be better to think about this from the other direction - What is the maximum amount of one discipline that your body can handle and grow from? If you're already doing 20h/w and want to improve your running you probably shouldn't do 15h/w of running, even if the other disciplines could be maintained on the remaining 5.

If you look at athletes in the individual sports swimming and cycling have incredibly high ceilings, 30+ h/w, while even the best runners rarely run 20h/w.

Diminishing returns hit both ends of the volume spectrum. The first session does more for you than the second, the second does more than the third, etc. This cuts both ways though. If you do a big swim block that 7th swim of the week might gain you 1 gold star for swimming, but cutting out the 4th run might lose you 2. Presumably if you're looking at such strategies your level of fitness should be pretty high in all sports to start.

Personally I would approach focused blocks with much smaller swings than most. If you normally do 25/50/25 s/b/r a big swim block might be 35/45/20.

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I learned a lot from your contributions to this thread and the one on how to improve in the off season.

Thank you for replying. From this post and the ones you made on the other thread, it is clear that if the volume is going to be static, I will have to work in more intensity in each discipline.

Balancing and cycling that intensity in each discipline will be an interesting project for 2024.

To add to what has already been said, I find timing of workouts has an impact on minimum dose for a given sport. If you are focusing on cycling, running once every three days will maintain a decent baseline of run fitness, and vice versa. I have time for six run/bike workouts each week, so I usually just split it 3/3, but if I do a focused block, I might do four bike workouts and two run workouts in a six day training block, with a rest day on the seventh. I’m a fairly low volume guy (8-10 hours a week) but alternating training focus between run and bike has worked well for me to keep improving. Another thing I have done during a bike focus block is up the bike workouts to five in a week and run off the bike for 20 minutes on three of those days. Then a separate day with a run workout to keep running fitness at a decent level. If I do a run focus block, I aim for 5 runs and 2 bikes, since I can fit a run into my lunch break. I make sure the bike rides are Monday/Thursday, so there’s not too long between rides.

I’m not the guy to give advice about a swim focus, I generally just go along to masters swim club twice a week and my swim times have stayed consistent at that level of training. In the summer I swim way more, but it’s unstructured stuff at the lake with my kids, so not really a “swim block”.

Good luck with your training.

Thanks for your reply.

What kind of intensity are you doing your runs at when you are in bike focus?

I have a feeling I have taken the Zone 2 recommendations a bit too far and could do with some more intensity.

My priority with each sport is frequency, volume, intensity

Minimum frequency = 3 times/week.

If I wanted to put all my efforts into running:
3 x 20 minutes of easy swimming/week
3 x 20 minutes easy cycling/week
Lots of running

During the bike focus, the 20 minute runs off the bike will mostly be steady (5 min/km approx.) but I will also put strides (accelerations and then decelerations of 30-60 seconds or so, usually run on grass) in there as well to keep my legs turning over. If I am doing lots of FTP and Vo2 stuff on the bike, I don't do any intensity or speedwork on the run, otherwise it's too much and I get run down/injured/sick (etc.). Staying healthy is key number one.

As for zone 2 stuff, my feeling is that this does not really apply to 20 minute runs because they are so short, so I run them by feel and stay comfortable.

Thanks for your reply.

Thanks a bunch for taking the time to answer my questions. I usually just lurk and learn, but am glad I posted.

Your perspective on Zone 2 training for the shorter 20-minute runs is reasonable. Adjusting the intensity based on feel and staying comfortable aligns with the duration of the run. It's essential to tailor your training to your specific goals, and it seems like you've found a balance that works for you. Additionally, frog bike sizes has a sizing guide that assists parents in selecting the right bike based on their child's height. This level of guidance makes the buying process more straightforward and ensures that children get the most out of their biking experience. In summary, Frog Bikes' dedication to providing a range of well-designed, appropriately sized bikes for children reflects a commitment to fostering a love for cycling from an early age. The emphasis on safety, functionality, and an enjoyable riding experience makes Frog Bikes a great choice for parents looking to invest in a quality bike for their growing cyclists.

I try to do more time cycling than running. A good measure for me is when I notice my speed dropping off swim/run I need to put a little more time to maintain fitness. For swim I need 2x per week to maintain good speed. But for racing purposes or swim meets I need swim 3x per week and see a nice jump in speed. Running frequency is depending on how the legs are feeling but I guess I do enough run races to keep speed on tap.
2-3x per week per disciple and 30 mins a day seems like the bare minimum to maintain.

I've been thinking about this as well this fall and would be curious on your thoughts on an "off-season focus" vs. a dedicated focus to improve in one sport. For an "off season focus", I think what you suggest makes sense to try to make small gains in your focus area while maintaining the other two.

For someone who really wants to make improvements in one of the sports, I think "maintaining the other two" should be disregarded. Maximize your training time in the one sport to maximize the gains. My theory is the "losses" in the other sports will plateau. I.e. if you were a 20min 5K runner, and take 6 months off running, it won't take any "dedicated run focus" to get back to 20min. But getting to 19min? That's not happening on 3 runs a week. To take advantage of this plateau I think you'd really need to do a longer block - min 6 months, maybe a year.

Interested in what the smarter minds on the forum have to say.

It depends on what you mean specifically by focusing on one sport. If your goal is to be a competitive runner then the best route is to stop swimming and cycling altogether. But since we're here I assume the goal is to complete a triathlon as quickly as possible. There's a gradient there too. If you're swimming 2:00/100m but cycling 300w and running 6:00 pace then it makes much more sense to swing more heavily towards swimming.

I'm inclined to believe that improvements are lost faster than than are gained. 2 weeks off of cycling will lose you more FTP than you'll gain in a 2 week hard training block. Similar to how the 7th weekly run isn't as important as the 6th, which isn't as important as the 5th, etc. Taking a few months away from two sports is going to set you up for a very difficult spring of trying to build them back. It is easier to come back to fitness after being fit in the past, but it seems silly to subject yourself to this unnecessarily.

Take Lionel as an example. His swim (as extensively discussed) is bad enough to keep him from competing for wins, even though his bike and run are among the best. Surely the right move for him is not to take 6 months away from bike/run to focus solely on the swim. Lets say he's doing 7/12/7 for weekly hours. Converting to 26h/w swimming will inevitably help his swim (if he survives), but even if he comes out of the water first that's ~5min gained in an IM. I can assure you 6 months away from the bike/run will cost more than 5min in an IM. I go back to the previous point: Is the 26th weekly hour of swimming doing as much good as the 1st weekly hour of running?

Why do you say this? Most runners, especially amateurs, are going to be limited in how many hours they can run to probably <= 10hrs. You don't think adding cycling and/or swimming on top of that helps at all? Is a genuine question I've been grappling with as my next priority race is the London marathon, but I am also planning to do some triathlons next year. I only care about my performance in the marathon though, so I've been debating whether and how much biking/swimming to do.



I actually think it might be a worthwhile gamble for him to do 6mo+ of a very heavy swim block with only limited and easy running and biking. His bike/run will come back quickly when he resumes normal training, but the time focused on swimming might be the only chance he has of raising his level to where it needs to be to compete.

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Dimond Bikes Superfan

If your goal is to go as fast as you possibly can in the London Marathon then including swimming and cycling*might* help, but as the poster above said, only if you have maxed out your running potential. If it's not leading to injury a recovery run will be more specific and lead to faster marathon times than a recovery bike.

Say your body can handle 80 miles and two run workouts a week. Adding a bike or swim workout is only going to benefit if it doesn't detract from the run workouts. My advice would be maximize your running first, then when you feel you can't add any additional volume or intensity see if you can handle cycling first then swimming. Just simple specificity. The other safe move would be too keep bike/swim workouts at first but fade them out as you build run volume, keeping global volume the same. Just as a hedge against injury.

Re: Lionel--Gotta disagree here. His bike/run will come back, but it's not the same as some punter getting back to a 20 min 5k. These guys are at such a level that just maintaining fitness is 20+h/w.

The other point they gets missed in this discussion is when the swim block is over the swim volume returns to baseline or lower to bring the bike/run back up, which will be deleterious to any swim gains made in the block.