Is Lange training very smart or fooling us all?

Oct 22, 18 10:01

Post #1 of 44 (6343 views)

Patrick Lange was guest on a big sports show in german TV. His annual training volume was mentioned and, unlike Frodenos monster weeks, his numbers seem rather low. If you break down the year into weeks it averages something like 17km swimming, 300 km riding and 50 km running. The only thing that seems a lot are the additional 6 hours of gym training per week.

In the same interview he mentions that he consumes 10'000 liquid calories DURING an ironman. We all know that this cannot be the case. Cody Beals can slam calories through the roof but not even close to 10'000. So when we hear things like that, is it possible that the training hours are also not that accurate?

On the one hand I find it very low volume for a (world beating) pro.

On the other hand he seems to be in peak shape right when it matters. Maybe he keeps it easy in the winter and hits the gym regularly and only ramps up his miles in the summer. It could explain why he is not that fast in Frankfurt and other races but unbeatable on the Big Island?
So in addition to his favourable body type for Kona is his build up just smartet than that of other pros? For a long time it was very difficult to win a big summer ironman and Kona in the same year. Only the likes of Frodeno and Sebi have changed that in the last couple of years. Is an Allen approach with a slow start still the best way to show your best performance in Kona?

10k - 30:48 / half - 1:06:40

Re: Is Lange training very smart or fooling us all? [ToBeasy] [ In reply to ]

Oct 22, 18 10:26

Post #2 of 44 (6206 views)

21 hours plus 5 or 6 hours auxillary gym work (core and rebalancing etc) seems pretty normal no? he is a trained physiotherapist and his gf a biomechanic , so it would make sense that he ers on the side of recovery and technique refinement

Re: Is Lange training very smart or fooling us all? [ToBeasy] [ In reply to ]

Oct 22, 18 10:28

Post #3 of 44 (6174 views)

Lange does seem like a sneaky guy. I vote "fooling us all."

Re: Is Lange training very smart or fooling us all? [lacticturkey] [ In reply to ]

Oct 22, 18 10:29

Post #4 of 44 (6166 views)

lacticturkey wrote:

21 hours plus 5 or 6 hours auxillary gym work (core and rebalancing etc) seems pretty normal no? he is a trained physiotherapist and his gf a biomechanic , so it would make sense that he ers on the side of recovery and technique refinement

What I was going to say. Seems a pretty healthy volume to me.

Re: Is Lange training very smart or fooling us all? [ToBeasy] [ In reply to ]

Oct 22, 18 10:54

Post #5 of 44 (6017 views)

Not to pile on Lionel here...but what did those monster weeks do to him leading into Kona?

Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Re: Is Lange training very smart or fooling us all? [ToBeasy] [ In reply to ]

Oct 22, 18 11:22

Post #6 of 44 (5835 views)

I never like to "average" anything to make any sort of conclusion, because I think that then takes out the specificity of training plans.

I'd like to see 6-8 week plan going into Kona. See how big the ramp up is and when the "taper" begins.

Strobro, to answer your LS question.....Whether right or wrong, LS apparently needed that high volume for his own confidence. Whether he trained stupid or not, to me he did it for his on sanity and confidence, not just to do it, but for the confidence that he seemingly needed. Now of course insert an advisor/coach and said person can get even the "bad" results positives from it...and thus likely not train as "reactive".

Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Re: Is Lange training very smart or fooling us all? [B_Doughtie] [ In reply to ]

Dave Latourette

Oct 22, 18 11:24

Post #7 of 44 (5817 views)

Not to mention his suicidal bike output for 100k ... other guys in his swim group landed in the top 10 (re: Sanders)

Re Lange ... yearly averages don't mean a lot AND typically are either inflated or deflated ... agreed

-------------------------
Dave Latourette
http://www.TTENation.com

Last edited by: Dave Latourette: Oct 22, 18 11:25

Re: Is Lange training very smart or fooling us all? [tuckandgo] [ In reply to ]

Oct 22, 18 11:29

Post #8 of 44 (5769 views)

tuckandgo wrote:

lacticturkey wrote:

21 hours plus 5 or 6 hours auxillary gym work (core and rebalancing etc) seems pretty normal no? he is a trained physiotherapist and his gf a biomechanic , so it would make sense that he ers on the side of recovery and technique refinement

What I was going to say. Seems a pretty healthy volume to me.

Frodeno claims to do twice as much running and riding.

I know, there is always a lot of confusion between peak training and average. I wonder because I have heard a lot of pros that run and bike much more.

10k - 30:48 / half - 1:06:40

Re: Is Lange training very smart or fooling us all? [ToBeasy] [ In reply to ]

Oct 22, 18 11:38

Post #9 of 44 (5695 views)

When you take into account off season, taper weeks, and recovery weeks it’s not really that low.

But as @jkhayc said, he is sneaky. I mean, he did pull a banana out of his kit one year and then managed to steal a liter of coke from the volunteers the next year.

https://twitter.com/mungub

Re: Is Lange training very smart or fooling us all? [ToBeasy] [ In reply to ]

Oct 22, 18 12:27

Post #10 of 44 (5426 views)

When it comes to volume I feel many look at it from there wrong angle.

Rather that how much volume is someone doing, I think more so, the question be who is getting the most out of their volume with proper recovery?

To me, its more about finding that load of volume you can appropriately recover and ADAPT from.

Also what we see on the socials is only a snapshot of what they are truly doing. What Brooks said, it's a snippet of time in the build. What were they doing 3 months out, 6 months out, etc. Thats more telling IMO.

This reminds me of a YouTube video years ago where Simon Whitfield made a comment such as"Most triathletes take their biggest weeks in each discipline and put that in one week as their average" or something to that extent.

On another note, Lange is just yet another triathlete (Pro or AG) who is incorporating strength training into his routine and having great success with it. But that is an entirely different topic that has been discussed to deaths end here before.

Last edited by: 907Tri: Oct 22, 18 12:29

Re: Is Lange training very smart or fooling us all? [mungub50] [ In reply to ]

Oct 22, 18 13:13

Post #11 of 44 (5217 views)

... and did you notice him dump the coke all over himself???

Re: Is Lange training very smart or fooling us all? [ToBeasy] [ In reply to ]

Oct 22, 18 13:18

Post #12 of 44 (5182 views)

Quote:

Frodeno claims to do twice as much running and riding.

... and has a stress fracture in his hip!

"The first virtue in a soldier is endurance of fatigue; courage is only the second virtue."
- Napoleon Bonaparte

Last edited by: Don_W: Oct 22, 18 13:19

Re: Is Lange training very smart or fooling us all? [ToBeasy] [ In reply to ]

Oct 22, 18 13:22

Post #13 of 44 (5141 views)

Frodeno claims to do twice as much running and riding. //

And where exactly did that put him a month out from Kona again?? Trying to ascertain anything from a yearly average is just silly. He could have had 3 months off in the offseason, he might do a lot of very low mileage recovery weeks, and some people just dont need to do a ton of miles. I remember Paula's training, her average per week on the bike was probably 150 or less. Probably 35 for running, and 10k a week swimming. Now her training was pretty consistent, only a little ramp up in mileage before Kona, perhaps 3 to 5 100 mile rides the entire year too. I recall she did pretty good with that, finished most races looking like she could run another 10 at the same pace...

The range on what people need is going to be very large in this regard, after figuring in intensity and some other things. Of all those folks racing at the same level at Kona, there are probably some doing twice as much as others, with some of the low mileage folks doing very well...

Re: Is Lange training very smart or fooling us all? [ToBeasy] [ In reply to ]

Oct 22, 18 13:39

Post #14 of 44 (5033 views)

The average distances and durations annouced seems reasonable.
Regarding calories, he might have said that he "burn" around 10 000 Cal per IM, and refill only by liquid. Both are possibly truth.

To compare to Lionel Sanders (the "metre etalon" of triathlon on slowtwitch forum), Lionel delivered last year detailed data on his training plan all year long plus a focus on "before Kona 2017"
with global volume and SBR split.

LS 2017 Average week : 16 hours (so, lower than Lange)

LS 2017 Kona specific prepa :

the last 5 weeks : minimum 19h, max 26h per week (so, not huge)
only 1 week taper (but apparently it was 10 days cycles, including recovery, as can be seen in CTL / ATL / TSB curves)
max CTL : 185
max ATL : slightly below 200

So really, in 2017, pretty straightforward plan for Lionel.

Re: Is Lange training very smart or fooling us all? [ToBeasy] [ In reply to ]

Oct 22, 18 14:16

Post #15 of 44 (4871 views)

ToBeasy wrote:

Frodeno claims to do twice as much running and riding.

I know, there is always a lot of confusion between peak training and average. I wonder because I have heard a lot of pros that run and bike much more.

Well, Frodeno is also broken.

Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Re: Is Lange training very smart or fooling us all? [ToBeasy] [ In reply to ]

Oct 22, 18 23:50

Post #16 of 44 (4181 views)

Seems pretty reasonable to me and likely he's telling the truth or at least close to the truth. If he takes four weeks completely off during the year that comes out to 18.5k, 200 miles, 35 miles of running a week for the whole year. And six hours of gym work is no joke. We don't know anything about intensity. That is the interesting part.

Re: Is Lange training very smart or fooling us all? [oprfcc] [ In reply to ]

Oct 23, 18 0:07

Post #17 of 44 (4152 views)

Functional training definately seems like it would be productive. Correcting muscle imbalance, activating nerves, targeted stretching, pnf work.... Frodo also travels with a physio too, it has to be a huge help.

Chrissy also took the time for core strength and gleuts and hamstring activation work with dave Scott right? I wonder how much time they put aside for that ... Was it one hour instructor led session per week or also 5 or 6 hours per week on top of regular sbr

Last edited by: lacticturkey: Oct 23, 18 1:58

Re: Is Lange training very smart or fooling us all? [lacticturkey] [ In reply to ]

Oct 23, 18 0:43

Post #18 of 44 (4075 views)

Quote:

17km swimming, 300 km riding and 50 km running

Where are 21 hours of training there? I guess he'll swim 17k in 4.5h, ride 300k in 9-10h and run 50k in less than 4h.

That would be about 18h per week. I agree though that as an average over the year that is plenty, he seems to really peak for Kona, so maybe he does 14h year round then kicks up to nearer 30h for the 2-3 months before Kona.

Re: Is Lange training very smart or fooling us all? [NUFCrichard] [ In reply to ]

Oct 23, 18 1:17

Post #19 of 44 (4009 views)

Just look at yourself (well, or look at myself ;-)): I average around 6~7 hours if counting the whole year and do 12~15 hours in the build-up for my peak season IM. If you apply factor 2 to Lange as well that would mean 15~18 hours in avg. and 30~35 hours in the Kona build-up. Sounds reasonable to me.

Re: Is Lange training very smart or fooling us all? [ToBeasy] [ In reply to ]

Oct 23, 18 1:57

Post #20 of 44 (3915 views)

If this is true, it just goes to further show that quality and gym work are far more important than most age groupers realize and accept.

Lange - Not injured, fresh and wins 2nd year in a row, despite many not picking him to do so.
Sanders - possibly overtrained, maybe some other stuff that's been beat like the red-headed step-child.
Frodo - Stress fracture.
Hoffman - Stress fracture.

I apologize for not remembering who exactly, but I do believe there were some women non-starters with similar injuries.

"The person on top of the mountain didn't fall there." - unkown

also rule 5

Re: Is Lange training very smart or fooling us all? [ToBeasy] [ In reply to ]

Oct 23, 18 1:58

Post #21 of 44 (3914 views)

i'm a bit skeptical about the 6 hours in the gym; depending on what he's doing that feels like a lot. i mean is that stretching and rolling and stuff too?

as for the 10 000 kcals, that's nonsense. the record (insofar as there is on) for calories burned in 24hrs is nominally held by mike stroud, who recorded 10 000 in a day while skiing to the south pole. if lange is eating a calorie surplus during an ironman he's foolish, and 10 000 kcals is just over 18 big macs. does anyone think he's taking in that much during a race? maybe be means kilojoules?

____________________________________
https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

Re: Is Lange training very smart or fooling us all? [iron_mike] [ In reply to ]

Oct 23, 18 2:33

Post #22 of 44 (3839 views)

I agree: he means 10000kj

Re: Is Lange training very smart or fooling us all? [iron_mike] [ In reply to ]

Oct 23, 18 2:58

Post #23 of 44 (3775 views)

That record is definitely wrong. A RAAM rider back in 03 averaged 18k burned per day for over 9 days, a regular ironman for most is probably close to 10k. Kouros ran 187 miles in 24h so somewhere close to 20kkcal.
But i also suspect Lange means KJ

Terrible Tuesday’s Triathlon

Re: Is Lange training very smart or fooling us all? [iron_mike] [ In reply to ]

Oct 23, 18 4:22

Post #24 of 44 (3595 views)

Without seeing the interview, could the 10k be hyperbole? ... Like... I'm do hungry I could eat a horse... I saw like 50 people on pinarello today.... I ate like 10k calories today...?

He's a physio so, 7 hours gym time wouldn't be 7 hours deadlifting, but i guess total time stretching, pnf movements, proprioception, reflex training drills, gait, lifting for rebalancing, core balance, stretching, nerve stretches, 3d spine stretches...

Would be great if he or his coach could elaborate

Re: Is Lange training very smart or fooling us all? [TheStroBro] [ In reply to ]

Oct 23, 18 4:33

Post #25 of 44 (3570 views)

frodeno was out of kona because of a fall while handing off his bike to the volunteer at 70.3 worlds because ironman can't provide the volunteers with proper training.

he wasn't out due to his training.

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