Endurance Nation knows better than Crowie and Rinnie. Wow.

This article is flat out wrong.

Anytime you learn something it gets wired into the brain. When you BRICK it becomes a single event to the brain and you get better at it the more you do it. The more you Bike then Run immediately after, the more efficient and seamless it will become.

Granted many atheletes go out too fast at the beginning of a Bike/ Run during a race; but that has nothing to do with BRICK'ing during training.

Didn't Crowie run several mile repeats at 5:20-6:00 min pace after a long bike (100+ miles) during his build-up for Kona?

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Bruce
ALBOPADS XTERRAWETSUITS NEWTON OAKLEY FIZIK GARMIN ROTOR COMPUTRAINER QUARQ HONEYSTINGER

Brick away, my friend. The more you brick, the more you practice poor quality running. The human brain (at least for most of us) is not a vacant storage locker that requires you to stuff it to the point of overflow before you recognize what's in there. It's a very sophisticated I/O system. Run a single brick, and you will experience all of the physical and mental stimulation required to fully comprehend running off the bike. The brain-body condition is satisfied in one shot (though the 1-2x per season reminder is of some value before each race season). Furthermore, if you're racing at a reasonable effort, there will always be a period of discomfort coming out of T2. Bricks aren't going to change that.

The only way to get better at running off the bike is to learn effective bike pacing and become a stronger runner. Neither of those activities require bricks in order to be accomplished. As I said before, brick running is nothing more than poor quality running.

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"The right to party is a battle we have fought, but we'll surrender and go Amish... NOT!" -Wayne Campbell

maybe, but is that why he won? i thought it was the shiv?

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I think it's bought to us by the same people that said to stop swimming over the winter.

I agree. But just as you, end up doing a number of "bricks" throughout the week. But I'm generally always running first if it's supposed to have any quality work within the run. IE, run before I swim. It's a time management thing for me and that's all it is.

To run better, you need to run more and more often. Specificity, stupid.

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"One Line Robert"

"As I said before, brick running is nothing more than poor quality running."

I guess you have the Data from a peer reviewed study to back that up?

I do brick workouts for the mental reminder that my running legs will show up. But even then the run is short. 1-2 a season I do a longer brick (run about 1 hour off a 5-6 hour bike) to help me test my bike nutrition. And to help me dial in the run pace I want to start the run at. For an IM, I always try to run about :30 slower than my goal pace. This means I usually run about goal pace because it's hard to run slow at the beginning, but after practicing it a couple times, I can usually make the mental notes I need to slow down.

There are reasons to do a brick run, but learning to run on tired legs is not one of them. Learning you can run on tired legs might be one. But that only takes a couple minutes to do.

"To run better, you need to run more and more often. Specificity, stupid."

So wouldn't it follow - If you want to run faster off the bike you need to practice running faster off the bike? Specificity!

Ah, Endurance Nation. Never be afraid to give bad advice based on poor anecdotal evidence. First, they advise no swimming in the offseason. Now, no bricks.

If you want to read a REALLY interesting article on the PRECISE value of brick workouts - and why they are REALLY important - read the AIS study on lower-leg muscle activation during "normal" running vs. running off the bike. Then read the section of the conclusion where they explicitly state that running off the bike in training reduces the time it takes for your body to start firing your lower leg muscles "as normal" (typically, there is some residual carryover where your body is "confused" and still fires the muscles as if you were cycling).

But don't let actual, practical evidence get in the way of what a couple of hack "coaches" (using the term loosely) think.

Of course, rather than reading ANY study at all, you can think about one simple concept - specificity. Running off the bike is specific training for triathlon. Therefore, it is going to make you a better triathlete. But of course, that doesn't get anyone talking about your "articles."

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

100% wrong. The brain-body condition is never-ever satisfied with one shot. The brain needs constant repitition for something to be learned and for an action to become more efficient. This is why professional golfers still work on their swings after decades of playing. The best veteran hockey players are the ones who are last off the ice at practice, practicing shot after shot after shot. The more you BRICK the more efficient you will become at running off the Bike; which is why Craig Alexander after 20 years of triathlon racing still does it.

Running fresh and independent of the Bike is important too. However, Running off the Bike is also very important to continually teach the body to run with different muscle groups already fatigued. Running off the Bike teaches us how we should pace on the Bike. Running off the Bike teaches our bodies how to use internal fuel supplies more efficiently simply because the endurance of the session becomes elongated by the fact another activity has been added; and that activity includes the body using different systems. Running off the Bike teaches us countless physical and mental strategies that we will become better at the more we do it. Because the more we do something, the better we naturally become at it. And the brain, like most people, is stubborn and needs repetition before something truly sinks in.

I don't need a peer reviewed study to tell me that running on tired, stressed legs results in:

1. reduced pace versus perceived exertion
2. reduced sustainability
3. degraded running form
4. greater probability of injury.

If any one of those four components equates to high quality running, then I'll gladly eat my words.

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"The right to party is a battle we have fought, but we'll surrender and go Amish... NOT!" -Wayne Campbell

If you only BRICK once to remind your brain how to run off the Bike, then yes - all those things will come true.

If you continually BRICK once a week for several weeks then the likely outcome will be:

1. increased pace vs RPE
2. increased sustainability
3. better running form that will begin to resemble your normal stand-alone run form
4. greater probablity of injury NOT BRICKING and then Sprinting off the BIke during a Sprint/OLY or Running long at a 70.3/140.6

For me personally, I've found that bricking in the traditional sense too often (bike and then run) has made me more prone to injury. Admittedly, this was before I was actually coached and my run ramp and volume was probably too much too soon (along with a laundry list of other things I was sure to be doing wrong). A pretty classic case that can't just be tied to bricking too often but perhaps partially. Basically running on tired legs.

Now that I'm coached, bricks certainly do have their place but again, for the most part, I think its more of a time issue for me (although my coach might read this and tell me otherwise and then scold me for talking out of my arse). At least during the week. On the weekends, I'm certainly doing brick focused work.

But I do still feel that running more and more often is key to running faster. Off the bike, or not. But thats not really the conversation here.

Jordan and yourself do have a point though. Bricking is quite specific to triathlon. I guess it has previously just been an n=1 kind of thing for me.

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"One Line Robert"

If we're going to discuss the merits of brick running (and yes, I do concede that there is some limited merit to them) then why focus on a "brick run?" Shouldn't it be a brick sprint!? Get off the bike and condition your body to correctly orient the muscle behavior as fast as humanly possible. If you want to train your brain and body to transition from pedal stroke to foot strike through repetitive conditioning, then a steeper learning curve would be preferred. Your body will understand the desired speed of the transition (i.e. the conditional input) and will theoretically respond with the corresponding (conditioned) output.

I'll go so far as to say that my best transitions occur when I drop the hammer out of T2, or if there's a steep incline coming out of transition. Perhaps I'm onto something ...

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"The right to party is a battle we have fought, but we'll surrender and go Amish... NOT!" -Wayne Campbell

Interesting.

In your opinion, how often does one need to brick and for what length to obtain the benefits you've detailed? I guess it again might be specific to the distance of race you're training for, but can one still derive benefit from a long ride (3-5 hours) followed by a short run (3-5 miles) to see the benefits for long course racing? Or does the run need to be longer?

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"One Line Robert"

i got lost in this thread and wasn't sure who i wanted to reply to....... so Fleck, you get the reply.

early in the season when it's time to start thinking about tri's instead of just bike races and running races, we kick up "The Machine". this is a R-B-R-B-R and is done at full speed. 1.9M Run legs, and 10M bike legs.

not sure if this is considered a "brick" in the sense of the word, but i will say some of my fastest mile splits come from this 'event' and my highest 20minutes wattage numbers from the same 'event'. i think the run first puts me on the bike in a depleted state like a hard swim, and then the run off the bike is the same. not to mention you get some T1 & T2 practice's in.

it's usually over in 1:20 or so total.

this is also done on Monday nights. i love to hate them and look forward to them every week!

thoughts?

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Tim

What I gather from your comments is that brick running is as good as - if not better than - stand alone running. In other words:

1. running at a slower relative pace, one is able to generate a greater amount of speed relative to their RPE
2. running on tired, fatigued legs, one can perform training runs of comparable quality over greater distances
3. running with inevitably diminished form (due to fatigue) one experiences enhanced strengthening of the supporting muscles required for good form
4. muscles that are fatigued provide greater support and become stronger when further stressed.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but those are the conclusions I've drawn.

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"The right to party is a battle we have fought, but we'll surrender and go Amish... NOT!" -Wayne Campbell

Specificty.

If you're doing short course, target a tempo BRICK. If you are training Iron-distance, build up to and target your Ironman Pace.

Just a general reply:

So in conclusion, you don't have to do bricks to be a triathlete, but they do have some benefits. Got it. I think I'll keep doing them.

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Pink? Maybe. Maybe not. You decide.

1. the pace will be "slower" to start and then increase with consistency and repetition.
2. just like growing your Run and Bike distances, you grow your BRICK running distance. Stand-alone Long Runs are still of great importance.
3. the more you run, whether BRICK'ing or stand-alone, the body makes adaptations and becomes more efficient. Which is why elite marathoners run 100+ mile weeks, despite being tired and fatigued; and yeah, their form tends to improve.
4. see #3

I think "bike tired" legs are different than "run tired" legs.

Fleck

For years you have espoused racing more. Not just triathlons, but other single-sport races. Like many here, I was myoptic in my views. I figured why? Triathlons incorporate everything. So triathlon then became the be all, end all.

This year just kind of fell into doing what you espouse. Because of my work schedule this year, knew the racing was going to be very limited. So over the winter, ran a lot. If one is time constrained, running does give a good return on investment.

In April, ran my first 50 mile Ultra. In July, jumped into an Olympic Tri at the last minute. A couple weeks later, again at the last minute, a 5K. In August, a HIM. And late September, a Olympic Tri. Early October was a bandit in an open water 1.2 mile swim race (waited until the entire field was off then swam from behind into the school).

So, 2 road races, 3 tris, and 1 ow swim. Not really much racing but the best I could do. And the result. The most fun I've probably ever had in this sport. And those three tris were peak performances.

Oh, by the way, I do like bricks.

Rather than continuing the point-by-point analysis, I want to ask you a simple question. When you unclip from your bike pedals and slip into your running shoes, is the quality of the run you're about to perform greater than the quality of a stand alone run done at the same RPE? If you cannot answer that question with definitive "yes" then the discussion is over. I don't know of a single person that can complete a true training ride of any distance/duration (this excludes warm-up rides) and manage to follow it up with a run that is universally of a higher quality. It defies all logic.

The brick run is designed to train the transition of muscular response from cycling to running. That process takes a matter of minutes. Any running that you do beyond that brief adaptation period is completely diminished in value, assuming that the alternative is running on fresh legs. That is why I'm now going to advocate for brick sprinting as the new revolution in multisport training. Let us join together and milk the triathlon community of its disposable income. Silver bullets like this only come along once every ..... uhm ..... week or so ..... in triathlon :-)

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"The right to party is a battle we have fought, but we'll surrender and go Amish... NOT!" -Wayne Campbell

It's actually sad to see such a close-minded article, when simple common sense shows us how wrong it is. Just re-read the comments in this thread and everyone agreeing with this article is pretty much admitting that Running off the Bike includes a different level of fatigue; different Running form; YEAH cause Running off the Bike is different than strand-alone Running!! Duh! Of course, the fundamentals of Running are the same which is why we should continue to do stand-alone Run training, and why stand-alone Run training is critical; however, Running off the Bike is a different animal than stand-alone Running and should be addressed through BRICK training. And who gets better at just training something once or twice????

Making a statement like "you just have to BRICK once before a race to remind your body what it feels like" is equivalent to solely training on flat roads and then racing a technical, off-road Xterra and saying "you just have to ride off-road once to remind your brain and body what a bumpy off-road ride ride feels like".
Sure you have core fundamental cycling fitness, and may do very well training like this for an Xterra; but you'd perform that much better if you specifically trained many off-road sessions. Trainer rides and flat road cylcling will also be essential; but you can't replace off-road riding with just a single session or two; just like you can't replace succesfully running off the bike by doing a single BRICK or two. Sure, if you run 50 miles a week and ride 300 miles a week with no BRICKS you will still have a fast race. However, if you replace a portion of that running with consistent BRICK-work, your likely to have an even faster race for countless reasons.

Perhaps if more Triathletes trained "Triathlon" (BRICK'ing specifically) there would be less claims that they went "too hard on the Bike at the start" or "too hard on the Run to start".