I’m not sure if this is a question for the numbers people or the non-numbers people but feel free to chip in regardless…
I get the feeling training by the numbers needs a fair amount of skill (and interest) and there’s always the risk of misinterpreting the data or not factoring in something that should be. Over and above that though, there always seems to ‘listen to your body’.
I’m probably reasonably well towards the non-numbers end - no Garmin, no power meter, no Training Peaks, no coach. I do wear my heart rate monitor sometimes, look at it sometimes more to validate what I think I’m doing and tend to make my training week up as I go along. I use the numbers as much as “I’ll go and ride/run/swim for XX km” and I’ll look at “Cool (or bummer) - I went XX fast” when I’ve finished. Yeah, I know I’d probably be faster, stronger, better if I did the numbers thing but I’d rather look at the scenery. Otherwise I mostly go according to how I’m feeling. (Unless some nuffie hooks onto my wheel and then I’ll drop it a bit)
I do try and pay attention to what my body tells me during training - if I think about drinking, I do. If I think about eating, I do. If I’m feeling good, I’ll push it a bit more, if I’m sagging I’ll back off a bit. And so far, so good, it hasn’t let me down but I do worry sometimes about the potential flakiness of training by intuition.
But I’m curious if anyone has had the experience of their body completely stuffing it up - not because they weren’t listening and ignored the warnings, but if what it was saying was just wrong.
Sorry if that’s a bit garbled and random - do your best with it!
If you’re enjoying yourself with this method then don’t sweat it. It’s probably a healthier mindset in the long run.
Now if you’re overriding ultimate goal is to Kona qualify or some other lofty improvement goal you might be better served with a bit more attention to the details of your training. Yes your body will lie. You can go longer, harder and more often and still recover than you think. IMO very few triathletes really bump up against their ultimate potential workload ceilings but a good number overdue things in the short haul without proper progression.
Your approach makes a lot of sense from a pure enjoyment angle but not a ultimate performance one.
If it works for you and makes you happy it is the right thing to do. Even if there is a chance your body lies to you every now and then.
For me, I am a HUGE data nerd and part of the enjoyment of training and racing is interpreting the data afterwards. However, during my workouts I am not constantly checking my watch so it is often going by feel unless the workout calls for intervals of some sort. I still enjoy the scenery and the feeling of the workout but still have the data afterwards to analyze!
Couple weeks ago I was out at the mineral wells stage race with my wife. We didn’t get much sleep, both had a sore throat when we woke up on race day saturday. She did the morning circuit race and did well.
We just had a kid recently and the TT was just a couple hours after the circuit race. We had to rush around taking care of our baby, stuffing food down her mouth to refuel for the TT. Lots of stress, no chance to take a nap or anything. She felt terrible
Told me she wanted to quit, that she was going to bomb the TT, that there was no way. We had practiced the course yesterday, it was a short one, less than 7 minutes. We had a pacing plan.
I told her that a sore throat, lack of sleep, and stress wasn’t going to change a thing about how hard she could go for 7 minute, and to just do the watts.
She did the watts. So yes the body can lie. Heart rate can lie, PE can lie.
But you can’t be a total robot with the numbers. Factors like heat and altitude and sickness absolutely can affect what you can do, so poor understanding of the numbers can cause you to plan badly. But you can create protocols based on the numbers that are flexible. Pacing an ironman? Come up with a plan based on multiple trial runs in practice. Make the plan flexible. Know your own psychological tendencies and use a plan that prevents you from making mistakes. Typically a pacing plan will be more robotic early and more intuition later in the race.
People’s bodies also tend to pace efforts way too hard in the early moments of TT type efforts. Measuring pace when running or power when cycling is a good way to figure out if you are doing that, and learn to stop.
sprint tri recently, felt good off the bike very early on in the run. Upright, quick cadence and holding decent (for me) pace. Then the wheels fell off, which isnt really the norm for a sprint tri. About 3.5 kms into it, all of a sudden the cadence had gone and legs went like lead. I grimaced the rest of the way and was about 30 seconds slower than ‘normal’ despite feeling fine earlier on. Now that might not be my body lying so to speak, but its something its done before and should be able to do, but things went haywire on a short course tri, even when holding a steady pace by the garmin. The early signs from the run said i was fine, felt good, cadence good, pace steady and on target. Hit me very quick and wasnt a gradual thing.
Anyway i digress…
Similarly i think the mind lies. I find that much more of a limiter if im not motivated
That’s the beauty of power on the bike and pace in running. It doesn’t lie. Yesterday I had a longer ride planned. Coming off 2 days finally riding outdoors with a combined TSS of about 250, my legs were flat and I was sure were totally shot. But I figured, what the hell, I had paced my rides well both days and rode mostly tempo with some threshold efforts. So I fired up a 75 minute sufferfest video plus “extra shot” afterwards and really, really surprised myself. I hit a new 60 minute average power record and rode a 0.84 IF for that whole 2h15m including a long easy warm-up and cool down.
All those numbers if nothing else can really be a carrot to motivate you, especially during a long winter. I usually can’t wait to download my session and see how it went (my Timex Cycle Trainer doesn’t; display VI, IF, NP or TSS). Look at my 5, 20, 30, 60 minute power numbers and different segments to see how I did.
Same thing happens to me I the pool. I start out just “not feeling it”. But 1/3 of the way through the main set, everything sometimes just clicks and I start nailing intervals.
IMO…the body doesn’t lie, it’s the mind that doesn’t listen, like a child that nods his/her head as if they’re listening and then goes and does what he/she wanted to do in the first place.
Signals to recover are sent. Pain, tired legs, draggin’ ass, etc. But, our ego or fear will have us ignore these signals cuz we just couldn’t possibly take a day off or back down or anything like that, could we? Usually, we convince ourselves we needed and executed a recovery day. But, was it really?
Conversely, on the good days, signals are sent to go harder/faster/breakthrough, and we ignore those due to fear…of injury, pain, blowing up, etc.
That old saying about athletes getting stuck in the rut, the middle of not going ez enough on ez days and not hard enough on hard days, is the visual I get when I’m trying to practice ‘listening to the body’. If I’m gonna ‘listen’, it has to be brutally honest, all in, no doubt to what I’m hearing. Can’t get stuck in the middle.
I’m more of a numbers guy but really chasing this concept to go WITH the numbers in the wko log. I need numbers b/c I just don’t trust me to perfectly listen to me to do what me needs to do.
My body is about as reliable as my garmin (not very). One should consider the input the body provides, compare it with other data you get and use reasoning to derive conclusions.
Does the body lie?-yes.
Does it provide wildly inaccurate information?-yes.
I have yet to work with tons of data but so far the results are decent. I also agree that my body does tell me it is tired yet able to produce some really awesome results. Mind over matter a lot of the time, just depends on how much you want to hurt.
I am a power nut, but I would say that if you are having fun and you are getting the improvements that you want out
of training by feel- stick with it.
You can always explore more scientific methods later on if you are bored or feel like a more scientific approach will help.
When I started I was all rpe- mostly because heartrate monitors were new, bulky and expensive. I still managed a 1:55 oly distance and 4:13 half iron- and that was 25 years ago on ghetto equipment (relative to now).
Thanks all for the input, interesting food for thought.
I guess it makes sense that the mind/body is going to intuitively work towards self preservation and energy conservation and send ‘back off’ messages (unless there’s a sabre tooth tiger right behind you) in preference to “go harder, you lazy bastard!”. So perhaps the risk of getting mixed messages from your own system that push you over the edge are reduced with ‘intuitive’ training - although I certainly get what jackmott is saying about getting pacing right - something I always struggle with a bit running off the bike!
I’ve not come across any research and would be happy to be pointed in the right direction of how much difference it makes to effort with visiblility of concrete numbers versus training by feel. I know from corporate experience that numbers are terribly seductive because they provide reassurance and ‘data’ but I always wonder how much real difference they make.
I trust my body. My numbers lie more often than my body. Dry HR band for example is telling me 180 bpm when I know I’m at 140 bpm. Power meter is telling me I’m a Fabian Cancellara when I know I’m barely capable of maintaining 300W. Etc…
It takes a few years of consistent training and serious racing to get to learn your body though.
Your last paragraph makes me think you are missing the point.
It is possible to do good training with no devices.
It is also possible to do bad training with every available device.
Your last paragraph makes me think you are missing the point.
It is possible to do good training with no devices.
It is also possible to do bad training with every available device.
No, I don’t think I’m missing the point. I’m just curious about if there are any trends in what difference it makes or how often the ‘listen to your body’ approach completely misses the program.
Although that indicates I’m actually interested in some numbers which kinda blows my own philopsophy:-)
You’ve got one or two weeks to be better than when you started. Otherwise, you’ve wasted your time. Forget about putting in the work. That is culturally pretty easy. Are you ready to put in the time to recover?
I use heart rate variability as a recovery/overload indicator.
I have used it for a few years with great success. It gives a window into my nervous system and tells me if I am recovered enough or indeed if I went hard enough in a session. For instance when I am doing blocks of SS training I measure my HRV the next morning, if it drops significantly after day 1 I went too hard and it wasn’t SS. Normally it remains stable for 2-3 days then drops on the 4th, indicating the block should end.
Anyway, in the past I have seen a low number, and feeling fine thought, ah I’ll train anyway, this has come back to bite me almost every time.
It can give me signs that I have an infection brewing (steadily increasing sympathetic drive) 2-3 days before systems so can stop me over-doing it.
This is a case when the body is telling me something (albeit via a measuring system) but my mind sometimes overides it to tell me I’m fine.
Incidentally HRV is far more sensitive than resting heart rate etc. and in my opinion is of far more use and every athlete should be measuring it if they can (easy with a garmin ant stick).
There is also interesting evidence that when VO2max interval workload is prescribed based on HRV that the results were improved despite a lower training load.
I use heart rate variability as a recovery/overload indicator.
I have used it for a few years with great success. It gives a window into my nervous system and tells me if I am recovered enough or indeed if I went hard enough in a session. For instance when I am doing blocks of SS training I measure my HRV the next morning, if it drops significantly after day 1 I went too hard and it wasn’t SS. Normally it remains stable for 2-3 days then drops on the 4th, indicating the block should end.
Anyway, in the past I have seen a low number, and feeling fine thought, ah I’ll train anyway, this has come back to bite me almost every time.
It can give me signs that I have an infection brewing (steadily increasing sympathetic drive) 2-3 days before systems so can stop me over-doing it.
This is a case when the body is telling me something (albeit via a measuring system) but my mind sometimes overides it to tell me I’m fine.
Incidentally HRV is far more sensitive than resting heart rate etc. and in my opinion is of far more use and every athlete should be measuring it if they can (easy with a garmin ant stick).
There is also interesting evidence that when VO2max interval workload is prescribed based on HRV that the results were improved despite a lower training load.How are you processing your results? I spent a few months recording data, extracting the HRV with Kubios, graphing the results. I struggled to see any correlation between work/rest and the Kubios results. If anything it highlighted to me that morning RHR seemed to most accurately reflect previous effort.
Are you just looking at the variability number/time domain analysis? I often found the absolute number of HRV reported to be mis-leading and prefer instead to look at the frequency domain in terms of VLF, LF and HF frequencies as I feel it gives a much better picture/
I tend to look at the powers of these to gauge my sympathetic/parasympathetic input.
For instance, if I am well rested my HF power is usually in the order of 10,000, with an LF around 5-8000.
When I am still recovering my LF can rise to as much as 10,000 with a drop in my HF to around 2-3000.
When I have finished recovering my HF often drops to around 5-8000, but my LF will stay low and gradually move back up. I am ready to train again when the HF is back to 10000.
Trends I have seen are - infection, unwavering LF of 10,000 no changes. short term overload, an LF which remains elevated at 10000 the next day. Chronic overload a HF that remains low despite the LF having returned to normal.
Mind & body are completely entangled. The body can relay “info” back that the mind has told it. I don’t see this as an either/or, but both. This feedback loop, mind - body, goes both ways. Sport training & performance is both art & science. A good coach can help the athlete on both.