I think a lot of it was cased by HIIT, famous “Time crunched cyclists” etc, magic BS gains in 8 weeks… same as magic diet that allows you to loose 20kg in 30 days…
Somebody should expose HIIT for what it is, and stop blowing smoke up untrained beginners asses and promise them god know what in 8 weeks.
Books like Time Crunched Cyclists causes more injuries than car accidents, I would even say more bad than good.
There is a lot of people starting in the sport, and books like time crunched cyclists are the most appealing, talking about Cyclocross worlds after 8 weeks of training…
Carmichael should be hang by the balls upside down…
Well that’s quite the rant… but every time crunched plan I’ve ever looked at, including Carmichael’s, included the caveat that the plan was not optimal for reaching your maximum potential, but rather designed to get the best bang for the buck out of low to moderate volume, not because that is the better approach but because for many people it is the only practical approach.
You know, shocking as it may be to some in the ST world, many people have families, jobs that require long hours, etc. and can’t make training the primary focus of their nonworking hours.
Well there is always the option to change jobs and open up more time for other things if the long working hours are getting in the way. It’s really a question of what someone wants out of life. There are only a few jobs in this world that you can’t switch out of. The rest, you can if you want to. It may involve making less money, or the work might be less interesting or glamorous, but there are other options that allow people more time with family and for fitness. Most of these things are a personal choice. Less job, less fancy car/s, less fancy everything, more time for family or training. These are all personal priority management choices at different phases in life.
But hey, if the long work hours make one happy (and I know that in general my work life has made me quite happy as I get paid to do my other hobby which is tech), then it is totally fine if one wants to short change training. It’s fine. But if someone is miserable because of their long work hours and they can’t enjoy exercise which they want to do and want to work less, it sounds like they are prisoners in their own self created jail cell.
This may or may not be you. I’ve gone through that myself at times and just made sure I inserted by 2 hours of training somehow, work be damned…or I changed jobs. There is still 8-12 hours per day (depending on the company and the mission) for work. Honestly if I can’t produce in 6 hours what other guys doing the presenteeism routine are doing in 10 hours then I’m just being inefficient (because by and large most people are work are inherently inefficient). On the other hand, I am in an output measured industry, so it’s easier for me to say. If one is in a service oriented or manufacturing oriented company where every unit of input time equates to an output then you can’t get away with my mindset.
And I should add, just winging 2 hours of training per day WILL NOT GET ONE to their max potential, just like Carmichael won’t on HITS. There are much better ways to get to max potential. In general terms though, 2 hours per day and getting to low body fat and lots of rest through sleep will get most guys and girls really far towards the max potential. Then you have the last 5%, but the last 5 percent over a 10 hour Ironman is the diff between the 10 hour guy and the 9:30 guy. 5% does not sound like a lot but it’s a completely different world. For that, you really do have to apply proper science. JFT 2 hrs per day will go only so far.
