Less is Less article

Triathlon Forum
1

I’ve just read Jordan’s article on recovery, and he raises lots of good points. I love the monkey and donut games! :slight_smile:

I work full time (or part time according to my boss) and I train between 10-25 hours a week depending on time of year and my race calendar. One of the reasons I’m not actually very good at triathlon (I’m mired in the MOP) is because I don’t train enough, or well enough. I could train more, and the times I have done so, I have improved. However, life gets in the way, and again I finish MOP. No worries, giving my input, I’m relatively content with the results.

I think what a lot of A-Type trigeeks do is work full time (often in A-Type jobs) get stress from home life too, and THEN pile on the training. Rest/recovery is compromised. Rest, or more accurately, non-training days are not actually recovery days, they are simply non-training stress/load days. Like laying hardwood floors or doing the lawns etc. Triathletes typically don’t get enough proper rest/recovery to allow proper or full supercompensation. Instead of starting the next training session recovered and improved from the previous training effort, they start at a lower point, and day after day, just hammer themselves into reduced performance.

What they need to do is increase their effective recovery time, to allow the supercompensation to happen. Depending on the specifics of the situation, improved performance due to increased recovery (allowing supercompensation) CAN actually come from reduced training. Alternatively, something else has to give (family, sleep…except that is the best recovery of all, or reduced work time)

I have found in my own experience, that I can handle about 15-20 hours a week of training, without toooo much difficulty. When I bump up to 25 hours a week, I start to get grumpy, simply because the additional training is on top of all my other life stresses. For IM training, about 1 month, 2 months and 3 months before my big race, I take a week off work. In the 9 day week, I get over 45 hours of training in! Big rides and runs, multiple swims or multiple workouts each day. In between workouts, I shower, read a book, sleep or just plain chill out. Invariably my wife asks me to paint the hallway, or pave the driveway or whatever, but I just refuse, saying that my rest time is for resting, not doing other work. Hell, I don’t even make dinner for the family during those weeks. I can absorb tons more training, simply because I discard work and family for recovery, proper recovery. After the big week is over, I go back to inadequate recovery (mow the tall grass in my yard for example, right after a 6 hour bike run workout!), knowing that in a few weeks I will be able to rest again (I do a 4 week planned periodization BTW)

Now I won’t rule the world or even get beyond MOP with my training regeime, but I do manage to get the most performance from my body, with the limited training and resting time I have available. And THAT is all, any of us can really ask for.

Off course, your mileage may vary :slight_smile:

2

In true internet fashion I’ll ignore the main point of your post and state that is you truly trained 25 hrs a week (or even 10-25 consistently) you wouldn’t be MOP.
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3

If I trained like YOU for 20+ hours a week I wouldn’t be MOP.

However, I train like ME for 20+ hours a week, so I DO finish MOP.

In case you haven’t read any of my posts previously, I’m 50 years old, I’m chubby, I have broken 36 bones over the years, plus multiple soft tissue injuries. (my broken neck and back are currently causing me issues) I have several heart problems as well as arthritis in my hips and hands that cause me considerable problems on the bike and run. I have almost DNF’d several times (and dawdled home on the bike or run) thanks to my arthritic hips. I once had to lie down on the run in a 1/2 IM, to try and get my HR to drop below 200BPM. Then I walked it in (feeling like the south end of a north bound cow) and limped into the ambulance for ECG and monitoring by the ambo crew. That doesn’t help me get out of the MOP.

I do the best I can given the physical and life dictated limitations I have to work with. Yeah, I’d love to train more, race faster and smash all you other trigeeks into submission with my greatness, but that just ain’t gunna happen. I swim OK for an old fat FK, but I ride and run like Betty White on a bad day!

Training isn’t all about the time, it’s about the effectiveness. I do the time, but it ain’t always that effective. :frowning:

4

Training isn’t all about the time, it’s about the effectiveness. I do the time, but it ain’t always that effective. :frowning:

I stand corrected. If you admit intentional ineffectiveness why continue in the same vein? Fun?

5

Fun. Fun training, fun racing, and mostly, fun hanging with other cool, similarly addicted, positive fun triathletes.

Only one person wins, but still, thousands of the rest of us still kill ourselves most days, just to enter and finish the race. I’m not the only one with no chance of winning. I don’t fail if I don’t win, I fail if I don’t start!

6

Great attitude! Thanks for sharing.

7

I was very interested in the article. I am 55 and rarely take a day off. Having said that, many days–especially in the off season—are usually not more than 1000-1500 meters in the water with maybe another half hour tops of some kind of LifeCycle/treadmill combo. I think the year round consistency has helped over the years and when I need to ramp up in the spring/summer, the infrastructure is solidly in place. I probably should take a few more “rest days”, but I have adapted over time and haven’t had any big bouts of fatigue since going to this lower mileage/bit of intensity regime. For me, the consistent ez heart rate swimming has been key…big aerobic base without injury.

8

Many good points in your post. I would add that “health” and “fitness” are not always the same thing. At the super-elite level, the common cold that might put us mortals down for a few days will take them down for a few weeks. That’s because that level of training puts enormous stress on the body. So when training at that level, rest and recovery are a part of the job, equally important as the training itself. When you get upwards of 20+ hours per week sustained, you really need to have your shit together especially from a recovery standpoint.

9

I was very interested in the article. I am 55 and rarely take a day off. Having said that, many days–especially in the off season—are usually not more than 1000-1500 meters in the water with maybe another half hour tops of some kind of LifeCycle/treadmill combo. I think the year round consistency has helped over the years and when I need to ramp up in the spring/summer, the infrastructure is solidly in place. I probably should take a few more “rest days”, but I have adapted over time and haven’t had any big bouts of fatigue since going to this lower mileage/bit of intensity regime. For me, the consistent ez heart rate swimming has been key…big aerobic base without injury.

As with any regeime, it’s hard to say if you could be better or worse off with a different regeime. As we are all just sample sets of N=1, we can only try different things and home in on what seems to work best for each of us.

Your system seems to work well enough for you that you are comfortable keeping on with it. It’s great that you are happy doing what you are doing. The other side is to be unhappy doing what you are doing and that just plain sucks :slight_smile:

I manage to achieve my moderate goals with my bumbling efforts that have some structure but not blind adherence to any particular plan. I have general guidelines, dictated by my life generally, that I follow more or less. I no longer get bummed out about missing a workout or 10.

As my son is just about to open a personal training studio of his own (with 11 personal trainers working for him) I suspect he might have me doing more specific training and more power workouts. I will try that for a while and see how it goes in achieving my own goals. To each their own. I must admit, I like rest so will continue doing it as often as my wife will tolerate! LOL

10

Training isn’t all about the time, it’s about the effectiveness. I do the time, but it ain’t always that effective. :frowning:

Hey. For some people training is not the limiter. Be it genetics, health problems, whatever. But I find it hard to believe that a healthy young adult with “normal” genetics can’t be FOP on 20 hours a week. Some freaks might be able to do that on 5 hours, some anti-freaks might require 30 hours, but on 20 hours most are going to be just dandy.

Of course, the schedule thing is a major limiter for us day-job-joe’s that a pro triathlete doesn’t have to worry about. Finding 10 and more hours a week can be a struggle for anyone with other obligations. But I find it hard to believe that anyone putting in a 25 hour week has under-training as their primary issue, and I don’t think that’s what Jordan intended to say either. I think it was mainly aimed at the crowd that thinks super hard intervals for 8 hours a week with an extra 12 hours recovery will benefit you as much as a 20 hour training week.

11

if you are actually training 20 hours a week, and still chubby, I am impressed at your eating habits.

I did a pretty good training log leading up to savageman and I peaked at like 14 hours, for ONE week, of actual training time.

I was tired as hell and beat up and im 32 years old!

If I trained like YOU for 20+ hours a week I wouldn’t be MOP.

However, I train like ME for 20+ hours a week, so I DO finish MOP.

In case you haven’t read any of my posts previously, I’m 50 years old, I’m chubby, I have broken 36 bones over the years, plus multiple soft tissue injuries. (my broken neck and back are currently causing me issues) I have several heart problems as well as arthritis in my hips and hands that cause me considerable problems on the bike and run. I have almost DNF’d several times (and dawdled home on the bike or run) thanks to my arthritic hips. I once had to lie down on the run in a 1/2 IM, to try and get my HR to drop below 200BPM. Then I walked it in (feeling like the south end of a north bound cow) and limped into the ambulance for ECG and monitoring by the ambo crew. That doesn’t help me get out of the MOP.

I do the best I can given the physical and life dictated limitations I have to work with. Yeah, I’d love to train more, race faster and smash all you other trigeeks into submission with my greatness, but that just ain’t gunna happen. I swim OK for an old fat FK, but I ride and run like Betty White on a bad day!

Training isn’t all about the time, it’s about the effectiveness. I do the time, but it ain’t always that effective. :frowning:

12

if you are actually training 20 hours a week, and still chubby, I am impressed at your eating habits.

I did a pretty good training log leading up to savageman and I peaked at like 14 hours, for ONE week, of actual training time.

I was tired as hell and beat up and im 32 years old!

If I trained like YOU for 20+ hours a week I wouldn’t be MOP.

However, I train like ME for 20+ hours a week, so I DO finish MOP.

In case you haven’t read any of my posts previously, I’m 50 years old, I’m chubby, I have broken 36 bones over the years, plus multiple soft tissue injuries. (my broken neck and back are currently causing me issues) I have several heart problems as well as arthritis in my hips and hands that cause me considerable problems on the bike and run. I have almost DNF’d several times (and dawdled home on the bike or run) thanks to my arthritic hips. I once had to lie down on the run in a 1/2 IM, to try and get my HR to drop below 200BPM. Then I walked it in (feeling like the south end of a north bound cow) and limped into the ambulance for ECG and monitoring by the ambo crew. That doesn’t help me get out of the MOP.

I do the best I can given the physical and life dictated limitations I have to work with. Yeah, I’d love to train more, race faster and smash all you other trigeeks into submission with my greatness, but that just ain’t gunna happen. I swim OK for an old fat FK, but I ride and run like Betty White on a bad day!

Training isn’t all about the time, it’s about the effectiveness. I do the time, but it ain’t always that effective. :frowning:

  1. I can eat :slight_smile:

  2. I have specialized in long SLOW distance :frowning:

13

I disagree with his article. I don’t think more recovery is a myth. Well, I suppose it depends what “more” really means. Clearly you need to train hard enough as often as you can, but if you tried to train hard everyday you wouldn’t be able to go hard enough on those hard days. Likewise, taking a recovery week every 4 or 5 weeks also allows your body to rebuild itself from all the hard workouts from the previous weeks. Lets not forget you don’t get stronger from training hard. You get stronger when your body over compensates AFTER those hard workouts.

14

Let’s imagine you’re training a lot: 40 hours/week.

That is on average a little less than 6 hours/day. That leaves 18 hours/day of not training, which by definition means you’re recovering. You don’t think 18hours/day is enough to recover from training?

15

taking a recovery week every 4 or 5 weeks also allows your body to rebuild itself from all the hard workouts from the previous weeks.

Let’s pick three examples from normal life:

  • You get a new job that means more hours and more responsibility. The first weeks are hard for you to cope with the increased workload. After 3 weeks, do you walk into your boss’ office, and ask for a week where you only work afternoons in order to adapt to the new job?
  • You join the Marines and go through boot camp. Everyday is very hard and you think about quitting. After 2 weeks, do you ask the drill sergeant for a week of leave in order to adapt to boot camp?
  • A new baby is born in your house. That means a change of routine and a lot of lost sleep. After three weeks, do you go ask your partner for a week off in order to adapt?
16

Let’s imagine you’re training a lot: 40 hours/week.

That is on average a little less than 6 hours/day. That leaves 18 hours/day of not training, which by definition means you’re recovering. You don’t think 18hours/day is enough to recover from training?

Your simplistic mathematics is misleading, but as misleading and misdirection is the basis of not just magic, but also the basisi of any discussion/forum, I’ll let it slide :slight_smile:

Of course, not training has lots of possibilities, not just recovery. Jordans article noted laying hardwood flooring for example. I don’t know about you, but that’s not very good recovery where I come from.

Or a more real world example. Say after an IM, you head back to the hotel and “get busy” with the wife. While that’s the “4th event” as it’s called, and it sure ain’t triathlon, but it sure as hell ain’t recovery either! Based on past experience, it’s called explosive cramping, and cramping sure as hell ain’t recovery or resting.

Enjoy your resting Paulo :slight_smile:

17

Can someone post a link to this article?

18

Health and fitness are NEVER the same thing.

Health in layman’s terms has something to do with “living” or “life”.

Fitness is the ability to resist fatigue for a given task or activity.

Both are sometimes byproducts of physical activity, healthy eating, quality sleep. But they are not the same.

Many good points in your post. I would add that “health” and “fitness” are not always the same thing.

19

http://www.slowtwitch.com/Training/General_Physiology/Less_is_Less_the_Myth_of_More_Recovery_2339.html
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20

Let’s imagine you’re training a lot: 40 hours/week.

That is on average a little less than 6 hours/day. That leaves 18 hours/day of not training, which by definition means you’re recovering. You don’t think 18hours/day is enough to recover from training?

Hell no.

But it depends on how hard you are going during those 6 hours a day.
Assuming they are all at least Z3-Z4 workouts, then no.

Even if you were 20 years old and sleeping those 18 hours you wouldn’t recover enough from day to day. When you are going that hard you are basically breaking down your muscles. It takes more than 18 hours to rebuild them to the point that they are at least equal, let alone stronger than they were the day before.

Think about how long it takes to recover from injuries. If you cut your finger, is it better the next day?

Proper training is a series of training overload with overcompensation rebuild. The exact formula will be different for each person but if you don’t allow for proper recovery after hard workouts then you are going hard for nothing.