04/17/08
The Buddha of all Athletes
When structuring a training plan for a group of people, just how individualized can the workouts be? And to what degree do they need to be? This article reviews some of the internal factors that determine improvement and performance and why you can give the same training plan to an identical set of twins and achieve very different results...
Category: Inner
Posted by: marc
This is a great question because it hits at the heart of everything that has led to the success and popularity of individualized training programs for Age Group triathletes. The question is important because in short course triathlon, we see more and more a trend towards "squad-based" training groups in which groups of mixed male and female professional athletes with differening abilities train following the same workout plan for the entire groups for months at a time.
Superficially the answer is quite obvious: In a "training squad" of pro's the members of the group all lead extremely similar lives that are all highly streamlined towards training and race performance and little if nothing else. This is in marked contrast to the Age Group world where we see individuals living very different lives that support healthy training to varying degrees. This has led to the phenomenon of personal training plans for individual athletes, many variations of which have delivered quite effective, highly viable structures for accelerating improvement and improving performance for Age Groupers.
To better answer the above question, let me explain that in my approach and as a coach with over ten years of experience, based on the information I gather from a client it is a fairly straight forward process to decide what type of training they are going to need. Swim splits at a certain level of ability imply a very different style of swimming from what a more experienced swimmer would require. For example, at your level you would never see a set of 400's from me -- but you would still swim that day and for that duration with similar intensity profile.
Likewise, your run is stronger than the other athlete's. From body profile and experience, I know I can assign you somewhat different running sessions (not vastly different). You still both run on the same days and the overall structure of the training remains the same (order, phase, type of intensity, etc.) -- your specific ability in that component means you can and will push yourself harder on the run, working higher intensities, building a higher fitness edge, while Gretchen will work equally hard to improve her running to a better level for her. Same sessions however. On the bike, you would each cycle on the same days, again with only slightly (if any) differences in your training:
If you want to bring other ladies into "the program" then they will not necessarily need to be of similar ability. For example, an "easy" run pace means you should all be able to comfortably run together as a group -- but later, when running the back half of your long run (as outlined in the program), you then each run at your own perception of the assigned efforts. Neophytes do less volume but work the same intensity profile. What matters most is the person's willingness/ability to follow the same schedule -- and again, this means people do not have to do all the training, just to follow the order and structure of the plan.
Yes, there is a compromise between "structuring the training exactly to your schedule" vs. "doing the plan that is provided with individual guideline notes based on information collected" -- but hence the discount! :-)
Recall that when I say your body is a "red meat computer" we are acknowledging that as people we are different in many ways but in terms of our bodies and their response to training, the essence is that the physical training "programs" our nerves, muscles and hormonal systems regardless of "who" the underlying body belongs to. What makes the difference in how it's absorbed is going to be life circumstance, your emotional and mental make-up, and the various other dispositions, attitudes, capacities and traits stemming from everything above the shoulders! :-)
As with every camp, in the El Paso ironguides Method Training [url=http://www.ironguides.net/travel.html]Camp[/url], we had a very diverse group of people in terms of ability and background. Yet all did the same sessions, all were pushed to limits. No one trained "more" or "less" than anyone else! How did this happen? No mystery there -- it's the same effective Order & Structure, performed at individual ability levels!
In terms of specifics, just as I am asking folks to think about training in a completely different way, I also encourage them to think about "intervals" and "training sessions" differently: A series of "intervals" or a specific "set" is nothing more than the reflection of a coach's effort to control an athlete's exertion/recovery level and duration and create over time a desired effect from the accumulation of these. Nothing more.
A coach has an objective perspective and so thinks longterm and has a view on how an athlete should improve over time under his/her program, but the ultimate training "environment" happenswhen an athlete has reached the ultimate level of awareness and detachment to be able to read their bodies precisely and then use this information to respond with the perfect training stimulus at the perfect time. You might as well call that the Buddha of all Athletes because it's a degree of detached awareness that is pretty much unattainable under the levels of shifting life circumstance, environmental change, fatigue, desire and intense focus we're talking about - hence athletes reach out to coaches.
But that does not mean that we cannot train in a way that constantly improves our ability to better read and better respond to our training feedback! As mentioned, however, in Age Group sport it's life circumstance and our living context that will impact our training more than the training itself. As the former environment streamlines more and more towards making training "The Priority" and if the athlete is able to streamline their mental and emotional state of being to this end (i.e. the all-elusive "change") :-) then their results should improve -- as they are able to incorporate better the training into their lives.
Of course at this point it's important to distinguish between achieving athletic excellence and ultimate happiness. Clearly a person with a full-time job, family and other obligations can't pursue training to the same degree as some who is independently wealthy, single and full of desire to make a podium finish! Everything is relative, after all.
And so we see how easy it is to fall into the trap of one of the Big Three errors in training that I refer to in http://www.triathlonsecret.com]Triathlon Secrets:[/url] "Going Molecular" means that an athlete has lost sight of the true limiters on their training and has come to focus obsessively on minutae that are largely irrelevant to their performance. In fact, their obsession itself becomes highly counter-productive to improved results!
Above all, in highly demanding ultra-endurance sports such as Ironman you gotta be light. The point at which the extreme granular details of training begin to matter is located somewhere up in the stratosphere of athletic achievement: Even at the highest, gold-medal winning levels of sport, "precise" interval training set in stone on a plan does more harm than good if an athlete or coach is not able to "read through" to the INTENTIONS of the plan and translate this into the training.
At this level a coach's involvement becomes much more important as slight imbalances in training can create months- or season-long or even career-ending disruptions in performance; hence the world has created opportunities for highly paid coaches to set up training squads for daily contact with a group of professional athletes who do nothing but eat, sleep and train, or coaches whose highest successes come with close relations (children, spouses, close friends) such as the Kostalic siblings in skiing (gold medalists both coached by their father), or the Williams sisters in tennis, or any number of triathlon spouses "coaching" their better half (husband or wife) but failing to achieve coaching success with anyone else. At the highest level of the game it's all about relationships and the emotional context because while the actual workload remains simply "programming the red meat" it is the upstairs component that begins to matter more and more: How we feel WILL determine how we train and recover, in both positive and negative ways.
This is why The Method places so much emphasis on intuitive understanding and intuitive feedback instead of gadgets. The iterative approach means accelerated learning since each repetition of a cycle should lead to a greater accumulation of know-how on how your body responds to training, and you should be able over time to better translate and distinguish false and real signals.
But the argument is pretty much circular since an athlete's ability in their sport tends to reflect their ability to intuitively structure their training and respond to what their body is telling them. Ryan Hall who just ran his third marathon on the weekend went sub-2:10 for the third time with a 2:06 and change at the London Marathon -- and does most of his training in the Sierras in California, hardly ever seeing a track. He has the desire and motivation to drive himself forward in training and is athletically "mature" enough (a gift) to respond to his body's signals and tailor his training accordingly...over time and in the moment.
This is what The Method is about. Your training sets are important because these form the order and structure of your training and they "program" your red meat computer -- regardless of who you are. At the level of ability most (all?) age groupers have to dedicate to training, the actual physical component of training for those who are pushing at physical limiters (ie seeking considerable improvement vs. "just doing it for fun") matters less than the vast sea of "noise" and stress that accompanies our lives. The latter determines how we "soak up" what we do in training...ability to relax, to unwind, to sleep!, to "let go" of training, to "flow", to de-focus, tune in turn on and drop out of the "tri scene" all comes into play.
In the Kenyan training camps you will see sixty guys eating and living together or months on end, training with three runs a day -- when it comes to their "hard" daily session they tend to dissolve the session into an all-out fracas by the end of it as all notion of order and structure disintegrates. Yet each guy gives it at his own level of ability and if feeling "off" simply pulls the plug on the session, heads home to recover, tries again the next day.
It may seem like chaos, but the degree to which one is mature enough as an athlete to listen, let go, and repeat over and over again is what highly refined training is about. Not a sports scientist in sight, not a heart rate monitor beep to be heard...just: Train. Sleep. Tune out the noise. Repeat. To your level of ability and desire.
Working it simple simply works.
Superficially the answer is quite obvious: In a "training squad" of pro's the members of the group all lead extremely similar lives that are all highly streamlined towards training and race performance and little if nothing else. This is in marked contrast to the Age Group world where we see individuals living very different lives that support healthy training to varying degrees. This has led to the phenomenon of personal training plans for individual athletes, many variations of which have delivered quite effective, highly viable structures for accelerating improvement and improving performance for Age Groupers.
To better answer the above question, let me explain that in my approach and as a coach with over ten years of experience, based on the information I gather from a client it is a fairly straight forward process to decide what type of training they are going to need. Swim splits at a certain level of ability imply a very different style of swimming from what a more experienced swimmer would require. For example, at your level you would never see a set of 400's from me -- but you would still swim that day and for that duration with similar intensity profile.
Likewise, your run is stronger than the other athlete's. From body profile and experience, I know I can assign you somewhat different running sessions (not vastly different). You still both run on the same days and the overall structure of the training remains the same (order, phase, type of intensity, etc.) -- your specific ability in that component means you can and will push yourself harder on the run, working higher intensities, building a higher fitness edge, while Gretchen will work equally hard to improve her running to a better level for her. Same sessions however. On the bike, you would each cycle on the same days, again with only slightly (if any) differences in your training:
If you want to bring other ladies into "the program" then they will not necessarily need to be of similar ability. For example, an "easy" run pace means you should all be able to comfortably run together as a group -- but later, when running the back half of your long run (as outlined in the program), you then each run at your own perception of the assigned efforts. Neophytes do less volume but work the same intensity profile. What matters most is the person's willingness/ability to follow the same schedule -- and again, this means people do not have to do all the training, just to follow the order and structure of the plan.
Yes, there is a compromise between "structuring the training exactly to your schedule" vs. "doing the plan that is provided with individual guideline notes based on information collected" -- but hence the discount! :-)
Recall that when I say your body is a "red meat computer" we are acknowledging that as people we are different in many ways but in terms of our bodies and their response to training, the essence is that the physical training "programs" our nerves, muscles and hormonal systems regardless of "who" the underlying body belongs to. What makes the difference in how it's absorbed is going to be life circumstance, your emotional and mental make-up, and the various other dispositions, attitudes, capacities and traits stemming from everything above the shoulders! :-)
As with every camp, in the El Paso ironguides Method Training [url=http://www.ironguides.net/travel.html]Camp[/url], we had a very diverse group of people in terms of ability and background. Yet all did the same sessions, all were pushed to limits. No one trained "more" or "less" than anyone else! How did this happen? No mystery there -- it's the same effective Order & Structure, performed at individual ability levels!
In terms of specifics, just as I am asking folks to think about training in a completely different way, I also encourage them to think about "intervals" and "training sessions" differently: A series of "intervals" or a specific "set" is nothing more than the reflection of a coach's effort to control an athlete's exertion/recovery level and duration and create over time a desired effect from the accumulation of these. Nothing more.
A coach has an objective perspective and so thinks longterm and has a view on how an athlete should improve over time under his/her program, but the ultimate training "environment" happenswhen an athlete has reached the ultimate level of awareness and detachment to be able to read their bodies precisely and then use this information to respond with the perfect training stimulus at the perfect time. You might as well call that the Buddha of all Athletes because it's a degree of detached awareness that is pretty much unattainable under the levels of shifting life circumstance, environmental change, fatigue, desire and intense focus we're talking about - hence athletes reach out to coaches.
But that does not mean that we cannot train in a way that constantly improves our ability to better read and better respond to our training feedback! As mentioned, however, in Age Group sport it's life circumstance and our living context that will impact our training more than the training itself. As the former environment streamlines more and more towards making training "The Priority" and if the athlete is able to streamline their mental and emotional state of being to this end (i.e. the all-elusive "change") :-) then their results should improve -- as they are able to incorporate better the training into their lives.
Of course at this point it's important to distinguish between achieving athletic excellence and ultimate happiness. Clearly a person with a full-time job, family and other obligations can't pursue training to the same degree as some who is independently wealthy, single and full of desire to make a podium finish! Everything is relative, after all.
And so we see how easy it is to fall into the trap of one of the Big Three errors in training that I refer to in http://www.triathlonsecret.com]Triathlon Secrets:[/url] "Going Molecular" means that an athlete has lost sight of the true limiters on their training and has come to focus obsessively on minutae that are largely irrelevant to their performance. In fact, their obsession itself becomes highly counter-productive to improved results!
Above all, in highly demanding ultra-endurance sports such as Ironman you gotta be light. The point at which the extreme granular details of training begin to matter is located somewhere up in the stratosphere of athletic achievement: Even at the highest, gold-medal winning levels of sport, "precise" interval training set in stone on a plan does more harm than good if an athlete or coach is not able to "read through" to the INTENTIONS of the plan and translate this into the training.
At this level a coach's involvement becomes much more important as slight imbalances in training can create months- or season-long or even career-ending disruptions in performance; hence the world has created opportunities for highly paid coaches to set up training squads for daily contact with a group of professional athletes who do nothing but eat, sleep and train, or coaches whose highest successes come with close relations (children, spouses, close friends) such as the Kostalic siblings in skiing (gold medalists both coached by their father), or the Williams sisters in tennis, or any number of triathlon spouses "coaching" their better half (husband or wife) but failing to achieve coaching success with anyone else. At the highest level of the game it's all about relationships and the emotional context because while the actual workload remains simply "programming the red meat" it is the upstairs component that begins to matter more and more: How we feel WILL determine how we train and recover, in both positive and negative ways.
This is why The Method places so much emphasis on intuitive understanding and intuitive feedback instead of gadgets. The iterative approach means accelerated learning since each repetition of a cycle should lead to a greater accumulation of know-how on how your body responds to training, and you should be able over time to better translate and distinguish false and real signals.
But the argument is pretty much circular since an athlete's ability in their sport tends to reflect their ability to intuitively structure their training and respond to what their body is telling them. Ryan Hall who just ran his third marathon on the weekend went sub-2:10 for the third time with a 2:06 and change at the London Marathon -- and does most of his training in the Sierras in California, hardly ever seeing a track. He has the desire and motivation to drive himself forward in training and is athletically "mature" enough (a gift) to respond to his body's signals and tailor his training accordingly...over time and in the moment.
This is what The Method is about. Your training sets are important because these form the order and structure of your training and they "program" your red meat computer -- regardless of who you are. At the level of ability most (all?) age groupers have to dedicate to training, the actual physical component of training for those who are pushing at physical limiters (ie seeking considerable improvement vs. "just doing it for fun") matters less than the vast sea of "noise" and stress that accompanies our lives. The latter determines how we "soak up" what we do in training...ability to relax, to unwind, to sleep!, to "let go" of training, to "flow", to de-focus, tune in turn on and drop out of the "tri scene" all comes into play.
In the Kenyan training camps you will see sixty guys eating and living together or months on end, training with three runs a day -- when it comes to their "hard" daily session they tend to dissolve the session into an all-out fracas by the end of it as all notion of order and structure disintegrates. Yet each guy gives it at his own level of ability and if feeling "off" simply pulls the plug on the session, heads home to recover, tries again the next day.
It may seem like chaos, but the degree to which one is mature enough as an athlete to listen, let go, and repeat over and over again is what highly refined training is about. Not a sports scientist in sight, not a heart rate monitor beep to be heard...just: Train. Sleep. Tune out the noise. Repeat. To your level of ability and desire.
Working it simple simply works.