Training Fatigue--How Low Can You Go?
If you read my post from yesterday, you will see that the training program at Endurance Nation (EN) is a challenging one. I train by watts with a power meter on the bike, so there is no guess work about what I did or did not accomplish on a training ride. We also run by pace according to the Jack Daniels school of running. Again, there is no room for "I think I ran 7-minute miles." You strap on the Garmin and you either do or don't do. The plans are time efficient, and just plain hard a lot of the time. But the payoff is faster running and riding. (Although not today on my long run. I dunno, it was a long, slow 1:45.)
After the slog jog, I came home to find this blog post on fatigue from EN Coach Patrick McCrann. Many of us over at EN are in the thick of IM or Half IM training, and there is some whining and some crying uncle as people get fatigued. I thought Patrick's post was valuable to read whether you train with EN or not.
FATIGUE INSIDE ENDURANCE NATION
We have done a great deal to outline how we train differently inside Endurance Nation. As you know by now, we favor intensity over mindless miles…quality trumps quantity every single time. To learn more about the science behind this approach, please refer to the Endurance Nation Long Course Training Manual.
For many folks, just getting to the point where they can follow our plans as outlined is a huge leap of faith. Type A triathletes find it hard to believe that they can be fast without doing extra miles, epic workouts every weekend, etc. We see it in the Forums all the time; people asking our members whether or not the plans are effective. While the answer is usually a resounding “YES”, even our members experience friction when transitioning to our new approach. I am talking about Fatigue.
Before I begin, let’s remember that it’s not just the work you are doing that counts, it’s how your body processes the “work” that really matters. To go back to the weightlifting example, our standard primer, it’s not the lifting 200lbs in a bench press 10 times that makes you stronger. It’s going home, getting sore, recovering, and returning to the gym to do it again. The cycle of work –> recover –> repeat happens with all of the sports we do, and in the case of the active triathlete, the cycles for swim/bike/run all overlap with one another as you progress through each training cycle.
To keep things simple, let’s limit our exploration of Fatigue inside Endurance Nation to two general types of fatigue that you can earn — the softer/shallower fatigue (Pre-EN) and a hard/deep fatigue (Post-EN).
Pre-EN Fatigue
In your personal old-school training days, you would put in lots of miles and training time. The majority of this time would be in Zones 1-2 — your race specific zones. You would train with arbitrary goals like “improving fat utilization” or “staying in your zone”.
Since the intensity was capped, your only means of manipulating the training load was to add more time. And you did. You would go super long on Saturdays (bike and run) and long again on Sundays (long run). You figured out how to add more time during the week by getting up crazy early for Masters, squeezing in lunchtime workouts when the boss wasn’t looking and organizing the odd evening session as well.
By spending 10/15/20 hours a week in Zone Two, you built up a basic level of Fatigue that I would characterize as “shallow.” You would be tired before a workout, but never really too tired to not workout. Overtraining could be generally characterized as boredom, a mental unwillingness to actually get stuff done. If you started a workout tired, your HR would be suppressed and it would take a while for your aerobic system to come around // get warmed up, but once it did, you’d be all set. That’s it.
Post-EN Fatigue
Inside our world, you are working out for a shorter amount of time but are earning the same (if not more) fatigue by simply working harder. This means that in the course of a 20-week Iron-distance training cycle, you will be carrying significantly higher amounts of fatigue. I have seen this in my own data/charts — it’s striking to see the difference.
With more work comes the need for more recovery. In other words, our overall weeks are lower by time not just by design, but by necessity — most folks can’t handle this stress and do long training hours. They’ll just pop (been there and done that already).
In our world, fatigue manifests itself as more muscular than aerobic. This fatigue is “deeper” than Pre-EN fatigue. When you start a workout now your muscles will probably ache — in addition to the suppressed aerobic system. We don’t mind the lower HR since most of you will be training by pace and power; if you can’t hit the Watts at the start of a workout, then we know you need more time (note: most folks take a while to be able to hit all the benchmarks in our longer bike workouts, including the final hard stuff, this is typical). In other words, overtraining in our world means you have really done too much — and you have to stand down.
Over-Reaching + Mental Engagement
In fact, let’s call it over-reaching, not over-training. Inside EN our training is all hard work — you’re supposed to be tired. An important part of the training process is learning what your personal and physiological limits are, and then pushing/testing them on a regular basis. We control this by providing you with training plans and support based on Power and Pace.
It’s also important to note that by manipulating the intensity of your program and limiting overall exercise time, we are placing you in a new endurance space. This new space requires you to be an active participant in managing the work/recovery portions of your program. The “old school” model of training in Zones 1-2 was essentially a Do No Harm approach; after all, anyone can ride their bike in Zone 1-2 for a long time. Your only requirement was to keep going easy — not a very big challenge.
We encourage you to accept personal responsibility for your own training (ie, don’t follow a training plan, even ours, into a brick wall), modify the plan as needed and find a mix that works for you. Ideally you will use the EN forum, coaches, and members as a resource.
Moving Forward
To recap, inside EN you will have a greater sense of fatigue, one that most would consider “deep.” This doesn’t mean that the workout goals we have set forth are too much, it just means that you need to put your energy into nailing each workout (EN style) instead of saving energy for putting in extra time/another workout. There is no double top-secret plan that we aren’t sharing with you.
More importantly, make a note of your transition from “getting stuff done” (old-school, logging miles) to “Doing Work” (The more you do, the more you CAN do). Your body will adapt to this new approach pretty quickly (probably faster than your brain will!) and within a few weeks/months you’ll be able to do easily what might very well kill you now :-). Do the work, be patient, it will come.
Happy Training!
