Why endurance programs fail.
One of the most commonly asked requests on online platforms dedicated to endurance sport is people looking for free training templates, or apps, for endurance training across a wide range of disciplines and distances.
This guide will hopefully point you in the right direction of what to look for in a ‘good’ free program, paid coaching apps and even working one to one with coaches.
Before we jump in to that, there is one fundamental truth when it comes to this topic, and that is that no matter how perfectly designed a program is things will inevitably come along that disrupt your ability to stick to it ‘perfectly’.
This is exactly why it is essential to understand some basic principles of training and recovery so that if you choose to go the uncoached route, you can adjust programs to the complex existence that is ‘you’.
That is largely what we will focus on here. Remember as with all things in life, the cheaper you want to do something the more work you will have to do yourself.
Therefore, if you think an online program that is free is going to do all the hard work, then I’m sorry, no matter how good or detailed it is you will still have to do some of the heavy lifting depending on what is happening in and around your training and day-to-day life and your knowledge and experience of endurance sports.
Training plan considerations.
The problem of individualisation.
One of the key principles of creating a training program is individualisation. I think it is pretty clear that when looking for free templates this principle is virtually impossible to implement.
When you consider that coaches tend to communicate consistently with athletes to create and adjust programs around their schedule, goals and ability, but they also to factor in breaks to training such as holidays and family functions.
The solution.
The obvious solutions is to hire a coach. However, this can be expensive and it can be difficult to know what to look for in a good coach. There are plenty of good ones about, but unfortunately there are also plenty of bad ones.
One thing to look for isn’t just a coaches’ results with elite atheltes, but the level of athlete they work with and testimonials from people of your ability.
If you can’t afford a coach, then perhaps a consultation to get at least a basic strategy in place, or to review progress now and again, is always helpful.
If you are adamant that you must fly solo. Then when choosing a program then it must tick all of these boxes at a minimum.
Is it targeted at an athlete of your level?
Do you have the time to fulfil the training time?
Are you used to the initial training volume?
Do you understand the recovery demands?
How will you adjust the program if it is too hard, you have natural gaps to training or get sick or injured?
Is the program likely to improve your performance and target your weaknesses?
Here at Athlete Lab our testing and strategy services are designed to give you more than just a few numbers and training zones. We focus on specific interventions to improve your performance, and conduct a detailed training and lifestyle analysis as standard in order to make sure you have a clear direction to go in terms of your training and recovery.
The problem of progression.
Programs should have a focus on progression. Most progression you will see will come in the form of increases in time or distance of the sessions and overall weekly volume. Some may even adjust pace/power/effort levels… intensity.
The problem here lies in how quickly a program may ramp up your training volume.
One of the volume issues many programs fail to address is that they focus solely on milage and not on effort. Harder, higher effort intervals or sessions around or above race pace cause more relative fatigue per mile than easier efforts.
On the other hand easier effort sessions if conducted for longer periods can cause different, longer lasting types of fatigue than shorter but harder intervals.
Therefore, not all milage is created equal in terms of fatigue. Training is largely about how much fatigue you can handle and the proxy for this is training volume and recovery capacity.
This is the sum of your milage, how hard that milage is, how well your body recovers from that milage and what you can do to improve recovery.
There are many moving parts here so it should be easy to see why cookie cutter programs may fall short, or may follow outdated principles in terms of using milage as the sole metric of progression.
As an example, a 10% increase in weekly milage on the road, will be a very different 10% increase in milage on brutal hard mountain terrain.
Get this wrong and you are setting yourself up for injury and potentially symptoms of overtraining.
The solution.
This is where we have to understand a little more about how to measure not just our volume of training but the impact it has on us. Training progression if done reasonably should mean that we start each training week feeling fully recovered and able to maintain or improve our performance.
If you are starting each week exhausted and performance levels have dropped then you need to consider whether to ‘stick’ at previous weeks volumes to see if it gets easier or ‘twist’ and adjust the program to make it manageable.
For example, if interval sessions are destroying you, then reduce the milage here if long sessions are more important for your goal or progression.
Conversely if you want to get faster over shorter distances then reduce long run efforts or distances and put the energy into progressing your interval or tempo & threshold sessions duration and/or intensity.
Underpinning all of this is solid nutrition, sleep ‘hygiene’ and management of lifestyle stressors.
There are a few autoadjusting Apps and other training monitoring software that can help with this, but the biggest weapon you can have to catch yourself before your training becomes a runaway train of fatigue and poor performance is to use your own perception.
The problem of Specificity.
This is very closely linked to the problem of individuality but as a principle is worth its own time in the spotlight. Here what we are talking about is the idea that the training is geared towards hitting specific adapatations that you require… this isn’t simply ‘running’ or ‘cycling’, we need to dig a lot deeper.
There are of course some general principles coaches and free online programs will follow and that is ‘usually’ to build milage before building intensity.
This may work for most beginners, but if you are beyond this point then your training needs have to be more specifc to the adaptations you need to improve performance.
All good programs should meet you where you are as an athlete, understand your strengths and weaknesses and then put a plan in place to improve the areas that are a priority.
This is without doubt one of the most poorly understood areas even amongst high level atheltes and coaches we consult with. When asked why something is programmed, say specific length intervals, this often is done because for one of the following reasons.
All programs should include ‘x’… but why does this athlete need it?
It is currently in vogue with some leading athlete or coach... but why would it work for you?
It’s what they have always done and got results… but could this be refined to get better ones?
There are of course more, but the point is none of these are actually good enough, specific reasons to know if they are targeting the adaptations you need.
Unfortunately though, and probably why people get away with it, is because in order to be super specifc about the adaptations you are targeting and the specific training methods you should use to pinpoint these.
This often requires more detailed testing to understand an athletes physiology and how this responds to training at different effort levels and durations.
The solution
The simplest way to assess this is to look at what areas of performance you tend to peform worst at. For example, if you are a runner and can plod along all day at a descent pace, but have a comparatively slow 5k or 10k time, then chances are you’ll need to be doing more speed and interval work.
Conversely, if you have a fast 5k time, but as soon as you hit longer distances there is a big drop off in performance then you probably need to focus on building a bigger base and work on fueling strategies.
Summary.
There are many more things to look for; is the program periodised to different phases of your season? Does the program factor in other cross training or strength programs? Is there any insight into recovery practices and nutrition?
That being said, the areas outlined above are the most important to consider. If you do look for free programs then put them through this test, and most importantly, spend a little time learning about some basic principles around training so that you can make programs work for you.
If you want to have the data to drive your programs, monitor your progress and identify your strengths, weaknesses and how to improve them. Please get in touch and our experts will be happy to help you.
-Dr Paul (BSc, MSc, PhD)
