Endurance

I take the definition of endurance to mean an event lasting greater than 90 min. This could be a single movement, like running, or it could include a few different movements like triathlons. I am not sure where this definition comes from, but I like it because usually at 90 min. the "rules" change. Fuel and hydration become bigger concerns, you can't just use the stores on-board anymore.

There is really only one way to train true endurance, long distance. Not necessarily slow, but long. In general, I like to train my athletes with specific power output numbers for them to hit. In the case of steady state work, I prefer to use heart rate. Heart rate based training has been around for a long time, I'm by no means adding to the knowledge base or conversation, I'm simply stating my preference to train endurance.

Steady state is the foundation, the base. Once this base has been laid you can sharpen things up with intervals, but you can not avoid this base. There is just no way around it. Sometime I hear stories of endurance coaches teaching methods of only intervals to increase "endurance." There's a lot of problems with this. Success will come quick, but will usually fade with time over a long endurance career. Intervals will not prepare the body for the time under tension come race day. There is something you just can't avoid when doing an Ironman, sitting in that damn seat for 100 miles! That hurts if you're not used to it. In those stories, what is usually not included, is how long this "newbie" has been doing steady state training before the intervals. These stories make me cringe, every time. The worst is when I hear about a high school athlete who has potential to be a great endurance athlete start doing only intervals at high intensity for their training. Great, poor kid is now doomed to be a good high school athlete...and then their career is over. Instead they should be building for their senior year of college by building a huge base, like a 7 year base! Intervals have their place, they are useful but they are not the basis of success in endurance events.

There are 3 fundamental aspects of endurance training. 1. Aerobic training, which is done at low intensity for long duration. Aerobic training is volume based, not intensity based, and a majority of training time should be spent here. 2. Anaerobic training, which is done ad high intensity, intervals. There are different energy systems in the body so there are different interval structures to elicit specific responses. Manipulating the work to rest ratios will target specific things. Generally, this is going to improve speed, buffering capacity (tolerance to lactic acid), and anaerobic threshold. 3. Maximum aerobic capacity, which is MaxV02. This is done at really high intensity. This will increase maximum oxygen uptake, major importance.

Good endurance comes from the proper dose of all three aspects, not any one over the other two. The biggest problem is the avoidance of aerobic training, the steady state stuff. It's really, really boring and long...really long. In the end, if you want to be good, you have to do it.

If you can only fit in a limited amount of time to train, understand that you are going to sacrifice how good you are at the sport, there is no single person standing on a podium, in any sport, who uses ONLY intervals, but, if you just want to do something for fun on your weekends the biggest bang for your buck is going to be doing steady state 1x/week, think 2-3 hours at 75% max heart rate, (usually most normal people have Saturday's open for this) and 1x/week a MV02 session. This will get most people into pretty good condition. Add to this 1-2x/week CrossFit workouts for the next 3 months and presto, you'll finish that marathon no problem.