What is Needed to Succeed?
Regardless of your sport, the first step is setting a clear goal. (More in our article: Goal Setting - Understand Your Why). Whether it's completing an IRONMAN or running your first marathon, understanding the specific requirements for your goal is crucial.
Take, for example, the goal to run a 10k in under 40 minutes. This might require a Vo2Max of 50. If our running technique is subpar, we might need an even higher Vo2Max. But that's not everything. Our bones and ligaments need to be accustomed to the impact of running, and our metabolic system should efficiently deliver energy. This gives us a rough idea of the requirements.
Before embarking on your journey, it's essential to realistically assess your current abilities. Maybe you're transitioning from shorter distances or just beginning to embrace endurance sports. Recognizing and accepting your current level is the first step towards targeted improvement. The goal is to align your performance parameters as closely as possible with the realistic requirements of your chosen event or goal. Relying on guesswork won’t cut it. Performance tests based on hard facts are invaluable for tracking progress. The key lies in adapting your training to meet the necessary performance parameters effectively. For some helpful at-home evaluations of your current performance, you can use our free test protocols at: https://app.konaendurance.com/
After recognizing the need to align your training with performance parameters, it's crucial to understand the typical limits that athletes face. Identifying and addressing these limits is key to effective adaptation and improvement.
VO2Max (Maximal Oxygen Uptake): VO2Max is a measure of the maximum amount of oxygen your body can utilize during intense exercise. It's a fundamental limit for endurance performance. To improve VO2Max, focus on high-intensity interval training (HIIT) that pushes your body to adapt by increasing its oxygen uptake capacity and building a stronger foundation for these hard workouts.
VLamax (Maximal Glycolytic Capacity): VLamax represents the maximum rate at which your body can produce energy anaerobically. While a high VLamax is beneficial for short, intense efforts, it can be a limit in endurance events due to increased lactate production and faster carbohydrate depletion. Balancing training to optimize VLamax according to the demands of your sport is crucial.
Metabolic Limits: Your body’s metabolic efficiency - how well it converts fuel (fats and carbohydrates) into energy - is a key determinant of endurance performance. Training to improve metabolic efficiency involves a combination of nutrition strategies and training at specific intensities that encourage the body to use fats more efficiently as a fuel source.
Technical Limits: Technique in any sport is crucial for efficiency. Poor technique can lead to energy wastage and increased risk of injury. Focus on drills and practice sessions that enhance your technique, whether it's swimming stroke, cycling posture, or running gait. Seeking outside help or filming yourself can be a huge help here.
Financial Limits: Endurance sports can be expensive, with costs for gear, training facilities, and events. Financial constraints can limit access to resources. Prioritize spending on essentials that have the most significant impact on performance, and look for budget-friendly alternatives or second-hand gear where possible.
Lifestyle Limits: Balancing training with other life commitments like work, family, and social life can be challenging. Time management and prioritizing are key. Effective training doesn't always mean more hours; it means quality and focused training. Also, integrating your training into your daily routine can help in managing these lifestyle limits.
A common obstacle is the unwillingness to accept one's realistic current physical state. Many athletes let their training plans dictate their actions without considering their body’s readiness. It's vital to focus on adapting your body to the training stress, which means training intelligently, fueling appropriately, getting enough rest, and maintaining a balanced life. Ignoring these fundamentals can lead to ineffective training or even injury. Outcome over ego!
True progress in endurance sports often requires a mindful, rather than a forceful, approach. This involves mastering the basics: appropriate nutrition, adequate sleep, training in the right zones, maintaining life balance, and managing stress. Only after these fundamentals become second nature should advanced tools and methods be considered.
Talking about second nature. Building an environment that is helping you to make good choices is tremendously helpful. Having friends that want to workout with you instead of getting drunk: HELPFUL! If you create a good environment you don't have to make hard choices and everything becomes easier. Add some hard rules for yourself like: "I only eat unhealthy food x if I finish a race." This will allow you to not worry about it every time you are presented with unhealthy food x, because you know that you will only eat if once you finish a race. Socially people don't argue with that: another win!
Driving Progress through Adaptation
Progress in endurance sports is fundamentally about driving forward positive adaptation in both body and mind. The more effectively you support this positive adaptation, the quicker you'll reach your goals. By cutting out unnecessary distractions and focusing on what truly matters, you set yourself up on a path to success.
The formula is simple: STRESS + REST = ADAPTATION
Stress can be anything from life stress, emotional stress, to training stress. It's all "stress" for your body and mind. Ignoring the stress outside of your training can lead to awful training load mistakes that will push your system over the limit and inhibit real improvement. The dose makes the poison!
Rest is not just good sleep and nutrition but also mental downtime. Allowing your parasympathetic nervous system to work properly sounds easy, but most of us are in a constant fight or flight response due to stressors like social media or modern life in general. This is one of the many reasons why I love my little farm so much: I can leave my phone behind and calm down playing in the dirt. If your sympathetic nervous system is constantly in charge, you won't be able to really calm down and realize a true 0/10 on a RPE scale. Laying in bed watching Instagram Reels is not rest!
Adaptation involves both your body and mind undergoing transformative changes. This concept is incredibly powerful, given the human body's capacity to adjust to even the most extreme conditions. However, it's crucial to recognize that adaptation isn't always beneficial. I've encountered numerous athletes who boast about training intensively with minimal sleep and a full-time job. If I had received a dollar for every such instance, I could have easily afforded a brand new tractor. This mindset overlooks the critical role of rest in the adaptation process, often leading to negative consequences.
Remember: training is only a tool on your path to get better. The real improvement happens if you have the adequate mix of stress and rest.
What does this tell us about planning? Well, we need to look at more than just your available time to train each week. We also have to take your life circumstances into account. I recommend writing down all your limiters and then figuring out which ones you can tackle realistically and which ones you can't. Maybe there is a way to substitute a weakness in one area with a strength in another. That's what it's all about: finding your personal path to success!
Flo