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RETURNING TO FULL TRAINING AFTER AN INJURY

5/31/2015

As we discussed in Part I, there will be times athletes miss extended periods of training – for work, family obligations, injury, sickness and so on. Once you are ready and able to return to full-blown training, the question becomes how you adjust your training to get back on track?

The first thing is to not try to make up for lost time. Avoid pulling workouts forward in time. I tell my athletes that, in general, if they miss a workout then that workout ceases to exist. It’s in the past. Yes, there are times where adjusting the weekly flow due to a disruption to the regular schedule is required. Remember, I’m speaking in general based on extended breaks from training. So, avoid adding a second workout to a single workout day. Avoid extending workout durations to “make up for lost time.”

The reason is because the flow of workouts one day to the next and week-to-week are meant to flow. They are meant to build upon each other. They are meant to take into account the immediate, short-term and long-term effects a workout carries with it. By upsetting the flow, you create friction while reducing the necessary recovery time between sessions and between key workouts.

Next, it’s important not to create stress on top of the stress you’re already going through. For example, if you’re injured, it’s typically because you over-stressed the body physically. And, the body is going through more physical stress as it works hard to repair itself. By worry about the injury and the fitness you think you’re losing (but really are not), you are creating mental and emotional stress. This added stress serves to break the body down and impair its ability to heal itself. So, you’re really only prolonging the healing process. Take a deep breath, let the body work its magic and you’ll be back on your feet in no time.

Another tip is to focus on what you CAN do. For example, a triathlete may not be able to run due to some IT Band tightness. While running is reduced, fill that time with more swim or bike workouts. I tell the athletes I work with to do more of what doesn’t cause pain and avoid what does. The added workouts, as long as they do not cause deleterious pain, will not impede the body’s ability to repair itself. And, you will be keeping your fitness progressing. If you’re sick, then you simply need to ride it out. Wait for the malady to pass and then get back into your routine.

Getting Back on Track
This is where working with a coach can really come in handy. How you get back to full-blown training is based on multiple factors – your background and experience; your goals; the time of year; how much time before your key event; and more. That said, not everyone works with a coach, so then what?

If you miss less than five days of training, it’s safe to assume you haven’t lost any fitness so your body should respond well to jumping back into your routine pretty quickly. Give yourself a couple of days to build back into the intensity so Day 3 is your first hard workout and first workout at full volume. If Day 3 goes well, then keep humming along.

Returning from injury can be a bit tricky. Scale back your first few workouts, make sure the injury isn’t flaring up again. You may have some phantom pains and you will be hyperaware of these. That’s OK. It’s more important what happens when the workout is over. Does the injury flare up again or not? If not, you’re almost assuredly in the clear and can start building one workout upon the last one. Your body will let you know if you’re pushing too long or too intensely – gently at first, so tune in to the signals to avoid a re-injury.

After a prolonged sickness, it will take a few days for the body to replenish its depleted energy stores. While you may be healthy and feel OK, your workouts may be sub-par for up to a week. Keep the effort in L1/L2 and start out by “just putting in the time.” Your “all day pace” is a great way to work out kinks, get the blood flowing again and work out the vestiges of the sickness without overdoing it. Again, tune-in to the body’s signals and you will instinctively know how long and how hard you can go on any given day.

If you’ve missed up to 10 days, you will still likely lose little fitness. But, you will definitely want to ramp things back up over a 3-5-day period of time. Keep the first 3 days shorter and easier; just get back into your regular routine. Add some short openers of 10-15 seconds at 90-95% effort toward the end of a workout to open up the body. You will feel back to normal in just a few short days.

If you missed a couple weeks, it will take about that much time to feel fully back to normal. The protocol for returning to a full routine is similar to what’s listed above, but how you feel during the workouts will probably take a few extra days to fully shake out. Expect extra stiffness and maybe some soreness in joints or specific muscle groups at first. For example, your calves might be tight and a bit sore after your first 2-3 runs when coming back from a 2-week break.

If you miss multiple weeks or months, it’s important to take a step back and restart your training just as if you were heading in to the off-season. General fitness, a return to the weight room to gain back lost strength, and starting shorter and easier makes a lot of sense here. Recalibrating expectations and adjusting the race calendar also makes a lot of sense. Avoid rushing back so you avoid taking a step forward and then 2 steps backward. Pretend it’s Fall and you’re just starting to prepare for the following year. You may come back to full fitness quicker than you think, but forcing it is not prudent at this point in time.

These are general guidelines. Your situation and your body will dictate precisely how you return from injury, sickness or any unscheduled break from training. Your coach, should you work with one, will be instrumental in getting you back on track and your continued success. If you are self-coached, then trust in the signals your body is sending you. Follow its lead and you will be back on your feet in no time!

Happy Training,
Coach Nate

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effects of time off on fitness

5/24/2015

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It’s one of the most common questions I get from athletes struggling with an injury, fighting the flu, or hesitant to take a much needed rest from training. As athletes, we are all paranoid about taking a few days off, generally thinking it will result in immediate deterioration in our fitness.

As a coach of 25 years and life-long competitive athlete, I am not immune to being frightened by this irrational fear myself. I’ve gotten sick, experienced a niggling injury and had to miss chunks of training for some other reasons as well. Being emotionally invested in the process of improving my athletic performance, it becomes very challenging to listen to reason and the scientific evidence, and comprehending that a few days off will not negatively impact fitness or progress.

When we look at the effects of taking time off from training, it’s important to analyze the detraining from two perspectives: (1) your metabolic systems such as aerobic fitness, threshold and VO2max; and (2) your structural systems such as your muscles and neuromuscular coordination (how fast and efficiently your brain can tell your body to perform and execute a specific movement).

Impact to the Aerobic System
VO2max is a solid measurement of fitness. Effectively, VO2max is the body’s ability to transport and use oxygen during exercise. Multiple studies show there is little reduction in VO2max during the first 10 days of inactivity in well-trained athletes. After about 14 days, VO2max decreases by about 6%, and after 8-10 weeks it drops by about 20%. Looking at this another way, even if you sit on the couch for up to 2 weeks, the effects of detraining are minimal to non-existent. A 5-6% reduction in VO2max can be recouped in as little as a couple weeks of solid training.

Impact to the Structural System
There isn’t a lot of research to find here. What I could glean states that detraining to the sport-specific muscles, connective tissue, etc. occurs in the 10-day to 4-week range. Fewer than 10 days and there’s really no negative impact from the downtime, and after a month it tends to level out. Muscle strength and power both decline at a slower rate than the aerobic system.

Do I Need to Worry?
The punchline of all this is that you shouldn’t be too worried about “losing fitness” simply by taking a day, multiple days, or even a week off. After about 10 days, you will lose some conditioning to both your aerobic system and musculature, but that lost fitness will be minimal and will return quickly once you are back up to a full training program.

It is never fun to experience a forced break from training. We look in the mirror and see the flab spontaneously generating while our muscles atrophy like sand spilling between our fingers. This is most definitely not the case. So, the next time you take a break – planned or unplanned – take a deep breath, relax and try to avoid generating mental and emotional stress to compound what you’re going through.

In Part II, I will provide some suggestions on how to return to full training volume and intensity after an extended break during the competitive season.

Happy Training,
Coach Nate

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key cycling workouts

5/18/2015

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Off-season and pre-season training is fairly straightforward to structure. Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely best practices to follow in order to maximize these times of the year. However, specificity isn’t necessary nor is it practical. I find the majority of cyclists who are self-directed start losing their direction when it becomes time to incorporate specificity into their training. Sharpening the blade and getting tuned for races gets tricky because knowing what to do and when to do it becomes more critical.

Here are a few race-specific workouts for the bike that can help you get pointed in the right direction based on what types of races in which you prefer to focus and excel.

Hill Climbing & Time Trials
Success in these two types are races is largely defined by one thing – how high is your FTP? FTP stands for Functional Threshold Power and relates to how much power you can produce – and, thus, how fast you can go – for a solid hour. You can also think of this as your LT, or Lactate Threshold – the point at which the body can still assimilate lactate as quickly as it is being produced, which correlates to roughly 4mml of lactate in the blood.

FTP- / LT-specific training is done at anywhere from 85-110% of FTP and 84-92% of Max HR. Intervals range from short to medium to long and rest periods typically lasts 50-75% of the interval duration. Some coaches bring the rest interval down to 25%; to me, this is too short. Because the shorter the rest interval, the less power you’re able to put out as you fatigue and, thus, the slower you go. For these intervals, either do them climbing or on your TT bike, depending on whether your focus is on hill climbing or time trialing.

Long Interval
Complete a straight hour at 85-95% FTP. This is all about balancing perceived effort with mounting fatigue over time, and settling into the maximal sustainable effort you can. At first, holding your effort at, say, 85-88% FTP may feel too easy for an effort meant to better train and raise your FTP / LT. Don’t be fooled! Fatigue will mount quickly and HR will elevate during the second half of this effort to the point that remaining in the prescribed zone will be agony. Avoid starting out too aggressively so you end up cratering and limping in the final 15min of the hour.

Medium Intervals
Start with 3x15min, build to 2x20min and ultimately up to 2x25min. Done at 85-100% FTP and rest is 50-60% of interval duration. If you don’t have a hill long enough to complete these on, you can pick a flat stretch and pick a hard enough gear to spin at 75-85rpm in order to simulate the muscle load associated with fighting gravity. Do this session 1-2x a week for a cycle of training.

Short Intervals
5x6min or 4x8min or 3x10min. Done at 95-110% FTP and rest is 60-75% of interval duration. Overall work volume is lower than with the longer intervals because the intensity is greater. This can also necessitate a greater work:rest ratio.

To make any of these workouts more dynamic, you can also introduce regular surges of 20-30sec in duration every 3-5min. These surges are in the 110-125% FTP range, so not full-on sprints. Think of these as VO2max efforts, or in the range of your maximum output for 5min. The key is to immediately settle back into the FTP range without letting your effort dip below. As you get more fatigued, it takes more and more discipline to keep your output in the proper range.

Criteriums
Success in criteriums is based on two things – the ability to conserve as much energy as possible until the final 5 laps; and the body’s ability to cope with countless VO2max-and-above surges over the course of (typically) 45-75min. An effective way to replicate this is with short bursts at 120-130% FTP with equal periods of recovery. You can vary this type of workout by interval length and by how many minutes you complete the short intervals before taking an extended rest period.

Interval length is typically 15-30sec. The key is to get into the prescribed range as quickly as possible. Avoid spiking your effort way above the range and also avoid taking half the interval to finally build up to where you need to be. Get on top of your gearing and keep pressing. Recovery periods can be moderate aerobic effort rather than complete recovery – what is commonly referred to as Zone 2. Remember, the goal is to simulate race conditions and criteriums rarely fall back to recovery-level spinning.

Whether you choose 15sec on/off or 30sec on/off or something in between, continue the rotation for anywhere from 10-20min before taking an extended rest period. 10min of 15 on/off is only 5min of hard work, but it’s aggressive and you’ll be heaving by the end because this type of workout forces ventilatory adaptation as well as muscular adaptation. Extended recovery periods should be 50% of the total work interval – so, spin an extra 5min easy between 10min bouts of work. Total workout would total between 30-40min worth of intervals, so 3-4x10min or 2x15min or 1-2x20min.

Road Races
Being able to race rather than just survive road races comes down to two things – being comfortable going long and being able to follow Z4 & Z5 attacks in the final stages of the race. Long rides of 4.5-6hrs are critical for this because being in the saddle this long – even if your road races typically only last 2.5-3.5hrs – forces adaptation that shorter rides simply cannot replicate. When you’re pedaling along for that long, the body dips into its reserves more deeply and has to “find a way” to keep you chugging along. It has to find more fuel sources and become more efficient at burning fuel. The way to address the late-race attacks is by practicing them during your long rides. In the final hour, complete race-specific intervals that start with a 30sec attack, settle in near FTP for a handful of minutes and then finish with a 10-15sec sprint. If your interval lasts 5min total, then recover for 5min before repeating the interval 1-2 more times.

Group Rides
Lastly, short group rides (less than 2hrs in duration) are a great tool for forcing race-specific fitness in a way that is difficult to replicate when training alone. This is because you’re not in control of how others ride. You may want to settle in at 300 watts to crest a little hill but to stay with the charging group you find you’re up at 500-600 watts. These dynamic rides are great fitness boosters and, while the rides themselves are hard, they’re typically short enough where you need only recover for a day before the legs are ready for another hard workout. Another positive aspect of group rides is simply practicing riding in a group and getting comfortable rubbing elbows. There’s nothing worse or more dangerous than a bunch of Jittery Johns in the peloton. Work out your nerves in training.

There you have it. Some examples of rides that, when properly utilized, will help you race more effectively and, hopefully, achieve greater successes in your key races. Give ‘em a try and let me know how they work for you!

Happy Training,
Coach Nate

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proper pacing for running

5/10/2015

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Were you aware that every current world record, from the 1500m to the marathon, has been set by negative splitting the race? In fact, in the history of world records at the 5k and 10k distances, only ONE time has any kilometer split been faster than either the first or last kilometer of any of those races.

Consider Haile Gebrselassie's world-record attempts at Berlin in 2008, where he became the first person to run under 2:04 for the marathon, and Dubai in 2009, where he faded badly in the last 10k. In Dubai, Gebrselassie was a mere 23 seconds faster at halfway than his world-record pace in Berlin the year before – that’s 1.6 seconds PER MILE difference; however, even this small shift in pace resulted in a crash that left him running 90 seconds slower than Berlin over the final 10k.

The punchline: Even the smallest of incremental efforts early on can magnify the negative effects in the latter stages of the race. In the case of Gebrselassie, running 23 seconds faster the first half led to running 90 seconds slower the second half – resulting in an overall slower run by 67 seconds between his Berlin and Dubai marathons.

OPTIMAL PACE STRATEGIES FOR YOUR RACE DISTANCE
5K and 10K
A recent study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research demonstrated that in order to optimize 5K performance, runners should start the first mile of a 5K race at paces 3 to 6 percent faster than their goal race pace. When test subjects ran 3 to 6 percent faster the first mile, settled in to goal pace for the middle miles, and kicked the last 800m, their finishing times were, on average, 29 seconds faster than those runners who started slower than, or at, goal race pace.

The researchers also caution against starting out too quickly. Running the first mile more than 6% faster than goal race pace negatively impacts performance considerably, in some cases causing runners to end up jogging across the finish line.

Other studies show ideal pacing for the first kilometer (rather than first mile) is 3 to 4 percent faster than goal race pace, and a strong finishing kilometer to cross the line.

10-Mile and Half Marathon
From an energy-use perspective, we know that races of this distance should be run slightly below to at your lactate threshold pace, depending on how fast a runner you are. Running faster than your lactate threshold creates a situation where the aerobic system is unable to keep up with removing waste products that cause muscle fatigue that are being generated by anaerobic energy production. Consequently, it's important that runners run slightly slower than this threshold for as long as possible, particularly at the start of the race, to prevent waste products from building and causing fatigue during the early miles. Think of exceeding your lactate threshold as lighting a fuse. Once it’s lit, it burns until the TNT explodes. The faster you run, the faster the fuse burns and, consequently, the quicker the TNT explodes.

From a psychological perspective, it's also important to hold back a little at the start of a race. This is so when it’s time to let out the reins and really kick it in the final 2-3 miles, you know you can do so with confidence because you know you have not yet lit your fuse. To do so, runners must start the first mile or two of a race slightly slower (5–15 seconds/mile) than goal pace to ensure they have both the physical and psychological resources in reserve to finish strong.

Marathon
World-record attempts are great examples to show how a negative-split strategy is optimal when seeking PRs in the marathon. We can also look at other elite performances on challenging courses, those that are not pancake flat. To be clear, running the first half of the marathon faster than goal pace in order to “put time in the bank” is a losing strategy. Sure, you may set a PR but you will most definitely not run the fastest race you have within yourself.

For example, let's consider the men's and women's top runners at the 2011 New York City Marathon. Mary Keitany's goal on race day was to win the race and set a course record. The course record at NYC is 2:22:31, and Keitany scorched the first 13 miles in 1:07:56. Even at 15 and 16 miles, Keitany was still more than 6 minutes faster than record pace, and she had what seemed an insurmountable 2:24 lead on the next pack of women. Over the final few miles, Keitany fought hard and ran tough, but she eventually finished third with a time of 2:23:38, more than a minute over the course record and 8 minutes slower than projected at 16 miles.

The men's race in 2011 was quite the opposite. The men raced in a tight pack of 10 runners through halfway, reaching the 13.1-mile marker in 63:17–a 4:49/mile pace and just under the old course-record pace. The pace remained "gentle" until 20 miles, when a pack of seven runners ripped off a couple of 4:30 mile splits. At mile 24, eventual winner Geoffrey Mutai broke away and crushed the previous course record by finishing in 2:05:06, averaging 4:40/mile for the last 10K and 4:47 for the race.

When it comes to how your body works, the main issue with the "put time in the bank" strategy concerns burning through available muscle glycogen. The more intensely you run, the faster you burn through the glycogen. Muscle glycogen is like gas in a car’s tank – when the tank is empty, the car can’t go anywhere. This is akin to the dreaded bonk, when your legs feel like lead and you fantasize about Big Macs or donuts.

Consequently, what makes sense for the marathon is to run your first 3 to 5 miles at slower than goal pace to conserve energy, maintain goal marathon pace through 20–22 miles, and then run your fastest over the last 4-6 miles.

DEVELOPING A SENSE OF PACE
It’s critical to learn what it feels like to run at goal pace – what sensations are you experiencing, how do your legs feel both early on and later on, what is your breath rate like, and so on. It is also critical to trust in the pacing process come race day. It is so very easy to start out too fast because you’re surrounded by the excitement and energy of other runners. It is imperative to focus on yourself, the sensations you’re feeling and to not panic. If you end up starting out too slowly the first mile, that’s OK! You’ve got plenty of race left, regardless of the distance, to speed up. Better to start 5 to 10 seconds too slowly than that many seconds too fast.

By understanding the reasons behind optimal race day pacing, you can go into your next race with greater confidence in how to pace your race and, just as importantly, why you need to pace your race that way. After all, if it works for the fastest runners in the world, it will work for you as well.

Happy Training,
Coach Nate

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RETURNING TO FULL TRAINING AFTER AN INJURY

effects of time off on fitness

key cycling workouts

proper pacing for running

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