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By John Weirath Leave a Comment

Training Plan Zones — only 3?

Training zones – 3 may be enough

Training is a funny thing.  At once, it’s a process that’s really complex and extraordinarily simple all at the same time.  It’s very difficult to take an athlete and a timeline to a given race and make everything go well so that they perform at their best at that race.  At the heart of it the process is a very simple:

Stress + Rest = Fitness.

And repeat.  This equation represents the basic building block of training.  Mix in a few days of stress and follow with some rest.  But how much stress?  How much rest?  And then how do I assemble the different blocks?

Training plan zones, whether they relate to heart rate or power (on the bike) or pace (running or on the bike) are our metric for how much stress we include in our training.  An effective training plan needs to balance the right stress with the proper amount and type of rest to elicit improvement in strength, speed, efficiency, power, etc.

The number one problem I’ve seen in the design of training programs are training periods that are very long, and poorly defined, with complexity injected into it by creating a whole bunch of training zones.  I’ve seen as many as twelve but often you’ll see them broken down into 6 or more levels, like:

Recovery: the intensity to train at for active recovery
Zone 1: Optimum fat usage
Zone 2: Endurance
Zone 3: Tempo
Zone 4: Threshold
Zone 5: Anaerobic fitness

Often coaches will break the zones down further so that there are seven, eight, or nine distinct levels.  Way too many, in my opinion.  There is a lot of overlap even with 6 zones — really, how much difference in intensity is the “Recovery” zone versus your intensity on your first 4 hour “Zone 1” ride?

The truth is that our physiology isn’t broken into neat little boxes like this.  We don’t “just burn fat” or “build endurance” in any given zone.  We’re much messier than this.  Our zones bleed into one another, we use many different fuel types all at once, and we can be building speed and endurance at the same time.
I like to streamline the training plan zones because they’re easier to understand and my athletes will be more likely to stick to the program and execute it correctly.
There’s another problem that’s ironic given that there often too many training zones, which is that most athletes don’t use enough of  their zones:

Stay out of the middle

Athletes, left to their own devices, almost always train too  much at one given intensity — they gravitate toward “the middle”.  “The middle” is seductive because it doesn’t hurt that much but we still feel like we’re working hard and getting something done.  The problem is that this virtual no-man’s-land of training is generally a waste of your time.

Why?  Because “the middle” isn’t hard enough to make you faster, but it’s just intense enough to require more recovery time.

When I coach an athlete who has come to me from a training program heavily relying on “the middle” (which is most athletes), I exaggerate their training zones at the beginning by giving them only three zones they can work in:

1. Recovery/Easy
2.  Threshold
3. Super-duper hard (Although I’ll often give it a different name)

When I delineate the heart rate or power requirements for each zone I make sure that one zone does not butt up against the next.  This makes it very clear what intensity they should be working at.  It leaves no question what the goal for the day is.

In my opinion when you create more than 5 zones there’s tremendous overlap.  This really blurs the lines as to how the  day to day training goes.  With the zones simplified it leads to greater specificity in the training periods.  Organizing workouts around three or four zones allows you to be very clear and focused on EXACTLY what you’re working on that day / week / month.  It also keeps you out of the middle compared to the 6+ zone method, since as you might imagine all those extra zones come from breaking up the “middle” and the recovery/easy zones into smaller and more obscure parts.

More about the Zones

So what exactly do these three or four simple zones mean?

The Recovery/Easy level is differentiated only by the duration of a given ride — an Easy ride could still be 3 hours long, while a Recovery ride might be the same intensity, but only 45 minutes in duration.  As we get farther into the training, then I’ll often break up the Recovery/Easy into two separate pieces.

I don’t add in anything else between Recovery/Easy and Threshold.  I am very vehement about wanting my athletes to stay out of the region just below threshold.  This region is the worst of the Middle.  

Limiting options in training zones makes it easy to see that every day has a purpose….every day is meant to do SOMETHING. 

The only somethings we focus on early in the program is either recovering, building some aerobic baseline (both are Recovery/Easy), working on overall efficiency at threshold (Threshold), or bumping up efficiency at the very maximal ranges of gross power and strength (Super-duper hard), and we’re rarely trying to work on more than two or perhaps three of these things on any given training period.

What about that Super-duper hard zone?  Where is that?

In the early phases of my of my training plans I might not set specific heart rates here.

The reason I don’t is that when an athlete is just beginning this type of very intense efforts we need to focus on simple parameters:  “go as hard as you can for 1 minute, then jog easy for 2 minutes”.  You can do this without any specialized equipment

Often they don’t have a lot of high end fitness so we need to develop that first., then we can go about defining this very intense zone and even breaking it up into different parts.

Besides re-defining for my client what it means to train, another reason I simplify zones is because I don’t believe in bottom-up physiology:

I don’t believe you can get faster or more efficient at higher levels of exertion (like at your anaerobic threshold) by training slow and easy all the time in the “aerobic range”.  I believe, especially for the time-strapped athlete, your time is best spent with a brief dose of very difficult intervals on some days followed by adequate rest, interspersed at different times with long endurance days (if your preferred events require that).

If your goal is to race or even be more efficient in your local group ride, and you spend all your training time in the lower training zones of the aerobic range, you WILL get more efficient…..but only at that slow pace.  If the pace picks up at a race or a climb steepens on a tour you’ll find yourself struggling to maintain and quickly running out of gas.

Training at these higher intensities is incredibly important, even if you don’t plan to race because of trickle-down physiology:

Training at higher intensities DOES make you more efficient at all the intensities below that.

This is especially useful for an athlete that has a lot of demands on their time.  Those of us that work and have families don’t have time to put in 20 hours of base work in a week.

I know personally, I need to get a lot of bang for my buck, so even if I’m training for a marathon, I rarely have time to run more than 35 or 40 miles in a week.  I use a lot of shorter, faster workouts (especially on the track) in order to bridge the gap.  In my experience a 75-minute workout with a couple healthy blocks of intervals is worth closer to 120 minutes of long slow distance.

So keep it simple…..train hard…..then rest hard….and repeat.  Whether you’re riding in the local Tuesday-night ride or running an ultra-marathon, training for it doesn’t have to be incredibly difficult (but I’d always encourage you to seek help from a skilled coach).

Filed Under: Cycling, Pro Tips, Running, Training Research, Triathlon Tagged With: cycling training plan, marathon training plan, running training plan, training plan, training plan zones, triathlon training plan

By John Weirath Leave a Comment

More on Base Training Myth: Immune Response

More reinforcement to not spend hours and hours on “base training” through the winter months:

It’s no secret that I think short, fast workouts are an effective means of training through the winter months.  In fact I believe there are many aspects that I think make it superior to long base miles for most athletes.

This research article is another reason to choose short/fast efforts.  We see degradations in our immune system with long slow efforts while short/fast efforts appear to boost immune strength.

Again, when I refer to the ‘base training myth’, it’s not to say that putting in long off-season miles doesn’t work, because it does.  The myth portion I’m referring to is when it’s considered the only way for all endurance athletes to have a successful season.

Stay healthy.

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized

By John Weirath Leave a Comment

4 Rules for Running Shoe Selection

In my practice as a PT I get asked a lot about what running shoes they should buy.  Running shoe selection has always been a difficult one but luckily it has gotten easier over the last few years with better shoe options.

To make it easier still I’ve come up with four simple rules to help guide the selection.  It’s often less about finding that one perfect shoe.  Chances are there are a number of good options for you.  What’s more important is avoiding the poor matches and the shoes that won’t work well.

Here we go:

  1. The shoe should be shaped like your foot.  If you have very narrow feet that look like little canoes then you can wear shoes where the toe box has a narrow shape.  If you’re like many of us though, your wide foot will function best in a shoe with a wider toe box.  Many companies are now making shoes with more anatomically shaped lasts which is a step in the right direction.
  2. It should have as low a heel offset (also called ‘drop’) as the runner can safely tolerate — no high heel running shoes.  In my practice I have noticed only upside to going with the lowest heel drop that the runner’s body is prepared for.  Certainly for a runner whose previous running shoe selection had 15 mm of drop shouldn’t suddenly opt for a zero drop shoe, but working your way down  — perhaps 3-5 mm decrements every 3-6 months or every time new shoes are purchased — is a great way to help achieve the most neutral running stride.
  3. The amount of cushioning can vary — the more heel offset the shoe has the less overall cushioning it should have.  A low offset shoe (increase the amount of time the runner spends on the ground, but other than that there are fewer negative effects to balance and form in this situation.
  4. The shoe should be simple:  A shoe should protect your foot, provide a little cushioning and not get in the way of your form.  That’s it.  What about motion control or stability, you ask?  Turns out shoes built and marketed for all these tasks actually don’t do them very well at all.  No gimmicks; apply Occam’s Razor to your shoe buying.  The simplest answer is usually the correct one.

Running shoe selection doesn’t need to be overly complex, and focusing on one particular shoe isn’t necessary.  IN fact, alternating between two pairs of shoes that do slightly different things can be helpful to keeping the feet strong and working on running form balance.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

By John Weirath Leave a Comment

Running Injuries: Prevent, Don’t Fix

Running Injuries: Prevent, Don’t Fix

Running injuries are way too common.  In fact, depending on the study you cite, between 40-72% of runners report an injury every single year.  The reasons for these injuries are varied but the theme is always the same:  Too Much or Too Often.

Here’s a list of 13 things you can check off to make sure you stay healthy year round:

Boil the frog

In the PT clinic the most common cause of injury is simple ‘too much’.  Too much distance.  Too much speed.  Too much too soon in one way or another.  Setting a training plan is a bit trickier for distance running than cycling or swimming because of the amount of impact absorbed by the body.  In cycling we can begin speed work almost immediately if we wanted to.

With running we should employ the “boiling frog” analogy:  How do you convince the frog to jump into the boiling water?  You start with the heat off entirely so he’s jumping into a comfortable bath, then you raise the heat very slowly so he won’t notice it until it’s too late.  Kind of a sadistic analogy, I know, but the premise holds.  When starting to run, begin with the heat off — mileage very low — and raise the heat slowly by increasing mileage incremental, barely noticeable amounts each week.  Before long you’ll be boiling!  Raise the heat too quick and the frog will wise up and jump out — which is when we get hurt.

Land Soft

This sounds simpler than it is.  And I literally mean that you should land lighter on your feet.  Easiest way to govern this is by listening to your foot strikes…make each step quieter.  running injuries land softCan’t hear it or judge the sound well?  Run with a partner — often it’s easier to hear someone else’s footsteps and give feedback to eachother  This will often change the way you run and you might have to begin running at a slower pace or take smaller strides (or both), but the result will be a much more balanced stride with lower impact forces

Heel

Running form has been given a lot of attention the last few years.  Some people (including some coaches) still believe that running is an innate task and we’re just going to run the way we’ve always learned to run.  That trying to correct someone’s form is a fool’s errand.

I will stipulate that it’s difficult to effect change but far from impossible.  I have helped hundreds of people positively alter their running form, and from where I sit (literally) I don’t see running as innate.  Perhaps a few millenia ago when humans had never had shoes or didn’t sit in front of computers all day, but now it’s quite different.  I believe that many of us need help to get back to our proper running form.

One of the most common (and maddening) tips I hear or read about from ‘experts’ online is to land on your midfoot or to land with your foot directly underneath you.  Both of these directives are impossible — as in actually physically impossible to do.  Even the best runners with the best form still land on their heel, and still land with their foot out in front of their center of mass.  It’s the (small) degree to which they do these things which makes their form exceptional.

The directive should change from ‘land on your midfoot’ to ‘just don’t land directly on your heel’.  Long distance runners will still land on their heels in the best of circumstances, but there are degrees to which you can land here.

The instructions I usually start with in my runners are: don’t worry about where you’re trying to land; just don’t land square on your heel.  Many running injuries come from the increased ground reaction force a runner experiences when nlanding squarely on their heels.

Stand Tall

We sit….a lot.  At work.  In the car.  In front of the TV and with our tablet.  Undoutbtedly tyou’ve eard at this point that all this sitting isn’t good for us.  That’s true and it carries forward into our running form.  The more we sit, the weaker our glutes and hip muscles get — they just don’t have to do much work when we sit.  Additionally, sitting causes us to slump forward, round our shoulders and drop our head.  All of these bad habits show up in our running form.

Stand up straight!  Get your shoulders back…they should not be in front of your hips, but all too often I see runners leading with their shoulders in their stopped, ‘falling forward’ gait.  One really good cue for this is to think of initiating your stide by driving the opposite elbow back.  As we drive our elbow back we take advantage of some of the elastic energy in the spine that initiates our opposite hip to glide forward and begin our swing phase.  It also has the tendency to keep our torso upright.

Drive your elbows back to initiate your stride…this helps to get your shoulders back…

Bend your knee!

If I were allowed to only give a runner one instruction to think about to improve their form it would be ‘focus first on bending your knee.’  When a runner is about to lift their leg off the ground and begin their swing phase  the thought I want going through their head would be “bend the knee; heel towards the butt”.  Thinking of knee flexion first has two key outcomes:

First it functionally shortens the leg as a lever that needs to be swung forward so initiating swing requires less energy.

Second, it keeps the leg behind the runner which makes it less likely that they’ll land with their foot far out in front of them.

Don’t go Barefoot

This one is simple.  Just don’t do it.  Barefoot running was a terrible idea.  Again, perhaps a few millenia ago when there was no such thing as concrete or asphalt, this might have been okay, but in our modern world where it’s difficult to get away from hard surfaces it’s not a smart thing to try.

This goes for the toe shoes – the FiveFingers — as well.  Running barefoot on a soft surface for  brief periods can help you strengthen your feet and improve proprioception, but spending a lot of time barefoot is just asking for trouble.

Don’t Wear Moon Boots

This is the counter-point to not going barefoot.

running injuries - moon boots running injuries -- nike moon boots

One of the more common questions I get is about proper running shoes.  Here are my simple rules for choosing a shoe:

  1. The shoe should be shaped like your foot.  If you have very narrow feet that look like little canoes then you can wear shoes where the toe box has a narrow shape.  If you’re like many of us though, your wide foot will function best in a shoe with a wider toe box.  Many companies are now making shoes with more anatomically shaped lasts which is a step in the right direction.
  2. It should have as low a heel offset (also called ‘drop’) as the runner can safely tolerate — no high heel running shoes.
  3. The amount of cushioning can vary — the more heel offset the shoe has the less overall cushioning it should have.  A low offset shoe (<4 mm) can have more cushioning to it (30mm, 35mm or more), but it doesn’t have to — this would be according to the runner’s preference.  Why the inverse relationship between offset and cushioning?  This is purely my experience with my clients and patients (meaning I can’t point to a study on this and wanted to be up front about that) — if a runner is doing well in a zero or very low offset shoe they have already corrected a few issue with their running form, especially in regards to stride length and therefore their form shows less negative effect if they choose a shoe with extra cushioning.  Shoes with more cushioing have been shown to increase the amount of time the runner spends on the ground, but other than that there are fewer negative effects to balance and form in this situation.
  4. The shoe should be simple:  A shoe should protect your foot, provide a little cushioning and not get in the way of your form.  That’s it.  What about motion control or stability, you ask?  Turns out shoes built and marketed for all these tasks actually don’t do them very well at all.  No gimmicks; apply Occam’s Razor to your shoe buying.  The simplest answer is usually the correct one.

Stay away from big “moon boot” running shoes, espeically those with a high (>10 mm) heel drop) — they will cause more running injuries than they will prevent.

Hips and Strengthening

If there is such thing as a universal rule in running it might be that every runner can benefit from working on their hips.  I have yet to encounter a runner, injured or not, who displays good strength and equal (left to right) balance and coordination through their hips.  There are a lot of ways to skin this cat, of course, but the question of what works best is often confusing.

Should we be doing exercises on all fours like in Jane Fonda’s workout?

Or one leg balance stuff on a Bosu?

That creepy hip machines at the gym that looks like something out of an OB-GYN office?

How about good old fashion dead lifts and squats with free weights?

Strength training is one of those areas where we can never seem to agree and there are enough conflicting studies to cloud the view even further.

We’re pretty sure that strength training helps runners.  At least we  *almost* know that for sure.  I would say it is a safe bet.

But now how should we go about it?  This is where it gets confusing:  if we do heavy weight training, should we do it concurrently with our running program?  Seems like that might be a recipe for fatigue and overuse.

So should we use the weights in the off-season when our running mileage is lower?  But after 6 weeks of no weight training, all the benefits we realized during our lifting period disappear.

Does that mean lighter weights or exercises are a better idea?  What if an exercise isn’t ‘functional’ enough?

Before we get too in-the-weeds on this topic let me go over a few things that might clear things up and get us to an answer quicker:

1) Don’t get stuck on “Functional”

First, ‘functional’ exercise isn’t always the best method for strengthening.  If you’re looking to strengthen or just activate a muscle that hasn’t been pulling it’s weight, there are likely dozens of functional exercises that can get this muscle to activate in the movement pattern of your desired task (whether running, throwing a baseball, or pedaling a bike).  But there’s an even better chance that there’s a non-functional exercise that will actuvate that muscle to an even greater degree.  That non-functional exercise may be the one you should use.  Free weight exercises are often plenty functional but also have the added benefit of activating muscles well.

2) Go Big

In general if your goal is to get something stronger (build) or keep something stromg (maintain in season) then the rule is usually ‘go hard or go home’.  Runners should take their cues from power lifters (after all, who knows how to get strong better than those guys and gals).  Power lifters lift very heavy weights, but they do it with a lot of rest.  For example one of the tried and true methods comes from the Russians where they aim at lifting a weight that is their RM10 (they could lift it 10 reps and then fail on the 11th lift).  They take this RM10 weight and lift it for 5 reps shooting for 5 sets.  This tends to be a very achievable and comfortable lifting regimen (meaning you won’t see them working repeatedly to failure), but also produces significant results.  But an RM10 weight is still pretty high, even for a weakling runner, and that’s the point.  In certain phases of their training powerlifters may just be doing one rep and then take many minutes in between sets — there are even rooms at some of these gyms where they can nap in between workouts.

It’s easy enough to lift heavy in the off-season and build strength but what about losing all of that when we stop lifting in-season?  The key here is to keep lifting, but to do so in a way that has maximal impact impact on our strength mainenance but minimal negative impact on our running.

How is this possible?  That brings me to my third point:

3) Take advantage of neural adaptations

Much of our strength training improvements come from neural adaptations rather than changes in the muscle.  High weight or explosive exercises have been shown to improve running economy and  it’s thought that processes within the nervous system are enhanced and the cause of these improvements.  So the takeaway:  Do just enough work to keep the nervous system primed and firing efficiently.  In-season, performing just a few lifts with heavy weight may be all we need to keep these benefits.

Cross-Train

Do other sports.  Running uses certain muscles a lot and others very little, so do something else.  It’s one of the best ways to keep away running injuries and the syndromes they foster.

Move out of plane a lot

Similar to “Cross-Training” but a bit more specific.  Running is very linear.  We tend to go one direction; forward.  We need to break out of this plane of forward movement because it will move joints in directions and to degrees that they don’t normally see.  Muscles will work in directions they’re not accustomed to (and should be), and the “software” in our central nervous system that manages our movement will be robust and able to handle any movement situation.

If you want to run more, first run more often

When trying to increase speed or distance in your running program it’s best to first add frequency.  This is an easier and safer way to add mileage to your weeks.  It just comes down to simple math:  if you were running 5 miles a day 4 days a week but then you were able to add a fifth running day the next week, and merely run 2-3 miles on that day, over the course of the next few weeks that 5th day could safely get worked up to 5 miles and in a few short weeks you’ve bumped up your mileage by 25%.

Jump Rope

With so many runners transitioning to lower drop and “minimal” shoes, running form has of course begun to change (for better or worse) and more runners are not landing on their heel when they run.  This can be a very good thing when done properly but it does require more of the calf and foot muscles and many/most runners don’t have proper stability in these tissues.  The result has been many instances of common running injuries plantar fasciitis, calf strains, Achilles injuries, stress fractures and more.

One of the simplest and best ways to get the muscles of the feet and lower legs up to speed is to begin with short bouts of jump rope.  Jumping rope is not about theheight but about the speed.  You don’t have to emulate Sly Stallone in the early Rocky films and become a speed demon but being able to jump at a rate faster than your running cadence initiates the stretch-shortening cycle (SSC) in the muscle (via the golgi tendon organ [GTO] and the muscle spindle) differently and more aggressively than when we run.  This provides a greater stimulus for the tissue of the feet and lower legs, making us more injury resistant.

Marathon sessions aren’t necessary either.  Even 5 minutes of jumping after a moderate length run can be helpful.  Jumping rope is also a great substitute worout on those days you can’t hit the road or trail.  Spending 15-20 minutes with the jump rope will not only provide a good aerobic workout in those instances but will make a tremendous diufference in your lower leg tissue stability.

Do a long warm-up

Warming up and cooling down are the two most common areas where runners cut corners.  I get it.  We’re busy and short on time so when only 45 minutes is available for a workout the tendency is to get to get busy and do some work.

Problem with this approach is that it’s a short term gain.  It has more negatives in the long term.  Why?  Simply, jumping into a run before tissues are properly prepared leads to more inflammatory load.  Unprepared tissues experience more micro-trauma which leads to more inflammation and longer recovery times.  Want to recover quicker?  Warm-up better.  Recovery begins in the warm-up before you even start your workout.

Begin by just walking briskly.  I usually shoot for about half to three-quarters of a mile.  Then, as you walk, some small hops, bounces or light skipping for a few hundred yards is helpful to bridge your body to the dynamic movement necessary.   After that, just begin jogging easily and slowly progress your pace.

Filed Under: Pro Tips, Running, Training Research Tagged With: running form, running injuries, weight lifting for runners

By John Weirath Leave a Comment

Running Injury Prevention: Quick Tip

When it comes to running injuries I think most runners would rather avoid an injury altogether rather than try to heal one after it’s occurred.  I have an upcoming article with more than a dozen tips on avoiding running injuries, but here’s just one of them to get you started.

Move out of plane a lot

This is similar to “Cross-Training” but a bit more specific.  Running is very linear.  We tend to go one direction; forward.  We need to break out of this plane of forward movement because it will move joints in directions and to degrees that they don’t normally see.  Muscles will work in directions they’re not accustomed to (and should be), and the “software” in our central nervous system that manages our movement will be more robust and able to handle any movement situation.

How should we go about this?  Well, here’s the good news.  Moving out of plane can be a lot of fun an dthere are a number of ways to accomplish it.  Play pickup basketball.  Take a dance class, a basic gymnastics, or tumbling classes.  Parcour.  Ultimate frisbee.  The options are pretty much endless.  Most ball and team sports are a great option but you can get creative and pick based on your interests. 

So go out there and be a well-rounded athlete.  It likely will make you a better runner and keep running injuries on the sideline.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

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a physical therapist since 1997 and a (very slow) endurance sport competitor for the last 25 years -- full ironmans, solo 24-hour races, ultras -- the author relies on body hacks and research-based techniques to get more out of his training.

He lives with his wife and two kids and runs multiple businesses in Grand Junction, Colorado.

Recent Posts

  • Training Plan Zones — only 3?
  • More on Base Training Myth: Immune Response
  • 4 Rules for Running Shoe Selection
  • Running Injuries: Prevent, Don’t Fix
  • Running Injury Prevention: Quick Tip

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