Go Slow to Go Fast
As athletes we often talk about how fast we can go, what time we finished a work out in, what our current personal bests are and what we are doing to beat them.
It is so tempting whenever you are training to push that easy pace harder or to try and beat your previous time in a workout. It’s the desire for instant gratification that makes us do this. I have been just as guilty in the past of chasing that feeling of fulfilment from pushing myself far out of my comfort zone on a planned ‘easy’ day.
Surely this will help you to get fitter quicker and ultimately run faster right? Well the answer is no, most good coaches will tell you to slow down because it’s not just as simple as; the harder you work the better you get.
I’m sure most of you have been there before, trying to maximise every session, pushing hard and missing the easy days believing that it will make you better. But on the contrary the key to getting faster actually lies in making the disparity between your hard sessions and easy sessions as big as possible. However counter-intuitive it feels, if you want to speed up whether its in running, cycling, swimming or CrossFit, you should be slowing down part of your training.
Despite popular belief elite athletes are not out there pushing themselves at superhuman paces every session, they may have a high volume of training but many of those session will be done at 70-80% of their max heart rate. Easy miles are actually the backbone of most training plans and many elite athletes follow an 80/20 split meaning that 80% of their training is at low intensity or below lactate threshold and only 20% is at high intensity. In a 2013 study, the University of Stirling in Scotland had male recreational cyclists follow the 80/20 approach and then after some time switch to a 57/43 split. The gains in power and speed after 80/20 training were more than twice as high as the more equal split.
I often have clients ask me “Why are my easy days so slow?” or “How am I supposed to run fast if I am running slow all the time?”
There are several answers to questions such as these, the first one being the development of the aerobic system, which is key to unlocking your athletic potential. On easy days you are mostly using slow twitch muscle fibres which have a higher density of mitochondria, high levels of aerobic enzymes and greater capillary density than fast twitch which are involved more in your higher intensity sessions. Training easy or aerobically actually provides you with fundamental adaptions; you increase mitochondria, capillaries and blood flow to those muscles, so they’re better able to utilise oxygen which in turn will help you to race faster because this is your most used energy system.
Another reason to slow down your training pace is that running faster and pushing harder all the time will actually result in diminished aerobic development and will increase the chances of injury and overtraining. This is the single biggest mistake athletes of all experience levels make in their training. Going full speed every session takes a toll both physically and mentally which could lead to over training because you are unable to recover from the stress on your system. Whether you are a beginner or a seasoned racer building a strong foundation through going slow is a great way to prevent injuries by getting your body used to that repetitive stress.
So why cant you go faster than your coach says if you are feeling really good? The faster that you run, bike, swim or workout on your easy days, the more stress you place on your muscles, tendons, ligaments and bones, which may over time lead to an injury. Also easy days sometimes serve as active recovery days from your hard workouts, you need these days so that the body can heal those small-micro tears through increased delivery of oxygen and nutrients to your working muscles. If you are over training you will become less efficient and you may actually become slower.
This doesn’t mean that every single session needs to be slow, threshold and tempo training are extremely productive and an essential part of training. It is one of the many blocks in becoming a successful and faster athlete. What I am suggesting is that if you take a more 80/20 approach to the intensity levels of your training, focus on a larger disparity between your hard sessions and your easy ones, you will see much bigger progress in the long term.
If you have been smashing every session you do for while and are thinking that it is working for you, just remember outcomes don’t occur instantaneously. You don’t run slightly too fast one day and then immediately get hurt. The stress and fatigue compounds over time and without realising it your body and your performance will start to decline.
If you really want to get faster in your chosen sport, you need to trust that slowing down will help you accomplish this.
ENGINE
Working on holding our MIKKOS score calories for longer blocks of time.
GYMNASTICS
This week, we will focus on rope climbing, doubleunders, and handstand push-ups in gymnastics. We will focus on the skill elements to help you with these movements! Whether you have these movements down or not, this class will help you improve in all these movements so you're ready to attack classes!
HYROX
We start to put together the pieces and do a mini HYROX
MOBILITY
We will go over full-body flow routines focusing on flexibility for full-body alignment.
PURE STRENGTH
In Pure Strength, we start the week with some percentage work on the close grip bench press, followed by heavy rows and a shoulder pump to finish. Wednesday, we worked up to a heavy single on the deadlift, with some tough drop sets followed by some heavy single leg work.
WEIGHTLIFTING
Snatch Focus this week, and we get into over-head squats before working into some Snatch High Pulls and Hang Snatch and then finish with some heavy Snatch singles!
Track Tuesday
Week two of our over/unders block, this week we move to 1km efforts.
Start time: 05:59 am
Session Length: 1 hour
Wednesday Ride
Wednesday ride* 5.59am BOTS. << use links/details from a few months back
4 X 8min at your best effort, what have you got?
Start time: 05:59am
Session Length: 1 hour
Location: BOTS - https://goo.gl/maps/6AwtJXW8nA45Cy9H8
The Coffee Run
Our classic builders set this week, 5min builds based on effort! A great tempo run.
Start time: 05:59 am
Session length: 1 hour
Location: Common Grounds, Jumeirah Beach Track
Saturday Ride
Back to a long ride today, 105km in the group with some structured intervals to follow.
Start time: 05:59am
Session Length: 1 hour
Location: BOTS - https://goo.gl/maps/6AwtJXW8nA45Cy9H8
Sunday long run
Team IFE on Tour are 3 weeks out from the marathon in Munich, so they need to run long. Why not come along and support with some miles to? Message sh@innerfight.com to find out more.
Start time: 05:29am
Session Length: 1 hour
Location: From InnerFight
Monday
Time: 5:59am & 5:59pm
Location: InnerFight
Session: Ladies Only Tempo
Today we will hold tempo for 2 long blocks and one shorter block. Keep asking yourself if you are running a 7/10 effort during this session.
Tuesday
Time: 5:59am
Location: Sports City
Session: Track Tuesday
This week our over/unders have increased from 800m to 1000m. Paces are the same as last week. This is your chance to run fast with the wider InnerFight Endurance Community and Coaches.
Wednesday
Time: 5:59am & 5:59pm
Location: InnerFight
Session: Ladies Only Intervals
We will be running our intervals around the Olivia apartments this week for 1 loop and then in the park for a shorter loop. Try and pick up the pace on the shorter park loops.
Friday
Time: 5:59am
Location: Kite Beach
Session: The Coffee Run
This week our efforts will build from 4/10 to 7/10 over 3 blocks of builders. You therefore have 3 attempts to hit that 7/10 feeling. We recommend that you do not start off too fast on this one.
Sunday
Time: 5:29am
Location: InnerFight
Session: Long Run
We will be running from InnerFight this Sunday. There are various options from 15km to 35km depending on which races you have coming up. If you would rather run for time, that is also fine! Routes will be shared in WhatsApp and on TrainingPeaks.
We will kick the week off on Monday with heavy single-leg work and move on to a fast interval workout. Tuesday is about the sandbags with a tough set of EMOMs followed by a partner workout. Wednesday, we have more focus on our strict pull-ups and then a gymnastics and running-based workout. Thursday, we will hit some technical work on a clean complex and follow it up with some heavy clean singles, followed by a tough and fast-paced workout with rowing cleans and wall balls. Friday, we finish the week with some heavy Jerks in the skill and then a gruelling chipper.
Monday:
Strength:
Walking Dumbell Lunges
Conditioning:
In a 2 min window
25 KB Sumo deadlift (2x24/16)
Amrap DU
rest 2 mins
In a 2 min window
16 Weighted Box Step Ups 1 x KB 24/16
AMRAP Cals Bike
rest 2 mins
x3
Tuesday:
Strength:
Building Weight Sandbag To Shoulder
Conditioning:
In Pairs
100 sandbags to shoulder (80/50)
Every 4 mins
1 car park lap farmers carry 2 x 32/24
Wednesday:
Strength:
A) Strict Pull Ups
B) KB Push Press + Pull Ups + Side Plank
Conditioning:
16 min amrap
Pool Run
10 burpee pull-ups
3 wall walks
Thursday:
Strength:
A) Clean Pull + Hang Squat Clean + Front Squat
B) Squat Clean
Conditioning:
For time:
500/400m row
30 squat clean (60/40)
50 WallBalls
Friday:
Strength:
A) Push Jerk
Conditioning:
It's an awesome triplet to end the week! Therapyyyyy!
As athletes we often talk about how fast we can go, what time we finished a work out in, what our current personal bests are and what we are doing to beat them.
It is so tempting whenever you are training to push that easy pace harder or to try and beat your previous time in a workout. It’s the desire for instant gratification that makes us do this. I have been just as guilty in the past of chasing that feeling of fulfilment from pushing myself far out of my comfort zone on a planned ‘easy’ day.
Surely this will help you to get fitter quicker and ultimately run faster right? Well the answer is no, most good coaches will tell you to slow down because it’s not just as simple as; the harder you work the better you get.
I’m sure most of you have been there before, trying to maximise every session, pushing hard and missing the easy days believing that it will make you better. But on the contrary the key to getting faster actually lies in making the disparity between your hard sessions and easy sessions as big as possible. However counter-intuitive it feels, if you want to speed up whether its in running, cycling, swimming or CrossFit, you should be slowing down part of your training.
Despite popular belief elite athletes are not out there pushing themselves at superhuman paces every session, they may have a high volume of training but many of those session will be done at 70-80% of their max heart rate. Easy miles are actually the backbone of most training plans and many elite athletes follow an 80/20 split meaning that 80% of their training is at low intensity or below lactate threshold and only 20% is at high intensity. In a 2013 study, the University of Stirling in Scotland had male recreational cyclists follow the 80/20 approach and then after some time switch to a 57/43 split. The gains in power and speed after 80/20 training were more than twice as high as the more equal split.
I often have clients ask me “Why are my easy days so slow?” or “How am I supposed to run fast if I am running slow all the time?”
There are several answers to questions such as these, the first one being the development of the aerobic system, which is key to unlocking your athletic potential. On easy days you are mostly using slow twitch muscle fibres which have a higher density of mitochondria, high levels of aerobic enzymes and greater capillary density than fast twitch which are involved more in your higher intensity sessions. Training easy or aerobically actually provides you with fundamental adaptions; you increase mitochondria, capillaries and blood flow to those muscles, so they’re better able to utilise oxygen which in turn will help you to race faster because this is your most used energy system.
Another reason to slow down your training pace is that running faster and pushing harder all the time will actually result in diminished aerobic development and will increase the chances of injury and overtraining. This is the single biggest mistake athletes of all experience levels make in their training. Going full speed every session takes a toll both physically and mentally which could lead to over training because you are unable to recover from the stress on your system. Whether you are a beginner or a seasoned racer building a strong foundation through going slow is a great way to prevent injuries by getting your body used to that repetitive stress.
So why cant you go faster than your coach says if you are feeling really good? The faster that you run, bike, swim or workout on your easy days, the more stress you place on your muscles, tendons, ligaments and bones, which may over time lead to an injury. Also easy days sometimes serve as active recovery days from your hard workouts, you need these days so that the body can heal those small-micro tears through increased delivery of oxygen and nutrients to your working muscles. If you are over training you will become less efficient and you may actually become slower.
This doesn’t mean that every single session needs to be slow, threshold and tempo training are extremely productive and an essential part of training. It is one of the many blocks in becoming a successful and faster athlete. What I am suggesting is that if you take a more 80/20 approach to the intensity levels of your training, focus on a larger disparity between your hard sessions and your easy ones, you will see much bigger progress in the long term.
If you have been smashing every session you do for while and are thinking that it is working for you, just remember outcomes don’t occur instantaneously. You don’t run slightly too fast one day and then immediately get hurt. The stress and fatigue compounds over time and without realising it your body and your performance will start to decline.
If you really want to get faster in your chosen sport, you need to trust that slowing down will help you accomplish this.
Track Tuesday
Week two of our over/unders block, this week we move to 1km efforts.
Start time: 05:59 am
Session Length: 1 hour
Wednesday Ride
Wednesday ride* 5.59am BOTS. << use links/details from a few months back
4 X 8min at your best effort, what have you got?
Start time: 05:59am
Session Length: 1 hour
Location: BOTS - https://goo.gl/maps/6AwtJXW8nA45Cy9H8
The Coffee Run
Our classic builders set this week, 5min builds based on effort! A great tempo run.
Start time: 05:59 am
Session length: 1 hour
Location: Common Grounds, Jumeirah Beach Track
Saturday Ride
Back to a long ride today, 105km in the group with some structured intervals to follow.
Start time: 05:59am
Session Length: 1 hour
Location: BOTS - https://goo.gl/maps/6AwtJXW8nA45Cy9H8
Sunday long run
Team IFE on Tour are 3 weeks out from the marathon in Munich, so they need to run long. Why not come along and support with some miles to? Message sh@innerfight.com to find out more.
Start time: 05:29am
Session Length: 1 hour
Location: From InnerFight
Monday
Time: 5:59am & 5:59pm
Location: InnerFight
Session: Ladies Only Tempo
Today we will hold tempo for 2 long blocks and one shorter block. Keep asking yourself if you are running a 7/10 effort during this session.
Tuesday
Time: 5:59am
Location: Sports City
Session: Track Tuesday
This week our over/unders have increased from 800m to 1000m. Paces are the same as last week. This is your chance to run fast with the wider InnerFight Endurance Community and Coaches.
Wednesday
Time: 5:59am & 5:59pm
Location: InnerFight
Session: Ladies Only Intervals
We will be running our intervals around the Olivia apartments this week for 1 loop and then in the park for a shorter loop. Try and pick up the pace on the shorter park loops.
Friday
Time: 5:59am
Location: Kite Beach
Session: The Coffee Run
This week our efforts will build from 4/10 to 7/10 over 3 blocks of builders. You therefore have 3 attempts to hit that 7/10 feeling. We recommend that you do not start off too fast on this one.
Sunday
Time: 5:29am
Location: InnerFight
Session: Long Run
We will be running from InnerFight this Sunday. There are various options from 15km to 35km depending on which races you have coming up. If you would rather run for time, that is also fine! Routes will be shared in WhatsApp and on TrainingPeaks.
We will kick the week off on Monday with heavy single-leg work and move on to a fast interval workout. Tuesday is about the sandbags with a tough set of EMOMs followed by a partner workout. Wednesday, we have more focus on our strict pull-ups and then a gymnastics and running-based workout. Thursday, we will hit some technical work on a clean complex and follow it up with some heavy clean singles, followed by a tough and fast-paced workout with rowing cleans and wall balls. Friday, we finish the week with some heavy Jerks in the skill and then a gruelling chipper.
Monday:
Strength:
Walking Dumbell Lunges
Conditioning:
In a 2 min window
25 KB Sumo deadlift (2x24/16)
Amrap DU
rest 2 mins
In a 2 min window
16 Weighted Box Step Ups 1 x KB 24/16
AMRAP Cals Bike
rest 2 mins
x3
Tuesday:
Strength:
Building Weight Sandbag To Shoulder
Conditioning:
In Pairs
100 sandbags to shoulder (80/50)
Every 4 mins
1 car park lap farmers carry 2 x 32/24
Wednesday:
Strength:
A) Strict Pull Ups
B) KB Push Press + Pull Ups + Side Plank
Conditioning:
16 min amrap
Pool Run
10 burpee pull-ups
3 wall walks
Thursday:
Strength:
A) Clean Pull + Hang Squat Clean + Front Squat
B) Squat Clean
Conditioning:
For time:
500/400m row
30 squat clean (60/40)
50 WallBalls
Friday:
Strength:
A) Push Jerk
Conditioning:
It's an awesome triplet to end the week! Therapyyyyy!
ENGINE
Working on holding our MIKKOS score calories for longer blocks of time.
GYMNASTICS
This week, we will focus on rope climbing, doubleunders, and handstand push-ups in gymnastics. We will focus on the skill elements to help you with these movements! Whether you have these movements down or not, this class will help you improve in all these movements so you're ready to attack classes!
HYROX
We start to put together the pieces and do a mini HYROX
MOBILITY
We will go over full-body flow routines focusing on flexibility for full-body alignment.
PURE STRENGTH
In Pure Strength, we start the week with some percentage work on the close grip bench press, followed by heavy rows and a shoulder pump to finish. Wednesday, we worked up to a heavy single on the deadlift, with some tough drop sets followed by some heavy single leg work.
WEIGHTLIFTING
Snatch Focus this week, and we get into over-head squats before working into some Snatch High Pulls and Hang Snatch and then finish with some heavy Snatch singles!
As athletes we often talk about how fast we can go, what time we finished a work out in, what our current personal bests are and what we are doing to beat them.
It is so tempting whenever you are training to push that easy pace harder or to try and beat your previous time in a workout. It’s the desire for instant gratification that makes us do this. I have been just as guilty in the past of chasing that feeling of fulfilment from pushing myself far out of my comfort zone on a planned ‘easy’ day.
Surely this will help you to get fitter quicker and ultimately run faster right? Well the answer is no, most good coaches will tell you to slow down because it’s not just as simple as; the harder you work the better you get.
I’m sure most of you have been there before, trying to maximise every session, pushing hard and missing the easy days believing that it will make you better. But on the contrary the key to getting faster actually lies in making the disparity between your hard sessions and easy sessions as big as possible. However counter-intuitive it feels, if you want to speed up whether its in running, cycling, swimming or CrossFit, you should be slowing down part of your training.
Despite popular belief elite athletes are not out there pushing themselves at superhuman paces every session, they may have a high volume of training but many of those session will be done at 70-80% of their max heart rate. Easy miles are actually the backbone of most training plans and many elite athletes follow an 80/20 split meaning that 80% of their training is at low intensity or below lactate threshold and only 20% is at high intensity. In a 2013 study, the University of Stirling in Scotland had male recreational cyclists follow the 80/20 approach and then after some time switch to a 57/43 split. The gains in power and speed after 80/20 training were more than twice as high as the more equal split.
I often have clients ask me “Why are my easy days so slow?” or “How am I supposed to run fast if I am running slow all the time?”
There are several answers to questions such as these, the first one being the development of the aerobic system, which is key to unlocking your athletic potential. On easy days you are mostly using slow twitch muscle fibres which have a higher density of mitochondria, high levels of aerobic enzymes and greater capillary density than fast twitch which are involved more in your higher intensity sessions. Training easy or aerobically actually provides you with fundamental adaptions; you increase mitochondria, capillaries and blood flow to those muscles, so they’re better able to utilise oxygen which in turn will help you to race faster because this is your most used energy system.
Another reason to slow down your training pace is that running faster and pushing harder all the time will actually result in diminished aerobic development and will increase the chances of injury and overtraining. This is the single biggest mistake athletes of all experience levels make in their training. Going full speed every session takes a toll both physically and mentally which could lead to over training because you are unable to recover from the stress on your system. Whether you are a beginner or a seasoned racer building a strong foundation through going slow is a great way to prevent injuries by getting your body used to that repetitive stress.
So why cant you go faster than your coach says if you are feeling really good? The faster that you run, bike, swim or workout on your easy days, the more stress you place on your muscles, tendons, ligaments and bones, which may over time lead to an injury. Also easy days sometimes serve as active recovery days from your hard workouts, you need these days so that the body can heal those small-micro tears through increased delivery of oxygen and nutrients to your working muscles. If you are over training you will become less efficient and you may actually become slower.
This doesn’t mean that every single session needs to be slow, threshold and tempo training are extremely productive and an essential part of training. It is one of the many blocks in becoming a successful and faster athlete. What I am suggesting is that if you take a more 80/20 approach to the intensity levels of your training, focus on a larger disparity between your hard sessions and your easy ones, you will see much bigger progress in the long term.
If you have been smashing every session you do for while and are thinking that it is working for you, just remember outcomes don’t occur instantaneously. You don’t run slightly too fast one day and then immediately get hurt. The stress and fatigue compounds over time and without realising it your body and your performance will start to decline.
If you really want to get faster in your chosen sport, you need to trust that slowing down will help you accomplish this.
Monday
Time: 5:59am & 5:59pm
Location: InnerFight
Session: Ladies Only Tempo
Today we will hold tempo for 2 long blocks and one shorter block. Keep asking yourself if you are running a 7/10 effort during this session.
Tuesday
Time: 5:59am
Location: Sports City
Session: Track Tuesday
This week our over/unders have increased from 800m to 1000m. Paces are the same as last week. This is your chance to run fast with the wider InnerFight Endurance Community and Coaches.
Wednesday
Time: 5:59am & 5:59pm
Location: InnerFight
Session: Ladies Only Intervals
We will be running our intervals around the Olivia apartments this week for 1 loop and then in the park for a shorter loop. Try and pick up the pace on the shorter park loops.
Friday
Time: 5:59am
Location: Kite Beach
Session: The Coffee Run
This week our efforts will build from 4/10 to 7/10 over 3 blocks of builders. You therefore have 3 attempts to hit that 7/10 feeling. We recommend that you do not start off too fast on this one.
Sunday
Time: 5:29am
Location: InnerFight
Session: Long Run
We will be running from InnerFight this Sunday. There are various options from 15km to 35km depending on which races you have coming up. If you would rather run for time, that is also fine! Routes will be shared in WhatsApp and on TrainingPeaks.
We will kick the week off on Monday with heavy single-leg work and move on to a fast interval workout. Tuesday is about the sandbags with a tough set of EMOMs followed by a partner workout. Wednesday, we have more focus on our strict pull-ups and then a gymnastics and running-based workout. Thursday, we will hit some technical work on a clean complex and follow it up with some heavy clean singles, followed by a tough and fast-paced workout with rowing cleans and wall balls. Friday, we finish the week with some heavy Jerks in the skill and then a gruelling chipper.
Monday:
Strength:
Walking Dumbell Lunges
Conditioning:
In a 2 min window
25 KB Sumo deadlift (2x24/16)
Amrap DU
rest 2 mins
In a 2 min window
16 Weighted Box Step Ups 1 x KB 24/16
AMRAP Cals Bike
rest 2 mins
x3
Tuesday:
Strength:
Building Weight Sandbag To Shoulder
Conditioning:
In Pairs
100 sandbags to shoulder (80/50)
Every 4 mins
1 car park lap farmers carry 2 x 32/24
Wednesday:
Strength:
A) Strict Pull Ups
B) KB Push Press + Pull Ups + Side Plank
Conditioning:
16 min amrap
Pool Run
10 burpee pull-ups
3 wall walks
Thursday:
Strength:
A) Clean Pull + Hang Squat Clean + Front Squat
B) Squat Clean
Conditioning:
For time:
500/400m row
30 squat clean (60/40)
50 WallBalls
Friday:
Strength:
A) Push Jerk
Conditioning:
It's an awesome triplet to end the week! Therapyyyyy!
ENGINE
Working on holding our MIKKOS score calories for longer blocks of time.
GYMNASTICS
This week, we will focus on rope climbing, doubleunders, and handstand push-ups in gymnastics. We will focus on the skill elements to help you with these movements! Whether you have these movements down or not, this class will help you improve in all these movements so you're ready to attack classes!
HYROX
We start to put together the pieces and do a mini HYROX
MOBILITY
We will go over full-body flow routines focusing on flexibility for full-body alignment.
PURE STRENGTH
In Pure Strength, we start the week with some percentage work on the close grip bench press, followed by heavy rows and a shoulder pump to finish. Wednesday, we worked up to a heavy single on the deadlift, with some tough drop sets followed by some heavy single leg work.
WEIGHTLIFTING
Snatch Focus this week, and we get into over-head squats before working into some Snatch High Pulls and Hang Snatch and then finish with some heavy Snatch singles!
Track Tuesday
Week two of our over/unders block, this week we move to 1km efforts.
Start time: 05:59 am
Session Length: 1 hour
Wednesday Ride
Wednesday ride* 5.59am BOTS. << use links/details from a few months back
4 X 8min at your best effort, what have you got?
Start time: 05:59am
Session Length: 1 hour
Location: BOTS - https://goo.gl/maps/6AwtJXW8nA45Cy9H8
The Coffee Run
Our classic builders set this week, 5min builds based on effort! A great tempo run.
Start time: 05:59 am
Session length: 1 hour
Location: Common Grounds, Jumeirah Beach Track
Saturday Ride
Back to a long ride today, 105km in the group with some structured intervals to follow.
Start time: 05:59am
Session Length: 1 hour
Location: BOTS - https://goo.gl/maps/6AwtJXW8nA45Cy9H8
Sunday long run
Team IFE on Tour are 3 weeks out from the marathon in Munich, so they need to run long. Why not come along and support with some miles to? Message sh@innerfight.com to find out more.
Start time: 05:29am
Session Length: 1 hour
Location: From InnerFight
As athletes we often talk about how fast we can go, what time we finished a work out in, what our current personal bests are and what we are doing to beat them.
It is so tempting whenever you are training to push that easy pace harder or to try and beat your previous time in a workout. It’s the desire for instant gratification that makes us do this. I have been just as guilty in the past of chasing that feeling of fulfilment from pushing myself far out of my comfort zone on a planned ‘easy’ day.
Surely this will help you to get fitter quicker and ultimately run faster right? Well the answer is no, most good coaches will tell you to slow down because it’s not just as simple as; the harder you work the better you get.
I’m sure most of you have been there before, trying to maximise every session, pushing hard and missing the easy days believing that it will make you better. But on the contrary the key to getting faster actually lies in making the disparity between your hard sessions and easy sessions as big as possible. However counter-intuitive it feels, if you want to speed up whether its in running, cycling, swimming or CrossFit, you should be slowing down part of your training.
Despite popular belief elite athletes are not out there pushing themselves at superhuman paces every session, they may have a high volume of training but many of those session will be done at 70-80% of their max heart rate. Easy miles are actually the backbone of most training plans and many elite athletes follow an 80/20 split meaning that 80% of their training is at low intensity or below lactate threshold and only 20% is at high intensity. In a 2013 study, the University of Stirling in Scotland had male recreational cyclists follow the 80/20 approach and then after some time switch to a 57/43 split. The gains in power and speed after 80/20 training were more than twice as high as the more equal split.
I often have clients ask me “Why are my easy days so slow?” or “How am I supposed to run fast if I am running slow all the time?”
There are several answers to questions such as these, the first one being the development of the aerobic system, which is key to unlocking your athletic potential. On easy days you are mostly using slow twitch muscle fibres which have a higher density of mitochondria, high levels of aerobic enzymes and greater capillary density than fast twitch which are involved more in your higher intensity sessions. Training easy or aerobically actually provides you with fundamental adaptions; you increase mitochondria, capillaries and blood flow to those muscles, so they’re better able to utilise oxygen which in turn will help you to race faster because this is your most used energy system.
Another reason to slow down your training pace is that running faster and pushing harder all the time will actually result in diminished aerobic development and will increase the chances of injury and overtraining. This is the single biggest mistake athletes of all experience levels make in their training. Going full speed every session takes a toll both physically and mentally which could lead to over training because you are unable to recover from the stress on your system. Whether you are a beginner or a seasoned racer building a strong foundation through going slow is a great way to prevent injuries by getting your body used to that repetitive stress.
So why cant you go faster than your coach says if you are feeling really good? The faster that you run, bike, swim or workout on your easy days, the more stress you place on your muscles, tendons, ligaments and bones, which may over time lead to an injury. Also easy days sometimes serve as active recovery days from your hard workouts, you need these days so that the body can heal those small-micro tears through increased delivery of oxygen and nutrients to your working muscles. If you are over training you will become less efficient and you may actually become slower.
This doesn’t mean that every single session needs to be slow, threshold and tempo training are extremely productive and an essential part of training. It is one of the many blocks in becoming a successful and faster athlete. What I am suggesting is that if you take a more 80/20 approach to the intensity levels of your training, focus on a larger disparity between your hard sessions and your easy ones, you will see much bigger progress in the long term.
If you have been smashing every session you do for while and are thinking that it is working for you, just remember outcomes don’t occur instantaneously. You don’t run slightly too fast one day and then immediately get hurt. The stress and fatigue compounds over time and without realising it your body and your performance will start to decline.
If you really want to get faster in your chosen sport, you need to trust that slowing down will help you accomplish this.
As athletes we often talk about how fast we can go, what time we finished a work out in, what our current personal bests are and what we are doing to beat them.
It is so tempting whenever you are training to push that easy pace harder or to try and beat your previous time in a workout. It’s the desire for instant gratification that makes us do this. I have been just as guilty in the past of chasing that feeling of fulfilment from pushing myself far out of my comfort zone on a planned ‘easy’ day.
Surely this will help you to get fitter quicker and ultimately run faster right? Well the answer is no, most good coaches will tell you to slow down because it’s not just as simple as; the harder you work the better you get.
I’m sure most of you have been there before, trying to maximise every session, pushing hard and missing the easy days believing that it will make you better. But on the contrary the key to getting faster actually lies in making the disparity between your hard sessions and easy sessions as big as possible. However counter-intuitive it feels, if you want to speed up whether its in running, cycling, swimming or CrossFit, you should be slowing down part of your training.
Despite popular belief elite athletes are not out there pushing themselves at superhuman paces every session, they may have a high volume of training but many of those session will be done at 70-80% of their max heart rate. Easy miles are actually the backbone of most training plans and many elite athletes follow an 80/20 split meaning that 80% of their training is at low intensity or below lactate threshold and only 20% is at high intensity. In a 2013 study, the University of Stirling in Scotland had male recreational cyclists follow the 80/20 approach and then after some time switch to a 57/43 split. The gains in power and speed after 80/20 training were more than twice as high as the more equal split.
I often have clients ask me “Why are my easy days so slow?” or “How am I supposed to run fast if I am running slow all the time?”
There are several answers to questions such as these, the first one being the development of the aerobic system, which is key to unlocking your athletic potential. On easy days you are mostly using slow twitch muscle fibres which have a higher density of mitochondria, high levels of aerobic enzymes and greater capillary density than fast twitch which are involved more in your higher intensity sessions. Training easy or aerobically actually provides you with fundamental adaptions; you increase mitochondria, capillaries and blood flow to those muscles, so they’re better able to utilise oxygen which in turn will help you to race faster because this is your most used energy system.
Another reason to slow down your training pace is that running faster and pushing harder all the time will actually result in diminished aerobic development and will increase the chances of injury and overtraining. This is the single biggest mistake athletes of all experience levels make in their training. Going full speed every session takes a toll both physically and mentally which could lead to over training because you are unable to recover from the stress on your system. Whether you are a beginner or a seasoned racer building a strong foundation through going slow is a great way to prevent injuries by getting your body used to that repetitive stress.
So why cant you go faster than your coach says if you are feeling really good? The faster that you run, bike, swim or workout on your easy days, the more stress you place on your muscles, tendons, ligaments and bones, which may over time lead to an injury. Also easy days sometimes serve as active recovery days from your hard workouts, you need these days so that the body can heal those small-micro tears through increased delivery of oxygen and nutrients to your working muscles. If you are over training you will become less efficient and you may actually become slower.
This doesn’t mean that every single session needs to be slow, threshold and tempo training are extremely productive and an essential part of training. It is one of the many blocks in becoming a successful and faster athlete. What I am suggesting is that if you take a more 80/20 approach to the intensity levels of your training, focus on a larger disparity between your hard sessions and your easy ones, you will see much bigger progress in the long term.
If you have been smashing every session you do for while and are thinking that it is working for you, just remember outcomes don’t occur instantaneously. You don’t run slightly too fast one day and then immediately get hurt. The stress and fatigue compounds over time and without realising it your body and your performance will start to decline.
If you really want to get faster in your chosen sport, you need to trust that slowing down will help you accomplish this.