The first week

Imagine you’re relaxing in a park on a warm summer day. You hear the wind rustle the leaves, smiling as it cools your skin. As you lay back in the soft grass you hear the laughter of a picnicking couple behind you while toddlers play a gentle game of ‘tag’ off to one side. Suddenly you hear desperate gasps struggling your way. Jerking back to a sit you notice an exhausted, sweaty, creature lunging up a hill you didn’t think was that steep into a wind you didn’t know was that strong. You notice this wild thing is actually a person as they come to an awkward, laboured stop. Arms swinging and head down they spend a minute gasping for breath before running off again. Feeling slightly uneasy you look around. There are no bears, no cougars, and the ice cream truck left ten minutes ago. Why then, would anyone be running like that? Because it’s base training season.

In all fairness base is really in the fall. Mine is this summer because although I should be competing right now, I’m not (see end of post #1) and I won’t be any closer to competitive form if I don’t get started now. The purpose of this first phase of training is to prepare the body for the more specific work that will come later. All the effort that is put in now builds ‘work capacity’ so that it’s possible to do more of the specific training that will ultimately translate into a good performance later on.

The first step in building work capacity is what’s referred to as ‘anatomical adaptation.’ This is where your body goes from “what the hell are you doing to me?!” to “oh right, that.” By strengthening tendons, ligaments and small stabilizer muscles this phase helps reduce the chance of injury later on. It also helps the body ‘remember’ what it’s like to work hard by stimulating muscle growth (this includes recovery) and the release of hormones that assist in this process (like testosterone). Training is all about subjecting the body to controlled stress and letting it adapt. When someone takes time off at the end of the season their body begins to adapt to it’s new, less demanding lifestyle. The body an athlete has after a few weeks or a month off isn’t able to perform at anywhere near the level it could at the end of the season. It takes months to get even close to that again.

Part of anatomical adaptation is ‘general strength’ and ‘general conditioning.’ General strength involves high repetitions of low-to-medium intensity plyometrics (depending on one’s strength and experience), bodyweight circuits, medicine ball throws, light-to-moderate weightlifting, and hill running (more about this in a later post). General conditioning refers to non-event specific runs, flexibility (stretching) and mobility (dynamic stretching). The running component is made up of extensive (high volume, low intensity) or intensive (high intensity, medium volume) tempo, usually on grass. A ‘tempo’ run is where repetitions are at a steady pace (tempo) over a series of set distances. This pace is often best explained in terms of a percent of an athlete’s best time but in practice a good coach will be able to assess their athlete’s capabilities, how they feel on the day and adjust the target times accordingly. While there is no set rule, extensive tempo pace is usually around 60-75% of an athlete’s best time, or projected best time when reps are longer than a distance the athlete would run in competition. The work-rest ratio is usually 1:1. For a 400m runner the total volume for one of these workouts ranges between 2000m and 4000m. Of course, this is a complete joke to distance runners. Such low workout volume is ok for sprinters since they mostly need aerobic capacity to help them recover during more event-specific workouts. This is because performance in maximal runs of less than 60 seconds is unaffected by hypoxic (low oxygen) conditions (for example, see Weyand citation below). Extensive tempo also helps in recovery by flushing out metabolic waste through increased circulation.

Intensive tempo refers to runs done between 75-85% with a typical work-to-rest ratio of between 1:2 or 1:4, depending on the workout. The total volume is usually between 1000m and 2000m. These workouts are often done in oxygen debt and as they progress the body shifts from aerobic to anaerobic glycolysis. This creates metabolic waste products such as lactic acid while hydrogen ions accumulate in the blood causing pain and decreased motor function (see Lactaur). Intensive tempo is a test of aerobic power (the amount of oxygen that can be used by the body during maximal work, see V0₂^max) and anaerobic glycolysis.

The aerobic energy system is what people usually mean when they say they’re doing ‘cardio’ or an ‘aerobic’ workout. This is different than the anaerobic energy system, and the two shouldn’t be confused. During aerobic exercise oxygen is used to produce energy. This can go on indefinitely as long as there is a constant supply of new glucose as the waste product (CO₂) is expelled through the lungs. During anaerobic exercise oxygen runs out and energy is produced endogenously (within the body) as glucose in the muscles is converted to pyruvate and the resulting waste products accumulate in the blood. This type of activity can only last a few minutes. Intensive tempo is much more useful for 400m runners as it uses more of the energy systems (like anaerobic glycolysis) used in a race but extensive tempo is still needed because it helps athletes recover more quickly between reps of intensive tempo, allowing them to do more, faster.

To give an example of what this looks like when it’s put together in a training program I’ve included my training plan for this week (week #1, sorry, no intensive tempo this week but that will come later). I’ll talk more about how a training plan gets set up for a whole season in a later post, and throughout the year I’ll provide examples from my own training program. Questions are welcome in the comments section, and a training discussion would be great. For now, here’s what I’m doing as I disrupt idyllic summer afternoons in my neighbourhood:

Monday:
-Active warm-up (40 minutes, including mobility drills)
-Plyometrics (2x20 ankle hops, 2x20 tuck jumps, 2x10 frog hops, 2x10 bounding. All with 45 seconds rest).
-10x50m hill sprints at 90% subjective effort with jog back rest
-10 minutes of core work
-20 minutes of flexibility

Tuesday:
90 minutes of stretching and self-treatment (rolling out tight muscles on a foam roller or with a tennis ball or golf ball, more on this in a later post).

Wednesday:
10 minute run
20 minutes of dynamic warm-up (mobility drills)
5x ~700m grass run in a park over hills in 2 minutes with 2 minutes rest
2x70m lunge walks with walk back rest
2x35 slow pushups with 45 seconds rest
2x30 single leg slow calf raises (each leg, on a curb with full range of motion)
15 minutes of core work
20 minutes of flexibility

Thursday:
(same as Monday)

Friday:
(same as Wednesday)

Saturday:
(same as Tuesday)

Weyand, P. et al. (1999) High-speed running performance is largely unaffected by hypoxic reductions in aerobic power. Journal of Applied Physiology, 86 (2059-2064).