Getting off the plateau

 

 

Let’s face it most of us who run go about it pretty naively, many prefer just to listen to their body, run on instinct, turn on the “hard” training session when they feel like it and then wait for a PB to arrive in their next race.

 

And guess what it rarely arrives, when it does it might be triggered by factors such have having linked up with a new training partner, one who gives you the proverbially “kick up the arse”, maybe a new job makes balancing your lifestyle easier or perhaps you start getting more rest and are actually feeling refreshed when you get to the start line.

 

But even these incremental improvements will fizzle out and to really explore your physical/bio-mechanical limits it will have to come down to a radical overhaul of your approach to the training load together with an honest appraisal of knowing whether you can adapt your life around the demands and finally having the physiological constitution to stand up to the workload.

 

The system of crash training has produced for various generations’ outstanding success. Amongst the best examples are two generations of Finnish distance runners from the 1930’s and 70’s, the Chinese women of the 1990’s and dare we say the British golden era of the 1970’s & 80’s.

 

Sadly in the latter case our leading coaches shy away nowadays preferring smaller pockets of quality, more advanced rest all of which has seen us start to march steadily….backwards!

 

For an ambitious and committed athlete interested in signing up for crash training the first step is honest self analysis

 

• Will my lifestyle/commitments realistically allow me at designated high intensity periods to train twice a day, six days a week
• Am I generally injury free
• Is my general health robust, do I avoid common coughs/colds etc

 

If the answer to these three is yes then you pass the first test.

 

The second attribute is 100% commitment to a plan, an ability to organize oneself and your diary and stick to the plan; you now pass the second test.

 

The final and critical element is delivery of the plan in consultation with your coach. The best and the most progressive athletes can rarely hope to achieve their goals with a good dialogue with a coach they trust. The coach quite apart from providing the entire training framework is there as the sounding board to absorb the feedback, make adjustments, offer encouragement, to counsel against errant training plans that could trigger regression and/or injury.

 

To take a typical example an athlete may currently be training four times a week, even five times a week if they are fairly fortunate with other commitments. This programme might include one speed session or indeed it may contain no speed session, just like some athletes I know who just “go for it”. Let us say this athlete might typically record in the range of 40/50 miles per week maximum. Included within the weekly cycle are periods of 48/72 hours at a time recovery from an intense quality session

 

To enable the training effect of the crash programme to take place such an athlete would need to able to commit of the first step detailed above, if they can’t then it’s a waste of the athletes and the coach’s time.

 

What distinguishes the crash training from what we might define as a standard training weekly cycle is that it calls for successive days of intense/severe training i.e. the recovery is never greater than 22/23 hours. Dependant upon the fortitude/resolution of the athlete these successive days of intense training can be from two days up to an absolute maximum of seven days.

 

Because the intensity is over this period never drops and training effect is heightened.  However in order that the benefits are derived the recovery adjustment needs to be equally radical. So for whatever the number of days that were expended under intense training conditions prevailed thus the same number of days that follow must be devoted to what I shall term “super recovery” and the athlete may well reduce what would have formerly been their “normal” weekly mileage by up to 75%.

 

Research by the highly regarded US exercise physiologist Dave Costill who is Professor Emeritus at Ball State University of Indiana suggest that performance can experience short term gain of 7% where the programme is rigorously applied.

 

To deliver this scale of improvement it has been suggested that a 12 week programme in three waves whereby each peak is 25% greater in training volume than the last will produce the desired outcome.

 

Because of the severity of such a commitment I recommend that there should be an element of experimentation whereby where a athlete comes to this training concept for the first time they should align the first wave only with a specific goal race the target, such a programme may be along these lines

 

Week 1 – Effort – Severe – Mileage 90

Week 2 - Active Rest – Mileage 25 – day’s 5 and 6 rest

Day 7 - Race

 

Given a successful adaption of this programme then the athlete can enter a new mesocycle as follows:-

 

Week 1 – Effort – Severe – Mileage 90

Week 2 - Effort - Active Rest – Mileage 25

Week 3 - Effort - Moderate – Mileage 70

Week 4 - Effort - Light – Mileage 50

 

Week 5 - Effort – Severe – Mileage 110

Week 6 - Effort - Active Rest – Mileage 35

Week 7 - Effort - Moderate – 80

Week 8 - Effort - Light – Mileage 60

 

Week 9 - Effort - Severe – Mileage 140

Week 10 – Effort – Active Rest – Mileage 50 miles

Week 11 – Effort - Moderate - Mileage 95 miles

Week 12 - Effort – Active Rest – 25 miles

 

Looking at the intensity of the programme the calibre and commitment level of the athlete in going to be targeted at those who are either already at or aspire to reach:-

 

(A)            County championship top ten level

(B)            Win a local county based race

(C)            Compete at regional level

(D)            

 

 

And the back-up?

 

 

I alluded to the beginning of this essay the athlete has to have an ability to organize and plan, part of that process is to be equally strict in the application of rest and nutrition. Most athletes posses enough nous to realize that increased training effort must be complimented by adequate quantity and quality of rest/recovery periods especially if you commit to training twice a day as one will surely need to do in the severe weeks.

 

In such weeks a morning run of at least thirty minutes backed up the same evening with a minimum of one hour (excluding track speed session evenings) is essential.

 

The final part of the training/recovery cycle is a repositioning of the nutritional requirement. Typically the athlete will need to raise their carbohydrate consumption by 50% with 800g of carbs per day a steady target. Those who experience difficulty with solid bulk food can look to supplement their existing uptake with a specific carbo rich drink supplement.

 

It is also recommended that you raise Vitamin B and C intake by up to 2 x the RDA and ensure that all meals are accompanied by fresh orange juice to ensure potassium levels are replenished after the loss of same through sustained exercise.

 

Because of the uncompromising demands of this programme many will have to rule themselves out of signing up, such athletes should not of course despair as this is merely one route to the summit. There are others but they will by their nature take far longer to assimilate and patience will be the watch word.

 

For those hungry however to push their boundaries, full of desire to be their best and with the essential commitment to rigorously follow the plan the future is indeed bright!