Two Things About Training Triathletes Underestimate (while overestimating the importance of everything else)

A smoke haze filled afternoon at Twin Lakes Beach, Santa Cruz. Pass or play?

In the effort for influencers to generate content, coaches to justify their existences and researchers to find new things to research, the macro factors of what really impacts endurance performance can get displaced by the less important. You can only write so many articles about how simply doing more will make you better before it becomes boring. But no one has ever accused me of being interesting so here goes...

Training Volume

Athletes love the idea of getting more by doing less. But, unfortunately, that's not how this sport works. A big deal was made recently about professional Kat Matthews doing less hours per week than her peers and being just as good. I just pictured age groupers everywhere rubbing their hands together and breathing a collective sigh of "I told you so, coach". But, spoiler, this low volume is still 20-24 hours a week! Come back to me when you're doing anywhere close to that and we can split hairs about whether that's better than 25-35 hours or not. It's still a ton of training and done over many years! You can't extrapolate that to your 8 hours of training. There is no work around to actually doing the work. I have years and years of data on athletes of all levels that show that one single data point is the most predictive of the biggest improvements. An inconvenient truth for coaches is that a slapped together 12 hours/week by an athlete that knows next to nothing about training principles will overwhelm a delicately programmed training plan of 6 hours/week constructed by an experienced coach.

So athletes underestimate the importance of that fundamental training variable. But they also underestimate their ability to do more than they "normally" do. For example, at the end of the year our squad will do a 50 x 100 workout in the pool which is up to double what most of our athletes do for a swim workout. They are often surprised that they, A) they don't die during the workout and B) they don't spend the entire week recovering. Likewise I've been on runs overseas where I've gotten lost and a one hour planned run turns into 2+ hours. In a way, these forced breaches into the unknown can unlock new ceilings on either what you thought you could do that day or the definition on what a "long run" is for you. This can sometimes be a challenge for the talented athlete to understand who comes to the sport with an athletic background and is an immediate success compared to their peers at local triathlons. They often don't realise how much better they could be with increased training volume because they're already pretty good on what they're doing.

Training Consistency

If you do follow the right people on the information superhighway you get beat about the head with this one fairly regularly. But how many athletes really live it and put it before all else, or do we let the "micros" get in the way? I have many examples but here's one:

Athlete X is leaving on a business trip. Puts in Training Peaks they are only available to run during this time. But wait, there's four exercise bikes and a 15 yard pool on the floor below and your 1st meeting is not until 8am? If you're obsessive about the consistency criteria of success you'll get up and put some time on the exercise bike and do my adapted hotel pool workout. But there's plenty of opportunities for "micro" excuses here. Bike position is important you've been told, you can't get in the same position and your ass might hurt on the unfamiliar saddle. Sleep is important, you got less sleep the night before because of the time change. Are these things "ideal"? No. Does getting it done anyway at 95% effectiveness beat not doing it at all? I think so. But as we're deluged with information on what's right and what's the wrong way to train we can use these things to sabotage the core behavior that's going to get us fit.

Athletes also underestimate how effective consistency, 11 months a year over a period of years, can be. I'm talking hours off your Ironman time. I'm talking complete transformations in fitness. But it has to be years, like three minimum, and that takes an incredible long-term focus and some ingrained training habits that, when established, feel more uncomfortable to break than maintain. The other reason it's hard for athletes to adhere is because the gains aren't immediate or linear. You can go for months, especially in the second year, feeling like you're not making any improvements. Which can be hard after a euphoric first year in the sport and where the gains are faster. But stick with it and you will be amazed at how you underestimated your athletic potential.

Athletes also overestimate the possibilities of a 12-16 week training plan or block. I've stopped accepting athletes who want this type of short term coaching because, simply, there's not much that can be done in that period of time. Yes, you can refine whatever fitness you have and maybe even get that PR but the true athletic transformations happen over years and what you did in the 6-9 months before the lead up. This is disappointing news for many because maintaining a focus and intensity and sacrifice for this period of time is something busy people can get their heads around. But it just doesn't stack up against keeping a level of consistency through the entire year.

And this big magnitude of improvement that comes from consistency holds just as true for the "talented" or those that come from another sport. Having been close to the top age group and professional level athletes I know that what separates a recreational athlete and the top level triathlete is sometimes just falling into the "wrong" crowd and realizing the results possible from following the leader and pushing the training basics to their limits. Don't underestimate your physical performance limits because so many do, but don't rely on a new aero helmet to get you there.