Endurance Mindset

Tag: Endurance Training

  • Trainings Load & Stress Management

    Endurance sports demand a deep understanding of how our bodies respond to varying training loads. In my coaching job, one of the most critical aspects is recognizing an athlete’s unique training response, a concept often overshadowed by more generic training philosophies. This article delves into the nuances of training response, or “trainability,” and how effective management of training load and stress can lead to significant improvements in performance. I learned most of the following from Alan Couzens and want to give a big shout out at this point. He definitely elevates our sport onto a new level and I can’t be grateful enough for the wisdom he shares. You should follow him on x.com: https://twitter.com/Alan_Couzens

    Understanding Trainability: Trainability refers to an individual’s capacity to enhance physical fitness through training. It’s a complex interplay of various factors, including genetics, training history, nutrition, and lifestyle habits.  Some athletes, known as “Naturals,” may exhibit a rapid improvement in fitness levels with the same training load compared to their peers.

    Different Athlete Types and Their Training Responses:

    1. Quick Responders (The “Naturals”): These athletes demonstrate an impressive ability to manifest good results from relatively short periods of focused training. They typically have strong, mesomorphic bodies with a natural aptitude for generating high levels of lactate, responding exceedingly well to high-intensity training but requiring careful attention to recovery.
    2. Medium Responders (The “Realists”): Making up the majority of athletes, these individuals often show balanced performances across race spectrums. Their trainability lies in a balanced mix of training intensities and demands high consistency and persistence.
    3. Slow Responders (The “Workhorses”): These athletes often thrive on high training loads and intensity. They might not see quick fitness gains but benefit greatly from consistent and prolonged training efforts, excelling in longer events for their given fitness level.

    Determine the right training load

    “I liken the difference in training response vs training load to the difference between having a really sharp axe and getting a lot of productive work done each “chop” vs doing a whole lot of unproductive chopping with a blunt axe. Even small differences in the sharpness of your axe can lead to very big difference in productivity for a given amount of chopping. Unfortunately, most coaches & athletes are too busy to take the time to check if their axe is still sharp, if it’s actually working!” – Alan Couzens 

    This quote absolutely drives the point home. After determining and figuring out the type of responder we are working with (which involves a lot of testing and different analytical methods I won’t go into detail here as we will talk about it later). We need to make that the athlete is actually ready to take on the load. This brings us to the main core of this article. What conditions do we need to maximize our training efforts? First off the Pareto principle (80/20) seems to apply here too. That means the fitter you are (higher Vo2Max) the less big jumps in performance you can expect but also the more you need to create the “perfect” conditions to maximize your gains out of the given training.

    Nutrition, its role in training efficacy is frequently overlooked. Athletes consuming insufficient calories for their training demands tend to show limited improvement. Protein, vital for muscle repair and growth, is critical. Undernourished athletes often find their bodies breaking down tissue to fuel activities, counteracting the desired effects of training, including the development of muscular and cardiovascular systems. Ensuring a diet rich in essential micronutrients is key, as malnourished athletes typically show poor training responses. My athletes are deeply annoyed at this point but I can’t repeat it enough: FUEL THE WORK!

    Lifestyle and stress also play pivotal roles. Athletes under constant stress may struggle to benefit from training due to the hindrance in activating the Parasympathetic Nervous System, which is crucial for repair and growth processes. Again Alan’s research comes into play here, examining the impact of psychological stress on elite swimmers. By categorizing swimmers into high and low-stress groups and tracking their progress over a season, it was evident that those with higher stress levels showed no performance improvements, despite similar training loads to their less stressed counterparts. This emphasizes the significant, yet often underestimated, impact of lifestyle and stress on an athlete’s training response. I could say get a less stressful job but that isn’t always doable so my advice goes into a different category: make sure you have an eye on your overall stress load. Stressed from work and your plan has a vo2max workout on it? Might be time to reschedule that and do a easy LIT sessions instead. Try to activate your Parasympathetic Nervous System by incorporating things like yoga, easy walks, alone time, reading books or journaling. You want to find some inner peace so your body is able to respond to the training stress with positive adaptations! 

    In essence there is a wide variance in how athletes respond to training. Some improve effortlessly, almost as if by mere presence, whereas others toil hard for minimal gains. This variability stems partly from genetics and an athlete’s stage in their development. However, a significant aspect is shaped by lifestyle factors like adequate nutrition, sleep, and the persistent low-level stress that might be present in their lives. These influencing factors are dynamic, shifting positively or negatively over time. It’s not uncommon for athletes to reach stages where life’s pressures overwhelm them, rendering them less receptive to training. Pushing training under these stressful conditions can lead to detrimental effects on athletic growth. Hence, the importance of continuously monitoring an athlete’s response to training cannot be overstated.

    Flo 

    www.konaendurance.com

  • Training Zones

    Training Zones

    Don’t guess – test!

    Training zones are crucial for athletes, offering a structured approach to training with specific, measurable outcomes to improve your limiting factors. These zones are tailored to each athlete’s physiological profile, providing a more accurate and personalized training regimen than conventional methods based on arbitrary percentages. Understanding that every athlete is unique, it’s essential to step away from generic calculations and identify personal limiters through tests that determine VO2Max, VLaMax, anaerobic threshold (AT), and metabolic profiles. Our home based performance test ( https://app.konaendurance.com/ ) is more precise than a simple 20-minute FTP test but lab testing remains the gold standard. We talked about this in the post: Know Your Limits – Testing & Planning

    Once VO2Max, VLaMax, AT, and ideally, a metabolic profile are established, we can interpret these data to create personalized training zones. Interpreting test results involves analyzing various physiological markers like heart rate, RPE, breathing patterns, lactate levels, and fat oxidation profiles. These insights help understand an athlete’s response to different exertion levels and their endurance capabilities.(Note: obviously our at home test is based on assumptions too but is still more accurate than a 20min FTP test. The gold standard is the lab!)

    Post test – Setting the zones

    Interpreting test results involves analyzing heart rate, RPE, breathing patterns, lactate (measured or calculated), and fat oxidation profiles to understand how an athlete’s body responds to different levels of exertion. These figures provide a visual representation of how physiological markers change across different training zones, offering valuable insights into an athlete’s endurance capabilities. 

    The first chart down  is the metabolic chart that tells us about our carb & fat utilization. The point of maximal fat utilization is easy to find: the local maximum of the red curve in this case. Note that there is a significant use of carbohydrates as well which let’s us conclude that energy systems have crossover zones and are not strictly separated. In short: Fuel the work accordingly and still fuel with a little amount of slow carbs during the easy rides especially if you are moving your body for long hours.

    Next up we take the lactate production and find inflection points. The first marked one on the left is our aerobic threshold, which can usually be found around 1.0 -1.2 mmol/L this also often aligns with our ventilatory threshold 1. The point where we go from relaxed nose breathing to slight mouth breathing. For our example this also aligns or is close to fatmax. I usually recommend looking at the heart rate and power values that align with this point and use them as the upper limit for our easy / endurance training sessions. By targeting this zone, athletes can increase their fat-burning capacity, which is especially valuable for endurance sports where energy conservation is critical. This zone also targets type I (slow-twitch) muscle fibers, which are more efficient at using oxygen to generate ATP for continuous, extended muscle contractions over a long time. These fibers have a high number of mitochondria, which play a key role in endurance capacity. Here we also improve the efficiency of the cardiovascular system, enhancing the delivery and utilization of oxygen by the muscles. Over time, this leads to a lower heart rate at a given power output, indicating improved aerobic fitness. The body becomes more efficient at maintaining moderate activity levels without tapping into anaerobic energy systems that deplete glycogen stores and lead to quicker fatigue.

    A note on lactate: Lactate is a byproduct of glycolysis and is inversely related to fat oxidation. Fat usage typically peaks near the aerobic threshold and decreases toward the anaerobic threshold, with variation among athletes. Athletes with a strong metabolic base can maintain higher fat oxidation rates, whereas those less trained or often working at higher intensities might see a sharp decrease in fat oxidation past the aerobic threshold.

    And this leads us to the anaerobic threshold (AT) which is the inflection point at which lactate accumulates in the bloodstream faster than it can be cleared. It’s a pivotal point where the body shifts from predominantly aerobic energy production to greater reliance on anaerobic processes, leading to increased lactate levels. Training at this threshold can enhance the body’s lactate handling, delaying fatigue and improving endurance performance. It’s a crucial marker for athletes, indicating the sustainable upper limit of exercise intensity for prolonged efforts.

    Usually the ventilatory threshold 2 (where we switch from mouth breathing to oxygen deficiency and heavy breathing. This occurs shortly after/around the anaerobic threshold (AT). A good easy marker for us to notice what’s happening if we don’t have a computer in front of us. In the following graph you can easily see what’s happening: we can’t keep up with the oxygen demand of our performance! Hence a lot of people are emphasizing high Vo2Max as a good marker of performance, which is true. But efficiency beneath Vo2Max is just as important and a lot of the best professional athletes have a high AT in comparison to their Vo2Max ( marked as AT at % VO2max in our test).

    Using this information to set individualized training zones

    Okay now that we start to understand what’s happening in our system we can put together our personal training zones. These will help us to improve our limiters. There are a lot of different training zones out there and every coach has their own little approach (Often because they have a certain kind of athlete they work with. I’m more endurance based therefore I focus on markers that will drive aerobic performance, metabolic efficiency and slow twitch fiber development. The good old triathlon, cycling and marathon stuff.)

    Recovery: Mostly used for lactate reduction after workouts for better adaptation and better recovery for the next day

    Easy Aerobic: The heart works steadily, enhancing blood flow and oxygen delivery to muscles, which supports the development of the cardiac muscle itself, leading to increased stroke volume and efficiency over time. Lactate production remains low in this zone, staying under 1.2 mmol/L, which means the body can effectively use and clear lactate without it accumulating. This is an indicator that the body is relying predominantly on aerobic metabolism for energy, with fatty acids serving as the primary fuel source. Training here improves the body’s ability to oxidize fat, thereby conserving glycogen stores for more intense efforts. Mitochondrial density within muscle cells also increases as a response to Easy Aerobic training. Mitochondria are the powerhouses of the cell, and their enhancement leads to better energy production, particularly the ATP generated through aerobic pathways. This is essential for endurance athletes, as it means they can perform longer without fatiguing, making the Easy Aerobic zone a cornerstone for building a robust aerobic base. It’s this foundation that allows for sustainable performance and is crucial for the long-duration events that endurance athletes typically engage in.
    Steady Aerobic: You should use the Steady Aerobic zone when the goal is to push the aerobic system slightly harder without overreaching into high-stress anaerobic efforts. It’s ideal for improving endurance and aerobic capacity, making it a suitable choice for building fitness while still allowing for relatively quick recovery. This zone is beneficial for athletes who have already established a solid aerobic base and are looking to increase their pace at a sustainable heart rate, bridging the gap between easy efforts and more intense threshold work.
    Sweetspot: The body starts to produce lactate at a higher rate, but the intensity is carefully managed so that it doesn’t cross the lactate threshold where it would begin to accumulate rapidly. The body becomes more efficient at processing and using lactate as fuel, improving its ability to sustain higher intensities for longer periods. Training in the Sweet Spot can lead to an increase in mitochondrial density and capillarization in the muscles. More mitochondria mean greater aerobic energy production capabilities, while more capillaries improve oxygen and nutrient delivery to the muscles and facilitate waste removal. This enhances endurance and delays the onset of fatigue.
    Threshold: The body’s lactate production meets its lactate clearance rate, resulting in an exercise intensity that can be sustained for an extended period, usually up to an hour (depending on your pacing stability). This zone is typically where an athlete’s heart rate is high, and they might experience a burning sensation in their muscles due to the accumulation of lactate and hydrogen ions, but it’s still manageable. Training at this threshold has several key benefits: It enhances both the aerobic system’s efficiency and the anaerobic system’s capacity. The body becomes better at processing and clearing lactate, which translates to improved endurance and the ability to sustain higher intensity efforts. There’s an increase in stroke volume and cardiac output as the heart becomes stronger and more efficient. Muscles adapt to handle higher levels of acidity, which can improve performance in sustained, high-intensity efforts. The body increases its ability to utilize carbohydrates efficiently, which is vital for high-intensity performance. Threshold workouts are demanding and require a balance with lower-intensity sessions to avoid overtraining. They are best used when an athlete has a solid aerobic base and seeks to improve race-pace efforts and time trial performances.
    Vo2Max: This zone propels athletes into their highest oxygen-consuming state, with efforts that are short but intense, typically lasting between 4 to 6 minutes. This zone is marked by peak heart rates and lactate levels well above the lactate threshold, signaling that the body is operating at its maximal aerobic output. The benefits of VO2Max workouts are substantial: they boost the body’s oxygen uptake (but don’t think you can skip the aerobic base training because that’s where most of the benefits come from), maximize cardiac output, improve lactate tolerance, and enhance mitochondrial function and efficiency. Additionally, they recruit fast-twitch muscle fibers, crucial for speed and power but also very inefficient in terms of carb utilization. 

    I hope this helps you to understand that training zones are not just some weird number but that they are based on your personal markers! Be smart!

    https://www.konaendurance.com

    Flo

  • Know Your Limits – Testing & Planning

    What is Needed to Succeed?

    Regardless of your sport, the first step is setting a clear goal. (More in our article: Goal Setting – Understand Your Why). Whether it’s completing an IRONMAN or running your first marathon, understanding the specific requirements for your goal is crucial.

    Take, for example, the goal to run a 10k in under 40 minutes. This might require a Vo2Max of 50. If our running technique is subpar, we might need an even higher Vo2Max. But that’s not everything. Our bones and ligaments need to be accustomed to the impact of running, and our metabolic system should efficiently deliver energy. This gives us a rough idea of the requirements.

    Before embarking on your journey, it’s essential to realistically assess your current abilities. Maybe you’re transitioning from shorter distances or just beginning to embrace endurance sports. Recognizing and accepting your current level is the first step towards targeted improvement. The goal is to align your performance parameters as closely as possible with the realistic requirements of your chosen event or goal. Relying on guesswork won’t cut it. Performance tests based on hard facts are invaluable for tracking progress. The key lies in adapting your training to meet the necessary performance parameters effectively. For some helpful at-home evaluations of your current performance, you can use our free test protocols at: https://app.konaendurance.com/

    After recognizing the need to align your training with performance parameters, it’s crucial to understand the typical limits that athletes face. Identifying and addressing these limits is key to effective adaptation and improvement.

    VO2Max (Maximal Oxygen Uptake): VO2Max is a measure of the maximum amount of oxygen your body can utilize during intense exercise. It’s a fundamental limit for endurance performance. To improve VO2Max, focus on high-intensity interval training (HIIT) that pushes your body to adapt by increasing its oxygen uptake capacity and building a stronger foundation for these hard workouts.

    VLamax (Maximal Glycolytic Capacity): VLamax represents the maximum rate at which your body can produce energy anaerobically. While a high VLamax is beneficial for short, intense efforts, it can be a limit in endurance events due to increased lactate production and faster carbohydrate depletion. Balancing training to optimize VLamax according to the demands of your sport is crucial.

    Metabolic Limits: Your body’s metabolic efficiency – how well it converts fuel (fats and carbohydrates) into energy – is a key determinant of endurance performance. Training to improve metabolic efficiency involves a combination of nutrition strategies and training at specific intensities that encourage the body to use fats more efficiently as a fuel source.

    Technical Limits: Technique in any sport is crucial for efficiency. Poor technique can lead to energy wastage and increased risk of injury. Focus on drills and practice sessions that enhance your technique, whether it’s swimming stroke, cycling posture, or running gait. Seeking outside help or filming yourself can be a huge help here.

    Financial Limits: Endurance sports can be expensive, with costs for gear, training facilities, and events. Financial constraints can limit access to resources. Prioritize spending on essentials that have the most significant impact on performance, and look for budget-friendly alternatives or second-hand gear where possible.

    Lifestyle Limits: Balancing training with other life commitments like work, family, and social life can be challenging. Time management and prioritizing are key. Effective training doesn’t always mean more hours; it means quality and focused training. Also, integrating your training into your daily routine can help in managing these lifestyle limits.

    A common obstacle is the unwillingness to accept one’s realistic current physical state. Many athletes let their training plans dictate their actions without considering their body’s readiness. It’s vital to focus on adapting your body to the training stress, which means training intelligently, fueling appropriately, getting enough rest, and maintaining a balanced life. Ignoring these fundamentals can lead to ineffective training or even injury. Outcome over ego!

    True progress in endurance sports often requires a mindful, rather than a forceful, approach. This involves mastering the basics: appropriate nutrition, adequate sleep, training in the right zones, maintaining life balance, and managing stress. Only after these fundamentals become second nature should advanced tools and methods be considered.

    Talking about second nature. Building an environment that is helping you to make good choices is tremendously helpful. Having friends that want to workout with you instead of getting drunk: HELPFUL! If you create a good environment you don’t have to make hard choices and everything becomes easier. Add some hard rules for yourself like: “I only eat unhealthy food x if I finish a race.” This will allow you to not worry about it every time you are presented with unhealthy food x, because you know that you will only eat if once you finish a race. Socially people don’t argue with that: another win!

    Driving Progress through Adaptation 

    Progress in endurance sports is fundamentally about driving forward positive adaptation in both body and mind. The more effectively you support this positive adaptation, the quicker you’ll reach your goals. By cutting out unnecessary distractions and focusing on what truly matters, you set yourself up on a path to success.

    The formula is simple: STRESS + REST = ADAPTATION

    Stress can be anything from life stress, emotional stress, to training stress. It’s all “stress” for your body and mind. Ignoring the stress outside of your training can lead to awful training load mistakes that will push your system over the limit and inhibit real improvement. The dose makes the poison!

    Rest is not just good sleep and nutrition but also mental downtime. Allowing your parasympathetic nervous system to work properly sounds easy, but most of us are in a constant fight or flight response due to stressors like social media or modern life in general. This is one of the many reasons why I love my little farm so much: I can leave my phone behind and calm down playing in the dirt. If your sympathetic nervous system is constantly in charge, you won’t be able to really calm down and realize a true 0/10 on a RPE scale. Laying in bed watching Instagram Reels is not rest!

    Adaptation involves both your body and mind undergoing transformative changes. This concept is incredibly powerful, given the human body’s capacity to adjust to even the most extreme conditions. However, it’s crucial to recognize that adaptation isn’t always beneficial. I’ve encountered numerous athletes who boast about training intensively with minimal sleep and a full-time job. If I had received a dollar for every such instance, I could have easily afforded a brand new tractor. This mindset overlooks the critical role of rest in the adaptation process, often leading to negative consequences.

    Remember: training is only a tool on your path to get better. The real improvement happens if you have the adequate mix of stress and rest.

    What does this tell us about planning? Well, we need to look at more than just your available time to train each week. We also have to take your life circumstances into account. I recommend writing down all your limiters and then figuring out which ones you can tackle realistically and which ones you can’t. Maybe there is a way to substitute a weakness in one area with a strength in another. That’s what it’s all about: finding your personal path to success!

    www.konaendurance.com

    Flo

  • Reach Your Full Potential – Athletic Development

    Becoming a better athlete (& human) needs work and direction. This is easier said than done while we face adversity and knowledge gaps. With the following series of blog posts I will introduce you to my coaching framework that is based on first principle thinking and doing the basics right. The goal is to help you to reach your full potential no matter where you are in your athletic development.

    Why first principle thinking?

    Breaking down problems to the smallest known core truth will help you to build up knowledge and apply this to your very personal situation. 

    Here is an example: “I want to run a faster 5k“. Good! Let’s break this down. What is needed to move your body faster from A to B? You need to put one foot in front of the other. Duh! How do we know what the best way of doing this is tho (good running technique)? Well thanks to physics (& years of experience of humans running fast) we will find a solution. So before we do anything else we have to look at the movement pattern of your running technique and figure out if that foundation is set up right or if you are trying to build a huge house (good fitness) on a shaky foundation (bad technique). For example this might lead us to look into gait analysis and how the force from the impact of running will travel through your body. Once we are past the point of getting into a great running technique (that will make you less prone to injuries) we can move up the thought chain again and go to the next bigger problem: worrying about how to structure your training. To do that we need to figure out what your other limiting factors are to run a faster 5k. Do we need more oxygen intake or more efficient muscles? What kind of work (training, nutrition, mental, time management etc) do we need to put in to get past these limiting factors? And then we build up your program from there. 

    This approach might feel overwhelming at first but it will set you up for LONGTERM success. As we go along you will get a hang of it and it will make a lot of sense. Let’s take a look at our topics:

    Reach Your Full Potential Series: 

    1. Goal Setting – Understand Your Why
    2. Know Your Limits – Testing & Planning
    3. Adaptation In The Body  – Cardiovascular, Metabolic, Muscular, Bones & Hormones
    4. Training Zones
    5. Trainings Load & Stress Management 
    6. Intensity – How Much & How Hard
    7. Recovery – Sleep & Stress
    8. Nutrition –  Fuel The Work & Energy Demands 
    9. Mind Games & Longterm Planning 
    10. Winning By Making Less Mistakes
    11. Putting It All Together 

    There is a lot of ground to cover and the personal rate of learning will fluctuate. To make it easier I will try to paint a vivid picture by using examples along the way. As my background is in cycling and triathlon these examples will often be from those sports but the cool thing about first principle thinking: you will understand how you can relate this to your sport & situation.

    To reach our full potential as an athlete and human we need to work hard and learn from our mistakes. While trying to manage a social, work and family this can be a lot. So show yourself some compassion along the way and keep up the grind. 

    Flo

    www.konaendurance.com