TAG | Endurance
We stick with what we’re good at
When I look to help an athlete improve the first thing I establish is: what holes exist in their current training. Many runners only do Endurance Work and neglect Strength and Power Work. 90% of Health Club members only focus on Strength Training. Lastly I love Crossfit’s programming but they neglect Endurance Work, as it doesn’t benefit all athletes.
Build your Pyramid
I like to think of training style as a pyramid. Your foundation is Strength work, slow heavy lifting. These are your Olympic Deadlifts, Squats, Presses, and Rows. Here is where you strengthen your Bones, Joints, Muscles and Connective Tissue to handle the work that’s to follow.
Power Work I believe to be the most Important of all to become fast
in your sport. Power is short bursts of explosive movements. Sprints, Olympic Snatches, Barbell Cleans, and Intervals are some examples. You can’t get fast without power work. Everyone from heavy Linebackers to light and lean marathon runners need power work to become faster. My favorite power day is 100 meter sprints on a track.
Many people have heard the term Circuit Training or High Intensity Interval Training. These are Power-Endurance workouts They are fast explosive exercises strung together that typically last 5 to 30 minutes. This will prepare you for sport by giving you the advantage over your competitor. As they get tired you will still have the stamina to keep going and overtake them.
Lastly we have just straight Endurance. Training ranges from 45 minutes to a few hours depending on the event. This is a where you trade intensity for duration. Training will take place around 70%-75% of Max Heart Rate which conditions the body to metabolize more fat and less glucose. It takes a while for this change to happen. The body has become accustom to using glucose for much of its work. Great for events under an hour but it’s not sustainable for longer periods of time.
Putting It Together
Endurance work will actually hurt the performance of non-endurance athletes. If you are a sprinter you will focus your training mostly on strength and power, with some power-endurance work here and there.
If you are a MMA Fighter or Football Player start by building your base of strength work. From there you will spend much of your conditioning on Power and Power-Endurance Work.
Marathoners in the off season need to build their strength and power. Starting a few months leading up to a race they need to shift their training to mostly long runs with one Strength day and one or two Power days per week.
Expertise
At Solid Body our Strength and Conditioning coaches have years of experience helping athletes. Let us help you reach your goals whether it’s a marathon or losing five pounds, we can get you there.
Solid Body Fitness
617-365-0905
Jason@SolidBodyFit.com
Crossfit · Endurance · Football · MMA · Personal Training · Power · Sprinters · Strength
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The Importance of Training at 70% of Heart Rate
No comments · Posted by Jason Zagami in New Articles, Running
Half Marathon
I’m writing this article because I know how difficult running slowly can be psychologically. For many of you 75% of Max Heart Rate (MHR) is a fast walk right now. This won’t always be the case. You will become more conditioned and efficient which translates into faster mile times at the same heart rate.
There are four main reasons for not going above 75% of Max Heart Rate on your long run training:
Even the leanest of athletes have 5,000 to 10,000 calories worth of body fat in them at any given time. The key to long distance training is to optimize your fat metabolism. When you train at 80% to 90% of MHR your body can’t metabolize fat at a rate necessary to keep up with caloric demands. What ends up happening is a small percentage of the calories you’re burning are fat with the majority from stored glucose (sugar in the blood and liver), and in some cases muscle mass.
When you cut back to 70% of MHR or below you can metabolize up to 50% of your calories from Adipose Tissue (Stored Fat). This is a sustainable speed that you can keep up for hours.
The Crash
I know that right now running less than 6 miles at 75% of MHR feels slow and to some people like a waste of time. It’s not!
Pacing for 13.1 Miles
Most of us can run all out for one, two, three, four miles. But that’s not going to be the case for the half marathon.
Pacing is crucial. All of you have the capacity to make the entire race without walking.
Spend the first 30 minutes of the race to get “warmed up” then next hour running at race pace, then sprint the last one to four miles.
Hard days are hard, and easy days are easy
In order to get the most out of our “Hard Days” (Interval Speed Training, Interval Weight Training, Etc…) we need fast and slow days.
If you train 2 days per week at 95% you can give it 95%, but if you give it your all six days a week your output will diminish. What happens is you sacrifice intensity for frequency. Thats why we include one rest day per week (no effort) and two recovery days (70% MHR or less)
Further Reading:
I’m including two great articles that describe why this is important. Definitely read them when you have a chance.
http://www.gymjones.com/knowledge.php?id=17
http://www.runtheplanet.com/trainingracing/marathon/physiology.asp
ExpertiseAt Solid Body our Strength and Conditioning coaches have years of experience helping athletes. Let us help you reach your goals whether it’s a marathon or losing five pounds, we can get you there.
Solid Body Fitness
617-365-0905
Jason@SolidBodyFit.com
Endurance · Endurance Training · Heart Rate · Marathon Training · MHR · Running