Individualized Endurance Training: Learning What Works for You

When it comes to training there really is no one size that fits all. The power of good coaching comes from being able to take an individualised approach to training and find out what works for you, even if this is not the popular approach.

Sometimes, one small insight can be the key you need to get to another level of fitness, or to find a routine that makes everything click. Instead of following someone else's template, it's important to learn from your own experience. Let's explore how you can become your own personal scientist to discover the patterns and strategies that work best for you.

If It's Not Working Do Something Different.

It can be easy to to fall into habits of 'doing sessions' or training in a particular way because that's what 'everyone does.' Often athletes assume that if something is not working they just need to 'try harder,' and that they are at fault, rather than the sessions or training.

Remaining objective, seeing the data and identifying what is and isn't working is crucial to successful individualized training.

This is why it's crucial to know your routines well and track their status. By staying vigilant, you can quickly spot when something is amiss and course correct before it derails your larger progress.

A good example of this is the general principle for runners to do hard sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I have found that for ultra distance runners who do big weekend blocks of training doing hard sessions on Wednesdays and Saturdays can work better as it allows for more recovery between sessions making the sessions themselves optimal.

The Power of Small Positive Insights

On the flip side, sometimes a small change or realization can be the key that unlocks a period of unprecedented improvement. By analyzing the short-term and long-term impacts of your training sessions and habits, you may discover some powerfully positive patterns.

For example, maybe you realize that taking an extra rest day or reducing the number of hard sessions in a block significantly boosts the quality of your key workouts. Small optimizations can have an outsized effect when they allow good habits to build on each other.

One thing both John and I have noticed is that keeping Monday as a light recovery day increases the quality of the week's training - when athletes do not recover sufficiently from a weekend block they carry fatigue into the whole week's training.

Be Your Own Personal Scientist

There are countless training philosophies, workout templates, and approaches out there. What works like magic for one athlete might not move the needle much for you. Rather than just doing what you think you "should" do, learn to identify the specific things that work for you. Some athletes work really well off large volumes of zone 2 training, others work better of very light volume with more frequent high quality (speed) training.

Be your own personal scientist; objectively observe your training, learn from the results and your experience, and continuously make adjustments. Have the confidence to divert from popular wisdom if your body is telling you something different. You are an experiment of one.

Lessons from the Paralympics

Handcyclist Karen Darke won silver in the London Paralympics in 2012 and gold in Rio 2016. She made good gains by following non-conventional training patterns.

Initially from his experience of transitioning from cycling to running, John's suggested training sessions for Karen were not from the cycling world, but were running sessions done 'on the bike.' One of Karen's favourite sessions was the pyramid (sets of 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 4 minutes, 3 minutes, 2 minutes with 1 minute recoveries) using a version of Frank Horwill's  5 Pace System. This initial approach helped Karen progress from being last in races to winning, which caught the eye of the British Para-cycling Team.

Once on the team, the obvious path seemed to be developing the explosive power to match Karen's rivals' surges, as that was a clear relative weakness. However, John and the team eventually realized this approach just wasn't working - Karen's physiology simply wasn't responding in the ways they had hoped. So they pivoted to focusing on her strengths, building her sustainable aerobic power and Functional Threshold Power. The goal became to make her as resilient and efficient as possible so she could make decisive tactical moves when it mattered.

Combined with what they had learned and other marginal gains, this change in strategy was enough to earn Karen her medals. The years spent on the initial approach weren't wasted though - they gained valuable insights about Karen's individual response even if the direct training effects were minimal.

Find What Clicks For You

The moral of the story is to be willing to recognize when something isn't working for you and have the flexibility to adjust your approach. Even if a training method is scientifically backed or works for most people, that doesn't mean it's optimal for your unique situation and physiology.

Your own experience is the most powerful data you have. Learn to listen to it carefully and let it guide you to the patterns and practices that make everything click into place. No one knows your body better than you do. By becoming a student of yourself and being your own personal scientist, you can decode the specific formula that will take your performance to the next level.