A Classic Training Blunder
“Easy Days Hard, Hard Days Easy”
An often committed mistake of endurance athletes in training is going hard on easy days and as a consequence, unable to go hard on hard days when the plan calls for it.
In other words, nearly every workout in the week becomes hard with little to no differentiation. High monotony.
This is a classic training error that just piles on a bunch of stress and offers little room for adaptation. Even a study published just recently this month (which I will review soon) reveals that “excessive exercise intensity” does not bode well for mitochondrial function in healthy volunteers.
The issue is that, either due to one’s own beliefs that “always hard” is good, or peer pressure in the age of social media, this becomes an on-going addiction. I equate it to the “drinking problem” of alcoholics, hard to correct as it can be a vicious cycle.
Should there be a self-help group called “Endurance Training Errors Anonymous”?
Athletes who have this recurring issue need to assure and permit themselves to go easy on themselves on easy days, and big part of that is self-honesty to their bodies. Being aware of the training and recovery process, as well as being completely in-tune with mental and physical variables on a daily basis is essential.
I can think of a few “medicines” that might help correct this problem. They are :
1) Have a coach monitor your training and get real time feedback. A second set of eyes make you feel accountable for your actions on a pre-defined process.
2) Using state-of-the-art tools such as heart rate variability to guide absorption of training load. There’s been a fair number of developments recently in the HRV spectrum, such as monitoring DFA Alpha1, to detect reasonably accurately your first ventilatory threshold without expensive lab visits.
3) My favorite. Try to have OFF days for social media (such as Strava) when you will try your best to learn to ignore it. You don’t need to follow everyone on your app in lock-step. Its probably a big waste of time. But perhaps you can also have some “cheat days” when allow yourself to get on there and salivate over your personal records.
I’m closely connected to several endurance athletes in my community, particularly from my own nation. When I shared these ideas and “medicines” with them, it felt like the topic struck a common chord. The responses were pretty interesting, so I’d like to share some of them with you in quotes :
One athlete wrote :
If an athlete is tempted to go hard on easy days, it is better to take a rest day instead of an easy day.
I have seen some athletes doing recovery run/ride the following day of a hard workout. For that, they have to get up early and whatever activity they do, some energy is lost for sure. Instead if they slept well & took rest, their body would get proper time for recovery.
This is just my opinion/experience.
Another athlete chimed in :
A recovery ride is better after a hard day instead of a rest day because an easy ride will help in shuttling the lactate build up.
Another athlete :
I frequently use medicine #3. Medicine #1 is in effect when I really screw up my easy sessions. My coach telling me to hold back helped to understand that the essence of the advice was to go really easy on recovery days.
I think the difference between off day and recovery days depends on the training load too. I wouldn’t opt for an off day in between a training block even if there are hard sessions because then I loose my momentum to keep the training flow and also my appetite gets affected. I fail to carb load adequately for the following long and hard sessions.
I love off days after a good training block, in my case after 3 weeks. Then I’m so smashed that I enjoy & appreciate the rest day as my body is so sore to even think about training. This is all subjective, although I have observed this trend mostly in triathletes so do not wish to generalize for single sport athletes.
And finally :
Medicine #3 is a major concern I feel. I know a few athletes who run fast on easy days just for the sake of the Strava post i.e. on easy days, they run at moderate-threshold pace and when the HR is high they will stop the watch and restart it once they recover and repeat the cycle. That spoils the whole point of “aerobic” run. Easy run is not about pace, it’s about the ‘efforts’.
These ideas and responses posted are from real athletes and real observations. If you fit into this bucket of “go hard every time” mentality, perhaps you’d want to know you’re not alone and there’s help around. What's your take?
Feel free to reach out to me if you have comment, corrections or thoughts on twitter.
