One of the biggest reasons athletes hire a coach is to fine-tune their training to reach their goals. Whether they aspire to win an Olympic medal, qualify for Boston, or finish their first 5K, doing the right amount of training is the top priority.
The basics of training load—or as I like to call it, training “stress”—are broken down into three distinct categories: intensity, duration, and frequency.
Here’s what you need to know about training stress and how to use it to prevent injury and make the most out of your training.
Understanding Training Stress
Simply put, training stress is the accumulation of work over time. The more time (duration) you spend at a higher heart rate (intensity), and the more often you do it (frequency), the more your training stress increases.
Each workout pushes you away from your homeostatic baseline. Paired with recovery, sleep, and other factors, you can manage higher stress levels across various time frames — daily, weekly, and monthly. If you use TrainingPeaks, you might notice every workout is given a Training Stress Score (TSS) that is logged onto the Performance Management Chart (PMC). This is a useful tool for measuring your efforts.
The Complexity of Training
Physiology is not as simple as 1+1+1=3. If it were, we’d go 100% all the time and always get results. With outside factors — life, work, and other stressors — maintaining a constant 100% effort isn’t possible. This brings a psychological element to the stress equation.
On TrainingPeaks, hard workouts receive greater training stress scores because recovery is non-linear. A hard workout has a longer recovery ‘half-life’ than an easy run. For instance, an 80-minute hard workout could produce a TSS score of 100 whereas an 80-minute easy run could range between 40 to 70.
Humans are designed to adapt. Over time, that same 80-minute ride becomes less tiring, as long as the overall intensity and volume of the training cycle increase progressively. This is where coaches add their unique ‘flavor,’ using different methodologies to balance density, frequency, and duration.
Recovery Is a Rhythm
As we age, our bodies take longer to recover, so we’re constantly fighting two battles:
- Building and maintaining our fitness level.
- Adequately recovering from the above training stimulus.
To maintain balance, it’s essential to manage three key variables — frequency, duration, and intensity. By doing so, you’ll train with a consistent rhythm that allows adaptation.
Our bodies thrive on routine and rhythm. Think meal times, bedtimes, and morning routines. Even our ultradian, infradian, and circadian rhythms are designed to allow us to load or unload our body from stimulus. Sleep is the most common rhythm concept; we need sleep to rebuild our body from the stress applied to it, just as we have to eat to refuel.
Periodization: Structured Training for Optimal Adaptation
Periodizing training follows a series of rhythms inside a week, month, or entire training cycle. Some athletes may start with one major stimulus or ‘workout’ a week. As they adapt, they’re able to increase the frequency, density, or duration of workouts within a week, month, or cycle.
Once an athlete can handle their current load, their coach can introduce the next layer of training stress.
Most athletes follow either a three- or four-week periodization. A three-week periodization is defined as two weeks ‘on’ with one week ‘down,’ while a four-week periodization is three weeks ‘on’ with one week ‘down.’
Optimal periodization varies for every athlete. Many Master’s and female athletes benefit from a three-week periodization. This allows female athletes to sync their training with their menstrual cycles and master’s athletes to get additional recovery.
Down weeks are very individual, usually ranging somewhere between a five to 20% decrease in training load. These are often considered ‘de-load’ or ‘adsorption’ weeks.
By decreasing one of the three major variables — frequency, duration, or intensity — athletes can absorb the previous training block and prevent overtraining or injury.
A great coach tailors periodization and loading cycles to an athlete’s individual needs and lifestyle.
Subjective vs. Objective Training Load
Soreness is individual to each person and is completely subjective. It can’t be qualified by a trackable metric in a wearable device. Therefore, it’s important to view all metrics with two lenses: an objective lens to create a training framework, and a subjective lens to refine the training load based on the athlete.
Our bodies see stress in one direction. We can’t compartmentalize life stresses and expect our bodies to perform perfectly.
An athlete’s ability to manage stress changes day-to-day and impacts performance. Consider heat as a stress variable that can influence your performance by 25% or more. If you have to worry about getting your kids out the door followed by a stressful morning at work, your 40-minute run in 90° heat at lunch might feel much more difficult than the 40-minute run you’d complete as a college student with limited responsibilities.
How the PMC Can Help You Manage Training Load
Let’s dive into the Performance Management Chart (PMC) and its refined training elements. The PMC uses three key elements to help coaches understand the effectiveness of training: Training Stress Balance (TSB), Chronic Training Load (CTL), and Acute Training Load (ATL). You can learn about these metrics in this blog: A Coach’s Guide to ATL, CTL & TSB.
The ranges and hard stops listed below are based on my 10 years of experience coaching distance runners. I’ve used these ranges to coach hundreds of marathoners to PBs, minimize injuries, and help them balance life, work, and training.
Define Limits for Effective Training
For this example, we’ll focus on a middle-aged marathoner looking to improve. The athlete has moderate training, minimal expectations from grown kids, and manageable work stress.
Here is what this athlete might see on their PMC:
- TSB: At a maximum, I’ll limit their end-of-week fatigue or “point fatigue” to -30 TSB. I like to keep newer runners between -22 and -26.
- CTL: Athletes thrive when increasing 1-2 points of running CTL weekly. A 3-point increase can strain them. Beyond is my limit, especially for those balancing running with a full-time job and other responsibilities. For a training camp, I’ll allow up to a 5-point increase in a week.
- ATL: I aim to preserve or modulate 3-5 points for aerobic runs and up to 25 points for long runs, particularly later in the training cycle.
The Big Picture
Recovery and stress management are often the limiters of increasing training load. When choosing a program or coach, find one that meets your needs based on the big three variables: duration, intensity, and frequency.
It’s important to remember that you’re no less of a runner for training fewer days a week if it keeps you in the game, racing well, and enjoying the sport.
