What if you could measure everything you do, train, live, eat, sleep, without disturbance and apply it to your training ? Does it compare to mindfulness, chill, relax and self observation ? Let's dive into some ideas.
Like always I like to come from the animal study. We humans are animals and we don't need anything to recognize changes in our physiology and biology.
Except the we are not humans anymore but droids. It"s been like that for a very very long time. First we used, wore and ate things done by others. Then it changed and done by wooden machinery. Then after the industrial revolution it became non human powered machinery and we started even using those machines to transport and move us. Than to enhance, save, help us too. Information tech, like I am writing here, has also been a major change.
While naturalistic thoughts are great, we are absolutely not natural, ever. What we do in training and recovery and sports nutrition are also absolutely not natural ! Animals don't do that. They perform, but not prepare to perform. They perform and not plan, eat, sleep, train to perform.
Wearing a device like whoop, Garmin Cirqua, Polar Loop or Fitbit Air can be a major contributor towards our health, towards our performance.
I think the question is, what sort of humans are we. Somebody who can get obsessed and addicted with ton of nerves and weak mind towards non human things ? These are the people who should not actually really use phones, apps, gadgets. One nights bad sleep score, despite that they feel good and that bad night did not impact their health in the line of 30 good nights, can go down on a rabbit hole, impacting further nights. A bad nutritional reaction impacting a daily recovery score could lead to bad choices, starvation, over eating, binging and purging. Too much screen time, always watching for health stats and more.
There are other sort of humans, who put on a wristband, measure their weight, look at their sleep time and totally forget about and go ahead with their life and training. Those runners are better suited to analytics. They draw long term conclusions. Have long term visions. One look at a data point chart, can lead to minor regular adjustments and quality habit building. So while they would be wearing a device like for 24/7, their actual time visualizing data is under 5min for the week, but their decisions and actions from that 5min learning is life altering.
Performance Devices
Heart rate as first, but blood oxygen and lactate meters, VO2max tests, blood tests and more. Those are actually way more useful, way more beneficial and way more expensive and intrusive, than a little fitbit.
Why ? They can give either immediate or gradual feedback on what is going on in the athletes system right at the moment and over time. We talk about training of course.
You can dial in your effort to the second, where you produce just enough lactate to stimulate your speed and endurance, but not too much that you push over. You can self observe, so you can keep a very very high specificity without the cost of recovery. I mean if we will have one day a non intrusive, precise lactate monitor at an affordable price, 2:10 to 2:30 marathons will become the norm for regular humans.
We talk about Marius Bakken style approach. In big lines and in a very simplified way: if you trained at 4mmol/l plus lactate levels, your speed would be for instance 3:20/km pace. You do a lot of workouts like that and even faster. Your total training volume at those speeds are 25km a week, while preparing for your 10km. Your actual 10km time is 36:00. So you train actually way too hard and not enough. Nearly all of your real training is under or well under 3:20 and your best race pace is at 3:36/km. Adjusting just a little your regular training paces, your lactate production can significantly drop to like 2.6 to 3mmol, but you loose only like 5 to 10 seconds a kilometer. On the other hand in many cases you can 2 or 3 fold your total volume at speeds, because your recovery on the other hand is 10 fold faster ! Your protein needs are lower and also due to lower general training heart rates, your intra workout energy intake is easier and more likely possible. If you adjust your recovery times and keep a high variety, you can easily do magic.
I never really followed this approach, because I trained with friends. However I once trained with the Maffetone method exclusively for 6 months, with zero derailment. My best training pace was like 3:55/km, that I could hold for 16km without dipping over 140bpm heart rate. I ran a 1:14:55 half marathon from it. Of course I ran a lot of intervals like 30 x 1km @ like 4:05 or doing big uphill workouts too. I lied actually, I ran a couple of workouts downhill on a 3to4% slope @ a quiet low heart rate. Like 5 x 1000m @ like 2:55/km pace, in very cushioned shoes. However we talk about 3 workouts in 6months.
I actually ordered a pair of carbon road shoes, as I am interested in running a sub 35min 10km to see where I stand in smart training and age/fitness and possibilities.
I am getting older and not really interested in challenges like that, but somehow I get a peps in thinking of doing it. My training will surely consist a lot of volume at low distances with short recoveries. Like 40 x 200 @ 3:25 to 3:28/km pace with like 30 to 40seconds recoveries. Or 4 x 10 x 800 @ like 3:28/km.
I used to be running 10 x 500s @ 1:27. No reason outside of feeling great running fast. I could barely walk after these sessions. If I could have run 3 x 1500 @ 3:45/km right after, like a Jack Daniel's style flush session, then yes. But no, I was thrashed.
I derailed again a little. Performance devices are great, but often reserved to elites having people around them, having time to do a lot of stuff outside of running and having time to sleep.
I m thinking of getting the new Fitbit Air for a year or two, to see if I can see health changes. I get cold sores during winter, so it might give me some insight on my health status during months of cold. It might also help dialling in recovery. You simply adding in 12more hours is very little, but could be very altering. After a track session instead of doing a Saturday long run in the morning, that could be done in the evening and that would change a whole lot !
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