This afternoon I will be heading down to Lake Monger to learn as much as I can from watching the running gurus from Front Runner Sports in action, however, this morning was all mine to do with what I wanted. Like yesterday, what I wanted was to go paddling.
For a bit of a change I thought I would go paddling with some others, I enjoyed the experience last Thursday and so I thought I would do it again. Like last week I enjoyed the session again today, but at the same time I was reminded why I a lot of training by myself. When you train with others you are often stuck doing what they are doing and sometimes what they are doing isn't the right thing for you. That was my case today.
It is a funny thing with learning more about a sport, sometimes you learn just enough to be dangerous.
When I met up with some other paddlers on the river this morning they were discussing what they were doing for the session. They decided that they would do 3 sets of 3 x 2 min max effort with 1 min recovery between. 5 minutes rest between each set.
Interesting I thought. Not really a session for me as 'max effort' isn't something I can really do these days. But I thought I would let them go and follow along as I could. I was also interested to see that in between the sets the recovery was really quite static recovery, as in stop paddling and rest. Also interesting.
It made me start wondering what the point of the session really was.
Now, I don't really know much about paddling boards, I have been doing it for all of about 3 months now, so far from an expert, however, I do know a fair bit about exercise. I am not a sports physiologist but I have been doing elite sport for more than half my life and I have listened to a LOT of physiologists. So I like to think I have an okay understanding of what is going on.
Board paddling is a rather interesting sport in that, like kayaking, it covers a broad range of events. A board race can be anywhere from 200m (less than 3 minutes) to a couple of hours. for added complexity some of the events are on flatwater requiring steady effort while others are done in rough conditions requiring lots of high power bursts in order to catch waves with lower intensity paddling in between. Whilst these events seem to use a similar technique and broadly similar equipment, they are really very different. A triathlon analogy would be comparing a sprint tri to an Ironman. Both triathlons certainly, but they require very different forms of training.
Now, I don't really know the guys I was paddling with today and I don't know what they are training for. However, I can make some guesses. It is Winter here in Perth and effectively the off season for a lot of sports, including paddling. The next races aren't until August/September and they are long ones and so I can probably surmise that if these guys are training for anything, they are probably getting ready for some of the longer events.
That brings me back to the why?
Doing efforts 'flat out' with static rest in between would indicate a desire to work the anaerobic system, pushing VO2 max. One of the guys even said that the purpose of the efforts was to get near your max. However, if the intention is to work the anaerobic system, then the session as it was designed is probably not a great way to do it. It is nigh on impossible to work truly 'flat out' for that long, your anaerobic system simply doesn't have enough fuel. In fact over a 2 minute interval about 65% of your work is being done aerobically. For VO2 work the session would be more effective with shorter efforts and more rest.
Assuming the session was an effective way of trying to increase VO2 max the question has to be asked why. If these guys are training for long distance events the anaerobic system is going to play a minor role in their performance, working VO2 max isn't going to be that beneficial to them. They would get much more benefit from trying to increase their anaerobic threshold, which funnily enough is best done by training below it and slightly above, not at your maximum.
If they are indeed training to get faster over longer distances they would be better served by decreasing the intensity a bit (keeping it hard, but not 'flat out') and using dynamic recovery (ie paddling slower, but not easy) rather that stopping entirely.
So, once again, why?
Well, I have a couple of guesses as to why I think these guys where doing this particular session. Firstly, I might be wrong and they are training specifically for sprint events such as the 200m and 500m. Similarly they could training for rough water events that require lots of high power bursts. I am still not convinced this session would be the most effective way of training for these events, but it would sort of make sense.
My second guess, and one which I suspect is closer to the mark, is that they chose this session because this sort of session hurts. As athletes we are conditioned to link pain with benefit. No pain, no gain etc. If it hurts it must be doing us good. If something hurts a bit it must be good, but if it hurts more it must be better.
This phenomenon of people doing a session that is painful is hardly exclusive to paddling, as triathletes we do it all the time. How many times do you see Ironman athletes doing sprint work in the pool, on the track and on the bike. When I say sprint work I don't mean threshold efforts, they are something that is quite important, but rather short duration max efforts. We do it all the time and often if you ask somebody why, the answer is because it is hard and, therefore, must be good.
My last guess as to why these guys chose this session is perhaps because they simply don't quite understand the finer points behind the physiology of what they are doing. The idea of what these guys were doing was on the right track. When done at correct intensities 2 minutes on, 1 minute off is indeed a great threshold session that will make a person faster over distance, however, it was the details of the session they had wrong. These guys were simply trying to do the efforts too hard and were taking the recovery too easy. They perhaps didn't quite understand the reasoning behind what they were doing and so they couldn't actually answer the why for themselves, which in itself is a risky situation.
So what is my take away from all this?
Well, as I said at the start, this morning reminded me why sometimes it is good to train by yourself. A few wise men have said to me that each of your sessions must have a why. That why might be to increase your anaerobic threshold, or it might be for recovery, or it might be to simply get some volume, but the key is that the session needs to have a reason. If your reason for doing something is 'just because' or 'because it is hard' then it might be time to stop and rethink the session.
That brings me to my next take away. When it comes to rethinking the session, it might be a good idea to talk to somebody who can help you rethink it, like a coach or somebody else experienced. In this internet age there is a lot of information out there and lots of self professed experts (the irony of me professing these opinions on the internet is not lost on me). It is hard to know what is good advice and what is rubbish. Getting guidance on training from a reputable source that you can trust can be an invaluable way to increase the effectiveness of your training, as well as protecting yourself from injury.
So what did I do in the end?
Well, I did actually end up training with the group, sort of. I heard what they were doing and made my own decisions so that I could shape the session to my needs. I have no great intentions around racing a paddle board, but the training I do is all longer distance stuff, so I crafted the session into one that would be most beneficial to me. I did the efforts at a lower intensity and the recovery as a dynamic float.
Lovely.
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