We’ve made the final part of this series on performance coach Alan Couzens where we’ve broken down his content into lactate, training zones, metabolic fitness and aerobic development. Today we look at various ways you can train to his principles as well as a bunch of other helpful tips to guide you along the way + a snapshot of how l’ve incorporated a lot of them myself.
BEGINNER PROGRAM
This is for someone whose walking pace places them in upper zone o/lower zone 1 who is training for a 5k…Have 1 day metabolic day consisting of a 2 – 3hr bike/hike, very easy, just keep moving…Have 2 run days of 75 – 90mins each with 15min zone 0/1, 15min zone 1/2, light dynamic mobility, 10 x 30secs gradual speed increase to 5k effort with long walk recovery, 15min warm down…Do 1 – 2 full body gym sessions/week…Add in 2 – 3 short/easy recovery days x walk/gentle yoga
WALKING
For 90% of people, yes…For very fit people, no…Stroke volume will come very close to maximum levels at relatively low levels of intensity (40 – 50% VO2Max) where there is a maximal stimulation on the stretch of the heart at easy efforts which increases the size of the left ventricle leading to lower heart rates at rest and during exercise…40 – 50% VO2Max is a very easy effort and for a normally fit person with a VO2Max of 40 – 50, this is just 20ml/kg/min and a normal walking economy of just 3.1mph…Only once you reach a VO2Max of 50 then walking starts to be ineffective as its insufficient to reach full stroke volume and you’ll need to walk on solid inclines or perhaps with load and/or jog a little…Even if you’re too fit for walking to work cardiovascularly, it can still work metabolically
The best endurance athletes in the world will do 90% of their work at less than 1mmol/l lactate…Most amateur athletes will struggle to get down to 1 even when walking so just walk
WARM UP
It sets the scene for what fuel the body will burn for the rest of the workout and whether it will be a fat or sugar burning session…For a fat burning session, start with a walk into a light jog then into your normal pace over 15 – 20mins…If you’ve just eaten carbs then it’ll take longer to stabilise and allow for fat usage
If you’ve only got 60mins then warm up, walk, light jog then reverse the workout back down (walk, warm down)
75 HARD
For 75 days, commit to 2 x 45mins bouts of exercise/day with 1 of them being outside with no intensity floor and make the 90mins as easy as you like = 10hrs/week
HIGH v LOW INTENSITY
Overdo low intensity and you’ll lose oxidative power…Overdo high intensity and you’ll lose oxidative capacity/endurance…Almost all athletes are relatively high in sugar burning power and very low on fat burning capacity…Fix your diet, bring your overall intensity down and 1/week do a long ride ride/hike in which should be 3x your long-term daily average so if you train 7hrs/week = 1hr/day x 3 = 3hrs in duration…Start easy, just get time in the saddle and then increase intensity gradually
HIGH INTENSITY TRAINING
Increases the amount of lactate you can achieve at the end of a medium duration effort…If doing exclusive base training it might only allow you to reach 175bpm and accumulate 6mmol/l of lactate over a 10km course…After 6 weeks of interval training, it might increase to 180bpm at 8 – 9mmol/l of lactate and it can result in marginally better times (3%) but most of us have a lot more to gain on the base side of things, and only once that starts to plateau should intervals be brought in…If you’ve started ding hard intervals in October then you’re severely capping your overall fitness potential for the season
Will improve heart rate/stroke vole temporarily but nothing long lasting that remodels the heart for increases in VO2Max where you need years of stretch/remodel/stretch/remodel…Uses fast muscle fibers over slow muscle fibers which also means glycogen depletion over fat oxidation so you miss out on slow fibre use and the sustained energy they provide…The highest VO2Max ever recorded is 96.7 and he only spent 5% of his training at high intensity with 80% of it being under 80% of his heart rate max
IDEAL HEART RATE
If you absolutely can’t test lactate then use this to get your heart rate range…((MaxHR – RHR) x .5) + RHR = Lower End…((Max HR – RHR) x .6) + RHR = High End…For me its 119 – 131bpm @ a max heart rate of 180 and a resting heart rate of 57
TRAINING RULES
4hrs of zone 0 movement/day with 10k steps moving every 90mins…30mins mobility/day…2hrs in zone 1 x 4/week…30mins combined in zones 2 – 5 x 2/week…30min full body gym x 2/week…4+hr hike/bike x 1/month
SCHEDULING
You only need 1 long/strong/fast session per week and the rest can be easy/recovery based…If you have extra energy then add in another 2nd fast session
My weekly schedule is day 1 x sprints/lower gym, day 2 all easy, day 3 x upper gym, day 4 x aerobic/lower gym, day 5 all easy but maybe some zone 1, day 6 x upper gym and repeat…All days have zone 0/1 training to fill up my aim of 170mins/day total detailed below
FASTED EXERCISE
Compared to fed exercise the overall difference in fat oxidation is marginal but the difference in time to fatigue and post session recovery is significant…You’re also setting the limiter to the energy in your liver v the energy in your muscles and we’re not training our liver…That being said I do my aerobic session fasted if it falls on a Monday or Wednesday and I train in the AM when my evening is taken out from footy training/work
It makes no sense to do hard workouts when fasted as you’ve set the perfect scene for lots of free fatty acids availability but if you train at an intensity that is too high then you’ll bypass them for sugar and you’ll miss both fat burning and true aerobic development opportunities
THE HEART
The ejection fraction is the % of blood pushed out per beat with 50% of stroke volume being good cardiac health…At rest, ejection fractions for untrained people is 50 – 60% of stroke volume and well-trained athletes closer to 70% and during exercise this increases to 70/75% – 80% respectively…The bigger separator is left ventricle capacity which is 100ml in untrained people v 180 – 200ml for trained athletes which comes from having bigger chambers which are developed by racking up lots of beats where the heart is completely full of blood and being fully stretched out on every beat…The heart is most full at low heart rates…The larger the heart gets the higher the absolute energy cost of accumulating those beats where an elite athlete racking up full heart beats at 50 – 60% VO2Max could be expending 15 – 20cals/minute v an untrained person doing less than half of that
HEART BEATS
The more full heart beats you can rack up, the more oxygen you can deliver per beat and the faster your aerobic speed becomes…The more low intensity contractions you rack up the more mitochondria you grow in the fat-fuelled muscle fibers and the less lactate you’ll produce for any given speed
PERFORMANCE LIMITER
The biggest one is likely metabolic as the typically metabolically unfit amateur burns through 1000cals of carbs before they even get to footy training, leaving nothing for actual training, but the typical elite athlete won’t have burn through any…The solution isn’t for the unfit amateur to eat more carbs, but to become more reliant on using fat as fuel during the day via aerobic and metabolic fitness, so carbs remain largely untouched and are still available for when you really need them
TRAINING RESPONSE
Changes in fitness are much more closely linked to changes in lifestyle (sleep, diet, stress, nutrition etc) then training load
LONG TERM DEVELOPMENT
Train up and master metabolic capacity then aerobic capacity and then anaerobic capacity in that order…The first 2 can be trained at the same time if you’re extremely disciplined enough to walk instead of running
INCREASED FITNESS
Means increased glycogen storage where an athlete with a 70 VO2Max will have double the storage as an athlete at 40 VO2Max
LOW VOLUME ATHLETE
They don’t need sustained anaerobic work…Their anaerobic systems are already usually strong on their own but it has to be supported by the aerobic system, which it rarely is…They’ll easily reach double figures in lactate after high intensity exercise v high volume athletes who top out at 5 – 7mmol/L, with their highly developed aerobic system dominating their anaerobic system…The high-volume athlete’s absolute glycolytic power isn’t significantly different to their aerobic power so train to raise the roof so that anaerobic glycolytic power is no longer the limiter…For low volume athletes their roof is already a long way from their ceiling with an attic of potential untapped, yet they keep banging their head against the 5ft ceiling – this was me from mid 20’s onwards!
FAST MUSCLE FIBER ATHLETE
They burn through a crap load of glycogen…Will have a lot of long/slow/easy metabolic work to do to be competitive over the long stuff…Glycogen use at 79% of VO2Max is 65 for fast fiber athlete v 28 for slow fiber athlete meaning that the slow fiber athlete can maintain the same amount of work for twice as long at the same intensity
FATIGUE
Train to the first sign of fatigue, not the last
NORWEGIAN METHOD
Massive amounts of 1mmol/l lactate work coupled with hefty doses of solid aerobic work in and around 3mmol/l lactate
THE MAGIC WORKOUT
Put your bike on the lightest gear, find the flattest most boring road you can find and spend multiple hours ticking along and never letting your heart rate go above your aerobic threshold
RANDOMS
There is zero benefit of spending more than 30% of your training time (72mins) above zone 1 for runners training less than 4hrs/week as harder is not worth more
To even stand a chance of maintaining zone 2 for the full 9hrs of an Ironman race you need to be able to complete 9hrs at zone 1 and 6hrs in zone 2 as singular training sessions beforehand
You benefit from a lot of easy work, and a little fast work, but not from doing your easy work harder…For most athletes, zone 2/3 give no additional aerobic benefit per unit of time than zone 1 but it does delay recovery, negatively affect fat burning and increase injury risk…Zone 1 is about 70% of your heart rate max
Zone 2 costs more than zone 1 but isn’t worth anymore fitness…Zone 3 costs way more than zone 2 but for the same fitness as zone 1…Zone 4 costs even more than zone 3 but only for a little extra fitness than zone 1…Zone 5 is ridiculously priced but for a lot more fitness than zone 1…Zone 5 provides the greatest amount of fitness but you can’t do much of it and is where everyone goes wrong…The more zone 1 you do the more you can do overall but also the more cheaper it becomes and elites can get to the point where it costs absolutely nothing…Zone 5 is always expensive and only gets more expensive the more fit you become as your continually trying to raise the roof but you’ve barely lifted the floor
You don’t need to push, you need to keep showing up where you are
Most of the time your split should be 60 – 70% zone 1 with the remaining 30 – 40% split between zone 0 (warm up/active recovery) and zone 2 (hills/circuit training/pick-ups)
Your long session should be 33% of your weekly volume so for me 6.5hrs (20hrs/.33)
You don’t get the same positive shifts in fat oxidation if you split sessions up v doing them all in a row
People want a 12-week fix but endurance is a 1000-day project
MY MOVEMENT DAY – 170mins
Everybody’s situation is different and I’m no different, with a lot of time spent at home being a full-time carer.
Dog Walk and/or Pedal trainer upon waking x 30 – 60mins
On aerobic day I then head down to the footy oval and do 60mins there followed up by another 15- 20 in the gym once I get back x 60 – 75mins which equates to a good 90 – 105mins all up in zone 0/1 and some 2 depending on how I structure my aerobic training.
Mid arvo Ill jump on the pedals again and/or walk the dog x 45 – 60mins
After dinner I’ll again jump on the pedals and/or walk the dog x 45 – 60mins
On gym days I will have done 90mins or so of zone 0/1 earlier in the day, do gym late arvo into another dog walk and then fill up my time to 170mins after dinner on the pedal trainer of need be.
1 day a week I’ve been hitting the new indoor basketball court over here in the west for 90mins or so that’s zone 1/2 and the main training session for that day.
All movement is included in my daily totals such as shopping, gardening and mowing the lawns.
You might not be able to reach 170 but 120mins/day should be doable for most with 30mins before breakfast, 60min main session and 30mins somewhere else during the day or the 2 x 45mins option suggested above – if you want to, you’ll find the time to
