In the first couple of days, hormone levels will be effected negatively effecting mood states. By days 3-5 muscles start to lose elasticity and aerobic qualities can drop by up to 5%. At just over a week, VO2 max can drop by up to 10%. 10 days without training and your metabolic rate will drop meaning you’ll have to drop the amount you eat or you’ll start to put on weight.

Getting up to 2 weeks you’ll see changes in muscle tone and the amount of work your heart can do can drop up to 15%. At the start of week 3 loss of muscle mass and strength will occur along with a drop in your cell’s ability to create energy. By the end of that third week your VO2 max can drop by up to 20% and by the end of the 4th week you can lose 10-15% of lean muscle mass to be replaced by a nicely padded increased fat mass.

That’s a lot of scary numbers but these only apply if all training is stopped completely. It’s important at the end of the season to mentally recover from the stresses and strains of a competitive season, but this doesn’t mean that all training should stop though. This will reduce the chances of detraining and mean you start at a higher level of performance when you get back into full preseason training.

The traditional training approach taken by those training for Ironman events is very distance focused with miles per week being a common currency. While I will obviously keep an eye on the volumes, training load will more important for me and I’m keen to track the monotony and strain closely to see what value is attached to these numbers.

I have seen a fairly large number of injured and non injured triathletes in my gait analysis work and so I am very much aware of the common issues associated with the sport. As such, this adds to my considerations in the planning and suffice to say, flexibility is playing a big part in the plan.

When I sat down to start designing the training plan, my first thought was that a week is too short, it was going to be tough to cover all the areas I wanted the athlete to cover, and that they wanted to cover, in 5 sessions. So I chose to look at 2 week microcycles instead, all of a sudden, 10 training session looked much more friendly to me in my planning. The athlete is able to complete sessions covering all 3 disciplines like they wanted and I am able to get some of the perceived ‘extras’ in like the strength and flexibility  to, hopefully, keep him training injury free in the 8 months to the event.

A common trend in these plans is to dictate mileage with a peak long run of around 22-23 miles 3 or 4 weeks prior to the race. In many instances it’s this run that is the straw to leave the proverbial camel with severe lower back pain. As an antithesis to this I experimented…on my brother. He ran the Chester Marathon in October with the aim of running 3hr 30mins, I wrote his plan in return for his lab rat status. The plan prescribed only time with the longest run aimed at 1hr 45mins (it actually came in at 1hr 30 mins). Around 90% of the runs were over the pace to be run during the race itself. The other 10% was at race pace. It also contained some strength and plyometric training.

He finished the race in 3hrs 34mins off the back of a 4 week taper containing runs no longer than 30 mins partly due to a friend organising his wedding in the states in the weeks leading up to the race. Very inconsiderate. The run in wasn’t ideal but it was still a pretty good result considering my brother isn’t what you would typically call prime endurance athlete stock (apologies bro). To be honest, I thought he may have been under cooked for the race but having reviewed it, we both think he could have hit the target with a slightly less aggressive pace during the first half of the race.

So, my conclusions based on my n=1 with no control group experiment. Manipulating the intensity of training seems to be a very under utilised, but very effective, tool for marathon runners. Unfortunately for many people, the bulk of free online training plans don’t seem to use it. So, my advice. Have someone (who knows what they’re looking for) look at you run. Many of the issues that cause injury can be taken care of in the early stages with some basic technical or strength training. Then speak to someone (who knows what they’re talking about) about your training and design a plan that is for you, fits around your life and your goals, and won’t bore you to death with miles and miles of endless single paced running.

As a bit of reflective practice I’m going to lay out the pre-season so far with a group of alpine skiers I’ve been working with. I have been motivated to do this partly for a bit of open feedback from anyone reading this, but also out of frustration. There seems to tendency in our field to be very quick to criticise others, PTs in particular get a beating on Twitter from coaches who don’t like their methods. I find this to be negative. I wouldn’t like others doing it to me having viewed one part of my session and would openly invite anyone who has issue with any of my methods to discuss it with me, so please feel free. Hopefully we can start seeing Tweets about how we discussed a particular training method with someone and the outcome of that discussion.

Training plan

Firstly, some context. The skiers in the group are all male, 18-22 years old, have training histories incorporating loaded lifting ranging from 0.5-3 years, are national level competitors and the only prior injuries amongst the group have been anterior load related knee injuries, and small trauma injuries that are common amongst ski racers.

The layout of the preseason differs slightly among the group depending on when or if they are going to be skiing. Planning is tough as dates are far from set in stone so a rough outline and in depth planning from block to block is the only realistic way to go. I decided to go with 4 week blocks as it’s a layout I’ve had success with it in the past and I like the versatility it offers if we get short notice changes in date. Generally training loads reach a maximum in week 3 and have a large reduction in week 4 of the block. We are currently in week 2 of the third 4 week block which has a heavy strength focus. The previous blocks have had a higher volume with most lifts in the 8-10 rep range aimed at rebuilding tolerance to training and to cement quality in certain lifts that we will be loading heavily on later in the summer. I say rebuilding as, due to accessibility during the season, the guys hadn’t done any lifting in 4 months. The week layout varies depending on time available to train but it’s 3 sessions between Mon and Tues, rest Weds, double session thurs, extended session Fri (coached) and maybe a session Sat with rest on Sun.

At the beginning of the summer we tested 5RM front squats, 5RM bench press and maximum chins. We didn’t 5RM chins as the max range at bodyweight was 4-8, once the quality improves and they can lift added load we’ll pick up 5RMs later in the pre-season. I’m not a massive fan of 1RM testing with these guys, partly because I don’t see it as a necessary measure for the sport, success isn’t dependent on one absolute maximum effort. We also grabbed vertical jumps, counter movement and squat for EUR, as we do at the beginning of the weekly sessions I take with them. We do this to monitor progress and response to training. The idea is to establish norms over preseason that we can use in season to monitor fatigue. I’m also interested in any EUR shift over the season given the heavy eccentric and isometric demands of skiing.

Training content

As for the nuts and bolts, it’s very much a Boyle influenced layout. I like the session density offered and agree with many of the lift options with the heavy emphasis on single leg work. The only difficulty is selling it to the athletes who focus very much on the mass at the ends of the bar, front squats don’t get loaded as heavy as back squats. There was a fear that would effect other testing sessions with national squads across which there are a large variety of tests including 1RM back and overhead squats and a standing on a gym ball for 1 minute test. N.B. no athletes I work with train atop a gym ball. This was discussed with the athletes, they understand the reasoning behind it all and they buy into it.

Sessions start with foam rolling, mobility (particular attention for skiers paid to ankle mobility and lateral squat range of motion with which we’ve started to introduce some band based hip distraction work), activation, warm up and some bodyweight power work, primarily landing mechanics focused at the moment. Most lifting sessions also start with a power oriented lift including Olympic derivatives and there is always a core element to every session with more hip focus on those with the anterior knee issues.

Conditioning work so far has predominantly been running interval based. Work periods have ranged from 30 seconds to 2 minutes with a variety of rest periods. As tolerance increases and landing mechanics improve, we begin more change of direction as part of the training and more frontal plane work, the predominant movement plane for skiing. Where possible we avoid bike sessions as the mechanical differences between that and the sport are great, although we have used some to reduce lower limb loading. Another reason for the fairly simple conditioning work is contact time. I see them once a week for 2 hours and disseminating large amounts of information in that time is difficult. In the coached sessions we usually involve some metabolic work including slideboards, sleds, grappler etc, that makes me feel a bit better about them going for a carvery lunch!

Training review

I’m fairly happy with where we are so far. The original tested lifts are now exceeded for multiple sets and jump heights are nudging up, although I wasn’t anticipating increases until the end of this block due to fatigue. Landing mechanics still need work, particularly single leg and we’ll continue to work on it, although I think some hip adductor tightness is impacting here. Some areas I’ve started to think about as a result of training so far are variety in bilateral lifts and vertical pulls, although I’ll start to address this with eccentrics and band work later in the summer. I’m going try out front loading bulgarian split squats to see how that effects torso angle, potentially a similar way to the back/front squat.

For my own coaching development I’ve been working on my own communication skills by trying to implement some general ideas I picked up after reading Mindsight by Dan Siegel and also increasing the amount, and hopefully quality, of non-verbal communication throughout the session. I do this by allocating periods where I only communicate coaching points non-verbally.

The future

For the rest of the season, we’ll start a transition towards power development using lower load lifts for rate of force development, more plyos and agility work. We won’t leave strength training behind at any stage though and we’ll begin more lateral movements for greater crossover to skiing. The plan is also to utilise the hypoxic chambers available at perform centre where we train once they’re up and running. For my own development, I’m going to work on my word count, limiting the amount I use while I coach, the aim of this is turn me into a coaching sniper rifle rather than a machine gun. Toying with dictaphoning a session or 2 to check on this.

Cool. So I’ve laid it on the line, a bit long for a blog I know. If you made it this far well done and thanks. Feel free to question, critique and suggest. If anyone wants, I’m happy to jump on skype for a chat. It will certainly help me, but hopefully you guys will get something from it and we can continue to progress and grow our field. That will only happen if we engage positively with each other and with those outside of strength and conditioning.

My point is that those who have embarked on their barefoot journey have, just as those who buy more structured shoes have done, relied too much on a shoe to change their world. Putting a glove on your feet is not going to make you stronger, teach you to run or make you more flexible. What it will do is make you feel impacts more and make you more reliant on your body to attenuate shock. Some people make that adaptation, some people don’t. Those that don’t, or don’t do it quick enough or do too much, get injured. Exactly the same as other people do in structured running shoes.

Based on what I see day to day, shoes help. People that have no right to, biomechanically, complete marathons. The only help they get is from a shoe and an insole, they don’t do technical, strength or mobility work even when advised to. They just run. They run mile after mile with poor mechanics because their shoes and insoles can reduce rate of change of momentum, improve shock attenuation and make up for lack of flexibility in certain areas. As a strength and conditioning coach, I would obviously like to see physical improvements that will help long term in training and activities of daily living. But the facts remain. Even people with good hip and ankle mobility with adequate glute and core strength and perfect technique need something on their feet to run in, why shouldn’t it be optimised? The only difference is some people are more reliant on their footwear than others.

In my eyes, every system has a certain tolerance to stress. If that tolerance level is exceeded, the system breaks down. In order to prevent injury, you have to increase the system’s ability to tolerate stress. That’s my job as a S&C coach, to reduce the chances of that tolerance level being exceeded. You can’t always do it, external factors like environmental conditions, competitive demands and opposition see to that. But the more tolerant the system it is, the stronger it is to cope with forces placed upon it. If shoes, strapping, pads, insoles or hell, even powerbalance bands help make the athlete more tolerant then I’m in.

Firstly I want to leave to one side the unpaid internships directly and talk a little more about what they mean. I’ve tried to take a step back to look at the situation from a little more of a market standpoint. The main point is this: a service or commodity is only worth what people are willing to pay for it. Currently, outside of certain sports, the value that is placed on strength and conditioning as a field is low. That is generally speaking based not solely on elite sport but on general population and clinical fields. Hence there are a limited number of paid jobs outside of those sports.

Now, no matter how much you would like a job in a field, because it is something you are passionate about, that is not what governs demand. It sucks, but that is something that should be factored into your decisions when deciding on what to study. How many people outside of competitive sport or the field even know what S&C is and what a S&C coach does? Why should Joe Public choose a S&C coach over a personal trainer, what’s the difference to them? Until that is clearly understood, nothing will change.

Even if more sports begin to place value on it and create roles for coaches, there are only a finite number of teams and money and therefore a limited number of jobs. The market has to increase in the tiers below pro/elite sport to provide more positions. School, junior, amateur, general public and clinical based S&C are the areas that that growth can occur. But it’s not going to happen on it’s own. Simply complaining about a lack of jobs isn’t going to change anything, S&C has to prove it’s worth, justify it’s existence.

How to do this? It’s tough, marketing is a lot of work and can be expensive. Word of mouth works, but it takes a long time. Should this be something the UKSCA addresses? I think so. But we can all help, by spreading the word and doing good work that gets results and tracking those results. If we can do that as a field, we are in a position to justify payment and qualitatively show people the value of our work.

I worked with someone recently and they were unable to hold a plank for 15 seconds and couldn’t control the eccentric of a bodyweight squat past a 1/4 of the way down, it was like they’re legs just switched off. They explained that because they had put on no weight over the last 4 years there was no need to exercise…at all. As soon as we went through some work, like standing up out of a chair correctly, it began to dawn on them that they weren’t in great shape and there was more to it than how they looked.

Some education is needed for the many people who use exercise purely to regulate weight or offset a poor diet. The message needs to be one that looks more towards cardiovascular, biomechanical and bone health. Then we might see a shift away from the bike/treadmill/crosstrainer dominated commercial gyms that people believe are the best ways to burn fat, to ones that are more geared towards movement and strength development. This is something that would help to grow the S&C field in the UK and provide jobs to the many coaches searching for it.

It makes no sense for every football, rugby and cricket club to invest hundreds of thousands of pounds into gym equipment and space for a, what, absolute maximum of 5 weights sessions per week at the busiest time of the season. I see a shift to an outsourcing of S&C provision as a much better option. A number S&C centric gyms exist around the country with much better facilities than the majority of clubs and individuals can afford or design themselves, and this number will grow.

The opportunity for these gyms to offer and allow general public to see and train alongside professional athletes using similar methods would be a relatively easy sell I think. I wouldn’t be surprised if a gym chain with a bit of financial clout looks at this as an opportunity, perhaps a Virgin perform gym popping up. In any case, the club outsources the S&C, if they’re not happy with the service, they don’t renew the contract. No hiring or firing issues and revolving door of back room staff. No investment in equipment needed. Good quality S&C for their teams when they need it, paying for the contact and planning time and no more.

The centre of pressure can start to make excursions in order to bypass the joint. This lateral movement then requires a late and steep forefoot pronation to get the big toe down on the ground for toe off. This is driven by the peroneals and hip adductors. Sometimes this will result in peroneal and adductor tightness and it also compounds the stiffness in the hallux joint. As flexor hallucis longus (FHL) will have to work even harder to stabilise the late lateral movement. The other compensation, rather than the lateral shift that can be made is an increase in workload for the hip flexors that have to work to pick the leg up and over the stiffened joint again resulting in a less than efficient running stride.

By spending time rolling the fascia with a focus on the FHL tendon and stretching the joint it is possible to get a much cleaner and more efficient toe off. If the joint is arthritic or structurally rigid maybe because of a bunion then an orthotic can provide the answer.

As with all these things there is an opposite end to the spectrum. If the big toe joint is hypermobile, the toes simply move out of the way as soon as any load goes near them and propulsion is reduced. In these cases, tension needs to be brought back into the foot through intrinsic work or an orthotic.

This is the last point of contact with the ground and if it doesn’t function in the correct way, we lose a lot of our stored energy. Over the course of the marathon and the training leading up to it, that adds up to a lot of wasted energy.

In most cases it isn’t. A failure to address flexibility and strength in conjunction with run training has led to this point. It is the result of a fatigued system breaking down. In my opinion, it isn’t necessary to run those distances prior to a race, particularly for those embarking on it as a one off. Running a marathon is an achievement, it’s hard. If I was running 26 miles, I wouldn’t want to run 90% of that 2 weeks before.

I understand the psychological benefit of getting miles under your belt. But getting miles and miles of poor technical running only reinforces poor movement patterns. I think people would be better served getting some coaching and running shorter milages of good technique. Strength training would also have a massive impact as many don’t have the muscular ability to absorb the landings and maintain good alignment; the amount of people I see with a trendelenburg gait is incredible! Less miles, less chance of cumulative fatigue, better movement patterning, less chance of injury. Leave it to the crowds on race day to get you round and provide the psychological lift.