I sat down with Taylor Thomas, Head coach of Thomas Endurance Coaching and host of the Endurance Minded podcast, to discuss the offseason, reverse periodization, keeping your eye on the prize, and more.
I sat down with Taylor Thomas, Head coach of Thomas Endurance Coaching and host of the Endurance Minded podcast, to discuss the offseason, reverse periodization, keeping your eye on the prize, and more.
Welcome to the Training Babble podcast. I'm your host Dave Schell. And today I am joined by TEC Thomas and Darren's coaching head coach Taylor. Thomas Taylor, thanks for joining me today. Absolutely, Dave, thanks for having me, man. I'm a, I'm excited to be here. So I wanted to talk to you today because you and I were having a conversation recently. Um, I was kind of bouncing some ideas off you telling you that I always find this year pretty challenging in terms of, um, planning for athletes and really coming up with what they should do. Um, right now we're in November, it's early November. Uh, we just finished up with October and I'm feeling like October is what I really struggle with because I just finished the last race of the season and you're not quite focused on next season yet and so it's just kinda like does purgatory. Yeah. And I'll come back to that. Um, but essentially that's what I want to talk about because I think you and I have some different ideas on it and so I figured we would just hash that out on the record. That's great. Yeah, I think we should really get into the nuts and bolts of this whenever you hear our argument.
Taylor:But it is a, and not to cut you off, but it is a really, it is a really weird, you know, in a, in a traditional kind of periodization model. Uh, it's a very weird time and it's a very weird, it can be a very weird time or, or challenging time or, or, or I would argue a very exciting and like nuance time, um, to be a coach, but it, but, but it still is very different, right? Like I think we, we in the, some of the conversations we've had, like we agree on that. It is not like other six weeks. You're right. Like it's a fairly concise period of time, but it's not like any other like six or eight weeks in the, in the season. Um, but I think it's, um, can be very productive if you think about it the right way. But by thinking about the right way, I think you also think about it very differently than you think about, um, other times of the year. And of course, um, I'm, I don't want to derail the conversation or what you were about to say, but I also feel like I'm interested in like the, like the race calendar is getting longer too, right? Like October, I think what I'm finding is it's not a dead zone anymore. Like you have like, you know, I know you and I both coach mountain bikers and uh, you know like Epic ride series are going into the fall and you have, you know, you have race in Arkansas and you have, um, and now like some of the in particular, um, uh, again, Arkansas is the one that comes to mind, but there's a few where like the marathon season starts now, right?
Speaker 2:So you have this like reverse periodization thing that sets itself up and like October and there's like, but it almost kind of doesn't present an opportunity for this dead zone. Like you always kind of have these moments to focus anyway. Do you, am I, there's always more stuff, right? Like am I good? But it almost makes that time period more challenging cause you have to, you have to pull the plug at some point, right? Like you can't race year-round. Are you a warrior athletes too. And that was it. So before we get into bed, I just want for people that aren't familiar with you, just give us a little bit of your background. So I did drive it and tonight I just assumed you had told every, all of your listeners. Uh, no. Uh, so yeah. So, um, I am the founder of, of TC Thomas insurance coaching. Um, we work with a wide array and variety of, of endurance athletes. Um, I started TC, uh, like most coaches myself, um, many years ago I really stuck to kind of my wheelhouse. I've always worked fairly exclusively with off-road athletes, although more than that, just very focused on kind of the relationship side of coaching. So certainly I've, I've worked with um, and continue to work with um, kind of quote unquote traditional, you know, road athletes, um, on the bike. Um, I work a lot of ultra marathon runners, but I tend to stick very closely to ultra distance off-road athletes. So, uh, mountain bikers, Scrabble cyclists, ultra marathon runners. Um, uh, but now we have, uh, we have several coaches, uh, that are on the team and we kind of span all disciplines. We work with, um, with, uh, mountaineers. We work with Nordic racers, we work with triathletes and runners and, um, brothers have more kind of traditional disciplines. Um, so, so yeah, so that's my background and kind of what I do now. I still am a coach, so I work with athletes, although currently, uh, in kind of my capacity with TC and focus more on, um, kind of the business development side of things in the longterm growth and trajectory of TC as a coaching group since it's not just me anymore. Um, so yeah, that's me. Cool. All right. I just wanted to know why we should listen to you. Yeah. So that doesn't make, that doesn't qualify me to talk. Uh, yeah, no, that's a, that's me. Now let's get back to this conversation. Yeah. So now a, I mean just so that to set some bumpers
Speaker 3:like we were talking about before we started recording, I don't want to, I don't want to only talk about October. Um, I want to talk about the rest of the quote unquote off season or preseason or out season or whatever you want to term it also. But let's start with October.
Speaker 2:As long as we can both agree to not call it the off season. I know that we, I know we can't even agree on that though.
Speaker 3:No. And so, so you brought up, as you were talking about it, like you brought up some very good points and the, and the a, I guess where this whole conversation started was I am a fan of if an athlete's been focus training for, you know, six to nine months, they finish up that last race and just give them at least two weeks to like clear the head, no structure, just like try to stay active. But like really not a whole lot of structure. Right. At least two weeks. Um, and so some of the things you just brought up, the race season getting longer. And one thing that I've definitely dealt with with the mountain bikers is they come right out of mountain bike season and it's straight into cross season. Yeah. Which is, which is crazy, right? And so it's like sometimes just like even a week to reset. Um, and then the other thing you talked about was reverse periodization. So that's something I want to get to down the road also. Um, because I think there's some interesting things there. So, so let's just talk about, let's say for October, let's say they just finished their last race in September, we're about to head into October or two weeks after their last race. In your mind, how do you structure that with an athlete?
Speaker 2:That's a loaded question. Um, I mean, so I think in my mind or in my opinion, and it's, it's where I, you know, take a very firm stand is it, you know, it really, there's no, I don't have a, a flat kind of opinion or approach because it, it's, it's always based on the needs of, of the athlete. Right? So where I think maybe I would diverged from, from what is been seen as a more kind of traditional approach from a coach's perspective is that you do follow this, you know, fairly pre structured periodization model where you're going to do a build and you're going to do a bit, you know, and that you're gonna go through the season and you're going to peak and you're going to come out of that, you're going to take two weeks or you're going to rebuild again. Like I don't necessary why while I subscribe to that in from a philosophy perspective. And, and what I mean by that is kind of understanding how the body adapts and, and builds and you build progressive training load and, and you know, overreaching and adaptation. Like, I like parts of that. But in, in terms of like that actual flow, I don't really care what that looks like at all. Right? Like I'm looking very specifically at how that individual adapts and, and their feedback and, and most importantly their, their qualitative feedback, right? Like, how are you feeling? What are you doing? How's it going? Like of course like we're using power reason, all the metrics that we have available and, and I understand those very well, but, um, I, I'm more wants to make sure that we're navigating that, um, all of those time periods appropriately for that athlete. Right? So really, and I'm getting kind of in the weeds, but like TSS aside and CTL and ramp rate and all of these things we talk about, like kind of to a certain extent, and I think you and I talked about this, like the more that I coach athletes, the less I subscribe to very strict, a very strict adherence of, you know, ranges of those things, right? Like I'm just constantly prescribing the opportunity for adaptation or the opportunity for an athlete to gain fitness or Excel or test themselves. And I look for feedback from the athlete and from the metrics, and then we do it again, right? And then we kind of, and so then when we get to the end of the season, uh, and we have that like post race time period, I'm doing the same thing. I'm just looking to kind of see what the athlete needs. Right. And for me, that time period is, is a time period that I would like to be as a coach, fairly involved. And that doesn't mean that I think that they should be doing interval workouts or that they should continue to follow a very strict schedule. But again, how are they navigating that time period? And, and, and what does that mean for what we did in the past that like two weeks before, right? Like how do they feel a postseason? And that tells me a lot about how we navigated that time period and then how they feel moving into this next period. Um, and, and I think that there's, you know, I tend to just take a very blended approach. I don't just agree with you, like absolutely like down downtime. I call them like, you know, we're using training peaks. Like I, I write in training peaks, you know, down week. Right. And I'll put notes in there about what I'm hoping to gain or accomplish. Makes it sound too structured. But like what I hope that the athlete takes away from this next period of a week, two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, whatever. I'll typically try to align that with like a vacation, right? Like a lot of athletes that I work with, like you get to the end of the season and you haven't done any, you've been racing, right? So like maybe you with your, you know, family or spouse or whatever, you, you take a trip, right? So we're like, great, like, let's use that to kind of transition. So whatever that is. Um, I, I[inaudible] but it always changes. Like, I don't, I don't have, like if you looked at my athletes right now and let's assume that they're all generally in the same time period, which, which they are not, I have most of my athletes are international, so or, or international media outside of the U S so the race schedule is all over the place. So you know, so like everything's, but again, like you said, like we're not just talking about, I'm just, I'm using October's, I know like, so people were like, don't date this. And they're like, Oh, they're talking about this time period. Like, no, like this is just like generally this transitional period off of race season. Um, yeah, it's, it's, it's very different. You know, I think it depends for me on the personality athlete, like I find myself, and I'm curious, like if you run into this, um, I've found myself often times like my job as a coach is to like pull back on the reins like they want to keep.
Speaker 3:Exactly. That's exactly the point is that if, if I left it up to the athlete, chances are they'd finish that last race and they're going to start hitting the trainer again. And they're good because they're already thinking about redemption.
Speaker 2:Well, can't, you know the classic like fear of losing fitness, right? Right. And we know, and I think most people know, but certainly folks, you know, myself and you who have been coaches for a long time, um, you know, it's not linear, right? You don't just continue to get fit and fit and feel like you have, there has to be a natural, an ebb and a flow and you, you know, you will reach a CTL ceiling, right? Like, and, and you can only maintain or sustain a certain training load. And so like if you don't allow for that downtime that, that reduction in TSS, right. If we don't want to think about it as anything else and just like reduce the training load, that's a really important time period because it allows you to then to then reach your peak fitness during the race season, right? Because if you just kept continuing to chase fitness, you would plateau early and you would never would, right. You would never get anywhere or you, you know,
Speaker 3:train or fade out or whatever. And I think even more than that, like for me, it's the mental aspect of it. Even if they could handle it physically. But yeah, there's definitely a benefit to allowing your body to recover. Like that deep recovery that you never really get even with a week off or whatever, especially for runners, right. Just allowing your tendons and ligaments, like time to actually rebound a bit. Um, but just that mental downtime, and I've, I've run into it again and like time and time again with athletes where they're very eager and they want to get at it and you know, and it's like, and this is later in the season and I don't listen to my gut and I end up like going along with it and then all of a sudden we get to race season and they're unmotivated. They don't want to be on a bike and they've just kind of burned out because they've been mentally on
Speaker 2:for so long. Right? Yeah. I've had that happen a lot. I mean, that's, that's a, that was a hard lesson that I have learned and I, you know, continued to learn if I don't, I don't provide that time. It's not sustainable. Right? Like, like you said, like I've, I've not kind of forced the issue with athletes that I've worked with. Um, and it, and it always goes poorly, right? Like there's never been an instance where that doesn't end and it might not be the next season, but there is a point where it goes South, right? Like it's never, it's never worked out. Um, and you know, so then there's a, I mean, the great thing about a strong relationship between a coach and athlete is, you know, there's a push and a pole, right? And there's there, you know, I think that like conversation between the athlete and the coach, like athletes like I want to be as fit as I possibly can and the coach is like, okay great, but this is how we're going to get there. Right. And then like, like I said then then what you arrive at is a very individualized approach that meets to your point like in my mind more than the physical needs, the emotional needs of the athlete, right? Like how do we balance that, uh, the need for, you know, some, maybe some amount of activity. Cause that's what keeps an athlete grounded and centered and you know, kind of like keeps the ship righted on, you know, that's like the cornerstone of their, of like, you know, keeping everything in place and the rest of their life. You know, I know and I've, I've talked about that a lot on, on the podcast that I always, but is that, you know, there's, when that is like your kind of guiding light or, or like your North star, right? Like endurance sports and quote unquote training. Having that to some capacity becomes important. And so that downtime almost can be like if you're just like hands off, take three weeks and just like no one's going to sit around. Right? Like it's so ingrained and like so. So that's where I think that just being a part of that conversation is important for me. Again, I'm not saying that it's interval sessions, but I'm also not saying that it's, I'm just going to leave you alone for three weeks or two weeks or a month or whatever. Like I, I do want to be a part of that conversation and just figuring out what that looks and feels like and if nothing else makes sure that that kind of mental, emotional pieces satisfied and that we, if you're going to do something that we make sure that it's the right thing. Right. And that might not be, that's not time spent a training for your specific discipline, but it's just, yeah. Again, I think it's, maybe I'm just, you know, maybe I just want to be like two hands on, maybe
Speaker 3:maybe
Speaker 2:figuring out here. I was like, I need to, but I do, I just, I mean that's my personal take as it is. I'm, I don't, it's a, it's, I don't think you could just like, you know, you should just stay the course and do interval training or whatever, but, um, but I'm also not gonna just not talk to, to my athletes for several weeks. Um, right. So my, my position is that I think that there's a balance to be struck. Right? And I can see you rolling your eyes and not agreeing with me.
Speaker 3:Oh, no, no, no. I told I, yeah, there's definitely a balance to be struck. Um, I do think, I dunno, I think like we coach busy athletes who also have a job and you know, they're trying to fit training into that. And so sometimes like the communication with the coach can be one more stressor and we see it with athletes leaving comments, right? Sometimes, like trying to get them to leave comments. It's like pulling teeth. And it's because it's just one more thing they need to do. And it's like, I'm sure you've coached athletes where it's like, they're ha, just put the plan in there. I'll do it. And if you don't hear anything from me, everything's going great relationships with all my athletes. I don't know what you're talking about. I 100% success rate with every athlete. I had an initial group of athletes and that's the same group of uh, um, now you're coaching their kids, their families about the generational. Um,
Speaker 2:yeah, I you're right. I mean absolutely. Like, and I think, I mean that brings up a good point because I, that is something that I factor into that mental and emotional balance that I talked about. Like how much pressure are we putting? Am I putting on that athlete during that time period? And it is an adjusted, they are adjusted expectations, right? Like during race season, um, or, or a critical time in our training build up. Like when we're actually really, you know, making a push to, to, to gain fitness or, or whatever. Um, the expectation is that the feedback and communication is daily basically. Right. Like that, that's very fluid. Um, but yeah, during that time period, whenever that falls in the race calendar or the calendar in general, um, that's a great point. I mean, you're right, I couldn't agree more like it is, it does take work to maintain a healthy relationship or a strong relationship between a coach and an athlete. And that can be, that can be a task, um, with busy athletes that have other things going on and pulling back from that. Um, I certainly will often put in my, like in, you know, in conversations with my athletes or in talking, you know, just through training piece or whatever. Just tell them like, you know, go out and do this next, like, I'm going to leave you alone basically. Right? Like, I'm the, you know, if you need me, I'm always available. But like, I'm not gonna you don't have to put feedback, you don't have to like just, you know, just kind of do your thing, do what feels right. Do. And again, like so that, that's kind of my version or my example of that's meeting in the middle, right? Like we're, we're not, I'm not hands off, but I'm not as hands on. The expectation is we're on the same page from an expectations perspective. Um, and I talk about that a lot. Like that's my, I think that's the biggest piece of the whole puzzle. It just kind of overarching is that the coaches and like the, the conversation on expectations, right? And we've talked about this like secret goals. I mean, this expectations, this idea goes, runs very deep into the mental end of physical execution of, of endurance sports. But I think during these kind of standout time periods, the conversation on expectations, right? So that like the athlete and the coach are on the same page, right? And you're like, I'm not gonna, we don't need to talk. Right? Like go out, have fun, don't ride this weekend, don't run. Don't want to like, you're right. And that's the expectation, right? And so there's no stress on the athlete part. There's no stress on the coach side of things. Um, I think that's really important, right? And that, and I'd say like, if I'm being critical, that's where I've gone wrong in the past. It's like, I, we just didn't know what each other were thinking, right? Like my athlete and me, we just didn't do a good job of communicating those expectations. And so that's when things fell apart. It doesn't mean like we didn't continue to work together, we just, there was confusion, right? Or like how long it was going to last or how long, you know, like what, we got to kind of the end of that time period, however long that was, and, and I thought something was going to happen that didn't, or, you know, and the athletes were just kind of like popped out the other side and, and let me, we're like, Oh, we, we didn't talk about this. Right. Right. We didn't discuss this properly. So, um, yeah, no, you're, maybe we don't disagree as much as we think we do. Right? Maybe we just, right. Well, there's, it's always that way, right? There's a that you and I disagree on this. No, no. Just like there, things are so much more complex, right? We try to simplify them and the more, yes, I, I, you know, that's a whole nother thing. I, I won't dive into that, but it is just so much more complex or nuanced than just executing training, right? Just going through a training plan. Uh, it takes time. It takes commitment, it takes energy. It takes figuring out what that looks like for an individual, you know, and that's back to my kind of original, you know, point or what I started would say. And that's why I tend to like when I, if I step back and review a season that I've, you know, worked with an athlete or a year, it doesn't, I mean generally there's certainly periodization there and I, and I absolutely have a plan, kind of a macro plan in place as to how I'm going to get that athlete from, you know, to use our kind of standing example like October to June. Um, but it doesn't look like that at all. Right? Like, there's no, you know, this idea that like periodization, you have 16 weeks here and eight weeks here and like that's such BS, you know, cause life doesn't work that way and people, it's very nuanced, right? And we're needing to take, pull back a little bit in the middle of that because life is hard and you're stressed or you don't sleep or you know, you have kids or, or spouses. It's just, I don't think it's realistic in my experience working with lots of athletes to think that you can lay forth an ATP, right. Annual training plan and just execute on that blindly. Right? Like I don't, you know, I like, gotcha. Nate. And I still keep a notebook of like kind of my how that's how I, my workflow. Um, and I'll sit down with an athlete or you know, in my own kind of like planning stages and plan out how I want to get that athlete to access or a race or series of a races, limiters, strengths, weaknesses, what we need to focus on during these certain time periods. And then we're just, then we just adapt. Right. And I describe it as like proactive versus reactive, right? During this time of year, this season that we're talking about, the reason that I really value this time a year is that it's the only time we can be proactive, right? Because as soon as we start to quote unquote build up to, to erase, we're just responding, right? We're responding to a race calendar because we don't have any control over that. We're responding to who's going to show up to that race, what the race courses, like what happens to the athlete and the buildup to that race. Um, feedback from the athlete with the athletes body's telling us and then kind of everything goes out the window, right? We can have a beautiful like 12 week build up and you're going to have two weeks of great and one week of shit and then like four weeks of grade, you know, like, so then you're being, you're being reactive, right? Like as a coach and as, as an athlete, you're, you're responding to outside, uh, inputs. Whereas we have this kind of quiet time during, you know, I'd say like whenever it is, we'll use again like two weeks after your race, season two, you know, for the next like maybe 12 weeks or however long. That's a beautiful time to just be like, we can just do us. Right.
Speaker 3:Is that though, so that's a, that's a perfect, that's perfect segue to move on to talking about November, December, January, mainly November, December is that, so here we live in the Northern hemisphere, you live in Montana and so all of a sudden you start dealing with snow. You're also dealing with the holidays. And so yeah, it's like on paper it seems like it's going to be great, but then all these other things, family, travel, things like that start popping up. And so it's like, so then you're having to be very flexible with that too. Um, and so, yeah. So just keep, um, keep unpacking that I guess because that's, that's something that like, I know how I deal with it, so I'm just curious. October, November, December off,
Speaker 2:and you just hope January you're going to have enough residual fitness to keep it alive. No, I don't mean, I don't mean me, I'm saying with athletes. Um, yeah, yeah. No, you're, you're right. It is, I mean, back to that, like, I, you know, it's very, uh, it's a very complex time that the holidays, uh, you know, in the States, Thanksgiving and Christmas and, um, it, it is hard, although, you know, there is a lot of, there's a lot of time between those holidays barring Christmas in the new year, right? Like you, you, you have a month between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Um, so four weeks is now, there's travel may mixed in there, whatever. But you know, like again, for me it's, it's very simply, uh, approached as a conversation with the athlete. Where do you traveling, what do we, what do we want to, what do we expect to get out of this time period? What's realistic, what's not going to be too stressful? Right? So we don't, I'm not in the position yet or I'm not in the mindset yet that I want. I mean, I'm never in this mindset, although I also am willing to accept that training can add some degree of stress to an athlete's life. And I'm not necessarily opposed to that as long as it's balanced appropriately. Right? Like, but that's, this time of year is not the time of year that I'm willing to make that concession yet. So I don't want it to be a stressor. Um, so we just, we just figure it out. But I still see it as a very, you know, certainly in my mind, like we've really kind of, we've done some really quality work. Now. When I say quality work, like I'm not talking necessarily about frequency or like the quantity of work, right? Like, so I don't mean we're not, we're not doing like six days a week, you know, and we're just like hitting it super hard. But in my mind or kind of when I think about things like we come into January, certainly after the new year, like we've, we've done some quality work. Like we've really started to get at some of these limiters, right? We've had some good sessions, probably indoors, shorter in duration, but we've done some stuff where we're starting to gain some confidence. We've just, you know, like we're, we just w we feel like we're starting to move the needle. Right. And it doesn't mean that we're doing a ton of work. Uh, it doesn't mean that we're doing a ton of work often, but we're, we're managing all of this where we're still feel like we're, uh, we're moving in the right direction. Right. And that's kinda like the vibe that I want in this like November, December time period. And I would kind of start to maybe lump January, you know, it kind of bleeds into January. But, um, yeah, again, like, but the big difference for me, like, just like from a mindset perspective, um, is that we can control that. Right? Like there's just a different, I mean, I said it before, but like, you know, there's a different vibe to, to that time period when it, we don't feel like we're chasing races and we're packing our car every weekend to drive to another race or we're, you know, put, getting on a plane to go fly. Like we can see we have total control over that time period and the workouts that we do and how we talk about those workouts. Um, and that alone, even if we're not doing a ton of work, even if, you know, CTL is not really moving that much and we're not chasing a ramp rate, if we're not chasing a bunch of TSS, we still can have some really just quality individualized work that gets done. That makes us feel like when we do come in to that time period where we are being a little bit more reactive or forced to be a little more reactive, we've had some control. Right? No, you're almost like willing to like relinquish that control cause you're fired up. You're like, man, like we did it. You know, we had 12 weeks now. Right. Or, or maybe, you know, eight to 10 weeks. Um, and that's kinda just what I shoot for. Now. That looks wildly different for every athlete. Like you're right, it's a weird time. Some people travel, they go, you know, every holiday like so Thanksgiving, Christmas, new year they're gone or they have so, so maybe that we get at that mindset differently. Maybe it's not accomplished through, you know, a more kind of quote unquote traditional like structured workout plan. Maybe we say like, okay, great, like you're going to drive to see this a side of your family, like take your bike and if we can get in a few solid long rides and you feel good and like the efficiency is high, we can keep a high F and you know, like then that's a win, right? Like again, like just looking for those moments when we feel like we're controlling the switchboard and we're not being drug around by this. Inevitably what feels like to me always feels like a fairly like, frantic time of year, um, in a good way. But, um, but yeah, like race season is, you know, if you have like a, a fairly like, even if you don't have a busy race schedule, right? Even if you have like four races, right? Like you finish that race and you get six weeks to the next race and so you recover, try to learn from that race, do some workouts, try, you know, you're not really building like your main team, right? Like there's so many pieces in flux and you go race again, you do the same thing and you're like scrambled to learn what's going on. Tweak, tweak, tweak. Alright, recover de build. Alright, now taper race again, right? Like these, these things you seem, it seems like you have a long time between these races, but as you know, like it all takes a long time, right? Like eight weeks from like a training perspective is nothing, right? Like it's like bare minimum to do, to even start to think about seeing some results or learning from what we've just accomplished in the past. So, um, yeah, I think you're right. I mean, it is a, it is a weird time or can be for athletes, but, um, yeah, I mean it's also very personality dependent, right? I mean, I think I should go, like, we should probably, I should be like the overarching, right? Like it depends on your personality, right? Like, like I personally love, I love like doing indoor workouts during that time, but like that makes me feel like I'm still like getting so ready for the season to come. Right. And the athletes that I work with tend to feel the same way because that's why we get along, right? Like, we really enjoy checking those boxes. Um, and that's, that's not for everyone, right? Like I get that and, and there's flexibility in there. Like, again, like that's, there's no hard and fast rule, but it depends on how, again, like expectations for that season, right? Like, what's gonna make you feel good? And so I always, at the end of the day, just try to adapt it to what's gonna bring us out. The other side of that, not feeling stressed, feeling recovered mentally and physically, but also certainly my goal is to come out the other side of that feeling like we've done some amount of work that's prepared us for things to come right. And that like, not even from a metrics perspective, like again, ramp was all the like, you know, CTL and all that stuff aside just to like, uh, qualitatively between a coach and an athlete, this be like, you know, are you feeling good? Do you feel positive? Do you feel like, and that's a win for me. Right. And of course, like I'm looking to see the power numbers are good and all that stuff, but I don't know, where do you, what do you, what, what you're, you're jiving me. You're your faces or you may feel like you're like, you couldn't disagree with me more.
Speaker 3:No, no, no, I totally agree. I think we're on the same page there. I mean, for me it's just a, yeah. I guess the way I approach it is that I know that, yeah, if we're doing everything on the trainer and everything is quote unquote quality work and I guess my quality because trainers get boring. Right. And so like the alternative is like hopping on Swift and stuff so that it's entertaining to do like an endurance ride and things like that. But it's like that can burn them out pretty quickly too I think. And so just being flexible and so like in my mind I'm like, Hey if we can get like two or three quality workouts, say on the bike, two or three quality workouts on the bike in this week and then the other two days are like you go skiing.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Training. Yeah that's a good point that I didn't bring up but I am 100% in favor and really push some other sport during that time. Right. So again, like if I'm working with an athlete that lives in the Northern hemisphere, like ski Nordic, ski cross snowshoe, like just get out. Right? Cause like, like it does get stale if nothing else. Just personally, I feel like you should have just engage with your surroundings year round and so he'd like get out of your house, you know, um, because it is, it is very convenient to just get on the trainer like, you know, but I, uh, yeah, I mean I one like I have the same approach. Like that's all set it up. So like, OK, here's like, these are our key sessions or quality workouts or whatever, you know, like, let's try to nail these down. And even within that, maybe they can be moved around based on kind of how you're feeling that day. Right? So we can just say like, okay, in this week let's try to nail down three quality sessions in your primary discipline, run by whatever. Um, and then like two days, like I call them free days, right? Get up, just get out, do, do whatever. But again, like that's that balance I was talking about where we, I think we feel like we can, can kind of check those boxes. Right. Which I think are important. Like it's important for, for goal oriented and driven people, like endurance athletes are intended to be, that we feel like we're making progress even if we're not. Um, even if we're not right, like even even if we're not getting exponentially more fit or like, you know, the, the progress comes in a lot of different formats or, or, you know, kind of trappings. And so I think, and this brings me back to the expectations, right? Like what, what is progress during this particular time of year? And like as long as they were on the same page about that, then that's a win. But for me, like, yeah, I, I mean I, if, if, if the athlete has all of those things at their disposal that would be like, um, a very successful week during like December for an athlete of mine is like three core sessions and two cross train days. For me, one of those days would, would ideally be a strength strength day. Um, which is great and mix it up. Maybe you can't sustain that, that load during the race season. So maybe strength has to fall by the wayside or maybe do some sort of maintenance mobility work that doesn't, you know, isn't the same thing. So getting in the gym is a great way to mix it up or not even in the gym, just doing, you know, work in your garage or whatever. Um, shoveling, which I do, I mean, I've been doing for like eight weeks in miles. Um, and then, um, yeah. And then like these free days, you know, like get out, do a different thing, right? I mean, honestly, I go for a walk. It doesn't even have to be a Roebuck, right? Like go, I mean downhill ski or like Alpine skiing, right? Like that's great. I mean, you know, you look at just like engaging different muscles, how do we build resiliency into that athlete? Right? And, and one of the things that I, um, uh, one of the things that I try, that I talk about with my athletes is like, I want to help build an athlete and not an, not an X, right? Not a cyclist, not a runner, right? Like, so this season is a really good time to do that too, right? Like you can be, you can learn to be more athletic while still moving the needle on your primary discipline. Um, yeah,
Speaker 3:so I think that's a good kind of a good place to sum it up and we didn't, we didn't get to reverse periods. If that's something that I, I feel like that will be its own.
Speaker 2:Okay. Let's, let's talk about it real quick. I won't be long winded, I promise.
Speaker 3:No, so, so like it totally makes sense, right? It's convenient. It totally makes sense or sense. Especially if you're talking about ultra endurance athletes makes a ton of sense. But then you look at the work of a Vladmir is herein and this whole block training thing and the, this idea of training residuals and just a quick breakdown, and I'm not looking at it right now, but in my head it's like basically like aerobic endurance and max strength. The residual from that is like 30 days. And then when you're talking about like threshold and speed, that's like another, like four to six weeks. And then when you're talking about like neuromuscular speed, like that's like seven days or something like that. And so when we talk about reverse periodization, the idea is like working the things most on like the race furthest out from the race. And then as you get closer to the race, like ultra endurance stuff, that's when you start building volume and things like that. And so for me, it's really convenient if you're stuck on a trainer to work on VO two max and intervals and all this stuff, like it's perfect for the trainer. But if these residuals are true, if you've built those gains, you're going to have to revisit those like every couple of weeks in order to attain them the next nine weeks until you revisit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is, it's, it's hard not to talk a lot about it. I try to be very concise. Um,
Speaker 4:well,
Speaker 2:one of it is, it is very, can be. I agree with you. Like I find myself, so like I said, like I think it's worth me kind of restating that I, I would say that I don't tend to prescribe to any,
Speaker 4:yeah.
Speaker 2:One periodization model because I am taking
Speaker 4:[inaudible],
Speaker 2:uh, maybe a much more fluid approach than those models dictate. So I kind of, you know, like I said, I come into it with a macro plan and then everything goes sideways because life goes on. Right. So then I'm just looking for like feedback from the athlete adaptation. But generally I, it does work really well. It works really well with athletes that have to be inside the, the conceptually it works well. Um, I do you have you experiment. So one of the things I've started to, not recently in the last several seasons or years, um, when you come into that high volume phase and you said like, if that block concept is holds true, which it, I, I tend to feel, I've seen the feel I get, it does like I've, what I've specifically to, to to athletes that I work with, like, like ultra distance athletes, because you lose that skillset. Like when you have to have really high volume, you can't help but lose that, that skillset. Right. What I would refer to as maybe like, just very generally race specificity. Um, but you need both. Right? Like you, you can't run a hundred miles and only do three hour training runs or, or you know, race a hundred miles on your mountain bike and only do two hour mountain bike rides. Um, but what I've experimented with doing is like when you do that volume build up, coming back into like layering in race specificity so it's not just like a pure volume block. Um, right. And that I'm just, I guess is the question to you, like I'm just curious, that's in my kind of research with looking to see how that works with different types of athletes. That approach has worked really well for a while, like a very varied or diverse group of athletes, meaning athletes from a variety of different, um, bilities of variety of different capacities in terms of how long they'd been training. Um, and yeah, I don't know, have you, have you, I'm just curious to see if you've like, tried to take some sort of like blended periodization approach where you're almost doing like linear or traditional model, but you also have like heavy volume with like massive TSS. I dunno, what do you think?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I would, I would definitely agree with you in that I, I kind of threw out periodization a long time ago just because it doesn't, you have to work with what you have, right. And it's like you can have this perfect plan on paper, but it never holds up. And so it's like, and I guess it's like, yeah, but I mean, but I am definitely guilty of being reactive and so it's like trying to find that balance between being proactive and actually having at least a loose plan going into it and not just constantly like reacting.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And that's what I mean when I say like, it's a good exercise. Maybe more, more specific. Like it's, I, I, Oh, it's a good exercise for me as a coach to have that kind of macro. So I know the objectives of particular times of year so that when things do go sideways, I can come back to those objectives. Right? Like when we do make a change in a plan and it will happen, right. It happens weekly, uh, which is fine. What are we trying to accomplish? Right? So you don't get so sucked into that reactive mindset where I've found for me like it's really easy to lose sight of our, of our objectives. So I, that the periodization serves as a, uh, as a, as an exercise to, to just force myself in a sense to work through those ideas and whether I want to call it reverse or, or linear or whatever. Thinking about how that athlete is going to have to prepare for their goals based on the individual, uh, personal components that make up that athlete's life, right? How much time do they have available? What days can they do their long workouts on what time, how much time do they have during the week? When do they have, you know, 14 hour work days, right? Like all these things. And then just trying to like mold them to fit that kind of general workflow, right? And then knowing that, um, that things are going to change. But that really is my goal is to try to as little as possible and it, and it works out very infrequently, but as little as possible to be, uh, to be as, uh, as reactive as little as possible. Right? Like that proactive mindset is what I try to kind of infuse into the T the time period that we started about talking about, which is just, you know, a, I hate the word off season, but, you know, transitional period or, or whatever you want to call it. Um, and again, like it's different. It needs to be different, but how can we be proactive, right? How can we use it to just move us in the right direction and knowing that that's going to look wildly different than any other time of year as it should, as any time of the year should for an athlete. Um, but be, you know, just like that, that kind of infusion of proactive mindset versus letting family travel and the holidays and we're like, if you give it the opportunity, everything is going to pull you sideways, right? Like so. So thinking about things for me, a lot of this, again, very personality driven. Like I'm the first to say like, that's just because like my whole life is planned. Like that's how I operate, right? Like I'm, I, I like to, to plan and I like to be proactive versus I don't like to feel like I'm being drug around by outside influences. I like to feel like I can have a say in the direction of those things. So, um, but, but regardless of the time of year, like if you let it, you'll just be off on 10, you know, like even like, well here we are, you know, now it's a couple of months have passed and I was traveling and I was, Oh, now I've got to start from scratch. Right. So I guess to kind of sum it up, like what I'm hearing and I feel like we both agree on this is that during this time of year, we need to be flexible.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But we also have to have an eye on what's coming so that we can prepare and like come into the spring ready to roll. For sure. Flexibility. I mean, flexibility always is critical, but both flexibility during this, this time of year or whenever the transition period is, um, is really important. Um, I think it's most critical for that mental and emotional health, right? And that decompression time, which we definitely both agree on. Um, and then, yeah, you know, for me, again, like my only, my real goal and trying to help athletes navigate that transition is so that we don't feel like we're being reactive for the entire year, right. So that we can work together to navigate this new set of, whether you want to call them obstacles or whether you want to call them opportunities or, or whatever. Um, there's things, right? It's a new set of, uh, of challenges, right? And that's the holidays and that's travel and that's family. And that's, you know, the very, like the elephant in the room. It's nutrition and it's right. Like, so how do we, how do we get ahead of this stuff so that the athlete doesn't end up, uh, feeling stressed from those very different, but you know, very similar circumstances that they feel during the race. Right. There's a, there's a pressure that comes with that that I would think is a very akin to the pressure you feel during race season. It's just different, right? The pressure that you're maybe losing fitness or that you're not doing what you should be doing in the area that your, your travel for family during the holidays is gonna sidetrack things. And so having a conversation, having that proactive approach early on I think just helps sidestep all that. Right? So you can navigate this time period that's supposed to be stress free. You can keep it stress-free, right? But you can continue. For me, you can continue to build and maintain a very strong relationship with athletes. Um, but it, but it's okay that it looks very different, you know, kind of on paper or day to day than it did during the race season. Right. But knowing that it's still a supportive relationship and it's one that's been discussed, um, yeah, that's, I mean, that's the important piece piece for me, you know, so I'm glad we don't disagree as much as we thought we were going to. It doesn't make for good content like, yeah. Like come across the aisle at each other. I thought it was going to be great. We'll find something else. I'm sure I'll the next step. Yeah. So awesome. Thanks for your time. Where can Joe Thomas and Darren's coaching.com, um, is where you can find myself, uh, as well as our other coaches. Um, you can go there for a, we update our blog, uh, very, very frequently have video content on the website. Um, tons of great resources. Uh, also, uh, my podcast endurance minded, you can find it on Thomas and Darren's coaching.com as well as everywhere that you get your podcasts. Um, we dive into the, the kind of mental and emotional side of Durance training. Um, Dave, you've been a guest on that podcast. Um, the, the, the, the premiere guests. Yeah. Um, so yeah, Thomas and Darren's coaching.com, uh, tons of there and then an endurance minded as well. And um, feel free to reach out if anyone has any questions by my email, uh, is on, is on our website.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Thank you so much.