One of my favorite training principles is individuality. No two athletes will have the exact same internal load response to a given external load. This is why it is important for coaches to individualize training for each athlete. It takes time to get to know an athlete and what training will work best for them, but it is well worth the time and effort.
One mistake I see novice coaches make is to apply one training principle to all the athletes that they coach. They can be too rigid in their approach, and perhaps only 50% of the athletes will achieve success.
Let your core training principles guide your coaching but be willing to adapt them to best fit each individual athlete’s needs.
To highlight the important of individuality, I will highlight two case studies.
1) The 10% Rule
One training principle that gets talked about a lot is the 10% rule. The 10% rule in running advises athletes to not increase training load by more than 10% a week (Johnston, Taunton, Lloyd-Smith, & McKenzie, 2003; Ullyot, 1980). The rule was written as a guide for runners’ training but was not backed by scientific evidence. Sports scientist Tim Gabbett advocates that the 10% rule “is, at best, a ‘guideline’ rather than a ‘code’ (Gabbett, 2018).”
Running experience may affect how much of an increase in load a runner can tolerate. Besides training load, factors such as biomechanics (Vanrenterghem, Nedergaard, Robinson, & Drust, 2017), psychological stressors (Gabbett et al., 2017), and sleep (Milewski et al., 2014) can all affect performance and risk of injury.
Now let’s take a look at a case study where this principle can act as a guide. A male ultrarunner (age 30) has previously run an average weekly volume of 50 miles (80 km) over 6 runs/week with no injury, illness, or decrement in performances. The athlete suffered an ankle sprain during a trail race and was advised by his physiotherapist to take two weeks off running and then gradually return to his normal training. He also had a very busy stretch of work commitments and thus did not run for a total of four weeks.
We started with 3 runs/week in the first week and did them as 3 – 4 mile (~5 – 6 km) walk-runs. This very conservative approach to start with is to provide a small dose to see how the athlete responds. We are dealing with both a recent injury history as well as some detraining with four weeks of no running or exercise. The first 4 – 6 weeks of return to run were conservative and had no more than a 10 – 15% increase in weekly load. He handled the increase in load well and reported improvement in ankle stability and range of motion. After 4 – 6 weeks of a conservative return to run approach, we then increased load at much larger increments than 10% until he reached his previous comfortable weekly mileage of approximately 50 miles (80k) per week.
Main message: Don’t be too rigid with training principles. Approach each athlete and situation individually.
2) Subjective Metrics
TrainingPeaks offers daily metrics for athletes to fill out. This provides crucial feedback from athletes about things like sleep quality, muscle soreness, stress, illness, overall feeling, and fatigue. If an athlete ranks one of these metrics as poor/high, TrainingPeaks will flag the metrics box to bring attention to it. If an athlete reports concerning metrics for 2 – 3 days in a row, communication about the issues is needed and training may need to be adjusted to allow for more recovery. However, we also need to understand each athlete’s baseline for reporting their subjective metrics. Monitor how the athlete reports their metrics for several weeks or months, and you will start to understand their baseline.
For example, a female middle-aged athlete is a Physician with an extremely demanding career workload. She also has two school-aged children at home to care for. In this instance, it may not be surprising that fatigue and stress consistently rank higher than athletes in less demanding life situations. If I always decreased load when she reported high stress or fatigue she would never train. In addition, she reports exercise as an important stress relief and time to herself in the day. As with any athlete, communication and daily monitoring are required to maintain a healthy training load – recovery balance. However, we need to consider each athlete’s unique life demands and watch for changes in their baselines.
Main message: The training-load recovery balance can be difficult to get right. The better you know the athlete, the easier this will be over the long term.
References:
Gabbett, T. J., Nassis, G. P., Oetter, E., Pretorius, J., Johnston, N., Medina, D., … & Ryan, A. (2017). The athlete monitoring cycle: a practical guide to interpreting and applying training monitoring data. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 51:1451-1452.Gabbett, T. J., Nassis, G. P., Oetter, E., Pretorius, J., Johnston, N., Medina, D., … & Ryan, A. (2017). The athlete monitoring cycle: a practical guide to interpreting and applying training monitoring data. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 51:1451-1452.
Gabbett, T. J. (2018). Debunking the myths about training load, injury and performance: empirical evidence, hot topics and recommendations for practitioners. British Journal of Sports Medicine, bjsports-2018.
Johnston, C. A. M., Taunton, J. E., Lloyd-Smith, D. R., & McKenzie, D. C. (2003). Preventing running injuries. Practical approach for family doctors. Canadian Family Physician, 49(9), 1101-1109.
Milewski, M. D., Skaggs, D. L., Bishop, G. A., Pace, J. L., Ibrahim, D. A., Wren, T. A., & Barzdukas, A. (2014). Chronic lack of sleep is associated with increased sports injuries in adolescent athletes. Journal of Pediatric Orthopaedics, 34(2), 129-133.
Ullyot, S. (1980). Running Free: a guide for women runners and their friends. New York, NY: Putnam.
Vanrenterghem, J., Nedergaard, N. J., Robinson, M. A., & Drust, B. (2017). Training load monitoring in team sports: a novel framework separating physiological and biomechanical load-adaptation pathways. Sports Medicine, 47(11), 2135-2142.