Training talk and better triathlon run training with Jason Koop | EP#166

​​​​​​​​​Training talk and better triathlon run training with Jason Koop | EP#166

In this Episode you'll learn about:

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Shownotes

About Jason Koop

Jason's background in endurance sports 

How much fitness should you lose in an off-season?

Holding on to fitness in off-season  

Maximising the benefit of workouts 

15:13 - 

• One of the ways my early mentors had an influence me is they relentlessly asked me the questions 'why?' - with everything I was doing.
  
  E.g. why was a recovery one 45 minutes? Why was this workout 5x3 on/3 off and not 6x 3 on /3 off? 
• This forces you as a coach to ensure that whatever you are prescribing to an athlete is being done so very intentionally. 
• It's not about maximising the amount of work that is being done - anybody can pile on work - but it's maximising the intended benefit for what you're trying to do. 
• Choosing a different workout architecture can mean you have a completely different consequence.
• For example, a progression run. I'm generally not a fan of progression run because the amount of quality work being done is always less than if you design the same run with the quality work at the start. 
  
  If you ask an athlete to do a 6 mile progression run at the end of their 13 mile long run, and compare this to putting the 6 miles of effort at the start of the run. 
  
  The 6 miles on the latter session will always be faster because they are in a pre-fatigued state. You can also do more work - you can probably do 7-8 miles at the same pace if you put it at the start of the run. 
• You can also see changes in how you design the specific workload. You can take two workouts with an identical amount of time at intensity that have completely different results. 
  
  For example, 15 x 1 minute hard, 1 minute easy - so they accumulate 15 minutes hard intensity throughout the workout. Or you can prescribe 5 x 3 minutes hard, 3 minutes easy. 
  
  There's the same time at intensity for both workouts but the 5x 3 on/3 off will be the workout that really stresses and maximising the cardiovascular system and taps into the athletes VO2max. 
• You have to be certain that your rationale fits with the way you are designing the workout for the athlete. 
• As a coach, prescribing a workout based on your personal experience is not a good reason. I strongly encourage our coaches to have a better reason than that - you need to know what the purpose is and the way it's designed needs to fit that purpose. 

Where to start when planning training

Structuring run training for triathlon

27:12 - 

• Most people can just stand to run more! 
• If you were to prioritise all the training that you want your athlete to do, the total volume of training must be the thing that rises to the surface. 
• Most triathletes or runners have a ceiling after which they start to breakdown - and most experienced athletes will know where this upper limit is for them. 
• I then have athletes focus on that quality of rest they get and the nutrition they're taking in, because these serve as the building blocks to reinforce all the work. 
• After they've maximised volume and optimised rest and nutrition, we then start to look at the specific training structure within the micro cycle, or year as a whole. 
• It does come in that order though: volume, rest/recovery, nutrition, mini-periodisation schemes. 
• Generally, if I'm trying to improve an age group triathlete I would start with the run - it's the most important component of triathlon and gives you the biggest bang for your buck. 
• Some athletes have a specific need with a different discipline, but for a generalist athlete I would always steer focus to the run. 

Rest and nutrition

32:12 - 

• First and foremost you need to make sure an athlete is resting and taking in adequate nutrition. 
• Increases in fitness will not manifest if you're not getting adequate rest. 
• If you're getting 8 hours of good sleep a night and your macro and micro nutrient intake is good, then you can look at training habits. 
  
  E.g. deciding between 14 miles run off the bike versus 12 mile run off the bike. 
• Athletes are not good at knowing what they need to eat from a macronutrient stand point.
• We start with basic nutrition education:
  
  E.g. If you have a 3-hour run (ultra-runner) that will burn around 700 calories per hour - this is an extra 2100 calories you'll need on top of your standard 2000 calories per day. 
  
  Your recovery days are completely different - you have your 2000 calories and maybe an additional 600 for a recovery run. 
• There's a big discrepancy between hard, long days, and easy days. 
• We start by mapping out how many calories you need per day, and then break down what that means per meal. 
• Our recommendations boil down to simple ideas: meet your caloric needs, don't excessively eat junk. 

Applying lessons from ultra run coaching to triathlon

36:32 - 

• I think endurance athletes are more similar than they are different, so a lot of lessons I have learnt aren't necessarily specific to ultra running. 
• Athletes have to have a very acute and tuned in sense of purpose - they need to know why they're doing what they're doing. 
  
  The training is hard. Athletes demand a lot of themselves, and I demand a lot of my athletes. 
  
  It's not always about training - sometimes I'm prescribing my athletes to really focus on their rest. 
• When athletes have a clear sense of purpose, they will then do what they need to do to be successful. 
  
  I don't think this is different to any other endurance sports. 

Common mistakes in run training

38:48 - 

• One of the things that is both a positive and a negative that triathletes bring is that they're first adopters. 
  
  Sometimes this is great, you can find things that take years for others to catch up on, but sometimes it's nonsense. 
• For example, I think the low card high fat in triathlon needs to go away in all endurance sports, and we need a more pragmatic take to nutrition! 
• Stryd, the running power metre company based in Boulder is quite near where I work. I've been in touch with them ever since their kickstarter campaign. 
  
  I think the better utility with the Stryd pod specifically is that it can measure the path of the foot. 
  
  Using something on your foot to estimate metabolic power that is required of the athlete has too many faults to be useful for training prescription. 
  
  I think if somebody can solve measuring force at the level of a foot, this would have some utility for training and analysis perspective, but I think we're a little ways off this. 
• I divide the running power meter thing into two categories: motion at the level of the foot, and motion at the level of centre of mass. 
  
  Measuring movement at level of the foot it has more utility in biomechanics, rather than workout intensity. 
• For ultra runners I use RPE when prescribing workouts. 
  
  This is because the external conditions on trail and ultra runs all affect heart rate and create background noise, so prescribing anything to heart rate isn't effective. 
• When I first started coaching cyclists in 2000/2001, on board power metres were just starting to become more available to the public. 
  
  As coaches, we gradually started to switch prescriptions from heart rate to power. We found that when prescribing watts, heart rate was getting higher and higher, and we found that we were probably prescribing incorrectly before then! 
• For a triathlete I prefer to use pace on the run, then RPE, then heart rate. 
• For cyclists I would use power, then RPE, then heart rate. 

General advice for age grouper athletes 

49:18 - 

• For self-coached athletes - don't over complicate it!
  
  You'll get 90% of it right based on your own intuition, and the last 10% you'll need a coach to do. 
• Also enjoy the process - we often get caught in the grind of training, but if you don't enjoy it you won't benefit from it. 

General advice for coaches 

50:35 - 

• One of the ways that we bring mentorship to light is follow the right people on Twitter, and do it in a relentless fashion! 
  
  Use it as something you are going to learn from.
• When I first started managing and mentoring coaches we'd have interns, and a big part of their job was to pull research for our coaches. 
  
  This has largely been replaced by following the right people on Twitter. 

52:43 - 

Jason's list of people to follow on Twitter

@hiitscience ‏
@MuscleScience ‏
@RodgerKram
@inigomujika_en ‏ ‏
@TStellingwerff ‏
@RogerEnoka ‏
@DrHydration
@foundmyfitness ‏
@ProfMikeTipton ‏
@Physical_Prep ‏
‏@EmmaJStevenson ‏
@TommmyLundberg ‏
@michaelgervais ‏
@LouiseMBurke ‏
@JohnAHawley ‏
@DrDCoachScience ‏
@jfriel ‏
@DrMJoyner ‏
@StephenSeiler ‏
@SportSciSum ‏
@ScienceOfUltra ‏
@coachjayjohnson ‏
@sweatscience
@stevemagness ‏ ‏
@AndyBeetroot ‏
@coachgambetta ‏
@simplysportssci ‏
@YLMSportScience ‏
@Jeukendrup ‏
@Scienceofsport ‏

Links, resources and contact

Links and resources mentioned

• Twitter - @JasonKoop
• Instagram - @JasonKoop
• Train Right website for coaching camps.