Finding Calm In Structure
This past week, I jumped back into training. As I’m still rehabbing my adductor, my training looks different than I want it to look like. I’m mostly on the bike and run twice a week for half an hour. However, as I’m also just starting my base-building phase, there is plenty of time to get back to running enough to feel strong and confident in roughly half a year.
Last week I sat down, picked a pice of paper and wrote down everything I want to include in my training. Strength, Mobility, cross-training, rehab work, etc. You get the gist of it. Quickly, I realised that I would never be able to fit all of that into my week. I just don’t have the time.
I did find a way that works well for me and had a great first week of training. So here is what I did.
Commitment
I often fall into the trap of wanting to add to my schedule.
Lately, I’m diving deep into the science of isometric exercises. I see them having a great synergy with running training. Simply said, they are exercises where you hold one position for a given amount of time. When you’ve ever done a plank, you know what an isometric is (and how exhausting it can get). But what they are great at is limiting joint movement. After all, you go into a position and then stay there. I rehab my adductor with some isometrics right now, and they work great.
What seems obvious is that I can’t just add them to my schedule. I’m lucky right now that I have a lot of free time due to limited running. Yay. This wouldn’t be the case if I were in full training.
If I add something, something else has to give.
The same goes for your training plan. You have a certain availability of time, and planing your training is generally about doing the right things each and every week.
I know I need to do strength training at least twice a week. I also know I need to do some kind of mobility each and every day (I don’t get any younger…).
The first step to even place all those pieces in the puzzle is to know how big the puzzle is.
There is a difference between being able to allot time per week and wanting to allot that time.
You might be able to find 10 hours per week for training, but you might not want to put 10 hours per week into training.
I know I can find between 17-20 hours per week for training. That doesn’t mean I train that much each week, but that is the range I’m working with.
How much time do you commit each week to training?
Structure
Once I was aware of what I could do at a maximum, I could add pieces to my schedule. Endurance sport here, strength training there. I have to place everything into those hours.
Even though I’m just easing back into running (and endurance in general), I’m already doing roughly over 13 hours of training each week. Training also means doing mobility work in the morning, rehabbing my quad every other day, and doing general strength work on others. Half of my training right now isn’t spent running.
When I sat down last week to plan my week, I decided to create a template rather than an actual plan first. What does that mean?
I’m thinking about the components I want to have in my training and when they would make sense to place within a week.
Doing heavy lifting on a Monday doesn’t make sense if I plan to do interval work on a Tuesday. I also have to balance other life responsibilities. Days I have to be in the office, for example.
Thinking about all that also meant that I had to create some guidelines for myself. I made the mistake of neglecting regular strength workouts for the past two years. Now I have a time slot booked. Even when my endurance training will increase in the next few months, I need to place this puzzle piece. It’s a non-negotiable by now.
I created the template. A long run on Sunday. Workouts on Tuesday and Thursday. A rest day on Wednesday due to being in the office. Strength on workout days. Mobility every morning.
I also know how much time I have each of those days. I have roughly an hour for strength. Half an hour for mobility. One to two hours of endurance during lunch.
Filling It Up
Once I had this template, I could place what I wanted to place. Right now, I don’t fill up my lunch time, for example. I mostly run/ride for about an hour right now. I’m getting back into training slowly.
But I know that I can increase my volume on those days easily without readjusting anything. That being said, I now also see that there is most likely a maximum time of endurance under the week that I can hit without neglecting other parts of my training.
In a way, this might sound limiting, but who can say they have unlimited time for training? I’m not a professional athlete. There is a time limit. I can only do so much. And this means that I can do a maximum of 8 hours during the workweek of endurance work if I don’t want to neglect strength and re/prehab.
This is one reason structure can be so liberating. You know exactly where the guardrails are. Going over them, and you might be in danger.
If I wanted to add more hours of running during the week, I would need to remove something. I can’t add any more. That means that I have to overwrite what I have written in my template. Tuesday evening is for strength. If I place a second run in there, I need to live with the potential consequences.
This makes decision-making super easy. I know why I’m doing strength on that day. I know why it’s good for me.
What will also help is that by the time I’ll hit a time limit during the week, I will already have done regular strength for a while, so I’m sure I don’t want to replace it with running.
The Gist Of It
What I found is that creating a consistent structure and trying to hold up to it has several advantages.
It helps you be honest about what you can actually do.
It helps you make smart decisions about your workload.
After a while, you will know what will happen on each and every day, which will make it easier to do regular workouts or strength sessions.
It calms me down having a plan that keeps me accountable to do everything I know is best for me long term. It might change from time to time. Strength might be a classic heavy lifting session. It might change to more isometric work during race season. I know I will do work that will help my running after all.
And that feels like I have a very good plan.