QOTW: I am a bit behind on the training and didn’t go through the full postseason phase. As we ramp in, I am worried about ramping too fast and getting injured. Any thoughts?

Answer:

You march into 2020 as a part of a large minority of athletes who, for one reason or another, feel exactly the same as you. Your performance hopes are not extinguished, so breath a little easier. The worst thing you can do now is panic and rush into a chase of accelerated fitness gains. You cannot rush fitness gains and this strategy only ends in misery longer-term.

Equal to this mistake is athletes employing a host of poor habits in search of playing catch up. We have a long season ahead and the mission for you shouldn’t be to play catch-up; instead, you should optimize for your undeniable situation. Be patient and ramp with caution.

This includes:

Being conservative in training load and fitness estimates in the initial 3-weeks of training.
Evolve your expectations: Be realistic with where you are currently, not to punish yourself and lose confidence, but to align performance expectations and output. Your ‘numbers’ will be lower, but they will come back.
Commit to doing things well: I don’t mean high output, but great execution of technique, form, and mission of each session. Your internal scorecard is about being present and executing sessions without judgment of output. Do the sessions well and let the performance gains bubble up over months.

The bright spot for you is that the initial six-weeks of this season’s BUILD PHASE are more patient in progression than normal, and you can expect sessions prescribed that we would have normally delivered in November and December. Much of what we do now is more like ‘classic' Purple Patch postseason, for the simple reason that we don’t want you getting too fit and primed too quickly this year. Ironic eh, by being behind you might be right on time!

For the initial weeks, likely to be painful, don’t focus the mind on your race goals. Set a target of how you want to feel on February 20. As you emerge from Valentines Day, do you need to be race-ready? Prime Fitness? Best fitness ever? I hope not! You just need to be in rhythm, with consistency and the initial layers of training behind you. You should want to feel better -- and more fit -- than you do now. I do not think that is too much to ask!

Let’s do it together, as I promise you that I am currently as unfit as you. I just have to be patient and progress carefully. After all, I have my own fitness and performance goals for 2020. I can be your patient partner-in-crime. Let’s go hand-in-hand and take the first steps, captain. It might be ugly, but we can bathe in our ugliness together knowing swans will emerge!

Matt

Jenny Moe

January 23, 2020 22:23

This was the perfect thing to read. I am quite unfit at the moment, and working to sort out some medical factors. One day at a time.

Nino PInocchio

January 29, 2020 04:04

Great message. Great to hear you and others are there too. One solid week in. Just focusing on layering that consistency. The workouts, although intimidating to see the whole thing there, are well designed and the point of the workouts are communicated clearly enough that I feel confident in my ability to focus on the intention while having to scale quite a bit right now. I like that. It makes me feel like at least my time is productive and improvement will happen. Thanks

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