COACH FORUM: Questions on dealing with fatigue during sessions.
Let’s talk about those feelings of fatigue while executing sessions, and general questions around navigating and making decisions when you’re feeling the load. Such as when you’re not able to maintain power or prescription, or are feeling extra tired on the day and it’s a Key session. How to adjust and move forward both during and following the session, and taking an objective look at the result.
-Brad, PPF Coach
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Here's a couple to start -
- What are your top metrics/indicators you use to determine fatigue e.g. HR, sleepiness, soreness/time to failure, RPE and so on? Is there any one that you find particularly useful or that seems to track most closely with output/performance?
- Knowing that fatigue impacts RPE heavily, do you have any general guidelines for determining when we should rely on RPE (at the expense of power/pace) vs. when we should be sticking to a prescibed power/pace (even if it means a higher RPE)? For example does the type of session, sport, duration of session/interval etc factor into the decision?
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On runs that focus on recovery my heart rate goes higher than z2 when I run z2 pace. Should I focus on keeping my HR in zone or pace? Another Q: how do you know it is time to adjust your running threshold figures? I know that doing a test is good, but are there indicators in your metrics that hint at might be time to adjust? Thx!
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Tiger - good opening question. An excellent place to start is with HR and RPE, one of the reasons we emphasize having awareness around feel and perceived effort in so many sessions and education (being unshackled from the data). With the disclaimer that every athlete is individual and unique, using HR+RPE is a good place to start because you should have developed a good sense of what your baseline, or standard response is, across most of the training zones. As the training builds and fatigue starts to accumulate, you'll begin to notice deviations from your usual response rate, and when they become significant you know you're accumulating enough fatigue that you can consider taking additional recovery, shortening intervals, or adjusting schedule slightly. And if you're feeling sleepy during sessions, it's time to dig into sleep habits.Remember: easy days are easy, hard days are hard. The time to dig deep and push your RPE limits are the Key sessions that are asking you to extend yourself, but on recovery or supporting days you should be driving much more by feel knowing that the intent of the session is to recover and rejuvenate heading into the next hard day. There is definitely a fine line in there around learning how to push yourself in a session or sport that you struggle with (which will make the RPE high no matter what, and give you an excuse to back off) and recognizing that you have accumulated enough fatigue that you shouldn't push through. Generating a baseline of responses for yourself through your training gives you a much better chance of doing that objectively.
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Jordan - so it sounds like you’re having days where the prescription is calling for moderate/strong work, but you are feeling like you’re going all out. Does this happen often? Are you able to hit the power zones you’re looking for and it just feels really hard? Do you have days where everything flows smoothly and your response is different?Assuming this is just happening occasionally, your response is good. On those days you want to get through at least the PreMain set and into the Main to see if your reaction normalizes, sometimes you just need to warm up and get everything moving. But if you still are struggling and going way too hard, modify the session to spin smooth and get a little extra recovery time in so you still get time in but are ready to hit the next strong session at power.If you’re experiencing regularly, it’s worth digging in a little deeper and taking a full picture approach. Are you overloading your training schedule? Getting enough recovery in your week? Or maybe you just need to adjust your training zone targets to match current fitness a bit better.
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Caldwell - For recovery-oriented runs, aim to monitor your HR over pace most of the time to ensure you keep your effort (and RPE) low and maintain session intent. If the goal is recovery, you should finish the session feeling fresh and very controlled, less concerned about matching pace on these types of efforts.
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