Better Load Management

Superior Results Via Preemptive Rest

I put together a four-video series to explain common terms you will hear and offer you my best advice for managing load across short, medium and long time horizons.

This series is complementary to Smart Season Planning produced at the start of 2023. Smart Season Planning covered:

• Part One - Racing Faster Next Year

• Part Two - Getting Faster On The Same Time Commitment

• Part Three - Locking In Winter Gains

• Part Four - Planning Your Spring & Summer Macrocycle

This series covers:

• Load Managment

• Microcycles

• Mesocycles

• Macrocycles

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Load Managment

Start with the end in mind.

When deciding on today’s training, remember that it is one day out of the next 1,000 days. Today’s purpose is a small adaptation, one of thousands that you will experience on your endurance journey. We can achieve adaptation via loading, maintenance or recovery.

Make sure today doesn’t screw up tomorrow.

Moving out from the day, we typically have a week. How have you been feeling this week?

Two feelings are important to notice:

1. I feel like I’m at my limit for load.

2. I’m OK today, but there’s no way I could sustain this level of load for the next couple months.

Both of these feelings are a sign that it’s time to unload.

If you can’t go up, then it’s time to go down.

If we ignore these feelings, then we will need to reduce load at an inconvenient time. “Inconvenient” meaning due to injury, illness or maladaptation.

Not all load is created equal. When you push run, or strength, load… you will find you need to back off on the rest of your program. The best you can do is hold your overall load.

Never push total load and intensity simultaneously.

Build total work before you add work-rate training. Do this in the following order:

1. Frequency

2. Duration

3. Intensity

Remember, the game is to build consistent load over time.

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Microcycles

John and I wrote a series on Building Your Basic Week.

• Part One - Recreational Athletes & Background

• Part Two - Competitive Athletes & Building A Season

• Part Three - Manipulating Frequency Across Time & Goals

• Video - Bringing It All Together

If you’re able to “think outside the week” then you’ll get better results.

For a Competitive Amateur, this means a willingness to take more easy days and postpone loading days. This will not come easily to you.

For a Health & Fitness Exerciser, don’t complicate your life. Do something every morning, strength or cardio.

Start by gaining control of as many mornings as you can, ideally five mornings per week.

The purpose of “five mornings a week” is to create SPACE.

• For Training, yes

• Also for Better Sleep and Lower Stress

Don’t expect to load five mornings a week. You’re likely to be 3-4 loading days per week.

Within your week structure, set a level you can repeat without issue forty weeks a year.

Repeat The Week

As for recovery, take two back-to-back easy days in each microcycle.

What’s “Easy”? Easy is as easy as you need to ensure you can stack the weeks.

If the back-to-back easy days aren’t enough to stay fresh and adapt to your training then:

• Your zones are set too high.

• Your loading days are too big.

• Your metabolic fitness is limiting.

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Mesocycles

As we stack weeks, we gain the ability to assess the load inside each week.

Judge the quality of “this week” by what happens “next week.”

The game is consistent work over time, and the quality of our mesocycle let’s us judge our weekly target. Set the weekly target too high and we will lack consistency.

Our ability to stack weeks, indicates how well we are tolerating our program.

If you get your targeting “right” then you will get more training done each month. In order to get more done, you will need to be proactive with your recovery strategy. This will result in continual adaptation to load.

Now, more doesn’t mean more every day. Our bodies don’t work that way. “More” comes from placing recovery earlier in the microcycle and not grinding through workouts when tired. Done well, you’ll be able to load across 4-7 weeks without an easy week. You will have plenty of recovery days, but you won’t need a full week off. The video (above) shows you a case study.

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Macrocycles

Similar to the microcycle, judge your macrocycle by what happens the following year. The goal being to take ourselves to an ever-increasing level of performance.

This is important to bear in mind because, at the end of a macrocycle, you may think you can skip unloading. You’ll be fit and performing well. However, you’ll also be fatigued from a long season of training and racing. If you don’t shed the fatigue from the prior year then you will go stale, usually by mid-Spring.

How long should the macrocycle be? As a new athlete, you’ll likely be able to train across your first winter. As you develop, you’ll find you need a deep unload at least once a year.

The Greater The Level, The Greater The Unload

The closer we come to our ultimate human potential, the greater the unload we will need at the end of our macrocycle.

Regardless of your athlete type and level, at the beginning of each macrocycle, reestablish general capacity. This is particularly important, when we have an unplanned end to our macrocycle due to illness, injury or burnout.

Don’t let memories of season bests (or the training you did that wrecked you) guide your approach.

Reestablish General Capacity

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Final Words

There is a theme running through your week, month and year.

Preemptive Rests Yields Supercompensation.

We will get a better response if we don’t take ourselves too deep into the valley of fatigue.

It’s my hope that you’ll apply these tips in the years to come and enjoy superior results.

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