The Complete Training System

Maximizing fitness, athleticism and performance in the world of endurance athletics is easier said than done. Many athletes focus too much of their effort on just the training component. To see consistent improvement, one must create an entire system to envelop a training program.

Endurance athletes are tremendously hard workers but sometimes this hard work will come back to haunt them as injury and pain tend to creep up for this specific athlete. As training is the foundation to getting results there are other components that incorporate the complete system. These "other" components need attention and when they are disregarded, an athlete does not maximize true potential.

The Complete Training System

Component #1 - Performance Nutrition

Perfecting healthy nutrition principles is imperative to staying healthy, injury free and truly maximizing one's performance. When your diet is incomplete and lacking of the nutrients and vitamins the human body needs to perform, recover and stay healthy, your training program will become stagnate. As training is crucial, the nutrition program is just as imperative to an endurance athlete. Vigorous training hours leads to fatigue, broken down muscle tissue, tired joints, a run down nervous system and an immune system fighting to stay healthy. Without a proper nutrition plan to assist recovery and replenishment, your body will spiral downward to a state of overtraining, thus causing inconsistent sleep, lack of motivation, and ultimately injury and stopping of the activity. I use this as "component #1" because there isn't enough focus on this tactic. Without changing any of the training protocols, tweaking nutrition for peak performance can give endurance athletes an edge on their competitors. An endurance athlete's diet should be full of complex carbohydrates like fruits, vegetables and healthy whole grains, lean proteins like fresh and lean chicken, turkey, fish and occasional red meat and healthy fats like natural peanut or almond butter, avocado, raw nuts and olive oil. Keeping your food consumption to calories that are nutrient dense and limited of saturated fats, high amounts of sugars and salts and empty calories is imperative for high level performance. Food timing is another critical aspect to understand. What you eat is important but dialing in your nutrient timing can expand your performance to high levels. Understanding what specific food does for your system can assist your energy levels, increase the intensity of your workouts and allow your body to fully recover after training. Pre-workout food consumption is dependant on each individual and the needs of that person. Find what works best for your body. Do not rely on what you saw in a magazine or read in a book. What works for you? The basic nutrient breakdown before training should consist of a 3 to 1 ratio of complex carbohydrates to protein. This ratio will top off the glycogen tank to prepare for the work ahead. This pre-workout meal should not be heavy, fiber dense and packed with empty sugars and calories. Instead aim for calories that will give you the necessary energy and jumpstart you will need to begin training, without overworking the digestive system. Within thirty minutes post-workout, this is a time when the body is an anabolic state and will be at its highest response to the calories you consume. Food that is easily and quickly digestible are better choices. Whey protein, chocolate milk and/or your specific supplementation (hammer nutrition, Gatorade #3, etc) are good choices. Once you have hammered down your post-workout snack immediately after completion of your training, you now have a 1-hour window to consume natural whole food. Aim for lean protein sources like eggs, chicken, fish or legumes and complex carbohydrates like quinoa, vegetables and fruit. And don't forget your healthy fats. Post workout is a time to nourish the body with omega 3 and 6 nutrients to repair muscle damage and decrease inflammation.

Component #2 - Efficient Training

Training progressively and smart is a tactic many athletes do not follow. A randomized training schedule is the method most amateur endurance athletes’ use. They train depending on what they want to do for that particular day. There isn't a plan of action, no progressive build up, no planned rest days, and limited structured workouts. These are strategies that must change in order to fully reach an ultimate performance level. The first step is setting up a structured training program that fits your needs and goals. Write down the top three objectives that you want to accomplish over the training period. Example: 1. Get faster at 1/2 marathon distance 2. Get stronger on the bike 3. Complete 1/2 Ironman. Having goals in place before you start the training plan will give you a target to shoot at instead of just guessing. When you start constructing your game plan, you must use these simple strategies:
1. Never increase volume more than 10% each week.
2. Every 4th week decrease your highest volume week by 40%. This is a recovery week and will allow your body to fully adapt to the training block.
3. You never want to have back-to-back training days that are both high intensity workouts. Stick to the "easy/hard/easy/hard" set up for your workouts.
4. Find your "A" race and plan your training backwards from the scheduled day to the present. This will allow your peak to happen for your most important race. Trying to peak for every race of the year will lead to lack of performance and ultimately injury.
5. Listen to your body. If your body is in a fatigue state and just can’t get through a specific workout, call it a day. Know the difference of being a sissy and just having mental and physical fatigue.
6. You should implement a base phase to build your aerobic capacity, a build phase where you implement more race pace strategies, a peak phase where you are preparing for the demands of the race, a taper period where you allow for full recovery and adaptation from all of your training, and a transition period where you have time off and allow for full physical and mental regeneration. These periods will set you up for a successful training year.

Component #3 - Recovery, regeneration and rest

The human body is very resilient and can take training loads at extreme rates. But the human body does breakdown and it’s what you do during your recovery time that allows you to build and improve performance. During workouts, we breakdown muscle tissue, deplete our energy stores and we create nervous system fatigue. When our nervous system is fatigued it doesn’t matter what we do for our training, we will not get better. We will be in a constant state of overtraining, causing compensation, breakdown, and ultimately injury. It is a must to plan and schedule rest days, rest weeks and transition periods into a training program. Here are strategies that are a must for recovery:

• Foam Roll/Stretch: You need to schedule flexibility sessions into your training week. After long weekends of training our muscle tissue becomes inflamed, tight, and adhesions are formed throughout the fascia. Rolling and soft tissue therapy will help get rid of the small knots and adhesions that build up over time. Plus it will help promote blood flow, which gives you better movement and range of motion. Endurance athletes should focus on the quads, hamstrings, glutes, calves, IT band and mid-back. Stretching also needs to be implemented into the schedule. Stretching the muscle will help lengthen the fascia to allow for proper movement and range of motion. If our muscles are tight we restrict movement, decrease our performance and eventually we will get hurt. Take time to roll and stretch.

• Ice: After long and/or hard training sessions icing the legs is a great way to get them to recover at a more rapid pace. Icing will decrease inflammation, any swelling and enhance healing. But icing is not about "more is better". You should ice your legs for no longer than 15 minutes an hour. Any longer can cause damage to the surrounding muscle tissues. If you have a direct pain site (i.e. shin splints, plantar fasciitis, etc.), then ice massage is the way to go. Simply freeze a small water bottle, cut the bottom half of plastic off the bottle to expose the ice and then massage the affected area. Do this for only 5 minutes each hour.

• Light movement: After a big weekend of training or a race the best thing for your legs is to flush them out the day after. Know the difference of a hard workout and easy moving. These lighter workouts can tremendously assist recovery as it will get your legs through a range of motion, increasing blood flow, decreasing inflammation and promote recovery. Just make sure to keep these workouts very light. Spinning on a bike or a light recovery swim on Monday, following a big training weekend or race, will assist the body to recover and allow for a better week ahead of training.

• Corrective Exercise: I wrote an article for www.trifuel.com titled, “Corrective Exercises Triathletes need to do”. Go read the article here: http://trifuel.com/training/triathlon-training/corrective-exercises-that-triathletes-need-to-do and implement these moves into your routine to create a balanced and more functional body.

• Consistent Sleep: When the body is at rest, it will be at its greatest state of recovery. If you are not getting consistent sleep throughout the week you will suffer, breakdown and it will lead to injury, fatigue and burnout. As endurance athletes we are continually breaking down the body during training and it is a must to get adequate sleep. The key is consistency. So 6 hours of sleep every night is better than 4 hours one night, 8 hours one night and 5 hours another. Aim for 6-8 hours each night. During the day, try and fit in short 15-30 minute naps to rejuvenate and recharge the body and mind.

Component #4 - Flexibility and Mobility

When you lack functional movement and range of motion of your joints and muscles you do not maximize performance. Swimming, biking and running are all repetitive sports that can create stress, imbalance and compensation to the body. It’s a must to have adequate flexibility in the muscles and mobility in the joints to decrease overuse injury in these sports. When you become tight, immobile and restrict movement your body starts to compensate, thus forcing other parts of the body to work harder than they have to, which will eventually cause pain and injury. Before every workout you must warm-up thoroughly using dynamic stretching movements to allow the joints to open up and the muscles to lengthen before the actual workout begins. You will set yourself up for a higher-level training session when you learn to warm up the entire system. During the week schedule times to foam roll, stretch and work on your mobility. Just keep in mind, when you get hurt you cannot train and if you are not training you will not get better. Implement flexibility and mobility work into your training program at least 3 times a week to see improvement and reduce injury.

Component #5 – Functional Strength and Power

If you lack specific strength and power you will not maximize your performance in your sport. Functional strength is having usable strength that will transfer to the “playing field”. Plain and simple, the stronger athletes excel. But strength and power is not lifting heavy weights with improper form. Strength and power is not about bench-pressing outrageous weight. As the bench press can be a great upper body exercise, it is just a piece of the “strength and power” puzzle. As endurance athletes are very focused on their specific training they tend to forget about their functional strength and explosiveness. These traits can lead to better performance and reduction of injury. Implement strength workouts into the training program that promotes muscle balance, stability, and explosiveness. When done incorrectly you could create imbalance, a weak muscle system and poor movement qualities. Plan and perfect your movements in the gym. For every upper pushing exercise, add an upper body pull. For every lower body “quad” dominant movement, add a “hip/glute” dominant movement. When lifting think “technical failure”. Do not let your form suffer because this can lead to injury and inadequate movement.

Component #6 - The Mindset

The first step to achieving any of your goals is the power of believing in yourself. You must create a positive mindset that consistently has you believing in your abilities. If you show up to the gym or to one of your workouts with a negative, non-believing attitude you will have a lack luster training session. Mental conditioning needs to be worked on just as much as the physical conditioning side of things. We need to teach and train our thoughts to be positive. Did you know that 80% of most humans’ thoughts are negative thoughts? The crazy thing about this issue is that we can do something about it. We can change our attitude, our thoughts and our mindset. But just like we prepare and train for a 5k or marathon to get faster, we must put in the mental training to improve our mental performance. This mind conditioning does not just happen over night. Just like training the body to get faster, stronger and more athletic, we have to train our thoughts to become more positive, energetic and confident. It takes daily work for this to happen. Here are strategies to follow to improve our mindset:

• Daily Affirmations. First, when you wake up you must create positive thoughts before you even jump out of bed. Do not wake up muttering, “ugh, another day.” Say things like: “Today I will be my best and give my best”; “I will move closer to my goals”; “Nothing will get in my way”; “I will tackle my problems with a full head of steam”; “I will drop body fat”; “I will improve my times in my workout.” These thoughts will turn into actions and you will see a tremendous change in your mindset and your life. You have to be conscious of this exercise, as it is very easy to just get out of bed and “get through another day”. Remember each day is a new beginning, a fresh start, and a brand new chance to create greatness. We cannot focus on yesterday but having a good and better yet GREAT today will make for a better tomorrow. Secondly, after a long day, when you are lying in bed about to fall asleep, finish the day with a positive thought. “I did my best today”; “I am so happy to be alive and tomorrow will be another good day”; “Good job on your effort today”; “Tomorrow will be another great day”. Starting and ending your day with positive affirmations can be a game changer.

• Believe in yourself at all Times. During the day you must create a mindset that truly believes in yourself. Do not put yourself down or have disbelief in accomplishing a certain project, or workout, or task. Think of the self-degrading comments we tell ourselves sometimes. Would we like it if someone else said bad things about us? Absolutely not. That would make us very angry. But yet too many times we are putting ourselves down and disbelieving in our abilities. No matter the task at hand, do the work necessary to kill it. If you have the action and the mindset you will accomplish. Believe in that and you will start doing Big Things.

• Try some meditation. Have you ever sat in a room or in your car with complete quietness, your eyes shut and focused on your internal thoughts and mindset? Try doing this for 3-5 minutes everyday. Do it before your workout or before you step into your office or before a big race. Meditation can relax your mind, get you centered, focused and energize your thoughts. With such busy lifestyles our mind is always racing and thinking of the next step. Focus on zoning out and direct your attention on your thoughts and your internal motivations. What drives, inspires and motivates you? This internal conditioning can be a supercharge in energy that you have been looking for.

• Positive self-talk. This one goes hand in hand with endurance performance. During workouts and training you must create a positive self-awareness that will lead to successful performance. It is easy to talk ourselves into not completing the recommended distance or the last few intervals. Continually tell yourself that you can do the mileage and you can push through the tough intervals. This will transfer over to your racing as when you are pushing and giving it your all, you will be able to push through that uncomfortable zone and have a successful race. When those negative thoughts enter the head, immediately erase them and turn them into positive thoughts. “Keep going”; “Yes, I can”; “I can hold this pace”; “I can do 1 more hill repeat”; Your performance goes in the right direction when you think positively.

• Write down all of your goals. This can be a road map to a successful training program. What do you want? Faster 5k? Run a marathon? At the end of each season, you need to assess the previous season. What were your strengths? What were your weaknesses? What will be your goals for the next season? Goals are just random ideas and thoughts until they are written down. Create a game plan that you can look at everyday. When your goals are in sight every morning when you wake up you are more likely to stay on path to accomplish those goals. The next step is showing those goals to a mentor or a coach. Now you are held accountable to achieving your goals. Meet with that person periodically throughout the year to talk about where you are at and what you need to do to stay on path.


There you go, the COMPLETE TRAINING SYSTEM. You start working to improve on all six of these points you will see a dramatic change in not only your performance but also your vitality and the way you live life.

If you have any questions, you can direct them to justinlevine03@hotmail.com.