Stop Chasing Sessions. Start Building Weeks.

It is difficult to overstate how important consistency is for progress in triathlon and endurance sports generally. The ability to keep showing up, day after day, and do the work without interruption is more important than talent, equipment and facilities.

Three things determine whether an athlete achieves that consistency or undermines it - daily and weekly training program structure, not going so hard today that you can't train well tomorrow, avoiding injury at all costs.

At Trisutto we call this our 3 day periodisation window:

What we do today depends on what we did yesterday, and what we want to do tomorrow. 

Get all three right and progress becomes almost inevitable. Get one wrong repeatedly and you spend your season chasing your tail.

So how does this work in practice? 

Daily and weekly structure 

Over a 7 to 10 day cycle there is room to cover the elements in swim, bike and run without cramming - strength, speed, endurance and active recovery.  Spacing these out to avoid consecutive days of intense training in the same sport - especially running which has the highest risk of injury. Back-to-back intense or long run days rolls the injury dice and is unnecessary.  

Each day within these 7 to 10 days must also be considered to avoid more than one intense workout. A hard run workout should not be followed by a hard bike workout on the same day. Better a pull set at the pool as second workout, and an active recovery bike to finish out the day. Tomorrow can be the speed set in the pool, time trial on the bike, and easy active recovery run. 

How we manipulate the training mix during each day, and during each 7 to 10 day cycle determines the correct stimulus and recovery for each individual - everyone has their own special mix. 

This may seem like common sense when laid out as above. However this can all come unstuck if athletes don't develop feel for their body, don't understand the rhythm of training, or can't temper their enthusiasm / ego. This is most evident training with others in a group without a coach observing who is able to pull them up when going harder than required.  

This is especially true for active recovery workouts sometimes scheduled as the last workout of the day; or the day after a harder run or bike the day before. Active recovery should be easy; its purpose is to move the body gently, helping flush metabolytes from the muscles and lymph system, while reducing stiffness and bring additonal oxygen and nutrients to the muscles. It is not junk miles, and it is far more effective than sitting on the couch wearing compression boots and other such expensive toys. 

Not every workout has to be a home run

Motivated athletes can fall into the trap of attempting to push every workout as hard as their body will allow. This can produce some impressive workouts however but usually sets athletes up for physical or mental collapse, sacrificing consistency. 

Faster is not always better when training for a sport where speed work can be defined as 'anything faster than race pace'.  Especially long course triathlon with 21km or 42km run off the bike, how many of us benefit in a race from intervals performed in training at speeds faster than 5-10km pace? Very few athletes indeed. 

Avoid injury at all costs

There's nothing as effective at curtailing overall progress as injury. Certainly in triathlon with 3 sports in 1 there is opportunity to adapt training, however prevention is better than cure (even if for example a running injury may help an athlete's swim improve if they are motivated to divert their enthusiasm to additional focused work in the pool). 

We avoid injury by carefully structuring each athlete's training. This varies from athlete to athlete based on their age, sex, body composition, and prior injury history - each has their own training mix to maximise their results while minimising injury risk.  

However the athlete must play their part! Pushing through a 'niggle' during a run because they want to complete the workout instead of easing off the pace or cutting the workout short is folly. A day or two without running can become a week or two purely due to poor decision-making in the moment. 

What building weeks looks like

Performance doesn’t come from what you can do on your best day. It comes from what you can repeat over and over without interruption. Anyone can smash out a session. What almost no one can do, without coaching, is string together 30, 60 or 90 days of uninterrupted purposeful training. 

If you looked at the training logs of the most consistent athletes I’ve coached, you’d probably be underwhelmed. No fireworks, constant PBs or monster sessions for social media. Instead, consistent repetition: the same work, done again. And again. With gradual almost unnoticeable progression - 

The same bike strength session but one gear harder. The same build run, but more controlled at the effort. The same swim set but finishing the workout strongly instead of fading in the last 1/3rd.

Nothing dramatic. But over six months, the progress is undeniable. The athlete who trains intelligently for 90 days will beat the athlete who trains brilliantly for 10, every single time.

But it does require patience, structure, and the willingness to trust a process that doesn't always feel like enough in the moment.

However, the compounding effect of many tomorrows is where real performance is actually built.

Robbie

Trisutto Director of Coaching at Trisutto

Coaching enquiries

All other enquiries robbie@trisutto.com