Train Like You are a Forest, not a Tree

The "experts" say that athletic fitness has three components; endurance, strength, and flexibility. They say that different sports require different measures of each. For instance marathoners may have tons of endurance, but not much strength and flexibility, while a weight-lifter has lots of strength and flexibility but no endurance. While the ratios may change, all three are required in some measure to be successful, and the more of each that you have, the better athlete you will be.

This is a nice little formula that works for school administrators when evaluating P.E. curricula, but it doesn't come close to capturing everything it takes to improve as an athlete.

Trainers and sports researchers have now added speed, balance, and core strength to the original three metrics mentioned above. If endurance, strength, and flexibility are the building blocks of an athlete, then speed, balance, and core integrity are the mortar holding it all together. Neither group is worth anything without the other.

Besides musculoskeletal strength, an athlete must also prepare mentally. An athlete will need motivation, resilience, and good technique in order to keep pushing when life and training don't go according to plan.

And of course everyone agrees that training your muscles and your brain aren't worth a darn if you have a lousy diet.

As if that weren't enough, there are many intangible qualities possessed by successful athletes. Athletes must have a healthy sense of humor, understand the importance of sportsmanship, and strive to maintain a good balance between their personal, professional, and athletic lives.

Often times I see people try to tackle this list in a systematic or mechanical way. Long rides for endurance -- check. Pilates for core strength -- check. Push-ups for strength -- check. And so on and so on.

That is not the way I do things and here is why.

As training methods get more "scientific" they also get more specific and focused. I suggest however that your body and brain respond better to more general and holistic stimuli. Just like a team, or a corporation, or a forest, or any other complex system in the world, an athlete's performance is equal to more than the sum of its parts. So instead of trying to compartmentalize all of your training, you should strive to work on several, if not all, elements of fitness at every practice. Instead of doing lots of indoor bike training where you might maximize your optimal-power-output-to-heart-rate-ratio, you should do most of your riding outside where you can not only strive for optimal power, but also learn to climb, take corners, build endurance, stay focused in a wind storm, and sprint for all the city limit signs.

I understand that addressing each individual component seems rational and efficient, but it is that same kind of "rational and efficient" ethos that turns rivers into reservoirs, workshops into assembly lines, and schools into young adult factories. There is of course a place for the scientific application of basic principles, but to do so at the cost of a holistic approach is I think a mistake.

To illustrate I have to make a confession. I like to play golf. And that game is a good example of what I am talking about. To get better at golf you could go to a driving range and hit a thousand balls, then putt for hours on a practice green, then try chipping over lawn furniture in your back yard and in the end think that you have mastered the skills of the game. But when you are out on the course and you have to hit over a little patch of tall grass between you and the hole, your mind will start to play games with you and that easy chip chunks right into the hazard. Of course good golfers will practice their skills but they realize it means nothing without the ability to put all the pieces together on the course. Everyone knows Jack Nicklaus, but no one knows the national long-drive champion. That's because no one cares. Hitting the ball far is not golf. Similarly, high power numbers on a stationary bike will never win you any races.

"You idiot," you may say, "The science of sports performance has advanced tremendously in the last thirty years so it would be down right republican of you to ignore the empirical evidence and cling to the old sloppy ways of training." "Advanced?" Thirty years ago the New York Marathon was won by Alberto and Grete, both of whom ran FASTER than this years winners Meb and Derartu. (Alberto beat Meb by four seconds, and Grete would have won by three minutes). Similarly, the times at the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii are remarkably similar to the times posted twenty years ago when aero handlebars were first introduced. The course record set this year by Chrissie Wellington was 17 years old and all but one of Mark Allen's six first place times would have toasted Craig Alexander this year. So what is an athlete to do? Work on everything all the time. You won't be alone. Many world class athletes still train this way. Sure, they do lower intensity workouts in the winter; then ramp things up as the racing season starts; but it is not much more complicated than that.

Save the rocket science for firing rockets. Training is something completely different.