Four Reasons to do Base before Intensity
There are as many different ways to create a training plan as there are athletes - at TTH, all athletes are treated as individuals, and plans are generated from the ground up to suit the athlete's goals, lifestyle, and constraints. However, there are some basic principles that have been around for a long time; you probably know the one Coach Kevin is going to discuss: which is to complete a block (or blocks!) of base training before you start to think about increasing the intensity of sessions. It might seem a bit ‘old school’ to some, but in this article, he’ll discuss four reasons why we think it’s still a good idea.
1) It’s probably improving the energy system you’ll rely on most for your race day
Any activity over a couple of minutes or so will mostly rely on the use of oxygen to create energy (use of oxygen = aerobic). Two other components will be needed in conjunction with oxygen; either fat or glycogen. Fat will provide energy for efforts generally at the lower intensity end of the scale, and glycogen (gained from eating carbs) will be more utilised at the top end of the aerobic energy system. These two components are on a sliding scale - to understand more about the use of each, take a look at this blog I wrote on metabolic testing.
Suppose you are racing for an hour to about 90 minutes (the range for most competitive sprint distance athletes). In that case, you’ll be working at the top end of this scale, and getting the most out of your glycogen fuelled aerobic energy will be the priority. However, for those looking at longer distances or who are perhaps less experienced/in older age groups for the sprint distance, your race-day pace will probably be lower down this scale. It may be closer to the point where you are burning the maximum amount of fat or your aerobic threshold. The aerobic threshold must not be confused with your anaerobic threshold (or FTP/run FTP/swim CSS pace), which will be higher up this aerobic energy scale, but somewhat confusingly given anaerobic means ‘without oxygen’, not at the top. See this article for a description of how the two differ).
So for all but fast sprint triathletes or very fast Olympic distance triathletes, we should be looking to work on the fat-burning end of this aerobic energy scale to improve race performance. Traditional base training (usually zone 2 endurance) is the best way to do this! (see this blog for a description of the physical changes base training will stimulate). There are also good reasons that even the shorter course athletes should do a fair amount of base training, more on that below.
Exercise ‘Stress’
Our body has two different ‘controls’ for its nervous system - the parasympathetic side, which relaxes, and the sympathetic nervous system, or ‘fight and flight’, which creates stress responses. Interestingly, the aerobic threshold defined above (where you are burning the maximum amount of fat and which is increased through base training) is the junction point between the two systems where they are both operating equally. It’s actually how recent protocols using HRV data can define this aerobic threshold, as HRV measures parasympathetic activity.
Why is this important? How far above or below this threshold will determine how much stress exercise is added to your overall levels. You won't be adding much or as much stress to your system at and or below this threshold. Do an interval session at the top end or over your anaerobic threshold; however, you will be contributing a lot of stress to your system. Of course, it’s not quite that simple; again, it’s a sliding scale, and duration will also have an effect.
2) Getting the Big Loads done
Anyone who has ever done a training camp or big block of training will know that if you generally keep to the lower base training intensities, you will be tired at the end of a very high volume week, but not destroyed. If you tried to replicate the same training load (TSS) via a week of only high-intensity sessions, I suspect you will either collapse mid-week or just not be able to continue. Either way, it’s much less likely to be sustainable and a lot less likely to be fun!
3) Increasing your Aerobic Threshold (to reduce intensity stress)
Another benefit of base training will be that the aerobic threshold increases. Essentially it moves closer to your anaerobic threshold, meaning that, for any given high-intensity session, it will be a little less stressful on your body. As a result, you will cope better or get more training done. Recent details around the current ‘Norwegian’ method, which combines a considerable amount of base training and an eye-watering amount of threshold work, support this theory. That enormous amount of base (a level built up progressively over many years, I hasten to add) is what I suspect allows them to do all that threshold work. Recent results indicate that this works well for Olympic all the way up to IRONMAN distance! (don’t forget that at a world-class level, Olympic distance is pretty much threshold all the way).
4) Increasing your Aerobic Threshold (to reduce nutrition ‘load’)
So this last benefit is really another combination of 1) & 2). Still, it’s an important point that's worth emphasising—bringing your aerobic threshold up (whatever your race distance/level of experience) will bring it closer to your race intensity. So while, as per point 3), this does mean less stress on race day, that’s not really the goal (racing is hardly ever kind to our body, and for anyone chasing performance is not at all a requirement – although this has been shown to affect outcomes for ultra-endurance events. The main benefit is that you’ll now be burning more fat and less glycogen - which should help anyone who feels that their race nutrition plan is a juggling act between stomach/digestive discomfort and keeping sufficient energy levels to race hard. Less glucose burnt = less needed to be taken on and therefore less risk from X grams per hour carb intake. You shouldn’t look to maximise X through practising race day nutrition on tough training days and steadily increasing X to find your grams per hour sweetspot, but why not work on it from both ends?
0.5) What about Reverse Periodisation?
Hopefully, you are all on board now - however, there is another fairly common training method that seems to contradict the ‘base first’ argument: reverse periodisation. This means doing the exact opposite of what I’ve just suggested above (the internet is just one big mixed message for the unwary!) by beginning a yearly training plan with high-intensity work, focussing on base training later in the season.
I’m someone who actually follows this principle, as I live in the French Alps and long, steady winter training rides when it’s minus 10’C outside are not really that appealing.
So as to not leave you totally confused, I’ll give you my take on this. Reverse periodisation should begin with both high intensity and base training maintenance. So as opposed to the traditional base first method, where you are really prioritising base and extending the duration of exercise, you maintain levels of intensities as studies have shown that it takes significantly less training load to maintain gains than build them. So you can do some base and some (less frequent) intensity sessions, all at a slightly lower overall training load when the weather means you just can’t put the hours in. Then with the better weather in spring, you are ready to get back to a ‘normal’ program: begin the heavy focus on base as a slightly more compressed version of the traditional method. Later on, you can do lots of high-intensity sessions when your body is better equipped to cope with them.
So to summarise, racing well is all about getting the training basics right, then layering on the details. An appropriate amount of base training can be helpful across the whole range - start with the most basic number 1) (or 0.5 in the case of reverse periodisation!), work your way up to the details of number 4) and come race day I guarantee you’ll see the benefits.
Kevin opened a B&B for cyclists in France in 2014, & then a year later decided to start a cycle coaching (level 3) qualification. This was mainly in order to be able to better support his guests (but also to make his own training more effective too). At the B&B he runs the odd training camp for cyclists but mainly offers coaching advice while guiding guests. An engineer by background, he happy diving into all sorts of training data, but also understanding that coaching is about much more than just the numbers!
After being introduced to triathlon by a good friend & then taking part in races for a couple of years he decided that a level 2 coaching course with British Triathlon was the way forward, completing this in 2019.
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