Hey, what's up, motivators Taren here.
Now that races are back in full swing, we're seeing a lot of athletes that are
seeing race times and the result of several years of hard work.
And what we're seeing a lot of are people that are saying, man been working so hard,
but it's not being reflected in my race times.
Now this is a sure fire sign that I look at and I listen for when I start saying.
You know what.
The way that you're training is going to lead to underperformances what I want
to talk about today and show you visually so you can really understand
the difference between a lot of the traditional methods of training
versus our motive method of training that we believe leads to better performance.
Better health. Better enjoyment of the sport.
And it makes sure that all of the work
that you're putting in is going to actually result in better performances.
My name is Terryn Gazelle.
In my twentys, I was overweight,
unfulfilled, and couldn't even run to the end of the block.
Over the following years, I found endurance sports, lost £65,
won age groups, race world championships, broke records, and trained and learned
from some of the best athletes and coaches in the world.
You too can use endurance sports to change
your life and accomplish your fitness goals.
You just need a system.
A system that's meant for us amateurs
who want to be our best while feeling our strongest and healthiest.
My company, Mottiv,
offers that system and I want to share some of the tips from it today.
Thank you for tuning in, Motivators.
I remember back in 2017, I had been doing triathlon for about seven years.
I'd had some really good success in 2016.
I figured, hey, I want to step up and see what I'm capable of doing.
So I committed to a very traditional
training plan where it was really structured, really challenging.
I was putting in good work day after day,
week after week, and then race times came and actually got slower.
I had some of the worst performances
of my life over the course of 2017, despite training peak saying
that my fitness level was at an all time high, despite making sure that I hit every
single interval, every single workout, every single day.
And I was so confused because I'd done such good work.
But here I was going backwards.
So in between 2017 and 2018,
I rejigged my training because I needed to make sure that I stayed in the sport.
I had unfinished business.
So I rejigged my training completely,
using completely different methods that actually allowed me to train less.
Magically, I got faster somehow.
Now let me explain what I see happening in endurance sports.
In a lot of cases,
let's say we have an upper level of the total maximum amount of training
hours that somebody can actually put in and their body can adapt to and absorb.
When you go beyond that, your body is not going to be able to absorb it.
You're not really going to be able to adapt to it.
If anything, you're just going to invite illness, injury, and overtraining.
On the other end of things, we have the lower limit here,
where if you're above that lower limit, you're going to make adaptations.
If you're below it, it's really just too easy to make progress.
Where I was in that 2017 season is where most people train it's.
How far can I push myself?
Because pushing is what's going
to actually result in adaptation, or so they think.
So they stay right up at this maximum
level, and if anything, they're constantly going over it.
And what happens is, in a lot of cases,
they'll go over it and ride over it until they crash.
And then bam.
They say to their coach, I really need a rest because I'm not feeling so good.
And then you get a rest and you come down.
Here what I started doing in 2018, and this is a method that we use in our
training app that allowed me to do a 436 half ironman where my previous personal
desk was a 444, and I did that 436 on just nine average hours of training per week is
I stayed down in this adaptation zone down here for the majority of the year.
Now, towards race season, I did kind of get up towards that upper
limit, but I was always staying in that adaptation range.
And what this allows you to do is make sure that every single workout that you
hit, you're actually going to be able to adapt to.
You're going to be able to get faster,
you're going to be able to absorb it without beating up your system.
So when I see athletes saying, I'm training so hard,
I'm ready to nail it, but then they get to a race and they go, what happened there?
It feels like I'm working so hard, but my performances aren't improving.
I know almost certainly they're going up
and down beyond what they're actually capable of doing.
And if anything, that makes you go backwards.
What we do with our training system is we
come down into this level and make sure that every single workout that you do have
the ability to actually adapt to it and make an improvement.
And what we hear from the athletes
that use our training app is they go, wow, I'm training less and I feel better.
And in some cases, full disclosure, they say that they're performing the same.
But then they come back and they say,
I was ready to train six days after my half ironman.
I was ready to train so much quicker.
And this allows the athletes to constantly level good training upon good training,
upon good training, upon good training, as opposed to the other method where
they're just constantly struggling to stay afloat.
They're not actually adapting,
and they're not layering a good race on top of a good race.
They're layering a bunch of training on top of each other,
getting to a race and then going oh okay, I'm glad that's over with,
but I underperformed, okay, I'm going to work harder.
And then they just go through this cycle of trying to stay afloat as opposed
to building upon every single session, every single workout,
every single week and every single training cycle leading to a race.
Now, a couple of ways that we make sure
that that happens is first thing we communicate that an appropriate level
of training every single week is going to be the sweet spot.
And let me explain so let's say 4 hours is
the bare minimum to train for a half ironman, just for example.
And let's say that as the athlete trains they're feeling good and we're going
to use a green line to indicate they're feeling good.
And then somewhere around 7 hours they
start dipping into well, maybe not feeling so good.
And not feeling so good means they're
pretty sore the next day or their sleep is impaired or their motivation to get
the second workout in the day is fairly low or they're feeling like the same
workouts that they did before suddenly quite a bit harder.
All of these are indications that they're
getting into a level of training where they're not actually able to adapt.
Now when we get to the point here that becomes red.
Let's say this is maybe 11 hours of training per week.
Well this is when we start seeing athletes
that say things like I really got to get over my low motivation.
If you want it bad enough, you got to push for it.
Sore muscles are the cost of doing business.
Or when you're sick or injured they say well these are just parts of getting
through a good training plan and reaching your goals.
No, these are actually indications that your body isn't able to keep up.
These aren't indications that you just
need to get over yourself and have more motivation and be tougher.
No, these are indications that you need to go back because going beyond this is
getting into the point at which you can't actually adapt to training.
Now where is it along this path that that actually hits you?
Well, it's different for everyone if
you're somebody who is in their early twenty s and maybe only has a part time
job and has a very stress free life and can focus very heavily on recovery.
Well you can probably push up into this
ten to 15 hours while still being able to recover.
If you have a very stressful life, if you're new to training,
if you are very busy at work, you're running around with kids.
Well, pushing more and doing more hours isn't going to make you faster.
If anything, it's going to make you slower.
And that's where we say go down into the point at which you feel okay?
And this is where you've got to learn
to be a good athlete that recognizes when signals in your body are saying, hey,
this is a bit too much, and then being mature enough and tough
enough to say, I'm going to check my ego at the door and do the real hard work
of saying, I can't pull off huge training hours.
But you know what?
You're going to actually perform better by recognizing when it's time to pull back.
Now, to give you some comfort that less
can actually be more, there was a study that was done
that looked at Ironman athletes who trained less than 11 hours per week,
athletes who trained eleven to 14 hours per week, which is kind of what people
assume is the cost of doing business for an Ironman.
And then athletes who trained 14 hours a week or more, which is kind of assumed
to be the amount of hours that you need to perform well in an Ironman.
And they looked at which of these three
groups actually had the best performance in Ironman Brazil.
It was actually the athletes who trained
less than 11 hours per week that performed the fastest.
So, contrary to what everyone thinks,
in a lot of cases, less is actually more because you can get more of those workouts
where you're actually adapting, where your body is able to absorb it
and go, oh, I know what happened in this workout.
I have the energy, I have the ability,
I have the neuromuscular capabilities to actually adapt to it and get faster
based off of it instead of, wow, that was a hard workout.
I spent all of my energy and just surviving it.
We survived.
Okay, now I have to go put my energy
and just barely recovering and staying alive as opposed to getting stronger,
which is what it's much easier to do when you have a nicer balance.
And the nice thing about this is that if
you have a less is more approach, well, you're going to enjoy training more,
and it's going to be much easier for most people to actually execute training.
It's going to open up endurance training
and these life changing experiences to so many more people, because there are very
few people who have the time to train maximum hours.
And it's intimidating for new people
to think, well, I have to train maximum hours.
So if we start changing the culture away from more is more, down to appropriate is
more, and often less is more, and health and recovery is the most.
All of a sudden, so many more people are
going to have the races of their life, the experiences of their life,
live a more fulfilling life, take on bigger challenges, and perform better.
You can achieve your goals by doing less than you think.
So hopefully that empowers you to go and set bigger, loftier goals.
And if you need a training plan to do it,
we know a really good one with the Mottiv method.
Thanks for watching Motivators.
If you're looking for a training plan that incorporates these methods that is as
good as a one on one coach but as inexpensive as doing it yourself,
check out our Motive Training app that covers triathlons, running races,
do athlons swim runs and cycling events the link in the description below where
you can check out your customized training plan for free.
Also, if you rather listen to these tips, we also publish these videos in podcast
format on the Terrance Motive Method podcast, so you can check that out.
And if you don't want to do either of those things that you found this video
helpful, hit us up with the virtual high five by smashing the like button below.
Later, Motivators.