[keith brown]

Occasionally work will take priority over training and require a second rest day in my schedule. At times my body “tells” me I may need an additional recovery day anyway. It may not be ideal, but any issue with doing my one hour strength session immediately followed by a (mid-week) Z2 workout? This would not be layering strength immediately followed by one of the recovery Z1 days, just strength on mid-week Z2.

Thanks in advance. Keith

Topic

[keith brown]

keith brown on April 8, 2022 at 8:07 pm #65345

One correction – combining strength with Z2 or Z3 intervals.

[MarkPostle]

MarkPostle on April 8, 2022 at 8:32 pm #65347

Keith, Just so I am clear are you talking abut layering them on 2 consecutive days or doing both workouts the same day??

[keith brown]

keith brown on April 8, 2022 at 9:39 pm #65349

Same day, back to back. Example is strength training in gym, 5-10 min break, then straight to stair climber or treadmill for Z2 or Z3 training.

[MarkPostle]

MarkPostle on April 9, 2022 at 11:27 am #65360

Keith, yes I will commonly program some aerobic work on the same day as strength and they can be back to back in certain circumstances as you mentioned. One of the issues with having a rest day a week and two strength days is it only leaves four days for aerobic training. As we advance the training that’s not really frequent enough stimuli for a lot of folks to move the needle as far as aerobic capacity so then I start building a bit into the strength days as well. For those aerobic sessions that are back to back with strength it is generally zone one or zone two work, sometimes with a light or medium pack but rarely is it intensity or very heavily weighted. Hope that helps answer your question.

[keith brown]

keith brown on April 9, 2022 at 12:49 pm #65362

Thank you Mark!

[rcj]

rcj on April 12, 2022 at 4:03 pm #65479

I cam to ask a similar question.

@MarkPostle, do you have thoughts on two workout days once we get deeper into the training? I’m talking a run in the morning with an easier run in the afternoon. I see that from a lot of my local ultra/trail running guys and wonder if there’s a big benefit to it, or if we’re better off focusing on a much longer single workout.

[MarkPostle]

MarkPostle on April 12, 2022 at 8:21 pm #65491

I have experimented with 2X/day (of aerobic training) personally and with a couple of my more resilient athletes and never really seen much upside. Folks in the peak of training for mountaineering have so much on their plate from a recovery standpoint. Weighted pack carrying, Heavy ME workouts and long days take their toll and I haven’t seen benefit from regular multiple a day sessions. In some theoretical universe there is a benefit from an aerobic capacity development standpoint but I feel like you’re begging for an overuse injury, stress fracture, tendonitis etc. Exceptions are as mentioned above with strength and an aerobic session and in very targeted overreaching phases. I will occasionally purposefully program back-to-back long sessions on Saturday evening and early Sunday morning with minimal rest to simulate a long move to a high camp and then an early Alpine start for a summit day but this is not an everyday thing. Most folks that have the energy to train a second session every day probably need to level up the volume of the whole program and would benefit more from that.