[klaaaaaasn]

Hello,

so I’ve read through tftna as well as tftua. Since I am not into expeditions but more into one day missions be it alpine climbing, trail running or simply hiking I focus more on the principles in tftua.

But in tftua I have a conceptual problem:
Figure 13.1 the example for an early base period for Cat 1 runners, on the first day of training this week core and general strength are suggested and one should choose based on the strength assessment. In my case that would mean specific strength (so.. ME rather than hill sprints?).
Now on the third day ME is suggested and the fourth hill sprints if appropriate.
But since ME and hill sprints fall under specific strength this would mean eat least twice a week of ME or hill sprints in addition to the other specific training.
Especially since the ME workout a day prior to hill sprints might be cause a lot of fatigue and suppress the performance on the sprints, this sounds kinda weird.

The explanations in chapter 11 did not help me resolving that matter either, so maybe somebody can help me clearing things up.

Thanks

Topic

[Aaron]

Aaron on February 25, 2022 at 5:09 pm #63662

I’ll re-read the book later to look at the Cat 1 runner recommendations but my understanding is:
-I think of ME as mid to later progression, done either in gym and/or as sport specific (e.g. longer hill intervals, water carries etc), and early base strength work as general to MaxS spectrum (both gym and sport specific).
-A general strength, ME and hill sprint during the week seems like too much- I agree I need 2-3 days to recover from gym based ME work before doing another higher intensity workout.
-If you have a history of strength work it is fairly easy to top out the TFTUA assessments. I always start my transition to base with some general strength, but move through that progression into max strength work pretty fast if all feels good.
-Topping out on the gym based strength work either sends you towards max strength either in gym (e.g. 3-4 sets of 3-5 reps of ~85% to 95% 1RM) or sport specific ~10 second max effort hill sprints.
-I often aim for an early in the week gym workout, followed by a late in the weekday outdoor based specific strength workout (be it 10 sec hill sprints, 2 min hill intervals, or ~8 min ME hill intervals). I can’t picture fitting in 3.

[klaaaaaasn]

klaaaaaasn on February 26, 2022 at 4:33 pm #63685

Yes, the general strength routine (which I took from tftna) was quite heavy and long with a lot of weight since I progressed quite fast. I haven’t gone the max strength route though, just wanted to stick closer to tftua which is why I am interested in ME quite early already.
Of course mixing both max strength and ME would be awesome, but then I’d either have to drop the hill sprints or am riding one way to overtraining city.
So still the confusion is not resolved of what is meant by the example plan.