Elite and everyday athletes hire us to help them get faster. Sometimes they want a faster 5k, marathon or triathlon race time. Other times they want a faster 30m sprint time to be competitive in the sport of bobsleigh. Yet other times, they want to cover just a little more ground in their weekly 30 minute run to feel some sense of progress in their fitness and improvement in their health.

For our Conditioning Workshop that we taught twice in the last year (this weekend is the 1 year anniversary of the 1st workshop we ran last year in Florida btw!), we introduced this decision making tree to help coaches conceptualize where the problem might be if their athlete or individual was struggling with speed or not hitting the paces they wanted:

Though this flow chart seems like a simplistic way of viewing the training process, and it sort of is, it feels like a helpful way of finding a road block quickly or to help identify next steps in how to get faster.

For example, when I was training to qualify for the Boston marathon this year, here's how the flow chart looked for me:

• "Do you already have the times and speeds that you want?" NO I didn't... my fastest marathon to date was a 3:36 and that wouldn't have qualified me!
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• "Can you typically ramp up training volume without getting injured?" The answer to this one was yes. Typically I was pretty immune to chronic injuries, maybe because of my commitment to weekly strength training.
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• "Can you achieve the desired distance or hours for training that you're after?" Yes.. I had done many marathons in the past, and I knew that waking up and doing a 40k run in the mountains was something I was capable of at the drop of a pin due to my good year-round baseline fitness. A Boston-qualifying marathon for my age at the time required a sub 3:30 marathon (and the further below 3:30 the better since typically they have to lower the qualifying standard due to the number of entries they get). This step comes next in the flow chart because building a big enough base to handle the training volume required is key to being able to string speed workouts together on top of that. There are volume estimates for the number of training hours or number of miles you will need to put in for various race distances based on your level, like the ones HERE if you're curious about where to go further with this question for other races and sports.
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• "Can you hold the pace you desire to do this distance at?" At the time I started training, the answer was yes, but only for about 25-30k. I knew I could do a 1:31 half marathon which works out to a 4:21min/km for 21k; but I had never hit the required 4:59min/km for more than 30k, and was unsure if I would even qualify with a 4:59min/km pace. So, I aimed for something closer to a 4:40min/km goal in my workouts (below). To progress my workouts, one of Vital's coaches Rick and I worked to improve my lactate tolerance, then get more sport specific with steady state workouts, before tapering for the Calgary Marathon and attempting a sub 3:30. We nailed it and I ran Boston earlier this year!

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Before I let you go, I wanted to let you know that I'm working on a big piece that should be released soon on the notion of whether or not squats count as cardio as a recent research paper was released, and all hell broke loose on instagram. I'll send you the info first when the info is summarized and the research is fully scanned.

Lastly, feeling generous and wanted to offer anyone whose been on the fence about our new Shoulder Foundations 12-week program a first-month 50% off coupon (which is great because the program is also currently on sale!). This will also work on the first month of other Foundations programs, too. Use code DECISIONTREE by Sunday :)

Yours in physiology,

Carla