Any quick internet search will give you an off-the-shelf training plan. These can be a great starting point. If it is a good plan and you manage to follow it consistently without any gaps, injuries or illness then it will probably get you to your goal.

But the reality is that unless you are a professional athlete, and also very lucky and very self-disciplined this is not what happens. Life intervenes. Injuries and illnesses happen. Things that are more important than training require your time and attention for a short time …. and holes appear in the plan! These mean that the plan doesn’t work – even though you have invested a lot of time, money and emotion into training, equipment and your event.

What makes a training plan personal?

A personal training plan starts from:

1. Detailed goal mapping that really understands your motivations for the goal, and the time that you can realistically commit across the weeks up to the event
2. Performance profiling of what success for your goal requires compared to where you stand on each of these now (with measures against each)
3. Gap analysis and a staged plan to get you to the goal on each of these, taking into account your history in terms of how your body responds to training and set-backs/gaps in training
4. Up-to-date measures of your training paces and training zones, so every session that you do in your training plan supports your progress

How to get your personal training paces and training zones

The goal with training paces and zones is to:

1. Use a measure that you can see or feel easily throughout all stages of your training session – using simple and easily accessible equipment such as sports watches.
2. Update them frequently enough that they follow your progress (6-weekly is usual)
3. Have tests that are easy enough that you can build them into the plan every 6 weeks without significant disruption to your training, but are accurate enough to be useful.
4. Be simple enough that you can create the same conditions going into each test, for you the athlete, external factors that impact the effort, and conditions that affect the consistency of the measurement.

Many people see fitness measures come up on their watch or via apps – but the danger with these is that they can be comparing different things – you will swim a different speed in the sea in a wetsuit on a windy day, compared to a short pool with frequent turns. Plus the watches extrapolate and guess from the data that they have got from the sessions that you have done – and this may not be very useful data if it is not a maximum effort interval of certain specific durations and intensities.

So having some standard tests is very useful – the output is to enable the calculation of target paces and training zones for training sessions, such that you stretch your capabilities in training but don’t overload it with too much, too soon. And they will also show the impact of your training over time.

For swimming, two tests are the Critical Swim Speed (the speed that you can sustain at max effort for 1500m) and the 1km time trial (so that you can compare between pool and open-water).

For cycling, the most common test is the Functional Threshold Power (the power that you can sustain at maximum effort for 60 mins) completed on a stationary bike.

For running, the Cooper test is a 12-minute maximum effort run which gives pace, and also enables a good estimate of VO2 Max. Plus a maximum effort 5km (such as a parkrun) can be very useful to plug into a pacing calculator. And if you run using power, one additional interval will give you Critical Power (the running power that you can sustain for 60 mins).

For cardiovascular fitness, a maximum heart-rate (MHR) test is usually done through a ramp test – but it is worth bearing in mind that you will usually have different MHR for running vs cycling and swimming.

For the gym the 1-rep maximum weight lifted through key movements enables a ready-reckoner of what weights for what type of lifting.

For mobility, the range of movement and control to end-range in a series of movements give a good indication of key focus areas.

How do I do these tests?

A good programme will have measured performance markers with testing and review of progress every 6 weeks (ie half way and all of the way through a quarterly training block). Science shows that the body adjusts to consistent training over a 6-week period, and then needs a new stimulus to keep progressing. So testing enables a check that the exercise is moving the dial, and highlights if any part of the programme has not been working.

Therefore this is not like any pass-fail testing that you might have done in your school days. It is a measuring tool. But for it to work you need to ensure that you approach the testing with the same mental focus and determination to push yourself each time.

• Do it when you are rested, fuelled and ready for it
• Ideally do it at the same time of day each time (as we all have our own circadian rhythms)
• Approach it with a sense of purpose and focus (ready to put in maximum effort), but only as a measuring tool – nothing to dread!
• Always build up with a good warm-up that means that the body is fully ready for the high level of effort required.
• Rest and recover afterwards

What will I get?

The output of these tests will be personalized measures that give you:

• Power, pace and heart-rate zones for each workout that you do, so that you know that you are getting the maximum fitness impact from each session
• a better understanding of effort and pacing, that will help you in racing and events, as well as in training
• an ability to see from your metrics whether you are recovering from intervals and training – so that you can see where the development is coming, and when you are getting close to overload
• workouts that are fitted to your personal stage of training, and can develop and progress with you as your body adapts and responds to the sessions.

Club sessions

Through late November and December we will be coaching athletes through some of these standard tests within Evo Tri Club training sessions – so if you are interested in knowing your own training zones to enable more structured training next year: look out for the details on GymSync and sign up!

Extra note:

If you want to read more related blogs – here is a summary of indoor training (which generally uses power metrics, but is enhanced when you add heart-rate and RPE metrics as well) https://athleticenduranceperformance.com/spending-time-on-the-turbo-trainer/