EasyVigour Training: Some Rules of Thumb for Peaking on Race Day**

This article introduces you to the "Rule of Thumb" methods used in "EasyVigour Trainer". EasyVigour Trainer is the only Fitness and Race Build up Scheduling Software available on the Web (Free Download). Please also read the sister article entitled Exercise is (mostly) good for your Health".

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EasyVigour Trainer is for Everyone...

Whatever your fitness level, the same principles will apply in terms of getting the maximum benefit for the minimum effort and least stress:-

If you want to live longer and stay healthy, then low-level exercise, using mostly walking may be sufficient. A quote from Runner's World suggests you could gain another 4 to 12 years depending upon how hard you exercise.

If you are an occasional "social" sports person, or hiker, you will want to stay injury free: perhaps some hill walking and gentle jogging, perhaps even kicking a ball around, combined with a basic Pilates or Yoga program would help tremendously. The EasyVigour Trainer concepts discussed below will give you a safe and efficient way to lift your performance.

If you love the challenge of racing and bettering your times in some sort of endurance sport, then you will want quality recommendations as to scheduling, and high intensity training routines.

If you are a full-time competitive athlete, You will be looking for a high intensity training workout, and you take exercise to the maximum that your mind and body will allow! The same EasyVigour Trainer concepts will provide you with the knowledge to achieve this too.

If you are recovering from a heart attack, or need a gentle exercise build up program to help manage your congestive heart failure, then again, their is a gentle program that avoids high intensity training routines for you to try (but please - under the supervision of your cardiac management specialist). EasyVigour Trainer can offer you this!

Remember, EasyVigour Trainer is the only free Fitness and Race Build up Scheduling Software available on the Web (Free Download).

Let's get into the specifics!

What EasyVigour will give you:-

Some basic questions to help you decide how much time you can allocate to training.

A detailed plan which:-

Will help you to communicate (or should that read negotiate?) your work out scheduling with your spouse or partner.

Can be altered with just a very few mouse clicks.

Can be easily adapted once you are "up and running". For example, each week gives you prioritization to tell you which work out session can be omitted.

Modern scientific advice upon:-

Weekly scheduling of aerobic workouts tailored to your chosen goal.

Carefully calculated heart rate targets and speed targets.

A disciplined but gentle approach. For example:-

You will be reminded warm to up and "ease into the speed" for every interval session.

Once weekly stretching is scheduled.

Most weeks have a "gym session" scheduled

What EasyVigour will not give you:-

Immunity from injury.

The developer recommends that you seek medical and other professional advice specific for your needs.

Do make sure that you apply sound nutrition, body posture and technique for your sport.

Common sense and experience.
Please do use common sense. Please do join a club.

The EasyVigour "Rules of Thumb" to get you started.

Why "Rules of Thumb" and not "Principles"?-: "Principles" are guidelines in the process of schlerosing. "Rules of Thumb" are guidelines that can be adapted and improved when new knowledge becomes available.

The EasyVigour software and exercise manual will help bring to you a list of "rules of thumb" which athletes, their coaches, and research scientists have discovered. These "rules of thumb" are still being refined. They are the secrets that win gold medals for the physically gifted. They are also the secrets that can help you to win gold in all aspects of your everyday life- whatever level you choose to exercise, why not tap into the secrets? This book will help you!

STAGING:- Develop one Race Day Skill at a time!

On race day, the top athlete’s body needs to provide strength, flexibility, and agility; long slow endurance, (so called "fat burning" pace), "up-tempo" pace, and race speed; possibly with sprint ability added in to be able to spring past a competitor. Fortunately, to a large degree these performance characteristics can be trained in sequential fashion.

First rule of thumb:

"Once you have peaked a physical performance component with a given number of monthly sessions, you can cut the number of monthly sessions to 30 or 50% of your peak number of monthly sessions. (Provided each session is of a similar duration and intensity).Your performance level for that particular component will stay with you for quite a period of time."

Second rule of thumb:

"The period of peak physical performance maintenance is longest for the exercise with the lowest exercise intensity (approximately three months for 'long slow distance'), and shortest for the exercise with the highest input intensity (approximately seven days for one minute sprints)."

From the above rules of thumb, you can see that you need to do your strength development and slow distance work early, and then reduce these by up to 67% during the "up-tempo" and race-speed development phases of your build up.

Table 1. Gives more detail:

Table 1: - Performance Characteristics: Time to build up to Peak and Time to hold Peak.
Performance Characteristic	EasyVigour Session Types	Time to build up to near peak performance.	Time period that peak performance will hold.
Gentle, or "Base" intensity (heart rate averages about 60 to 70% of maximum, breathing hardly increased)	Overdistance Easy distance	6 months	3 months
“Up Tempo” or "Sublactate" intensity (heart rate at 70 to 85% of maximum	Intervals and Uphill Intervals (duration from 2 to 8 minutes).	12 weeks	6 weeks
Maximum sustainable pace for 40 minutes (heart rate at approx. 90% of maximum)	Time trails and Races	6 weeks	3 weeks
Lactate generating pace (90 to 95 % of maximum heart rate, sustainable for 10 to 100 seconds).	McMaster Taper Intervals (60 secs. duration.)	2 weeks	1 week
ATP burning pace (sustainable for 10 seconds maximum)	Nearest fit in EasyVigour schedules is “15 sec. Sprint Intervals”- EasyVigour is first and foremost for endurance athletes	6 days	3 days

Chart 1 graphically demonstrates race performance build up.

Chart 1 Performance Profile during an EasyVigour Race Buildup. Early "build-up" training emphasizes gentle "Base Intensity" workouts, while later "build-up" training emphasizes race and sprint training.

STRESS AND REST:- Training Stress tears down. It's the Rest that builds you up again!

If a training session has been hard enough to stimulate the body to adapt and be stronger or faster, it will take two days of rest (or longer) for that strength or speed increase to occur, and for your body to safely absorb another similar session. You might repeat a similar session within that recovery period once in a while, but if you do it repeatedly, your performance will drop off and you are heading into “Overtraining”

Third Rule of Thumb:
“Stress the body hard enough to bring about an improvement, then rest it on average for 2 to 4 days.”

Fourth Rule of Thumb:
“The number of days you should rest can be estimated by using the "Blood-lactate hours" of your training session (as quoted on your EasyVigour Weekly Print-outs). Half to one times"Blood-lactate hours" gives you the time in days before you should repeat the similar training session and expect to improve. One to two times "Blood-lactate hours" gives you the time before you have to repeat the similar workout in order to maintain.”

Chart 2: Performance Curve following a Workout of "Blood-lactate Hour" quotient of 4 to 5 units. Note that the rest time before you should repeat any training of similar nature is at least 4.5 * 1/2 = 2.25 days, while the time at which a repeat session will just maintain your performance is 4.5 * 2 = 9 days. (4.5 :Blood-lactate Hour units would be the equivalent of a time trial lasting an hour and a quarter, or an Overdistance session lasting 4.5 hours).

“Cross-Training” and “Recovery Sessions”

Exercise junkies (myself included) do try to break the "Stress and Rest" rule, and with some success. Personally, I have achieved my best running times by “Cross-Training” running with biking and roller skiing. Recently, I asked a senior running club member why our local marathon attracted so few entrants nowadays. His answer was this: - “no-one has the time to train like they used to, so they are tending to go for the half marathon instead”. –True enough, (and probably leads to a healthier and more balanced lifestyle too!) but I believe that there is another reason: The exercise junkies are now avoiding injuries by cross training for triathlons instead. They use “Cross-Training”, and “Recovery Sessions”. Cross-Training (for example, run today, bike tomorrow, gym the next day) does work to some extent. The body parts that you train are to some extent rested the next day. But in the example just quoted, you would be wise to make the bike session gentler (either less intense, or shorter, or both). This is summarized in the next "Rule of Thumb"

Fifth Rule of Thumb:-
“Cross-train by doing a hard session in discipline "x" on one day, and doing an easy to moderate session in discipline "y" the next day.”

Indeed, research indicates that people who exercise “moderately” (three times weekly) tend to get fewer infections than those who exercise “intensely” (5 or more times per week). EasyVigour scheduling software gives you a maximum of 4 formal session per week. It also gives you a priority order, so that you know which sessions you can leave out if you need to. “Recovery sessions” could be something of a misnomer, because even very gentle muscle movement produces evidence of mild muscle damage upon blood test- but they do serve to preserve "range of movement" in muscles that are tensing up after training. In EasyVigour weekly scheduling, "Easy" sessions are an overflow component which you fit in around your formal sessions. In general, if you are doing an easy session soon after a hard session, keep it down to less than 45 minutes. Personal Note: My own easy sessions include gardening and lawn mowing. They are not jobs I enjoy, but it does earn some appreciation on the home front, and it does count to your total exercise program!)

Periodisation:

Basically, you vary your intensity and or time over a 4 week period. You have a very hard training week followed by a an easier couple of weeks. Variety is the spice of life! But it's not just that: Periodisation is a proven safe training method- probably something to do with the "Stress and Rest" Rule of Thumb. EasyVigour offers three levels of 4 weekly Periodisation.

Periodisation Tip:-

Use a higher level of Periodisation and take a day off from your job during the hard training week!

Alternatively, you may have to keep rigidly to the same weekly schedule of training sessions, and a minimal 4 week Periodisation would suit you better.