Shownotes
This episode of The Athletes Compass dives into the essentials of base training for endurance athletes. Hosts Paul Warloski, Marjaana Rakai, and Dr. Paul Laursen unpack the science behind aerobic base training, focusing on low-intensity zone 1 and 2 workouts that support fat-burning and build resilience. They explore why this foundational phase is crucial for peak performance, discuss how it enhances VO2 max, and share insights on integrating HIIT sessions and strength training without overloading the body. This episode offers a comprehensive look at how smart, low-intensity training prepares athletes for more intense phases and lifelong endurance.
Key Takeaways:
- Foundation First: Base training, primarily in low-intensity zones, builds a foundation for future performance.
- Fueling with Fat: Effective base training improves fat metabolism, crucial for sustaining high-intensity work.
- The Science of HIIT Integration: Adding one HIIT session weekly maintains muscle activation and prepares for intense training.
- Strength in Simplicity: Base training is ideal for including strength work, emphasizing resilience and injury prevention.
- Mobility Matters: Incorporating mobility and flexibility exercises is especially beneficial during this phase.
- Mindful Intensity Control: Zone-based training, as emphasized by the Norwegian model, optimizes training balance.
- Consistency over Time: Building a base is about maintaining steady, sustainable improvements.
Transcripts
how would you define base training? I mean, what does it actually mean?
Paul Laursen (:it really just means that you are,
focusing a little bit more on your
zone one and two training.
the aerobic zone, the green zone where we just kind of sit in there with a...
easy steady pace all day. You can breathe through your nose, you can
full sentences.
Easy steady work
as us humans were meant to do.
Paul Warloski (:Hello and welcome to the Athletes Compass podcast where we navigate training, fitness and health for everyday athletes. This is the time of year when cyclists and endurance athletes start talking about the base season and building a base. But what is base? Why do we need one? And what is the best way of training in the off season? The purpose of a base season is to build aerobic endurance, maybe strength, maybe efficiency.
Marjaana Rakai (:athletes.
strength and efficiency laying the groundwork for more intense and race specific training phases later on. It's called BASE because it sets the foundation of BASE on which all other higher intensity training will be built. That's the idea anyways. Paul, does this mean we should only be doing lots of long erotic rides in our off season?
Paul Warloski (:laying the groundwork for more intense and race specific training phases later on. It's called BASE because it sets the foundation of BASE fitness on which all other higher intensity training is built. That's the idea anyways. Paul, does this mean we should only be doing lots of long aerobic rides in our off season?
Paul Laursen (:I guess no. Yes and no. That's about everything, right? It depends. So yeah, let's first of all clarify, we're talking for people in the Northern Hemisphere, not the Southern Hemisphere. They're building up. Like we got a lot of people listening to us over there.
Paul Warloski (:you
Yeah.
They're breathing.
Paul Laursen (:But nevertheless, everyone usually should go through this period of resetting
in terms of their overall program. I should just even say, even probably if you get into the end of your A-race, also really good to have a bit of a break and a rest too. So I'll just kind of put that out there as well. A few weeks of just kind of almost not doing much of anything in terms of like structured training, give the mind a little bit of a break. But when we get back into this base training.
You would think kind of, know, it's an aerobic foundation. Yeah, it's got a real, it's got a real purpose. And it's the, think it's, you you haven't mentioned everything except one thing I think is really important and hasn't been put out there much. And that's the ability to burn fat as a fuel is really, really key. And the further I go along in this world, the more I realize how important that is. And just to cut.
To cut to what I was recently talking about on the training science podcast, I met with a sports science researcher from Norway who has actually just done probably the first study ever to show the importance of ultimately being able to train at a high percentage of your VO2 max during your HIIT training. But to make a long story short, to...
The reason athletes that do perform at a high VO2 max kind of comes down to their base foundation of their fat burning is what sort of, we'll get into the paper in a little bit more, but it's super important. And yeah, ultimately you probably won't be able to do your HIIT training if you don't do a pretty solid base is what we're starting to appreciate and understand.
That training volume, that is really the foundation of the famous Norwegian method. is really, you know, it is fundamental to you as an athlete, really, whoever you are. So I'll just start there.
Marjaana Rakai (:Alright, do I hear a little bit of a hint of you going from 10 hours a training week to a little bit higher volume per week?
Paul Warloski (:Yeah.
Paul Laursen (:Well, you don't have to, but it's like, you know, first of all, it's, you know, is it, is it important? Are you talking to me personally MJ or yeah. Look, I think we're, you know, we're coming back to the whole zone two training, right? Peter Attia health, you know, it's training volume equals, is great. you know, a key, predictor of your VO2 max, VO2 max key predictor of your health span lifespan. so.
Marjaana Rakai (:Yeah, yeah.
Paul Laursen (:And performance, it's just, it's, it's pretty important. So it's not easy for all of us busy, you know, everyday athletes, but the more we can work towards trying to prioritize some base training, some zone two training, the better we are probably off. I know I'm, I can't wait to get to mine later on today. I'm, I'm excited to be here for the podcast, but I'm pretty stoked to, to get to my training later on today. Cause I know it's going to make me feel so good.
Paul Warloski (:So, so how would you define base training? I mean, what does it actually mean?
Paul Laursen (:Yeah, it really just means that you are, you're focusing a little bit more on your aerobic zone one and two training. it's the time underneath that first threshold. Sometimes we define it as the first lactate threshold. Sometimes we define it as the first ventilatory threshold. It's the aerobic zone, the green zone where we just kind of sit in there with a...
easy steady pace all day. You can breathe through your nose, you can talk to your friends, you can talk full sentences. That's the kind of training that you want to be doing. Easy steady work as us humans were meant to do.
Marjaana Rakai (:I personally find that after long builds, like I feel like 2024 was a build after build for me with two big races. At the end of it, I'm mentally so exhausted that I just really enjoy some easy zone one and two training and no HIIT at all.
Paul Laursen (:Yeah, for sure. sure. you know, and, and that is, and that's totally acceptable and great to do MJ. can see you're doing that in your training, which is awesome. all that being said, the, are studies that have shown if you do just a single HIIT training in your, in your week, you add just a single HIIT training, a session.
you will be better off than had you just done the aerobic base when you kind of start back up again. So it's still not a bad thing to just do, just to like, you know, keep those, you know, fast twitch muscle fibers, you know, the large ventricles of the heart, just, you know, give them, give them a little activation, just let them know we're still, we're still around. It doesn't have to be excessive or anything like that, but just a...
You you just hit that once in the week. It's a really good practice. And I know you're doing that too, MJ, with your different Zwift sessions and the like out there.
Marjaana Rakai (:And I actually find like, because base season is the overall volume and intensity is lower than during build phases, I can actually HIIT the heat sessions a lot harder. And I'm like, I think I'm getting better.
Paul Laursen (:Of course you are. And this is it. You're just like, what you're feeling is why you do those, that base, those base sessions. And this is the whole point of them. The more you have this aerobic foundation of fat burning and the more, the better you recover, the easier the HIIT sessions are. As we'll get to in this paper, the higher the percentage of VO2 max that you can actually sustain.
Marjaana Rakai (:Mm-hmm.
Paul Laursen (:it's well worth your while to try to do this base period. So why don't I just, Paul, if you don't mind, why don't I just kind of get into this paper a little bit?
I interviewed Ingvild Auden, lovely young sports scientist that is doing some incredible work in the Norwegian Bent Ronstad lab, very famous lab in Norway. They're just putting out a ton of research and they really focus heavily on HIIT work. I'm particularly interested in the work that these guys are doing.
But the title of the paper that's just come out and it's really hit the socials hard and everyone's talking about it. And it's titled, it's published in European Journal of Sports Sciences. The higher the fraction of maximal oxygen uptake is during interval training, the greater the cycling performance gain. again, we'll link to the more extensive podcast if you want to hear this right from Ingvall. But it was a fun conversation because we really picked out a few important things that she admittedly didn't really think about.
whether I'm right or she's right, who knows? But it's like, this was my interpretation of some of the data. So just to lay the, set the scene, what the authors found in this study, and this study was so unique because they measured oxygen uptake in every single VO2 training session, every HIIT session.
Imagine you're doing your training and you've got a mouthpiece in your mouth for the whole entire, like every single session. That is not easy to do. Right? So this is over a nine week training intervention. They're doing this two to three times this HIIT session. Not that fun, but this is what they can do in Norway with the culture that's set up there. It's just, it's phenomenal because they have all these schools where people are coming to learn about sport and they're, you know, as part of being at the school, you've got to sort of
partake in this study and be an athlete. just again, my hat's off to the whole Norwegian system. All right. So what do they find when they're doing all these HIIT sessions? Well, they found that they had 20 of these cyclists doing this study and then they broke them kind of into two groups. And then what they found was that they did this post-hoc after they did this nine week training sessions of HIIT sessions. These were, they're, you know, they're
eight-minute efforts with three-minute recovery for these HIIT sessions. And what they found was that the group that were adapting the responders to the HIIT session was that group was exercising at a higher percentage of VO2 max compared to the other group. Now, what's important to also note is that both groups, when they split these, RPE, like rating perceived exertion, like you use on Athletica,
the feel, all that stuff, it was the same across everyone. So everyone worked as hard as they could. But you have to kind of ask yourself, why did half of the group kind of adapt and the other didn't? Why was the one group able to exercise at a high percentage of VO2 max, but the other one wasn't? Well, when I had a closer look at the data, it was those with the greater volume of what we're talking about today, base training.
the athletes that were adapting, the athletes that were exercising at a higher percentage of the VO2 max had a significantly higher amount of in their, of total training time and specifically zone one training time. There wasn't much, it was only maybe two hours more, but it was like, was subtly more, it was statistically significant. And that was the factor that was really segregating the two groups.
So pretty, again, and this is never, I don't believe this has ever been shown. It's a coach hunch that you need to do base training. And I think the hunch was really proven here. This is kind of how it all cycles back and loops in.
Marjaana Rakai (:And when you say zone one, it a three zone model? under that first ventilatory threshold. okay. So really easy, easy. Yeah. Nice.
Paul Laursen (:No, it was a five zone model, but it was actually pretty easy. Yeah. Yeah. But I've had others that, you know, that have really, have talked about the importance of zone one training, right? Like, you know, and I know I go back to, you know, pro athlete I coached, you know, Ironman Lanzarote champion, Andy Buescher, he was doing extra walks all the time, right. And just doing a lot of aerobic based training.
Paul Warloski (:Really easy. Wow.
Paul Laursen (:all around all of his key sessions. So it's important.
Marjaana Rakai (:We could talk about the intensity control that the Norwegians are so good at and also the beautiful country. know, hiking is very popular. You know, just movement in general is very, it's a different world over there compared to the North American culture. So zone one training is easy to do, not because Norway has a lot of hills, but they just naturally know how to.
Paul Laursen (:Mm-hmm.
Marjaana Rakai (:control their intensity, like easy, easy, And even you go uphill. Like if you're running, if you're, if you're running uphill, you control your intensity by just walking uphill. Right.
Paul Laursen (:Yeah, that's right. And it's so.
Paul Warloski (:Paul, do think there was a... Go ahead. Go ahead.
Paul Laursen (:I was just gonna say, just to finish Marjaana point, I think if we contrast that to, let's call it the North American culture, where we have more of a no pain, no gain philosophy, right? Go hard all the time, right? And like you're kinda saying, MJ, there's almost, it's bred into the culture, like intensity control. It's okay to be doing the easy, long stuff, right? And do that base training. Whereas we might be more,
Marjaana Rakai (:Mm-hmm.
Paul Laursen (:susceptible in our North American culture to drift more into that mid-zone training thinking, you know, got to work hard in this workout to get the most out of it. And that's not the case in the potentially more successful Norwegian culture.
Paul Warloski (:I just wanted to continue piggybacking. Is there a difference in your mind with that data, zone one versus zone two in a five zone model? I mean, is there, I mean, should we be shooting for zone one?
Paul Laursen (:You know, I don't know if we, I think it's kind of splitting hairs a little bit. I don't think it's, I don't think there's a whole lot different there in between the zone one and two, but it was, you know, they measured it and that was the one that was significantly different in the high via 2 max percentage group compared to the low via 2 max percentage group. Substantially, you know, it was like almost two hours more in the zone one group.
Paul Warloski (:Okay.
Paul Laursen (:and who knows why it was, right? It was just kind of a retrospective analysis, but this is, they were absurd, you know, making observations, to try to figure out, who was, you who was the group that was adapting. And it was like, it was the, the group adapting had over two hours more, in total training load of total training time. And most of that was in zone one, a little bit, actually a little bit in zone two. It was like, you know,
it was a balance kind of of zone one and two, but the zone one was the significant one, but it was more easy training. And more easy training means more fat, more fat burning. And then I go back to the paper, I've said it so many times, I'm sorry I'm boring you, but it's like the paper I did with Steven Seiler, and basically it's titled, you know, Rethinking the Role of Fat Metabolism.
Marjaana Rakai (:Yeah.
Paul Laursen (:in endurance sports. And remember in that study where we had the two groups, we had the highly trained group doing, know, they were kind of elites and they were training like, you know, 10 sessions a week. And then we had the recreationally trained runners that were only training three times a week, you know, same RPE is the same at the end of every HIIT session, but the elites, higher VO2 max and greater performance was explained.
by their greater fat burning percentage. The bigger base training was explaining the HIIT sessions. So maybe it's fundamental, but I don't think it is. I don't think everyone kind of really appreciates that. Like you want to have that big base foundation and the base foundation kicks back and it facilitates or leads to...
the successful HIIT sessions that allow you to adapt and probably continue on after you've done that session probably helps with the whole recovery
Marjaana Rakai (:Well, it's kind of a little bit of a chicken and egg, you know, like when, when you're high, you have a high fitness, it's easier to stay within zone one. When you have lower fitness, like when you start fitness, you shoot up straight from zone one, two to three, right? So when you have a group of highly trained athletes.
Paul Warloski (:Mm-hmm.
Marjaana Rakai (:What used to be their zone two is zone one now, right? Because their fat metabolism is better, know, many things, of course, but I think like, say somebody's riding 200 watts, what used to be 200 watts zone two for them now is zone one.
Paul Laursen (:Mm-hmm.
That's right. Exactly. And this is the whole principle behind the MAF training. and, and, know, basically that's what Phil MAF tone has kind of been, been saying for 40 years is like, this is why you want to start with that base training first. And you want to have that aerobic foundation. You want to be able to, keep your heart rate relatively low, let the pace or power be what it'll be. And then what you will see as you start to burn more fat is your, that pace or power.
will slowly bump up. just
adjustment over to a really important initiative. Coach MJ is actually a coach for our free MAF training plans. Basically, you'll find them on Athletica, you find them on the forum, you should find them everywhere, but basically, MJ is
coaching you if you're a newbie and a beginner, get out there and grab these free training plans. They'll land in your inbox every week. You can update your calendar and put them in there. And MJ does an amazing job of actually guiding athletes through kind of a coach to 5K training plan to get you started. and it really, she's leveraging.
all of these principles that we're talking about today. So check that out, team.
Paul Warloski (:So what should the balance in the bass period, what should the balance of volume, easy volume versus intensity be?
Paul Laursen (:Well, think, like we said, Paul, I think the bulk certainly should be zone one and two. All right. And again, how you want to split that is really up to you. But then my preference for the majority of individuals, maybe this is excluding a couch to 5K. If you are couch to 5K kind of level, you're just starting out, just do the aerobic base first. But now if you're more...
Marjaana Rakai (:you
Paul Laursen (:You've been through a cycle, right? So we have a lot of Athletica users and they've been through one or two years of training. They're more experienced now. And now they might want to kind of go more the philosophy that we led off with starting where let's start and let's do the majority of this, of our work in the off season as aerobic base, as zone one, as zone two, aerobic sessions. But let's try to maybe add one HIIT session in that week just to keep the
keep everything so we remember all of the great gains that we made last year. And when we kick back off again on our next build phase for the event that we want, it's like we, no problem, we totally know where we're at. And it's just not as hard at all. So it only takes maybe one or two sessions really to get back going again.
Paul Warloski (:Is there any room for tempo or threshold work during the base season or do you think limiting it to HIIT sessions would be the best?
Paul Laursen (:Yeah, I don't think there's any, there's loads of way to skin the cat, right? So I don't think there's any right or wrong way to kind of do that type of training. I think it probably falls within the same bucket as the HIIT session. Cause it's, you know, we know that from one of the heart rate variability studies, the stress you're going to get in your life is about the same. So you can kind of pick one of the other ones.
But yeah, it really probably, whatever feels good, Paul, I think that's probably gonna work for you.
Paul Warloski (:What do you think about the factors that should determine how long you should be doing a base training? Should age or gender or training history or race schedule impact how someone approaches a base season?
Paul Laursen (:Yeah, well, for me, the key context is really the position of that bass period relative to the next event that's important. So you've found an event on the horizon. And if that's the whole year away, then keep it chill and do fun things and just keep your aerobic bass going. But if it's...
If it's an early April race in the Northern Hemisphere and it's coming up soon, then it's going to be a shorter base period and we're going to move to build phases probably a lot quicker.
think we've spoke about age before as well. Age is so relative. It's just because we know there's 70 year olds out there that can just do...
incredible sub-three marathons and the like. it really kind of, it depends on where you are. So I wouldn't say, I don't put chronological age out there, but maybe if you are less experienced, then maybe do a little bit longer one. And then if you're more experienced, can, yeah, you can, it can be potentially a little shorter. So.
A lot of depends in there.
Paul Warloski (:A lot of depends, yeah, yeah.
Marjaana Rakai (:Yeah. Yeah. I would also say there's so many things that dictate how long you want to have
a period or like an easy period mentally is athlete ready to start building up again. know, what else is there in the system? Is there extra stress in the system? Is there niggles and injuries that need to be taken care of?
Paul Laursen (:Big time.
Marjaana Rakai (:Is there maybe some strengths, deficiencies that need to be addressed, like put in a base season and focus on getting rid of the injuries and getting your mindset right and excited about racing and building up towards a race again. That's so important. Like I would not recommend anyone going into a build if they don't feel excited, first of all, and motivated.
Paul Laursen (:Mm-hmm.
Marjaana Rakai (:And if there is like a niggle from the previous season, hello, that is still lingering around. And, you know, like if you're, if you're about to do nutritional cleanup, clean the house, clean the house in this base season, like I did last year. You know, if you're going to work on fat adaptation, base season is prime time.
Paul Laursen (:Hahaha!
Totally. yeah. Could not have said it better. Absolutely. So the strength training, add that in to the aerobic base. Yeah. time for a diet shift. Then now's the time to do it. and, and yeah, make sure all the niggles are gone. Brilliant stuff, MJ.
Paul Warloski (:Yeah. That's a good segue into the next question about strength training and about how do you, you know, the off season and base is often a time for endurance athletes to get into the gym. know, typically with my athletes, I, you know, prescribe two to three days a week to get into the gym. What role do you two think strength training and cross training should play in the base season?
And how can these enhance endurance athletes overall kind of performance? What do you think?
Paul Laursen (:Well, say first of all, for me, if, if just kind of like we said with the diet shift, like, so just like a, know, if you want to experiment with some new diet stuff, the off season or base season is the perfect time to do it. And then, the, but the other thing also to, to that, if you haven't done it before to experiment with is the, is the strength training too, right? Because it can be a great adjunct to your overall, health and, and performance and resiliency ultimately.
And yeah, the, you know, again, just, we need to figure out the best sessions that we need to do. Strength training is so individual. like you, it's, it's great to get help from a professional potentially to actually have a look at where your, you know, potential deficiencies are. It's great. You know, I'm so fortunate myself. I get to speak to, to some of the best out there, you know, and just for my own health, my own, my own stuff and.
So that really helps me, but it can be, you wanna develop a little bit of a repertoire of the things that you want to work on. What are the types of lower body exercises that you're doing? Lunges, squats, deadlifts, and then what are the types of pushes and pulls that you're doing? Type of core exercises that you're doing, and just to have an overall resilient
foundation of strength so that you reduce the chances of you breaking down.
Marjaana Rakai (:Yeah, I think strength training is so important and sometimes a little bit surprising ways. If I go back a few years when I was over training and I did over trained and I wasn't allowed to do a lot of endurance training, I made sure that I still did strength training three times a week.
And I think I'm convinced that that helped me get back into endurance training so much quicker because I kept those fast switch muscles alive and awake. And that just helped me, you know, get back into regular training so much quicker because they weren't all wasted.
Paul Laursen (:Mm-hmm.
For sure. And the other thing you can also do during the strength training work as well, right, is you can do a lot of mobility work and floor exercise stuff as well, especially in us, you know, us aging athletes. I know I really need to do that. My joints are pretty sore from my years upon years of, you know, beating it out on the pavement. And yeah, I have to do a lot of, you know, rolling and mobility work now just to kind of make sure that I'm not too stiff as I'm.
Paul Warloski (:Thank
Paul Laursen (:moving around in my days and juggling honestly between sitting and moving as well. Because probably so many of us are in that kind of boat, whether you're commuting to work or you've got a bit of a desk job. I'm probably preaching to the choir on this podcast here. Right. But yeah, so making sure that you're setting aside time in your practice as well to just to work on that mobility stuff.
Marjaana Rakai (:Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm, totally.
Paul Warloski (:And I think Paul, you bring up a good point about not just doing, you know, lower body kind of work that cyclists and runners might traditionally do, but you're doing, you know, chest and shoulder push and pull so that you're strengthening your, basically from your shoulders to your hips and your core is strong. was coaching several, cyclists who do really long distance, you know, over 10 hour kind of things. And we spent so much time strength training and they were at.
Why are we doing this? It's like, because you're going to be supporting, you know, your body for a long time and you need to be resilient and strong to be able to put out that kind of power for that long a time.
Paul Laursen (:Mm-hmm.
Yeah, totally. And speaking to Swain, Swain Tuft, you'll know Paul, it's just like cyclists in the culture are kind of notorious for neglecting some of that upper body stuff as well. Like, you look at some of the classic climbers and stuff, right? They're not looking too much like gym junkies, right?
Paul Warloski (:Mm-hmm.
They're not in the gym.
Paul Laursen (:But nevertheless, don't forget those humans still, they'll finish cycling one day and they'll still want to be able to lift heavy stuff up to, you know, wherever, a top shelf somewhere in their garage. And you just don't want to lose that ability to do that, that living stuff. So it's important to kind of consider and make sure you've got, yeah, make sure you're working on some of the
some of the function don't have to, you so much actually, you don't actually get bigger necessarily. Sometimes you can actually still have strength, neuromuscular strength without bulk and hypertrophy. So just because you're actually moving those limbs with high heavy force and strength and power, it doesn't necessarily mean that hypertrophy follows that and you're going to be reducing your performance.
So don't think of it like that. That doesn't happen. And yeah, don't be afraid of doing that important work.
Marjaana Rakai (:I would argue it's almost impossible for endurance athletes to bulk up. Like it's a hard work to, you know, build muscle. You have to HIIT it hard, like several times a week and support it with adequate energy and protein. A lot of protein.
Paul Laursen (:Okay.
Paul Warloski (:protein.
Paul Laursen (:Yeah, which is great anyways. Don't forget the protein for all of us endurance athletes, right? But yeah, you're right. Like it needs, it needs to be, yeah, targeted, right? It's not that it can't be done, but it, yeah, it needs to be targeted.
Marjaana Rakai (:Yes. Yes, we need it.
Paul Warloski (:No.
Marjaana Rakai (:And it needs like this. Yeah. But same like with building up your V or two max, like it's not a couple of week thing. It takes a lot of time. Same with, you know, building muscle. It's not just done in a base season. Like it takes sometimes months, if not years to build.
Paul Laursen (:Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's right. just yeah, so hitting it once in the week is just going to be more of maintenance and maintaining that strength and power as opposed to any sort of bulking up. So don't be afraid to do it.
Marjaana Rakai (:Mm-hmm.
Paul Warloski (:How do you two balance the scheduling of strength training with on the bike or running or swimming endurance without overloading the body during the base season?
Paul Laursen (:Yeah, I don't think, I think there's, as we always say, there's lots of ways to skin the cat. I don't think there's a really too, especially in the base period of, I don't, you know, there's where there should be a little bit more time available and the load, when I say load, it's overall stress, right? It's lower than the build periods. So you should have more time for it. It should be a little bit more laissez-faire relaxed, chilled about it. And, yeah, I want to get into the gym.
Marjaana Rakai (:Mm-hmm.
Paul Laursen (:It's going to make me feel better in my day. I'm going to feel more activated if I kind of go and do that. So there's lots of places to place that in your
Marjaana Rakai (:Yeah, I think, I, I guide somebody who wants to do strength training or has understood the importance of doing strength training and it's base season. start with the micro dose, like 15, do 15 minutes. You can find 15 minutes in your day to do it. And then we build from that. Like then it's 20 minutes and then it's 30 minutes. So just like, if you want to get into strength routine, it's easier to just.
Paul Laursen (:Mm-hmm.
Marjaana Rakai (:get into the micro dosing and get that regular before you start like jumping big bites and doing an hour session. And of course, depending on if you have dumbbells or bands at home, those 15 minutes are easier to do than, you know, going to the gym and looking at the dumbbell rack and not quite knowing what you're doing. So.
Paul Laursen (:Totally. And I'll just add one last thing is that you don't even have to have that gym equipment. It's great to have if you have that, but you can do so much just of body weight exercises. can do, mean, try to do a single leg squat. That's pretty demanding actually to do a single leg squat. you feel like a double leg squat is too easy for you, work towards a single leg squat, right?
Marjaana Rakai (:Mm-hmm.
Paul Laursen (:Just use it, you know, use a counter or something to kind of balance yourself. You'll feel how much like how much weight you're lifting there with that single leg, especially if you go deep. And then there's the balance aspects of that as well. That's like this decent strength that's in there all through the, through the, you know, glutes and, and, and quads. It's really like this there you can do. Anyone can do that. Pushups, chin ups, all these things can be done on a playground that you could find.
in your nearby area. So there's really not too many excuses for not being able to do some form of SNC in your program, even if you don't have anything.
Marjaana Rakai (:Mm-hmm.
Paul Warloski (:Sounds like we need an episode on strength training for the base season. For our, yeah, yeah. So here are my takeaways from today about our base season is that the traditional base season should be a mix of training, but primarily zone one and two in a five zone model with one HIIT session in a week.
Paul Laursen (:Sounds good. Let's do it.
Paul Warloski (:Number two,
Similarly, the slow endurance means more fat burning, which is what we're really looking for because that is being shown that is going to give us more. It's going to set us up for better VO2 max adaptation when we do the hard stuff. And number three, getting the gym. That's kind of the key, you know, during this base phase to build strength and mobility. It's a great time to experiment with strength training to
Improve your resiliency or overall, you know foundation of strength to reduce the chances of breaking down later in the season So those are the three takeaways that's all for this week Join us next week on the athletes compass podcast ask your training questions in the comments or in the athletic social media sites If you enjoyed this episode, we'd appreciate it If you would take us take a moment to give us a follow or a five-star review or both
It would be awesome if you could share this episode with one person, just one. For more information or to schedule a consultation with Paul, Marjaana or myself, check the links in the show notes. For Marjaana Rakai and Dr. Paul Laursen I am Paul Warloski and this has been the Athletes Compass Podcast. Thank you for listening.
