Train smarter, not harder
Train smarter, not harder
The ancient Greek roots of a modern Norwegian training protocol
Yesterday I read about a 93-year-old four-time world rowing champion with the fitness levels of a 40-year-old.
What's remarkable to me about the story isn’t his rowing medals (every age group has its own competitions) but that he had lived a sedentary lifestyle until he started rowing at the age of 72.
On one level, aging poses a constraint. But constraints can be a forcing function to increase creativity. It’s the old “work smarter, not harder,” applied to training.
Smarter here is about timing and dosing your exercise to get the optimal adaptive response from a given level of effort. In my twenties, I could afford to "push-it-to-the-limit" without consequences. But aging has forced me to learn more about optimizing hormones, biomechanics, and metabolism, to stave off what many consider the inevitable physical decline of aging.
As I’ve said, I plan to be more fit at 40 than I was at 30 (maybe even 20), and keep increasing my vitality decade after decade until I keel over.
Too many people have accepted "managed decline" way before its necessary.
What’s true in health is mirrored in politics and culture. From working class to ruling class, lots of Americans seem apathetic about our inevitable decline (I say it’s only inevitable if we let it happen, but that's a topic for another day).
In this post, I'm going to limit myself to describe in broad strokes the training protocol I’m following for this year's JFK50-mile march. I'll focus on practical advice for training smarter and getting hormonally fit, so you can keep leveling up with each passing decade.
If you’re curious to go deeper, I’m still looking for beta readers to provide feedback on the training manual I’m writing.
In the past, my training consisted of running, swimming, biking, and occasional resistance workouts. However, I didn't have time for regular long-distance walking, so I had to condense my training.
Last year, I did much of my training on a bike. But after experiencing ankle trouble during the march itself, I realized I needed to "bulletproof" my body for the specific stress of going on foot. Biking provided aerobic benefits but didn't prepare me for walking.
Running is my main method to address this. Although it uses different muscles, the basic mechanics of legs, feet, gravity, and impact are similar to walking.
The problem with running – especially distance running – is that it can lead to chronic stress injuries like shin splints and plantar fasciitis. Talk to any runners you know, and you'll hear a litany of problems they’ve had, from shin splints to plantar fasciitis. Poor technique, overly protective footwear, and ramping up too quickly can contribute to these issues, but insufficient recovery time is probably the main factor.
To mitigate this, I have been staggering my runs:
One long-distance, moderate intensity, run on Sundays
A couple of shorter runs throughout the week, alternating a moderate pace with a sprinting element, in between other kinds of workouts
This approach of varying intensity and prioritizing recovery isn't new; in fact, it dates back to the simple yet genius training system developed by the ancient Greeks known as the Tetrad.
Modernizing the Ancient Greek Tetrad Training Program
The Greeks understood the importance of balancing stress and recovery for both body and mind. They trained holistically, developing physical prowess alongside mental and philosophical growth. The Tetrad reflects this emphasis, with days dedicated to pushing limits and others focused on rest and recovery. The Tetrad was a four-day training cycle used by ancient Greek athletes and warriors to optimize performance and minimize injury. Developed sometime before the 1st century AD, it was a systematic approach that allowed for different aspects of fitness to be trained at specific intervals.
According to Philostratus, a Greek sophist, the Tetrad looked like this:
Day 1: Preparation - Light exercises to warm up and activate muscles. This included activities like easy jogs, mobility work, and technique drills.
Day 2: Intense Training - High-intensity, all-out efforts. This was the day for heavy lifting, sprints, and pushing limits. Athletes would engage in strenuous workouts designed to test their strength, power and endurance.
Day 3: Relaxation - Active recovery to facilitate healing. Stretching, massage, and low-intensity movement were key. This phase was crucial for allowing the body to repair and rejuvenate.
Day 4: Moderate Training - A medium-hard workout to reinforce gains without overdoing it. The goal was to maintain progress while preventing exhaustion and overtraining. [1]
This system shares similarities with modern interval training, alternating high-intensity bouts with periods of rest. The ancients may not have had the scientific terminology, but they keenly understood the importance of not going all-out, all the time. Modern trainers call this “periodization” – i.e., varying intensity and volume to optimize adaptation and minimize the risk of overtraining.
One recent offshoot based on this principle is the "Polarized Training Method," pioneered by Norwegian sports scientist Dr. Stephen Seiler.
Polarized training involves spending ~80% of training time in low-intensity zones and ~20% in high-intensity work and rest. Research on elite endurance athletes shows that this leads to the greatest improvements in VO2 max and lactate threshold. [2]
When you push your body to its limits during high-intensity exercise, your muscles start producing lactic acid faster than your body can clear it out. This is your lactate threshold, and it's a crucial point in your training.
As lactic acid builds up, it lowers the pH in your muscles, making them more acidic. This acidity is what causes that burning sensation and eventual fatigue. It's your body's way of saying, "Hey, we're working too hard to keep up!"
After you've crossed your lactate threshold, your body needs extra oxygen to clear out the lactic acid and restore your muscles to their normal state. The longer you stay above that threshold, the more lactic acid you produce, and the bigger your oxygen debt grows. The reason you feel so exhausted and sore after a hard workout is that your body is working overtime to pay back that oxygen debt and clear out all the lactic acid.
Some say this is an argument for ditching anaerobic training altogether.
But by strategically exposing yourself to that high-intensity stress and then allowing adequate recovery, you train your body to tolerate more lactic acid and process it more efficiently. Over time, you raise your lactate threshold, meaning you can work harder and longer before hitting that wall.
By spending the majority of your time in low-intensity zones, you build a strong aerobic base without constantly stressing your body. Then, when you do hit those high-intensity intervals, you're able to push your lactate threshold a bit higher each time.
The key is to keep high-intensity bouts relatively short and always follow them with plenty of recovery. That way, you're getting the benefits of the stress without drowning in lactic acid and racking up a massive oxygen debt.
It’s like weight training for your metabolism. You're essentially teaching your body to clear lactic acid more efficiently and tolerate higher levels of intensity. And like with weights, the real magic happens during recovery, when your body rebuilds itself stronger than before.
The low-intensity "Zone 2" training builds your aerobic engine, allowing faster recovery and more high-intensity work over time. It's a pace where you can hold a conversation but breathe a bit harder than normal. My rule of thumb, when I’m running, is being able to maintain nasal breathing.
The high-intensity "Zone 5" work includes sprint intervals, hill repeats, and tempo runs. These sessions push limits and stimulate cardiovascular and muscular adaptations but also require significant recovery.
Polarized training is also adaptable: for beginners, low-intensity might mean walking with jogging intervals. As fitness improves, the low-intensity work becomes jogging interspersed with short periods of running. For advanced athletes, it could be running at a solid pace with sprinting mixed in.
By dancing on the edge of your limits and then backing off, you gradually expand your capacity without burning yourself out.
The Pentad: A Modified 5-Day Training Cycle
The Pentad is my twist on the ancient Tetrad - a 5-day cycle adapted for the realities of a typical work week and the specific demands of the JFK50 . It takes the core principles of the Tetrad and polarized training—varying intensity, building an aerobic base, prioritizing recovery—and applies them in a way that's both time-efficient and recovery-efficient.
The Pentad takes the core principles of polarization and the Tetrad—the strategic variation of intensity, the focus on both resistance training and aerobic base-building, and the importance of rest and recovery—and applies them to a 5-day training cycle that better accommodates a typical work week. The Pentad is designed to be both time-efficient and recovery-efficient, allowing you to make gains while still leaving room for the rest of your life.
The Pentad also incorporates other training modalities beyond running, like strength training, mobility work, and cross-training activities like swimming and cycling.
The key is the alternation of aerobic and strength/resistance days, as well as hard and easy days, The Pentad structure ensures that harder workouts are followed by adequate rest and recovery. The more intense the workout, the more recovery time is needed to allow for adaptation and reduce the risk of injury.
Here's what my Pentad looked like last week:
Monday: Prep work. Easy run (3.5 miles) and recovery with bodyweight exercises and mental preparation.
Tuesday: Intense training. Pavel's 5x5 "Naked Warrior" workout: 5 sets of 5 single-legged "pistol" squats on each leg with 30 lb weights, plus 5 sets of one-armed pushups.
Wednesday: Recovery. Cold creek swim and breathing exercises.
Thursday: Moderate training. Short run.
Friday: Knees Over Toes workout for biomechanical conditioning and injury prevention.
Saturday: Chores and work around the property, hikes with family.
Sunday: Distance run. Hilly 5 miles at 8-minute mile pace. Active recovery with stretching and a cool-down.
Within each session, I'm also waving the intensity. My sprints might include all-out efforts followed by jogging recoveries. My strength sessions involve plenty of rest between heavy sets.
This cycle of stress and recovery plays out on multiple levels - within individual workouts, across the 5-day cycle, and over longer training blocks. It's fractal in nature.
The idea is to keep the body guessing and avoid stagnation. By constantly varying the stress you place on your body in a structured way, you stimulate adaptation without ever pushing too hard for too long.
And this principle doesn't just apply to training. It extends to the broader "seasons" of life. There will be times when you can go all-in on your training, and others when you need to pull back and prioritize other things.
Between overtraining and undertraining, overtraining is the greater risk. We have to flirt with overtraining to find that sweet spot—pushing yourself just enough to stimulate growth and adaptation—while also giving your body and mind the rest they need to come back stronger.
As the saying goes, "moderation in all things.” This is especially true when it comes to moderation! You can’t spend all of your workouts in “zone 2.” Sometimes, a little bit of excess is exactly what we need to break through plateaus and reach new levels of performance.
"Train Like an Ancient Greek Athlete." Greek Reporter, 7 Jan. 2024, https://greekreporter.com/2024/01/07/train-like-ancient-greek-athlete/.
"Applying the Polarized Training Model with Dr. Stephen Seiler." Fast Talk Labs, https://www.fasttalklabs.com/fast-talk/applying-the-polarized-training-model-with-dr-stephen-seiler/.