If you’re a triathlete looking to take your training to the next level, then understanding the progressive overload training principle is essential.
The overload principle states that for physical performance and endurance levels to improve, an athlete must gradually increase their workload over time. This means pushing yourself further than before so that you can become stronger and faster.
In this article, we’ll explore how best to apply progression overload principles specifically tailored towards triathlon training – from increasing cardiovascular endurance, muscle strength, and muscle endurance as well as injury prevention strategies for athletes over 40 years old.
Understanding Progression Overload for Triathlon Training
Progression overload is an important concept for triathletes to understand. It describes the strategy of gradually intensifying physical exertion to accomplish desired goals.
The reason this is so important is that so many triathletes take the ‘couch to 70.3®’ or ‘couch to 10k’ challenge a little too literally, and attempt to go straight from the couch to the 10k in their training on week one.
They then typically spend weeks two and three of their training program at the physiotherapist, before repeating the whole process again in week four (because now the race is two weeks away and they have to make up all the sessions they missed while at physio…).
Patience is hard but rewarding, and progressive overload is therefore a critical skill to master for sustainable improvements in triathlon, particularly as you build up to longer races.
This is especially important for athletes over 40 who may be looking to increase their performance levels without risking injury or burnout.
Wondering how on earth you’re going to fit it all in? See our tips on how to get it all done without sacrificing your family life here.
Progressive Overload for Cardiovascular Endurance
To improve cardiovascular endurance, progressive overload involves gradually increasing the intensity and duration of your workouts across swimming, running, and cycling.
The idea is to establish a baseline – a comfortable pace that you can maintain for 20-30 minutes (less for swimming) and then adding in more distance and speed to that baseline as your program progresses.
As you progress, add intervals into your workouts by alternating between higher and lower intensities throughout each training session.
Takeaway
In endurance training, the rule of thumb is 10%. Your aim should be to increase your mileage (or duration) of workouts by no more than 10% per week until you have reached the volume of training in line with your goals.
As an example, if your long run in week one is 30 minutes long, then your long run in week two should be 33 minutes, run at a similar easy pace.
Progressive Overload for Muscle Endurance
Progressive overload can also help build muscle endurance through resistance training exercises like bodyweight exercises, hill repeats, or harder intervals.
For triathletes, being patient and building up slowly in this part of their training program represents one of the biggest challenges, for one very simple reason.
Social media.
One down, 39 to go. Just another day in the life of a pro.
If you’re watching a ‘day in the life of a pro’ video on Facebook, they aren’t filming videos about their recovery week easy run followed by a stretch and a nap.
They’re showcasing their once-a-week hill repeat run, where they do 40X5 minutes running straight up a mountain at their 5k race pace because that makes for far more interesting viewing.
And you’re watching that and thinking ‘well, I’m not a pro, so I should start small with only 20X5 minutes up my local mountain, maybe every second day (because, you know, recovery), and then I can get to 40 reps by this time next week, and then I’m going to totally crush my local super sprint race next month’.
Unless you’re actually dating your physiotherapist, please don’t do this.
Progressive Overload for Strength Training
Strength training requires a similar approach to cardiovascular fitness when it comes to progressive overload. It’s all about lifting heavier weights over time to stimulate muscle growth and strength gains.
Strength training presents a unique challenge however, in that more benefit is derived from lifting heavy weights than a high number of repetitions with lighter weights, and so all of us (young or old, male or female) should aim to lift heavier weight than we may be accustomed to.
Jumping straight into heavier weights to try and drive strength gains is another surefire way to injure yourself, however.
Beginners should start off light and focus on proper form rather than how much weight they are lifting. Once you have the technique mastered, you can add small increments of weight every week until reaching maximum capacity, with no loss of form.
Having grasped the importance of progressive overload for triathlon training, we can now start to incorporate these concepts into our own personalized training regimen.
Applying Progressive Overload Principles
When applying progressive overload principles to your training program, it’s important to remember that gradual increases are best.
Start by adding small increments each week or month – such as an extra mile on a run or an additional set of reps during strength training – then build up from there as you get used to the new level of effort.
Another important factor when using progressive overload is rest days; these are just as crucial for making gains as intense workouts are taxing on the body (in a good way!).
The goal with harder sets is to literally break your muscles down and then allow them time to repair and become stronger before repeating the process.
A good rule of thumb is one rest day for every two hard-training days; this will help keep fatigue levels down while still allowing enough time for improvement in performance over time.
Takeaway
Progressive overload is a critical part of triathlon training, so gradually increasing the intensity training frequency and difficulty of workouts over time is key. It’s crucial to include adequate rest and recovery, as not doing so will slow down any progress or worse, lead to injury.
If you find yourself struggling after increasing intensity or duration significantly, don’t be afraid to back off a bit until your body has had some time to catch up with the changes made in training load.
This is particularly important if you are over 40. As athletes age, it is important to adjust training techniques to keep progressing; this section will look at how best to accomplish that.
Progressive Overload for Athletes Over 40
Progressive overload is a training method that helps athletes gradually increase their strength and endurance.
Older triathletes, in particular, should take advantage of the progressive overload training technique to build up their strength and endurance gradually.
This isn’t to say that older athletes should take it easy, or that we can’t be competitive on race day. We just need to be a little more focused on balancing intensity with recovery over time.
Many training programs run a cycle of three weeks of harder sessions followed by one week of recovery. Older athletes may find better results from running two weeks of hard sessions followed by a week of recovery, as an example.
Progressive overload within these two-week training blocks could mean
- an increase in your speed during interval sessions by 5-10%
- aiming to decrease rest time between intervals week over week
- extending an interval set from 5X400 yds to 6X400 yds as examples.
The key is to be consistent over an extended period so that you can progressively overload workouts to build upon each other, rather than causing overexertion or injury due to sudden increases in intensity or volume.
When applied correctly, progressive overload principles will help ensure muscles work harder, while avoiding any potential risks associated with overtraining such as fatigue and burnout from too much physical exertion without enough rest time between sessions.
Takeaway
Progressive overload is a powerful tool for athletes over 40 to reach their goals in triathlon, but it must be used carefully and with an eye towards injury prevention. As such, the next heading will discuss how progressive overload strategy can help prevent injuries while still providing effective training results.
Injury Prevention with Progressive Overload
By pushing the body beyond its current limits, it can build strength skeletal muscle, and endurance without risking injury.
An easy way to build out a progressive overload training program is to incorporate the FITT Principle into your approach.
FITT stands for Frequency, Intensity, Time, and Type – factors that must be considered when constructing a workout regimen.
- Frequency describes how often you work on a specific training stimulus, such as cardiovascular fitness. You could build up from two runs to three in a week.
- Intensity relates to the level of effort you’re applying in a training session. You can increase the number of reps in high-intensity sessions slowly over time.
- Time refers to the duration of an activity. Progressive overloading in this context involves adding time (10% max) to your long run each week as an example.
- Type describes which type of activity you’re working on, for example, strength training. Progressive overload training can be achieved by increasing one type of activity in your training program while holding others to the same amount.
Using the FITT principle and the progressive overload method, beginner triathletes should gradually increase their intensity levels over time to build strength and endurance without risking injury. Start small and slowly progress until desired goals are reached – just make sure you don’t have sudden spikes in Frequency, Intensity, Time, or Type of activity!
Check out more tips for a balanced training plan here.
Putting Progressive Overload Training into Practice
Understanding and applying the overload principle is essential for any triathlete looking to improve their endurance. It’s critical to balance increases in intensity with rest and recovery, to decrease the possibility of injury while still allowing for progression.
Progressive overload doesn’t always mean more spending more time. Lifting weights gives you the chance to increase resistance rather than increase the number of repetitions for example.
Finally, treat any increases with the respect they deserve. If your aim is to increase speed, add intervals rather than pushing through one long stretch of high-intensity effort.
By taking these steps into consideration, you can sustainably increase your training volume while controlling for the strain you are putting on your body.
In order to get the most out of this approach, consider working with a qualified triathon coach.