© Lanterne Rouge
The Bootcamp Fitness Endurance Team had another successful day at the races. Last Sunday we took our fitness to the God’s Country Offroad Duathalon at the River Trails in Lawrence, which featured 2.5 Miles of trail running followed by 10+ miles of tight single track mountain biking.
It was a beautiful day and a great success to boot. Our own Coach Rut came in Third place in his division, and Coach Emily came in Second in hers! Congratulations to you both.
This race gave stunning proof of the power of our training program. Our athletes trained very little for this specific event, but fared very well against the specialists they were competing against. Our broad base of fitness allowed us to be successful at this race while maintaining strengths and abilities the other bike-and-run-only racers simply lack.
Congratulations again, Team. Let’s keep up the good work!
BFKC Blog
What format do your athletes follow? Is it the Monday, Wednesday, Friday program from the website alongside Crossfit endurance?
The specifics can vary by athlete (and their goals, abilities, time etc.), but the common element running through all of the programming is developing a foundation of General Physical Preparedness or GPP.
Our athletes build GPP through high-intensity workouts that combine a variety of functional movements, done at least three times per week. The Fitness Conduit program on our website that you mention is a great resource for such programming. Many of our athletes participate in either our Bootcamp Classes or our Advanced/Crossfit classes 3-5 times per week. These classes offer GPP-developing workouts to students of all fitness and ability levels. Whatever route you go, this broad foundation is the most important element to the training.
To that solid foundation of GPP we add a very modest amount of sport-specific training. Here too, the specifics can vary. Crossfit Endurance has some great programming. Our Endurance blog post from February 28th, 2011 outlines our “One Two Three” method for adding three sport sessions per week (speed, tempo and volume), and includes a tempo calculator for runners.
We have found, however, that our athletes can get by with even less sport specific training provided they maintain a solid foundation in GPP. Case in point, the duathaletes this weekend fared very well despite very little sport specific training. They participated in the Advanced/Crossfit group 3-5 times per week as the core. Several only ran about 5x total in the last few months, others ran a mere 1x per week. None of our competitors had ridden a bike more than 2 or 3 times total since last fall. This includes our podium finishers… Again, that’s a true testament to the power of GPP and generally the power of this sort of programming.
Hopefully that will get you pointed in the right direction. Remember, the General Physical Preparedness is the key. Follow the Fitness Conduit, come to some Bootcamp classes, go to a Crossfit affiliate, just make sure you get your 3+ days of GPP work in. From there any sport specific training is gravy, you’ll already be READY.
Thanks for the reply.
I’m assuming its the GPP work on M/W/F (for me it will have to be the website as I live in Bermuda and the commute to Kansas City will be brutal) and then the One Two Three ideas on the Tuesdays and Thursdays and weekends.
Right now I’m accepting retirement from serious rugby playing and trying to embrace another sport (running) to satisfy my need to train for ‘something’. Registered for the Peachtree 10k in July and that’s the first step.
Here too the specifics can vary a bit depending on your schedule, but you definitely have the right idea.
Get those three days of GPP in on the days that suit your schedule, then fit the sport-specific in training around that. In a pinch you could even do them on the same day, just make sure you put more than 3 hours in between [eg GPP before work in the AM and run in the evening]. Ideally you’ll alternate days as you mention and as we lay out in the “One Two Three” plan.
Adequate rest and recovery is crucial. If you start to feel beat up, dial back the sport specific days. As I said above, you can get by with surprisingly little if your GPP is honed.
Finally, I’d be a bad coach if I didn’t stress the importance of nutrition. We highly endorse the Paleo approach. This training regimen mixed with Paleo eating makes for monster athletes!
Work hard! Let us know if you have other questions and let us know how the 10k goes.
Mark
We were discussing Internet coaching on the email when the conversation stopped and I am worried I may not have replied to your last email. I wanted to know where I could look on the site and see what Internet coaching entailed.
Thanks again