Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. While this blog tends to wander with my mind and interests, it had at its heart the foundation of rigorous physical movement as a part of the path towards enlightenment and some sort of inner peace.
With that in mind, i wanted to talk about the concept that was presented on one of my last zwift workouts. Durability.
Zwift is the virtual cycling platform I use to train. They have curated a very extensive library of training plans and workouts, developed by professional coaches and athletes across multiple cycling and and endurance disciplines.
Each of these curated workouts has some text pop ups periodically throughout the workout. They range from small coaching tips and motivational messages, to full scientific explanations of the training methodology. The latter normally coming in the warmup phase when you aren’t focused on sucking air and trying not to embarrassingly fall off a fixed bike trainer.
As I was spinning my legs, warming up, and getting into the right headspace for a more focused training session, I wasn’t really ready for the very scientific and research based information that was being displayed in fading text bubbles.
The words passed along the screen, and I had enough otherwise unoccupied attention to realize they were important and interesting. I immediately pulled out my phone to search for the fragments of the explanation I could remember.
I found the following research paper, which was obviously the one the coach and designer of the workout was referring to, since he quoted the definition of durability verbatim.
“Therefore, applied exercise physiologists working with endurance athletes would benefit from development of physiological-profiling models that account for shifts in physiological-profiling variables during prolonged exercise and quantify the ‘durability’ of individual athletes, defined as, “the time of onset, and magnitude of deterioration, in physiological-profiling characteristics over time, during prolonged exercise.”
The team from Auckland University argues that much of the information that goes into training plan design and race pacing strategy is based on variables that are measured in a static, and usually rested, environment. Those variables of course change and degrade with time and effort. The time of onset and magnitude of deterioration is important to understand for each athlete in maximizing performance.
The workouts seek to measure or at least help you understand these characteristics in yourself by putting you into a state of fatigue, and then having some sort of repeatable assessment .
A cycling example would be a five minute time trial at the end of designed one hour workout. A running example could use an all out one mile time after a similarly structured one hour workout.
How long into a prolonged effort does your performance start to deteriorating? What is the magnitude of that deterioration? Is it linear? Does it change drastically with different perceived levels of exertion? Just how durable are you?
These are important questions. Regardless of your status as an endurance athlete, or an athlete at all. How durable are you mentally? Emotionally?
I can certainly think of more than a few instances with my boys where the ‘time of onset and magnitude of deterioration’ in my emotional profiling characteristics would not be considered durable.
As a triathlete this research fascinates me. I also directly benefit from it since coaches are reading it and using it to design workouts I have access to. I also think the ability to say ‘here defined as’ is magical.
The research team is able to specify the niche in which they wish to work. The set the definitions. They remove the potential for misconception as well as focus the readers attention in the desired direction.
Of course my mind takes the concept and wanders with it. Applying it to fatherhood, to my marriage, to research and writing projects after a long run. All of that is still within the confines of their definition. Here defined as.
The coaches and exercise physiologists can develop workouts and training plans that improve durability. Increase the time to onset. Reduce the magnitude of deterioration. Maybe even a little of each.
Who wouldn’t like to be a little more physically durable? Who wouldn’t like to be a little more mentally or emotionally durable? I think there is plenty of room for crossover between the two.
I’m by no means suggesting you deliberately exhaust yourself prior to handling a temper tantrum. But the next time it happens, as a parent and an athlete it is a matter of when not if, see it as an opportunity to become more durable.
Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.