Base Training
By Rich Strauss

January is the start of the new year and the start of the new triathlon season for many people. It's a time when you hear the word "Base" a lot during group rides and runs. "Oh, I'm going easy today. Just building my Base, you know." Or, "Wow, with a Base like that he should have a great season this year." Or the dreaded, "You know, he shouldn't be working that hard this soon. He should be building his Base instead."

First, a few principles:

1. The most effective training method is to build more advanced athletic abilities on top of more basic athletic abilities. For example, we first learn proper stroke mechanics for our swim. Then on top of this we build endurance. After this is established, we put power and speed on top of it. This is the idea behind the word Base: you build a solid foundation of fitness and then put other "stuff" on it.
   
2. Ultimately, the most desirable training adaptations, the ones that make you go faster, occur as you expose your body to more lactic acid. The point at which you are exposed to high lactate levels, and can maintain this effort for a long period of time, is your Lactate Threshold Heart Rate. At this level of effort your body is eliminating lactate as quickly as it is being produced. Because the good stuff happens at this heart rate level, it is best to describe training zones by their relation to this heart rate.
   
3. Other desirable training adaptations occur at the opposite end of this intensity spectrum, at easy, aerobic efforts. These are the ones we want to develop during base training.

So what exactly happens to your body during this base training?

Many things:

• Muscles and connective tissues are strengthened, enabling them to handle increased volume and intensity later on. This is especially important for the run.
  
  
• Your body learns to burn fat and spare glycogen, enabling it to go farther.
  
  
• Your body learns the neuromuscular coordination required to perform smooth, efficient movements. Exercise performance becomes more economical and fluid.
  
  
• Your blood volume goes up, increasing the ability to deliver oxygen to working muscles.
  
  
• Your heart becomes able to pump a higher volume of blood with each beat, increasing this ability even more.
  
  
• Your muscles build more capillaries to deliver this oxygen to working muscles.

All of these changes are often referred to as "building a bigger engine," meaning that the sum total of these changes is an increased capacity for work. To go in a straight line at a steady speed for a long time.

Why is it necessary to build these athletic abilities first?

During your Base phase, you are training to TRAIN. Base training builds up your body, makes it more efficient and better able to handle the TRAINING that actually makes it faster.

The sum total of these basic training adaptations is called Base Fitness. I like to divide this into two categories: Seasonal Base Fitness, and Cumulative Base Fitness.

Seasonal Base Fitness:

To illustrate this, I'm going to give you a dare. It's January, perhaps you haven't trained seriously in a while. You've packed on a few pounds and our bike has a nice layer of dust on it. Jump on your bike, right now, and do a 7 hour brick. Take a cell phone and be sure to call me from the back of the ambulance.

Now turn the clock to June and do the same dare. Not a problem. Why? The sum total of the training adaptations you acquired from January to May give you the level of fitness required for a 7 hour brick. This is your Seasonal Base Fitness. It is being able to routinely do stuff in June that would have put you in the back of a truck in January. It is this Base Fitness that enables you to do a hard tempo bike on Tuesday, run hard mile repeats on Thursday, do a 5 hour bike on Saturday and a 2.5 hour run on Sunday. This training is the TRAINING that makes you faster. Your base gives you the ability to both handle it and take full advantage of it.

Cumulative Base Fitness:

This is the total of base fitness gained from several years of endurance training. This explains why Lance Armstrong can do 4-5 hour bike rides day after day and IØcan not. His cumulative years of cycling have given him a huge base, on top of which he can add 2+ hour tempo bikes, which IØcan not. So when you hear of the monster training weeks that the pro's do, remember that they have established a huge cumulative base through years and years of endurance training. In fact, Olympic athletes are known to train according to 4+ year plans. 3+ years of training so that they are able to do the TRAINING that will get them the gold.

Length of Base Training:

For this discussion, when I say "Base," I am referring to Base 1 (Friel's Triathlete's Training Bible). This is a 6-8 week period of low intensity aerobic exercise characterized by progressively longer "long" weekend training events and lots of technique work in each sport.

General Swim Guidance

The majority of your focus should be on improving your technique, not fitness. At this stage of the season, fitness is a by-product of quality yardage.

1. I recommend 2-3 sessions per week. Two drills-only sessions, and one long continuous swim.
   
   
2. Advance the length of this long swim to about 2000 yd/m. At this point, I believe it is better to then switch to 400-600 yd/m repeats, rather than continuing with very long swims. These are more effective at getting you faster than are long continuous swims, and have the same endurance benefits.
   
   
3. For more information, please see Improving Your Swim Technique and Swimming Drills.

General Cycling Guidance

Your ability to go all day, your overall endurance, will be formed on the bike. This is where you will be spending the majority of your training time, and your long bike is the key.

1. Build your bigger engine on your long bikes. Form a sensible progression of long bike rides and keep your efforts easy and aerobic. How long should your bike be? I would say that the endurance benefits of your long bike are so important, that the longer you can ride, the better. A strong base of solid long bikes will benefit you for all distances and will form the foundation for increased training volumes in the future, should you decide to step up to the longer races. These are what I recommend for long bike targets:
   
   
   • Sprint: 2 hours
     
     
   • Olympic: 2-3 hours
     
     
   • Half IM: 3-4 hours
     
     
   • IM: 5.5-6 hours
     
     
2. High cadence cycling and cycling drills. Base training is an excellent time to develop coordinated muscle movement patterns and increase your pedaling efficiency. One of the best ways to do this is by forcing your muscles to work together by pedaling at very high cadences. Some drills:
   
   
   • Spin-Ups. Increase your cadence until you begin to bounce on the saddle. 100+ rpms. Then back off the cadence just a hair and stay there for 1 minute. Recover completely and then repeat. Do about 5-7 repetitions. This bouncing is a result of muscles not working together efficiently. By repeating this drill, your muscles will learn the firing patterns required for efficient coordinated movement.
     
     
   • Isolate Leg Drills: on a trainer, unclip one leg and put it on a chair or stool. Pedal with the other leg and try to "Circle Pedal:" apply power to the pedals smoothly in a circle, by eliminating the dead spots. Think of "scraping mud" off your shoe at 6 o'clock and rolling the top of a barrel at 12 o'clock. A road variation of this is Dominant Leg, where you let one leg do 90% of the work, while the other just goes along for the ride.
     
     
   • You can combine these drills into a single workout.
     
     
   • High cadence cycling for your long rides: just spin, very high cadence (95-105 rpm) for several minutes during your long rides. After this period of high cadence, go back to your normal cadence and see how it feels. Be sure to spend some time in the aero position with this new, efficient pedaling.
     
     
3. Begin Formulating your Race Day Nutrition Plan. For any length of race, you will do the majority of your eating on the bike. Use every long ride as an opportunity to formulate and rehearse your plan.

General Running Guidance

Strengthen your wheels. By this, I mean you should log slow, conservative miles at a low heart rate, strengthening the small connective tissues and muscles in the lower leg. This slow, consistent volume will ensure that you have the architecture to handle higher intensity training to come. Of the three sports, you should be most conservative with your running base. Advance your volume slowly and conservatively.

• Begin to conservatively advance the volume of your long run. Start with a comfortable number of minutes and advance by only 10-15 minutes each week. These runs should be very slow and easy. Again, building the engine and strengthening your lower legs.
  
  
• Try to adopt a high cadence running style and work on your running form. Please see Proper Running Form and Running Workout Descriptions for more information.

Strength Training

Most triathletes can benefit from a periodized strength training program during their base training. Please refer to Strength Training for some general guidance on strength training throughout the season. I will publish a weight lifting program at a future date.

In general, the character of your aerobic training in early base is very easy and low stress. This is an excellent opportunity to get in the gym and work on your strength with heavy lifting.

Should I use a heart rate monitor for my Base training?

Yes, but let me give you some quick guidance based on my own training and observing my clients:

1. It is a very good idea for new triathletes to use a heart rate monitor. More often than not, the HRM will keep you from working too hard and potentially injuring yourself, butØ
   
   
2. The number one comment I hear is that new HRM users are confused about what their HRM is telling them. They slap some numbers into a formula, set them on their watch, and then it beeps at them when the bend over to tie their shoes. Some things to think about:
   
   
   • At the start of the season, I have noticed a significant variation between my own heart rate training zones and my perceived exertion (PE). In other words, I feel like I'm in Zone 1-2, but my HRM is telling me I'm going to implode any moment. Expect this and use common sense. In these cases, I use PE as my primary measurement, HR as my secondary. After about 6-8 weeks, your heart rate zones and PE will begin to realign.
     
     
   • You may not be using the correct method to determine your training zones. Please read my articles on heart rate training. I will write a more comprehensive training article soon. New to Training with a Heart Rate Monitor.
     
     
3. More experienced and/or disciplined athletes can probably wait until the end of Base 1 before determining their training zones. In general, I try to get a feel for how knowledgeable and disciplined an athlete is before I determine a testing schedule. Maybe "eager" or "aggressive" is a better term. An eager newbie with little experience is a dangerous thing to let loose on the world in Base 1. I like to put some reins on them, to save them from themselves, and to ensure that we do the required easy, aerobic training first.

What are some other things I should be thinking about during my early Base training?

Yes, but let me give you some quick guidance based on my own training and observing my clients:

1. Begin to formulate a race day nutrition plan. Every long training event is an opportunity to experiment, gather data, and learn something. Don't waste it. Please read the Race Day Nutrition article.
   
   
2. Shake out your training and personal schedules. Fitting a 15 hour training week into a 40-50 work week and still maintain a family is a daunting task. Get creative and figure out ways to save time.
   
   
3. Shake out your training logistics. How am I going to train for 3 sports in one day, eat at my desk, and pick up the kids? I used to dread packing everything the night before. Two words: get a big bag and use CHECKLISTS. It might sound like a small thing, but trying to remember everything you will need for the next day is just more stress. Fix it.
   
   
4. Begin to develop good recovery habits and strategies. This includes stretching routines, recovery meals, cat naps, getting to bed a little earlier, etc. Figure out what works for you NOW and refine them as you go.

I train and train but I don't get much faster.

1. Did you develop a strong enough base before you started TRAINING? Remember, base training forms the foundation for the hard stuff to come later on. Without a strong foundation, you do not have all of the basic training adaptations (see What happens to your body above) to take full advantage of this hard stuff. It's the difference between driving a Porsche and a VW bug. Both will go 85, but one is working a lot less than the other. Remember, build the engine first, THEN make it fast.
   
   
2. If you have a good seasonal and cumulative base, are you then doing high intensity workouts on top of it? I see this with many Ironman athletes. Many people think that since they are never going to go "hard" in a race, then they shouldn't go hard in training. But the only way to swim, bike, or run fast is to swim, bike or run fast. If you train slow, you will race slow. Now I'm not saying than an IM athlete needs to start hitting the track for some quick 400's or lock themselves in the closet on their trainer and knock out interval sessions. But long tempo rides and runs, just under or at your lactate threshold heart rate, make you a stronger, faster triathlete. Bottom line is that if you have done your homework and built a solid base of easy miles, don't be afraid to turn up the heat at the appropriate time in the season.

Final Words – Discipline and Patience

One of my athletes wanted me to say a few words about these aspects of base training. It takes discipline and patience to stick to a plan while others around you do their own thing. This is particularly hard if you are a very competitive person. It might drive you nuts watching someone go off the front of the group ride while you continue to sit in the back and spin at a comfortable heart rate. It takes discipline and mental energy to devote pool session after pool session to drills and technique. It's easier to just play wall tag. Let's face it, going slow is boring. It's more fun to give the Look to a buddy and drop him on a hill. Develop a well thought out training plan and stick to it. Have the discipline and patience to stay the course while those around you do their own thing.

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