How Much Improvement Can You Really Expect?

Podcast

October 5, 2020

Are your expectations realistic? What improvement to expect as a beginner, intermediate or advanced athlete. Get Fast Podcast, Ep 45.

Get Fast Podcast, Ep 45, with Gerard and Jordan Donnelly

Expect less in your first few weeks than you probably hope, and more over two or three years than you probably plan for. New athletes improve fastest. As you get fitter the gains get smaller, so two or three watts is good news after a few years of coaching, and one or two watts is disappointing after a few weeks.

Gerard's phrase for this is "ambition and ability": don't get them confused.

Why do your expectations matter?

New athletes often start a 12 or 20-week program expecting to be at their best by week three or four. Gerard says that belief causes them the most problems.

If you're setting personal bests in weeks three to five, you have little room left to progress. You also raise the risk of overtraining, getting sick, getting injured or peaking too soon, and arriving at race day on the way down.

The enthusiasm is good. Gerard has been guilty of it himself. Going flat out for the first few days just doesn't help.

How is improvement different for beginners and experienced athletes?

Beginners have no background to draw on, so everything gets built from scratch: the base, the consistency and the habit of following a program. When you're unfit, the improvement is big.

Experienced athletes, meaning 10 to 15 years in the sport with a strong base, need minor adjustments to find the extra. They still need patience, because they've been training a particular way for a long time.

Gerard has coached athletes who took two or three years to reach the level they expected in two or three weeks. Some of them are only now seeing the benefit of those years of training.

What does real improvement look like?

Look beyond one number. Gerard gives the example of an athlete who repeated a session from week one: 60 seconds on, 30 seconds off.

Week one. Power: 220 to 225 watts, and struggling. Heart rate: 180.
Around week 16. Power: 280 to 290 watts. Heart rate: 178.

That's up to 70 watts more for about the same heart rate. Athletes forget where they started, so part of a coach's job is to point this out.

What if your numbers don't improve?

Gerard says "what did I do wrong?" is the wrong question. Ask what produced your big jumps, and what has limited you lately. It's rarely one thing. Things he looks at include:

Missed sessions and how consistent the block was
Stress from work, family or relationships
Heat, especially after changing climates
Sleep, tapering and what you ate before the race
How you executed on the day

If none of those explain it, you may have reached your level for now, and need another 15 to 20 weeks of training to get to the next step.

Analyse your good performances as closely as your bad ones. Most athletes only dig in after a poor result. Keep notes on your preparation, so you can repeat what worked.

Why can't you be at your best all year?

Tour de France riders aren't in Tour form in January. Experienced athletes spend most of the year building, and their numbers can sit in a narrow range during a heavy block. A runner who came down from 38 minutes for 10K might hover around 36:30 for months, then step up with a taper and race-ready work.

That's normal. Gerard's aim is a rate of improvement over the whole journey, with highs and lows along the way.

How should you approach your first months?

Train hard on your hard days and easy on your easy days. Riding recovery days too hard is a message Gerard can repeat for six months before it lands.
If you feel great, go to the top of your range, but not at the expense of tomorrow's session.
Think of moderation across the whole journey. It doesn't mean holding back in each session.
Stay steady through good and bad patches. A few poor sessions don't mean the program needs changing.

Gerard compares it to Christmas morning. You can rip through seven presents at once, or open them one at a time and appreciate each one. He wants the second athlete.

His closing message is direct: if you want a quick fix, that's not our program.