Stephen Seiler
@StephenSeiler
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Exercising physiologist studying endurance training in a global laboratory, sharing what I learn in a global classroom. DMs only sporadically answered, sorry.
https://www.uia.no/en
Joined January 2011
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4 slides that summarize a fair amount of what I think I understand about training intensity zones:
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I recently gave a TEDx talk about endurance training. Twenty years of research packed into <18 min. Here it is:
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As a start to 2024, 30 years of thinking about and studying endurance training distilled down to 12 lines:
1. Start with universal good practices, then sport specifics, then individual optimization.
2. Training is an optimization challenge, not a maximization challenge.
3.
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This Norwegian girl, Henriette Jaeger, now owns the U18 heptathlon world record (6301p). This is the field and 60meter strip where she trains. They do not have a 400m track in her hometown of Aremark (pop 1,500)
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I got the question below from a father about endurance training in adolescent female athletes and peripubertal weight gain. I could have answered, but I thought it was better for my dancer/runner daughter to answer this one:
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Effective endurance training is often kind of boring and repetitive and, periodically, really difficult and painful. We should not shy away from the boredom or the pain, but recognize that both feelings are signs that we are getting the total process right.
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Boy I love physiology and numbers! So, please know this is my honest and humble summation of 25y of research on endurance training: THE most important «metric» that successful coach-athlete communication builds on is still just an HONEST answer to the question «How do you feel?»
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Instead of me singing "The 12 Days of Christmas", here are 12 geeky, but potentially instructional experiments for amateur endurance athletes to perform on themselves during 2019. Hey, it´s how I roll.
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A wise man said that consistency compounds. And that compounding results in surprising "leaps" in performance despite feeling like you are just doing the daily grind "as usual". Stringing together lots of ordinary, well-executed training days can give extraordinary results.
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Back by popular demand (OK, I made that up), here are 12 more endurance athlete experiments for 2020 that will teach you more about yourself and how you work!
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Some things I have learned about endurance training the last 30 years, summarized in 10 lines:
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Sport Science student or coach? Here´s a video of a 75min lecture I gave recently on key aspects of endurance training, hosted by Oxford Brookes University. You can take a nap halfway.
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Beginning endurance athletes of all ages and aspirations, what does this maximum heart rate data collected from over 4,000 endurance-trained men and women age 15 to 85 years tell you? The average weekly training was 9.5 hours.
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I don't think there is a nicer, more positive guy in the peloton than Abra. Three years ago, when I received a training file where he had ridden 13hours straight at 240watts on Zwift (3 quick pee stops), I figured
@AbraJonas
for an an ultra rider, NOT a future TdF breakaway
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For me, these 2 beautiful curations of endurance science and practice merged are unmatched resources for scientist, graduate student, athlete, and coach. The 50% "hypertrophy" of the 2nd edition says a lot about how far we have come in 10 years because the writing is crisp,
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I find it......IRKSOME, VEXING even, that a lecture I recorded and delivered FREE for an international conference was removed from public access and hidden behind a rather expensive course paywall. I will remedy that....just have to record my lecture again, v2.0 for YouTube.
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This may have been one of the most satisfying assisted suicides in Twitter history.
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Here is a nice example of the difference between training LOAD (neutral) and training STRESS (responds to day to day variation). Same workout performed 1) with tired legs and 2) 2 days later with fresh legs.
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Training volume & consistency is the cake; intensity is icing on top. Making a great cake is all about getting order & proportions right.
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First sprinting, then middle distance running, now distance running, the training science and practice trilogy is now complete:
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I have tried to think like Maslow: Climbing the pyramid from endurance training foundations, to sources of marginal but decisive gains
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Some research informed thoughts on adding brief sprints to low-intensity (LIT) sessions:
1. Keep the duration down to 3 to 4 seconds! This is the typical "Alactic" duration. Even extending to 6-8 seconds will result in significant lactate production. If you drop in a block of
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In early 2019, a 300watt hour of power was my goal. Now in early 2021, I am at 300w for 2hours. Extending....slowly 😊
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Flying to Dallas tomorrow to give two 60min lectures to hundreds of American swimming coaches. I can barely swim but I am going to suggest they might possibly, maybe, sort of, be training a lot of athletes "wrong". This should go swimmingly 😅
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More & more I find the training process to be simple. And precisely because it is simple, with no shortcuts, far too hard for many.
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Gearing up for a talk with coaches of junior athletes tomorrow and trying to put my "Training Priorities Hierarchy" in a broader perspective:
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10 things I must remind myself of when creating and organizing a new presentation. Maybe there is something here for others.
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Using or thinking about using HIT sessions like 30:15s, 40:20s, etc in your endurance training program? Here is part 1 of a 3-part discussion of this type of interval training.
Short Interval Blocks for Endurance Athletes- Part1 via
@YouTube
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Very proud of my daughter Siren Amelia today! Den Haag Half Marathon; she pushed through the wind to set a new PB of 1:16.02, almost 4 min faster than september. Lucky
#13
among women😊
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Heard one of the all-time greats in XCskiing (Thomas Alsgaard) respond to a question about the music he listened to when skiing: “Never did it; listening to the snow under my skis gave me lots of information. You use all your senses in technique training. But I am old.”
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I am thinking of making 10 teaching videos lasting 5-10 minutes each, all responding to fundamental training and physiology questions you present. What are the questions? Here is a video where I answered 5 questions in 15min:
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I would put this on my wall in my cycling room! A digital "impressionist" version of Marco Alpozzi's fantastic photo of MVDP and the Strade Bianche finish described by GCN as "what a billion watts looks like"
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This is undoubtedly one of the most interesting conversations about endurance training I have experienced in my 30-year career.
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Directly transcribed from Nils Van der Poel's training diary. Monthly training hours from the end of military service to the (apparent) end of speedskating career(?) as WR holder for 5k and 10k speedskating. 5 training days-2 consecutive rest days each week.
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SPOILER ALERT: power data below is from a top 3 finisher of Wednesday's TdF Stage 17.
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Putting polarized training into practice. I am biased, but I think this a great article from my daughter Siren Seiler.
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Since I am stealing a screenshot from this new video, I think DylanJohnsen deserves some props for this nice picture and theoretical comparison of two riders accumulating the same time-in-zone in very different ways:
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80:20 training intensity distribution for dummies like me:
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I see various tweets and articles about "The Norwegian Method" in endurance sport and training. Some of my colleagues and I here in Norway tried to agree on what that was. This is what we came up with. One thing for sure; it is a process, not a particular workout.
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Smartest thing I have done as a coach of my distance runner daughter has been to move from a 7-day to a 9-day training cycle. Key reason is the intensity regulation we achieve between demanding, recovery-intensive sessions. Day 8 is a "flex" day: easy long, or more progressive.
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He said he would. He did. 10k-5k WR holder/OG Gold winner Nils van der Poel published a 60+ page explanation of his training process that's full of great quotes & reveals his thoughtful, individual, and deliberate approach to skating 10k faster than anyone
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So, it seems that the shoe-stiffening carbon plates make already fast distance runners faster, but either don't help or may even decrease running economy in the ordinary recreational runners who make shoe companies rich.
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Training like a Kenyan? Some follow-up thoughts on "Extend or Intensify" from a lecture by distance running coach of WR holders, Renato Canova.
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Ten Norwegian coaches of world-class endurance athletes, male and female, are interviewed about differences in coaching men and women. Conclusion: Differences between individuals are bigger than differences between the sexes. Communication is key.
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18months of endurance training trial and error summarized in 1 picture. Summary of my daughter's training and results.
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Do you use RPE for intensity monitoring? New paper from Carl Foster and an international cast comparing 2 classic RPE scales, and correlating them with physiological responses.
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Endurance athletes of all levels: You are systematic planners and doers. I get it. We now face a
#crisisofmotivation
with so many disrupted race plans. Well SUCK IT UP, people. We are healthy and lucky! Let’s just keep training, enjoy the process, and keep our perspective.
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A World and Olympic champion alpine skier has to match the recess playground routine of an 8y old Norwegian girl. The catch? Bodyweight and size scaling of the playground. Spoiler alert: she barely breaks a sweat; he hits 98% of HRmax. See the video here:
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4 slides that summarize a a fair amount of what I think I understand about HIIT.
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This old dog is having to learn some new tricks. Hopefully tomorrow, I will officially become a Youtuber and have at least one, hopefully, 2 or 3 new videos for you. The topic will be short intervals like 30:15s. Writing it here to put myself under pressure!🥴
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Remember folks, more training is generally associated with better performance. BUT, being ABLE to achieve a bigger volume depends on staying healthy and happy in the process. Training MORE emerges from getting the balance right. It is not so simple as "just do it....more"
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🚴🏼♂️Sir Bradley Wiggins won the ITT gold in 2008 with a 4:16. Now, just 12 years later, that time puts him an entire LAP back. What the heck is happening? Are the bikes that much better?
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Some thoughts about my training needs as an aging endurance athlete/human:
1. MOMO: MObility and MObilization. I don't need gymnast flexibility, but I need functional mobility and a range of motion that makes the slips and slides of daily life tolerable. For me Mobilization
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The apple does not fall far from the tree, but this one sure rolls faster! Congratulations to my daughter Siren Amelia who celebrated Norway's Independence day with a solo 10000m time trial on the track, setting a new PB of 34:55! "Nerd" runs in the family...(yes, pun intended)
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We changed the bands to tighten it up a bit, but here is the basic movement, for those who wanted a video.
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The Norwegian government has announced the goal that ALL publically funded research be published in open access sources by 2024. All Norwegian universities and researchers are called on to drive this change through the pressure and changes they apply. I´m in.
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My TEDx talk experience: from looming Fiasco to Flow in 24 hours. Maybe some useful speaking tips for nervous speakers.
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My entire career as a physiologist interested in exercise, training and adaptation has always included sidebar discussions of doping. Small advantages can be decisive. Is it happening? How much difference did it make? How do we test for this or that? How did this happen when we
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Career first: a French graphic facilitator summarized my lecture at INSEP in Paris on the fly.....
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A 3-hour "Zone 2 Session" for me, as I understand the term. I have measured my blood lactate after 2 hours of this same prescription and it was 1.5 mmol/L
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Ten years since we put this review of endurance training and intensity distribution together, using a narrative style and word count freedom afforded us by Will Hopkins. An oldie but goodie, or just old? Let the questions commence.
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Every wonder what it would feel like to do 6s sprints over and over and over (like, say 90 TIMES with 24s rest in between each sprint)......and do this same workout 3 times a week for 6 weeks? Me neither. Until now.
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More on the mystic appearance and disappearance of “Lactic”: According to a British commentator, a 200m heat can be a good way to get rid of any remaining….uhhh…Lactic….from the previous night’s 100m final. You can’t make this stuff up.
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If you want to read the "Norwegian Training Method" derived from and explained by coaches and athletes who have been winning with it for decades, here it is. Nice summary! By the way, "Dæhlie" in the team name Aker-Dæhlie refers to 8-time XC skiing Olympic Gold medal winner
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I gave a kind of "Big" public lecture summarizing a lot of where I am at on the endurance training process at Oxford, UK recently and now that video is available on my YoutTube Channel. Might be something to watch during a Zwift ride :-)
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How does a David beat Goliath? 1. Stay true to natural and hist. advantages 2. Late specialization-no nat. titles at age 9! 3. Build a culture around being best at the daily grind of training 4. EVERY event is a team effort; no prima donnas 5. Exchange knowledge across sports
Norway's Olympians explain their surprising secrets for crushing the rest of the world at the Winter Games
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Load, Stress, Strain: Understanding the difference can make you faster. And me bringing this out from behind a paywall definitely makes me less.....irked.
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Proud moment for me yesterday watching my daughter
@SirenSeiler
marry the love of her life,
@viken_julian
, with my son Markus, the little brother, acting not so little anymore!
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Transitioning to a new indoor trainer in a new room just for cycling. The Seiler SEWing lab is now open (Sweat, Exertion, Watts)!
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This is a fascinating study linking training load characteristics to mitochondrial function/breakdown. Mechanistic evidence for rejecting "more (HIIT) is better" hypothesis? Study of 2021 for me so far, more interesting data than you can shake a stick at:
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Do REST DAYS improve the outcomes of long-term endurance training? Is "active recovery" better or worse than "sofa rest" for endurance athletes over the long term? Are HIIT sessions scheduled the day after rest days executed better, the same, or worse? We all have our
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I am excited. Bislett Stadium is the track I knew about via Sports Illustrated way before I could find Norway on a map. Ingrid and Grete ran there. Henry Rono ran there. I watched Haile Gebrselassie set a WR there in 1997. Tonight my daughter runs her first 5000m...at Bislett.
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Just recorded my Endurance Coaching Summit lecture, hosted by
@TrainingPeaks
. Took a stab at explaining the difference between training LOAD, training STRESS, and training STRAIN and why it matters..... in 30minutes :-) Goes live November 19. FREE!
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LIT endurance training: How LOW is too low? How LONG is too long? I REVEAL THE SECRETS HERE! Ok, NOT, but hopefully this teaching video will help move the discussion forward.
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High jump men’s final. All tied and both have (only) missed final height 3 times. Judge: “We will now set the bar lower and have a jumpoff.” Barshim responds “Can we have 2 Golds?” YES, great moment and the right thing to do.🇶🇦🇮🇹🥇🥇
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A new one diving into training SESSION models in endurance sport: from the perspective of 12 elite Norwegian coaches
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A visual summary of my "HIT session with Mitchelton-Scott": 5x3min VO2 max intervals, with 20s hard start. They are preparing for Belgian classics. I was preparing to deserve a cold beer. Goal for me was to hold 100% of 6min power. I failed. But, I tried hard. Awesome gang!
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If you are a student of exercise physiology, do whatever you can to get your hands on a copy of this 30-year-old classic: Human Cardiovascular Control, by Loring B Rowell (1993). If a better combination of clear text and simple but elegant figures exists, I want to see it.
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Have the confidence in your training to be proactive with rest & rest days instead of reactive. Reactive rest days are better than no rest days (!) but they are a response to a problem, instead of prevention of the problem. This difference adds up to far more lost training days.
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Marit Bjørgen is undoubtedly the greatest female Winter Olympian ever, and made her last of 15 Olympic medals GOLD.
.
This case study of her training is, arguably, the best and most complete individual case study ever!
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Came across this via my DIRT membership (Dads Inside Riding Trainers). Seems about right.
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Key take-home from studying top athletes is that intensity discipline is critical. My daughter is not an elite runner (yet), but she has embraced the intensity discipline part that most of us struggle with. 20km run below is typical Z1, avg HR 125 on a warm day in Norway.
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Endurance athletes, to get a better picture of the relationships among resting HR, maximal HR, training status, & age, I have made a very short questionnaire. I bet most of you can complete it in less than the time it takes for your heart to beat 60 times
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So, when a young Pro Tour cyclist with a 503W 5min power and a 430W 20min power does a 2h "easy ride" on Zwift, what does that look like? It looks like a middle-aged professor who stays fit could keep up! Thanks for sharing your training data
@jackhaig93
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If you're a trained endurance athlete fretting over the optimal timing of supplementary strength training sessions, the best advice may well be to stop worrying. The endurance/strength session signalling "interference" problem is perhaps overrated.
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0.8% That is how much faster Kipchoge ran with 41 dedicated pacers, a pacing car with green lasers, and drink providers on bikes....
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Power data from the surprise podium
#2
in Paris Roubaix, 22y old race debutant Florian Vermeersch. 81.5kg (Strava). Strava FTP= 426W. Estimated Critical Power 437W (used for some calculations below). Hit 1476W in the sprint on the track after hours on the cobbles.
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In the weightroom with my daughter. Building strength, power, and speed reserve during a longer build period for a 2021 season that will have a delayed start. Heavy legs now, fast legs later!
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Folks, if you are not smiling or laughing during at least some of your weekly endurance training sessions, you just ain't doing it right. Call it psychophysiological symbiosis if that makes it seem more scientific, but the answer to the "are you having fun?" question matters.
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I apologize to the many who send me direct messages with various training questions or ask for interpretations of various tests. I am unable to respond to most of these and hope you can accept that my main way of interacting here is through my videos, Tweets, podcasts etc.
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From Polarized to Individually Optimized Endurance Training..... in 5 steps. The 45min presentation I recorded for an ACSM chapter meeting. Doing live Q&A for their meeting later today. via
@YouTube
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Cyclists and triathletes, do you want reference range HR, Power & RPE response values for some typical long interval HIT sessions? Well-trained males. Here are calibrated values that (better) account for training-induced changes over 12 weeks. Open access:
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Should I get on the other side of the mic and host a Podcast? (Yes, great idea. Nyaa, may work, might suck. NO, terrible idea!) If you think it is a great idea, or depends on the guests, who would you want me to pull into a deep conversation about sports science and practice?
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Perhaps facial recognition could be used to estimate intensity zones in the cycling peloton as they whizz by.....
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During specific preparation and peaking: Recovery is not dictated by the training plan, the plan is adjusted to the state of Recovery. Agile periodization is based on trust in listening to your body's messages.
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I left the taxi and walked into Dr. Rangan Chaterjee's house outside of Manchester. He greeted me barefoot at the door after dropping his kids off at school and invited me to sit in the kitchen while he made some coffee. Within 10 minutes I felt like we had known each other for
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