There can be many moving parts when it comes to trying to find your athletic best.
Balancing the volume, intensity, strength training, and perhaps non-training stressors is a large undertaking and overwhelming. Add three sports into the mix, like with triathlon, and it gets even more tricky.
I recently came off a period that I consider to be my “low season”. I did not take several weeks completely off, but my training distribution was different for about 8 weeks. With the help of an advisory team, I was able to work on a few parts of my athletic balance that were lacking:
Heavy strength training
Force production on the bike
This investment of time was what I consider to be a part of the whole. Starting with these elements as my focus required me to strip away some of the normal volumes I do during the competition season. The neuromuscular demands of lifting heavy and entering a new intensity domain on the bike had to be accounted for.
I wanted to take it slow and give my inexperienced physiology a chance to absorb the new inputs before I try to translate it to the bigger picture. Tolerance is key and it is less overwhelming to have only a few items to focus on.
The anticipated plan is to continue to engage in these activities as I build swim/bike/run total volume back up.
Heavy strength training on a maintenance basis
Peppering the bike sprints into the warmup for HIIT sessions
Complete abandonment of the work done during the low season would be a mistake. I felt some promising improvements in terms of coordination at very high effort as well as feeling muscularly more healthy. I even set a new 1 min bike power PB and by a large margin too; proof that the work I did conferred a desired adaptation.
However, my goal events are not in weightlifting or in winning a 15-30s sprint on the bike. The goal event specificity will eventually take precedence.
What might this mean for you?
If you have some areas out of balance in your overall program, consider parting out the different pieces. My example is merely one of many options you may choose for using part to whole training:
Do you need to be stronger?
Do you struggle with intensity control?
Did you neglect “speedwork” in your prior season in favor of volume?
Whatever your case might be, resist the urge to pile everything on at once when you build toward your 2024 goals. Not only will that blunt adaptation, but you also will not get a gauge on whether your inputs are worth your time. There will be plenty of time for you to slowly blend the work into a Basic Week as the season moves along.
Train all the elements. Some more than others. Faster does not always mean more work. Sometimes it requires new work.