The Training Pyramid

Talking about the constituent parts of a training campaign

Jeff, my coach from PRSFit, posted this really good graphic that visually summarized the concept of periodicity in training.  I’ve re-drawn the graphic here for reference.

The basic summary of the pyramid of training is that when you are training for an event, especially training for a performance goal time at an event, it isn’t all one type of activity over time.  It’s a logical progression of activities that build like building blocks towards your desired goal.

It is a helpful graphic to organize the training types that get thrown at you.  It can be super confusing, especially for someone new to the sport to know what to do, how much to do and when to do it.

You will recognize the constituent parts of this build up as they are different training methods that are sometimes applied exclusively to a campaign without others.  Like all speed work for example. Or all long runs.

One of the reasons I like this graphic is that it also highlights at least 3 things that people and running magazines get wrong in their marathon training.

First thing most beginners get wrong is they only focus on one type of training.  For example they will only focus on more miles and longer long runs.  You will see some improvement by doing this but not as much improvement as you would if you got the periodicity correct.  Your benefits will quickly plateau in the single training type approach as well and your peak won’t be as high.

The second thing I see, especially in the popular running press is the mix & match approach where they construct a campaign that smooshes all the different training types together into a campaign.  Speed work on Monday, hills on Wednesday, maybe some Fartleks on Friday.

These random little bit o’ this and a little bit o’ that training campaigns confuse the stuffing out of your body.  It doesn’t know what the heck is going on.  Again, you don’t get as race fit and you don’t peak as well in your training.

The third thing people get wrong is the way they stack the training.  There is a specific order in which to build a campaign, depending on the type of event, what your starting fitness level is and how much time you have.  It’s best to build your base first and then layer the race specific strength, speed and skills on top of that base.

This isn’t to say that you won’t see benefit from all of these training approaches.  Any structured training approach is going to bring benefits.  But, you can get bigger, more race-specific benefits from building the training pyramid.

If you build your pyramid well you can drive your machine to higher heights when it comes to race time.

A training campaign is going to consist of build cycles.  These may be 3 week or 2 week or some other length cycles of push and recover.  These cycles fit into phases of the pyramid.  The phases or periods might be 4 weeks or longer depending on your event and what you are trying to accomplish.

Each period focuses on an aspect of your training and typically is dominated by a specific training type.  You stack these cycles within the periods and your stack the periods one after the other when you build your training up through the pyramid to peak for your event with the specific training required for that event.

Let’s look at the pyramid.

At the bottom, the wide part of the pyramid is your base.  This is the big part of the pyramid.  You need a good base to race well.  You can get away with less base for a 5K or a 10K, but when you step up into the ½ or full marathon you need a base before you start your other race specific training.

This base is built by lots of slow miles.  The base is built with classic Lydiard style low heart rate training.  2-3 medium to long runs a week, plus your long run all at a Zone 2 effort level. This gets your body ready for the work.  It causes muscular adaptions that allow you to run at a faster speed with greater economy.

Depending on where you are starting at your base building phase of the pyramid could be weeks to months to years even.  The base is where we talk about running slow to get faster.  One thing that is gospel is ‘the bigger the base the higher the peak’.  This is where people (and by people I mean I) get in trouble.  We try to skip or short the base building phase and then fall short later in the campaign.

One of the questions you might ask is “Hey Chris, I see you guys jumping right into the tempo and speed part of the pyramid, isn’t that cheating?  How come you don’t need 6 months of base building?”

Good question.   It turns out that I do need base building, everybody does, but since I’ve been training at a fairly high level of volume and quality for many years I bring a big aerobic base into the training campaign.  Even then you’ll see the first chunk of any campaign I do will have an element of aerobic base building to it.

The second block in the pyramid is strength.  This is where you would use training techniques that build muscle strength.  These can be weight training techniques like lunges and squats.  These can be sprints on the track.  This is typically where you would have a lot of hill work.  You are developing pure muscle strength on top of your base.

The third block In Jeff’s pyramid is intervals and tempo work.   These are the threshold runs and step up runs that teach your body how to deal with discomfort and recover from a hard effort.

The fourth block is speed work.  When you get close to the race you have your base, your strength and your general fitness and then you can layer on some speed work to fine tune your racing capabilities.

Finally, at the tip of the pyramid there is the taper into your event that allows your body to recovery and gain energy for the race itself.

Alongside the pyramid is going to be your long runs that will build slowly and consistently across all of the cycles and periods.

Consistent throughout the entire campaign will be the general core strength and flexibility and stretching and of course the proper nutrition to fuel the whole thing.

Like the coach says, any structured training plan will get you some improvement, but if you want big improvement specific to a race goal you should design a plan that utilizes the training pyramid.  This will give you a comprehensive framework to fit all the pieces and techniques together in a complimentary way.