Why should you try effort based training?
What does that even mean?
It seems as though effort based training is currently making a resurgence in the running zeitgeist. This is actually a great thing because unlike some of the other recent popular running trends effort based training won’t hurt you, even if you do it all wrong. You may get less benefit from it, but it won’t hurt you.
So it is with the fickle trends in endurance sports that every once in a while a valid training technique overlaps with the thought patterns of the social hive-mind.
What is effort based training?
Effort based training is also known as Heart Rate training because heart rate is a great measurement of effort level. You don’t necessarily have to use heart rate to measure your effort level but most people do. I do.
The basic tenet of effort based training is that if you train at a specific lower effort level you will better develop your aerobic capacity – basically your ability to do more stuff longer and harder. This is typically a great thing if you’re training for an athletic event!
How do you figure out what your effort levels are?
In order to find out your effort level you need to measure your heart rate and calculate your heart rate zones. Most coaches will measure 5 zones. With 1 being walking level effort and 5 being total sprint level effort.
The problem you are going to find is that most of the online HR calculators are just plain wrong. Or at least they are for me. For example: the most popular method is 220 beats per minute minus your age gives you your max heart rate. For me this would yield a max heart rate of 167, which is about 20 beats per minute low. You can’t be off by 20 BPM and expect your training to be effective. These methods are too general to be useful for training.
One calculator that I found that comes up with a close answer for me is from DigiFit.com (link in show notes), but it may not work for you.
The challenge is that everyone is different. You’re heart rate is different from mine. Your health is different. Your age is different. Your fitness level is different. The best advice I can give you is to get as close as you can and then check with an effort based coach to fine-tune.
My coaches at PRSFit are great for this.
Two basic bits of information you will need are resting HR and Max HR. From these you can figure out your effort-based training zones. And you CAN measure THESE directly.
For resting HR just take your pulse in the morning before you have your coffee for a few days in a row. Simple.
To get a good Max HR reading you need to go out for a Max HR workout or test. Warm up, then run as hard as you can for 4-6 minutes. I mean as hard as you can. Really push it. Max means Max. Then check your heart rate.
With your resting pulse and your Max HR you should be able to get close on your heart rate zones and now you’re ready to measure your effort level in your training. Instead of distance and time or pace you only care about effort level. This is why effort based training is a revelation and a challenge for runners. It doesn’t care how fast or how far you run. It only cares about how long you stay at what effort level.
Instead of what you may be used to which would be something like “Run 6 miles in 56 minutes”, instead an effort-based workout will look like “run 90 minutes in zone 2”.
An effort based training program will have you doing the majority of your workouts at a low effort level – zone 2 HR – for a period of time to build aerobic capacity. It’s counter intuitive that you can run slower and get faster, but that really isn’t quite true. You run slower for a while to build the capacity to then get faster when your event approaches.
The big shock.
The big surprise for most runners is that when you first start effort-based training it is super hard to stay in the assigned zone. It feels like you are running too slowly. You may even have to rest or walk to let your HR settle.
It’s hard at first to stay in Zone 2, especially when you’re looking at your pace. My advice, and what I do when I’m effort-based training, is to take everything except time and heart rate zone off of my watch display. When I’m heart rate training I don’t even want to see my pace, or distance. It’s counterproductive. This is a big psychological challenge when you first start using effort based.
Another thing you may notice if you are older or have been particularly abusive to your body is that your heart rate may take a few minutes to ‘warm up’. I’m in excellent aerobic shape but due to my age it still takes 15-20 minutes for my heart rate to come down into zone 2 when I start a workout. Don’t be discouraged by that. Give it time.
Like any other training discipline it takes time to get used to it. It’s a new practice for your body and the whole point is to give your body time to adapt. Those adaptations happen at the cellular level as you continue to spend time in the aerobic training zone. Don’t get discouraged. Give it time.
These effort based runs will typically be longer in duration too than what you’re used to. The point is to find that zone 2 effort and stay in it for extended periods of training.
At some point, typically a few weeks into the training, you will find that effort zone and it will become easy. Then at some other point, maybe a month or more into the training program, you’ll realize you have returned to your previous training paces but are now doing them at a much lower effort level. That is pot of gold under the rainbow of effort based training.
Run Slower to get Faster?
Yes and no. When you are training for an event you typically have periods of training. Effort-based aerobic training is where you start building your race fitness. It doesn’t make you faster per se but it does develop your physical capacity to race and train.
With this greater physical capacity to race and train you can transition to high-quality, race-specific training as you get close to your event. In the last 8-12 weeks before the event you can build on top of that big base of aerobic conditioning. This is where you load in the tempo runs, speed work and hill repeats.
This race specific work will make you faster for your race. I still believe that if you want to run fast you have to train running fast. The initial phase of aerobic, effort-based, heart rate training makes these race specific workouts all the more effective because you have that deep fitness to draw from.
Should you switch to effort based training?
Depending on what your goals are I would absolutely take a training cycle of 2-3 months and learn how to train using effort level. It absolutely works to build base fitness. It absolutely is a positive part of a structured training plan.
You have to do the work to find out what your heart rate zones are and fine tune them for your specific physiology. You have to be willing to stick with it long enough for the positive adaptation to take place. It’s not a magic bullet, but it is a valid part of your endurance training toolbox.