Just a quick correction on the calculation in example number 2: The total training load for the 4 weeks is as follows: Week 1 50k Week 2 40k Week 3 50k Week 4 80k Total load = 220km / 4 weeks = 55k average per week. The ACWR would then be 80k / 55k = 1.45
Thank you for your consistently great work. Minor point: 80/50=1.6. There seems to be an endogeneity problem when the acute load changes the chronic load, meaning, 80 should be part of the chronic load, or the chronic load should be calculated with the previous 4 weeks, so that the acute load does not change the chronic load? Thanks again for your great work.
The workload used in these calculations is best measured by TRIMP or HRSS or something similar rather than time or distance. A 10 mile week of hard intervals is much different than a 10 mile week of recovery runs.
Great video! I was actually a subject in that study and now track ACWR as another input. Fortunately, I was in the uninjured group and successfully ran the NYC marathon.
I wish I had watched all your videos before I started running in 2016. I think I've made most of the rookie errors, especially the big jumps of "panic training", and paid the price.
Such great insight guys! How often we (I) have a bad week and lower mileage and then seriously up the next week and then... bang! Injury / niggle / sickness
Hi Coach Parry, I started running in September 2021. I do trail and road running. I'm in my mid-30s, male, and weigh about 63kg. I do regular strength and condition exercises for runners, my average running volume per week is about 50kms. I don't do more than that for now. I've been consistent with my training program for a few months now, when I'm not off with an injury. I started with track speed workout sessions lately, and my shins and feet are very prone to injury. Right now, my left foot is badly injured and walking is painful. Every 3 months or so, I develop an injury and then I'm off to recover before slowly building up again. My body is coping well with running, but not my lower legs. I'm a neutral runner, I wear proper shoes (the right shoes for the right running surfaces), but I really battle with ongoing injuries. I want to become a strong fast runner, I do one track session per week to build speed endurance, I do 1 hill repeat session per week, and the rest is slow and easy runs. All the injuries I developed occurred during speed training. How can I then train for speed and speed endurance without getting injured? Any advice will be appreciated if you can make a video about it. Thank you.
Very useful and interesting video. Thanks so much for sharing. I just plugged in this formula and found that my ratio is 1.06, despite increasing my weekly mileage by 3 miles this week. Thanks for the reassurance!
Thanks for this. Great info and it lines up with my experience. The only question is what about the cut back weeks to allow for adaptation? Those likely will calculate to 0.8 or 0.9 on that scale. From my experience, when training for any event, you can't always be increasing mileage week over week.
As a runner I love your videos and I ‘Like’ every one..appreciate the effort ye put in and good luck to ye and yer future endeavours..great content..thank you👊..not sure about yer maths on this one though 🤔🙂
Great video, well delivered and helpful. The paper is 45€, so I skipped it. I have a question, have you looked at how training intensity fits in? Using your example of 50, 40, 50, 60, would that hold if it was say HITT, intervals, hills and tempo v’s 50, 40, 50, 60 of MAF or Zone 2 with say just 10 - 20% of above threshold training? I’m currently using Polar flow and it gives a cardio load rating from under training to overreaching. I must look into the calculation method behind it. I found similar on Strava, Fitness & Freshness but not as prescriptive as Polar.
Being a Garmin user, it also indicates your training status / acute load whether it is optimal, under or over. How accurate do you deem Garmin metrics to be?
Garmin uses your heart rate readings over time instead of km or just time, so it should be more accurate? If the 80km was run at recovery pace, the formula in the video will still score it same as if it was run at tempo.
Does training intensity matter at all? Would an Easy run vs. Threshold run vs. 1 mile repeats all simply be tallied and added to the acute mileage (with no adjustment for intensity)? Thanks!!!
The one thing the survey of runners missed was those runners who were injured in training and failed to complete their training and did not attend the race. It only looked at those who competed. A whole block of injured runners were missed.
IF you change your week 4 load to 80 km, the average of the 4 weeks is NOT 200, but 230. This will change your calculated ratio of week 4/4 week average to 80/57.5 or 1.39. Still overtraining, but shouldn't you use the correct 4-week basis?
Not 10% each week but 10% AT MOST from one week to the next and then stay at that level for a few weeks. So, same level for a few weeks then increase up to 10% and stay at that new level for a few weeks. You cannot possibly increase by 10% each week continuously. It would guarantee injuries.
The rules-of-thumb like that are by necessity simplistic and extremely lacking. The "at most 10%" part is good though, as it holds beginners back from hurting themselves. - beginner P.S. people need to learn to listen to their bodies instead of looking at numbers, though it is difficult to be patient when your motivation is the highest, but training capacity the lowest
This makes sense, however following a marathon, inserting 1-2 weeks with relatively no running, the equation doesn't seem to work... however modelling it over my typical training, it seems to work well.... thanks!
Just a quick correction on the calculation in example number 2:
The total training load for the 4 weeks is as follows:
Week 1 50k
Week 2 40k
Week 3 50k
Week 4 80k
Total load = 220km / 4 weeks = 55k average per week.
The ACWR would then be 80k / 55k = 1.45
Ha, I was just going to ask about that. Glad you clarified. Interesting video, thanks.
Thank you for your consistently great work. Minor point: 80/50=1.6. There seems to be an endogeneity problem when the acute load changes the chronic load, meaning, 80 should be part of the chronic load, or the chronic load should be calculated with the previous 4 weeks, so that the acute load does not change the chronic load? Thanks again for your great work.
The workload used in these calculations is best measured by TRIMP or HRSS or something similar rather than time or distance. A 10 mile week of hard intervals is much different than a 10 mile week of recovery runs.
It shouldn't make much of a difference if you have a similar proportion of effort levels from week to week.
Great video! I was actually a subject in that study and now track ACWR as another input. Fortunately, I was in the uninjured group and successfully ran the NYC marathon.
That is so cool! Thanks for letting us know and congratulations on your NYC Marathon.
I wish I had watched all your videos before I started running in 2016. I think I've made most of the rookie errors, especially the big jumps of "panic training", and paid the price.
Such great insight guys! How often we (I) have a bad week and lower mileage and then seriously up the next week and then... bang! Injury / niggle / sickness
My Polar Vantage M watch does calculate this ratio from all recorded acivities. Very helpful to check if you're not training to much or to little.
Spot on! Exactly why I got injured now. I attest to that.
Very interesting concept. Definitely going to implement
Hi Coach Parry,
I started running in September 2021. I do trail and road running. I'm in my mid-30s, male, and weigh about 63kg. I do regular strength and condition exercises for runners, my average running volume per week is about 50kms. I don't do more than that for now. I've been consistent with my training program for a few months now, when I'm not off with an injury.
I started with track speed workout sessions lately, and my shins and feet are very prone to injury. Right now, my left foot is badly injured and walking is painful.
Every 3 months or so, I develop an injury and then I'm off to recover before slowly building up again. My body is coping well with running, but not my lower legs. I'm a neutral runner, I wear proper shoes (the right shoes for the right running surfaces), but I really battle with ongoing injuries.
I want to become a strong fast runner, I do one track session per week to build speed endurance, I do 1 hill repeat session per week, and the rest is slow and easy runs.
All the injuries I developed occurred during speed training. How can I then train for speed and speed endurance without getting injured? Any advice will be appreciated if you can make a video about it.
Thank you.
Excellent material !!! Best from Poland !!!
Very useful and interesting video. Thanks so much for sharing. I just plugged in this formula and found that my ratio is 1.06, despite increasing my weekly mileage by 3 miles this week. Thanks for the reassurance!
Really great info, thank you!
Good info. Confused about 80/50 = ??
Thanks for this. Great info and it lines up with my experience. The only question is what about the cut back weeks to allow for adaptation? Those likely will calculate to 0.8 or 0.9 on that scale. From my experience, when training for any event, you can't always be increasing mileage week over week.
As a runner I love your videos and I ‘Like’ every one..appreciate the effort ye put in and good luck to ye and yer future endeavours..great content..thank you👊..not sure about yer maths on this one though 🤔🙂
Yeah, it should be 80/55 to account for the increase in chronic load
Two hosts in the same shot and different camera angles, what magic is this? 😜
An interesting formula to take into consideration.
Is it the mileage or the load that’s more important when making the calculation of the ratio? Load takes into account the mileage and the intensity.
Great video, well delivered and helpful. The paper is 45€, so I skipped it. I have a question, have you looked at how training intensity fits in? Using your example of 50, 40, 50, 60, would that hold if it was say HITT, intervals, hills and tempo v’s 50, 40, 50, 60 of MAF or Zone 2 with say just 10 - 20% of above threshold training? I’m currently using Polar flow and it gives a cardio load rating from under training to overreaching. I must look into the calculation method behind it. I found similar on Strava, Fitness & Freshness but not as prescriptive as Polar.
Being a Garmin user, it also indicates your training status / acute load whether it is optimal, under or over. How accurate do you deem Garmin metrics to be?
Garmin uses your heart rate readings over time instead of km or just time, so it should be more accurate? If the 80km was run at recovery pace, the formula in the video will still score it same as if it was run at tempo.
Does training intensity matter at all? Would an Easy run vs. Threshold run vs. 1 mile repeats all simply be tallied and added to the acute mileage (with no adjustment for intensity)? Thanks!!!
Yeah, training stress score like in Training Peaks
Coach this is very scientific 🤣🤣🤣. Love your video, keep em coming 🙌🏼
The one thing the survey of runners missed was those runners who were injured in training and failed to complete their training and did not attend the race. It only looked at those who competed. A whole block of injured runners were missed.
Be interested to know how you factor in deload weeks which have a positive impact on recovery but would mess up the averages.
IF you change your week 4 load to 80 km, the average of the 4 weeks is NOT 200, but 230. This will change your calculated ratio of week 4/4 week average to 80/57.5 or 1.39. Still overtraining, but shouldn't you use the correct 4-week basis?
I agree. I would use average of previous 4 weeks and week 5 determining the acute load.
I approve this video 🙂
Not 10% each week but 10% AT MOST from one week to the next and then stay at that level for a few weeks. So, same level for a few weeks then increase up to 10% and stay at that new level for a few weeks.
You cannot possibly increase by 10% each week continuously. It would guarantee injuries.
The rules-of-thumb like that are by necessity simplistic and extremely lacking. The "at most 10%" part is good though, as it holds beginners back from hurting themselves.
- beginner
P.S. people need to learn to listen to their bodies instead of looking at numbers, though it is difficult to be patient when your motivation is the highest, but training capacity the lowest
This makes sense, however following a marathon, inserting 1-2 weeks with relatively no running, the equation doesn't seem to work... however modelling it over my typical training, it seems to work well.... thanks!
Love the lesson in the park, but your math is inconsistent sir. 👀
Should be 80/55=1.45
Gosh Shona, after you sorted Lindsey's strength session, shame did you see his repentant face.
80/50=1.6 not 1.45!!!!!