80/20 Endurance Blog
A Zone By Any Other Name Would Be Complete
I recently had an e-mail exchange with an athlete regarding training intensity zones. He wanted to know how he could merge the industry standard Zone 1 definition of 50-65% of maximum heart rate into the 80/20 Endurance zones. This was news to me, because after more than thirty years participating in endurance sports this was […]
Art Versus Science in Coaching
“These other young coaches have their science blah blah but they are not as successful.” —Coach Hailye, Out of Thin Air There’s an endurance coach I follow on Twitter who tweets a lot. We’ll call him Dick Smart. I find him quite impressive on one level. A real numbers guy, he knows more about using […]
Coaching Mastery
What is the job of a coach? At the most basic level, it is to help athletes achieve their goals. Sounds reasonable, no? But the problem with this definition of the coach’s role is that it treats athletes’ goals as givens—as things that athletes come up with on their own and bring to coaches for […]
Book Review: Scientific Training for Endurance Athletes
When I was a younger man I used to shake my head in pity when reading the writings of endurance sports experts of a certain age. They tended to repeat the same things over and over, evidently because they had nothing new to say. Because they hadn’t learned anything new about their field of expertise […]
Let’s Clear Up the Irrational Thinking Surrounding Fasted Workouts
Among the benefits of traveling internationally is that it gives you a different perspective on your own country. For example, in 2015 I spent two weeks in Kenya conducting research for my book The Endurance Diet, and it was there that I came to fully appreciate how screwed up America’s relationship with food is. As […]
Training with a “Whatever Works” Mindset
In a recent blog post I mentioned that highly successful endurance athletes have a “whatever works” mindset. Today I’d like to expand on this concept and contrast it with a phenomenon that I call means attachment, which is common among less successful athletes. As the name suggests, means attachment entails becoming attached to particular means […]
In Defense of Not Crying
When I was fourteen years old I suffered a catastrophic knee injury during a soccer game. I didn’t even know what an ACL was until the orthopedic surgeon who patched me up (sounding more impressed than sympathetic) explained that I had torn mine clean off the bone. What I did know, well before I received […]
All About (Intensity) Balance
Billy Sperlich is one of the world’s leading experts in the area of training intensity distribution (TID) in endurance sports. I’ve often cited his research, which he conducts out of the University of Würzburg, in my books, articles, and blog posts. Recently, Sperlich released a series of eleven tweets summarizing the “experiences and takeaways” he’s […]
Advice for Aging Athletes: Assume Nothing
On January, 22, 2020, five days after thirty-eight year old Sara Hall set a new American record of 1:07:15 for the half marathon, Women’s Running magazine published an article titled “Sara Hall Shares 7 Keys to Her Longevity of Excellence.” For your convenience, I have copied the article’s section headings, which neatly summarize Hall’s secrets, […]
Taco Bell Battles for 80/20 Endurance Athletes with $10 Subscription Service
SALT LAKE CITY — Executives of the endurance sports company 80/20 Endurance are scrambling to respond to the announcement that the fast food chain Taco Bell will be offering $10 (USD) monthly subscriptions, according to sources within both organizations. The surprise taco subscription is believed to be a direct response and threat to the booming […]
