Training science, coaching, and the 80/20 method — from Matt Fitzgerald and the 80/20 Endurance coaching team.
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…
Matt Fitzgerald ·
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…
Matt Fitzgerald ·
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…
Matt Fitzgerald ·
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,…
Matt Fitzgerald ·
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…
David Warden ·
Like a lot of children of the 1970s, I grew up mostly outdoors. Perhaps it was different in the big city, but in the piney woods of southern New Hampshire where I was raised, kids had to find their own fun, yet there was plenty of fun to be found if you looked hard enough.…
Matt Fitzgerald ·
In 2020, the journal Psychology published a study on device dependency in runners. Pierluigi Diotaiuti and colleagues at the University of Cassino and Southern Lazio gathered information about training device usage from 111 runners, who also completed a questionnaire designed to assess device dependency, which was scored on the basis of how individual subjects answered…
Matt Fitzgerald ·
For the past several months I’ve been writing a book that will serve as the official study guide for the 80/20 Endurance coach certification program. As you might expect, working on this project has afforded me the opportunity to reflect deeply on my philosophy of coaching. It’s impossible to summarize this philosophy in a pithy…
Matt Fitzgerald ·
Pacing is such a familiar part of the sport of running that it’s often taken for granted. Few runners spend much time thinking about pacing. Not coincidentally, most runners also aren’t very good at pacing. The purpose of this article is to explain what pacing is. Having a clear understanding of this vital running skill…
Matt Fitzgerald ·
Call me strange, but I love building training plans. It’s one of my favorite activities, right up there with training itself. That’s why I got together with David Warden to create 80/20 Endurance, which, as you well know, exists for the primary purpose of creating training plans for endurance athletes of all types and abilities. Nevertheless,…
Matt Fitzgerald ·
