Why are people so worried about over exerting themselves in workouts?

That is just confusing and wrong on so many levels. I get what you are trying to do, but that example is just a mess.

Getting fitter via training is a game of generating some kind of physiological *response* to *stimulus*. Setting aside that all of us are addicted to running and hard workouts are kinda fun, you're trying to maximize response over the long term, not stimulus. You don't get a meaningfully better response from hammering a workout all-out versus a more controlled effort, and the *recovery* costs are higher from going too hard. Each run and workout has some stimulus-to-fatigue ratio, and you have some finite recovery capacity to generate response out of that stimulus. You want to get as much response as possible with as little recovery cost as possible. I like to think of having a recovery "budget" that I spend on workouts. If I spend it carefully, I can do 3 somewhat less-intense workouts a week. If I eat and hydrate well, and get plenty of sleep, I can increase the size of that budget.

If you're doing workouts whose recovery cost is too high relative to the response they generate, you're either going to progress slowly, stagnate, or get injured. There's some value to pushing yourself to the brink occasionally just to mentally get used to the pain in preparation for racing, but there's not really a good *physiological* reason to do that.

A wise teammate once told me you have two nipples: the endurance nipple and the intensity nipple. If you twist one or even both a little bit for a short amount of time you’ll be alright. But if you start twisting them really hard for a long time you’re gonna be royally screwed. The secret to maximizing your potential is to find the perfect balance. Sometimes all it takes is one hard twist at the wrong time to derail your season.

100% agree OP and the reason is because people don’t have discipline on their easy days. They are too embarrassed to upload a 8-9 min per mile run to strava. So instead they run 7 flat easy days and slower workouts.

Rabdo

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even youngins need to know. Your teammates who are fast despite hammering 100% all the time? They're going to plateau or get injured soon, OR they're B.S.ing and other don't realize that their 100% is actually not 100%, or they're trying to mislead you.

Chances are also, athletes faster than you in high school are doing a multitude of different things to be that fast, some are just engrained habits, some are thighs their coach or family have them do

Think about repeats on the track.
Like a race, you pace yourself throughout for an even effort.

Unlike a race, you want to finish each rep, including the last one in a controlled effort. You don’t want to run ragged.
You want to improve efficiency and running economy. You are working on fitness and that will improve your efficiency. You need to leave enough to recover quickly so you can have another hard session in two days.

Over time, you will be able to improve your pace or increase your volume for these repeats.

Or, you can take drugs for fast recovery. Then go ahead and race those workouts.

If you’re reducing volume because you’re running too fast, run slower. If you reduce volume or are dropping out of workouts because you’re wrecked from the previous workout, don’t push as hard as you did in the workout that wrecked you.

But otherwise, if you complete the workout and feel good by the next workout & race well, then don’t worry about.

99%+ of users on this site has read jakob's definitive guy to running and knows that running slow intervals but in huge quantities is superior to hammering out hard intervals but requiring massive amounts of rest. double thresholds are easier and more effective than race pace workouts.

Absolutely second this.

I smashed an interval sess/tempo run each week for a year in 2023. I was so fixated on getting quicker in each workout and posting good stuff on strava. Stagnated hard.

In 2024, finally started running workouts appropriate and switched to more threshold. Just capped off the season taking 1’+ on 5 and 2’+ on my 10.

LT2 means nothing.

20 minutes at 5 minute mile pace, that means something, and if you cannot handle it, slow down! The thing that grinder distance runners can never get until it's too late is you do not have to win the Olympics yesterday!

"Once a kid gets injured, it is hard to bring them back."

Look up Percy Cerruty and Herb Elliot training, they had him run race prep workouts at race pace closer to peak. The only thing he probably did too much was actually racing too much. But it worked well. The idea is to run fartleks and volume before touching race pace after months without it. Then extend the race efforts to longer intervals, and work on a speed faster then race pace, that can be produced at the end of the race distance for the kick.

I think you have a point.

I think it stems from the (wrong) training approach we had in the 90s n early 00s where every work out (even the easy runs) were more or less run as a matter of life n death. Go hard or go home.

Now everything is more measured n cautious. Which is better 90 % of the time but i think "all out sessions" will slowly make its way back into the training programs. Maybe once a week 3 weeks leading up to a race or one has to race a lot (the ingebritsen approach). But i can not help to think that ingebritsens losses in the past Championships could partly be because he is not digging deep enough in training - not training to compete one on one. Maybe I am wrong...

When I get carried away and start planning hero sessions, I often come back to this article, a thought provoking read.

teamakerdahlie.com

You are training too hard and will never reach your full potential! — Team Aker Dæhlie

Jarle Wermskog

We hope the headline provoked and made your heart beat a little faster. If you have read this far, we strongly recommend that you continue, and join us on a small deep dive into a discussion about training and intensity contr...

Link:www.teamakerdahlie.com/training/you-ar...

Cerruty was a genius.

Elliot scratched the surface.

The training however, wasn't exactly optimal. they were learning.

Elliot wasnt properly peaked in Rome WR, as he was laboring at 800m, which is crazy.

This guy should have had developed a 47x 400m, or 48 at least.

And put the records out if sight for a decade.

No matter, they did very well.

i recall elliot ran a 149 800 off a 60 sec opener.

his speed is very underrated.

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