The importance of structure when training less than 5 hours a week
One of the common reservations that athletes have towards starting a structured and organized training plan is the impression that the amount of time spent training is insufficient to merit this kind of attention. While this logic can seem sound and apply to many different situations, this is not the case for training. Athletes that have specific goals in mind can benefit enormously from a structured plan, particularly to validate that training is efficient and at the correct intensities, plus increases accountability and consistency tracking.
Training Efficiency and Intensity
When training a few hours a week, that precious time must be used in the most efficient way possible. Training efficiency can be broken down to two main categories, training specificity and training intensity.
From a practical standpoint, a limited amount of stress can be applied with lower training volume. This stress is necessary to drive adaptations and gain fitness. Logically, the more an athlete trains, more stress can be generated, so there is a greater margin of error to create the right stress. The athlete with limited time needs to ensure that the stress they do apply is as specific as possible to their training goals. This idea of training specificity is extremely important and can make a huge difference in training progress for everyone. Training specificity does not mean only doing the target activity. Even at low volumes, doing some kind of ‘’cross training’’ can be extremely beneficial. Cross training is anything different than, but beneficial to, the target activity and goals for a particular athlete. It simply means that the training you do is targeted towards improving that activity. This is of course important for all athletes, but at lower total training volumes a higher percentage of specific training is required.
Training intensity is an important factor of training efficiency. It may seem obvious but if limited time is available for training it is important that the training is done at the correct intensity. Many time constrained athletes who do their work outs without planning and/ or tracking will gravitate to the extremes. Either they are unaware of just how hard they can push and do not spend enough time at high enough intensities, or they adopt a mentality of going as hard as possible each workout. In the first scenario, not enough total stress is applied to drive adaptations. The second case can seem more favourable but can be just as counterproductive. It is possible that
max intensities are not appropriate for the athletes training goals. It is also possible that the athlete goes hard enough in one training session that subsequent work out quality suffers. Again the total stress is not sufficient to drive adaptations. It is important to plan work outs at the correct intensities for the athlete’s goals and objectives, but also their specific weaknesses.
By planning work outs around targeted goals, and tracking results to inform future planning time constrained athletes can still make significant gains. To make these gains, training time must be used as efficiently as possible.
Increased Accountability and Tracking Consistency
This is an undervalued advantage of structured training. The increased accountability from having a planned work out in your schedule rather than fitting work outs in when it is easy is invaluable. Usually athletes have a reason for being time constrained, so it is very easy for work outs to fall to a lower priority. When motivation is the main driving force to train, this reprioritization is an even greater risk. Regardless of training time, motivation is not the best factor to rely upon. Motivation is fleeting and no one is motivated to work out every day. After a few weeks on training, with no validation of training consistency or efficiency, motivation is easily lost. Pre-planned work outs become a habit, and that discipline is a much stronger driving force to train. After a few weeks of completing every work out as planned and checking all the boxes, this becomes another source of drive as well as providing data to adjust training to be more efficient.
Structured fun
It may be important to note that a structured training plan does not mean that every minute of training is accounted for. Even for athletes that train less than 5 hours a week, some time can be set aside for free and open activities. What is often required is establishing an intention for these activities. An example of this would be replacing a 90-minute endurance style training by an unstructured activity with a target duration between 75 and 100-minutes with a target breath rate to maintain. In this case the athlete can do anything they want while keeping the intention in mind. This means that group classes can also be integrated into a weekly training plan, especially when this helps maintain the drive to train, they just need to be a regular and planned for occurrence.
The most important factor for an athlete to attain their goals is consistency. By increasing accountability and being disciplined in following a predetermined plan, consistency increases. Training efficiency and training intensity can also be improved by a structured plan. All these benefits can be gained by the time constrained athlete simply by spending a bit of extra time, or having a good coach, to plan ahead.
