As you watch the Rams vs. 49ers, if you want the science on long travel, circadian rhythm and performance, I got you. I think the travel fatigue and shifts in muscle tension are more important than the circadian rhythm: stevemagness.org/p/the-rams-…

HIIT is often portrayed as a time saver. To be used for the time crunched person. But...I think this is mostly wrong for a few reasons. 1. It's not even the "best" bang for our buck for the adaptations most people are after. If you wanted long-term development of general fitness and only had 30-40min, you'd do high end aerobic training. Split thresholds, progressions, aerobic fartleks or intervals. Why? It builds the aerobic system well, without overloading with stress. It's lower risk than HIIT, especially for amateurs. And it doesn't plateau The ideal system still includes lots of easy to build that foundation. But if we said, gun to head, don't have time for that, we wouldn't do lots of HIIT. That produces results quickly, but then tends to plateau if there's no underlying foundation. A high end aerobic focused load allows us to build some of that aerobic foundation and get the benefits of some higher intensity work. 2. The idea that HIIT saves time just doesn't hold water when it comes to sports like running. Why? THe warm-up, cool-down, and recovery from going hard takes time! Sure, you could minimize and skip that stuff...but if you're asking people to run "all out" or even a more reasonably 90-100% VO2max like many fitness influencers suggest... you better do a nice warmup or else you're asking for injuries and over-training. Even if you skip the cool down...you've still got the post hard workout hangover, which depending on the intensity could mean you are sitting on the track for 5-10min, or at best walking around in a fog for a bit. Contrast that with an easy or even moderate run and you can go straight from the run to shower to work... Again, even a heavy high end aerobic based plan isn't ideal. But if you are truly time crunched, the point is...you still wouldn't do a HIIT focused plan to maximize benefits. You'd do lots of aerobic Igloi intervals, sub-threshold intervals, etc.

If specificity is king, why don't we do everything at race pace? Well...We tried that in the 1950s. Jim Peters hammered every run at near marathon pace. He ran 2:17... crazy fast for then... But we now know, you need the whole gamut of intensities to support speed/endurance. That you need both general and specific work to support one another. It was the breakthrough in the 60s and 70s...that sequencing, and developing general qualities can enhance the specific later AND allow you to handle more and bounce back from that hard work quicker. It's why Lydiard (and others) accelerated training understanding. That saw that the kink in the pipe shifted and changed. And that how we build the base or foundation, allowed us to not run into limiting factors later on. Think of it like this. If I'm trying to deliver lots of objects from point A to B. At first, getting a faster car or faster roads might be the best solution. But eventually, my limit shifts to needing more carrying capacity. And then it might be producing more widgets to sell. And then it might be being able to unload them quick enough at their destination. Lydiard and others realized that they had to spend time building up the total capacity, before they fine tuned the delivery and efficiencies. It's the same with training. It's why sometimes we need lots of easy, other times emphasizing the in-between, and sometimes the final touches. You need it all. When and how much varies. But anyone who tells you to just do race pace or fast stuff all day everyday....well you're training like it's the 1950s.

I put together a free guide: How to Design Better Workouts. Filled with insights on writing creative workouts that get the right stimulus for the desired adaptation. A few excerpts: thegrowtheq.ck.page/c51b8637…