This article is a summary of the key points discussed by Joe Friel in his book 'Fast After 50'. If you have been training for several decades, your performance begins to decline after the age of 50 years. Predictors of performance include aerobic capacity (VO2 max), efficiency and lactate threshold (the point at which lactate accumulates rapidly in the blood). Aerobic capacity naturally declines with age, efficiency and lactate threshold do not decline as rapidly. Athletes wh

Iron has several roles in the body including the transport and delivery of oxygen, and energy production. It is also key for both cognitive and immune function. Athletes are at a greater risk of being iron deficient in comparison to the general population, especially female athletes, with up to ~35% having an iron deficiency versus ~5% in the general population. Regular exercise can increase the likelihood of an iron deficiency. This is because there is an increased inflammat

Consistency is the backbone of an endurance training program. If you take a look at the world’s best endurance athletes you won’t find too many ‘super human’ sessions. What you will notice is their ability to back up the next day & get the job done. In your training programs you will find two types of sessions. Adaptation or easy sessions & key sessions. If you train as hard as possible in all sessions, you are limiting your capacity to adapt to the demands of the key session

Many of us are familiar with physical fatigue, from training, from work. Mental fatigue can also contribute to your overall ‘fatigue’ level or load on your body. Mental fatigue increases with prolonged or demanding cognitive activity, stress, emotions and/or travel. Mental fatigue can impair exercise performance. This includes physical performance, change in technique, decision making and tactical or skill execution. This will often present as an increased perception of effor

Taper is a period of time before an event where training load is decreased. This can be a reduction in training volume (time/distance) or intensity or a combination of both. Goals of taper - Remove or reduce accumulated fatigue Maintain & sharpen fitness A taper will look a little different for each event, athlete and their current training load. For example, someone tapering for an Ironman after a 3-4 month prep will reduce training load over 3 weeks. Compared to someone tap

Polarised training is completing majority of training at low intensity, with small amounts of training at moderate & high intensity. Rough values equate to 70% low intensity; 10% moderate intensity and 20% high intensity for total weekly volume. It was initially theorised based on observations of elite athletes in endurance sports particularly cross country skiing & cycling. Polarised training describes the way in which we organise training weeks and blocks to improve athlete

Sport nutrition / supplementation is a lucrative industry. There is plenty of ‘advice’ available for athletes including fad diets etc. As a coach, my general advice is to eat ‘normal food’ that you enjoy eating where possible. Some of us have specific requirements such as vegan, vegetarian, plant-based, wheat free, coeliac etc. which can create unique nutritional requirements. Similarly, long-distance training for events such as marathons, ultras, half and full ironman events

Caffeine is one of the few legal (since 2004) performance enhancing (ergogenic) drugs.