# Fasted Training, How To Program Sessions & Is Speed Training For You?

An episode of [The Triathlon Hour](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1595443343), 26 Aug 2025, 25 min.

Audio: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2640942/episodes/19698035-fasted-training-how-to-program-sessions-is-speed-training-for-you.mp3

Some unsolicited training advice and chat from the boys Lever: Use the code TTH for 20% off your Lever system Lever

## Transcript

[0:05] SPEAKER_00: We're gonna do some training discussion.
[0:07] SPEAKER_00: Uh, as Apo says, everyone loves our unsolicited training advice.
[0:11] SPEAKER_00: So we thought we'd each bring a new training topic to discuss amongst us three, hopefully for your benefit.
[0:17] SPEAKER_00: Boys, mine is it's about the bike.
[0:20] SPEAKER_00: And I think that a lot of bike training is done in the wrong way.
[0:24] SPEAKER_00: I've touched on this in the podcast before when coaches who maybe don't have the confidence in their programming or are trying to justify being paid, they just set different session after different session after different different session.
[0:38] SPEAKER_00: And over six months there's been 200 different bike sessions.
[0:43] SPEAKER_00: I don't like that.
[0:44] SPEAKER_00: I think that progressively overloading the same sessions on the bike week on week inside of a block instead of constantly changing the sessions week on week or even inside a different week is best practice.
[0:58] SPEAKER_00: So let me give you guys an example.
[1:00] SPEAKER_00: I think if you're gonna do, and this is a short block, but it's a hypothetical.
[1:04] SPEAKER_00: Let's say you're gonna do a four-week threshold block and you've got a bike workout on a Tuesday.
[1:10] SPEAKER_00: I think that really good coaching might be something like this.
[1:14] SPEAKER_00: On week one, you do five by six minutes at 300 watts.
[1:18] SPEAKER_00: And then at week two, you do five by six minutes at 310 watts or even 305 watts.
[1:24] SPEAKER_00: Or if the athlete didn't achieve it on the first one, maybe it's just the same session, five by six minutes at 300 watts.
[1:30] SPEAKER_00: And then you move on to week three, and it's five by six minutes at 320 watts or 315 or 310.
[1:36] SPEAKER_00: And then week four, it's five by six minutes at 330 or 325 or 320.
[1:42] SPEAKER_00: I think that's highly effective coaching and training, and that progressively overloading that same session is going to uh get better training adaptation than if you did four different sessions that didn't really make any sense.
[1:58] SPEAKER_00: They just were all roughly thresholdy, all very similar powers.
[2:02] SPEAKER_02: I like that, Jack.
[2:03] SPEAKER_02: And you know, good coaching can be very simple, right?
[2:06] SPEAKER_02: And we've touched on it in the past, maybe making things overcomplicated when they really don't need to be.
[2:12] SPEAKER_02: And you know, I've even wrestled with this too.
[2:14] SPEAKER_02: Like, oh, I give someone a workout, and then the next week you don't want to give them the same thing, just a little bit different.
[2:19] SPEAKER_02: You almost want to prove your worth.
[2:21] SPEAKER_02: So I I get how coaches can be tied up, but I think you know, being a good coach, you got to be confident.
[2:25] SPEAKER_02: And obviously, Jack is confident in this block that he put forth because it's simple, you progressively overload and it makes sense.
[2:33] SPEAKER_02: And it's you know, it's a good way to approach swim, bike, and run, essentially.
[2:37] SPEAKER_01: I think as well, like you can achieve the same stimulus from a session by modifying it slightly as well.
[2:45] SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
[2:46] SPEAKER_01: Like you don't it doesn't have to be exactly the same.
[2:48] SPEAKER_01: Like you can do there's a few different ways to skin a cat, right?
[2:52] SPEAKER_01: So you could one week you could do six minuteers, and the next week you could do, you know, maybe one rep less, but do seven minuteers or something like that.
[3:01] SPEAKER_01: Like there is areas that you can change it up so it doesn't look like it's just copy and pasted week to week and achieve the same outcome.
[3:08] SPEAKER_01: Um as long as it's all within that same kind of you know threshold effort and things like that.
[3:13] SPEAKER_01: The same with VO2, like you don't need to do 12 by one minute VO2 max as your only VO2 max session, you know.
[3:22] SPEAKER_01: You can do Yeah, change it up, do less rest, do 75 seconds or 90 seconds and things like that, um reps and like yeah, there's a lot of different ways to get the same stimulus from a session.
[3:34] SPEAKER_01: Um so if the athlete is wanting or craving a little bit more variety, then I think you can give that to them and still keep the stimulus of the session the same.
[3:44] SPEAKER_00: Of course, because it's still the same thing.
[3:46] SPEAKER_00: We're still making the same point, aren't we?
[3:48] SPEAKER_00: It's just that you're changing a little bit of a like a different part of the training.
[3:53] SPEAKER_00: So you can make the rest shorter, like you said, Apo, or you can add a little bit more volume, or you can increase the power.
[3:59] SPEAKER_00: Mine was an example where you just progressively uh increase the power very slightly over the block.
[4:04] SPEAKER_00: But you can do that same workout and and it can be the same thing.
[4:08] SPEAKER_00: Like it can be five by six minutes at 300 watts, and the first week you have six minutes rest, and then the next week you have five minutes rest, and then the next week you have four minutes rest, and then the next week you have three minutes rest.
[4:18] SPEAKER_00: You're still progressively overloading the training, but you're not making these big drastic changes like going, okay, this week we're going five by six minutes at 300 watts, and then next week we're going six by ten minutes at 300 watts, and then the next week we're going two by twelve minutes at 360 watts.
[4:35] SPEAKER_00: Because you like you're still probably getting similar training effect to all those random sessions, but the lack of progressive overload is a real negative to training and isn't a way to get the best out of yourself.
[4:47] SPEAKER_00: Like progressive overload is a fundamental training principle for a reason.
[4:51] SPEAKER_00: It is vitally important to getting better in your training and therefore your racing.
[4:57] SPEAKER_00: And you made another good point, Appo, which is you could make it seven minutes.
[5:00] SPEAKER_00: Of course, you could go for this example five by six one week, five by seven the next, five by eight the week the next, five by nine the next.
[5:07] SPEAKER_00: And that does provide some variety, but you're still doing the real basic thing I'm talking about, which is that progressively overloading the same sessions on the bike week on week instead of constantly changing them so they're very, very, very different is better practice than changing them all the time.
[5:25] SPEAKER_00: And keep in mind, you actually get a lot of different, like, you know, mental variety from your training by doing training like this because you block your training more.
[5:33] SPEAKER_00: So you go, okay, we're gonna do a VO2 block, then a then a threshold block, then a race-specific block, then we're gonna race, then we're gonna have a little bit of a block, uh break.
[5:42] SPEAKER_00: And then you go again, VO2 threshold specific, and then you just that's when you change the sessions because it's not like you're doing the same training year round, right?
[5:51] SPEAKER_02: Well, and then all the people that Apocoach, they you know, they get two by one thousand in the pool and they're like, fuck, I want to kill myself.
[5:57] SPEAKER_02: And then the next week he gives them three one thousands and they're like, damn, this sucks.
[6:01] SPEAKER_02: And the next week it's four one thousands like, dang, I might have to fire my coach.
[6:05] SPEAKER_02: I don't think this is uh good enough stuff for me.
[6:07] SPEAKER_01: Just wait till they get to week 12 of the 70.3 block and they're doing 12 by 1000.
[6:12] SPEAKER_01: Just one swim a week, just 12 by one game.
[6:17] SPEAKER_01: Um speaking of my training, I wanted to pose to you guys is faster training dead?
[6:25] SPEAKER_01: Um personally, I used to do quite a bit of faster training, especially my early 70.3 um years, because like it makes sense, right?
[6:35] SPEAKER_01: The the thought process is sound.
[6:38] SPEAKER_01: If you deplete your glycogen and your body switches to burning fat, the more f efficient you are at burning fat, the better you're gonna perform, right?
[6:47] SPEAKER_01: Um, because the body's always burning more glycogen than you can consume and restore, right?
[6:54] SPEAKER_01: You're always in a decline when you're racing.
[6:57] SPEAKER_01: So the logic is sound, but I found you know, lower quality sessions, worse recovery, and then actually quite a lot of periods of like binge eating where I'd have a rest day and I just find that I was just had an insatiable hunger and I would just eat all day.
[7:13] SPEAKER_01: Um do you guys do any faster training, or do you know of anyone that still does faster training?
[7:19] SPEAKER_01: Because I personally don't anymore.
[7:20] SPEAKER_01: I've kind of stopped doing that, and I think the research now is coming out that, you know, carbs, carbs, carbs.
[7:28] SPEAKER_01: Um I think David Roach just won the the Leadville 100 mile and he was he ate 150 grams of carbs an hour, and he's a big, big proponent of eating a lot of carbs.
[7:38] SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I just think that the faster training and the kind of just fad adaption fad has kind of run its course a little bit.
[7:46] SPEAKER_01: What do you guys think?
[7:47] SPEAKER_00: Oh, I agree.
[7:48] SPEAKER_01: I got a question.
[7:49] SPEAKER_02: Did you like do sessions like fasted, you know?
[7:52] SPEAKER_02: Or was it kind of like oh I'd wake up and do like kind of an easy jog or or whatnot?
[7:56] SPEAKER_01: It would never be like a quality session, but there was times when I'd do yeah, I'd wake up and do long runs or a couple of hours on the bike.
[8:06] SPEAKER_01: I w or I would swim a lot faster.
[8:08] SPEAKER_01: And I mean, Greg, you might have done this the same, just growing up.
[8:11] SPEAKER_01: Like when you were waking up before school, you would wake up at five, be at the pool at 5 30.
[8:16] SPEAKER_01: Like when I was a kid, I would never eat, you know.
[8:19] SPEAKER_01: I would just wake up and go to the pool.
[8:21] SPEAKER_01: You know, you'd never think about it.
[8:23] SPEAKER_01: You'd rip it too.
[8:24] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
[8:24] SPEAKER_01: And you'd be ripping 5k swims.
[8:26] SPEAKER_01: It's funny how it's changed.
[8:28] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but now I don't, and it I make a conscious effort of actually eating, even when I don't feel like it.
[8:34] SPEAKER_01: Because sometimes I have to wake up early and go running at six or something, and you wake up at 5 30, you don't necessarily feel like it.
[8:40] SPEAKER_01: But I might have like a English muffin or something, or half a bagel before I head out and do do my training.
[8:46] SPEAKER_01: And I I can't remember the last time I actually did a fasted session.
[8:50] SPEAKER_01: Like even a 4K easy swim, I would probably fuel beforehand now.
[8:55] SPEAKER_01: I think I think the knock-on effects of just recovery and um yeah, energy levels is just pretty severe when you do faster training.
[9:03] SPEAKER_01: So I just kind of eliminated it fully.
[9:05] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I think that that point you just make at the end there, Apo, is a really salient point.
[9:10] SPEAKER_00: Faster training in and of itself has a little bit of merit.
[9:14] SPEAKER_00: For sure, it definitely does.
[9:16] SPEAKER_00: It does improve glycogen sparing, although there is research that suggests that just training more, so the amount that you train over time has just or pretty a pretty similar impact on glycogen sparing.
[9:30] SPEAKER_00: So your ability to use a slightly lower percentage of glycogen and a slightly higher percentage of fat for a given uh intensity of exercise.
[9:38] SPEAKER_00: So there is that small adaptive benefit to faster training.
[9:43] SPEAKER_00: But from my personal experience, from what I've done myself and what I've seen, you've got to be a psychopath to do faster training and it not have a flow-on of negative effects.
[9:52] SPEAKER_00: There's some people who can do it like for a long period of time, there's some people who can do it for a short period of time, but almost everyone ends up having some side effects.
[10:00] SPEAKER_00: I think a big one is that people get caught in a restrictive and binging food cycle, and that has uh, you know, a whole host of negative impacts on both on performance and your your day-to-day health.
[10:13] SPEAKER_00: So I think you've got to you've got to think about yourself as a full product of what makes me the best athlete I can be.
[10:19] SPEAKER_00: And I think when you start fasting and then start binging, you you get, you know, there's a whole host of things that you wouldn't expect to happen that do happen.
[10:28] SPEAKER_00: Like you start putting on weight.
[10:30] SPEAKER_00: Most people who've who do uh serious fasted training for long periods of time at some point start to put on weight, even if they have lost weight initially or for even like a mildly, you know, um prolonged period of time, eventually it comes back to bite them because they get stuck in the in the binge restrict cycle.
[10:49] SPEAKER_00: And it's very hard to do faster training without doing what you said, Apo, which is trying to catch up at some point.
[10:55] SPEAKER_00: Like you just have this hunger and this obsession with eating at some point, whether it's a day later or that night or four hours later when you're on the couch.
[11:03] SPEAKER_00: And and that has a whole host of negative health impacts, but also body composition impacts and also mental health impacts.
[11:11] SPEAKER_00: So you don't necessarily want to go and train and you don't love it as much.
[11:14] SPEAKER_00: So there is these like flow-on negative effects that you don't think about that are more broad than just the adaptive benefit of the fasted training, which might be there, but probably isn't worth it given the flow on of negative impacts to the fasted training.
[11:30] SPEAKER_02: I think that sums it up better than uh better than I could even add to.
[11:34] SPEAKER_02: So uh we'll we'll go to my question.
[11:37] SPEAKER_02: And this is uh a swim question.
[11:39] SPEAKER_02: I don't know if you guys know, I do like swimming and I do like talking about it.
[11:43] SPEAKER_02: Um and I've kind of had this debate, not debate, but thought with Jack.
[11:48] SPEAKER_02: We've talked about it, some of my athletes even, and the question is let's say you do four or five, but four or five one hundreds, you know, all out on a four-minute interval.
[11:58] SPEAKER_02: I mean, this is like true speed.
[12:02] SPEAKER_02: Do you think it's important or no?
[12:04] SPEAKER_02: And you know, in the context of who the person is as an athlete, maybe their training age and and and their strengths and weaknesses.
[12:11] SPEAKER_01: I would I don't think I've ever done a session like that.
[12:14] SPEAKER_01: A lot of my swimming is focused on kind of threshold and subthr.
[12:21] SPEAKER_01: I would say there is periods where I would do like VO2 max fifties and things, and sometimes you know, at the end of a session I might do four times fifty on two minutes and just try and go, you know, as fast as I can.
[12:35] SPEAKER_01: So the same thing, essentially.
[12:37] SPEAKER_01: Well, but that's also that's the same thing.
[12:40] SPEAKER_01: That's also at the end of a session.
[12:42] SPEAKER_01: Do you know what I mean?
[12:43] SPEAKER_01: Like I wouldn't I wouldn't go to the pool with just five by one hundred or best effort.
[12:49] SPEAKER_01: Like I would do When you you grew up swimming, right?
[12:51] SPEAKER_02: Yes.
[12:52] SPEAKER_02: So you maybe did some of this when you were growing up or now?
[12:56] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, as a yes when I was competing for swimming, yes.
[13:01] SPEAKER_01: But in my triathon career, I just don't think yeah, I don't think I've done anything similar to that in the last decade or so.
[13:10] SPEAKER_01: I might do 2100s like best average, but that's a different session.
[13:15] SPEAKER_01: You know, that's you know, leaving on 130 send off or 140 send off, you know, that's a completely different session.
[13:22] SPEAKER_01: That's threshold, whereas this is VO2 full speed.
[13:26] SPEAKER_01: It's a different different B.
[13:28] SPEAKER_01: So um, but I have done some VO2 stuff, but never very rarely, or if not ever, would I go to the pool and just do five by one hundred as the main set.
[13:39] SPEAKER_00: Not saying it's wrong, but so you never do true speed work in the water appo.
[13:44] SPEAKER_00: Yours always becomes VO2 max work.
[13:47] SPEAKER_00: You know, that's like my speed work in quotation marks, but it's actually VO2 max work because you're let's say you're doing the four four fifties or four hundreds at the end of a session, and you only take 30 to 60 seconds rest type of thing.
[14:01] SPEAKER_00: So you're only ever getting, you know, 70 to 80 percent of your ATP PC stores replenished.
[14:07] SPEAKER_00: You're never going to that three, four, five minutes to have full replenishment so it can become true speed work.
[14:13] SPEAKER_01: No, no, it's always kind of a yeah, pre-session to fatigue or like pre-main set to fatigue the arms leading into a threshold set or at the end of a threshold set or something.
[14:25] SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, never going to the pool with the sole intention of doing five by one hundred on long rest.
[14:32] SPEAKER_00: So, Greg, I want to ask your opinion on this, given that I think Apo probably speaks for 99.99% of triathletes who exclusively do tempo, threshold, VO2 max, or easy swimming.
[14:46] SPEAKER_00: And usually they'll the the most people will do just two of them, like and they'll do it all year round.
[14:51] SPEAKER_00: It's it's even rare that one like triathlet does all four of them.
[14:55] SPEAKER_00: You know, that's that's quite rare in programming.
[14:58] SPEAKER_00: But I would say, yeah, it's 0.0001% who do true speed work because we do a lot of sets off short rest, right?
[15:06] SPEAKER_00: Um, do you think that there is benefit for triathletes in doing true speed work, which is short, fast efforts, probably under 30 seconds at most 45 seconds, but even as short as 10, 15 seconds, where they're doing three, four, five, up to 10 minutes recovery?
[15:24] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, I've never done a set with 10 minutes recovery before, but I know people who have.
[15:29] SPEAKER_02: And if you think about it like this, all the similar two are the best in triathlon, think about myself.
[15:37] SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, all the other people that we talk about, we've all done it, is the thing.
[15:42] SPEAKER_02: And we got to the point where we got because we have done stuff like this.
[15:45] SPEAKER_02: And even Apo said it, he's probably done stuff like this growing up.
[15:48] SPEAKER_02: So now, do I need to do this stuff repeatedly now?
[15:52] SPEAKER_02: No.
[15:52] SPEAKER_02: But in terms of your overall swim development for your long-term potential, if you ever want to reach the ceiling of what you could achieve, and yes, maybe it's more a 200 freestyle, 400 freestyle type of set.
[16:04] SPEAKER_02: Like that that might increase your capacity for those races, but triathletes lack speed.
[16:09] SPEAKER_02: When you have no speed, you have no efficiency.
[16:12] SPEAKER_02: So, I mean, we talk about pro triathletes and the guys who can't make the front pack, they lose the pack in the first minute, like they need to be faster.
[16:21] SPEAKER_02: And sets like this are a way to work on that and really get that gear that you might not think that you have and put all your efforts, like these are when you do this, you swim every hundred like it's your last.
[16:35] SPEAKER_02: And I think there's benefit for a lot of people, and even just a mental benefit, like you don't have to crush these workouts all the time, but you get out of that pool and you're feeling slightly sick, that's that's how you did it right.
[16:47] SPEAKER_02: And honestly, I can think of so many days when I was growing up, like I got out of the pool and I'm like, dude, I feel like I'm gonna throw up.
[16:54] SPEAKER_02: And that's how a lot of good swimmers get good.
[16:56] SPEAKER_02: So, in the context of triathlon, I wouldn't say I'm like a full-on expert and and how to fit this in with everyone all the time, and based on your physiology and who you are and your training age, all of that.
[17:07] SPEAKER_02: Like, but all the best swimmers in the world have done this, and even the guys who win the 10k open water swim in the Olympics.
[17:14] SPEAKER_00: What would be your if you because you just said you're not an expert?
[17:17] SPEAKER_00: You kind of are an expert, and I know you're saying that you're not you don't know everything, but if you were going to give general advice, how often do you think someone should be doing a session like this and maybe give some examples of the sessions you've got in mind and why?
[17:32] SPEAKER_02: I think doing it close to a race, essentially, like say you're three weeks out from a race and you haven't done this at all, and you do you know, I gave it to some of my athletes this week, actually.
[17:43] SPEAKER_02: Um like four one hundreds on the four minute, and you do like four fifties on the two minute.
[17:48] SPEAKER_02: And these are just like it's just full-on effort.
[17:50] SPEAKER_02: I think in that 500 to 800 yards of like complete max swimming with full recovery.
[17:56] SPEAKER_02: And I, you know, I saw it on Lucy Charles Instagram uh or no YouTube earlier in the year, and they were doing like five one hundreds or something on the six minutes, and the coach was really saying you can swim the hundreds as hard as you can, but you have to sit on the wall and you have to sit in your lactate.
[18:11] SPEAKER_02: Usually when I do it, I like swim easy between, you try to get ready for the next rep.
[18:14] SPEAKER_02: So that was even trying to achieve something more, which is you know, maybe that lactate resiliency or something.
[18:20] SPEAKER_02: But yeah, I think a five on five is a classic that I've done growing up, you know, five one hundreds on five minute, but they're they're just so full gas.
[18:27] SPEAKER_02: And it's funny, I just don't try athletes, I don't think they can even like get to that point.
[18:32] SPEAKER_02: Like, so maybe they need a little more practice.
[18:34] SPEAKER_02: But I think doing it like twice in the last three weeks into a race can like maybe give you a tiny bit of bump um and almost mental confidence, but like get out speed and like maybe even VO2.
[18:45] SPEAKER_02: I I don't know.
[18:46] SPEAKER_02: I honestly I don't understand like the nuances of physiology quite at that level, like what actually is happening, Jack.
[18:51] SPEAKER_02: And maybe you could shed some light on that.
[18:53] SPEAKER_02: But I think preparing for a race that can be a good like prep session, essentially.
[18:58] SPEAKER_02: Um, even if you're gonna do an Iron Man.
[19:00] SPEAKER_02: I mean, maybe you've been doing you've been grinding those long reps, so getting a little bit of that like holy moly, this is this is really hard type of swimming can kind of uh give you that little boost going in into race day.
[19:11] SPEAKER_02: So yeah, five on five.
[19:13] SPEAKER_02: Um maybe do 75s on the four minute or 50s on the two or two thirty, like Apo set, you know, 1050s uh on 230, something like that.
[19:21] SPEAKER_00: There's lots of reasons physiologically why you might do it, Greg.
[19:25] SPEAKER_00: Um you know like some really basic things.
[19:28] SPEAKER_00: So you'll have enhanced neuromuscular coordination.
[19:31] SPEAKER_00: So just neuromuscular um benefits to training aren't talked about enough.
[19:36] SPEAKER_00: They really matter, particularly in a technique-based sport like swimming.
[19:40] SPEAKER_00: You're also gonna improve your economy and your efficiency while you're in the water.
[19:45] SPEAKER_00: Again, things that don't necessarily happen if you go and do three by a thousand meters, they might a little bit, but they're not gonna, you're not gonna get the adaptation at a physiological level as quickly as if you do the movement at your maximal capabilities.
[20:01] SPEAKER_00: You've got you've got a way higher muscle recruitment, so you get um like greater explosiveness power, uh, muscle strength.
[20:08] SPEAKER_00: There's just so many like physiological benefits to increasing your your speed in training.
[20:15] SPEAKER_00: Um the the science behind the rest period, I think, is is the interesting thing that you have to understand if you're gonna go and implement training like this in your program.
[20:25] SPEAKER_00: And I think the big reason people don't do it is because it's boring and it goes against your desire to train harder because you have this thing, right?
[20:35] SPEAKER_00: And you might do it when you go to the gym, when you're sitting there between bicep curls or between bench presses, and you go, okay, I'll get into my next set.
[20:42] SPEAKER_00: That's the wrong way to do it.
[20:44] SPEAKER_00: Longer rest is going to be better.
[20:46] SPEAKER_00: And if you're doing that kind of stuff and having 60 seconds rest, you're just not getting the most out of that session.
[20:51] SPEAKER_00: And as triathletes, we're so used to just doing more, more, more, more volume, uh, more threshold.
[20:57] SPEAKER_00: We just want everything to be harder and and we want that, we want that positive reinforcement that you get from making things harder.
[21:05] SPEAKER_00: This does make it harder in a sense, but it also makes it kind of easier in a sense, and you feel like you're not getting everything out of it that you could.
[21:12] SPEAKER_00: And you've got to kind of throw that thought process and that that desire to get back in and do it and be like, okay, I'm good to go now, and instead realize why you're doing it from a physiological perspective.
[21:22] SPEAKER_00: So when you do tree true speed work, so that's that's when your ATP PC system is the primary provider of energy.
[21:30] SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's it's when you're not using oxygen as an energy source.
[21:34] SPEAKER_00: It could be five seconds, eight seconds, 15 seconds, you know, roughly around that time.
[21:39] SPEAKER_00: It could even be maybe as high as like a 50-meter rep in swimming.
[21:44] SPEAKER_00: That effort that that takes, if you do it maximally, takes a long time to fully replenish your ATP PC stores from.
[21:51] SPEAKER_00: You'll get the majority of your replenishment inside the first minute.
[21:55] SPEAKER_00: Even if you're a bit more trained, like say Apo or Greg, they'd probably get the majority of that back in 30 to 45 seconds, maybe up to 80%, but probably not more than 80%.
[22:06] SPEAKER_00: To get that last 20 or 30%, it really can take up to five or six minutes for most people.
[22:13] SPEAKER_00: So that's why you have to sit there and wait.
[22:15] SPEAKER_00: And the Lucy Charles example is a is a great one for five minutes because the science says that most people will have fully replenished ATP PC stores in five minutes after doing the speed work.
[22:27] SPEAKER_00: So you might go and do an all-out 25 or an all-out 50.
[22:31] SPEAKER_00: And then the reason why you're sitting around and waiting is so that you have fully replenished ATP PC stores.
[22:38] SPEAKER_00: And what that means is that the quality of the next rep will be as high as the quality of the previous rep, right?
[22:46] SPEAKER_00: You won't be dealing with as much fatigue.
[22:48] SPEAKER_00: Whereas if you only wait two minutes or three minutes, you might only have 90% replenished ATP PC stores.
[22:56] SPEAKER_00: And so that means the quality of the next one isn't as good.
[23:00] SPEAKER_00: So the adaptive benefit you get isn't as high.
[23:03] SPEAKER_00: So once you realize that, you can actually allow yourself mentally to switch off and know, oh, I'm doing the right thing here to get the most out of my performance.
[23:12] SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of people don't think about training from that way.
[23:15] SPEAKER_00: So if you are going to implement what Greg's talking about, I think just realize it, why you're doing it, how you do it, and then do it properly and commit to that.
[23:23] SPEAKER_02: That's a great thought, Jack.
[23:25] SPEAKER_02: I appreciate all the insight on that.
[23:26] SPEAKER_02: And it's funny you say that because I I did do a set like this a few weeks back, and it I hadn't done it in months, and it was hundreds on the four minute, and I feel like I did five of them.
[23:35] SPEAKER_02: On number two, you're like, you're sort of ready.
[23:37] SPEAKER_02: Number three, you're like a little bit less ready.
[23:39] SPEAKER_02: And by the fifth one, they were all even times, but every rep was just slightly more like it's just hard, it was just harder to get it done, but you get it done.
[23:48] SPEAKER_02: So, you know, I wasn't resting that whole five or six minutes.
[23:51] SPEAKER_02: It was only, you know, essentially three.
[23:53] SPEAKER_02: So it checks out kind of on what you said, like, but you know, I capped it at five, and that was it.
[23:58] SPEAKER_02: It's like that five to eight hundred yards.
[24:00] SPEAKER_02: I think for most people, even four to five hundred is kind of that um sweet spot how how how you could execute it.
[24:06] SPEAKER_02: Because you know, ah, I did speed work today.
[24:08] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I did uh 10 by 1s and uh 10 by 50s.
[24:11] SPEAKER_02: I'm like, that's threshold, dude.
[24:12] SPEAKER_02: That's not speed.
[24:13] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's not even VO2, most likely.
[24:15] SPEAKER_00: Maybe you dip into it.
[24:17] SPEAKER_00: But um, a point to your set, Greg, the the hundreds, why the hundreds might induce more fatigue over the session is you're not just using your ATPC system, which is the system, the energy system of the three that you use in speed work, you're actually dipping into your glycolytic system because it's taking you, I'm assuming you're probably doing them in like a minute, right?
[24:37] SPEAKER_00: And by that stage, you're definitely dipping into your your your anaerobic glycolysis system.
[24:43] SPEAKER_00: And so you're going to have more fatigue than someone who keeps it shorter.
[24:46] SPEAKER_00: So even the four or five by one hundreds isn't necessarily an example of like, you know, strict speed work.
[24:54] SPEAKER_00: And if you so if you are wanting to do it like really strictly, you probably do make it 25s or 50s, which is big in the Australian swimming swimming system at the moment.
[25:02] SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, our 50 meter gold uh Olympic gold medalist, he does a lot of this stuff where he gets out of the pool and waits 20 minutes between sets uh between reps.
[25:09] SPEAKER_00: It's uh it's quite crazy, but but physiologically kind of makes sense.

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