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What Exercise History Can Teach Us About Health Today
People in modern fitness culture often fail at a predictable point. After they learn about a seemingly "optimal" workout, they attempt to replicate it. Either they end up burning themselves out after several weeks, or they become stuck in a very limited version of the workout. This happens because the workout feels so "scientifically correct".
However, there are ways to create an understanding of the workouts that have consistently produced results over many years of endurance training history. Details have changed. Debates have been heated. However, the underlying elements of success are remarkably consistent. Most adults are not trying to train like an Olympic athlete. Rather, they want to achieve the greatest health benefit possible through exercise in the time they have available.
Why This Matters
Most adults are not making decisions regarding two elite training philosophies. Instead, they are deciding whether to participate in some form of physical activity or to simply remain sedentary.
When we view exercise as an optimization problem, many individuals will postpone beginning due to their inability to locate the perfect program. Other individuals will establish a single form of exercise and cease to make further progress once they reach the point where the program no longer meets their changing requirements.
History provides insight into these issues since it illustrates how frequently the field has oscillated between extremes and how rarely those extremes have proven to be sustainable.
What Endurance Training History Teaches
The initial era of modern competitive running involved a basic debate. High volume training at low intensities compared to low volume training at high intensities. Early champions demonstrated different levels of commitment to each side, and both sides ultimately had winners. Thus, the outcome was not clarity, but rather tribalism.
Ultimately, the most successful forms of training blended components from each side, and did not strictly adhere to one extreme. Runners and coaches repeatedly discovered that in order to stimulate specific types of adaptations, the stimuli required to produce those adaptations must be specific.
This pattern is evident again and again as training paradigms transitioned from early mileage-based methods to interval training and more structured periodization-based models. More recently, researchers have identified the concept of "polarized" or "pyramidal" intensity distribution as a common feature of successful endurance training paradigms.
The Pendulum Swing Between Precision and Feel
A second recurring theme within endurance training history is the pendulum swing between measurement and intuition. Some coaches developed structured systems based upon precision, prescribing clearly-defined intervals, timing, and recovery. Other coaches developed systems based upon feel, utilizing variable terrain and varying degrees of effort to teach runners how to develop pacing skills and effectively manage fatigue while avoiding strict structure.
Both approaches can be effective. The primary failure mode of both approaches occurs when precision becomes a form of control for its own sake (i.e., the coach becomes overly prescriptive), or when feel becomes a convenient excuse to avoid progressive overload.
Why Recovery Became Central
One of the most significant contributions to our understanding of endurance training was not the development of a new type of workout. Rather, it was a new understanding of recovery. Hard training produces the stimulus. Recovery produces the adaptation.
As coaches and teams began to rely more heavily on constant-intensity training, performance would often plateau or decline. Conversely, when they returned to training patterns that included alternating hard and easy days, their performance would typically improve.
This has particular relevance for non-elite adults. Injuries, burnout, and lack of consistency typically represent the major limitations to participation for this demographic. In other words, most adults are not limited by a lack of suffering; rather, they are limited by the potential consequences of that suffering.
How Elite Athletes Train Today
Most contemporary analyses of elite endurance athletes demonstrate that most of their time is spent at low intensities, with a relatively small portion of their training occurring at high intensities. This pattern of training is commonly referred to as "polarized" or "pyramidal" training.
Interestingly, this training paradigm appears to be far more similar to the high-volume training paradigms of the past than to the recent obsession with high-intensity training. Moreover, many of the purported "breakthroughs" in modern endurance training appear to be refinements of previous concepts rather than entirely novel concepts.
Five Principles That Can Be Applied Now
Once we have translated the historical context into practical application, we can identify the five principles listed below.
1. Combine Volume and Intensity
Most individuals perform best with a combination of:
- Low-intensity sessions that increase aerobic capacity and aid in recovery
- High-intensity sessions that optimize fitness gains
- Resistance training to preserve muscle mass, maintain functional ability, and improve overall metabolic health
Studies indicate that when individuals participate in a combination of endurance and resistance training, they experience greater improvements in multiple health indicators, including blood pressure, glucose regulation, and lipid profiles. These findings are consistent with research on exercise and aging: maximize benefits, minimize risk, which emphasizes maximizing health benefits while minimizing risks.
2. Treat Recovery as Part of Your Training
Hard training sessions require space before and after. A good place for many individuals to begin is with:
- Two high-intensity training sessions per week
- The remaining days of the week should focus on easier movement and strength work
While the specifics of the training schedule are somewhat secondary to the underlying principle, the principle itself is clear: repeated exposure to hard training without adequate recovery time will typically result in decreased performance.
3. Choose a Tracking Style That Will Allow You to Remain Consistent
While precision can be helpful, it is not necessary. Two alternatives include:
- Using heart rate, pace targets, or interval timing if you prefer a structured approach
- Using perceived exertion cues if you prefer a simpler approach, such as the talk test and breathing rate
Ultimately, the best system is the one that you will consistently follow without creating ongoing negotiations with yourself.
4. Do Not Look for One Best Workout
There is no single "best" workout. Bodies adapt. An individual's workout regimen that drove significant progress for a few months may no longer provide that same level of progress if it continues to be the only stimulus applied. Variety is not a gimmick; it is how you continue to create adaptations while preventing excessive fatigue.
Unfortunately, this is another reason why online fitness culture fails. Individuals will discover one workout regimen, and they will continue to perform that workout for the remainder of their lives because it is labeled as "optimal".
5. Understand That Almost Anything Works At First
The largest improvements in health-related measures occur during the first few weeks of initiating regular physical activity. Even short bursts of vigorous activity throughout the day have been shown to positively impact cardiovascular disease risk factors and are associated with favorable long-term outcomes in observational data.
This is particularly relevant because the ideal workout regimen is irrelevant if the alternative is complete inactivity. Exercise snacks, short walking segments, and brief bouts of effort can all serve as bridges. Examples of exercise snacks and small-effort fitness gains include 30 seconds of jumping jacks after every hour spent sitting.
Where Power Training Fits In
A lot of adult fitness programs completely ignore power, although research shows that power is lost at a greater rate than strength as we age and appears to be linked to our overall functional ability.
Power is simply the ability to produce force rapidly.
It affects things such as:
- Quickly getting up from a chair
- Being able to catch yourself while walking or running
- Climbing stairs with confidence
- Having the ability to move quickly when needed
Some research suggests that power could be a better indicator of mortality than just having strength, however this will depend on the study population and how power was measured.
Power training does not need to be complicated. Often it is as simple as performing exercises with a focus on speed and proper technique under control loads.
Examples of power training include:
- Performing several sets of standing up and sitting down quickly in a chair
- Throwing medicine balls
- Light loaded movements (e.g., dumbbells) that are performed with a quick concentric effort
- Weighted vest step-ups that are performed quickly
In all cases speed is being developed, not assumed. For a deeper look into the topic of power training and healthy aging, click here.
Practical Takeaways
- When developing an optimal training program for your specific needs, it is best to find a balance between volume and intensity, rather than swinging to one extreme or the other.
- Recovery is NOT optional if you want to continue to make progress with your training and maintain long-term sustainability.
- Both precision and running by feel can work well and help create consistency with your training, depending on what works best for your individual style and preferences.
- There is NO ONE BEST WORKOUT; the way that your body adapts to training over time will vary depending on the variety of the training you have done.
- Regardless of where you fall on the spectrum of activity levels, simply DOING SOMETHING NOW WILL BE MORE BENEFICIAL TO YOUR HEALTH THAN OPTIMIZING THE DETAILS OF YOUR TRAINING AT THIS TIME.
- As we age, power training often gets less attention than it should, especially when compared to other forms of training.
Summary
The history of endurance training has been one of pendulum swings. Coaches and athletes continually chase extremes, only to slowly drift back to a more balanced approach to training that includes an aerobic foundation, strategic use of intensity, and deliberate recovery strategies.
For health-focused adults, these same principles hold true. Begin to move regularly, incorporate some level of intensity into your training, recover purposefully, vary your training over time, and do not overlook power training. Your greatest return on investment will come from consistent training, not from trying to replicate whatever scientific ideal you believe to be the "best" right now. This more inclusive view of training aligns with the literature regarding Zone 2 training and also supports the idea that relatively small amounts of physical activity can result in clinically relevant benefits.