Among the most popular Ironmans for beginners in the U. are Ironman Texas in The Woodlands in April, Ironman Florida in Panama City Beach in November, and Ironman Arizona in Tempe in November.

It might come as no surprise to see that all three of these courses are flat, which is certainly what attracts newcomers. More seasoned athletes like these courses too, because it allows them to chase a personal record PR.

Because these races are so popular, entries get snapped up super fast. Yes, you read that right! Ironman is not something to be taken lightly—both from a fitness and a financial perspective. Some people say you should give yourself a year to properly train for an Ironman. For those with a solid base under them already, a week Ironman training plan is a good idea, at the very least.

How long? At the very least, a first-timer should follow a week Ironman training plan, as it will give an athlete time to get accustomed to the three sports and juggling all of them with life while gradually building the fitness required to cover There is no hard and fast rule on how many hours per week it takes to train for an Ironman.

Everyone is different and has different commitments and schedules, so be flexible with your training and fit it in around your work, family, and social commitments.

One of the biggest mistakes newcomers can make is trying to pack as much training into their week as possible. To create more hours in the day, they sometimes wake up earlier or go to bed later, completely overlooking the fact that recovery time—and sleep—is one of the most important elements of Ironman training.

With this in mind, take a long, hard look at your average week and be realistic about how much spare time you have to fit in swim, bike, and run workouts. If you think that number is close to 10 hours, start out with six to eight hours and see how that goes. There are many accomplished age-group athletes who have achieved great things on 10 hours of training a week or less.

Meter your energy and commit to your Ironman training plan over the long-term, so that you are able to gradually build your fitness. These are tried-and-true schedules that thousands of athletes have followed to arrive at the start line happy and healthy.

Trying to make your workout schedule on the fly, especially if you have little or no triathlon experience, can quickly become overwhelming—and worse yet, it can lead to injury, burnout, or a really bad race experience.

You might prefer the individualized advice you get from a triathlon coach , who can give you specific advice on how to train for an Ironman. In addition to writing workouts just for you, a coach can answer all your questions about training for an Ironman, what to expect on race day, and how to troubleshoot any issues like injuries as they arise.

RELATED: Our Guide to Coaching Styles. If you have access to a local triathlon team or a good group of training buddies, you can also ask for their advice on training and racing. Training buddies make your training and your overall experience far more sociable and enjoyable—and triathletes love to share their knowledge with newcomers.

It is always a good idea to follow a structured training plan that has been designed by a coach with many years of experience.

Well-structured Ironman training plans will factor in periodization, which is the term given to the many phases of training in any given year. Typically, these are structured as follows:. Beginner Ironman training plans should take into account the fact that you are new to the sport and build volume slowly.

Knowing what you need for an Ironman race is no small question. Did we mention this sport is extremely gear-heavy? Triathlon swimming goggles typically have more visibility and protection for open-water swimming.

Tri-specific clothing will have padded shorts and material that you can wear the entire race without changing, if preferred.

While not required, sunglasses will let you see better and protect your eyes on the bike. A good pair will be ventilated enough to let you wear them on the run as well. They include endurance-based work and speed play, which not only help build a good swim base but also test an athlete's pace clock intelligence.

Each workout starts with an easy warm up, and a more focused pre-set to warm up the body thoroughly before the main set. The best part—all of these drills can be scaled up or down to suit your level and distance, as well as adapting the time interval to match your ability.

Build speed as you progress through the set to 95 percent of maximal effort for the 25s. For example, if the odd is , the following even is half that at If the odd is , the following even is half , at 75, and so on.

The pace and stroke rate can and should slow on the easier 'recovery' intervals. To shorten the set, you could complete the workout after 4 or 5 rounds. Pull buoy and swimmer's snorkel. first rep odd start on the 0, second rep even on the Adjust the interval for your swimming ability.

He found that she did 74 percent of her swimming, 88 percent of her cycling, 85 percent of her running, and 83 percent of her combined training below the lactate threshold, or the intensity above which lactate, an intermediate product of aerobic metabolism, accumulates rapidly in the blood.

Lactate threshold falls in the middle of the moderate-intensity range, as most scientists now define it. This means Ainhoa did slightly less than the above-mentioned percentages of her training, almost exactly 80 percent, at low intensity. What accounts for this consistency? Seiler has proposed that it emerged as the outcome of a trial-and-error process much like natural selection i.

In the nearly years since endurance sports took their modern form in Europe, every conceivable way of balancing training intensities has been tried and pitted against other methods in high-stakes international competition.

Over the course of that century-and-a-half, all of the inferior methods have gone extinct at the elite level. Recreational triathletes spend a much smaller percentage of their training time at low intensity and a much larger percentage at moderate intensity.

A study by researchers at the University of Stirling found that age-groupers training for an IRONMAN event did just 69 percent of their training at low intensity and 25 percent at moderate intensity.

The study also included periodic performance tests in all three disciplines that showed little improvement over the six-month training period. Did these athletes fail to improve because they did too much moderate-intensity training and not enough low-intensity work?

The results of another study suggest that this may have been the case. In , Stephen Seiler and colleagues monitored the training of nine recreational triathletes training for an IRONMAN event. They found a strong correlation between percentage of total training time spent at low intensity and performance in the race.

Only prospective studies, in which athletes of similar ability are placed on programs with different intensity ratios, can do that. One such study was done by researchers at the University of Salzburg and involved 48 endurance athletes representing various of sports, including triathlon.

These athletes were divided into four groups and placed on training programs with different intensity distributions for nine weeks. All four groups completed a battery of performance tests before and after the nine-week period.

It is widely assumed that the reason elite endurance athletes spend so much time at low intensity is that they must do so in order to sustain the extremely high training volumes they do.

In other words, it is assumed that volume is primary and intensity secondary in the formula for optimal training. But the latest science indicates that the opposite is true.

At this point, the work is done and the goal is to do just enough work to stay sharp for race day. I will do a short circuit here that may consist of get-ups, farmer walks, and various planking or rotational and anti-rotational work.

Occasionally, I will add in a few assistance exercises if no races are planned for the weekend. After the peak race, I will give the athlete a six-week mini off-season to rejuvenate and recover. From here, it is back to base training and heavier strength work for six weeks or so to build to the next race.

I hope this article gave the StrongFirst reader some insight on how an endurance athlete trains, and more specifically, how strength work is implemented in the overall program. I will continue to fine-tune my methods, and look forward to sharing them here.

Fantastic article thanks for sharing you knowledge. Would you consider a Motocross racer to be an endurance athlete? As well as the training techniques above or would you suggest a different approach?

Thanks again. I want to develop a weigh training program that I can do during my aerobic training period age. Do I understand Maffetones guidelines to mean that you never want to exceed your age HR during any of your lifting workouts?

Thanks for the great info! Really excited to see you mentioned motocross racer Chad Reed. Going to read this over a few more times and try and integrate some of it into my MX program. More information on the formula can be found at the following.

Note the emphasis on calculating physiological versus chronological age. Love the strength stuff. totally agree! this exact methodology has paid off huge dividends to me personally in my racing especially cycling. Not a fan of the max aerobic HR calculation. HR zones are so variable that age is bound to be off for quite a few people.

there have been some anecdotal reports of athletes having success with it, such as mark allen, but why do virtually zero world class coaches use it in training the best athletes in the world?

renato canova, steve magness, etc. Those guys periodize for sure, but they use high intensity and low intensity year round. Great article. In your cardio section you say you do various types of interval training but still stay below the age HR.

Have I mis-read that? COuld you provide a bit more detail on your interval work? I think the general concept is that you continue to train at your aerobic level until you start reaching speeds that are almost uncomfortable to maintain e.

g mark alleys aerobic pace at bpm was something like 5min 10 miles very fast! At that point and at that level of fitness you may want to do aerobic intervals say over a half hour period where you do 7 to 10 second intervals at your race pace then ease down for 2 mins and continue in that vain for 30mins to an hour.

This allows your body to acclimatise to race pace but with minimal stress on your body. if you are still making progress with aerobic training, it makes sense to continue with your aerobic conditioning as anaerobic exercise can interfere.

Paul is exactly right. I also like to do downhill slightly intervals, you can still stay aerobic but get the leg speed of anaerobic training. To do this program, you have to be extremely patient. The first month or so will be very difficult and will screw with your ego. But, if you hang in there and get through the sticking point the results will quickly follow.

You may not be efficient enough aerobically for the first few months to do intervals. Many start with almost 11 min miles being their high end aerobic pace, which is almost walking for some. I remember seeing some of the top pro triathletes walking up hills running, and weaving back and forth on the bike to stay in zones at first.

But after a few months your going a good clip at same heart rate. I have seen same thing with a few general fitness clients I have put on this program.

I will do a test with swings: usually 10 sets of with a moderately heavy weight. At the beginning, to keep heart rate at required rate they will have to rest sometimes close to a minute. Two months later they can go almost with 15 sec rest and push hard.

My age is against me. When I first started training with the formula I was only doing 13 min miles. Bloody ell it killed me. I was walking on flats after a couple of miles. Took one year of solid training to get to 8 min 10 miles.

But my fitness and body fat percentage plus general energy levels improved dramatically. Now, that gets my attention. Though riding two 30 minute motos at full output at such an amazing skill level requires tremdous endurance, the strength levels required blow the doors off what any pansy bicyclist or ironman competitor would be using.

Lance Armstrong is one of the best examples of a athlete and professional there is. All his accomplishments in and outside the world of cycling are there at top of my list all time.

A disgrace for being caught using PEDs? Thanks for this great article that shows how you use strength development for your endurance athletes.

I have a question for you, because I relate very much to your degrees change in your training along the years, and particularly using the Easy Strength training system. I ve started to use the strength training a while ago and see amazing results on the court. Now, my question is about the cardio development.

Having said this, I feel I can refine my training in this area, which is, basically, not thinking about it much and focusing on what I feel the person needs at that moment technique, strategy, mental toughness…etc.

What I would like is to have a baseline to work with regarding the conditioning part. Is there a reference or something to look at that you could advise to me for this conditioning development? Ok, thanks for your attention. And thanks for this article, love it!

Brilliant Peter, great to see such a comprehensive article on how strength and endurance work as one. Maffetone changed my life in terms of fitness and I spend over a year using the formula and followed his two week test to great results. Finally since a single visit to a physio who pointed to a kettlebell ive followed the hard style pavel approach.

Both training philosophies follow paths in the same direction. Exciting stuff. Phil Maffetones book The Big book of endurance and Racing is the go to book like enter the kettlebell. As you mentioned in your post above, if you want Easy Endurance then this is the Book! This article is now closed for comments, but please visit our forum , where you may start a thread for your comments and questions or participate in an existing one.

Thank you. You may also like:. A Guide to Intelligent Circuit Training. Here are the basic principles behind well designed circuit training, and why circuit training can be a valuable tool in the process of creating the athlete. How to Properly Program for In-Season Football.

The education I received at the Plan Strong seminar helped me design a much better in-season training program for myself that resulted in a better football season. A Running Program for Strength Athletes. Here are two easy-to-follow programs—one for a 10km distance goal and one for a mile distance—that will improve your aerobic ability drastically without compromising strength days.

Our athletes are more than just customers to us. We are deeply invested in their journey and determined to see them succeed. When they achieve a goal, we celebrate, and when they hit an obstacle, we do everything in our power to help them get past it. We are committed to making each and every athlete in our care feel guided and supported every step of the way—including you.

The results were dramatic. After one training cycle, I dropped over 31 minutes in my marathon time! I can run much farther at a constant pace than I have ever been able to before I also know so much more about my body and limits. Sometimes I had doubts that the training was too light or intense, but I kept repeating to myself "Trust the plan" and I ended up having an amazing race--much faster than expected!

I felt good after! It made me think about what it could do for me for a marathon or beyond. It taught me so much about how to pace myself and be more in tune with my body when I ran.

I cannot recommend this training enough. It made me believe that Matt Fitzgerald and David Warden truly know how to train us to be better athletes.

My hard workouts were tough, but having fresh legs going into them was key. My fitness level is higher than it has been in two years, and has come at no cost to my body in regards of injury. It was fun and easy to follow and I ended up with my a PR in all three disciplines!

Thank you very much for your help in attaining my goals. No injuries were recorded during the whole preparation period. After a few years of sporadic training efforts and competing in triathlons from Sprint distance to full Ironman I decided to look into a more structured approach to training.

I completed 2 Sprints, 1 Olympic, 3 halves and 1 full Ironman, and setting personal bests at all distances, slicing 2 hours 20 from the full Ironman. Even my transitions were faster! Being able to wake up knowing what I've got planned for the day is comforting, but knowing it is working and making a difference is priceless.

Staying injury-free paves the way to get personal bests because you can finish the plan with no surprises and no steps back. I am now a wholly better person than I was before. I was never injured and enjoyed the experience. Thanks for making it available to us in the age-group triathlon world.

I had no injuries while training! After sticking to the program and training for six months my conference grew tremendously. I crushed my goal by three hours! Thanks for helping me conquer this life goal!

Oh, and I lost 22 kg in the process! PB'd the Olympic distance at nationals! Thank you! The workouts were varied and fun well sometimes fun in a brutal way haha and I got great support from David when I had any questions about the plan.

Would recommend unreservedly. For the first time, I felt that my training had structure; each unit was part of a whole and it made sense. I was very satisfied with the results. I shed 27 minutes out of my I was fatigued at times but never felt overtrained, and I went into my A race feeling more prepared then the three years prior.

Leading up to the Half Ironman, I also ran my first ever half marathon. Knowing what workouts you have to do and when to do them removed the hardest part of training for an event, in my opinion. All I had to do was show up when I said I was going to. While the volume was drastically higher than any I had done in past years, I had no injuries and I felt confident in the specificity of the purpose for each workout.

On race day I was able to hit my power and pace targets and finish strong with a smile on my face! My last kilometer was my fastest and I could have gone another 10K at that pace! I'm also feeling more rested for the tough workouts and really appreciating the recovery workouts in between.

I now enjoy running more, run more with friends, and am creeping up to faster and faster speeds without injuries. I just completed a PB of By slowing down my recovery has been excellent.

This program relies on the time-tested methods of consistency and incremental gain. I am looking forward new PBs, even at 50 years old!

I was worried about injuries, available time, and being in shape to go the distance. All this worry for no reason, as the plan worked me up to the correct endurance levels without too many stresses on my aging body, and my plan did not overtake my life.

We were fresh all the time and the fatigue we had become accustomed to all those years was not there. I absolutely loved it. Well Balanced and effective. I can't wait till my preparation for next year starts.

Thank you David for your hands-on coaching. I love the data-driven, balanced approach. I'll never overtrain again. She continues to run and swim days a week and honestly lives an entirely different life.

I followed the plan and ran a half marathon as a "feeler. I'm now qualified for the Boston Marathon! My cycling FTP is now just short of W from W after starting training with your programs around 8 months ago.

I also took 30 minutes off my What I love most is that following a clear and defined plan boosts my motivation because I can see the progress I am making. The easy days are enjoyable and give me the power to nail most of my harder workouts.

I not only finished within the goal I had set but did negative splits the entire race, which was a first for me. Get Fitter. Race Faster. FIND YOUR PLAN. Marek Sormski. Over , Plans Sold. Plans For All Experience Levels. Compatible With. AND MORE! Find your Plan. I WANT TO TRAIN FOR AN EVENT.

I WANT TO GET OR STAY IN SHAPE. I WANT TO TRAIN WITH A COMMUNITY. Faster improvement Less fatigue during and after workouts More enjoyment of training Faster recovery Fewer injuries Better performance. Paul Fitzpatrick July 12, READ STORY. Cassie Wait July 11, Winston Bryn July 10, Bob Willig July 6, Karl Viiol July 6, Timothy Hipp July 6, At over lbs, Timothy Hipp looks more like a baseball slugger or a weightlifter than a….

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