Caroline Brosius I Ginni Callahan I Robert Clegg I Joe Glickman I Abel Hastings I Ben Lawry I Joe Shaw I Eric Stiller
Ian Gray I Zsolt Szadovszki I Freya Hoffmeister I Greg Barton
How Much is Enough?
How much training is required? That depends on two things. Your goals, and how much time you have available to train.
If your goal is winning the Olympics or other high-level competition then you must be willing to devote a large portion of your time towards training. However, if you want to simply get into reasonable shape, it can be done with a much more modest time commitment.
Training is a game of diminishing returns. Working out a few times per week will reap tremendous benefits compared to a full-time couch potato. Add a few more sessions on top of that (say four to six sessions per week) and you'll see even more benefits. However more is not always better. At some point, you'll reach an optimal level of training at which point any additional training does more harm than good - this is overtraining.
See Figure 1 which compares the amount of time training in a week to the benefit gained. The curve is very steep initially. By spending four hours per week you can reach approximately 70% of your full potential, and with six hours can approach 90% of your potential. However, those last few percent are harder and harder to get - requiring much more time and effort to reach a 100% level.
This gives hope to those of us with full-time jobs and families. While we may not be able to reach the very highest levels (99% to 100%), we can reach 90%-95% with a more modest commitment.
Training does not make you better or faster. It's the RECOVERY from training that brings improvement. Training tears down your muscles and your body adapts by rebuilding them stronger than before. However, if you don't give your body time to recover, you'll end up tearing yourself down more than rebuilding. Notice that the blue curve peaks out at about 12 hours of training per week. More than that amount is detrimental.
Note that 12 hours per week is an arbitrary amount that I have chosen. The actual amount will depend on the type of training you are doing and your initial fitness. Somebody training with extremely high-intensity sprint sessions may find that 8-10 hours is the most they can do without overtraining. Somebody training at lower intensity for marathon events may find that they are able to train 15 or even 20 hours per week.
After two to three years of consistent training at a high level, your body will adapt to handle even more volume. Note that the red curve has shifted to the right and slightly upwards. Thus, a highly trained athlete may be able to handle 16 hours per week and advance to even higher performance.
Beginners may find that four to six hours per week is the maximum they can handle until they get more training under their belt. Increasing volume or intensity too quickly is a sure way to experience injury or burnout.
Figure 2 shows my weekly training volumes for 1988 (the year I won two gold medals in the Olympics), 2006, and 2007. These are for the six months leading up to the Olympics (1988) and the US Surf Ski Championships (2006 and 2007). In 1988, I was consistently training more than 10 hours per week, sometimes up to 16 hours per week. This was high-intensity sprint training. The most important part of your training is from six to two weeks before the competition. This should be the most intensive part of your training. The last week before competition is done at lower intensity and volume, so your body can fully recover.
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