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Poe training
1. Parceled Out Effort
Encouraging Athletes to Seek Their Best
Will Kirousis BS, CSCS, CISSN | @willkirousis | will@tri-hard.com
2. Ground Rules
• “It Depends”
• Know that there are multiple correct answers
• Unlearning – always be ready for some good
unlearning
• Study science, but don’t confuse science and
coaching
• Athlete centered
• Perception is huge
3. What lead me here?
• First shot, end of 90’s early 00’s
• About the total work accomplished/workout and coaching simplicity…
• Not enough teaching
• Last few years, returned to the POE idea.
• Better understanding of how this idea relates to the whole athlete.
• Believe it helps from the fundamental realities of performance – to
the complex nuances.
4. What lead me here?
• We all use a system which may (no, it is) be rooted in a coach/s who’s
programing has lasted the decades.
• Within that system you seek feedback, because the athlete “can feel
but not see, and the coach can see but not feel”.
• My system was getting stuck!
• I wanted a more holistic approach.
5. What lead me here?
Being stuck lead me to questioning my approach over the
years:
• Zones/physiology?
• Athlete readiness on the day?
• Basic needs theory?
• Becoming robots, or creative beings?
• How to I teach them to apply work best?
6. Thinking about those questions…
• Athletes need:
• Ability to read themselves
• Adaptability/creativity
• Meeting their basic needs
• Physiology is associated with but not the only thing needed to be
developed for athletes to perform best.
• We have to coach the whole athlete.
7. Through this process, I realized that I wanted:
• A simple approach, easy to implement, full performance benefits.
• Not focused internally, rather focused externally.
• Athlete centered workout execution!
8. “It is the brain, not the heart or lungs, that is the critical organ,
it’s the brain”
-- Sir Roger Bannister 1956
9. Pacing, it starts with a feeling…
• RPE (Rating of Perceived Exertion)
• helps us regulate pacing by combining physiologic & psychologic stress
• Simultaneously estimates how those assessments fit into the estimated time
remaining in the effort.
• Key factor in Anticipatory Regulation
• In a clinical setting this has limits since creating a repeatable definition is
challenging… But in a coaching setting it’s perfect – clinic = small world,
coaching = large world!
• You can fool RPE (and physiology) by not knowing the distance/time
correctly.
• Don’t drop other tools (power/HR), instead, triangulate all of them to help
target work so you LEARN how to perform, rather than how to work at
specific rates.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14. Pacing determination… Complex and uncertain!
• Determination of pacing strategy = large world scenario
• We chunk what we know/expect based on past experiences to create what
we perceive to be the best case scenario.
• The heuristic/analogy based approach to decision making in
endurance sport is complimentary with similarly complex decision
making in non sport settings.
• Experience and group dynamics can – or + impact this process.
• Likewise, your + and - expectations for your actions will impact your
choices.
• Framing situations based on knowns, and experiences is vital!
15. Pacing and POE style intervals
• Every interval workout = a chance to learn, & can broaden the
template we draw upon to anticipate and thus regulate our pacing
during future workouts and races.
16. View Workouts as Learning Opportunities
• What is the organization of that workout?
• Athletes readiness
• Workout specific needs (tasks and equipment)
• Environmental conditions (topography, temp, precip, surface etc)
• Performance occurs based on the “physical constraints relative to the
task I’m being asked to perform in terms of the environment I’m
being asked to perform it in.” (Nick Winkleman)
17. Variable v Efficient
• Learning a new/different skill = inherent variability.
• Efficient = minimal learning
• Contextual interference
• Purposeful variability, the nature of the sport.
• Increased attentional focus due to challenges.
• Thus, greater learning occurs due to purposeful variability of sport.
18. Workouts can inspire learning
• Start with known structures. With fewer degrees of freedom.
• Progress over training year/lifespan towards more variability (IE. POE)
• “Build context, then interfere with it!”– Nick Winkleman
• Describe workout directions with sensory rich terminology:
• “Flatten out the hill a little more with each interval”
• “View each interval like the next step in a stair case”
19. Learning workouts result in adaptable athletes:
Our goal as coaches: Get out of the athletes way!
Empower the athlete to make decisions – they need autonomy support
to be their best!
Stay super fluid – teach them how to adjust training. Highly variable
daily programing is ok, as described by the late Mel Siff: “cyber-kinetic
periodization”
Encourage feedback, and give them the knowledge to help steer the
ship.
20. Workout learning in a nut shell:
• Workouts provide a chance to improve physiology via execution of
performance tasks.
• Welcome “unlearning” (via context interference) opportunities within
workouts!
21. Teach the Workout
• Warm up well
• Define work set goal
• RPE will gradually increase – even with the same workload – over the
course of a workout.
• Make sure athletes have a good first effort target so they don’t blow
the workout (or week) with an over done start.
• Make sure athletes realize each workout is not the end all be all.
22. Workout Keys
• Warm up – 15-30’, gradually building to intensity focus of the
workouts intervals. Finishing warm up at a comfortable aerobic
(MI/Z2/Aerobic etc. intensity)
• Workout – dependent on the athlete and needs. An example would
be 30” x 8, 3’ Rest Intervals or 20’ X 2, 10’ Rest intervals.
• Cool down, 10-15’ fading aerobic effort to walking effort.
24. A Real POE Workout: Not as dramatic as the
example when done well…
25. My challenge to you:
• Challenge athletes to learn during workouts
• Teach athletes about pacing and how RPE is as important as watts or
HR when it comes to improving.
• Structure interval workouts in a way which challenges more than
physiology.
• Use games during workouts, for example: exceed the last point you
reached by 10 meters with each interval.
• Be creative – hit the needed physiology by smartly structuring the
duration and spacing of work and rest intervals.
• Have fun coaching, and training!
26. References / Suggested Readings
De Morree, H. M., Klein, C., & Marcora, S. M. (2012). Perception of effort reflects central motor command during movement execution. Psychophysiology, 49(9), 1242-1253.
Dyson, S. (2015) Paradox of Deeper Learning: The Unlearning Curve. Education Week, Learning Deeply Blog. Retrieved from:
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/learning_deeply/2015/04/the_paradox_of_deeper_learning_the_unlearning_curve.html
Gambetta, V., Personal Conversation (May, 6, 2016).
Jones, H. S, Williams, E. L, & Bridge, C. A (2013). Physiological and psychological effects of deception on pacing strategy and performance: a review. Sports Medicine.
43(12), 1243−1257.
Knicker, A. J, Renshaw, I., Oldham, A. R, & Cairns, S. P. (2011). Interactive processes link the multiple symptoms of fatigue in sport competition. Sports Medicine,
41(4):307−328.
Mauger, A. (2014). Factors affecting the regulation of pacing: current perspectives. Open Access Journal of Sports Medicine, 5, 209-2014.
Noakes, T. D. (2013). Fatigue is a brain-derived emotion that regulates the exercise behavior to ensure the protection of whole body homeostasis. Frontiers of Physiology, 3(82), 1-
13.
Rauch, H. G., Schönbächler, G., Noakes, T. D. (2013). Neural correlates of motor vigor and motor urgency during exercise. Sports Medicine, 43(4), 227−241.
Renfree, A., Martin, L., Micklewright, D., & St Clair Gibson, A. (2014). Application of decision-making theory to the regulation of muscular work rate during self-paced competitive
endurance activity. Sports Medicine, 44(2), 147−158.
Roelands, B., de Koning, J., Foster, C., Hettinga, F., & Meeusen, R. (2013). Neurophysiological determinants of theoretical concepts and mechanisms involved in pacing. Sports
Medicine, 43(5), 301−311.
Smits, B. L., Pepping, G. J., & Hettinga, F. J. (2014). Pacing and decision making in sport and exercise: the roles of perception and action in the regulation of exercise
intensity. Sports Medicine, 44(6), 763−775.
St Clair Gibson, A., De Koning, J. J., & Thompson, K. G. (2013). Crawling to the finish line: why do endurance runners collapse? Implications for understanding of
mechanisms underlying pacing and fatigue. Sports Medicine, 43(6), 413−424.
Tucker, R. (2009). The anticipatory regulation of performance: the physiological basis for pacing strategies and the development of a perception based model for exercise
performance. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 43 (6), 392-400.
Swart, J., Lindsay, T. R., Lambert, M. I., Brown, J. C. & Noakes, T. D. (2012). Perceptual cues in the regulation of exercise performance – physical sensations of exercise and
awareness of effort interact as separate cues. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 46(1), 42-48.
Winkleman, N. (May 9, 2016), Cuing for Better Coaching, Global Performance Summit, Retrieved from:
http://www.globalperformancesummit.com/speakers-2/nick-winkelman
Where We Begin
Today we will review a method of interval training I call POE or Parceled Out Effort intervals.
I will describe what lead me here, some of the pacing and skill acquisition science that brought me to the use of this interval method.
And Ill describe how to think about executing, and organizing POE style interval workouts.
My first shot was with my business partner, and it was focused on simplicity, with the mindset that if people followed simple instructions they could execute a work set that fostered pacing, and maximized the work they could do in the interval set by causing them to default to the “correct” physiologic range. In other words, if you work X long, Y number of times with Z rest interval, we know you are likely training a targeted physical system, so you have simply performed and thus defaulted to the correct physiology.
Sounds good, but now I look back and accept we didn’t fully “get” what was the best part of this approach. It was about “the most” work, not “the best” work. We also were not confident enough to stick to it. Athletes wanted concrete answers and numbers given they had expensive tools. Looking back, I don’t think we had the understanding to fully explain why this approach was good, and after several years, we slid back to a pretty standard multi zone approach.
We all use a system
System may (no, it is) be rooted in a coach who’s programing has lasted the decades.
“If you believe you came up with a new way to train, you haven’t read enough!”
Within the systems you apply, forms the full constellation of concepts and ideas which will elicit a peak performance.
Within that system you seek feedback, because the athlete “can feel but not see, and the coach can see but not feel”.
Taking that greater system we apply to a smaller scale, you have daily workloads comprised of intensity, duration, density and frequency.
Intensity and duration being the two most direct components in the eyes of athletes. Athletes can put how hard they work for how long into clear categories in their mind. Those are concrete variables.
The two interact dramatically – the longer we go, the less intense we can work. But the longer we go – regardless of intensity the more fatiguing the work feels, and perception is huge when it comes to fatigue and how we perform. If you “feel” tired, you are.
Yet I struggled with how we as coaches (and athletes) apply intensity and duration. We tended to use ranges which are, at best, educated estimates of intensity which represent regions of our physiology. What if those ranges didn’t work for that athlete? What if that athlete was on a great, or bad day? How do I help folks train well, but simply so they don’t lose sight of what matters – embracing challenges as a positive, and growing! What if that athlete lost their sense of pacing because they executed workouts robotically? How do I deal with these issues? How do I keep athletes seeking their best, actually training to be their best, while simultaneously “teaching” them to perform robotically via very strict zone based intensity systems? What else could I do?
Athlete’s need to understand their own body, their own performance and how to adjust spontaneously… We need to help them grow those basic needs. If not, they are not a complete athlete.
Physiology is associated with but not the only thing needed to be developed for athletes to perform best. We have to coach the whole athlete.
With that all in mind, and the evolving and clear influence of psychology on fatigue and performance coupled with a complex skill like pacing and simpler skills like improving basic physiologic systems… I’m finding a simpler, yet more robust approach to intensity pays.
And that’s where we get back to the future – athlete centered workout execution – what I call Parcelled Out Effort or POE for short. Really that’s just may name for it. Ultimately it’s just fostering autoregulation in athletes.
RPE (Rating of Perceived Exertion) helps us regulate pacing sensibly while combining physiologic feedback via nociocepters assessing discomfort from chemical and mechanical strain, as well as the psychologic stress the given work rate is causing – while simultaneously estimating how those assessments fit into the estimated time remaining in the effort.
RPE has been labeled a key cog in understanding how hard we are working and how to modify our pacing strategy.
In a clinical setting this has limits since creating a repeatable definition is challenging… But in a coaching setting it’s perfect – clinic = small world, coaching = large world!
You can fool RPE by not knowing the distance/time correctly.
Don’t drop other tools (power/HR), instead, use RPE to help target work so you LEARN how to perform, rather than how to work at specific rates.
Determination of pacing strategy is based on a large world scenario where by the majority of information needed to make the best decision can not be known, thus we chunk what we know, or expect based on past experiences to create what we perceive to be the best case scenario.
The heuristic approach to decision making in endurance sport is complimentary with similarly complex decision making in non sport settings.
However, experience, and group dynamics can negatively impact or positively impact this process.
Likewise, your positive and negative expectations for the effect your actions will have on the outcome, impact what choices are made.
Framing the situation as best one can on the known’s is vital, as is letting go the impact others have on your performance until the performance is closer to complete – thus creating a smaller world where possible impacts on performance are fewer and your ability to determine courses of action is thus simpler and more clear.
Changes in physiology or in work at specific physiologic points happen as a result of doing specific tasks.
Just like motor skill acquisition – if you work with an external focus (performance of task) vs an internal focus (physiological system or muscle) the desired adaptation/s improve. With external focus, you are training to perform v training to the test.
Changes in physiology or in work at specific physiologic points happen as a result of doing specific tasks.
Just like motor skill acquisition – if you work with an external focus (performance of task) vs an internal focus (physiological system or muscle) the desired adaptation/s improve. With external focus, you are training to perform v training to the test.
Changes in physiology or in work at specific physiologic points happen as a result of doing specific tasks.
Just like motor skill acquisition – if you work with an external focus (performance of task) vs an internal focus (physiological system or muscle) the desired adaptation/s improve. With external focus, you are training to perform v training to the test.
Work with an external focus (performance of task) vs internal focus (physiological system or muscle) improves performance.
With external focus, you are training to perform v training to the test.
I’m not secretive. If you want to see some specific workouts I use I’m happy to share. Workouts on their own, are just work. It’s how they are placed in the system that means something. And as a coach, laying out specific workouts just feels odd. At this point you know more about why from a pacing perspective, but you also know a lot already about the physiology. You can figure out the best “what” to do from a workout perspective for your situation and athletes. You know the why, so the what can come along nicely!
I’m not secretive. If you want to see some specific workouts I use I’m happy to share. Workouts on their own, are just work. It’s how they are placed in the system that means something. And as a coach, laying out specific workouts just feels odd. At this point you know more about why from a pacing perspective, but you also know a lot already about the physiology. You can figure out the best “what” to do from a workout perspective for your situation and athletes. You know the why, so the what can come along nicely!