With this trilogy I want to cut through the forum noise with a framework, a physiology deep-dive, and some practical insights, but also with the idea that each post can stand alone. Also, together my idea is they build the definitive answer, all based on my Strength First Athlete Philosophy.

Is training for a marathon harder than an Ironman 70.3?

The only study comparing both directly — Esteve-Llano et al., 16 weeks, 30 athletes — found marathon training averaged 99.3 ECO per minute versus 65.8 for Ironman athletes. Ironman logged more total hours (206.7 vs 84.3), but marathon training was denser and more intense per hour. The marathon block is harder in concentration and physiological load. Ironman is harder in total time on feet.

The only study that actually answers this question

So, believe it or not, there’s exactly 1 peer-reviewed study that directly compares marathon and triathlon training loads and comes as no surprise that most forum debates happen without it ever getting cited. Study confirms that the conventional wisdom holds up, with one big asterisk on why. Let’s go through it…

The study, by Esteve-Llano and colleagues, tracked 15 marathoners and 15 Ironman triathletes through 16-week training cycles. The finding that matters most: marathoners trained at 99.3 ECOs per minute on average; Ironman athletes trained at 65.8. (ECO stands for equivalent continuous oxygen consumption, a composite measure of training intensity and duration.)

The marathon training block was denser, more intense per hour. The Ironman block was longer in absolute hours, 206.7 total hours versus 84.3 for the marathon, but spread across lower-intensity work distributed over 3 disciplines.

Writer in Triathlete magazine: “The preparation for a marathon is harder. Much of this has to do with the concentration of the training. Ironman training typically has more volume, but less intensity.”

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Why the marathon hurts more

A marathon is in a nerdy phrase a continuous eccentric loading event. Every stride absorbs roughly 2 to 3 times your body weight through the foot, ankle, knee, and hip. Over 26.2 miles that’s somewhere between 26,000 and 30,000 ground contacts, all at or near threshold pace if you’re actually racing it.

The result is significant eccentric muscle damage. Same mechanism that makes you sore after heavy squats, stretched across 4 hours and every running muscle in your lower body simultaneously. Recovery from a marathon takes 2 to 3 weeks; a 70.3 typically clears in 7 to 10 days.

The 70.3 distributes load differently. The swim is upper-body dominant and non-impact. The bike removes ground contact entirely. By the time you reach the run, your legs have done 2.5 to 3.5 hours of work, but it’s different work. For me, this is what’s happened in my various Triathlon events and that is you run slower than your open half-marathon pace, let’s say 30 to 60 seconds slower, which reduces damage per stride even as accumulated fatigue eats into your goal pace.

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The 70.3 run is where most athletes lose the race

The 70.3 run is where the bike’s nutrition decisions show up. My masted coaches confirmed this during my ESCI certification…under-fueling on the bike is the single most common cause of a bad 70.3 run. Glycogen depletion starts during the swim, accelerates over 90 Kilometres of riding, and leaves athletes hitting the run with empty tanks. The athlete who trained to run 5:20min/km pace shuffles 5:50min/km and blames their fitness, when reality is the fuel ran out at Kilometer 70 of the bike. Now they’re spending 20 Kilometres trying to get back from a deficit they built 90 minutes earlier.

Target intake on a 70.3 bike is 60 to 80 grams of carbohydrate per hour, depending on body weight and race intensity and if you are an age grouper. Most amateur athletes consume half that and the ones who nail the bike nutrition almost always run well. I usually have maybe 30gr to 40gr including gels and drinks. Former pro Tim Reed, who won Ironman Australia, described his race strategy: “Do not dig deep for the vast majority of the Ironman event. Do not suffer until the last half of the run.” So, a certain restraint on the bike sets up the run and aggression on the bike destroys it.

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The Fitzgerald inversion

Matt Fitzgerald, who coaches both runners and triathletes: “When I coach amateur runners for marathons, more often than not I increase their training volume. But when I coach amateur triathletes for Ironman events, quite often I have them train less than they have in the past.”

Marathon training rewards volume and intensity concentration. 70.3 training rewards distribution and execution. You can wreck your race on the bike leg in the first 40 Kilometers if you’ve trained to push past your aerobic ceiling. The skill you’re building is restraint. I have to say, this is easier said than done, since you come out of the swim all warmed up, adrenaline is up and you might fall trap to go all out on the bike…but holding back, again, might pay off later on during the run.

Now, this is something to take highly into consideration, if you’re coming into triathlon from a running background, expect the hardest adjustment to be psychological. Years of marathon training conditioned your body to push, go all out on the race, in a sense, no restraint at all. An Ironman 70.3 racing rewards holding back, riding conservative, and saving the legs for the back half of the run.

Next and final post: what a 3:30 marathoner should actually expect from their first 70.3, including realistic finish times, weekly training hours, and the cost-per-finish-line math you’ll never find on a race website.

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SOURCES

1\. Esteve-Llano J, et al. (2020). Comparison of training loads in two modalities of endurance sport. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(19). https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/19/7069

2\. Lacke, S. (2020). Is training for an Ironman or a marathon harder? Triathlete Magazine. https://www.triathlete.com

3\. Fitzgerald, M. (2016). How Much Should Triathletes Train? 80/20 Endurance. https://www.8020endurance.com

4\. Reed, T. (2019). Race Strategy: Don’t Dig Deep Early. Tim Reed Coaching. https://timreedcoaching.com

With this trilogy I want to cut through the forum noise with a framework, a physiology deep-dive, and some practical insights, but also with the idea that each post can stand alone. Also, together my idea is they build the definitive answer, all based on my Strength First Athlete Philosophy.

Is a 70.3 or a marathon harder?

They’re hard differently. A marathon is more painful per minute — 26.2 miles of continuous near-threshold running with full body-weight impact on every stride. A 70.3 is harder to train for and execute — three disciplines, sustained effort across 4 to 7 hours, and complex race-day logistics. The right answer depends on which version of each event you mean. A 4:30 marathon and a 3:00 marathon are different events. Same with a 7:30 70.3 and a 4:45 70.3.

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Recently, after having completed my latest Marathon and talking to people in general, I’ve been asked the question…is a Half Ironman 70.3 harder than a Marathon? So, I decided to do some digging, research online and had no idea the 70.3 vs. marathon debate was one of the most searched questions in recreational endurance sport!! It also turns out the information gets recycled every 18 months across forums such as Slowtwitch, LetsRun, BeginnerTriathlete, and last but not least: Reddit. It generates hundreds of comments and almost never gets resolved. The reason it never gets resolved is nobody is answering the question that is actually being asked.

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The Three Camps…

You have to first be aware the debate has three camps, and all three are right about different things…this is very subjective…but the majority view is that a standalone marathon is more painful, full stop. This post caught my attention for example and this person said it simply: “I could do a 70.3 today, right now, and be able to run and swim tomorrow. I could not run 26 miles right now, and if I did, there is no way in hell I am doing anything tomorrow.”

Another good one: “Marathon is tougher. More painful. More excruciating. Mentally more difficult. If I could truly remember how much pain I was in during my last marathon, I wouldn’t be doing another in 7 days. An 70.3, even going for time, is fun. A hoot.”

So, yeah, let’s say the mechanism is simple, a marathon is to run continuously near threshold, with full body-weight impact on every stride for 42 Kilometres. A Half Ironman 70.3 distributes load across three disciplines, two of which are non-impact, and the run leg is paced conservatively because your legs have already done 3 to 3.5 hours of work. The physiological stress lands differently.

I’m not going to lie, even though I’m a big fan of Triathlons and I enjoy every single moment of it, I have to agree that as far as pain goes, a Marathon is way more painful, NOT harder, painful for sure. The last 6-8km of it are just crazy! I did one last Sunday, my quads can confirm this for sure! You might agree, you might not, but let’s keep going!

Now, let’s look at this from another perspective, a minority view, often from newer triathletes or runners terrified of open water, is that the 70.3 is harder because of time on course, training complexity, and cost. Again, I think they are not wrong either at all, especially due to the Open Water Swim!! On average, a 70.3 demands 8 to 14 training hours per week versus 5 to 11 for a marathon, requires three sport-specific skill sets, and costs three to five times more when you factor in the bike, wetsuit, and kit. This brought to mind, when I first started, couldn’t even do a 25m lap!

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Finally, there is a third camp and is where coaches live: marathon is more painful, the 70.3 is more difficult to train for and execute. I’m going to call it: the Pain Vs Logistics framework. The idea is to make this useful to anyone trying to make a decision.

But here’s what the debate misses entirely…

The “which is harder” question is almost never about physiology. It is about identity construction. Which finish line tells the better story about who you are?

The first group, runners with one to three marathons age 30 to 45, are using the comparison as a proxy for “is triathlon worth the upgrade?” They have already proven they can run 26.2 miles. The hardness question is really a status question: will this new identity justify the cost and the effort?

The second group is newer triathletes with a sprint or Olympic finish debating whether to step up to a 70.3 or chase a standalone marathon. For them the question is about which achievement gets more respect. And there is a painful honesty buried in the forum threads: which one will my non-athlete friends and coworkers understand?

A marathon has a very strong cultural impact. In a way, even the less informed person or someone who has no clue about endurance sports, has an idea of what 42km means. But, for sure, when someone asks me about triathlon, a 70.3 Distance often requires an explanation.

Neither group is asking a physiology question. They are both asking a question about who they want to become.

The variable that almost no one mentions…

A 4h30min marathon and a 7h30min Half Iroman 70.3 are very different experiences from a 3h00 marathon and a 4h45min 70.3. One guy in a forum, I think nailed it! “If you’re a random age-grouper running a high 4h or low 5-hour marathon, that marathon is nothing like a standalone. One you run, the other you survive.” Again, I have to agree with this one…the marathon I did last Sunday versus my Marathon in my full Ironman…two different things!

So, you don’t need to generalize and treat all finishers the same because they are not. This race-versus-complete distinction is the less discussed variable that makes most “which is harder” conversations just fall into the uselessness bin. Before you can answer the question, you need to know which version of each event you are comparing.

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So, back it again…which is actually harder?

Yes, a Marathon is more painful per minute. A Half Ironman 70.3 is more complex to prepare for and execute. Both are genuinely hard and neither is hard in the same way as the other.

If you want the most physical suffering compressed into the shortest time window, then the marathon is your event. If you want a challenge that tests your ability to manage multiple disciplines, nutrition, equipment, logistics and sustained effort across 4 to 7 hours, the 70.3 is a different kind of hard.

The story you want to tell, and the kind of athlete you want to be, matters more than a ranking neither event deserves.

The real race prep does not start on race day. It does not even start on the road. It starts in the gym, months before you get anywhere near a start line.

Yes. Strength training builds the structural support, quads, glutes, posterior chain, single-leg stabilizers, that absorbs the load running puts on your joints. Without it, the interference effect plays out: high running volume without strength leaves muscle fibres shrinking and the joints picking up the bill. Four lower-body sessions a week, alternated between runs strategically, is what turned a 2022 marathon DNF into a sub-3:50 PR four years later.

No Phone Call This Time

I hit kilometer 26 on Sunday and I knew exactly where I was…same race, similar course (they made some changes)…same stretch where, in April 2022, I called my wife to go and pick my up from the nearest GO train station with a knee that had given out, a stomach full of norovirus, and shivers I could not stop. I keep saying it…the brain is an interesting machine for sure…I remembered the rain that day, the wind, remembered the 20 minutes it took to walk to that station, the longest 20 minutes of any race I have ever attempted. How much I wanted to cry…

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This time it was a sunny, almost no wind, strong legs, stomach holding (we’ll get to this!!). I was on pace to achieve my set goal, and I was moving through that exact stretch instead of stopping at it. Also, just to put a little more pressure on me, I left my flip phone at home so that I was not calling anyone today…and I kept running.

The clock at the finish read 3:49:35. Sub-3:50 by 25 seconds. A personal record. Four years later, but on the same course where the score had been left open.

The story tried to repeat itself…

Now, this is the interesting part, funny seeing it now, since I finished, otherwise…but, here is the part I did not see coming.

Five days before the race, I got hit with a stomach bug. Not “feeling off” stomach bug like 4 years ago, but the kind that put me in bed for two days straight , eating little snacks and throwing them up afterwards…(this time I’m giving you the picture…). I couldn’t believe…seriously…same week, same race, same ridiculous twist of timing as 2022, except this crazy version of the virus came in early enough that I had 5 days to take care of myself and climb back.

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The uncertainty was real on Sunday morning…could my stomach handle the gels? Would the fueling I had spent four months dialing in stay where I put it? Honestly, I did not know. I drank what I could on Saturday as far as electrolytes, then Sunday I woke up early, had my breakfast, coffee, took the Uber to the event and started anyway. The plan was: trust the prep, take the fuel on schedule, and adjust if my body started giving warning signs. Happy to say…none came!!

That is not luck. That is what happens when nutrition becomes a training variable instead of an afterthought, and when you have practised the exact fueling pattern enough times that your gut knows what to do with it.

Why this body finished what the 2022 body could not

The body that ran through kilometer 26 on Sunday was not the body that walked off the course in 2022. The difference is not mysterious, and I want to write it out clearly because it is the entire point of this Substack and the philosophy behind the coaching…

In 2022, my prep was running, more running, almost no lifting, almost no posterior chain work, almost no single-leg loading. I genuinely thought marathon preparation meant adding kilometers. The knee that gave out at kilometer 26 was a knee that had been asked to absorb everything the surrounding muscles were not built to take…again, that was not bad luck.

Four years later, the prep was different by design. Four strength sessions a week, lower-body focus, compound movements as the anchor. Squats, deadlift variations, lunges, a lot of single-leg work. The muscles that were essentially absent from my 2022 build.

Nutrition got the same treatment. 40 grams of carbohydrate per hour once an effort goes past 90 minutes for a key session. Protein spread across the day instead of dumped into one post-workout window, which means a runner doing 28-plus weekly kilometers and lifting on top is not allowed to skip meals casually. Recovery as a non-negotiable, sleep treated as training. None of this is fancy, but again, it all adds up and makes a big difference.

I want to reiterate, this is what the philosophy of this Substack actually looks like in practice. Strength is not a complement to endurance. It is the structural foundation that lets the endurance show up on race day instead of breaking down in the rain at kilometer 26.

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The race

Sunday turned out to be a perfect race in every sense…the pacing held, I stayed in the heart-rate band I had built across 42 runs and 50 strength sessions over the past few months, the gels and hydration went down on schedule, the legs stayed under me through 30, 32, 35, 38, not so much in the 40thK mark...legs were toast by then, but is not supposed to be comfortable, marathons never are at that point, but they were not a breakdown.

A close friend of mine showed up to pace me through the final 10 Kilometer. He said the right things at the right time. My wife, the same one who picked me up from a GO train station four years ago, this time waiting at the finish with my girls.

The medal is around the neck. The official time, 3 hours 49 minutes 35 seconds. The PR is real, but the sentence I keep coming back to is simpler than any of that…

The race prep does not start at the start line. It starts in the gym, months earlier, when nobody is watching and there is no medal on the line. (Ask me how I know.)

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Most plateaus in your thirties and forties aren’t age-related. The real culprits are recovery debt, chronic protein deficit, too much steady-state cardio without progressive overload, and a training program that hasn’t meaningfully changed in years. Age is a variable, not a verdict. Any one of these will stall progress at 25. Stack all four on a 40-year-old with a job and kids, and you get a plateau you blame on your birthday.

Age is a variable, not a verdict.

I know 45-year-olds who are stronger and leaner than they were at 28. Age isn’t the reason you’ve stalled. Let’s talk about the actual reasons.

I did my first Ironman at 41. Nine months of training, two young daughters, a full-time job, a wife who held the whole operation together, and the best fitness of my life. Not the best I’d had in a decade. The best I’d ever been in. By almost every measurable metric, my 41-year-old body was outperforming the 28-year-old version of me who had more time, fewer responsibilities, and slept a full eight hours uninterrupted.

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I’m telling you this not to brag, reality is my 28 year old version was focused on different things, other priorities, still thinking drinking like crazy wouldn’t affect me, so, not a good benchmark...but to put one thing on the table before we go further: the story that your body is finished after 35 or 40, etc... is just that, a story. It’s not physiology. It’s not biology. It’s something someone told you, and you keep retelling yourself because it’s more comfortable than the real answer.

But...now, the real answer...

The plateau isn’t your age, it’s your inputs

When someone in their thirties or forties stalls, they almost always default to the same explanation. “I’m just getting older.” We have a very popular saying in Colombia, “Los Años no llegan solos…”, which kinda translates to “Years don’t arrive by themselves” and then, quietly, the effort drops. The expectations drop. The situation stays the same because, hey, what’s the point of pushing harder if the body’s on the way down anyway?

Here’s what’s actually going on. Age is a variable, yes. But the actual culprits sitting in the same room with you, eating your progress, are recovery debt, chronic protein deficit, too much steady-state cardio with no progressive overload, and a training program you haven’t meaningfully changed in three years, or sadly doing nothing!!! Any one of these will stall you at 25. Stack all four on a 40-year-old with a job and kids, and you get a plateau you blame on your birthday.

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The sarcopenia piece nobody talks about

This is the part I wish someone had put in front of me at 30. Starting somewhere around your fourth decade, you begin losing muscle mass whether you want to or not. The research puts average muscle loss at roughly 0.4 to 0.5 percent per year in midlife, accelerating to around 1 percent per year and beyond after 65 (Mitchell et al., 2012). Strength declines faster, about 1.5 percent per year starting in your fifties, then roughly 3 percent per year after 60.

Most people have never heard the word sarcopenia. They just feel it. Grocery bags get heavier. Stairs get steeper. The body feels “different.” It’s not mysterious. It’s muscle tissue leaving the building, quietly, one week at a time, unless you give it a reason to stay.

Here’s the part that should actually hit you. Some elite athletes, the trained 40, 50, and 60-year-olds, lose muscle mass at roughly 5 percent per decade, versus 8 to 10 percent per decade in sedentary people the same age (Wroblewski et al., 2011; McKendry et al., 2018). That’s not a small gap. That’s the difference between being strong at 65 and needing help with groceries at 65. Training doesn’t stop aging, but it slows the thing down enough that “old” looks like something very different from what you pictured.

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Protein: the most boring fix, the biggest return

If you train seriously and eat like a regular adult, you are almost certainly under-eating protein. The number I’d have you aim for is around 1.8 grams per kilogram of bodyweight per day. For an 80-kilo athlete, that’s 144 grams. Every day.

That sits in the range Morton and colleagues established in a meta-analysis of almost 2,000 trained adults, which found gains in lean mass plateau at about 1.6 grams per kilogram daily (Morton et al., 2018). A little above that, closer to 1.8 to 2.2, gives you insurance against a bad day, a missed meal, a hard block, and the blunted muscle protein response we all get as we age.

Is it hard to hit? Yes, and I saw this directly when I tracked like 1.5 years ago with my wife, just as an exercise...not going to lie, getting enough protein is tough! Also, it takes thinking about it at every meal, it means protein goes on the plate first, not last, it means a chicken thigh instead of another handful of almonds. You will not stumble into 1.8 by accident. But here’s the trade: you’re already doing the hardest part, which is the training. Under-eating protein is like renovating a kitchen and skipping the counters.

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One quick note on programming…

I’ll keep this short because your time is limited and I know it. Progressive overload, the slow, deliberate adding of load, volume, or difficulty to your sessions, is what actually drives adaptation. If your workouts look the same in April as they did in January, you are maintaining, not building. Add a set. Add a kilogram. Add a harder variation. And yes, build in deload weeks so the body can absorb the work instead of just accumulating fatigue.

That’s it. You don’t need a new program every eight weeks. You need the current one to actually progress.

I’ll repeat it again…Age is a variable, not a verdict

At 41, I stood on that beach next to Ottawa river, watching the sunrise, before my first Ironman. You see so many people that definitely look older than me, in their 50’s even 60’s that have been participating for a decade or more. None of them were the fastest person on the course, not sure if they finished to be honest, but as me, they had that finish line in mind, they looked like people who had decided something about their lives and then made it true.

You’ve still got time. The body is more forgiving than you think. It’s the story you tell about the body that isn’t.

Sources

1. Morton, R. W., et al. (2018). A systematic review, meta-analysis and meta-regression of the effect of protein supplementation on resistance training-induced gains in muscle mass and strength in healthy adults. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 52(6), 376-384. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28698222/

1. Mitchell, W. K., et al. (2012). Sarcopenia, dynapenia, and the impact of advancing age on human skeletal muscle size and strength; a quantitative review. Frontiers in Physiology, 3, 260. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2012.00260/full

2. Wroblewski, A. P., et al. (2011). Chronic exercise preserves lean muscle mass in masters athletes. Physician and Sportsmedicine, 39(3), 172-178. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22030953/

3. McKendry, J., et al. (2018). Muscle morphology and performance in master athletes: A systematic review and meta-analyses. Ageing Research Reviews, 45, 62-82. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29715523/

For most people, yes. Optical wrist sensors track resting and steady-state heart rate within a few beats per minute of a chest strap or ECG. The number is reliable for Zone 2 and long aerobic work. Wrist HR drifts during intervals, sprint efforts, and high-intensity training, because the sensor struggles with fast changes and sweat. If you need precision for hard sessions, wear a chest strap. Otherwise, the wrist is close enough to guide you.

The problem with letting a device define how you feel

This is definitely something I see coming up a lot now in the Substack Notes and from many other people on the platform. On top of this, during one of my Personal Trainer modules, related to Energy, metabolism, our teacher showed us evidence as to why all these wearables might not be most reliable thing...yes, it might give you an idea on HR during a run, but to measure calories and sleep...not so much!

Up until recently, I was convinced and fooled about all the calories I burned during a 30km run, but turns out it’s just better for counting steps and nothing else. Speaking of sleep, sometimes when my Garmin says I had a great night sleep, somehow it scores it! How? No clue...Based on what? No clue either! So, it said, “calm and refreshing”, and I felt sooo tired, or also viceversa, I scored 50 and I felt amazing ready to kill any session!

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So, basically, your fitness tracker told you that you burned 800 calories on a decent long run, but it was probably off by 35%. So, let’s go through some info and what it’s actually reliable on.

Nowadays there are two kinds of people wearing watches right now. The first one trusts the device completely. Their watch says 900 calories burned, so they eat the cookie, and the second cookie, like me! I’m a cookie monster according to my girls! and then wonder why body comp is not moving. The second one gave up on the data entirely after one weird reading, tossed the watch in a drawer, and now trains on feel alone. Both are leaving something on the table. Wearables are useful, but only for the questions they can actually answer. The rest is a guess dressed up in a nice interface.

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What your watch actually does well

Heart rate at rest, and heart rate over weeks. This is the most reliable number on your wrist. Optical wrist sensors track resting and steady-state heart rate within a few beats per minute of a chest strap or ECG for most people (Shcherbina et al., 2017). If your resting HR has drifted from 54 to 62 over ten days and nothing else in your life has changed, that is signal. Take it seriously. Back off, sleep more, check if you are getting sick.

Heart rate variability, metric that has become sooo popular lately, watch it over weeks, not days. HRV is the time gap between heartbeats, and it reflects how ready your nervous system is to handle hard work. A 2020 meta-analysis of endurance athletes found that HRV-guided training produced better gains in VO2max and performance than rigid pre-planned programs, because athletes trained hard on days their body was ready and backed off when it was not (Granero-Gallegos et al., 2020). A 2023 trial in cyclists found the same pattern over 8 weeks (Figueiredo et al., 2023). The catch is that HRV is noisy day to day. One low reading means almost nothing. A seven-day rolling average trending down means something. Track the line, not the dot.

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Heart rate zones during steady cardio. Your watch is reasonably accurate for the wide Zone 2 band most endurance work lives in. Wrist HR drifts during intervals and high-intensity efforts (the sensor struggles with fast changes and sweat), but for a long aerobic run at conversational pace, the number on your wrist is close enough to coach you. If your Zone 2 cap is 145 bpm and your watch says you are at 155, you are going too hard. Slow down, right?

What your watch is basically guessing at

Now the other side.

Calorie burn. The worst number on your watch by a long shot. The Stanford study that tested seven popular wearables found calorie estimates off by 27 to 93 percent across devices, while heart rate on the same wrists was accurate (Shcherbina et al., 2017). Newer watches have not closed that gap much, because the inputs (activity type, body composition, actual effort) are hard to estimate from a wrist. Do not use calorie burn to justify eating decisions. If you want to manage energy balance, track food intake with care and let the scale and body composition confirm over weeks.

VO2max. Consumer watches estimate VO2max from submaximal data, running pace against HR, and population formulas. Recent validation studies in recreational runners found VO2max from consumer watches differed from lab testing by 6 to 10 percent in either direction, with several devices underestimating trained athletes (Caserman et al., 2024; Železnik Mežan et al., 2025). The number is a useful ballpark. It is not a performance metric to chase. Chase pace at a given HR instead. If you are running 4:45/km at 150 bpm this month and 4:40/km at 150 bpm next month, your fitness is improving, no matter what the watch says.

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Sleep stages. Wrist devices are decent at total sleep time and bad at staging. A 2023 review comparing consumer trackers against polysomnography found wearables overestimate total sleep by around 10 minutes, doesn’t classify light sleep as deep roughly a third of the time, and struggle badly with REM during fragmented nights (Lee et al., 2023). Trust the total hours. Treat the pie chart of “deep vs REM vs light” as entertainment, not data.

Trends are signal. Single readings are noise.

The rule that keeps you sane is short. Use wearables for patterns over weeks. Never make a single-session decision from a single data point.

A real example. Your HRV drops 20 percent one morning. You had three glasses of wine, you slept five hours, and your toddler crawled into bed at 4 a.m. The number is accurate and useless, because the context is obvious. Skip the watch, drink water, take the easy day you already knew you needed. Now a different scenario. Your HRV has been sliding for six straight mornings. Sleep looks normal. Training has not been heavy. That is the moment to pay attention, because the pattern is telling you something your feel is missing.

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So, here’s something practical everybody can do, just pull three numbers once a week, not every morning. Your 7-day average resting HR, your 7-day average HRV, and your total weekly sleep hours. Write them down somewhere, or in an excel sheet. If two of the three are moving the wrong way for two weeks running, pull back hard volume for a week and add a rest day. That is the watch earning its keep. Everything else on the screen, the calorie count, the VO2max score, the deep sleep minutes, is decoration. Useful to look at, dangerous to plan around.

So ask yourself this before your next workout. What is the watch actually telling you, and what are you filling in because the number feels important? The honest answer is usually the one worth training on.

If you are not sure whether your current training load is matching your recovery, that is what Strength First Athlete is here for...and...there is no watch required.

Sources

1. Shcherbina, A. et al. (2017). Accuracy in wrist-worn, sensor-based measurements of heart rate and energy expenditure in a diverse cohort. Journal of Personalized Medicine, 7(2), 3. https://doi.org/10.3390/jpm7020003

2. Granero-Gallegos, A. et al. (2020). Effects of heart-rate-variability-guided training on endurance performance: a systematic review and meta-analysis. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(21), 7999. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17217999

3. Figueiredo, D. H. et al. (2023). Influence of heart rate variability-guided training on performance and VO2max in trained cyclists. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport. https://doi.org/10.1080/02701367.2023.2185712

4. Caserman, P. et al. (2024). Accuracy of consumer wearables in estimating VO2max in recreational runners. Sensors, 24(7), 2216. https://doi.org/10.3390/s24072216

5. Železnik Mežan, M. et al. (2025). Validity of smartwatch VO2max estimation across fitness levels. Sports, 13(2), 45. https://doi.org/10.3390/sports13020045

6. Lee, T. et al. (2023). Consumer sleep trackers versus polysomnography: a systematic review. Sleep Medicine Reviews, 68, 101732. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smrv.2023.101732

Through constraint-based scheduling, not motivation. Phillippa Lally’s research at University College London found the strongest predictor of habit formation is context consistency, doing the behaviour in the same situation repeatedly until it stops feeling like a decision. Find the slots already protected in your week (Monday lunch, Wednesday morning before work) and anchor training there. Motivation disappears when the week gets hard. A specific time slot tied to a specific cue does not.

What you call “no time” is often just a choice.

This last Tuesday, I’d been at the office since 8am, daydreaming a bit, thinking about ideas for the Substack, for the business, plus some of the usual routine, watching the clock. By 3:00pm I was in the car because I pick up my girls from the bus, then weather is definitely improving here in Toronto and decided to take them to a new park they opened a couple of months back. Then, went home and started thinking if I should work out or not...seeing as my big race is coming up soon I was thinking if I should go out for a quick run and also enjoy the weather...still, many chores awaited as usual, prepare dinner, dishes out of the machine, it’s endless, right?

And...I went...tidied up a little a bit around the house, got shorts and shoes and off I went...

Not because I felt like it. I went because it’s just a priority for me, and the mental energy required to cancel, negotiate with my brain or change something such as a 25min run (which is what I ended up doing...) is higher than the energy required to just do it.

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You hear this conversation more times than I can count. Someone tells another someone they want to get stronger, feel better, maybe train for something. Then: “I just don’t have the time.” People listen, because that feeling is real and almost without exception, there are two to three hours somewhere in that week that aren’t going toward anything essential. Not sleep, not family, not actual work. TV, usually. Scrolling.

Please...I’m not judging. I’ve done it and again, we all have hectic lives, but we should call it what it is: not a time shortage. A priority allocation.

You have 168 hours this week. The question isn’t where training fits. It’s what you’re willing to stop doing.

The real problem isn’t time

The most common version of the time complaint isn’t actually about hours. It’s about programs. Most people who say they don’t have time have looked at a training plan that demands five days a week, 60 to 90 minutes per session, and correctly concluded they can’t sustain that. They’re right. So they do nothing.

That’s an all-or-nothing response to an unrealistic standard. The program is the problem.

Here’s what the research actually shows: training a muscle group twice a week is enough to build and maintain meaningful strength and muscle. A 2019 meta-analysis by Schoenfeld and Grgic in the Journal of Sports Sciences analyzed 25 studies and concluded that major muscle groups should be trained at least twice a week to maximize muscle growth. Not five times. Not four. Twice.

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I’m probably the 1000th person saying this, but worth repeating…

A well-designed two-session week, 45 to 60 minutes each, covering the major patterns, with progressive overload, is a legitimate training program.

Not the compromise version. The evidence-supported version for most adults with full lives.

What the minimum effective dose actually means

There’s a concept in exercise science called the minimum effective dose: the smallest stimulus that produces measurable adaptation. It’s not the optimal dose. It’s the threshold below which nothing happens. For most adults building general strength, that threshold is considerably lower than the fitness industry wants you to believe, because the fitness industry profits from complexity.

Two sessions per week covering the major movement patterns, with loads that challenge you within two to three reps of failure, with some form of progressive overload across weeks. That’s enough to get stronger, preserve muscle, and build the physical foundation that carries into everything else.

A 30-minute session that actually happens beats a 90-minute session that doesn’t. Every time. There is no version of the math where a skipped workout gets you closer to your goal. A month of two real sessions per week is worth more than a month of planning five and doing one.

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The scheduling fix nobody wants to hear

Motivation is a terrible foundation for a training habit. It shows up when things are going well and disappears the moment the week gets hard, which is exactly when you need it most.

What actually works is constraint-based scheduling: finding the slots that are already structurally protected in your week and anchoring training to them. Phillippa Lally’s habit research at University College London found that the strongest predictor of habit isn’t intensity or duration. It’s consistency in context, doing the behavior in the same situation repeatedly until it stops feeling like a decision. (Lally et al., 2010, European Journal of Social Psychology.)

Monday lunch break, for example...this is something I shoot for when I’m at the office... Tuesday morning before the office, go to the pool and swim (although not very consistently lately...)

Not “whenever I have time.” A specific slot, tied to a specific cue, protected like the commitment it actually is. Life will move the slot sometimes. That’s fine. There’s a difference between intentionally shifting a session and watching it get absorbed into nothing until it disappears.

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What this actually looks like

I train on my work-from-home days when possible because the friction is lower. When that doesn’t work, I’m in the gym for 25 minutes on a Monday during a lunch break. The session isn’t optimal...trust me, but it gets done, and getting done is the entire point.

I totally understand...for some busy 38-year-old with kids and a full-time job, four sessions a week isn’t the minimum. Four sessions is the dream. The minimum that actually moves the needle is two. The baseline you can hold in a hard week is the one that matters.

If you’ve been waiting for things to slow down before you start, I’ll say it directly: things don’t slow down. The people who build lasting training habits don’t wait for a perfect schedule. They build training into the imperfect one they already have.

The time you’re waiting for isn’t coming, I mean this...the 45 minutes you already have is enough.

Most people don’t need more information about training anymore. They need structure that fits their actual life, and someone who won’t let them drift. That’s the difference between reading about training and doing it.

Subscribe to Strength First Athlete for the thinking behind the training, every week.

Sources

1. Schoenfeld BJ, Grgic J, Krieger J. (2019). How many times per week should a muscle be trained to maximize muscle hypertrophy? Journal of Sports Sciences, 37(11), 1286-1295. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02640414.2018.1555906

2. Lally P, van Jaarsveld CHM, Potts HWW, Wardle J. (2010). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 998-1009. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ejsp.674

Yes. The absence of strength training is one of the most common reasons runners break down mid-race. High running volume without strength work causes fast-twitch muscle fibers to shrink, blunts the hormonal signals that trigger repair, and forces joints to absorb load that muscles should be taking. Four strength sessions a week — lower body focus, compounds first — is enough to build the structural foundation that keeps you moving past kilometer 26.

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It’s funny and it will always amaze me how you are always thinking back to what went wrong with something…how wired we are to keep the negative things there in our minds and in this case I remember the exact moment I stopped during this marathon 4 years ago.

Kilometer 26. Mississauga Marathon, April 2022. It was raining hard, the course was slippery, and my right knee, which had been sending me pain signals for weeks, finally sent one I could not ignore. Then I was shivering, my stomach, which had been dealing with norovirus since before I even crossed the starting line (I will not give you the details on that one, sorry), had stopped functioning entirely!! I called my wife from somewhere near a GO train station and told her to come pick me up. The walk to that station took 20 minutes. It felt like the longest 20 minutes of any race I have ever attempted.

No finish line photo that day with no nice medal. Just the call, the rain, and the ride home.

Now, April 26^th 2026, 4 years later… same city, same race, same course. I am starting it again.

Here is what I got wrong the first time, and why I think it is going to go differently.

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What broke down in 2022

My marathon prep that year was built almost entirely on running volume. More kilometers per week, longer long runs, higher mileage. No structured strength training, none whatsoever. I really believed back then that was what marathon preparation meant: keep running more. The knee pain that started during the Around the Bay 30K in March 2022, the pain that never fully went away before race day, was not bad luck. It was a body that had not been built for what I was asking it to do.

I have covered the interference effect in a recent post (the one about running more and losing muscle).

The short version: when you load your body with high running volume without the structural support to handle it, something eventually gives. Fast-twitch muscle fibres shrink under chronic endurance fatigue. The hormonal signals that trigger repair get blunted. Load capacity drops. The joints start absorbing what the surrounding muscles should be taking. This is not a theory, it is physiology running exactly as it is designed to run, just pointed in the wrong direction.

In 2022, the thing that gave away was my right knee at kilometer 26. In the rain. With a stomach full of norovirus. On a course I had never actually run outdoors before, because I had spent most of my training on a treadmill…and 4 years later, I cannot stand a treadmill! Haha…

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What the four years changed

I started lifting. That sounds simple and obvious noooowwww, but it took me longer than I would like to admit to do it with any real commitment. There is still a lot of noise out there suggesting that runners and lifters are different people and that the volume conflict is too much to manage. My experience has told me something different.

What I do now: four strength sessions a week, lower body focus, compound movements as the anchor. Squats, deadlift variations, lunges, single-leg work that directly loads the muscles that stabilize the stride. Basically all the muscles that were essentially absent from my 2022 prep!! And if I am lifting and running on the same day, which doesn’t occur very often…I lift first, in and out, 20 minutes. Always. Lifting on pre-fatigued legs from a long run does not produce adaptation; it accumulates damage without the signal that drives growth. I learned that the hard way before I understood the science behind it.

Nutrition became a training variable rather than an unconscious thing...Pre-run carbohydrate loading, fueling during long efforts (30 to 60 grams of carbohydrate per hour once you cross 90 minutes), protein spread consistently across the day rather than dumped into one post-workout window. I wrote about this in detail a few posts ago. For someone running 28-plus kilometers and lifting on top of that, missing your post-run nutrition is not just bad, it is totally working against the training.

Recovery got the same attention. Sleep as a non-negotiable. Creatine daily with my protein shake, which my wife and I both take now without thinking about it. The goal with all of this is not to feel invincible on race day. It is to arrive at race day without having ground myself down in the weeks before it.

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What the data actually shows

So, I did this exercise for the first time…downloaded all my activities from my Garmin log for the past few months: 42 runs and 50 strength sessions. Not goals, not plans. Sessions completed.

The last two long runs tell the most useful story. April 1st: 30.31 kilometres in 3 hours 5 minutes. April 8th: 31.82 kilometres in 3 hours 8 minutes. Both controlled, both finished and no knee complaints during or after either one.

That is not me saying I have solved anything, or I have created the perfect plan for everybody, no, please note this is not philosophy, everybody is different! I’m not a fan of one-size-fits all things…Also, a 31-kilometer training run is not a 42-kilometer race, but I have a body in a different condition than the one that stood on that starting line in 2022, and the difference is not a secret, or a mysterious plan! It’s just the result of managing and balancing properly Strength with Endurance…best of the 2 worlds!

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April 26th 2026!

My goal in 12 days is sub-3:50...that’s it! I will say that clearly because putting a number on it matters to me at this point. Vague goals are comfortable and I am trying to stay uncomfortable about this…I want to put some additional pressure on myself!

But going back to the beginning of the post, if I am being honest with myself, is that kilometre 26. I want to reach that spot on the course, the exact stretch where things fell apart four years ago, and still be moving. Legs strong as hell…nothing given out. Moving through it instead of stopping at it and hopefully no stomach bug!!

The finish line is the goal, but kilometre 26 is the one I have been thinking about.

I am also realistic about what the marathon is. Better training does not make the distance shorter. There is still a version of April 26th where weather or pacing or something I could not have planned for makes the day hard in ways I cannot predict. I know that. What I also know is that this time, if something goes wrong, it will not be because I skipped the foundation. I have been in the gym working legs on tired legs. I have been on the road at 5:55 per kilometre for three hours in April with crazy and unpredictable Toronto weather. I have slept eight hours and eaten properly.

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Kilometer 26 is going to look different this time. I will let you know how it goes in 2 weeks!

The race prep does not start on race day. It does not even start on the road. It starts in the gym, months before you get anywhere near a start line. Ask me again how I know!

Subscribe to Strength First Athlete if you want weekly training pieces built around one idea: strength comes first, distance follows.

Training for a sprint tri, Olympic, or Ironman and want a program built specifically around your race, your body, and your schedule? Reply to this email. That is what I do.

Sources

1. Leveritt, M., Abernethy, P.J., Barry, B.K. & Logan, P.A. (1999). Concurrent strength and endurance training: a review. Sports Medicine, 28(6), 413–427. DOI: 10.2165/00007256-199928060-00004

2. Wilson, J.M. et al. (2012). Concurrent training: a meta-analysis examining interference of aerobic and resistance exercises. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 26(8), 2293–2307. DOI: 10.1519/JSC.0b013e31823a3e2d

3. Murphy, C. & Koehler, K. (2021). Energy deficiency impairs resistance training gains in lean mass but not strength: a meta-analysis and meta-regression. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, 32(1), 125–137. DOI: 10.1111/sms.14075

4. Jeukendrup, A.E. (2011). Nutrition for endurance sports: marathon, triathlon, and road cycling. Journal of Sports Sciences, 29(Suppl 1), S91–99. DOI: 10.1080/02640414.2011.610348

Strategic self-talk acts as a cognitive restructuring tool that changes how the brain interprets stress and difficulty. A meta-analysis shows that self-talk has a moderate positive effect on performance, particularly for novel or high-stress skills. Techniques such as using "distanced self-talk", referring to yourself in the second or third person (e.g., "Abel, you can do this") have been shown to reduce emotional reactivity and improve outcomes under pressure.

I didn’t go swimming for the last month! Go ahead laugh, make “pppftt” faces...but for me personally, it’s a lot! Being a Triathlete Coach and Endurance enthusiast. Not because I was injured, not because life blew up... I just didn’t go, I’m not event taking the time to set up the gear the night before so I can go to the community center I usually go to every Tuesday AM...I’m being lazy, feel tired, don’t see the need...let’s call it anything you want. And then that voice shows up on time, same one it always is: What’s wrong with you? You know better than this. You literally coach people on consistency and you can’t even show up for yourself.

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Sound familiar?

Not sure if you know this, but I’ve been crazy deep into behavioral psychology the past few months! It fascinates me, I think it explains so much about what’s going on right now in the world, so I keep learning and reading every day...both from the research, other Substack publications and from staring at my own Garmin at 6am wondering why I couldn’t just get up and go swimming: the stall isn’t the problem. The Lesson is the story you tell yourself about the stall... that’s what wrecks you.

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The Script Nobody Taught You to Rewrite

Most of us are running mental scripts we never chose. You miss a workout, skip a week, fall off your nutrition... and instead of treating it like data (what happened, what got in the way, what needs adjusting), your brain jumps straight to identity: I’m not disciplined enough. I’m not built for this. Other people can do this, I can’t.

Psychologist Daphna Oyserman calls this identity-based motivation. Her research shows that when an action feels incongruent with who you believe you are, your brain interprets difficulty as proof that it’s “not for people like me.” But when that same action feels identity-congruent, difficulty becomes evidence that the work matters (Oyserman, 2015).

Same difficulty. Same stall. Completely different interpretation, depending on the script running underneath.

So when you miss a week of training and your brain says “see, you’re not really an athlete,” it’s not giving you honest feedback. It’s running an outdated script. And the script is doing more damage than the missed sessions ever could.

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Why “Just Think Positive” Doesn’t Work

Now, I’m not about to tell you to look in a mirror and say affirmations. That’s not what the science supports and it’s not my style either.

What the research does support is something more specific: deliberate self-talk that rewires how you interpret setbacks. Now...THIS I do, while I’m on Kilometre 25 on a long run, or what I did on my second mental breakdown during my Ironman bike leg!

Hatzigeorgiadis and colleagues ran a meta-analysis across 32 studies on self-talk and performance. Strategic self-talk produced a moderate positive effect (effect size = 0.48), with the biggest gains in novel skills, exactly where self-doubt hits hardest (Hatzigeorgiadis et al., 2011).

Kross et al. (2014) found that people who referred to themselves using their own name or “you” instead of “I” during self-talk showed less emotional reactivity and performed better under stress. Switching from “I can’t do this” to “Abel, you’ve done hard things before” changed the outcome. A tiny shift in language. Being honest here...I talk to my legs during rough patches!

This isn’t motivational fluff. It’s cognitive restructuring, and it works because it changes the frame your brain uses to interpret what’s happening to you.

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The 3 Identity Statements

Here’s where this gets practical. I want you to write down three statements about who you are. Not who you want to be someday, but who you are right now based on what you’ve already done. Keep strength front and center.

Examples:

“I’m someone who shows up even when the plan isn’t perfect.”

“I’ve been through harder things than a bad week of training.”

“I don’t need to feel ready to start. I just need to start.”

These aren’t affirmations. They’re evidence-based identity anchors. You’re not lying to yourself... you’re reminding yourself of what’s already true. Oyserman’s work shows that when your identity is linked to the action, difficulty stops feeling like a wall and starts feeling like part of the path.

Write yours down. And here’s the key: make them specific to you. Generic ones don’t stick. If you finished a 5K two years ago and haven’t run since, one of yours might be: “I’m the person who crossed that finish line, and that person is still here.”

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The 2-Minute Nightly Evidence Log

Identity statements set the frame. The Evidence Log reinforces it.

Every night, take two minutes. Write down one thing you did that day, no matter how small, that contradicts the “I’m broken” script. You trained for 20 minutes instead of 60? That’s evidence. You prepped one meal instead of skipping lunch? Evidence. You opened this article because you’re still looking for ways to get better? That counts too.

Self-monitoring is one of the most replicated tools in cognitive behavioral research. When you track evidence of who you’re becoming, you make the new identity harder to deny. You’re not arguing with the voice in your head... you’re building a case against it, one line at a time.

The log doesn’t need to be fancy. A notebook, whatever. The format doesn’t matter. The consistency does. During my Ironman training I did this, I bought a small notebook in Dollarama and after every hard session I wrote every single detail down that night before passing out! Distance, time I left that morning, nutrition I carried with me, places I went, any thoughts that came to mind while I was struggling and at the end...EVIDENCE...I was able to complete what I set out to do!

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The Real Problem Was Never the Stall

I’m a human being like everybody out there...I still miss sessions and I will many times. I still have weeks where the business side feels like pushing a boulder uphill (building a coaching business from zero while working a day job... yeah, that voice gets loud). The difference now is that when it shows up, the one that says “you’re not cut out for this,” I have a script ready. And that script is backed by something the doubt can’t touch: evidence.

You’re not broken. You never were. You just need a better script, and two minutes a night to prove it.

If any of this hit close to home and you want coaching that starts with strength and adapts to your life, reply to this email. I read every one.

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References

Hatzigeorgiadis, A., Zourbanos, N., Galanis, E., & Theodorakis, Y. (2011). Self-talk and sports performance: A meta-analysis. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6(4), 348–356.

Kross, E., Bruehlman-Senecal, E., Park, J., Burson, A., Dougherty, A., Shablack, H., Bremner, R., Moser, J., & Ayduk, O. (2014). Self-talk as a regulatory mechanism: How you do it matters. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 106(2), 304–324.

Oyserman, D. (2015). Identity-based motivation. In R. Scott & S. Kosslyn (Eds.), Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Wiley.

Two weeks off barely dents your strength. Mujika and Padilla’s detraining research shows force production holds steady for up to four weeks of inactivity. What actually stalls a comeback is the shame spiral, not the fitness loss. A 4-minute re-entry ritual, assess sleep, stress and alcohol, practice one self-compassion statement, write a single if-then plan, and pick one strength-based session at 60% effort, rebuilds momentum in a single day, not a month.

The way it impacts my life…

This topic is something that I still come back to a lot, sensitive to me as well, one I ruminate about and not in a good way…for example: what if I go on vacation for 3 weeks and don’t train as much? And eat not the way I’m supposed to? What if I don’t hit the gym as much? What if one of my girls gets sick? Or I get sick and cannot train at the same intensity I usually do? My mind keeps telling me I’m falling off the wagon, that I’m losing Strength, muscle…that if I don’t do the same volume of barbell squats weekly, that I’m losing my edge.

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Another thing that sneaks up on me sometimes is after a long endurance race event. It’s something that is well known, which are like the post race blues or whatever you want to call it, where you put in all the hard work, commitment, sacrifices and then all of a sudden is over! Soooo, what’s next I ask myself? When can I start training again? Or should I stop? Try something else? In a way, it’s like a hole you dig yourself into and you want to get out ASAP, climb out, start again. My point with this article again is all about just creating awareness, acknowledge the fact that the Event is over, then sit still inside a bit in the hole, make peace, otherwise it will become harder to climb out I think.

Now, let’s look at this more closely…

Unfortunately, we sometimes treat one bad week like total failure. Two weeks off and feels like you have to start from zero, climb back to where you were, then keep going.

It is a terrible design. It punishes you for being a person with a life, and it hands you a perfect excuse to quit altogether, right?

I found this old research back from 1984, (year I was born is 1984 haha, yes, do the math!) and turns out there’s a name for the move your brain makes in that moment, I had no idea! Janet Polivy and Peter Herman called it the “what the hell effect”, focused on studying dieters. You break a rule, the whole plan feels broken, so you might as well go all in on the breakage. It is the same loop whether the rule was “no cookies” or “train four times a week.” One miss becomes ten. Shame does the driving, and shame is a terrible coach (Herman & Polivy, 1984; Polivy & Herman, abstinence violation effect).

Now for the part nobody tells you when you are sitting on the couch.

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Two weeks off does not undo your training

More nerdy stuff!! Mujika and Padilla’s classic detraining reviews looked at what actually happens when trained people stop. Their short-term review (four weeks or less of no training) found strength is generally retained across that window. Muscle cross-sectional area holds up. Force production drops slowly. Endurance markers (VO2max, enzyme activity) fade faster than strength, but even those start from a high base in anyone who has been training consistently (Mujika & Padilla, 2000, Part I; Part II).

Translation, in plain words: two weeks off costs you a little. The shame spiral costs you everything. The gap between those two numbers is the reason I’m writing this basically!!

So what you actually need is not more willpower. You need a re-entry ritual, activity, you name it! Make it short enough that your brain cannot talk you out of it. Couple of minutes. That is the whole thing. Sit down, do it, get up.

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The Reset…4-5 minutes!

Assess the three things that actually move the needle.

The more I move forward on my PT course the more I’m convinced that protecting the biggest asset which is Sleep, and then managing stress, and limiting alcohol is at the end what makes a difference.

These are the real levers in a messy week, not your Zone 2 percentages. Sleep restriction over multiple nights reduces force output in compound lifts and blunts performance broadly (meta-analysis: about a 7.56% hit to physical performance under acute sleep loss) (Craven et al., 2022, Sports Medicine; Knowles et al., 2018). Alcohol post-training cuts myofibrillar protein synthesis by roughly 24% when consumed with protein, 38% with carbs alone (Parr et al., 2014, PLOS ONE). If you recall, this one lands deep, since I was a really heavy drinker many years ago…and finally, chronic stress delays recovery on top of both.

Write down the answers to this, or answer them out loud, they are just for you, so honest answers only:

“In the last 14 days... how many nights did I sleep under 6 hours? How many drinks did I have in a typical week? What was the single biggest stressor?”

You are not fixing any of it yet. You are naming it. Most people skip this and try to solve a sleep problem with a harder workout. That is how you dig the hole deeper.

The self-compassion break.

This is the one most people want to skip and hard as hell at the same time! But again, make an effort and do it! Kristin Neff’s work (summarized in her 2023 Annual Review of Psychology article) shows self-compassion is a stronger motivator than self-criticism, and it is associated with more personal initiative to actually make changes, not less (Neff, 2023). Beating yourself up feels productive. It is not, even though nowadays the so called hustle culture has told us otherwise…again, as I always write, we are all different, might work for some people, but tread lightly I’d say…

And, back it…write it down, say it out loud!

“I fell off for two weeks. A lot of people fall off. This is a normal thing that happens to people with real lives. I am going to train today, not to make up for the missed days, but because I am the kind of person who trains.”

I know, believe me, all of this is uncomfortable, yes, it feels strange. Do it anyway…that’s the point!

One if-then plan, written down.

Peter Gollwitzer’s implementation intentions work (meta-analysis of 94 studies, medium-to-large effect on goal attainment, d = 0.65) shows that people who pre-decide when, where, and how they will act follow through at much higher rates than people who just “intend to” (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006).

You are writing one sentence. One.

“If it is [day], at [time], I will [specific session] at [specific place]. If [obstacle], then [backup].”

Example: “If it is Tuesday at 6am, I will do 30 minutes of easy bike on the trainer in the basement. If the kids wake up early, I will do it at lunch instead of skipping.”

Pick the strength-based re-entry move.

Not your hardest session. I want to reiterate on this one, Do Not Start with “making up” for missed days…do not fall into the trap of trying to squeeze 3 sessions in a day to make up for one you missed…

Let’s say, go for one strength-based session that reminds your body it knows how to do this. A squat, a deadlift at 60% of what you were pulling, a 10-minute chest and bicep circuit. For endurance fans, pair it with 15 to 20 minutes of Zone 2 and call it done.

Why strength first as the re-entry move? Because strength returns the fastest and gives you the biggest felt-sense win in one session. You leave the gym feeling capable, not defeated. That felt-sense is what kills the shame spiral.

Couple of minutes to plan. One session to execute. Momentum is rebuilt in one day, not one month.

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The part I keep learning the hard way

The discipline is not in the streak. The discipline is in the re-entry, every time you come back.

If you are still reading this far, you are probably the kind of person who is tired of the all-or-nothing loop and wants a structure that survives a bad week. That is what I am interested in. Strength that transfers, habits that hold up when life gets messy.

Subscribe to Strength First Athlete, new ideas, venting! every week. Free.

If you are ready to stop figuring it out alone, reply to this email. I will tell you how coaching works and we can see if it makes sense.

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Sources

· Herman, C. P., & Polivy, J. (1984). A boundary model for the regulation of eating. Discussed in: Overeating in Restrained and Unrestrained Eaters and Abstinence Violation.

· Mujika, I., & Padilla, S. (2000). Detraining: loss of training-induced physiological and performance adaptations. Part I (short-term) and Part II (long-term). Sports Medicine.

· Craven, J., et al. (2022). Effects of Acute Sleep Loss on Physical Performance: A Systematic and Meta-Analytical Review. Sports Medicine.

· Knowles, O. E., et al. (2018). Inadequate sleep and muscle strength: Implications for resistance training. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport.

· Parr, E. B., et al. (2014). Alcohol Ingestion Impairs Maximal Post-Exercise Rates of Myofibrillar Protein Synthesis following a Single Bout of Concurrent Training. PLOS ONE.

· Neff, K. D. (2023). Self-Compassion: Theory, Method, Research, and Intervention. Annual Review of Psychology.

· Gollwitzer, P. M., & Sheeran, P. (2006). Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A meta-analysis of effects and processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology.

Use three daily triggers already built into your routine: counter push-ups while coffee brews (2 sets of 8), intentional loaded carries with groceries or your kids (core activation across multiple planes, per a 2024 study in the International Journal of Exercise Science), and bodyweight squats during bedtime routine. Research from Keller et al. (2021) shows routine-based cues build stronger automaticity than time-based ones. Stack one trigger every two weeks. By week six, you have a strength system running on autopilot, zero extra sessions needed.

Life Ate Your Workout Plan…but You're Still Ahead.

Let’s begin this Post with this comment I came across on a forum...I want to tell you about Tuesday morning last week. My alarm went off at 7:15am, I had a client call at 8am, both kids needed lunches packed, and somewhere between pouring cereal and finding a missing shoe (it was under the couch… it’s always under the couch), I realized I hadn’t done a single “workout” in four days…

Story above is not me exactly, although I relate on my girls stuff being always under something!! Still, it’s definitely a story us parents can relate to in one way or another...now, you might think you are falling behind, but let me tell you, you are actually ahead!! (We are raising kids!!)

If you’re a parent reading this, you already know the math. Between school drop-offs, meal prep, work, bedtime routines, and the 50 daily micro-negotiations with kids who have very strong opinions about socks… there is no “extra hour” hiding in your schedule. It doesn’t exist. And every program that assumes it does is setting you up to quit.

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All people are smart, motivated, in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50’s...any age!! who genuinely want to get stronger, who’ve read the articles, maybe even bought the program… and then life eats it. Not because they’re lazy (they never are), but because the plan required a version of their life that doesn’t exist on most days.

So, for myself specifically, I stopped building plans and a training structure that needed perfect conditions. I started building plans that hijack the conditions you already have.

The Problem Isn’t Motivation, It’s Architecture

Dr. Philippa Lally’s research at University College London found that it takes an average of 66 days for a new behavior to become automatic, but here’s what most people miss… the range was 18 to 254 days depending on the complexity of the behavior and (this is the big one) how reliably the cue showed up (Lally et al., European Journal of Social Psychology, 2010).

A follow-up randomized controlled trial by Keller et al. in the British Journal of Health Psychology tested this directly. They split 192 adults into two groups: one planned new habits around a routine-based cue (”after I pour my morning coffee”) and the other around a time-based cue (”at 8:00 AM”). Both worked, but the routine-based group showed stronger and more consistent gains over 84 days (Keller et al., British Journal of Health Psychology, 2021).

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Translation? If your “trigger” for strength training is “when I have free time,” you’re building on sand. If your trigger is “when the coffee machine starts brewing,” you’re building on concrete.

Simple system I’m proposing is just having three triggers you already do every single day, turned into automatic strength builders. No gym bag. No scheduling. No negotiating with your calendar. Let’s start with a visual as is my habit… ;)

The Three Triggers

Trigger 1: The Kitchen Counter...(while at home, I’m 90% of the time in the Kitchen...)

You stand at the kitchen counter every morning. Coffee, breakfast prep, packing lunches… you’re already there. So now, while the kettle boils or the toaster does its thing, you do 2 sets of counter push-ups. Hands on the edge, feet back, slow and controlled. That’s it.

Why counter push-ups? Because a 2022 scoping review of 30 studies on push-up variations found that incline push-ups (hands elevated) activate the same primary muscle groups as standard push-ups, chest, shoulders, triceps, serratus anterior, just at a lower relative load since less bodyweight passes through your arms as the angle increases (Kowalski et al., Shoulder & Elbow, 2022). For someone who hasn’t been training consistently, that’s exactly where you want to start. And the progression is built in: as you get stronger, you move your hands lower. Counter, then a sturdy chair, then the floor. Weeks of progressive overload, zero equipment purchased.

Start with 2 sets of 8. If that’s easy, slow the lowering phase to 3 seconds. You’ll feel the difference fast.

Trigger 2: The Carry (Anytime)

You carry things every day. Groceries, laundry baskets, a 17 Kilos kid who suddenly “can’t walk anymore” at the parking lot (every parent knows this one, right?). I’m very familiar with the expression “piggyback” at this point, so I now lean into it, I make it intentional...I now don’t make frustrating expressions or complain to a 6 year old, but instead I see this as an opportunity...so, if you don’t have any physical constraints, go for it! Another one...grab both grocery bags in one trip instead of two. Carry the laundry basket with a tight core and upright posture for 40 steps. Hold your kid and walk an extra lap around the car before going inside.

This isn’t random. A 2024 study found that loaded carry exercises activate core musculature across multiple planes simultaneously while you’re in motion (PMC, 2024), and grip strength, which carries build directly, is one of the strongest predictors of all-cause mortality in large population studies (Leong et al., The Lancet, 2015). We’re talking about a meta-analysis of over 140,000 people across 17 countries. Grip strength predicted cardiovascular death better than systolic blood pressure.

So when you carry those heavy bags from the car with intention… you’re not “just carrying groceries.” You’re training the most life-relevant strength pattern there is.

Trigger 3: The Squat (Evening)

Bedtime routine. Bath time. Picking up toys from the floor (for the 900th time today). Every one of these moments has a squat hidden inside it. Instead of bending at the waist to grab that toy, sit your hips back and squat down. When you’re waiting for your kid to finish brushing teeth, do 2 sets of 8 bodyweight squats right there in the bathroom.

Your legs and glutes are doing real work here, and you’re training the movement pattern you’ll rely on for the rest of your life. Getting up from a chair, getting off the floor, carrying a kid on your hip… it’s all squat strength. Myer et al. Proposed, not proved...(I’ll always give the nuance...)in the Strength and Conditioning Journal that squat-pattern competency is foundational for older adults to maintain functional independence and for younger individuals to build injury resilience (Myer et al., Strength and Conditioning Journal, 2014). You’re not just getting stronger for now. You’re investing in the version of yourself at 60, 70, 80.

2 sets of 8. Slow and controlled. If it’s easy, pause at the bottom for 2 seconds.

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Why This Works When Other Plans Don’t

Here’s what’s actually happening with these three triggers. You’re not “fitting in exercise.” You’re rewiring your daily behavior so that strength is part of how you move through your house, not something extra bolted onto your day.

A 2022 study published in Nature Medicine tracked over 25,000 adults using wearable devices and found that as few as 3 to 4 bouts of “vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity” (they called it VILPA) per day, each lasting 1 to 2 minutes, was associated with a 38-40% reduction in all-cause mortality and up to 48-49% reduction in cardiovascular mortality (Stamatakis et al., Nature Medicine, 2022). One to two minutes at a time. That’s a set of push-ups and a loaded carry.

Let me give you another example from my life...I usually try to run up the stairs, whenever available, no elevator...

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Now, I’m not telling you that three kitchen exercises will replace a full strength program; reality is they won’t. But here’s what they will do… they’ll build the identity. Remember what I wrote in my last post about identity shifts being worth more than any program? This is the same principle.

When you’ve done counter push-ups every morning for three weeks, you stop being “someone who should probably exercise” and become “someone who trains.” And from that identity, the gym becomes a natural next step, not a forced one.

Where to Start

Pick one trigger. Just one. Tomorrow morning, do 2 sets of 8 counter push-ups while your coffee brews. That’s it. Don’t add the other two yet. Give it two weeks, then stack the carry. Two more weeks, add the evening squats. By week six, you’ll have a system that runs on autopilot, and you’ll be measurably stronger without having added a single “workout” to your calendar.

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And if you want help figuring out exactly where you are and what your body needs first, take my free “Where Do I Start?” readiness questionnaire. Ten scored questions, about 3 minutes, and it gives you a clear starting point based on your actual life, not someone else’s.

Where Do I Start Questionnaire

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If you want coaching that meets you where you are, reply to this email.

You can build significant strength at home by starting with Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT) and a simple 10-minute bodyweight circuit. Instead of facing gym anxiety, master four functional patterns: bodyweight squats, glute bridges, push-ups, and farmer carries using household items. This approach bypasses the 96% gym dropout rate by focusing on identity-based habits rather than foreign environments or expensive equipment.

Skinny comments lit the fuse, then two weeks of soreness did the teaching

Writing this post has brought me back many memories for sure…back in 2006 when I first went to a tacky garage gym back in the neighborhood where I used to live in Bogota, Colombia. I can’t remember the exact reason I started going, but most likely to impress some girl or try to brush off some comment someone made back at the time at how skinny I was, etc…and when you are in your 20’s, let’s be honest…you are not going to go to the gym for health related purposes…or are you???

I think back then everything tied to going to a gym was related to body building and that’s it and definitely the 2 guys that owned the gym, they were strong as hell, but they couldn’t move their necks or flex their arms properly. But luckily I went, picked up some homemade dumbbells by the look of them and got started…but the pain I was in the following weeks, F&#K…so I somehow realized I was not strong at all!! Even though, I ran, played football, etc…you can check out my first posts to get an idea of my life back 20 years ago.

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But here’s what nobody told me back then: you don’t start with the gym. You start with your own body, your own house, and about 10 minutes you probably didn’t think you had.

I coach people who are exactly where I was. Some haven’t touched a weight in years. Some never have. And the pattern is always the same... they research programs, they compare gyms, they buy gear, and then they stall. Not because they’re lazy... because nobody showed them a door that actually felt like theirs.

The Real Reason Beginners Quit

Let’s talk numbers. A study of over 5,000 gym members in Brazil found that 63% of new members abandon their membership within the first three months. After a year? That number hits 96% (Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, 2023). It gets worse…of the people who drop out of structured exercise programs, 67% quit before they even reach the prescribed volume (PMC, 2022). They leave during the first increase, before the program even starts working. This could’ve been me after doing 10 machine pull-ups with 10lb weight…

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Jokes aside…why? Because most plans throw beginners into an environment that feels foreign, with movements they can’t do well yet, surrounded by people who seem like they were born there. Gym anxiety is real. It’s not weakness... it’s your brain doing math on social risk vs. uncertain reward and deciding the couch is safer.

So here’s my recommendation: don’t fight that math. Change the equation.

Move First, Gym Later (Or Never)

Before you do a single exercise, your biggest win is what Dr. James Levine at Mayo Clinic coined NEAT, non-exercise activity thermogenesis. I’m sure at this point everybody has heard about the acronym…but it’s basically the energy you burn doing everything that isn’t sleeping, eating, or formal exercise. Walking to the mailbox instead of checking it from the car. Taking stairs. Standing while you fold laundry instead of sitting on the couch with it. His research found that differences in NEAT can account for up to 2,000 calories per day between people of similar size (Levine, American Journal of Physiology, 2004). Two thousand. From how you move through a regular day, not from running or squatting.

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For someone who’s been mostly sedentary, NEAT is the foundation. It builds the movement habit without the performance pressure. Walk more, stand more, park farther. That’s week one. And it matters more than most people think.

Four Moves. Your House Kitchen…Under 10 Minutes.

Now, once NEAT becomes second nature (give it couple of weeks or so), you add four movements. These aren’t random. They cover the basic strength patterns your body was built for, and none of them require equipment you’d need to buy. These are what babies are experts at!! Take a good look at how babies or toddlers move! Unfortunately, we lost this as we started sitting on desks on JK through high school…and later on 8 hours as adults also on desks!

Bodyweight Squat. Sit down to a chair, stand up. That’s the pattern. Your legs and glutes do the work, and you’re training the movement you’ll use every day for the rest of your life. Start with 2 sets of 8. If that’s easy, slow down the lowering phase to 3 seconds.

Glute Bridge. Lie on your back, feet flat, drive your hips to the ceiling. This is your hip hinge... the foundation for every deadlift, every pickup-something-heavy-off-the-floor moment. Your glutes and hamstrings carry most of the load here, and most beginners are shockingly weak in this pattern because sitting all day turns these muscles off. 2 sets of 10.

Push-Up. Start from your knees or with hands on a counter if you need to (that’s a progression, not a shortcut). Push-ups load your chest, shoulders, and triceps while forcing your core to stabilize everything. Research confirms push-ups are one of the most effective upper-body bodyweight exercises for building strength (ResearchGate, 2022). 2 sets of 5-8, whatever is hard but doable. Again, you can do them against a wall…watch your breathing!

Farmer Carry. Grab two heavy bags, water jugs, a pair of loaded grocery bags... anything with weight. Walk 30-40 steps. This one does more than it looks like. A 2024 study found that farmer carries activate core musculature across multiple planes while you’re moving (PMC, 2024), and grip strength (which this builds directly) correlates with overall mortality risk in large population studies. It’s also the most “real life” exercise on this list. You carry things every day. Get stronger at it.

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Stack these into your morning routine, evening, at your desk job…while coffee brews. While your kids brush their teeth. The whole circuit takes under 10 minutes, and you can do it in your kitchen and one other thing as per my philosophy…no phones! Focus on the activity…build the system in! concentrate on it. It’s 10 minutes…but, more on this below…

At the end of the day…This Is About Who You Become

Here’s the part most programs skip. A 2020 review in Psychology Today on exercise behavior change found that lasting habits aren’t built on willpower or motivation... they’re built on identity (Psychology Today, 2020). When you do four moves in your kitchen every morning for two weeks, something shifts. You stop being “someone who should probably work out” and start being “someone who strength trains.” That identity shift is worth more than any program. Because once you see yourself that way, skipping a day feels like a glitch, not a pattern.

This is what I mean by strength first. Not heavy barbells first. Not gym membership first. The foundation... physical and psychological... that makes everything else stick.

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Where Do You Start?

If this resonated and you’re wondering what your own starting point looks like, I built a free readiness questionnaire called “Where Do I Start?” It’s 10 scored questions covering training, nutrition, and lifestyle. Takes about 3 minutes, gives you a clear readiness profile, and tells you exactly where to focus first.

Where Do I Start Questionnaire

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And if you want coaching that starts with strength and adapts to your life, reply to this email. I read every one.

After 40, testosterone drops 0.4–1.3% per year and muscle mass declines 3–8% per decade, both accelerated by high-volume running. To preserve muscle during marathon training, keep lifting sessions short (30–35 min, 3x/week), space heavy legs and long runs by 72 hours minimum, deload every 3 weeks, prioritize 8+ hours of sleep, and consume 1.6g/kg protein daily, front-loaded around key sessions.

Can’t wait to settle the score!

I’m sitting here typing this 4.5 weeks out from Mississauga and something hit me during today’s 48min run...legs feel like concrete...and the funny thing? I’m definitely not undertrained...the reality is I’m 41, running at the moment 50+ km weeks, family commitments, and my body is screaming something I didn’t want to hear: the rules changed and nobody sent me like an official communication about it...

If you’re over 40 doing any kind of endurance training, and you’ve noticed your lifts stalling, your arms looking flatter, your recovery taking forever...you’re not imagining it. And no, you’re not just “we are getting old”, bla bla stuff, but biology collecting the payment, the final bill! However, there’s a fix, you can work around this.

What’s Actually Happening After 40

Here’s the short version. Total serum testosterone drops around 0.4% per year after 40, and free testosterone (the stuff that actually does the work) drops closer to 1.3% annually. That’s from the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (Brambilla et al., 2009). Meanwhile, muscle mass is declining 3–8% per decade after 30, and that rate accelerates after 60 (Volpi et al., 2004). Now stack high-volume endurance training on top of that. You’re creating a perfect storm: natural hormonal decline + the interference effect + inadequate recovery windows.

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The interference effect is real, but it’s more nuanced than most people think. A 2012 meta-analysis by Wilson et al. in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found that running (not cycling) combined with resistance training produced significant decrements in both hypertrophy and strength. Running creates more eccentric muscle damage than cycling does (quelle surprise, right?), and that damage compounds when your recovery capacity is already compromised by age. If you’re a runner over 40 who also lifts... this one’s for you.

Again, some content out there is either pure running advice or pure lifting advice. Almost nothing bridges the two with actual concurrent training rules. That’s the gap I’m trying to fill, both for myself and for you. What follows are the 8 things I’m doing right now, 4.5 weeks from my race day (and scores to settle), to hold onto muscle while still hitting my endurance targets.

The 7 Things I’m Doing Right Now to Hold Onto Muscle

As usual, a visual summary first…so you can print out!

1. Short and Heavy Only

3 sessions per week, 30–35 minutes max, 10–15 reps on compound lifts. That’s it. No 1 Rep Max sets, no drop sets, no 90-minute gym marathons. I’m doing squat, bench, deadlift, overhead dumbbell press, and pull-ups... and I leave. The goal isn’t to destroy the muscle, it’s to send the signal to keep it. I’m actually aiming now for medium to low load, with low volume, in and out. This is exactly what I’m running right now, 4.5 weeks from Mississauga, and it’s the only approach that doesn’t wreck my long runs two days later.

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1. The 72-Hour Rule

Minimum 72 hours between heavy lower-body lifting and your long run. I learned this one the hard way, and if you read Post 18 you already know the disaster that happened when I ignored it. Heavy squats and deadlifts create eccentric muscle damage that impairs running economy for 24–48 hours (Doma et al., 2017). When you’re 25, you can get away with squatting Thursday and doing a 25K on Saturday. At 40+, that Saturday run turns into a death march. I space mine out very carefully now. Legs Monday, long run the following weekend for example. No exceptions. And here’s the thing most people miss: the reverse actually works fine. Hard intervals Tuesday, squats Friday...whatever you prefer, remember this is never set in stone...life happens!!

3. Deload Every 3 Weeks

Cut volume by 40% and add an extra full rest day. This is the exact deload structure I break down in previous post, and it’s what I’m living right now. I know myself... if I don’t schedule the deload, I’ll convince myself I don’t need one until something breaks. Sound familiar, right?

4. Mobility + Sleep Lock

15 minutes every night with a lacrosse ball on my glutes and hip flexors. This came from Steve Magness’s work, and honestly it’s the one thing that’s made the biggest difference in how my legs feel the morning after a long run. I pair it with 8+ hours, non-negotiable. I know that sounds extreme for parents with young kids (mine are 9 and 6), but this is where the gains actually happen. You don’t grow in the gym, you grow in bed. Every recovery study points to sleep as the single biggest lever for muscle protein synthesis and hormonal recovery. Skip this and none of the other 6 steps matter.

5. Exercise when It Counts

Testosterone peaks between 5–8 AM and drops 10–25% over the course of the day (Brambilla et al., 2009). Now, here’s the nuance: this diurnal variation actually diminishes as you get older, meaning the morning spike is less dramatic at 45 than it is at 25. So I’m not saying evening lifting is useless. But when I have the choice, I lift in the morning. My energy is better for sure, this is just how I feel. The real benefit for me is practical: morning lift or exercise in general means the rest of the day is for recovery and family. It’s one less thing competing for evening hours when the family needs me.

6. Protein Timing Around a key session

40–50g protein within 2 hours post-training, and a minimum of 1.6g/kg bodyweight daily. After 40, muscle protein synthesis rates are lower, which means you need MORE protein to trigger the same anabolic response compared to a younger athlete (Moore et al., 2015). This is called anabolic resistance, and it’s real. The practical fix? For a long run or bike I front-load protein around the session if it’s a key one, remember protein takes some time to digest. Lately, when I come back from a long run, I’m having a good shake right after...and it’s making a difference on recovery at the moment. On lifting days, I eat a high-protein meal within an hour. Is the “anabolic window” as tight as the old bodybuilding magazines claimed? No. But for some people dealing with anabolic resistance, the timing matters a bit more now than it does for a 22-year-old.

7. Track What You Can’t Feel…not obsessively…

Resting heart rate, grip strength, sleep quality scores (once in a while!!). At 40+, your gut feeling about recovery becomes less reliable. The gap between “I feel fine” and “I’m actually recovered” gets wider than you think. I use wearable data as supplementary information. But trending resting heart rate up 5+ bpm over a week? That’s a real signal. Grip strength dropping session to session? That tells me my CNS hasn’t recovered. These little data points have saved me from pushing into overtraining more than once this block.

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The Bigger Picture

If you’ve been reading along since the Muskoka and Mont-Tremblant posts, you know I’m not the guy who shows up with a perfect plan and nails everything. I fell off a clip-on pedal bike 2 times on the way home from the store! I’ve raced in what felt like a hurricane. I’ve stood in transition areas covered in volcanic ash wondering if this was all going to get cancelled (and it did).

But here’s what I’ve learned, and what these 7 steps are really about: training like you’re 25 when you’re 40+ isn’t tough, it’s just dumb. The real toughness is in the discipline to pull back, to structure recovery like you structure your intervals, to accept that your body has changed and to work WITH that instead of pretending it hasn’t. It’s not an ego thing anymore. It’s an identity thing... who do I need to be at 41 to get what I actually want?

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I’m 4.5 weeks out from Mississauga. The lifts aren’t where they used to be. My recovery takes longer than it did 4 years ago, when I first tried my first Full and I failed...

But I’m holding muscle, I’m hitting my long runs, and I’m not broken. That’s the whole game now.

Every person reading this is different, and I mean that. Your schedule, your body, your history, your goals... they’re yours. These 7 steps are what’s working for me right now, 4.5 weeks from a full marathon, juggling a day job, family with two kids. So, adjust them, question them. But if you’re over 40, training for something big, and watching your strength slowly disappear...start here. Then make it yours.

References

Brambilla, D.J. et al. (2009). The effect of diurnal variation on clinical measurement of serum testosterone and other sex hormone levels in men. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 94(3), 907–913.

Volpi, E. et al. (2004). Muscle tissue changes with aging. Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition and Metabolic Care, 7(4), 405–410.

Wilson, J.M. et al. (2012). Concurrent training: a meta-analysis examining interference of aerobic and resistance exercises. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 26(8), 2293–2307.

Doma, K. et al. (2017). The effect of resistance training on running economy and performance in endurance athletes: a systematic review. Sports Medicine, 47(8), 1569–1584.

Pilz, S. et al. (2011). Effect of vitamin D supplementation on testosterone levels in men. Hormone and Metabolic Research, 43(3), 223–225.

Prasad, A.S. et al. (1996). Zinc status and serum testosterone levels of healthy adults. Nutrition, 12(5), 344–348.

Bell, L. et al. (2023). Integrating deloading into strength and physique sports training programmes: an international Delphi consensus approach. Sports Medicine – Open, 9, 87.

Moore, D.R. et al. (2015). Protein ingestion to stimulate myofibrillar protein synthesis requires greater relative protein intakes in healthy older versus younger men. Journals of Gerontology Series A, 70(1), 57–62.

When you log high endurance volume, your body prioritizes aerobic efficiency over muscle size. Chronic fatigue shrinks fast-twitch muscle fibers and systemic inflammation blunts hormonal signals for hypertrophy. Research shows this visual change also triggers a measurable psychological response: elevated cortisol and shame when athletes perceive muscle loss, because athletic identity is an “embodied identity” literally built into how your body looks and performs.¹ ²

There’s a moment that keeps messing with my head this training block in Marathon prep...I’ll finish a solid lift session, squats are spot on, bench-press also, I finish up feeling strong...and here’s an honest confession I want to share, I walk past the mirror on my way out and think: who is that?

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Not in a dramatic way or an existential crisis, but this voice in my head sometimes, a quiet disconnect between what I know is true and what I see. I’m stronger than I was three months ago, this is a fact, but the reflection doesn’t match the version of me I built during a strength-focused session. The shoulders and chest look a little less full and even though I understand exactly why this is happening, the feeling and sensations are still there…

I don’t always love what I see, even when the numbers say I should. And I think a lot of you know exactly what I’m talking about.

You’re Not Alone in This

I came across a post from an ultra runner on Reddit that said it about as honestly as anyone I’ve read:

“The psychological toll of losing muscle mass and strength when training for an ultra is crazy... frustrated and emotionally down.”

The comments underneath were full of people going through the same thing. Marathoners, triathletes, hybrid athletes lifting four times a week and still watching their arms slowly shrink. Some of them doing everything right by any measurable standard and still feeling like they’re losing something important.

This isn’t a minority experience and perhaps something really hard to admit to yourself, but I’m doing it today, this week! So, if you’ve ever finished a high-volume training block looking leaner than you wanted and feeling worse about it mentally than you expected...let me say, you’re in very large company.

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Why Your Brain Does This

Here’s what makes this harder than it should be: for athletes and for most people your body isn’t just a body. It’s part of how you define yourself.

A 2024 study on retired Olympians found that changes in their physique were experienced as a form of identity loss, not just a cosmetic change. The researchers described athletic identity as an “embodied identity”... meaning your sense of who you are is literally built into what your body looks like and what it can do.¹ But, now they way I see it after looking into this study is that you don’t have to be an Olympian for this to apply. If you’ve spent months building muscle and then watch it soften during a race prep block, your brain doesn’t process that as “temporary physiological adjustment.” It processes it as something closer to losing a piece of yourself, as if you are doing something wrong, a part of you telling you is never enough!

And the response is measurable. Research on male athletes exposed to body image social-evaluative threats (think: mirror checks, photos, comparing yourself to how you looked last month) showed elevated cortisol levels and increased shame responses.² Let me clear, this isn’t about vanity or being weak. It’s a physiological thing. Your body treats the perceived loss of muscle the same way it treats other threats to your social standing.

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Some more numbers I found…roughly 17.9% of athletes across 20 different sports report moderate to severe body image disturbance.³ Nearly one in five. And that’s the number who report it, which means the real figure is probably higher, because most of us don’t talk about this stuff unless someone else goes first, like I’m doing here now!

If you’ve read my previous posts on the interference effect, you already know the mechanism behind the visual change.

When you’re logging serious endurance volume, your body prioritizes efficiency over size. Chronic fatigue shrinks fast-twitch muscle fibers. Systemic inflammation blunts the hormonal signals for hypertrophy.⁴ The muscle loss you’re seeing in the mirror is the expected outcome of what you programmed your body to do. Which makes it rational and frustrating at the same time.

It’s Psychological, Not Real

Here’s the part that still takes me a while to internalize and that is the mirror during a high-volume endurance block is just unreliable stories. It’s sometimes a can of worms you don’t want to open…yet…

You’re holding more water from systemic inflammation. Glycogen stores shift depending on training stress. Subcutaneous fat distribution changes. What you see on any given morning is a snapshot of a temporary physiological state, not the truth about what you’ve built.

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Your strength numbers haven’t crashed, and if they have, that’s a programming problem, not a body problem... the 5% guardrail I talked about in my last post applies here. The barbell doesn’t lie, the weight is there! The mirror, during race prep, absolutely does.

Your body is doing exactly what you asked it to do and that’s not failure…that’s the plan working.

What Actually Helps

I’m not going to package this as a system, nice infographic or a framework since everybody has different life stories, biases, perspectives, etc…but these are just the things that I’ve been telling myself and things that have helped me the past years and that the evidence supports.

Track your strength numbers, not your reflection. If your squat, deadlift, and bench are within 5% of where they started, you haven’t lost what matters. Check whatever tracking tool you use, before you check the mirror. The data tells a more honest story than your eyes do at 10am after a 21km run on a Sunday.

Keep two short lift sessions that make you feel powerful. During peak endurance phases, these aren’t for progressive overload. They’re for your head and that sneaky voice I talked about. Bench, pull-ups, squats, the compound movements that remind your nervous system (and your confidence) that you’re still strong. 30 to 45 minutes, in and out.

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Know the lean phase is temporary, and plan the other side. Having a “muscle reclaim” week built into your post-race plan, extra calories, heavier lifts, reduced running volume, gives your brain an endpoint. The lean phase stops feeling permanent when you can see what comes after it.

Talk to someone who gets it. Not easy to find, I know...also not someone who’ll tell you “you look fine” (that doesn’t help and you know it). Someone in the same situation who’ll say “yeah, I know, me too.” There’s a reason every Reddit thread on this topic has hundreds of comments... people need to hear they’re not the only ones.

I’m about 5 weeks out from Mississauga right now. My squats, lunges, leg extensions are holding. My long runs are building and some mornings the mirror still doesn’t match what the data says.

That’s the thing…you train through it because the mirror catches up eventually... and because the finish line doesn’t care what your arms look like.

References:

¹ Papathomas, A., Petrie, T., Moesch, K., & Newman, H.J.H. (2025). Body image experiences in retired Olympians: Losing the embodied self. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 77, 102792. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2024.102792

² Brown, D.M., Muir, C., & Gammage, K.L. (2023). Muscle Up: Male Athletes’ and Non-Athletes’ Psychobiological Responses to, and Recovery From, Body Image Social-Evaluative Threats. American Journal of Men’s Health, 17(1). https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9947689/

³ Neves, C.M., et al. (2023). The Impact of Sports Involvement on Body Image Perception and Ideals: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20(6), 5228. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10049477/

⁴ Hickson, R.C. (1980). Interference of strength development by simultaneously training for strength and endurance. European Journal of Applied Physiology, 45(2-3), 255-263. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7193134/

The EndureForge Recovery Stack uses 5 daily tools backed by peer-reviewed research: 5g creatine monohydrate daily for ATP regeneration and muscle repair, L-glutamine post-session to reduce soreness and muscle damage markers at 24–72 hours, 8+ hours of sleep to support growth hormone release and glycogen resynthesis, a deload week every 4 weeks at 50% volume to let accumulated fatigue dissipate, and 40g protein per meal spread across 3–5 meals daily because total intake, not timing, drives muscle protein synthesis.

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One ultra runner on Reddit put it this way: “Recovery sucks… No strength whatsoever really anymore.”

And honestly? I get it. You train hard for weeks, maybe months, and the thing that’s supposed to make you better, rest, feels like the thing that’s breaking you down. You wake up stiff. Your legs feel like concrete. The motivation is there but the body says no.

Here’s what’s actually happening: accumulated fatigue is burying your recovery and growth signals under a pile of damage you haven’t looked into. Your body wants to adapt and it’s sure as hell trying to! But without the right inputs, it can’t keep up with what you’re asking it to do.

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This is the EndureForge Recovery Stack: 5 daily and weekly tools, all backed by research, that stop muscle loss and fatigue accumulation in their tracks. No bla bla, no expensive gadgets. Just things that work.

1. 5g Creatine

This is the one, the one thing everybody is talking about everywhere and it’s because IT IS THE ONE! You probably associate creatine with bodybuilders...fair enough. But here’s what the research actually says: creatine monohydrate replenishes intramuscular phosphocreatine (PCr), which is your muscles’ first energy currency during high-intensity efforts. That means faster ATP regeneration between sets, between sessions, and during repeated high-effort bouts [1].

A 2024 meta-analysis found that creatine combined with resistance training significantly increased both upper- and lower-body strength, with a weighted mean difference of 7.56 kg across studies [2]. It also promotes satellite cell proliferation and glycogen accretion, basically, it helps your muscles rebuild faster and refuel better [1].

The dose that works: 5g/day of creatine. No loading phase needed (that’s another myth from the 90s). Just 5g, any time of day with water. Consistent daily intake is what matters.

One thing to know: creatine doesn’t do much for steady-state endurance performance in trained athletes [3]. But if you’re doing any strength work alongside your running, cycling, or triathlon training, which is what EndureForge and this Substack is all about, then Creatine it is!! My wife and I never miss Creatine with our Protein shake daily.

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2. L-Glutamine Post-Session

This one doesn’t have the mountain of evidence that creatine does, I want to be totally honest about this. But what’s there is worth paying attention to, especially if you’re doing hard eccentric work or high-volume endurance training.

L-glutamine is the most abundant amino acid in your body, and intense exercise depletes it fast. When researchers gave subjects glutamine around eccentric exercise sessions, they found faster recovery of peak torque and significantly lower soreness ratings at 24, 48, and 72 hours compared to placebo [4]. Another study on professional basketball players showed that the glutamine group had significantly lower creatine kinase and myoglobin levels, both markers of muscle damage, compared to the group that didn’t supplement [5].

There’s also a classic finding from endurance sports: ultra-marathoners and marathoners who took 5g of glutamine immediately post-event and again 2 hours later cut their infection rates nearly in half over the following week (19% vs. roughly 50% in the placebo group) [6]. When you’re pushing your body to that edge, keeping your immune system functional isn’t optional.

Now, more honesty... A 2018 meta-analysis across 47 studies found no significant overall effects of glutamine on aerobic performance, body composition, or immune markers broadly [7]. The evidence is stronger for recovery from muscle damage than it is for performance or body composition. It’s not a magic pill, it’s a recovery tool that fills a specific gap when your training is breaking you down faster than you’re building back up.

The dose most studies used: 0.3g per kg of body weight, or roughly 20–25g for most adults, taken post-session [4].

Personal note: I take 5g with my coffee before long sessions. That’s a lower dose than the clinical studies used, but I’ve noticed a real difference in how I feel at 24 to 48 hours post-training compared to when I skip it. This is just my personal anecdote, which is not Science or data, but when the research points in the same direction as your own experience, you start pay attention to little details like this…

Also, I took a higher dose during my Ironman event...but remember: test, test and train the Gut in order to avoid any surprises the day of the event.

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3. Sleep 8+ Hours, Protect the most important asset.

This is the one nobody wants to hear because there’s no shortcut around it.

During sleep. Non-REM (yes, I read Matthew Walker’s book, Why We Sleep) your body releases growth hormone and insulin-like growth factor, the two main drivers of muscle repair [8]. Cut that short and you get elevated cortisol, increased inflammatory markers (IL-6, CRP), and impaired glycogen resynthesis [9]. In plain English...your muscles can’t rebuild and your energy stores can’t refill.

A study on athletes found that sleeping less than 8 hours per night made them 1.7 times more likely to get injured [10]. Stanford’s sleep extension study showed that when basketball players extended their sleep to 10 hours, sprint times improved and shooting accuracy went up by 9% [8]. Sleep didn’t just help recovery, it made them better at their sport.

8 hours is the minimum for anyone training seriously. Track it, but don’t go all crazy on this though. Protect it. I treat my sleep like a training session and for the way I exercise, myself personally I aim for always minimum 8 hours.

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4. Deload Every 4th Week, 50% Volume

This is where most people sabotage themselves. You feel strong on week 3, you’re finally hitting your groove, and the last thing you want to do is back off. But accumulated fatigue doesn’t announce itself with a dramatic collapse, it shows up as stalled progress, nagging joint pain, and sessions that just feel… off.

A deload is a planned reduction in training volume, typically 30–50%, while keeping your normal movements and schedule [11]. An international Delphi consensus of strength and physique coaches agreed that the purpose isn’t to “enhance performance” during that week, but to let fatigue dissipate so the next training block actually produces adaptation [12].

The most common implementation: every 4–8 weeks, reduce your total sets by 40–50% for one week [13]. Keep the exercises. Keep the intensity (weight on the bar). Just do fewer sets. You come back to week 5 feeling like a different person.

I know what some of you are thinking...deloading feels bad, feels lazy, just not yourself sometimes and I suffer from this, but sometimes life itself forces a Deloading, so take it! It’s how you actually get stronger instead of just getting more tired.

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5. Aim for minimum 30g Protein Per Meal , And Stop Stressing About the Clock

Let’s kill this one right now: the “30-minute anabolic window” is not real. Or more precisely, it’s a distortion of real science that got turned into a marketing slogan by supplement companies who wanted you to enter into a panic attack if you didn’t have the shake while still lifting the barbell.

Here’s what actually happened. Schoenfeld (probably the GOAT on the topic), Aragon, and Krieger ran a meta-analysis across 23 studies in 2013 and found that protein timing had no independent effect on strength or hypertrophy when total daily protein intake was matched [14]. NADA! The people who ate protein immediately post-workout didn’t gain more muscle than the people who ate it 3 hours later, as long as the total at the end of the day was the same. Confirmed and validated on what I recently learned on my PT Module on Protein!

A 2018 review in the Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy went further: when they measured muscle protein synthesis at 1 hour vs. 3 hours post-exercise, both groups showed approximately a 400% elevation [15]. Same response. The window isn’t 30 minutes, Aragon and Schoenfeld estimated it’s closer to 4–6 hours, and even that depends on when your last meal was [14].

So why does this myth persist? Because it’s simple, it sounds fancy, and it sells protein powder. That’s it.

What the research does support: total daily intake is the real driver [16]. If you’re training hard, aim for 40g per meal spread across 3–4 meals a day. A 2023 study found that the body can use protein doses well beyond 40g and up to 100g produced a greater and more prolonged anabolic response lasting over 12 hours [17]. The old “your body can only absorb 20–30g at a time” line? Also dead.

Eat enough protein. Spread it across the day. Get a solid meal within a few hours of training because that’s practical, not because some invisible clock is ticking down on your gains. That’s the evidence-based version of this advice.

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The Stack in Practice

Here’s what a day could look like:

Wake up and have 5g creatine with water. Like I said last time, do not train fasted. Within 2 hours post-session, eat a meal with at least 30g protein and take your L-glutamine with coffee. Before bed, 10 minutes of foam rolling or mobility work on whatever’s tight (a meta-analysis in Frontiers in Physiology confirmed that foam rolling reduces muscle pain perception and supports range of motion recovery [18]). Lights out with enough time for 8+ hours. And every 4th week, cut your volume in half.

One thing I’ll add here: don’t just stick with the foam roller. I spend a lot of time on a lacrosse ball working the glutes, the muscle that locks up on runners and doesn’t respond well to a broad roller. I picked this up from Steve Magness’s The Science of Running and a running clinic I attended when I got that knee injury, and it’s become non-negotiable in my routine. Research backs the logic: lacrosse balls apply targeted pressure to smaller, deeper muscle groups that foam rollers can’t reach effectively [19]. For the glutes, hip rotators, and any area where you need to get into a specific knot, the ball, which hurts like hell sometimes, wins.

None of this is complicated. None of it is expensive. But doing all five consistently is what separates people who recover from people who just survive their training.

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References

[1] Effects of creatine supplementation on muscle strength gains — a meta-analysis and systematic review. PMC, 2025.

[2] Effects of Creatine Supplementation and Resistance Training on Muscle Strength Gains in Adults <50 Years of Age. PubMed, 2024.

[3] Forbes, S.C. et al. Effects of Creatine Monohydrate on Endurance Performance in a Trained Population: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Sports Medicine, 2023.

[4] Street, B. et al. Glutamine Supplementation in Recovery From Eccentric Exercise Attenuates Strength Loss and Muscle Soreness. Journal of Exercise Science & Fitness, 2011.

[5] Khorshidi-Hosseini, M. et al. Effect of Glutamine Supplementation on Muscular Damage Biomarkers in Professional Basketball Players. Nutrients, 2021.

[6] Castell, L.M. & Newsholme, E.A. The effects of oral glutamine supplementation on athletes after prolonged, exhaustive exercise. Nutrition, 1997.

[7] Ahmadi, A.R. et al. The effect of glutamine supplementation on athletic performance, body composition, and immune function: A systematic review and meta-analysis of clinical trials. Clinical Nutrition, 2019.

[8] Vitale, K.C. et al. Sleep and Athletic Performance: Impacts on Physical Performance, Mental Performance, Injury Risk and Recovery, and Mental Health. PMC, 2023.

[9] Bonnar, D. et al. Sleep and muscle recovery — Current concepts and empirical evidence. Current Issues in Sport Science, 2023.

[10] Milewski, M.D. et al. Chronic lack of sleep is associated with increased sports injuries in adolescent athletes. Journal of Pediatric Orthopaedics, 2014.

[11] Bell, L. et al. Gaining more from doing less? The effects of a one-week deload period during supervised resistance training on muscular adaptations. PMC, 2024.

[12] Integrating Deloading into Strength and Physique Sports Training Programmes: An International Delphi Consensus Approach. PMC, 2023.

[13] Pritchard, H.J. et al. Deloading Practices in Strength and Physique Sports: A Cross-sectional Survey. Sports Medicine — Open, 2024.

[14] Schoenfeld, B.J., Aragon, A.A. & Krieger, J.W. The effect of protein timing on muscle strength and hypertrophy: a meta-analysis. JISSN, 2013.

[15] Aragon, A.A. & Schoenfeld, B.J. Is There a Postworkout Anabolic Window of Opportunity for Nutrient Consumption? Clearing up Controversies. Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy, 2018.

[16] Kerksick, C.M. et al. International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand: nutrient timing. JISSN, 2017.

[17] Trommelen, J. et al. The anabolic response to protein ingestion during recovery from exercise has no upper limit in magnitude and duration in vivo in humans. Cell Reports Medicine, 2023.

[18] Wiewelhove, T. et al. A meta-analysis of the effects of foam rolling on performance and recovery. Frontiers in Physiology, 2019.

[19] Comparison of Self Myofascial Release Techniques Using Foam Roller and Lacrosse Ball in Individuals with Hamstrings Tightness. International Journal of Advanced Research, 2021.

Because you never rehearsed. Around 31% of Ironman athletes report serious GI symptoms during racing, mostly from untrained guts. A 2017 Sports Medicine review showed that practicing race nutrition during training increases the density and activity of carbohydrate transporters in your intestine. Your stomach empties faster, your gut tolerates more. The adaptation is real, but you have to give it the stimulus. It’s called the 4th discipline of triathlon for a reason.

Now, you burn through a staggering amount of energy on a 28km long run; take me for example, I finished totally depleted last Saturday on my last long run. Your body is screaming for fuel and stopping for sure! And yet, at least personally, the last thing you want to do when you walk through the door is eat.

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I learned this the hard way during my Ironman training last year. I did two full nutrition and hydration rehearsals before race day which included gels, glucose drinks loaded with carbs, caffeine on the bike and more Maurten bars. Hot summer days where hydration wasn’t optional, I had to stop twice to refill my bottles and it is matter of survival. And here’s the thing that clicked for me during those rehearsals: what you put in your body on the bike sets the stage for the run.

Either for good or for bad, no in-between. I saw so many people throwing up during the run leg, and from what you hear from Master Coaches, this is sometimes the norm unfortunately!

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That realization changed how I think about fueling entirely. Not just race day, every single long training day.

Now, most general advice you’ll hear is some version of “just eat more.” But it ignores the actual science of what happens to your appetite after hard endurance work. When you exercise above 60% of your VO2max, which is basically any long run at a decent pace, your body suppresses Ghrelin (the hunger hormone) and elevates GLP-1 (a satiety signal). The net effect is that your appetite goes quiet, right at the time when you need fuel the most. This isn’t a willpower problem, it’s biochemistry working against you during the exact window when your muscles are most primed to absorb nutrients.

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And here’s where it gets dangerous and goes back to the premise of my Coaching Philosophy: an energy deficit of around 500 calories per day is enough to completely blunt lean mass gains. For someone running 26–28km and lifting on top of that, you’re not just missing a snack, you’re losing the precious muscle you worked hard to build.

So how do you actually fuel a long training day without feeling like a stuffed turkey? You build a system. Before, during, and after.

Before the Session

This is where most people either wing it or skip it altogether (I once paced someone for their first long run in preparation for their first ever Marathon, and they were fasted!!, please don’t be that person).

The research is clear: a carbohydrate-rich meal 2–3 hours before endurance exercise maximizes muscle and liver glycogen stores. The ISSN recommends 1–4g of carbs per kilogram of bodyweight in the hours leading up to training. For a 75kg runner, that’s 75–300g depending on the session length and intensity. This was validated when I did my module on Fueling for Training during my Ironman Certification.

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What does that look like in practice? Oatmeal with banana and honey. Rice with eggs. A big bowl of pasta if you’re training later in the day. Nothing fancy, just enough to top off the tank before you start burning through it.

If you’re eating less than an hour out, keep it liquid or blended. A smoothie with oats, banana, and protein powder empties from the stomach faster than solid food and won’t sit in your gut like a brick at kilometer 8. And yes, caffeine! I never go out on a long run without having black coffee myself!

During the Session

This is the part I had to rehearse, twice, before my Ironman, and I’m glad I did.

For sessions under 60–75 minutes, water is probably fine. But once you cross into 90 minutes and beyond (which any proper long run does), you need carbohydrates coming in. The general guideline is 30–60g per hour for efforts up to two hours, and up to 90g per hour for anything beyond three hours using a glucose-fructose mix, look for a 2:1 ratio.

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Here’s the part that most endurance athletes learn too late: your gut needs to be trained for this. A 2017 landmark review in Sports Medicine showed that regularly practicing your race nutrition during training actually increases the density and activity of carbohydrate transporters in your intestine. Your stomach gets faster at emptying. Your gut gets more tolerant. The adaptation is real and measurable. Around 31% of Ironman athletes report serious GI symptoms during racing and a huge chunk of that is because they never rehearsed. Again, I saw it happening during the event!

This is exactly why I did those two full rehearsals in the summer heat. Gels, Carb drinks, caffeine on the bike; all of it practiced at race intensity, in race conditions. By race day, my gut knew what was coming. No surprises and this is why they call it the 4^th discipline of Triathlon!

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If you’ve never trained your gut before, start low. Maybe 20–30g of carbs per hour during your long run next week. Increase gradually over several weeks. Your intestines will adapt, but you have to give them the stimulus.

Quick note on bars though, since they often contain some fat and protein, they may impede gastric emptying and increase the risk of GI issues. So, test them out as well…carefully!

After the Session

Post-run nutrition is where the real recovery happens, and the window matters more than people think.

Glycogen resynthesis, your body restocking its fuel stores, is fastest in the first 5–6 hours after exercise. The recommendation is 1.2g of carbs per kg of bodyweight per hour during that initial recovery phase. Adding protein to carbs doesn’t significantly speed up glycogen resynthesis on its own, but it does stimulate muscle protein synthesis. And if your carb intake is sub-optimal (which, given the appetite suppression we talked about, it often is), protein co-ingestion actually does improve glycogen recovery.

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The practical version: within 30–60 minutes of finishing, get something in. A shake works if you can’t stomach solid food (and after a long run, you probably can’t…I definitely cannot). Last weekend I had a good Protein Shake with Creatine 10-15 minutes after I was finished. Or, something basic, like Greek yogurt with honey and oats. Rice and chicken, if your appetite cooperates later on. The goal is carbs + protein, roughly a 3:1 or 4:1 ratio.

Then eat a proper meal within 2 hours. This isn’t optional. Your body is in a recovery state whether you feel hungry or not, and remember, the hormones are actively suppressing your appetite right now. Don’t wait until hunger shows up. It might not.

OOhh wait…Rehydrate and Rehydrate!

Aim to consume fluids to help replace the fluid and electrolytes lost through sweating during the session. And yes, even during the harsh winter months, you sweat a lot also, so keep this in mind. I learned about this physiology recently and I’ve changed this approach as well.

You should rehydrate aggressively when sweat losses have been high during a session, or there is a requirement for an athlete to do a double session, or doing a brick session, or anything within a short time-period following the initial and main session of the day.

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Something you shouldn’t forget is Sodium, which will also have been lost through sweat during a session, and so it should also be consumed, either as part of an electrolyte/sports drink, or within food during the post-exercise meal or snack. This helps the body to absorb and retain the fluids that are being consumed. Not just water itself, an electrolyte drink is vital! Here’s a final visual summary:

The Weekly Check That Makes All of This Stick

Here’s my honest advice: you don’t need to count every gram forever, I never do, but you do need to know what you’re eating, at least once, at least do one rehearsal!

Weigh and track your food for one full training day, read the nutrition label on gels, powders, etc. Just once. See where the gaps are. I did this exercise with my wife over a year ago and we learned so much of what we were and NOT eating. Once you know what a proper fueling day looks like, build 3–4 go-to meals you can rotate. Same breakfast before long runs. Same recovery shake after. Same dinner. It takes the decision-making out of it, which is the whole point, because decision fatigue after a 28km run is real, and the default decision is usually “I’ll eat later” (spoiler: you won’t).

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Fueling isn’t a talent. It’s a system. And like anything in endurance training, it responds to practice and consistency, not willpower and guesswork.

References

1. McCarthy, D. et al. (2024). “Exercise-induced appetite suppression: An update on potential mechanisms.” Physiological Reports. PMC11347021

2. Jeukendrup, A. (2017). “Training the Gut for Athletes.” Sports Medicine, 47(Suppl 1), 101–110. PMC5371619

3. Kerksick, C. et al. (2017). “International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand: nutrient timing.” Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 14:33. PMC5596471

4. Alghannam, A. et al. (2018). “Restoration of Muscle Glycogen and Functional Capacity: Role of Post-Exercise Carbohydrate and Protein Co-Ingestion.” Nutrients, 10(2), 253. PMC5852829

5. Murphy, C. & Koehler, K. (2022). “Energy deficiency impairs resistance training gains in lean mass but not strength: A meta-analysis and meta-regression.” Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, 32(5), 764–781. PubMed 34623696

6. Viribay, A. et al. (2020). “Effects of 120 g/h of Carbohydrates Intake during a Marathon on Substrate Oxidation and GI Problems.” Nutrients. PMC7824723

7. De Oliveira, E.P. et al. (2014). “Gastrointestinal complaints during exercise: Prevalence, etiology, and nutritional recommendations.” Sports Medicine, 44(Suppl 1), 79–85. PubMed 24791919

Yes, if you phase it right. The EndureForge Blueprint splits 12 weeks into three blocks: a strength-heavy first month (4 lifts per week, running at 70% volume), an endurance-dominant middle phase (2 short lifts, full race mileage), and a peak-and-taper finish. I’m using this exact structure right now 6.5 weeks out from the Mississauga Marathon, squats holding, long run at 26 km.

Most coaches will tell you to pick one. Strength or endurance, to choose your lane. You either drop the barbell and watch your shoulders shrink while you pile on mileage, or you skip the long runs and hope your legs hold up on race day. (I know what you are thinking…😉)

I’ve read this from dozens of hybrid athletes online, the same frustration showing up in Reddit threads, X posts, running forums. “How do I balance lifting and endurance without losing muscle or blowing up at mile 20?” It’s the question that never gets a straight answer because most people giving advice only live in one world.

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I live in both. On April 26^th 2026 I’m running the Mississauga Marathon, and right now I’m doing exactly what this article describes, gaining strength while I build volume for 42.2 kilometres. So, this isn’t theory for me, it’s another day at the gym ha ha...

Here’s the plan I’m using, broken into 7 steps. I will call it the EndureForge Blueprint and it’s built on the principle that your strength training exists to serve your endurance, not compete with it. See below a visual summary before getting into details:

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Step 1: Weeks 1–4: Strength Emphasis

Four lifting sessions per week. Endurance volume sits at about 70% of your normal load.

This is where most people get it backwards. They think marathon training means running should dominate from day one. It shouldn’t.

The first four weeks are about building (or maintaining) as much muscle and strength as possible before the endurance demands ramp up. Think of it as filling the tank before the long drive.

Your runs during this phase should be mostly easy, the famous zone 2 aerobic work, nothing that leaves you destroyed for the next day’s squat session. If you’re running 50 km per week normally, you’re at 35 km here. That’s enough to keep your aerobic base honest without cutting into recovery.

Step 2: Weeks 5–8: Endurance Emphasis

Two short strength sessions per week with a full race-specific mileage kicks in. This is where I’m at in my training!

Now the balance shifts. You’ve built the strength foundation and the goal now is to hold onto it while the running volume takes over. Your lifting sessions drop to two per week, 45 minutes each, focused entirely on compounds (more on that in Step 4). No chasing PRs in the gym during this phase or gaining Strength at this point, the idea is to maintain loads, clean reps, done.

This is the phase that tests your ego. You’ll feel weaker in the gym or feel that you are undertraining and that’s fine, make your peace with it, it’s part of the structure.

(I must make peace with it every time!). You’re not actually weaker, instead you’re redirecting resources. The muscle is still there; you’re just asking your body to prioritize a different energy system right now. Check out my first post for a refresher!

Step 3: Weeks 9–12: Peak and Taper

Two 30-minute strength sessions per week. Total training volume drops 40%.

The taper is where the magic happens and where most people panic and some anxiety starts building up. You feel like you’re losing fitness because you’re doing less. Remember: You’re not.

Research on tapering consistently shows that a 40–60% volume reduction over 2–3 weeks actually improves race performance, where your body finally absorbs the work you’ve been putting in for months.

Your strength sessions in this phase are short and sharp. Maintain intensity (the weight on the bar stays the same), reduce volume (fewer sets). Two sessions, 30 minutes each. In and out.

Step 4: The 80/20 Lifting Rule

80% of your lifting volume goes to compound movements. 20% to accessories for your weak points.

Squats, deadlifts, bench, overhead press, rows, pull-ups, these are your bread and butter across all 12 weeks. They give you the most muscle stimulus per minute of gym time, which matters when you’re also running 40+ km per week.

The remaining 20% targets whatever holds you back. For example: Weak glutes? Hip thrusts and single-leg work. This isn’t random either, so take some time to figure out your weak points. If you don’t, that’s a conversation worth having with a coach (or at least an honest training partner who’ll tell you the truth).

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Step 5: Auto-Regulate, Listen to your body, Don’t Just Follow the Sheet

If a run feels terrible, swap the next day’s lift for mobility work only.

Plans are guidelines, not prison sentences. The interference effect, where endurance and strength training compete for your body’s recovery resources is real, and it doesn’t hit on a predictable schedule.

Some weeks you’ll feel bulletproof. Other weeks your legs will feel like they’re filled with concrete after a tempo run, and the idea of squatting the next morning is absurd.

When that happens, don’t force it. Swap the lift for 30–40 minutes of mobility work, foam rolling, stretching, light movement, even a 20-30 min walk. You’re not skipping training. You’re being smart about which stimulus your body can absorb that day. The athletes who last in this sport are the ones who learn to read their body, not just follow a spreadsheet.

(I’ve ignored this rule myself more times than I want to admit. It never ends well.)

Step 6: Track Your Strength Numbers Weekly

Your weekly average strength numbers should never drop more than 5%.

This is your guardrail. If your squat, deadlift, and bench weekly averages are going down more than 5% from where you started, something needs adjusting, which usually it means endurance volume ramped too fast, recovery isn’t adequate, or nutrition is off.

Track your working weights weekly. Not your 1 Rep Max (you shouldn’t be testing maxes during marathon training), but the loads you’re using for your working sets. Example: If you were squatting 100 kg for sets of 6 in week 1, you shouldn’t be below 95 kg by week 8. If you are, pull the endurance volume back slightly or look at Steps 5 and 7.

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Step 7: Fuel the Body

Big reminder: None of this works if you’re under-eating.

This is where concurrent training fails most people, not because the programming is wrong, but because they don’t eat enough to support both demands. Running 40+ km per week and lifting 2–4 times burns a serious amount of calories. If you’re in a deficit (intentionally or not), your body will sacrifice muscle to fuel the runs. That’s physiology, not opinion.

At this point, Protein should sit at 1.6–2.2 g per kg of bodyweight daily, this is well-supported in the literature for both muscle maintenance and endurance recovery. Carbs need to be high enough to fuel your training; this isn’t the time for low-carb experiments. And sleep, one of our biggest assets, must be 7 to 9 hours, non-negotiable.

Growth hormone, tissue repair, nervous system recovery, it all happens while you’re sleeping. Cut sleep short and you’re undoing your own work.

Why Most Plans Get This Wrong

The reason most plans force an either/or choice isn’t because concurrent training doesn’t work. It’s because it’s harder to program well. It demands more attention, more auto-regulation, and more honesty about where you actually are versus where you want to be.

But if you’re the kind of person who refuses to choose between strong and fast, who wants to cross a finish line this is how you do it. Not by winging it and by having a structure that respects both goals and adjusts as the demands shift.

I’m 6.5 weeks out from Mississauga right now. My squats on the Smith Machine at my condo is holding. My long run hit 26 km last week. It’s working, not because it’s easy, but because the structure is honest about what the body can handle week to week.

If you’re trying to balance both worlds, you’re not crazy. You just need a better plan.

It’s what happens when your body has to choose between two competing adaptations — endurance efficiency and muscle growth — and picks one. At 60+ kilometres a week, it defaults to making you a better endurance machine. Chronic fatigue from high mileage shrinks fast-twitch muscle fibres. Systemic inflammation blunts the hormonal signals that trigger hypertrophy. It’s not a calorie problem. It’s a prioritization problem your body solves without asking your opinion.

The Muscle Loss Nobody Warns Endurance Athletes About

There’s a specific kind of frustration that hits you somewhere around month three of a big training block. You’re hitting personal bests in the gym, you feel you are getting stronger, you’re logging your highest kilometers per week ever. Race day is circled on the shared calendar you have with your partner (yes, I have this with my wife…), everything is trending in the right direction...and then you get your usual picture taken with your medal, proud as hell in a finish line photo, and you think: wait, is that actually me? Where did everything go?

I’ve been there. And if you’ve read my previous posts, you’ll remember I mentioned that Strength Training became an absolute game changer for me and I promised I’d come back to that topic. Well, here we are.

Before I get into what actually helps, let me explain what’s working against you, because the more I’ve read and learned about this, the more it makes sense that so many of us end up in this exact spot.

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The Problem Has a Name, Which Makes It Feel Better and Worse Simultaneously

It’s called the Interference Effect. The short version: when you’re logging serious endurance volume, let’s say 60+ Kilometers a week, your body makes a decision. It decides that the most important adaptation right now is to make you efficient over long distances. Which means it quietly starts giving less focus to everything else...including the muscle you spent months trying to build. For context, I’ll be hitting this mileage in my preparation for my first big race of the year.

I came across a post on Reddit from a marathoner deep in a high-mileage block, who said it about as honestly as anyone I’ve read: “It’s extremely disheartening to be losing muscle...looking scrawnier and scrawnier over time.” The comments underneath were full of people going through the same thing. Some of them were also lifting four times a week, like I do sometimes! And still watching it slowly disappear from your bices, triceps, delts, quads…which tells you this isn’t a minority situation. It’s extremely common among people who are, taking everything into consideration, doing everything right.

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Here’s what’s actually happening under the hood. Chronic fatigue from high mileage shrinks your fast-twitch muscle fibers. The systemic inflammation from all that volume, which is completely normal and just your body doing its job blunts the hormonal signals that would otherwise trigger muscle growth. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7193134/) And the really brutal part? This happens even when you’re eating enough, so it’s not a calorie problem. It’s a prioritization problem your body is solving without asking your opinion.

So what do you actually do about it?
Some Things That Work (Lessons Learned the Hard Way)

The first thing, and I cannot stress this enough, is the order in which you do things on the same day. Take this scenario applied to running (and we could make up hundreds of scenarios): If you’re going to lift and run on the same day (and most of us do, because schedules are what they are), lift first. Your three or four key compound movements, squat, a deadlift variation, pull-ups, need to happen before you run, not after a 90-minute session when your legs and your nervous system are already fried. Lifting after a long run is essentially asking your muscles to adapt under the worst possible conditions. Spoiler alert: they won’t, or they will, just...reluctantly ha ha.

The second thing that’s made a real difference for me is thinking in blocks rather than trying to do everything simultaneously every week. Nothing fancy here, roughly four weeks where you nudge your endurance volume down by about 20 to 25% and really push the strength work. Then four weeks where the heavy lifting drops to two short sessions and the running takes over again. Then four weeks maintaining both. You rotate through this. It sounds more complicated on paper than it actually is in practice, and the difference it makes to what you actually hold onto physically is significant.(https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/physiology/articles/10.3389/fphys.2023.1072679/full) Another visual summary:

Now, on the days you do your long run...those are not the days for a heavy squat session as well and I’ve made this mistake in the past. Of course, if you want to do something like upper body work, for example, a focused 20-to-30-minute session before you head out is completely reasonable. The word is focused. Pick one thing, do it well, and get out there. Not a full program. Not a “well, I’m already here” situation. One thing. I’ll get into specific template sessions in future posts.

Something a lot of people miss, and I was definitely guilty of this before I learned about all this, is letting the mileage become a permanent excuse to lose on strength progress. You still need to have some progressive overload. Every two weeks or so, add a bit of weight or a couple of reps to your main lifts. The running volume doesn’t get to cancel that out. If you let it, it becomes a ceiling you never break through, and six months later you’re wondering why nothing is changing. I’ll say this part again because it matters: your endurance training is not a reason to stop progressing on the weights. It’s a constraint you work around, not a full stop.

The other one is rest, which is crucial as well and hard to resist for Endurance enthusiast like myself, and that is a minimum 48 hours between a heavy lower-body session and a long run. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/physiology/articles/10.3389/fphys.2023.1072679/fullThis isn’t a preference or a suggestion; it’s just how long muscles need to actually do the thing you’re asking them to do. Run on legs that haven’t recovered from a Deadlift session and you’re not training smart, you’re just accumulating fatigue, which is how people get injured. Which is how I’ve gotten injured, not going to elaborate on that one here...

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Both Can Coexist

Mapping all of this out on your own while also managing race prep, work, family, and everything else is difficult, I’m not going to lie…sometimes you might say it’s not realistic for some people. So, the bigger point I want to leave you with is this: running a lot and lifting are not mutually exclusive. They just conflict when left unmanaged. Your body is incredibly efficient; it will always default to optimize for whatever you throw at it the most. Your job is to give it clear enough, consistent enough signals that it doesn’t just drop the muscle because the running got the spotlight.

One training block at a time, you can change what shows up in those finish line photos.

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More on this topic coming up the following weeks!

P.S. One important nuance worth noting: more recent research has shifted the picture somewhat. Studies now suggest the interference effect may be most significant for athletes doing very high endurance volumes, or when strength and endurance sessions are performed back-to-back in the same session. When trained athletes split them into separate sessions with adequate recovery, the interference effect appears to diminish significantly. https://www.strongerbyscience.com/research-spotlight-interference-effect/

I liked doing Trilogy posts series to be honest, playing Devil’s Advocate, writing some contrarian opinions that might sting a bit, so for this series, I’m going to tackle something I’ve been noticing a lot on different online forums and even from other Doctors and really good content creators on Substack, which is great BTW! I’d say it’s the big elephant in the room now: The Smartphones and the relationship with exercise! Another area of our sacred lives that has been totally permeated by this social phenomenon.

What is the One-Reason Rule and how does it work?

Before you unlock, ask yourself one question: what is my one reason for picking this up right now? Say it. Log the set, start the timer, change the song, whatever it is, do only that, then close the phone and put it down. Redirect for 10 to 15 seconds after. Four steps: intent, one action, hard stop, redirect. That’s the whole thing.

Check out my two previous Posts on the topic, first where I laid out my thesis and did some venting and Second one, The Presence Paradox, asking the question: what are we really, reaaaallyyyy doing at the gym? Now, my idea for a Framework…

My Garmin Showed Me Something I Didn't Want to See

I never used to think about my rest periods between sets, then couple of years ago when I discovered the Strength option on my Garmin I finally started paying attention and actually seeing how long they take. Usually, between 2-3 minutes on average, which at the gym sure seems like ages!

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It’s not really about discipline or willpower, because after doing some research and reading more about the topic these past few weeks, turns out the gym is full of micro-moments, these tiny gaps that feel like nothing: waiting for the rack, those 45 seconds before the timer starts, the pause after a hard set when your brain is trying to recover from the effort hopefully you made. Those seconds that serve as perfect little windows for a “quick” check that somehow turns into a full scroll session every single time.

So, pay attention to when it is happening. Not just that it is happening, but exactly when. And it’s almost always the same moment: right after a hard set, in that 60 to 90 second window while you’re recovering. Legs are coming back, lungs are settling, and your brain is sitting there completely under stimulated, bored, and craving something. Anything.

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It's Not the Phone. It's the Zombie Move.

That’s the dangerous window we need to identify as such, not before the gym, not after, during rest. Your phone is already in your hand because it’s your timer, and your brain is at its weakest point in the whole session. Turns out, the rest period isn’t neutral at all, it’s the trap itself, believe it or not!

The research backs this too, for what it's worth. https://www.scienceforsport.com/avoid-doing-this-before-training/.

There's actual data showing that even 30 minutes of social media before lifting reduces your reps to failure, mental fatigue showing up before the work even starts. So imagine what it's doing between sets, when you're already depleted. The focus you spent building during the set? Gone in about 20 seconds of scrolling.

Now, I'm not going to tell you to leave your phone in the locker, people try that "strategy" everyday and it seems it doesn't work because reality is the phone is now your timer, where your program is, the million apps with workout, your music, your work email is there. So, let me give you some solace, in a way the freakin' thing belongs there. However, let me be clear about something, what doesn't belong there is the reflex, the automatic action, the zombie move that happens before you've even decided to do it, where you just reach to your pocket and done.

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Which brings me to what I'm proposing. “The One-Reason Rule."

Another way to see it…think about it like another rep. Which sounds weird, but a Rep technically has a start and an end. You don't leave a set open-ended, you don't lay down on the bench, grab the barbell and in the middle of the 3rd Rep check out the WhatsApp thread…how could you? Physically impossible. Every rep has a lockout. This is the lockout for your phone. The Hard Stop is the lockout. Without it, the set never ends.

Before you unlock: What is the one reason I’m picking this up right now?

Say it. Actually say it, even just in your head. “Log the set.” “Start the timer.” “Change the song.” That’s it.

Do that one thing, close the phone, put it down. Done. However, don’t just close the phone and stand there. Redirect for 10 or 15 seconds: breathe, sip water, walk around the gym, which is what I do. You may even work on a complete muscle group right away! That tiny reset takes away the urge that would otherwise drag you right back in. Without it, you close the phone and open it again 10 seconds later. After this, you’re back inside the session, ready to smash the next rep!

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Think about it this way as well: Intent → one action → hard stop → redirect. Four steps. Every pickup. Let me give you a step-by-step summary, so you can print, frame and hang it somewhere:

And just like a rep, this gets easier with practice. The first few sessions feel awkward, you'll forget, you'll slip back into old habits, that's fine, of course. Fix the form and run the next rep. This isn't about punishment; it's about training a new pattern, which as anything else, takes weeks and months!

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Two Practical Things That Actually Help

1. The Lock screen on the phone. Create a Wallpaper that says: "What is my one reason?" It may sound dumb, but at this point, everybody should be willing to try anything, right? Until it works! So, looking at this question popping up at the exact moment your thumb hits the button is a friendly reminder to ask "The One Reason" question...again, if we leave it up to our subconscious and zombie brain, they won't be able to handle this question…

2. Remember, pre-decide your phrases before you train. "Log set, close." "Two-minute timer, close." "Skip track, close." Three phrases cover 90% of your true pickups. If you reach for the phone and no phrase comes to mind… that's not a real reason to pick up the phone, so put it down!

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…And The Moment Nobody Talks About

Even if you nail the whole session, there's a moment right after that's just as dangerous, the minutes after you are done. You walk out, session's over, rules feel over too, it was a mental battle for sure and suddenly you're 20 minutes deep into your feed without knowing how you got there and this is not random, it is expected, because since you suppressed the urge all session, it doesn't disappear. It was building up and the moment the boundary lifts, it comes out all at once.

So before you leave the gym floor, focus on doing one final redirect, one last mental strategy. Log the session, name how long you're giving yourself on the first post-gym check, could be after you drink your post-work out shake, after you get into the car and get home, and stick to it. The session ends with the same intention it ran on. So, there you have it. No app, no blocker, no heroic phone detox required. Just one question, one action, one stop, one redirect, a newly created Rep for your gym session, based on Four mental movements.

Remind yourself that your attention is part of the training plan, so treat it like one.

Is listening to a podcast at the gym the same as scrolling?

No, and the difference matters. A podcast during a 45-minute treadmill run is a tool, it helps you stay on the machine longer and makes steady-state cardio sustainable. Scrolling feeds between sets is an escape. One keeps you in the session. The other pulls you out of it every two minutes, drops the mental thread, and turns a one-hour workout into a fragmented, unfocused two-hour one.

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You Paid to Be Here. So Why Are You Already Gone?

Let me ask you something uncomfortable. You woke up this morning, got dressed, packed your bag, drove or took the elevator down to the condo’s gym (like it’s my case...), or paid a monthly membership, then you actually changed your clothes, and walked through that changing room door. You did all of that. I mean, you absolutely need to be proud of yourself!! The logistics, the intention, the effort of just showing up. And then, the moment you sat down between sets, you handed your mind to the scrolling machine! Or a text thread that absolutely, I promise you, could have waited 45 minutes. Then, sadly, all the effort above collapses into this:

Your body is in the building. Your mind has been sold to an algorithm.

Nobody talks about it like that, but that’s exactly what’s happening. This isn’t a willpower issue, this is about something deeper, the irony of your mind floating away from the place you paid real money and real effort to be in. The attention economy’s core trick isn’t just stealing your time at home on the couch, it’s following you into the one hour you carved out to actually work on your body and yourself!!

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Mental Sovereignty…And You’re Giving It Away for Free.

I recently heard about this interesting term called: Mental Sovereignty, which basically says that your attention, your internal state, your focus, they belong to you. They are yours!! But, now the attention economy wants it specifically when you’ve created space for something actually meaningful, in this case, a really good work out, run, reading a good book, etc. I see it this way, you made the time, you are resting between Sets, it’s just seconds passing by on your watch, while at the same time, muscles are resetting, fibers, nervous system, and your mind, well...just there...and this is the moment the slot machine is waiting for! Fill that gap right away! That discomfort of just sitting there, with your thoughts, sweaty hands, sore muscles...god forbid you just sit there on the bench or walk around the gym for a bit, right?

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The Rest Period Used to Be the Only Enforced Mindfulness Most People Got All Day

Here’s something I don’t think gets said enough, for a lot of people, myself included, with jobs, routines, home lives, constant obligations, kids, that 90-second time window was the only moment all day when we were truly forced to just be. No email to be sent, no person to respond to. Just our bodies, our breath, and whatever happened to be floating through our mind. It was like some sort accidental mindfulness/therapy or whatever you want to call it.

That’s gone now. We destroyed it. Not with crazy malevolent motives, nobody sat down and decided to eliminate the last enforced stillness in modern life (or did they?????? ;)). Reality is, things changed and as I wrote on my first post, this permeated even our wonderful gym sessions. And now? The rest period is truly dead time with content to consume.

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The Gym Was the Last Room Without an Algorithm. Now It Isn’t.

I train without a phone. Always have. And I’ll be honest, I know how that sounds. But what it gives is continuity of presence. I’m in the session start to finish. The warm-up, the working sets, the rest, the next set. It’s a connected experience. And what I notice watching other people train is that the phone doesn’t just interrupt the set. It interrupts the whole session.

Think about what you actually came there to do. Stress the body, signal adaptation, build something over time, progressive overload!. That process is not just physical. It requires a psychological state, focus, intention, the willingness to be uncomfortable without escaping that discomfort. The phone is the escape and every time you use it, you’re practicing the opposite of what training is supposed to teach you.

Discomfort is the stimulus, this is what your muscles are expecting from you in order to grow. That’s not a metaphor. That’s literally the mechanism. And you’re interrupting it.

Reclaim the Rest Period. That’s Where It Starts.

You don’t have to do a full digital detox. You don’t have to go back to log on a paper notebook from Dollarama, but the next time you’re between sets, try something small. Leave the phone face down, sit with those 90 seconds. Notice your breathing and feel what the last set actually did to your muscles. Then think about the next one, visualize it, breathe, get ready for it!! Be, for 90 seconds, fully in the room you showed up for.

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That’s not a meditation practice, it’s just presence, which used to be the default in our everyday lives, but we totally forgot about it.

Your body showed up. The least you can do is bring your mind with you.

Next and final post, I’ll elaborate on a framework. Stay tuned.

I liked doing Trilogy posts series to be honest, playing Devil’s Advocate, writing some contrarian opinions that might sting a bit, so for this series, I’m going to tackle something I’ve been noticing a lot on different online forums which I’d say it’s the big elephant in the room now: The Smartphones and the relationship with exercise! Another area of our sacred lives that has been totally permeated by this social phenomenon. In this first Post, I’m going to establish my core idea and get some things out my chest, just for my peace of mind! Next I will cover some psychological issues to reframe the issue and lastly I will do my best to provide a new framework for this so we can all start to turn things around!

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What’s the difference between listening to a podcast on the treadmill and scrolling between sets?

One is a tool, the other is an escape. A podcast during a 45-minute treadmill run is a reasonable trade. Scrolling Instagram for 20 minutes on a machine you’re not using, while a TV show plays unwatched in front of you, is avoidance. The difference is whether the phone is helping you stay or helping you leave without physically walking out.

The Gym Used to Be the One Place You Could Disconnect. What Happened?

What is it now, with people and the cellular phones at the gyms and even while running, biking and even swimming! Do people really need to listen to Podcasts while they are in the pool swimming? Yes, I saw it couple of weeks back. What are we really trying to escape or avoid? What level of numbness is required in order to avoid our thoughts and emotions? I mean, some are scary sometimes and really weird for sure, but it’s part of our humanity, not good or bad, not right or wrong! Our thoughts are just there...nothing else!

This is something that has been bugging me for a long time and it’s a simple question, one that I want to understand, and perhaps people can help me or tell me what is the answer or insight I’m looking for. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe I’m the one that’s completely out of sync with the new reality, so please point it out and correct me.

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Coincidentally, I was away on vacation last couple of weeks and I went to train at a local gym where my parents live, and all over the gym machines were little stickers stating the obvious:

Do not spend too much time looking at your phone, let other people train as well...the problem is, it becomes like a vicious cycle, because everybody is doing the same thing!

So, in the end...nobody gets to do anything, or a 1h gym session becomes a 2h one and nobody has that time to train! Or, you just end up doing a workout you didn’t feel like doing, working some other body part or muscle group you weren’t mentally ready for that day, say…Leg Day! and leave the gym a bit frustrated and unmotivated.

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The Sober One at the Party Always Sees Everything. I'm That Person at the Gym.

Honestly, I really get it, during a treadmill run, I mean, it’s boring as hell, so listening to a Podcast or Audiobook is cool! Even today, I saw a guy walking and having a meeting at the same time, it’s nice to get those steps in!...but here’s the thing, since 99.9% of the time I train without a phone, just me and only me, I’m able to notice many things, interesting things. I pay attention on my rest between sets. It’s like when you were the sober one and all your other friends were totally wasted and you got to see everything they said and did clearly!

I recently I saw a woman doing sit-up/ab crunches while trying to send a text, but I don’t think her text came out so good! ;) Something else I saw the other day, people put on their TV show, but they can’t even concentrate enough to watch it while on the treadmill...they need to pick up the phones just to scroll, not checking a training plan. Not logging a set. Just… scrolling.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth nobody online seems willing to say out loud:

Your phone isn’t the problem. Your life is just boring. And that’s the actual thing worth fixing.

Now, I know that sounds harsh. Bear with me here.

The real question is: The fitness world has documented so far that scrolling hurts performance. But has the fitness world explained why people scroll specifically at the gym. See below some examples.

https://barbend.com/smartphone-addiction-ruins-gym-progress/

https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/9030624/scrolling-at-the-gym-a-fitness-trend-or-time-waste/

I think about this a lot in the context of training. The athletes I see scrolling between sets, or sitting on a machine for 20 minutes without doing a single rep; they’re not lazy. I genuinely don’t believe that. They just have no idea what they’re doing there. No program. No goal. No reason compelling enough to make the next set feel urgent. So the phone fills the gap. Of course it does! What else is going to?

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Think of someone preparing for their first Sprint Triathlon, or working toward a specific lift, or tracking progressive overload week over week. Those people don’t scroll between sets. They’re mentally in the session. The goal makes the phone irrelevant. Specifically for Triathlon, during an Ironman event, it is prohibited to use any kind of headphones or similar. People in general ask me, what did you do 7h and 30min on your bike in my last Ironman? How do you run 3h or more without anything else? Without a phone? but therein lies part of the solution...

What Actually Works, Direction Over Discipline

What actually works is having something real to build. A race on the calendar. A number to hit. A reason to show up that exists outside of the four walls of the gym. Once that’s in place, scrolling starts to feel like a waste of time you actually value. That’s a completely different feeling than guilt, and it lasts a lot longer.

So before you download another screen time tracker or leave your phone in the car; ask yourself the harder question. Not “how do I use my phone less?” but “what am I actually building right now, and does it excite me enough to protect my focus and my precious attention?”

If the honest answer is nothing much, that’s not a phone problem. That’s a direction problem.

And direction? That I can help with, so stay tuned for the follow up Posts!

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