Workout of the Week - TempoFit

Up for a challenge this week? This running-meets-calisthenics will BURN!!!

What doesn’t kill you … Pt. 3

Terrain: Flat measurable path or running track

This workout challenge is a 5k but interspersing burpees, press ups and squats before every KM.

How close can you get to your 5k personal best? 12 minutes? 10 minutes? 5 minutes?!!

Give this workout a go and send your time to your friends, laying down the challenge!

Strength work, even if it doesn’t involve weights, is often over-looked by runners. It’s a great way to build power, stability, coordination and overall athleticism—which should all improve your running in the long run (excuse the pun!).

A challenge like this is perfect when we find ourselves in a time where races are being cancelled (for our southern hemisphere audiences) and it’s still a way off before the arrival of spring races (for our northern hemisphere audiences).

Even though you’re pushing yourself hard, be sure that you dial in good technique with the exercises. Also think about what sections you might like to focus on and really crush them (like the burpees) in order to use another section like the squats or running to go a little easier to boost recovery.

THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK:

By Hayden Shearman

Most running races, especially road races, we’re aiming for even paces and a gradually increasing level of intensity. But in a session like this week’s challenge or in a trail race we’re confronted with variable levels of intensity that can throw us off our game. Here’s how I deal with that variability:   

Choose Your Battles. In a trail race with short, steep up hills, it can actually be better to crush these nice and fast in order to save time despite a spike in heart rate. This week’s workout is like that where you will want to choose an aspect of it to focus on that can save you time if you smash it out. For me, these battles will be the burpees. Go hard with these and then use the first few hundred metres of the run as active recovery.

Bite-Sized Chunks. Don’t be overwhelmed by the scale of the session in front of you, but just focus on the exercise you’re doing right now. Crush it and move on to the next. This will reduce the stress levels and keep you process orientated.

Keep a Reserve. Although you’ll focus on the exercise you’re doing now, you always want to feel like there is another gear there. This is especially true at the start of the session, but in the final set, just go for it!

Keep Your Head in the Game. In a workout or race with a lot of variety it can be tempting to let your mind wander and allow lapses in intensity. So, instead, make the workout social so you have friends to push you, line up your most energising playlist, and look to smash out each set faster than the previous!

We’re one week out from our calisthenics-meets-running challenge and this is the perfect workout to tune up both running legs and press up arms!

What doesn’t kill you … Pt. 2

2mins jog or active recoveries

Terrain: Flat measurable path or running track

The beauty of combining calisthenics exercises like bodyweight squats, press ups and especially burpees to running is that we can crank up the intensity of the workout without overly stressing our running muscles and tendons.

This session steps up the running a little more than last week and also reduces the recoveries in preparation for next week’s non-stop workout challenge which has no recoveries.

Strength work, even if it doesn’t involve weights, is often over-looked by runners. It’s a great way to build power, stability, coordination and overall athleticism—which should all improve your running in the long run (excuse the pun!).

Be sure that you dial in good technique with the exercises. The first two weeks of doing this session is not raced or timed because I want you to take all the time you need to get your technique sorted before your dial up the intensity.

What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger … right?! Well, this series of workouts will definitely test out that theory as we work our way up to an epic running-meets-calisthenics workout challenge in three weeks’ time.

What doesn’t kill you … Pt. 1

2-3mins jog or active recoveries

Terrain: Flat measurable path or running track

The beauty of combining calisthenics exercises like bodyweight squats, press ups and especially burpees to running is that we can crank up the intensity of the workout without overly stressing our running muscles and tendons.

This session is designed to whet your appetite for this sort of session. Next week we will step it up a little, and then the following week will be a non-stop workout challenge with no recoveries, aiming for a certain time.

Strength work, even if it doesn’t involve weights, is often over-looked by runners. It’s a great way to build power, stability, coordination and overall athleticism—which should all improve your running in the long run (excuse the pun!).

Be sure that you dial in good technique with the exercises. The first two weeks of doing this session is not raced or timed because I want you to take all the time you need to get your technique sorted before your dial up the intensity.

This is a video I did for school kids during lockdown, but it will be useful for all adults as well for getting the basics of the press up and squat (apologies, there are no burpees in here):

Are you keen for the No Treats Till Christmas Challenge? It starts 25 November. Check out details here. 

This workout is the ultimate homemade pizza of workouts where we give you the base and you decide the toppings. Will it be meaty? Maybe a little spicy? Or will it be a chilled out Hawaiian?!

YOU CHOOSE THE TOPPINGS

Terrain: Flat measurable path or running track

One of the all-time great running sessions, the 10×400 can be attacked from all sorts of directions.

If you’re after a combo of speed and intensity, ramp up the speed to your mile race pace and keep the recovery jogs easy.

But if you’d rather keep it more endurance focused (let’s say you’ve got a marathon or ultra coming up) keep the reps at a more comfortable 5k race pace and the recoveries a little quicker than a jog.

400m is not really long enough to have a raised heart rate and breathing rate (like you get when you do 1k or mile intervals) nor is it short enough to really work on pure speed. So, a 10x400m workout occupies an interesting middle ground between fast and far and, in doing so, tests your ability to put those two elements of speed and endurance together.

Above I gave the options of either running at mile pace with slow recoveries or 5k pace and keeping the recoveries a bit quicker (this will ensure the heart rate stays up a more to emphasise more of a VO2max-take on the session). However, there is another approach you could take where you start at 5k race pace and gradually get faster, finishing at mile pace for the final 2-3 reps.

What better way to celebrate 111 episodes of the podcast than a workout like 11x 1 minute!? And aside from another numerically pleasing session, why would we want to do a session like this? Read on …

THE FIRESTARTER

11x 1 minute @ 5k race effort up to mile race effort

1 minute jog recoveries

Terrain: Undulating or flat

This session can be tailored to suit almost any training goal. In marathon prep you might keep it at 5k pace and just treat it like a broken tempo run where your heart rate never goes crazy. But if you want to really crank up the engine to mile race pace you can do that to make this a true high intensity interval session.

You pick the poison and either way it will stoke your fire!

When speeds are high for this workout it really becomes a melting pot style session where you’re asking your body to move fast, breathe hard and do so for a solid 22 minutes. However, keeping the pace at 5k pace would shift this to feel more like a tempo run where your heart rate is oscillating between just higher than tempo pace in the efforts to just below by the end of the recoveries.

How you adapt the workout is totally up to you and your goals. If you’ve got some track races or a 5k coming up or just want a serious blow out of the cobwebs, then by all means start at 5k pace and get faster from there.

The terrain is up for grabs too. If you’re running the intervals fast, you might like a flat measurable pathway where you can get some accurate pace feedback from your GPS watch.

But, on the other hand, if you want to just do it by feel, feel free to find some undulating trails that aren’t too technical or mountainous.

This is our final workout in the series of short-fast hill reps designed to give us the physical and mental tools to love running hills. On this occasion we use the hills as a stimulus to create great running technique and power before doing short bursts of tempo running.

HOW TO LOVE HILLS: PART 4

Terrain: Moderate hill.

The hill reps are kept short so that they can be nice and quick—up into your sprint range. They form the “aim” part of the workout where you’re dialling in great technique and getting all your muscle fibres firing.

The tempo runs are also short to avoid this session becoming a true endurance workout. They form the “fire” element where we are taking those good lessons applied in the hill sprints and transferring them to the flat, rhythm running of a tempo.

On the surface, this workout looks very light: short, 10-second hill reps followed by short two-minute tempo runs (at a pace you could hold for 60 minutes). However, the hill reps are designed to be FAST (not all-out, but definitely sprinting) and then immediately rolling into these tempo runs to flush out the fatigue of the hills. So the combo of the two is actually surprisingly challenging.

After each hill rep, jog back down to your start point. Make sure you’re fully recovered between each set.

The location for this session is important. We want a moderately steep hill (6-12%) near a flat section where you can safely do a 2-minute tempo run.

For those new to hill running, be sure to keep the 10-second hill efforts in your running range, not sprinting.

Finally, this workout is somewhat lighter than the typical session we do in Workout of the Week, so we’d encourage the regulars to include an additional session in your week of a 20-minute tempo run.

THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK:

By Hayden Shearman

Many of us get into running because of its endurance aspect. Our bodies and minds just seem to be suited to going and going. This is an efficiency game. However, focusing just on efficiency, and neglecting effectiveness, with our running can be a massive trap. Let me explain by comparing cars.

The Toyota Corolla is synonymous with efficiency. It goes and goes and doesn’t suck too much gas—much like your typical jogger. The Ferrari on the other is the epitome of effectiveness: fast, flashy, but costs a LOT—much like your typical creatine-crushing gym junky. So, is there some middle ground?

Yes. Tesla.

Now, I’m no car guy, but it seems like Tesla has struck the optimum balance of effectiveness and efficiency.  And, in fact, its effectiveness (the technology it using) seems to not only compliment but also to help boost its fuel efficiency. And it’s this synergy between effectiveness and efficiency that is the Holy Grail when it comes to running.

I often talk about the fact that runners who focus only endurance and aerobic development typically sacrifice their athleticism, which in turns makes them slower, which motivates them to do more miles to compensate with increased endurance, which reduces athleticism … and so the cycle continues.

Alternatively, if you can include some regular work on effectiveness (which includes all those aspects that make up athleticism like power, strength, mobility, technique, speed and so on) then you’re in a much better situation to maintain your body’s ability to handle mileage and keep your easy and long run pace a smaller percentage of your max pace (which will also reduce wear and tear on your body when running longer distances).

This week’s workout is a classic example of what effectiveness might look like in a running session. And it can also be maintained in the gym, on the yoga mat and in the playing field.

Moral of the story: stay athletic and you’ll stay effective, which will enable you to be as efficient as possible for as long as possible.

This week we continue our focus of quality-over-quantity in hill reps, but we’re introducing some accelerations to switch over to beast mode for the close of each rep.

HOW TO LOVE HILLS: PART 3

Terrain: Moderate hill.

Gear-changing workouts are a fun way to add strength and intensity and also as a way to build your mental strength to finish well when you’re fatiguing.

The steady first 30 seconds of each rep should feel about 3-5k race intensity and the final 10 seconds more like 800m race intensity. So, it’s a noticeable jump in pace where you’ll need to dial in great technique and mental focus to round off each rep.

This workout has plenty of recovery to make sure you’re fresh at the start of each rep, which should keep the focus on moving well, not moving hard.

In a fresh state, your central nervous system is far more able to coordinate your movements and to learn make them more efficient.

The recovery jogs back down the hill should be super light and you will add more jog recovery time at the base of the hill as well to make sure you’re fully recovered before the next rep.

The location for this session is important. For those new to hill running, find a mild gradient (somewhere between 3-5%). And for those who have been following the last couple of weeks of training with us, you’ll be fine to tackle something more moderate (like 6-10%).

Finally, this workout is somewhat lighter than the typical session we do in Workout of the Week, so we’d encourage the regulars to include an additional session in your week of 3×8-minute fartlek (with 3min jogs) at a your one-hour race effort (avoid any nasty hills though!).

THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK:

By Hayden Shearman

When you’re in a running race or a tough workout, do you feel like you’re the hunter or are you the one being hunted? Are you getting after it and hunting down your goals like the beast of prey that you are?

This week’s workout is designed to teach you those skills of getting after it when it counts, going harder when the going gets tougher, and digging deeper when the pain starts piling up. So, here are some more ideas on how to make you’re the hunter and not the hunted on your next race or big workout.

Want to get faster? Get stronger? Run smoother? Hills are the answer to many of these questions and this week continue our series of quality-over-quantity hill reps where mastery is the goal, not exhaustion.

HOW TO LOVE HILLS: PART 2

Jog back down for your recoveries & 2-3mins between sets

Terrain: Moderate hill.

This work has 4 minutes 30 seconds of solid uphill running so there is an element of quantity to it, so it’s important that the recoveries are nice and long and that the 30-second efforts are noticeable slower than the 15-second efforts and the 45-second efforts are even slower.

Remember to focus on great technique: stand tall (hips up!), drive the arms, quick strides, fast knee drive.

This workout has plenty of recovery to make sure you’re fresh at the start of each rep, which should shift the focus to moving well, not moving hard.

In a fresh state, your central nervous system is far more able to coordinate your movements and to learn make them more efficient.

The recovery jogs back down the hill should be super light and feel free to take more time between strides if needed. Likewise, make the recovery jogs between sets nice and long to feel fully recovered before the next set.

The location for this session is important. For those new to hill running, find a mild gradient (somewhere between 3-5%). And for those who have been following the last couple of weeks of training with us, you’ll be fine to tackle something more moderate (like 6-10%).

Finally, this workout is somewhat lighter than the typical session we do in Workout of the Week, so we’d encourage the regulars to include an additional session in your week of 4×5-minute fartlek (with 2min jogs) at a pace of your choosing just to keep the engine humming (avoid any nasty hills though!).

THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK:

By Hayden Shearman

Many of us runners do it to seek out times or performances or conquer a certain distance, but it’s important to also go back to the pure enjoyment of running and intentionally seek out the perfect run.

I’m a surfer and the old mantra amongst us wax heads is we’re trying to find the perfect wave—not to be the best technically or the fastest or do the best trick, but find the perfect wave. That wave looks different for everyone, but the focus is on the wave, not so much the surfing of the wave. I like this concept to inspire the more soul-filling side of running where you go running for the sake of finding a “perfect run” not the perfect performance.

So, before I get to ideas on how to seek out the perfect run, here are some of my all-time favourite runs to give you an idea of where I’m heading with this:

So, they’re some of my favourite running memories, and here are some ideas to seek out your own:

For the next four weeks, come on a journey to discover a new love for running hills! We’ll be doing short, sharp hill reps with plenty of recovery to develop technique, power and overall improve our emotional relationships with going vertical! 

HOW TO LOVE HILLS: PART 1

Jog backdown recoveries and at least 2-3mins between sets

Terrain: Mild-to-moderate hill with a flat section nearby.

You don’t just get good at running hills by doing massive 3 to 5-minute hill reps. Instead, you can focus on quality over quantity in order to be fresh for every rep, dial in the technique and recruit every muscle fibre possible.

Remember, “strides” are shorthand for “fast, controlled bursts of running”. They’re not sprints and should stay at the upper end of your running spectrum, but not feeling like you’re being chased by a tiger.

This relatively short workout is short in order to be very intentional in getting your body (and mind) moving well uphill.

In a fresh state, your central nervous system is far more able to coordinate your movements and to learn make them more efficient.

The recovery jogs back down the hill should be super light and feel free to take more time between strides if needed. Likewise, make the recovery jogs between sets nice and long to feel fully recovered before the next set.

The location for this session is important. For those new to hill running, find a mild gradient (somewhere between 3-5%). And for those who have been following the last couple of weeks of fartlek training with us, you’ll be fine to tackle something more moderate (like 6-10%).

Finally, this workout is much lighter than the typical session we do in Workout of the Week, so we’d encourage the regulars to include an additional session in your week of 6×3-minute fartlek (with 2min jogs) at a pace of your choosing just to keep the engine humming (avoid any nasty hills though!).

THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK:

By Hayden Shearman

Many runners have a very vanilla look to their training where every run looks the same and there isn’t the opportunity for growth into a particular area. Instead, our training weeks can benefit from having one session each week that operates as the focus for that week, with every other workout either building towards that session or recovering from it.

Here are some ideas to incorporate a key session each week in your training.

What does a key session look like? This is going to be different for everyone and will change throughout the year. In the off-season, your long run might be the key session. When you’re close to a race, a race-pace workout will be the key session. And, other times, like in this Workout of the Week, the key session will be about developing a particular strength/weakness (in our case, that’s hill running). The key session perfectly aligns to your main training goal for the week.

Why have a key session? Our bodies can only handle so much until they breakdown with injury or illness. So we need to introduce new training stimuli sparingly and this is where the one key session per week allows us to control the amount of new stress our bodies are dealing with.

How does the key session fit the big picture? It’s important that our key sessions all work towards the big picture of what we’re training to achieve over the next few months or years. If you’ve never done a trail race, but you have one lined up in six months’ time, a workout like this week’s is perfect. Likewise, if you’ve noticed that your strides lack power and your technique needs work, a block of targeted hill strides could be just the ticket for addressing these weak points.

The key sessions should also show a logical connection to the running you’ve been doing over the past few weeks and also to the running you intend to do. Our bodies really dislike sudden change!!

Key sessions demand key recovery: A good way to prioritise your recovery is to match it to the stress of each week’s key session. If you’re doing hills, you might like to book extra time on the foam roller or massage table ironing out those calves. If you’re logging big miles, energy replacement, electrolytes and lots of sleep is likely to be key.

It’s time to let yourself loose in the trails and hills! This fartlek workout is designed to free you up to get stronger on the verticals.

HILLY FARTLEK

6x4mins @ your 1-hour race effort

w/ 2min recovery jogs

Terrain: Undulating hills.

Hunt some hills today. But nothing too mountainous. Ideal would be uphill and downhill sections that take anywhere from 10 seconds to two minutes so you have that feel of constant change, without the strain of a long, grinding hill.

No hills? No problem. Exchange the hills for a treadmill, changing the gradient every 90 seconds.

Fartlek workouts allow us the freedom to not worry what the watch is saying but to dial ourselves into how our bodies are working and free ourselves up to just have fun with the running.

They also allow us the opportunity to gradually introduce a new training stress, in this case hills, without shocking the body.

Find an undulating hilly trail to do this session on. However, be sure not to push the uphills too hard and end up spiking your effort levels. Keep in the back of your mind that you’re aiming for an effort level you could hold for one hour non-stop over this terrain.

The 2-minute jog recoveries play an important role in resetting the system, especially if you find you don’t get the pacing dialled in over the changing terrain.

THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK:

By Hayden Shearman

ANNOUNCEMENT: We have launched a Patreon page for those who are keen to support Workout of the Week and, in doing so, support the work we’re doing amongst young people in New Zealand—inspiring the next generation of runners.

So, we have just today launched a patron opportunity for you to not only support TempoFit Workout of the Week but also to support our work in schools and with young people (check out our school’s programme called Run Revolution).

For as little $5 a month (or less or more—whatever you’re happy to contribute) you can empower TempoFit to help 100s of adults progress their running journeys (through the Workout of the Week podcast and weekly run-zine) as well as kickstarting the running journeys for 1000s of school kids (through Run Revolution).

Plus, there are some pretty cool perks for being a Team TempoFit Patron …

So, for as little as the price of a coffee a month, you’re helping your own running and ensuring others discover a love for running as well!

Win!

Check out our Patreon page here.

Become a Patron!
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