SAID Training

Sunday, June 04, 2017 · Mike Davis

Good morning,

Sorry, that I have been offline for over a week, but I enjoyed some family stuff this past week. My running and strength training were also somewhat affected by my priorities, but that was perfectly fine. As I chatted about this past winter, I have learned that family time is more important than anything. Thankfully though, I am married to a woman that likes to workout, so that makes it somewhat easier.

This week our NFLR training group will feature an interval workout at the track. Wednesday evening at 6pm we will meet at Dover high school for 400 meter repeats. If you are a regular Coffee & Chat reader, you know that I am a huge proponent of intervals. Many people misunderstand interval workouts and believe them only to be a “speed workout,” however intervals can be also used for improvement with pacing, running efficiency, turnover, and discipline. All being valuable to improving overall running. This Wednesday’s interval workout will focus on improving pacing and running efficiency, by having the group push their pace slightly and maintaining it consistently. This will challenge them to “feel” the effects of increased pace and duplicate it for each 400m interval.

Intervals, hill repeats and steady state runs are all “Specific Adaption to Imposed Demands” (SAID), workouts. Every run or workout, should have an intended goal specific to the overall training goal. Our current training group is training for a hilly 5 and 10K event, and using ‘SAID’, we are developing efficiency, strength, and endurance. What differentiates No Finish Line Running from a “running club,” is actually the ‘SAID’ principles we use in our training. Every run or even a strength training session, should have a specific goal intended to bring about adaption to muscles, whether it be the heart muscle (cardiovascular) or other muscles specific to the goal.

Most of us, may not think beyond just wanting to lace up our shoes and go for a run, without putting any thought into ‘SAID’ and that is perfectly fine. However, many want to either improve their running or find greater enjoyment while running. ‘SAID’ can help with both, as it is a way for us to understand that in order to run easier or faster, we have to impose some demands on various systems in order to improve them. For us at NFLR, we take the planning out of the runner’s hands and design their training based on ‘SAID’. What we need to do better is to explain to our runners what each workout is intended to accomplish, so they know why they are doing what they are doing.

If you want to join us this Wednesday at 6pm for our interval workout at Dover high school, by all means, come on over. Bring a water bottle and plan to have a lot of fun, while improving your running!

Have a great week and see you on the roads!

God Bless!

Mike