The difference between useful training and useless training

Do you know there is useful training and useless training?

In other words, do you know there is training in vain?

Today, I will tell you that most amateur runners misunderstand or simply don’t know.

If I tell you what I want to tell you today with one word, ‘Your race result is not what you’ve done for the race, but what your body adapted to what you’ve done for the race’.

This sounds similar or even the same, but the difference is huge.

Many people think that the more they train, the faster they get or the harder they train, the faster they get, but it is wrong.

The truth is, the more your body adapts to the right stimulus, the faster you get.

Here are two points.

First point is adaptation.

Adaptation is transformation in a positive way. When we were born, we almost have limitless possibilities. But, we hardly use these possibilities.

For example, I have the possibility to be a good swimmer, but I’m a bad swimmer.

I have the possibility to be a good piano player, but I have never played piano.

I have the possibility to be a good sprinter, but I am a bad sprinter.

I have the possibility to be a good French speaker, but I have never spoken French.

I have thousands of other possibilities, but most of the possibilities are just possibilities, in other words, it is not reality.

While, I’m a very good Japanese speaker, I speak Japanese better than all Japanese people around me, I’m a very good student in social study like Japanese history, philosophy, economic, politics, Japanese, old Japanese etc. And I’m a good marathoner.

I adapted to these stimuluses very well and in fact, my muscles, lungs, hearts, neurons, everything changes in a positive way. This is adaptation. If adaptation doesn’t occur, it has no meaning, no matter how hard I train or study.

Remember, training, practice, study or learning without adaptation has no meaning.

We don’t get faster by training but adaptation.

Of course, there is no adaptation without training. However, training and adaptation are not equal.

This is the reason why two runners who train equally hard make very different results sometimes. And also, this is the reason why some runners train seriously but do not get improvements.

Then what is the difference between training with adaptation and training without adaptation?

There are four differences between training with adaptation and training without adaptation.

First, the training stimulus should not be too strong, in other words, the training load should not be too high. This is the reason why races are not good training. If the race is good training, you better do races every weekend and you get faster and faster. Plain and simple. But the truth is not so simple.

Second, you need to recover from training enough. If your body doesn’t recover well, your training has no training effect.

Third, frequency. You need to repeat the certain stimulus frequently enough. And also, this is the reason why workouts should not be too hard and races are not good training method. The harder workouts are, the more complicated you repeat it.

Actually, above third factors are almost same because if it is too hard, if you can recover easily and if you can repeat it frequently depends on your recovery ability (the natural healing power, the homeostasis function) and the external training load very much.

This is the reason why you need to increase your recovery ability first by doing lots of easy runs, easy to moderate runs and moderate runs.

And also, this is the reason why I invented the third Ikegami machine and sell it. It forces you recover faster.

Fourth condition is, training stimulus should be close to the stimulus which you already adapted to.

For example, if you and your body adapt to 100km a week training, it is easy to go for 120km a week training relatively. While, if you and your body do not adapt to 80km a week training yet, probably 100km a week training breaks your body sooner or later. You won’t get faster.

By the way, above 4 conditions can apply to everything in your life. Even our mind can get broken down if we do not follow the above 4 conditions.

If I get physical punishment because of my mistake in my business, I can take it because I have got so many physical punishments in my life. I’m already used to it. By the way, physical punishments in Japan are a part of education. It is much different with something like white people whipped black slaves in the USA 100 years ago. There should be love with physical punishments.

Anyway, the reason why I adapted to this kind of mental stimulus (physical punishments) is because first, the stimulus wasn’t too hard (my father slapped me at the right intensity and with the right repetitions), second after that my mom hugged me, gave me toys, sweets etc, in other words, I recovered well, and third I got physical punishments not only once but repeatedly, in other words, enough frequencies. And fourth, in Japan gentler physical punishments are used to younger boys and the older boys get, the harder physical punishments are used, in other words, we got something which was close to something we already adapted to, used to.

On the other hand, do you know 1000 yards stare?

This is a famous picture of an American young soldier who fought against emperial Japanese infantries in the island Peleliu.

First, he got too hard stimulus at one time for his mind, second, he couldn’t recover well because the ferocious battle kept going on, third it wasn’t something he already adapted to in his hometown.

So, he was completely broken down and could not focus properly anymore. Oh boy.

If you cannot adapt to physical stimulus, you get injured or get overtraining, as a result you get slower or at least you are not able to run faster with hard training and if you cannot adapt to mental stimulus, you get PTSD or depression or burn-out syndrome.

The mechanism is the same.

And if you understand the mechanism of adaptation (getting faster by training), you’ll know why fundamental training should be easy run, easy to moderate run, moderate run, supplemental speed workouts and light speed workouts as main workouts.

Anyway, if you understand above 4 conditions (factors), you’ll understand the difference between useful training and useless training.

The second mystery is, why I’m a bad sprinter but a good marathoner?

Why?

Because I didn’t give a certain stimulus to my body for sprinting.

We adapt to the stimulus specifically.

So, if my training is very well designed for marathon, I become a better marathoner instead of becoming a better sprinter.

Also, if your training is very well designed for a 5000m runner, you become a better 5000m runner instead of becoming a better baseball player.

Again, if you fulfill above 4 conditions of adaptation.

However, here’s the question.

What kind of training program fulfills the above 4 conditions and how can you create well designed training program for your goal?

How?

I explain more details in 9 hours online course ‘the most effective training system for distance runners and marathoners’. If you want to get faster dramatically in the next 2-3 years, please click here to check what it is.

The CEO of Well-being LTD

Ikegami Hideyuki