The mechanism of getting faster.

We should train according to the target race, the distance which you run at your next target race and the date of your next target race.

However, here’s the question. Why do we get faster by training?

I know this question is strange. Everybody knows that you’ll get faster more or less if you train yourself. But most people cannot answer how they get faster by training. If you don’t know this, you cannot think about what kind of training the best is because if you don’t know the mechanism, you don’t know what you do exactly and if you don’t know exactly what you are doing here, you cannot know what the best is. And if you don’t know what the best is, running becomes a gamble. If you want to be a gambler, it is OK to train randomly or decide what your workout today is by throwing a dice.

However, if you want to run faster surely and/or achieve your goal surely, you need to have a scientific aspect. Scientific means, the more you repeat it, the more you get an expected result. Meaning, you can expect your future exactly.

So, we should know what kind of training system leads you into your potential performance. This is the purpose of this book.

And before we dive into the mechanism of training, we should know how our life system is working, in other words, why we don’t die and how our life phenomena are working well.

The dynamic equilibrium

Here’s the English saying ‘Don’t fix it when it’s not broken’.

Yes, if it’s not broken, we don’t fix it, touch it and take it apart, make sense?

But the truth is, our bodies are always being catabolized and synthesized at the same time. Our bodies consist of 37 trillions cells (the number changes according to researchers. One says 37 trillions and one says 60 trillions, one says 100 trillion but who cares? Do you?).

And every day about one percent of cells die and one percent of cells are regenerated, in other words, every day about 500 billions cells die and 500 billions new cells are born whether you know that or not.

Then here’s the question. Why are we always same?

At a micro sight, we are always changing dramatically because one percent a day means, we change into a completely different person physically 100 days from now. However, at a macro level, we are always same. Why?

It’s because cells are reborn based on the information which stores in DNA. DNA is a store place of information. That information is how our body should be designed, created and built. I highly believe that also thought is stored in DNA. In the past, I didn’t believe that mentality or thought was stored in DNA, in other words, I didn’t believe any tribes had a unique mentality or thought at a genetic level. Although I know all cultures are different and  there are German thought, Kenyan thought, Japanese thought, American thought etc because I traveled all over the World.

But I thought that all of that kind of mentality and thought difference come from the education, parents, teachers and society.

However, one day I realized that I had the old Japanese mindset and thought. In Japan, after Japan lost the war against the USA in 1945, the society and culture changed dramatically. Many old Japanese thought and books were banned out by the USA, especially by General Douglas Macarthur. Mass media, education and published books were investigated before being published and many of them which taught people the Japanese traditional thought were banned out. So, these days we do not have many chances to learn from wise people who lived before 1945. So, don’t I.

I haven’t had chance to learn from wise people who lived before the great East Asian war.

However, I always thought that I was a bit different with my parents, teachers, people in the modern Japan. And one day, by chance I got a book which was written in 1930s and I was shocked because I knew intuitively what that book taught me. I already knew that kind of old Japanese mentality and thought even no one taught me.

So, I highly believe that not only physical information is scripted in DNA but also informational information is scripted in DNA. I know ‘informational information’ sounds strange, but you know what I want to tell you, right?

Anyway, at least physical information is scripted in DNA and when the cells in our bodies are regenerated, the cells are regenerated based on the information which stores in DNA. And in fact, that information is expressed in this physical world. For example, my skin color is brown, the color of eyes are brown (or some people would say black), my height is 167 cm and my face looks very Japanese. All these things are expressed in this physical world based on my DNA.

Please understand this. Information is in DNA and all physical things are created based on the information in DNA. But information itself and if it is expressed are different. If it is not written in DNA, it cannot be expressed. So, my skin color will never be white and my height will never be 2m because this kind of information is not written in my DNA.

But not all information in my DNA is expressed in this physical world. It is said that only 1% of information is expressed in this physical world. And the rest of 99% is called potential abilities. But it does not mean that I still have 99% of potential abilities as a long distance runner because I have already trained for 20 years very seriously and I already improved a lot. That means, most information about endurance ability in my DNA is already expressed. So, I cannot improve 30 minutes from now although I still believe that I am able to run a full marathon 2:06 (It’s only 7 minutes improvements by the way).

While if you are a 4:30 marathoner, you can still improve a lot, at least one hour to 2 hours if you are still 30 years old because there is still much more information about endurance ability which is not expressed yet in your DNA.

So, basically the higher level you are at, the more difficult you improve more and the more training you need to improve one minute in a full marathon and vice versa. The lower level you are at, the easier you can improve your time and the less training you need to improve more.

This phenomenon is called ‘the law of diminishing returns’.

The law of diminishing returns is originally an economic concept.

For example, you have your own land, let’s say 100m times 100m rice field. And you invested 100 US dollars in fertilizer. Now, you get more rice from the same rice field. So, in the next year, you invested 200 US dollars in fertilizer. Now you get more rice but not as twice as you got in the last year although your investment was as twice as the previous year.

And in the third year you invested 4 times more in fertilizer, in other words as twice as you invested in the previous year and you got more rice but it’s not as twice as you got in the previous year.

The more you invest, the more rice you can get but return on investment is getting less and less because there is the limit that you can get from 100m times 100m rice field.

Training is the same. Let’s make the story simple. Let’s say you always run 5:00/km pace. Please don’t say ‘It’s unrealistic’. I know that, but now I try to make this thing as simple as possible. If the pace is always same, the only variable is volume (distance).

Now, you don’t run at all. But one day, you make a decision to start running. So, in the first 4 weeks, you run 20km a week and you improved a lot. And in the next four weeks, you run 40km a week. And you improved a lot but not as much as you improved from 0km to 20km a week.

And in the next 4 weeks, you run 60km a week. Again, you improved a lot. But not as much improvement as from 0km to 20km a week. And in the next 4 weeks, you run 80km a week, you improved but not as much as from 0km to 20km. And finally, you increased your mileage from 200km to 220km a week, you hardly see the improvement.

Basically, the more you run, the faster you get. But return on 1km running is getting less and less. This is the law of diminishing. In other words, the faster you get, the more training you need to get faster.

The reason is again, because the more information (genes) in DNA about endurance abilities is expressed, the less information in DNA about endurance abilities which are still sleeping are left. So, it’s getting more and more difficult to improve your time.

And also remember, sleeping information in DNA is not expressed randomly. Sleeping information in DNA is expressed based on the stimulus which your body gets specifically. For example, if you live in a hot place, your body gets stronger to heat and if you live in a cold place, your body gets stronger to cold. If you swim, you become a better swimmer, if you play baseball, you become a better baseball player, if you sprint, you become a better sprinter and if you run a long distance, you become a better long-distance runner. This phenomenon is called the law of specificity because your sleeping information in DNA is expressed specifically to the stimulus which your body gets.

I described ‘It’s said 99% of our potential abilities are still sleeping’, remember?

Again, that doesn’t mean that I still have 99% of sleeping information in DNA which is about endurance abilities because I have given my body a lot of stimuluses about long distance running. A lot of my information in DNA is already expressed specifically to those stimuluses.

However, there are many stimuluses that I have never given my body. For example, I hardly played piano, I hardly played soccer, I hardly played basketball, I have never spoken Spanish, I have never spoken French in my entire life. And there are many more things that I have never done in my entire life and I hardly have done in my entire life. If I don’t give the certain stimulus, the information in DNA which responds to that stimulus do not get expressed. So, I think that still 99% of information in DNA is sleeping and wait for my wake up call and so does the information in your DNA.

Now a lot of information in your DNA about endurance abilities is waiting for your wake up call.

Now, I think that you already understood the mechanism of training, didn’t you?

Let’s summarize it.

First of all, our bodies consist of about 37 trillions cells and every day approximately one percent of them die and one percent of new cells are regenerated. And new cells are regenerated based on information in your DNA. So, at a macro sight, we are basically always same nevertheless our cells are always regenerated at a micro sight.

But if our bodies get a stimulus, new cells are created according to the stimulus. Of course, if there is no information about it in our DNA, it cannot be created. So, we cannot fly, for example or we cannot swim like a shark. Because that kind of information is not written in our DNA.

However, if there is that kind of information in our DNA, new cells are created according to the stimulus which our bodies get. And inducing that physical character from the DNA is called express while in formation in DNA is not expressed yet is called dormant. And DNA gets expressed specifically to the certain stimulus. So, our body changes according to the stimulus specifically. This phenomenon is called the law of specificity.

So, if we do long-distance running, our bodies change specifically for long-distance running. And then the information about long-distance running abilities is induced from our DNA and the more we do long-distance running, the more DNA about long-distance running abilities get expressed and at the same time the less DNA about long-distance running is still dormant.

That’s why the higher level you are at, the more training you need to improve further and the more difficult you get faster. This phenomenon is called the law of diminishing returns.

This article is a part of my e-book 'The most effective training system for middle and long distance running and marathon'. I'm going to publish it soon. Please look forward to it.