If you are an endurance athlete, I’m sure you have heard, “I’m building my base” or “base is the place” or “I’m in my base building phase”. Let’s see what all this hype about base training is? 

Base training, in simple terms, is the basic work that you do before doing the more complicated workouts in your training cycle. It’s the phase of training where patience is required, and you put in a lot of slow miles. Most of the athletes start their training year with a base-building period. For most elite runners, it’s the period from November to January. 

There are many physical benefits of base training. Plus, this period gives athletes a chance to correct their form and work on injuries. Base training should be a staple for every running program. According to coach Andrew Simmons ” Shaky foundations don’t produce solid future structures.” Like the foundation of a house determines how strong the building is, the amount of time spent on base training determines the outcome of an athlete’s season and performance. 

A Bit of History-

Before 1960, athletes repeatedly did interval training, day in day out. In the 1960’s Olympic games, New Zealand athletes won medals in many track and field competitions, and most of them were trained by the coach, Arthur Lydiard. Lydiard believed that building an aerobic base by training at lower intensities would allow athletes to get stronger during the main training phase and peak on time for their competitions. According to Lydiard’s pyramid, the bigger the base, the higher the athlete’s peak. 

Building the Aerobic Capacity-

You might have heard that the reason to build the base is to build aerobic capacity. Most of the new runners, when they first start out, want to run fast, period. So, they train vigorously every day. Soon, they overtrain or get injured. If that isn’t the outcome, they reach their goals in the first season and plateau for the rest of the year. Does that sound familiar?

Science Behind Base Building- 

Building the aerobic capacity lets the athletes efficiently buffer low levels of lactate. According to LiveScience, lactate is a chemical byproduct of anaerobic respiration, the process by which cells produce energy without oxygen (1). Increased lactate, due to anaerobic energy production, in your bloodstream leads to acidic blood with pH levels below 7 (2). Lowering of blood pH produces multiple symptoms associated with fatigue such as muscle burning and reduced work capacity.Base building prepares the body’s lactate buffering engine to keep the blood pH levels stable. Base training also builds capillaries that transport oxygen and allow efficient glycogen storage. Metabolically, your body becomes better at using fatty acids and spares the glycogen stores. 

Proper base building is essential. Without a proper base it isn’t possible to reap all these benefits of base training. Most of the athlete’s base training should be in the endurance zone or ZONE-2. You can calculate your endurance zone by plugging the heart rate numbers in a maximum heart rate formula. Endurance zone is 70% – 80% of your Max Heart Rate. You can visit omni calculator to calculate the numbers for you. The larger the base you build in this zone, the better your training will be for the rest of the year.

Arthur Lydiard, the father of base training, has presented many base training plans depending on athletes’ training age in his book Running to The Top. An example training plan form his book for a new runner is below. This plan can be progressed by increasing the running time. For injury-prone athletes alternate days can be cross training days. The critical thing to remember is to keep most of these miles at endurance or aerobic pace.

Monday 15-30 minutes

Tuesday 30 – 60 minutes

Wednesday 15-45 minutes

Thursday 30-45 minutes

Friday OFF

Saturday 15-45 minutes

Sunday 30-60 minutes

Why is Moderate Intensity the Enemy?

Most runners spend most of their training time in ZONE-3 or threshold zone. That’s where the athletes get stuck. This zone is called Zone-X by running coach and author of 80/20 running, Matt Fitzgerald. This is the zone where the body produces high levels of lactate, and the heart rate zone is neither recovery nor threshold. You probably feel-good pushing hard on every run, but it doesn’t improve your performance. So, steer clear of this zone during the base building period. This zone has its place in training for tempo runs after a strong base is built. 

To train well for your races, you must start with a solid fitness base. Put in the time now to build your base, and it will pay off later in a huge amount.

References

1-https://www.livescience.com/lactic-acid.html

2- https://doi.org/10.1152/ajpregu.00114.2004