Consistency

The art and skill of repetition

• Principle: Your body responds to the demands placed upon it.

• Training Goal (endurance): Manipulate the demand(s) and influence the response.

• Model: The super compensation model is an approach that places sufficient demand in combination with adequate support (recovery). It leverages the bodies tendency to “over-respond” (over compensate). Therefore if correctly managed you can incrementally improve performance as each cycle of overcompensation builds on the next.

The crucial part of improvement is that:

1. We apply the right dose on demand side

   AND

2. We also support the process of adaptation to occur

   THEN

3. We repeat this cycle.

Success comes from the 3 steps NOT just step 1 of dosing

Let’s dive into the steps:

• Step 1:

  Often in coaching I witness a high focus on the details of step 1, the demand side.

  Individuals will ask me about overly minor details of a session or seek to smash a single activity to maximise that one dose of demand.

• Step 2:

  However, it is far less common for individuals to talk to me about optimising step 2, the recovery post session.
  Also there is less emphasis on the arrival at a session in best condition to create and absorb the stimulus.

  There is one caveat to this.

  When this step is promoted through a commercial product aka a recovery tool or a supplement. Those magic trousers or that special potion that promise game-changing results.
  We can explore more into this topic via another post if you ask. The model I refer to is the fire-fighter model. Before each session arrive in good order (physically and logistically), complete the activity, then finish up by taking the steps to be best placed for the next activity.

• Step 3:
  The repeat. This is the main topic for today’s post. This repeatability is the key. aka consistency.

The visualisation tick-tock story:
A few years ago my wife asked me to see if I could fix a family heirloom of a pendulum clock. I opened up the insides and found parts of the mechanism that I think explain the above principle perfectly.

Known as the anchor escapement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchor_escapement

Have a look at this video to see it in action

The mechanism in the video shows that for it to function it must repeat the cycle of a tick (demand) followed by a tock (recovery).

When this is repeated the clock functions and we get progress.

Trying to overload the demand, or the recovery doesn’t work. No progress is made.

If you apply too much force you damage the mechanism. It’s the oscillation back and forth that governs the progress.

We now have the knowledge of the underlying principles, we have the appreciation of the repetition of the pattern and the visualisation that no single session of stimulus nor the recovery can dominate.

The question now is how do we achieve the consistency?

Here are models:

1 Time Triggered Consistency:

This is the simplest in concept. At the same time within the period, which could be daily or weekly you perform the activity.

Examples of this are the classic Sunday morning cycle or the daily stretching session. Or the “5am club” concept.

At the same time every day the activity is performed. The consistency is based on time triggering another repetition.

It’s a very reliable method to trigger the prompt to perform another rep as the time trigger does not rely on the individual signalling the prompt.

The clock strikes, the alarm sounds, you respond.

However the challenge can be the commitment to respond to the trigger. The alarm sounds but you hit snooze.

2 Event Triggered Consistency:

This method of consistency links the activity to the other demand. For example a commute is changed to an active commute.

The demand of work travel already exists and you adjust this to be a trigger to an activity. Smaller micro event examples are those little repeated daily activities.

There is currently already consistency in the events so we combine or link to the new activity. For example calf raises whilst tooth brushing, press-ups whilst the kettle is boiling, planking during TV adverts.

The benefit of this approach is the association can be made quite strongly and can flow into your identity. “I’m the kind of person that always does x when y happens”. Also these approaches can often be about an efficiency or optimisation of time by doing 2 activities in one like the active commute.

An interesting twist on this is to do the activity before the trigger. For example, a daily stretching exercise before getting dressed. By placing as a precondition the chances of doing the activity can increase. No one wants to go to work in PJ’s.

3. External Group or Person Trigger – An example of this is a club session.

This is a slight combination with time as it maybe at a regular schedule such as a weekly swim but the emphasis is more on the consistency driven by the accountability or enjoyment of the club environment.

Equally there can be some variation on the timing. For example a weekend cycle with a friend or a club may not be at the same time or day each week. Instead the activity is prioritised based on the weather but the consistency is that it will happen each weekend at some point.

4. Body Based - HRV, feel / emotional trigger – This starts to get more subjective. With this one we take into account a level of recovery or emotional readiness.

It can also combine with other triggers. For example, I will run 4 days this week however I will choose which days based on my mood and desire / mojo. Or I will do an activity each day but I only do stretching or mindful activity such as meditation or breathwork on days when HRV is low/recovery.

5. Inconsistent consistency / ad-hoc trigger – This is a bit of a quirk one. What is inconsistent consistency?

The trigger for the activity appears random in the day, maybe even in the week but step back and there is a pattern in the cycle. Perhaps the pattern appears over a fortnight or the month.

We start to see that the demand or stimulus does map to the capacity available.

I once trained with someone who had this approach. She travelled extensively but ad-hoc for work. Sometimes long distances for a single day and sometimes for multi-day within the UK or across Europe.

We met approximately once per month at an open-water swim venue and she would talk about how inconsistent her training was.

However, on deeper analysis although each week was individual there were patterns. She would take her running shoes with her for overnight work stays and usually started mornings away with a run. She was diligent about banking a turbo when at home although the days would vary and sometimes quite bizarre hours. Completing a longer session would be a priority whenever the opportunity arose especially at weekends or if she was ever at home early one day.

Additionally 2 other factors were present.

She was totally comfortable with training at very unusual hours, perhaps late at night, in the middle of the day between client meetings if working from home. Or like the open water swims we did together, it was a 5am start to be at the venue for 6am and swimming at 6.30am.

The second element that made it work was her socialising was based around sport and activities. She would meet others whenever she could either to do sport together or via group sessions.

She seemed to get a real buzz from this approach and was highly successful representing GB in triathlon age-group. Her inconsistency both in timing and structure due to ad-hoc travel actually resulted in very consistent monthly loading.

Call to action:

Have a look at your own training. Maybe look back over the last week, last 4-8 weeks and the last season. There are lots of tools for this such as strava, especially the yearly round-up or a great tool is https://runalyze.com/ which allows some super visualisation of activities.

• What would your view of your own consistency looks like?

• Are there common approaches that are giving you the results you want?

• Are there elements that you are struggling with?

• Do any of the patterns above give you alternative approaches or mental framing that could help?

Final reflections

Be compassionate with yourself in this exercise.

It can be quite common to beat yourself up looking for perfection or excellence. Instead consider an exercise to explore whether what you say you want is aligning with your actions and prompting potential change.

Coincidently I was listening to this podcast https://www.richroll.com/podcast/oliver-burkeman-951/ the week I was finishing this post.

2 things stand out.

• Daily-ish maybe perfect.

• If you fall off the horse, which should be anticipated, then the skill to master is getting back on, and on again, and again.

How is your rhythm of stimulus / adaption consistency?