I have chosen my athlete type as “climber” for no reason other than I’m small and don’t weight a lot and I really liked their hills when doing ultra-marathons. So, I’ve chosen workouts that follow from the athlete type.
Of course at my chronological age of 83, there appear to be insufficient numbers of individuals in that category to generate a specific athlete type when looking at the “Wheel” depiction under Ranking. Interestingly, When I choose a conservative physiological age (most recently from Garmin), and using my last six weeks of training, I come up with an athlete type of Power Sprinter w/ a value of 10/15. If I choose Climber, I fall at about 7.5.
So, when I select workouts, should I choose them based upon Power Sprinter or Climber as an athlete type. Or, are those ostensible differences simply arbitrary metrics and not actually predictive of anything and, hence, it doesn’t matter what my athlete type is as to workout selection?
FWIW, I have no goals whatever except those associated with improving my fitness signatures, whatever that may look like.
Joel Friel’s “Fast after 50” is a good read for older athletes if you’ve not found that book yet.
I’m only 55, but I’ve already planned out generally what my workout “weeks” (whether that’s 7 days or 10 or whatever) will look like into the future. Two to three days a week of strength training overlapped with bike workouts, with the bike workouts very polarized – mostly below LTP with one, two at the most high intensity workouts to maintain VO2Max. Strength training is very (most?) important for maintaining health span as far as everything I’ve been reading and hearing.
I would thinking getting in the high intensity VO2Max workouts once a week is what you would want to shoot for, whatever athlete type you choose, filtering on focus when choosing a workout if XATA is not giving them to you when it computes you’re rested.
But there are much more knowledgable people in the forums than me.
Thank you for your reply, Jonathon. Yes, as to strength training, I couldn’t agree more with you. When I return to doing it, I use an HIT protocol w/ XForce machines whose computer control amplifies the weight of the eccentric portion of the movement cycle by a factor of 40% (100# arm curl positive becomes 140# on the negative). Eight exercises each to full involuntary muscular failure precludes overlapping with my indoor cycling. In fact, I’m pleased if I can do such a workout once every three weeks. Indeed so on the VO2max workouts, just what i’ve begun to do. Thanks again, Anthony
