I watched a video yesterday about Professional triathlete Jan Frodeno, the reigning Ironman World Champion. It was a video outlining "a day in the life," of an elite triathlete's training regimen. In my own pursuit of professional status in triathlons I figured it would be a good indicator of where I need to end up. The volume of work he put out in a single day was nothing but impressive, and I couldn't help but be a little humbled as to my own physical limits and the long journey that awaits me to get there. Thinking about this, it dawned on me an aspect to my training that is the most important to accomplish my goals... Work Capacity.


Work capacity is the determining factor of what someone can and cannot do. We have all experienced that feeling of getting home from a brutal workout and not being able to move from being so sore and then everyone tells you that you are doing too much. Then the phrase "overtraining" begins to plague your thoughts and motivation. Truth be told that in that precise moment the soreness being experienced is a characteristic of having done too much, pushing the muscles beyond their limits. 

This is where the attribute of work capacity comes into play. Progress is a product of being able to do more work; be it move more weight, complete more repetitions or work for longer durations. This is work capacity. Being able to DO MORE WORK. Being able to do more work comes at a certain cost. Many people feel that if your numbers are not higher you are not progressing. However, when trying to develop higher work capacity you are pushing the body's limits and peak performance will tend to suffer from the greater need of recovery and breakdown being experienced during periods of training for work capacity. Training to develop work capacity is difficult to do, pushing the envelope of physical capacity requires digging deep and doing more that what you have done before, mentally and physically it is strenuous. Increasing the total volume of work you can handle is key in continuing to see progress and elicit physical adaptations. If you only do a certain amount of work day in and day out, your body eventually will regulate itself and it's recovery rate in order to not waste excess energy. This is when the body has adapted itself to make it more efficient at performing certain amounts of work and creates a threshold. If this threshold is never tested, the body will not continue to build and improve, performance will suffer and strengths gains will stagnate. 

The way to increase work capacity comes in the form of remembering the principle of Specific Adaptations to Imposed Demands, in other words, your body will adapt specifically to the resistances and workouts you put it through, and increasing work capacity comes in changing the imposed demand to a greater amount than previously experienced. 

A general scheme to increasing work capacity comes in a progressive manner slowly introducing higher intensities, resistances, and durations of work.

Week 1: Beginning level at normal training zone.

Weeks 2-6: Significantly increase training zone and slightly increase every week through week 6.

Week 7: Taper and recovery week, return to beginning training zone.

Weeks 8-11: Slightly increase training zone from work 6 and slightly increase every week through week 11.

Week 12: Taper and recover (just above beginning training zone).

(Next 12 week period should start at a higher comfortable work zone having achieved higher work capacity)

Watching and reading more triathlon training videos I have learned more about increasing my own work capacity and the importance it holds on my own goals, but it's applications for any fitness goal is essential. Strength and Health is a journey without end. You can always improve, and the only way to ensure progression is to improve Work Capacity.

Every Day... A Little Stronger