Category Archives: VDOT O2

Aug 05 2020
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Exercise, General health, Life, Training, VDOT O2

A Truth About Coaching and Personal Training

Where most people really need to work on themselves is in:

  • The Kitchen. The oft cited, never sourced adage is that 80% of your body comp depends on your diet, and abs are made in the kitchen. Debate the stats all you want but this is the truth. You can’t outwork a sub-optimal diet.
  • The Bedroom. (I don’t mean hanky panky either.) People need to get better sleep. Even well-trained athletes struggle to get consistent, high quality sleep. A lack of high quality sleep produces a snowball effect of stress, hormonal deprivation, and general fatigue that follows you wherever you go.
  • Their own minds. We all have our motivations, insecurities, anxieties, that drive us or hold us back. For many people, whatever they think they’re going to find in the gym or in therapy/medication is something they need to reconcile within themselves. It can be a general insecurity, something bad from the past, etc.

This is a fundamental issue I discovered with the use of personal training, even as I was studying to become a CPT. For the vast majority of people I could end up working with, I could only address the at-best ancillary concern of developing a workout program. I could not address let alone solve the underlying problems behind why they felt they needed it. And I cannot reconcile the salesman’s mindset to take their money because those underlying problems ultimately don’t matter as much as the need to train.

This is not totally the industry’s fault by any means. Trainers are just trying to earn a living. You paying for personal training pays their bills. Don’t take this as a fundamental indictment of personal trainers. Hell, all trainers are battling the exact same challenges I just listed. These needs and challenges are just as true for CPTs.

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Oct 25 2019
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Running, Training, VDOT O2

Working Class Running Coach

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I am a VDOT O2 Certfied Distance Running Coach.

Daniels Running Formula was one of the first running books I seriously read and referenced during my serious distance running practice. No resource taught me more about the relationship between race performances, different forms of training, or the different workouts that go into every week/cycle of training.

Growing into my running ability, VDOT O2 was instrumental in showing me not just the best paces to run key workouts, but the ideal volumes. It indicated when a particular workout might be too much, and helped prevent me from overtraining.

It also showed me when I could push myself a bit more. I’m certain I would not have made the progress I have as a runner if not for VDOT O2 showing me that I was capable of doing more.

Sure, I don’t consider it a perfect metric. The one bit of feedback I get across the board about VDOT O2 is that is vastly overestimates most people’s marathon ability. It does assume elite or high level ability in runners when projecting a finish time for new marathoners, and of course most people don’t have that ability. The marathon workout plans in the book also are rather demanding for what most people can do. Once you achieve a certain level of fitness at the marathon distance or longer, its predictions for your marathon times become more reliable.

But for everything from the Half Marathon on down, I’ve found the methodology sound. Yes, the metric’s flattish projection calculus has you pushing yourself quite hard from the 10K to the Half distance. But again, I believe that was a key reason I improved so much at shorter races.

Even as I’ve worked with, experimented with, other approaches, my fundamental practice always came back to the principles of VDOT O2.

I’m proud to be a VDOT O2 Certfied Distance Running Coach, and look forward to continuing to help working class runners in Las Vegas and across the world improve their fitness and achieve their running goals… from the mile to the marathon.

 

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