Ever since I truly entered the athlete world I gravitated more towards individual type sports. In elementary school I enjoyed gymnastics, had a lengthy career in wrestling, girevoy sport (competitive kettlebell weightlifting) and finally ending up in triathlons. And yes, while wrestling and lifting I was a part of a 'team' your record and results rest firmly upon your shoulders as well as the majority of your training.
I would be training with a team but my training was my own. Now especially, even though I apart of a multisport club/running group the vast majority of my time training is Hans style (Solo..get it?).
Of course I know plenty of people who cant seem to work up the motivation to get the time on the spin bike in unless they're apart of a class and the only time they put serious road miles in is during the Saturday group ride that ends with a venti double frap. I'm just not that guy. So last week, I decided the majority of my training was going to be done in a group setting (minimum 3 people). Monday-Friday my lunchtime training session had some company. These weren't people who are training for the same races as I am but people I work with looking to get into the gym. (that right there might have been the first flaw in this otherwise air tight plan) but like a wise man once said "there is no such thing as bad ideas, only good ideas that go horribly wrong"
What's the plan?
The members of the group all participated in my daily training (they modified to their fitness level as needed) and followed my workout plans each day. My training plan has Monday/Friday as a light day, Tuesday/Thursday as a medium day and Wednesday as my hard day, saving myself up for long Saturday rides and Sunday runs. One of the biggest problems a lot of athletes run into is going too hard on lighter days and not hard enough on those hard days. I'm guilty of it plenty but have been really conscious of it the last 2-3 months.
What were the benefits?
In a group setting you have people to bounce energy and motivation off of. To keep those RPM's and Watts up on the bike or keeping good form during core workouts. It is also a good way to stay honest. In the pool I don't want to skip that 300 cool down if people are with me. Since I was leading these workouts I also didn't want to seem to be slacking. Everyday I had to be on top of my game otherwise shit, it just looks bad.
What were the setbacks?
Not every training session can be a balls to the wall type of workout, and that is lost sometimes when people aren't training to a specific event or plan. Working out in a group you can fall victim to that "I'll use a little more weight. Maybe I'll do an extra couple of sets too" mentality. Which if it is not on the right day can throw you off the rest of the week. You can also fall victim to the herd mentality where if two people are tired and don't want to do it, everyone is going to be less likely to want to do it too. And if this happens on a hard day (like Wednesday because the days prior were both treated like hard days) you're thrown off. And if people are still tired the following day, they wont push as hard as need be (resulting in a sub par Thursday) and then when its almost the weekend, everyone wants to make up for those last two days (pushing too hard on a Friday)
The findings
In solo endeavors like triathlons or weight lifting, your training plan is your training plan. And unless someone is on the same one (or one similar) it can really throw you off yours and detract from training toward your goal. Granted, you can do your own thing and let the group do theirs, but then it just becomes a bunch of people working out adjacent to each other vs together. It has its merits (I do enjoy my running group) and its drawbacks.
After one week, it was good to be back to training by myself and really focusing in on the goal I set. I can foresee the vast majority of my workouts being solo, but the occasional group swim/ride/run will work its way into the mix maybe once or twice a week. Especially once the weather is nice enough for open water swims.
This week (since I'll be in a course for work wed-fri) I am testing out meal prepping. I generally do a meal plan, but at the beginning of the week I busted out the Tupperware and packaged a weeks worth of dinner and lunches to cut down on time. Look for the in-depth write up next week! I can't see how I can get bored of grilled chicken and sweet potato!
