One-Hour Workout: Raising the Bar

This week’s workout comes from level 3 Triathlon Australia certified coach Michelle Duffield of Team 360 Performance. She competed as an age-group athlete (finishing on the podium at the Ironman World Championship), then as a pro, and now focuses full time on helping others achieve their performance goals.

Duffield finds that her athletes tend to want to spend too much time training at their target race pace, so she uses this workout as her go-to session to help them work above their comfort level.

“This is where things start to get uncomfortable, but it’s also where you will start to raise the bar on your threshold, and thereby improve your body’s aerobic threshold capacity,” she says.

She says the key to this session is to ensure the “easy” efforts are done really easy, and the “hard” efforts are a top-speed effort. This session is best done on a track to reduce interruptions.

Warm-up
10 minutes easy jog
Dynamic stretches and activation drills
4 x 50m run-throughs (starting easy and quickly building to 90% max)

Main Set
800m at 80% max effort, 400m easy jog, 15 seconds static rest
400m at 90% max effort, 400m easy jog, 15 seconds static rest
Repeat main set 2 – 3 times

Cool-down
10 minutes easy jog
Dynamic stretching