Two-A-Days
If you played high school sports, you probably have nightmares about the words, “Two-A-Days.” Football practice before and after school was punishing. In the sport of Triathlon, working out twice a day is standard procedure. Triathletes do “Brick” sessions and/or two separate sessions of two sports in one day quite often. Two-A-Days, 2 workouts in the same sport in 1 day, we see less often. The two-a-day strategy can be great for working on your weakness and/or doing a block of single sport focus.
THE KEYS TO A TWO-A-DAY STRATEGY:
The first session should hold the intensity/interval work. The second session holds the aerobic or threshold/tempo work
There should be at least a 3-hour gap between sessions (5 is better). Typically done before/after work
Be sure to refuel after your first session, especially if you go into that session fasted
The benefits of a two-a-day strategy:
Physiological gains in a weak discipline
Volume benefits with time constraints
Maintain fitness during sport specific injury, ie no running due to a stress fracture
MY FAVORITE TWO-A-DAY SESSIONS:
SWIM
Early AM-Speedwork. Easy warm up followed by some drills (single arm drill and fist drill) then 10X100 fast on 15 sec rest, 10X50 faster on 20 sec rest, 10X25 all out on 30 sec rest followed by an easy cooldown
After work PM-Aerobic capacity. 3-5X1000 building from easy to Half Ironman pace on 10 sec rest. Swim the evens and pull the odds
BIKE
Early AM-Vo2 max intervals. Best done on the trainer. Easy spin warm up with some cadence work mixed in then go 5-8X3 minutes all out (125-150% FTP) on 3 minutes easy recovery followed by a cool down
After work PM-Steady zone 2. 90-120 minutes steady zone 2 ride
RUN
Early AM-Track session. Warm up then drills (hip swings and butt kickers) followed by 10-12X400 on 2-3 minutes easy recovery. Be sure to cool down an easy mile jog
After work PM-Progressive tempo. 45-75 minutes broken into 3rds as easy/marathon pace/half marathon pace