Week 3 - Off the Couch Training Plan - Building Base/Strength

From Paddle Coach Tyson Kubo, here is Week 3 of his Off-the-Couch Training Plan!

While this plan is generic to getting you ready for your paddling goals, Coach Tyson can also help you and your team with a custom program, whether virtual or in-person on Maui. Private coaching and group training sessions are also available. Contact him at trexkubo@gmail.com or 808-757-1587 to book your paddle/training time! 

Training programs are designed using a progressive workload. Meaning adding weight, frequency or number of repetitions every week for anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks followed by a recovery week to give your body the opportunity to repair itself. Each of these weekly blocks are considered mesocycles. Ideally, you want to stack 3 to 5 mesocycles consecutively to create a macrocycle or training program. The longer the training program doesn't necessarily mean the better it is for you. That's dependent on your current fitness and intensity of your program. Elite athletes are able to get into race shape in three months or shorter. For the average athlete, it may be upwards of 4 months before you would be ready. It all depends on what you start with and how much of a foundation you already have established.

The rule of thumb to building fitness is the lower the level of intensity, the longer the adaptation period is to develop that particular area, and the higher level of fitness you can achieve. As the intensity goes up, the training time to develop that level of intensity gets shorter. Its possible to overtrain a particular intensity so having a proper program is key to being efficient with your time and working smarter, not harder.

Key Abbreviations: 

LSD = Long Slow Day 

AeT =  Aerobic Threshold 

AnT = Anaerobic Threshold  

L1-L5 = Level 1 to Level 5 (see Training Zones article above) 

w/u = warm-up 

w/d = warm-down 

‘ = minutes 

“ = seconds 

Now get out there and remind the ocean who you are.