There are 8 plates, and each plate has a name, all begin with ‘S’:
- Strength
- Speed
- Stamina
- Skill (or Technique)
- Sleep (and Rest, or Recovery)
- Suppleness (aka Flexibility)
- Sustenance (Food, or ‘Sprouts’ if you want a food beginning with ‘S’) and
- Sychology
We like our numbers when we publish blog posts or write book titles, and since I’ve managed to shoehorn the letter S onto all of them, I was tempted to call this “The 8 Ss of endurance sports”, except that half of them have noms [sic] de plumes and the eighth S is a son-of-a-nutcracker. But I’m beginning in the middle of the story, so let me be kind, rewind (and generally Swede this blog post) a little.
In running, triathlon, freediving, and so many sports and physical activities, we are constrained by one of the 8 Ss. Sometimes it’s our schedule that stops us from cramming them all in and sometimes it’s our preference. (I just don’t like yoga.) It might be a persistent lack of sleep that prevents us from being a faster swimmer, or a lack of speed work that prevents us from running faster, a lack of strength that prevents us from cycling harder, or a lack of attention to what is going on in our head (sychology) that prevents us from holding our breath longer during freediving.
That which constrains us at any one point in time will depend on the person and the activity. Strength is more important in running than freediving, where flexibility and sychology feature more prominently. But where these 8 Ss have really helped is when my life has been too disrupted and disjointed to follow a strict training plan.
In weeks with no training plan I know what constrains me and I can give that one S more attention. But I also try to hit them all to some degree. Strength might come from a random set of burpees, or a high gear workout on a bike; suppleness gets some focus with a foam roller work in front of the telly. As I go through the week I can mentally tick off the Ss I’ve hit and those I haven’t until I get to the eighth day, when I can reward myself with sprouts.
This post was inspired by reading a wonderful book called “The art of running faster“ and I have shamelessly taken the lessons from one of the authors, Julian Goater, to heart.
