Consistency / Frequency for Performance
Which one is more important for training? 🤔
Hello, happy Saturday 🙌
It looks like a lot of rain in the forecast over here in Vancouver, which isn’t exactly a shocker since it’s November and Vancouver weather does what Vancouver weather does… 🌧️. If it is raining where you are as well, I feel you. If it’s sunny where you are, please let me know where that is so I can come for a visit!
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Okay, lets have a little conversation about Consistency / Frequency for Performance.
About a month ago, I posted a poll on Instagram asking: What’s more important for your training, Consistency or Frequency? The responses were:
Consistency - 98%
Frequency - 2%
To be completely honest, it was a bit of a trick question. I knew the sweeping answer would be consistency, yet I asked the question anyways, mostly because I planned on sharing some of my thoughts. I admit I was hoping frequency would have gotten a bit more love, but I get it!
Explore further with me ⤵️
On Consistency
The definition of consistency, in this context, is ‘the quality or fact of being consistent: such as a : the quality or fact of staying the same at different times’ (source). In our context, consistency is doing the same thing on repeat, over prolonged periods of time.
On Frequency
The definition of frequency, in this context, is ‘the fact or condition of happening often : common occurrence’ (source). So, is frequency is the rate of doing something.
This is where I think things become interesting, and mostly overlooked…
I have said it myself a billion times, over and over again, throughout my 25+ years of coaching. Consistency is key. It is like compound interest, and small, often imperfect efforts eventually lead to big gains. I am not doing a 180 on that, but I do want to dig a bit deeper, as I think there is more to it that needs highlighting.
Consistency and frequency should be discussed in tandem.
Consistency / Frequency for Performance
Not too long ago, on a rainy Friday morning, I had coffee with a friend (who is also a cyclist, because if you’re a cyclist, do you even have friends who are not cyclists?🤔). We were chatting about training patterns and how she noticed some cyclists do monster rides on the weekend, barely ride all week due to the need to recover from said monster rides, and repeat for months on end, followed by being surprised and frustrated they aren’t improving despite being ‘consistent’.
This got me thinking - There is more to this. Don’t get me wrong, as I mentioned above, consistency is super important. But is it in fact more important than frequency? Can we truly be consistent without taking frequency into consideration? Or do we need to be a bit more deliberate in how we phrase and communicate things?
The basics - In order to have successful outcomes in endurance training, we need to manipulate training intensity, duration and frequency. This is done to maximize performance, reduce the risk of negative outcomes (overdoing it, under recovering, injuries, illness, etc) and time it all to peak at the right time so you can perform to your potential when it matters most. Every coach who has been around for more than 5 minutes should know that.
There is a massive pile of research done looking into training distribution and patterns, with frequency being front and center. I am going to go on a limb here and state that when looking at the scientific evidence, you will see frequency mentioned a heck of a lot more often than you will see consistency mentioned. Yes, I could give you references (If you have been here a while, you know that many of my articles have solid reference lists, like the crank length guide, the hepcidin and iron article, pedaling myth busting science and training with your menstrual cycle article), but to be completely honest, there are far, far too many!
Somehow, maybe with the rise of various social media channels, etc as information sources for the masses, talking about consistency has moved to the front row and we rarely see frequency mentioned and getting the attention it deserves.
Lets go back to the example above. An athlete does one very big ride on the weekend, maybe one ride mid week… And they do that consistently week after week. Its not effective for so many reasons - I know that. You know that (if you didn’t, you do now), yet here we are.
Realistically, it’s not a question of whether consistency or frequency are more important for training. They go hand on hand and one leads to the other. You can be consistent without proper frequency and load distribution (not great). And you can train 7 days a week (high frequency) and only be able to sustain that for relatively short durations, leading to injury (or other issues), leading to needing to take breaks, negatively affecting consistency (not great either).
The way I see it, we need to find the appropriate frequency for our goals and needs, while taking into account life, work, and other relevant factors. Then, repeat that frequency for a while (consistency). Finding the frequency and training load that works for you, will make it a lot easier to be consistent.
