Creating an endurance training program: The basic building blocks to get fitter and build endurance in any discipline

Starting out with creating an endurance training program can seem both simple and daunting.

On the simple side, you can just go out and go as hard as you can for a set amount of time or distance. Or just go out at whatever pace you can for as long as you can. Then over time you look to go further, or faster.

For someone new to endurance training this will undoubtedly get you some initial results. Anything works if done consistently, but this method has limitations beyond those initial improvements. You will soon reach plateaus of being unable to go faster or further without something having to give.

On the daunting side, getting into the details and weeds of tracking metrics and complicated and high volume training programs can be a big step and confusing.

Tempos, thresholds, VO2 max, paces, speeds, cadence etc, etc. There is a lot there to unpack and understand and it can be hard to see an easy way to get into this more complicated side of endurance training.

What I’ll aim to lay out here is a more basic approach to creating an endurance training program that bridges the gap between the ‘just go and do whatever you can at whatever effort’ and the specifics of paces, intensity zones, and thresholds.

Breaking down our physiology and training intensities into 3 zones or levels is a good starting point. A simple way to think of this is our floor, our stairs, and our ceiling.

The floor is our low intensity, longer duration base level work. This is where we build the endurance and largely aerobic capacity to go further for longer. This is easy work, done generally for longer durations.

The stairs is where we build in our mid level intensities. It is where we will likely include our ‘race pace’ work and maintaining moderate speeds for mid-long durations. This is where we would typically see tempo used to describe this level. Using the stairs analogy ties this together well as this is our link between low and easy and hard and fast. It is our more race specific pacing (in most cases) and is where we get exposure to paces we want to hold in any race or event we plan to do.

The ceiling is our high intensity work. This is speed work or VO2 max/max effort work. It will predominantly involve intervals of shorter duration done for multiple repeats, with longer rest periods between. This is where we are sharpening the top end of our physiology. It is usually at or near to max efforts for whatever durations are relevant.

We can now see clearer distinctions between intensity levels that we can use to start developing different sessions and stimuli from our endurance program.

We now have easy work to develop our aerobic capacity, we have moderate work to challenge our ability to hold specific paces or intensities we likely will race at, and we have high end speed or power work to sharpen up the top end, our ceiling.

How these fit into an endurance program is a further and more in depth discussion, there are many different schools of thought and approaches that will mix these together in different ways, but here are some general guidelines to apply.

The bulk of your training time/volume will be made up of the low intensity/floor work. This stuff takes longer to adapt to and can be done at much higher volumes than the high intensity work. We want this work to be EASY, which means we should finish and feel like we could have gone further or faster. This is the whole point, it shouldn’t feel excessively hard, even when we are going for long durations. A pace you can hold a conversation at is a good starting point here.

The moderate intensity/tempo/stairs work will be layered in sparingly at first and then become more of a factor as we get closer to an event or race. This work has a higher fatigue cost than other training generally so needs to be used in the right way at the right times. Focusing on going from lower volumes to higher volumes over a program is a good way to approach this. Find an intensity that is relatively comfortable but would get harder over time and you’re at about the right intensity. Intervals should be at about a time frame that they get harder towards the end but initially, should still be way short of failure.

The high intensity/ceiling work can be a great and potent stimulus but is hard to do lots of and should be sensibly applied. This is where we want to dedicate more time to in the beginning of a program alongside the easy work. Think of this as raising the floor and ceiling together to build a complete approach to endurance performance.

Short durations and high intensity is the game here. If intensity is dropping because we are going too long or taking too little rest then we are starting to water down the effectiveness of this training. It should be near max effort, and we need to rest long enough so we can repeat these efforts at the same level. Aim for these sessions to be separated from the longer, easier work to allow for you to be fresh for them and get the most from them.

With these 3 building blocks, you can go a long way with your endurance training. As a priority, we would generally look to include plenty low intensity work and sprinkle in some of the high intensity work. This is floor and ceiling work and is the basis of any endurance program.

We can then layer in the stair work to bridge our gap to real world performance in our respective disciplines as we get closer to race/event day.

We want to build the base wide (wide capacity), we want to build the ceiling high (big peak) and then over time build the stairs to link these together (strong threshold).