Hi there, team Coach Alexa here.
My last video mentioned the fact that there is no physiological or physical reason why we have to train in weeks. It seemed to capture people’s thoughts a little bit, so I thought I would give a few examples of different people and situations I have worked with over the years where the week is not their default structure to the year.
Shift Work and Non-Weekly Patterns
The biggest example is people who work shifts.
This might mean 10-day shift patterns, five-day shift patterns, or two-week shift patterns. Often that is accompanied by different hours in different blocks across that pattern. They are not thinking in terms of a week. They are thinking in terms of that 10-day, 14-day or five-day cycle.
It is important that training works around that.
Training around shifts, particularly early starts and late nights, is a topic for several videos. But this is perhaps the most common example of why people work in a pattern that does not fit neatly into a week.
Shared Custody and Fortnightly Routines
There are also people who have shared custody of children.
There may be a fortnightly pattern in terms of which weekends you have your children and which weekends you do not. It might be the weekend when you do not have your children that is more appropriate for much longer training sessions.
For people like that, I would still use a 12-week training cycle, but we would place the longer sessions every couple of weeks instead of every week.
Medication and Treatment Cycles
Some people take particular medications that affect them at different times. They may be on cycles of specific drugs or treatments.
In these cases, training may need to align with those cycles rather than following a fixed weekly structure.
The Menstrual Cycle and Monthly Rhythms
Women from puberty through to menopause have a monthly cycle that needs to be taken into account. It does not always fall into neat weekly blocks.
This means looking at the different phases of that monthly cycle, considering where training fits best, and adjusting it accordingly rather than progressing strictly week by week.
Why Weekly Training Is Not Essential
There are many different reasons why weeks might not be the most appropriate way to think about your training blocks.
There is no physiological reason to pick weeks. It does not make any particular sense in terms of our body, our physiology, and the way we adapt to training.
If a non-week-based training plan would work better for you because of work, family, life or your body, then drop me or Coach Kelvin a line.
Happy running.
