How Masters Triathletes Can Stay Fast After 50 with Joe Friel

In a world obsessed with youth in sports, there's a quiet revolution happening among athletes in their 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond. These masters of endurance aren't just participating – they're demolishing expectations and rewriting the rules of athletic performance. It’s fantastic to see and gives me hope for my future as an ageing athlete. 

That makes me sound old when in reality, I’m only just reaching my 40th year. I still feel like I can train in a similar way to what I did in my 20s - going hard with limited recovery. Though, perhaps that isn’t the smartest way to train as I age.

When I recently sat down with Joe Friel, the author behind 'Fast After 50', he revealed insights so powerful they're transforming how we think about ageing in endurance sports. What he shared is more than a training theory – it's a blueprint for athletic longevity that's backed by decades of coaching elite masters athletes. 

What follows isn't just advice – it's a complete shift in how we approach athletic performance after 40. It has made me rethink my entire approach to training and actually highlights how much rest plays a role. I especially like the sound of that, with three young children I’m currently running around after. More rest sounds very good to me.

The Evolution of Masters Performance

The physiological changes that accompany ageing aren't breaking news – we've all noticed the subtle shifts in VO2 max, HRV and recovery demands. But here's where conventional wisdom falls short: these changes aren't limitations to be overcome, but rather sophisticated signals guiding us toward peak performance. The key lies in understanding how to interpret and adapt to these signals. Joe mentioned the importance of knowing what your body needs on a daily basis and one great way to check the kind of training you should do is by tracking your HRV. Joe likes to use the HRV4 Training app to track this.

The Science of Strategic Training

Joe Friel's approach to masters training differs considerably from how we trained as younger athletes. He likes to work within a nine-day training cycle – while it might sound unconventional, it's grounded in deep physiological understanding. The formula is elegantly simple: five days of controlled, purposeful training (lower intensity) paired with two days of focused higher intensity. It can be a difficult training regime to get used to, as the lower-intensity sessions are often quite long, but if you have time in your schedule to accommodate this, you will see the benefits of this method.

Recovery for Masters Athletes

Gone are the days when consecutive high-intensity sessions were a badge of honour. We probably all remember the days when we would throw up during a training session and then just keep going. Go hard or go home. But masters athletes aren’t set up to operate in this way. We don’t need to go hard consistently, we need to be strategic with our recovery and rest more often than we like to. This shift in perspective transforms recovery from a necessary evil into a powerful performance tool, one that compounds the benefits of every training session.

Strength Counts

Perhaps the most counterintuitive aspect of masters athletics is the heightened importance of strength training. Two precisely timed strength sessions per week, strategically positioned after key aerobic workouts, become catalysts for maintaining not just muscle mass, but overall athletic capability. This isn't vanity work to enhance your six-pack – it's the foundation of sustained performance and injury prevention.

Nutrition Is Key

The sophistication of masters athletics extends deeply into nutrition. Although Joe didn’t provide specific strategies in this area as this isn’t his area of expertise, he highlighted how important nutrition is to masters athletes. He mentioned specifically the protein deficiency masters athletes appear to have and why it’s important for muscle maintenance ensuring you don’t encounter muscle loss. To understand more about nutrition for masters athletes, check out my previous post here.

What Life Looks Likes for Masters Athletes

Life can often look very different as an older athlete, compared to when we’re in our younger years. Career obligations, family responsibilities, and personal commitments don't pause for training cycles. This is where the elegance of Joe's approach becomes clear: it's not about fitting life around training but rather crafting a sustainable approach that enhances both. 

Stress plays a large role in achieving your training goals and often in our 40s and beyond, we can be under more stress as our careers demand more from us. How we handle this stress is a key factor to our overall wellbeing and Joe shared some great tips for achieving a more balanced lifestyle.

While anticipation builds for Joe's updated "Fast After 50," the principles in his current work remain foundational. The key insight isn't just about training adaptation – it's about embracing the sophisticated interplay between experience, wisdom, and physical capability that defines masters athletes.

Joe made it clear through our conversation that your age isn't merely a number – it's a competitive advantage. As an older athlete, you already have not just the wisdom to train intelligently, but the experience to execute with precision. The future for you as a masters athlete isn't about defying age – it's about defining it on your own terms and training for the life you want to live.

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