I've done the minimalist HIM and IM plans, and will do them next year when I do road triathlons again. I like the focus on additional intensity. However, they aren't really minimalist. If you do all the workouts, you'd be putting in more volume than probably 90% of triathletes. I found I had to cutout all but the most important workouts.
My suggestions to make it more minimalist are:
When I did it, I paired it down to 4-6 runs per week with 1 quality interval run, 1 long run, and the reminder as durability; 3 rides per week with a VO2 ride, FTP ride, and long ride; and 2-3 swims per week.
Add focused weeks, such as run focus where the bike and swim are dialed down. My recollection is that many of the weeks have a focus but don't really dial back the other disciplines. That way athletes could get some big volume weeks in for a particular discipline but still fit training in the box we have with family, work, life, etc.
Keep weekday workouts under an hour for the most part since the time crunched triathlete is squeezing these in early before work, at lunch, or in the evening between family. If it was longer than an hour, I'd usually just do the main set.
There are too many 5-6 hour bike rides. Those just punch a giant hole in your life where you're out all morning and then trashed the rest of the day. They burn a lot of SAUs.
I just started the Minimalist Plan for the first time. Last two years I did the normal IM Plan. I would suggest changing the name to something else other than Minimalist Plan because minimalist makes it sound like a "just finish" plan, which it's not. I like how the S/B/R workouts are scheduled differently in the week from the normal IM Plan as not everyone can bike 3-5 hrs Saturday and Sunday. The bike volume is only a little lower than the normal plan and bike and swim are the same. Maybe explain the differences between the two plans in the Week 1 notes.
I posted this to HIM plans, but have a LOT of thoughts on this. I think we should take a data based approach to this. For the IM plan we have good info here: http://www.slowtwitch.com/Lifestyle/The_Nine_Hour_Per_Week_Ironman_Training_Experiment_6325.html as well as @Mike Roberts performance in IMLP this past weekend. I did a modified minimalist plan for Door County HIM last week and followed the EN Minimalist plan for Puerto Rico 70.3 this year (which to @Gabe Peterson 's point is anything but minimalist.
Initial thoughts:
Caveats need to accompany the Minimalist plan. You can be competitive on this plan if you have many years of endurance training and race experienceyou can still be competitive. To @Derrek Sanks 's point...I don't think it's intended to be a 'just finish' plan. Perhaps make 'just finish plans as another offering?
Consider targeting distances vs. time. For me, I do a HIM bike in 140-160 minutes. The HIM Minimalist plan has me doing a 240 minute ride this week which is 80+ miles. Same goes for the run. The plan has me doing 2 hour runs which is about 30 minutes longer than my anticipated HIM run split.
More intensity and targeted long efforts at slower paces/power
I looked at the minimalist plan once and it looked less managable, to me, vs the standard plan. That's all the further I got. I typically hack the standard plan to meet my time allowances. For whatever reason, the standards plan fits my work week very well and does not cause any real time issues until I get out past week 14.
@Gabe Peterson is right on target with his comments. One hour per sport per day for weekdays should be a limit. Also, this limits the potential for brick workouts, so those could be kept to 60/30 or made optional. Same thing for the five hour rides. Perhaps those could be limited to just the main set, so 7x25 (5) @high Z2 low Z3, without the remaining 90 minutes of Z2?
@JeremyBehler , interesting link, thanks for sharing. I'll be digging into that later today. Hopefully it will build my confidence for IMMT this year. My recent training has been truly minimal, so I'm on board with anything that points to me still having a good day!
Comments
My suggestions to make it more minimalist are:
- When I did it, I paired it down to 4-6 runs per week with 1 quality interval run, 1 long run, and the reminder as durability; 3 rides per week with a VO2 ride, FTP ride, and long ride; and 2-3 swims per week.
- Add focused weeks, such as run focus where the bike and swim are dialed down. My recollection is that many of the weeks have a focus but don't really dial back the other disciplines. That way athletes could get some big volume weeks in for a particular discipline but still fit training in the box we have with family, work, life, etc.
- Keep weekday workouts under an hour for the most part since the time crunched triathlete is squeezing these in early before work, at lunch, or in the evening between family. If it was longer than an hour, I'd usually just do the main set.
- There are too many 5-6 hour bike rides. Those just punch a giant hole in your life where you're out all morning and then trashed the rest of the day. They burn a lot of SAUs.
Hope this helps!Initial thoughts:
@Gabe Peterson is right on target with his comments. One hour per sport per day for weekdays should be a limit. Also, this limits the potential for brick workouts, so those could be kept to 60/30 or made optional. Same thing for the five hour rides. Perhaps those could be limited to just the main set, so 7x25 (5) @high Z2 low Z3, without the remaining 90 minutes of Z2?
@JeremyBehler , interesting link, thanks for sharing. I'll be digging into that later today. Hopefully it will build my confidence for IMMT this year. My recent training has been truly minimal, so I'm on board with anything that points to me still having a good day!