It’s that time of the year again. Fitness advice is flying around everywhere.
As with most fitness advice you can find in December and January, there’s a lot of bad out there. One of my favorites: what’s better?
What’s better: very long runs at a slow pace or shorter long runs at a faster pace? What’s better: short intervals or long intervals? What’s better: interval workouts or tempo runs?
My personal favorite. What’s better: long, slow endurance or interval training?
The biggest problem is that a definitive answer is usually given. In the case of my favorite, 8 week studies are usually cited in stating that interval training is clearly superior.
In the real world, context matters and nuance exists everywhere. There is an appropriate time for a focus on long, slow endurance training, just as there is for a more significant focus on intervals.
Even more important, we should almost never be focused completely on one or the other. In this case, it’s always a balance. There are times when we should be focused more on endurance training or intervals but we always want to keep all elements of training in place in some form.
Much like other common December or January advice, if you see this question, move on. The answer given is almost always too simplistic. Finding out what answer is given isn’t worth your time. Instead, find someone who will answer a more nuanced question with a more nuanced and context driven answer.