workout Archives - DifferentBreed : DifferentBreed

Are you constantly finishing workouts feeling destroyed but not seeing progress in your performance? You might be chasing the wrong thing.

The Endurance Athlete’s Biggest Mistake

Here’s the hard truth: That burning sensation in your muscles, the complete exhaustion, and the next-day soreness don’t automatically translate to improved performance. Too many endurance athletes confuse punishment with progress.

As an endurance coach, I’ve seen countless athletes fall into this trap. They put themselves through brutal training sessions, clock insane mileage, and pride themselves on how wrecked they feel afterward—yet their race times plateau and injuries mount.

The uncomfortable reality: Any coach can design a workout that leaves you in a puddle on the floor. It doesn’t take skill to exhaust someone. What takes real expertise is designing a program that delivers results without unnecessary suffering.

The Science Behind Smarter Endurance Training

Endurance performance doesn’t improve through destruction; it improves through strategic adaptation. Your body needs the right stimulus—not necessarily the most painful one—followed by proper recovery to build aerobic capacity, muscular endurance, and efficiency.

Research consistently shows that elite endurance athletes don’t maximize training intensity or volume; they optimize it. They follow what I call the Minimal Dose Response principle: doing the minimum amount of work required to trigger the specific adaptations they need.

Consider these facts:

Studies show that increasing training volume beyond certain thresholds provides diminishing returns while exponentially increasing injury risk
Many elite endurance athletes spend 80% of their training at surprisingly moderate intensities
Strategic, targeted high-intensity work is more effective than random “suffering sessions”

Quality Over Quantity: The Endurance Coaching Difference

Every workout in your program should have a clear purpose. Every interval, every long run, every recovery session should serve a specific goal in your development. If your coach can’t explain exactly why you’re doing something, you shouldn’t be doing it.

This approach doesn’t mean training becomes easy—far from it. The work is still challenging, but it’s purposeful. A well-designed endurance program includes:

Targeted intensity work that addresses your specific limiters
Strategic volume that builds your aerobic engine without excessive breakdown
Deliberate recovery that allows adaptations to occur
Progressive overload that builds fitness systematically, not haphazardly

Warning Signs You’re Chasing Pain Instead of Progress

Ask yourself these questions:

Do you measure workout success by how destroyed you feel afterward?
Are you constantly battling minor injuries or fighting through persistent fatigue?
Has your performance plateaued despite increasing training volume?
Do you feel compelled to make every session “epic” or extreme?

If you answered yes to these questions, you might be stuck in the cycle of chasing sensations rather than results.

The Different Breed Approach to Endurance Coaching

My philosophy is simple but effective: We chase outcomes, not feelings. Every training session has a specific purpose within your larger development plan. We systematically identify your limiters and address them with precision.

For endurance athletes especially, this approach minimizes the overuse injuries that plague so many runners, cyclists, triathletes, and swimmers. After years of refining this methodology, I’ve developed programming that maximizes results while minimizing unnecessary risk and suffering.

Don’t misunderstand—you’ll still work incredibly hard. There will be challenging sessions that test your limits. But you’ll never suffer pointlessly. Every drop of sweat serves your progress.

The Bottom Line

A great endurance coach knows the difference between making you tired and making you better. They understand that results come from smart training, not just hard training.

If you’re putting in the work but not seeing the performance improvements you want, it’s time to reconsider your approach. Stop chasing the feeling of exhaustion and start pursuing tangible results.

Your body will thank you. Your race times will thank you. And you’ll discover that sustainable progress feels a whole lot better than constant punishment.

Ready to train smarter? Let’s talk about how Different Breed’s endurance coaching can help you achieve the results your hard work deserves.

Why You Have To Fail To Grow

Chase Results, Not Pain: The Smarter Approach to Endurance Training

Own Your Shit. Advice for aspiring Athletes.

The Difference Between Passive and Active Rest & Recovery: What Every Athlete Needs to Know

Injuries Are Opportunities: Turning Setbacks into Comebacks

Training Stress Score (TSS): The Key Metric Every Endurance Athlete Should Understand

Endurance Athlete Recovery: 7 Subtle Body Signals That Predict Burnout

Mid-Race GI Distress: Triathlete and Ultrarunner Solutions for Fixing Nutrition Disasters During Events

How Endurance Athletes Can Maintain Fitness During High Stress Periods: Training Strategies for Busy Triathletes and Ultrarunners

Zone 2 Running: The Ultimate Guide to Building Endurance and Improving Performance for Runners and Triathletes

Heat Adaptation: Why Early Spring Heat Training Matters

The Identity Shift: Becoming vs. Mimicking an Endurance Athlete

Nutrition Month: Real Results Through Balanced Choices

The Power of Positive Self-Talk: Rewiring Your Mental Game for Endurance Success

Resilience: The Unsung Hero of Endurance Training

The Difference Between Good and Great: One Critical Choice

“The Overlooked Challenge of Endurance Sports: Handling the Post-Race Blues”

The Power of ‘Pause’: Mastering Recovery for Peak Performance.

Beyond “Toughing It Out”: Intelligent Training Through Illness

Debunking Running Terminology: What You Really Need to Know

Be Impressed by intensity, not volume.

Mental Muscles: Visualise Your Way to Endurance Supremacy

S&C – What does the C actually mean?

Rethinking Injury Management:

Walk Your Way to Faster Running

RED-S; Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport

Periodisation Deep Dive

Low Energy Availability (LEA):

How do we burn calories? Let me count the ways…

Fuel Up to Smash Your Endurance Goals:

Why Eat before a workout

The main goal of eating before a workout is to replenish your glycogen, the short-term storage form of carbohydrate.
Glycogen supplies immediate energy needs and is especially crucial for morning workouts, as the liver is glycogen depleted from fuelling the nervous system during sleep. The muscles, on the other hand, should be glycogen-loaded from proper recovery nutrition the previous day if you hit the post workout routine right.

The body does not necessarily need a lot (depending on the timing and type of session), but it does need something to prime the metabolism, provide a direct energy source, and allow you to perform the session at the planned intensity and for the given

As for what the something is, following the basic guidelines it is best to experiment with a few different snack and meal choices and see which works best for you.

What to Eat Before a Workout

As stated above, this will come down to personal preference.

The majority of nutrients in a pre workout meal should come from carbohydrates. You also need some protein, but not a significant amount as protein takes longer to digest and does not serve an immediate need at the beginning of your workout. Fat and dietary fibre also should be marginal to minimise the potential for gastrointestinal upset – we’ve all been there right!

Research has shown that the type of carbohydrate consumed does not directly affect performance across the board. Some thrive on regular foods (e.g., my personal favourite; a bagel with peanut butter). Some reach for the convenience options such as an energy bars or replacement shakes.

One crucial element that is often overlooked is Pre-workout fluid intake. This is critical to prevent dehydration, which results in a severe drop in performance as best and serious help issues at worst. Be sure to time your fluid intake so that you are not busting for the loo during your workout. Ideally start 4 hours before and aim for 5-7mls per kilo of bodyweight.

When to Eat Before a Workout

When is a huge consideration for pre workout nutrition and almost as important as what.

Eat too early and the calories are gone by the time the exercise begins. Eat too late and the stomach is stealing all your energy trying to do its digestion thing, and making you feel uncomfortable in the process.

As a general rule the ideal time for most people to eat is about 2-4 hours before activity. Again, you can play with this depending on the session/day you have and figure out in different situations, what works best.

If your meal time is 4 hours before your workout you can safely consume up to 1,000 calories. If the gaps between eating and training are much shorter (a pre-7 a.m. workout, for example), eating a smaller meal of around 300-400 calories or less, about an hour before the workout, can suffice.

A general recommendation that can be a good jumping off point to figure out what works for you is to consume about 1 gram of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight if working out 1 hour after eating, 2 g of carbohydrate per kg of body weight if working out 2 hours after eating… and so on.

To avoid GI issues it is advised that anything consumed less than 1 hour before an event or workout be in liquid form, such as a sports drink or smoothie.

Get it Right

An effective pre workout nutrition plan should be planned based on the duration and intensity of session. You should also take into consideration your ability to supplement during the activity (if longer than 45-60 minutes), your personal energy needs and environmental factors; is it hot, humid, cold etc.

Determining how much is too much or too little and getting the timing right can be frustrating, but experimenting is vital for success.