Principles of Training: Working to Quota

In studying for a final exam in Systems of Human Behavior, I came across an interesting principle of therapy that can be readily applied to triathlon training. Here's a quote from Dr. Seitz's advanced text, Behavioral Medicine made ridiculously simple:

          "When physical activity is involved, the therapeutic concept of working to quota is important. After determining an exercise baseline (e.g. five sit-ups a session), the patient triathlete is then required to start slightly below this baseline and exercise each day until he reaches this target or quota, rather than stopping when he feels pain (i.e. working to tolerance). The quota is then raised gradually. Working only to tolerance keeps a patient triathlete a slave to his "pain bell" (i.e. when pain occurs, activity stops). In contrast, working to quota shapes him to higher levels of physical performance (and less pain)."

      A beautiful, and painful, example of this principle can be found in my treadmill running. Recently, I discovered a Woodway Treadmill at our local YMCA and it was love at first sight (you can check them out here, they're phenomenal. I have no connection to the company, I just love that treadmill). Many readers may be familiar with the concepts of aerobic and anaerobic threshold. Somewhere between my aerobic and anaerobic threshold lies a 'pain threshold' up to which the pain I feel while running incrementally increases until plateauing. One day recently I was running with a friend who was on an adjacent treadmill, and I found myself pushing through quite a bit of pain to put in a fast time. Checking my heart rate, I expected it to be quite elevated, maybe 170 bpm.  Imagine my surprise when it was 147. In that moment I'd learned (or re-learned, at least) that there is a difference between what I can run comfortably and what I can run, and one of the greatest assets a fast runner can have is a pronounced ability to tolerate pain.

 The connection between this scenario and the ''working to quota'' concept is simple. Perceived exertion can be an excellent tool to determine workout intensity, but it isn't always the best metric for designing a workout. If you compete in triathlons for fun, then by all means hop on the treadmill and set it to a comfortable pace. But if you're aiming to get faster, take that dial, crank it up until you hit the pain level and then break the switch off and just hold on. Just like you need to be a little bit hungry to lose weight, you need to push yourself to get faster, and pushing yourself needs to extend beyond the realm of 'comfortable.' Rather than using the pain bell as an alarm that it's time to dial back, maybe just for some workouts, the pain bell should be a sign that you're just getting started.