PODCAST - how to mix up your workouts without losing progress
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[00:00:00] Welcome to The Athlete with Asthma Show. I'm your host, Johnny Havie, an ultra runner, endurance athlete, and yes, a guy who's had an inhaler prescribed since birth. Despite doctors telling me I could never play soccer nor run a marathon, let alone 100K ultra, I proved them all wrong. This show is where I share everything I've learned, from breathing techniques to mindset shifts, to help you become the athlete and the person you truly want to be.
So if you're ready to achieve your goals despite limitations, let's get started.
Today on the show, I'm gonna share with you how to mix up your workouts without losing progress. This is really important if you're someone who really likes variety. Maybe you even get bored doing the same thing, or maybe you've been doing the same thing for a [00:01:00] long time. For me, when I became an ultra runner, that meant five years of running thousands of miles.
At this point, I've ran over 10, 12, maybe even 15,000 miles. Well, at some point, you're gonna run into a wall. And I'm not talking about the wall that we run into as marathon runners at mile 15, 16, 17. No, I'm talking about the boredom wall. This is why it's so important to mix up your workouts. Now, there is a strategic way to do this, though, so that you make sure that you still stay safe and you still do the thing.
You're able to PR and achieve your goals. Great. So here is my four-step process that I invite you to do to bring some variety into your workouts. Now, the benefits go well beyond variety. What you'll see when you mix things up is that you're gonna be a more well-rounded athlete. If you're an ultra runner like me, throwing in other types of [00:02:00] workouts are actually gonna make you a better runner.
If you are a HYROX athlete, throwing in some endurance cardio, whether that be longer runs or long rowing sessions, whatever it is, it's gonna make you a better HYROX athlete. So here are the steps. Step one: What are you training for? This is probably the most important question, and this is gonna dictate how everything else goes here.
Now, you may say, "Johnny, I'm not training for anything. I just wanna mix things up." Great. You have a lot more flexibility. But you may say, "Johnny, I'm training for a marathon," or, "Really, I'm just trying to train for life. I'm just trying to be healthier in general, trying to lose weight," or Maybe you're training for a sport, soccer or tennis, or [00:03:00] maybe you're here because you've seen some of my HYROX videos and you're like, "I'm training for HYROX."
Which if you want to learn more about HYROX, I invite you to go to my YouTube channel and podcast and search for HYROX there. I have lots of videos. I'm even putting together a playlist all about HYROX. Step two is to be honest with yourself. How new are you to this? Is this your first time? Are you just getting into this thing for the first time?
Is it your first time running? Now, it's important to delineate here. This could be your first time running a marathon, but maybe you've been a runner for decades. This could be the first time you're playing soccer on a team, but you've been playing soccer with your friends for decades. This could be the first time you're doing HYROX, but you've been doing high-intensity interval training for decades.
I think you understand. What you need to do is be honest with yourself. Is this your first time doing the thing? Now, if you wanna be really careful, especially when we're looking at training for things like [00:04:00] marathons or 100-mile bike rides or ultra-marathons, whatever it is, I do highly recommend that the first time you do the thing, you stick to a structured program.
Now, Johnny, but I wanna mix it up. Yeah, I do, too. But the first time I ran a marathon, I stuck to a strict 18-week program that Peloton had created. When I ran my first 100K, I actually hired a coach, and she told me what to do, and then I'd ask her questions if I could mix things up on certain days. That is another thing you can do.
Now that I've been through these experiences, and even with HYROX. This is my first time doing HYROX, but I've been a high-intensity athlete for a couple decades now. So I know what I can do, mix and match. I know how to do it. So what I really want you to do with this question is to be extremely honest with yourself.
How comfortable are you with the thing that you're training for? If you're very comfortable, then you can mix it up a lot. If you're not very comfortable, then you might be able to mix [00:05:00] it up a little, but I really think that you should stick to a structured plan Now here's the fun part. Step three. This is my favorite part.
We wanna categorize your workouts. What do I mean by this? Well, there's a few different categories that we need to look at when setting up any sort of workout program, and really, it starts with types. That's what I'm calling them at least. Then we also have muscle groups, and then we have duration. So what do I mean by types?
Well, I mean strength versus endurance, cardio, intervals. I might be missing one or two. Please, when you're looking at this, look at what you're doing and see if it fits into these categories. When we're looking at muscle groups, we're really looking at upper body and lower body. I know this is simplified, but I think you understand where I'm going with this.
Duration, we're talking about, [00:06:00] uh, are we doing a 15-minute workout or are we doing a four-hour workout? This is very different. So let's look at marathon training. For marathons, we're really focused on cardio And endurance. These are the primary things. Now, if you wanna get faster, then you're also gonna be looking at intervals.
And if we're looking at muscle groups, we're mainly looking at lower body, maybe some core. And then duration, we're looking at really long runs are gonna be the most important thing to focus on, so you're gonna wanna make sure that you do that. Well, and in general, if you're training for a marathon, your long run probably isn't one of the exercises you wanna mix up.
You can mix up a lot of other things, but the long run you want to do every single week. What you could do is mix up some of your shorter runs. Instead of doing a shorter run, instead of doing an interval run, you can go and do a HIIT class instead, 'cause that fits into the interval [00:07:00] category. So I know we have three types of categories on the board, and this is what I mean is, like, you may have a lower body interval workout, and it may only be 15 minutes.
You can swap out what that workout is. You can have a upper body strength workout that you do, and maybe it is a longer workout of one or two hours. Well, what you can do is do different strength exercises that hit those same muscle groups and do it for the same duration. This is why it's so important to break your workout routine into these categories, and then you can mix and match.
Now, if you're not training for anything, then it's just really good to look at what I have on the board here. Or if you're listening to this as a podcast, just rewind and listen to how I broke this up. And to remind you, we have strength, endurance, cardio, intervals, upper, lower body, and then different durations of workouts.
If you're not training for anything, then it's good to do a mix of all of this. And the great thing [00:08:00] is you can mix up different exercises within each of these categories as well. And that brings me to step four. As long as you keep the category of workout in your workout routine, you can really do whatever you want for that category.
Now, it depends on what you answered for step one and step two, step one being what are you training for, and step two being how long have you been doing this thing. Is this your first time training for this thing? First time I did a marathon, I had a very structured routine. Now I've done dozens of marathons, and the last marathon I ran, which was earlier this year, my workout program looked completely different.
So let's look at this. This is Johnny's first marathon which I finished in how long? Do you remember from another episode? Six hours. To the most recent marathon, and I probably haven't shared how fast this was on the show yet. I did it in five hours, and I felt real good after. After the six hours, I wanted to go to bed for [00:09:00] days.
After five hours, I actually went to a gender reveal party for my friends who were having a baby, cleaned up around the house, and really lived my life normally, and didn't miss a beat. Well, for my first marathon, I had an 18-week structured training routine that mixed long runs each week with regular runs, just shorter runs And a tempo run each week.
And, uh, how it was built also is really how I teach, where we have three weeks of build and one week drop down. So you build for three, drop down for one. And then a two-week taper where we drop down a lot before the race. That was my first marathon. My most recent marathon looked more like this. I had long runs, but these long runs were 10 miles or less.
I had short runs, but really not anything [00:10:00] structured. And total mileage per week, been running, you know, 20 to 30 miles. And then I've been doing HIIT classes. I haven't been doing tempo runs, but I've been doing HIIT two times per week. I've also been playing tennis one time a week. This is what my training for my five-hour most recent marathon was.
I plugged and played a lot. And really, the short runs of just doing with my dog in the morning, two or three miles here and there, it was... The long runs, I wasn't building towards anything. I didn't do any build, I didn't do any drop down, I didn't do any taper. This is just what I did, and then I ran the thing.
But I did this because I've ran so many marathons that I know that just doing what I do on a weekly basis sets me up for running a marathon whenever I want. I leave you with this. Movement is life. I don't know if you've seen Ted Lasso, where Danny Rojas says football is life. Well, he's not wrong.
Movement is life. [00:11:00] Movement, consistently moving, getting consistent exercise on a weekly basis, decreases all-cause mortality rates by 30 to 40%. This means that it is much more important for you to find exercises that you like to do, and do them. And when you get bored of them, find other exercises that you like to do, and do them.
When you get bored of those, find something else that you can do, and do it. And consistently do it throughout your entire life. 'Cause no matter if you're training for a marathon, soccer, Hyrox, an ultra, 100-mile bike ride, a 15-mile bike ride, whatever it is, no matter what you're training for, you're always training for life.
And that is the most important thing, is finding something, keeping it fresh, so that you continue to love to move, so that you can continue to live the best life that you possibly can. And that's why I've created my three pillars of healthy [00:12:00] living guide. with movement, tracking, and accountability. I invite you to grab a copy of this guide by going to athletewithasthma.com/healthy-living-guide, or you can grab a copy in the show notes or in the YouTube description.
Now, I've really simplified this guide so that it only takes a couple minutes for you to read, so you can start implementing it into your life today. These three pillars empowered me to lose 40 pounds, keep the weight off, and become the elite athlete that I am today. In addition, it's really just helped me live a happier and healthier life.
I want that for you, and I'm excited to see you in the next episode
Thanks for tuning in to The Athlete With Asthma show. I hope today's episode inspired you to overcome any perceived limitations you may have. Remember, your health and wellness journey isn't about perfection, it's about progress. So I invite you to take a small [00:13:00] step right now towards your goals. And if you found something helpful here, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share the podcast with others on a similar path.
Until next time, keep challenging yourself and redefining what's possible
