Staple and Breakout Workouts

A Very Motivating Breakout Speed Workout 

Every training program should be comprised of both staple workouts and breakout workouts. 

Staple Workouts:  These are the tried and true workouts that are very effective at working certain targeted systems in a very direct manner.  These workouts include things like VO2 Max repeats, LT tempo runs, and the easy pace long run.  They are simple, straight forward and usually very effective.

Breakout Workouts:  These are the workouts we add into the program in order to spice things up, work systems from a slightly different angle in order to spark new growth in order to keep the fitness progression from stagnating.  These workouts include things like hill repeats, wave tempos and progression runs.

Mixture

Staple workouts will comprise the majority of the workouts we do in training but the exact mixture between staple and breakout workouts will depending on many variables including previous training cycles, number of years of purposeful training, and length of the current training cycle. 

Similarly, what breakout workouts we utilize will depend on variables such as the individual’s strengths and weaknesses, their prior training, and what distance they are training for. 

Good intuition, lots of experience, and a sound understanding of the physiology of all the workouts, are the keys to finding the right mixture between staple and breakout workouts and also finding the right workouts within each to utilize and when. 

Tips

• Have a couple of different breakout workouts for each workout category – speed, stamina and endurance. 
• If your fitness progression in a certain category starts to stagnate, add in a breakout workout for that category into your training. 
• Keep a training log and note the breakout workouts you have used in the past that have been the most effective for you.