Training age – it’s an important and often overlooked training variable. What is it and why do we care? Coach Erik discusses this in the video below. If you don’t have 11 minutes to spare, you can get the key points below. For actual examples, the video is worth your time. Enjoy!

Key points:
-Training age is how long you’ve spent dedicated time training.
-It is modality specific (running age is different from lifting age).
-It is often conflated with chronological age (how old you are).
-It determines how much volume and intensity you can handle.
-It determines how much volume and intensity is needed for continued improvement.
-Both it and chronological age both need to be addressed in a program. Cookie cutter programs don’t account for it, and are suboptimal.

At Viking Athletics, we start each athlete’s journey with a conversation. Yes, we want to know your goals and what makes you take. That’s the destination (or at least a distant milestone). More importantly, we want to know what you’ve already tried to get there. What types of training have you done in the past? What was successful? What life changes occurred so that your previous efforts were no longer successful? What types of training do you enjoy? What do you dislike? What sports did you play growing up? How long has it been since you’ve done any physical activity? We can use the answers to these questions, and some type of physically active introduction, to gauge your training age in various modalities. From there, we’re better able to tailor our workouts to you. Training age is important, and that’s why. See you in the gym.