Total Endurance

More of the Total Endurance Team are in action this weekend.

In Tallin, we have Seb Mya and Alec Young taking on the full distance and Claire West racing the 70.3.

Andrew Potter is racing Geordieman - Not sure 'You are a Geordieman' has the same ring to it but looks like a great event.

Brooke Gillies is back racing in the Pro field at Leipzrig 70.3

And slightly closer to home, Ross Macdonald and Ewan Fielding take on the Relentless Gravel Xtri

All the best to everyone racing this weekend!

Big weekend of racing this weekend!

Lots of athletes racing in Aberfeldy and athletes taking on Ironman events in Kalmar and Leeds.

Good luck to everyone racing.

Start the new Season with our Swim Masterclass!

Our Freestyle Masterclass is perfect way to start the new season after the summer break.

Club Swimmers 13-16 years old

In this session, your swimmer will:
🎯 Map out their goals for the season ahead
🎥 Get their stroke reviewed with underwater video
📋 Leave with a personalised action plan to swim faster and more efficiently

Small groups of maximum 6 swimmers, direct coaching from Ruairidh Carnegie - so every swimmer gets real one-to-one attention on their stroke.

📅 Saturday 29th August
📍 Total Endurance, Aberdeen
💷 £100 per swimmer

https://www.total-endurance.co.uk/swimworkshop

Mallorca 2027 is open for booking.

Two weeks, two different camps

Week 1 (16–23 April) Focused on Building Endurance and Volume
Week 2 (23–30 April) Improve technique and skills

Book one week or both. £200 deposit to secure your place.

Deposit deadline: 30th September - after that the room block is released, so don't leave it too late.

Find out more:
https://www.total-endurance.co.uk/mallorca-triathlon-training-camp-2027

In Endurance sport we often neglect that smaller more stocky built atheltes as they don't naturally posses the same explosiveness or efficiency we think are key to success.

But, if trained correctly these Pit Bull phenotypes often have the ability to be very successful endurance athletes, the issue is they won't respond to the same training you'd give to a natural Husky or Border Collie. There are the athletes likely progressing very quickly into sports like Hyrox which suits their phenotype but young Pit Bulls can become elite endurance athletes if you train them correctly.

the-pit-bull-phenotype-training-strength-for-endurance-performance — Total Endurance Strong, tough, overlooked athletes excel at HYROX and endurance. Train the pit bull phenotype correctly and it becomes elite when durability matters most.

Slightly quieter weekend on the racing front but still some big performances pending!

Good luck to Euan Murphy at the Scottish Sprint Champs in Irvine and Brooke Gillies at Krakow 70.3.

Over the last year I've found myself asking far more questions than giving answers.

The more physiology I learn, the more I realise that two athletes can look almost identical on paper. They might swim the same times, run the same 10km PB, and produce similar race results. So it's easy to assume they both need the same training session, the same recovery time and the same progression.

As coaches, we naturally build our philosophies around what has worked in the past and the athletes we've coached.

But what if the training we prescribe didn't work because it was universally "right"?

What if it worked because it happened to match the physiology of those athletes?

That thought has been rattling around my head for months, and it's led me to write this article.

I've started using a lot of dog analogies because I think they make physiology easier to understand. We all instinctively know that different breeds are built for different jobs.

A husky is a husky.
A border collie is a border collie.

Both can run.
Both are incredibly fit.
But ask them to do the same job, at the same pace, and the physiological cost may not be the same.

It's made me rethink how I prescribe training, particularly for younger athletes who may not yet have developed the aerobic characteristics needed to benefit from the sessions we often prescribe.

I'm certainly not claiming to have all the answers. If anything, I have more questions now than ever.

So I'd genuinely love to hear what coaches and athletes think.

Have you ever had two athletes complete exactly the same training block and get completely different adaptations?

Or, as an athlete, have you ever wondered why a session everyone else seemed to thrive on just left you feeling broken?

And if you associate more with a pit bull than a border collie or a husky... don't worry, the next blog might be for you.

Why a Border Collie Will Never Be a Husky: Matching Training Philosophy to Athlete Phenotype — Total Endurance Why 4x4 VO2 max intervals work for some athletes but not others. How fiber phenotype determines training response and why your coaching system might be burning out the wrong athlete type

This weeks cohort of Total Endurance Athletes racing!

Lisa Wallace has already raced today and Won her age group! 🍾

At T100 London, Mark Waldron and Ryan O'Neill are ready to dive into the London docks tomorrow

At the Outlaw James Thompson is racing (although the swim has been cancelled) 😭

In Forfar, Hazel Robbie, Marcus Wollerton and Cat Brown are all racing!

Good luck to everyone racing this weekend!