First, over the last decade or so, I have worked excessively long hours at a sit-down office job; and combining that with taking care of two kids, I simply have not done enough exercise and gotten fat. So I am just starting a marathon for non-runners program, to gradually get back in shape. This, of course, involves, as a first step, very slowly building up my muscles and bones though light walking and then longer but only slightly more taxing walking until my body is ready to start running. When elite athletes are “making the cake”, are their bodies recuperating, or are they, like beginner runners, laying/maintaining a base state from which they can periodically launch high intensity “assaults” on their personal best?

Second, before I got fat I used to do a lot of martial arts. I vividly remember that as I improved at Tae Kwon Do, I would go through an alternating series of ‘plateaus’ and ‘quick advances’. I would train very hard day after day at a certain skill and would see no progress, and then, all of a sudden, perhaps after weeks of trying, I would see a sudden breakthrough. Does it follow, in light of what you write above, that, had I trained more slowly (or at least less arduously) at certain skills (for instance, advancing from a 180 jumping hook-kick to a 360 jumping hook-kick), I might have advanced beyond the ‘plateau’ more quickly? (I know that this about learning a skill, as opposed to completing a feat of endurance, but does the same sort of principle apply?)