Question: What benefices you get doing two training sessions: in the morning and afternoon?

Answer by Luis Tavares

In my point of view there isn't much benefit in doing two training sessions. Until now there isn't any proof that runners that do two training sessions perform better than the one training session runners. I have a 2:19 marathon runner that does just one training session per day and there aren't many athletes that can achieve this level of performance doing two training sessions. My advice is that the most important thing is the rest and the recovery. If you do one training per day, then you will have basically 24 hours of recovery compared to the 12 hours that the two training sessions runner will have.
Luis Tavares
e-mail: e.c.tavares@uol.com.br - site: http://www.ectavares.com.br

Answer by Marco Alburquerque

Two training sessions - pros and cons
Pros: The two training sessions approach gives to the athlete the possibility of a better quality higher training volume. This better quality training is due to the fact that the body recovers better when the training session is shorter. Besides, the shorter training at the same intensity requires less from the muscle glycogen stores.
Cons: Two training sessions aren't the proper stimulus to the body when the goal is the build up to a long duration activity, like long runs and long distance races. 
Marco Alburquerque
e-mail: marcomrt@directnet.com.br

Answer by Luis Antônio Sturian

The big majority of athletes are amateurs that can't even recover from the daily training, so they have to do a light running on the following day to recover the muscles. The ones that do two training sessions are high performance athletes that have all the support from their coaches and, even so, some can't adapt to the two daily training sessions regime. Training too much leads to the risk of the athlete using his metabolic resources and his own muscles to recover, and this doesn't bring any benefits.
Conclusion: Based on the experience with my athletes, I don't recommend the two training sessions regime unless you have the support of a coach. 
Luis Antônio Sturian
e-mail: voutreinar@voutreinar.com.br
site: www.voutreinar.com.br

Related articles:
Should you run twice per day?, recovery, training volume, long runs

This article has informational purpose and  isn't a substitute for professional advice.

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