Few triathletes boast the social media profile of Lionel Sanders.
With over 194,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel, the Canadian star’s latest offering details his approach to training for the 2025 season.
Titled “Train smarter, not harder”, Sanders talks about his “illogical” training practices in recent years as he aims to “achieve his best” this season.
Training to meet demand
2024 was a successful campaign for Sanders in terms of race victories. The 36-year-old took top honours at IRONMAN 70.3 Oceanside, IRONMAN 70.3 Mont Tremblant and IRONMAN Canada – although the latter involved no swim.
It terms of full-distance racing, Sanders finished on the podium at IRONMAN Lake Placid before a disappointing IRONMAN World Championship performance in Kona ended his campaign with a whimper.
Refreshed and ready to go ahead of the 2025 season, “No Limits” will certainly follow his own path.
“This year is about doing the specific volume to meet the demand that I will place on myself in the race,” Sanders detailed in his latest YouTube release (watch the full video at the foot of this page).
“Can I ride my bike for only two hours and expect to do four hours at bottom of zone three, upper zone two, and then also run well after in zone three?
“The answer to that is no. Why in the world would you be able to do that suddenly on any particular race day – that’s illogical.”
“From a volume standpoint I believe in specificity of volume, so as long as I am doing the specific sessions with which to meet the demands of the race, then whatever the volume of that ends up being is what the volume ends up being.”
“I want to achieve MY best”
Sanders continued on the illogical narrative when he highlighted his training methods over the past few years.
“It is illogical to me to be training like pro tour cyclists for a race they want to win over 20 days – they have to be able to perform on day seven, day nine, day 12, day 15 and day 20, literally in a row – hard five hour racing days.
“So to train like them, that is not even remotely the demand with which we encounter as triathletes, is the most illogical and stupid thing I can even think of….
“…..yet that’s what I have been striving to do the last few years.”
From now on, Sanders has one goal – to achieve his best.
“For what I am training for, I don’t know a single triathlete who goes to the race they want to win and comes in tired.
“Every athlete I have ever met who goes to a race they want to win tapers for probably five to seven, and some even more, 10 days, meaning the day of the race they are as fresh as they could possibly be.
“It’s no longer ‘I have to train four or five hours a day, no recovery days,’ because that’s what some other guy is doing and he is having success. Whoever is good at that moment let’s copy them because we are in insecure and don’t know what we are talking about.”
“I only have one goal for myself now and it is – I want to achieve my best – and I know how to do it.”
Long weighs in
Rival Sam Long was quick to way in on the debate of training methods on his Instagram page:
“On my way to the Shootout, but just watched @lsanderstri latest video… and realizing I might be overtraining. 22 hours in already this week—maybe I should just turn around and spend the day with the fam instead? 🤔😂 #TrainSmarterNotHarder”
