Endurance science has been around in sports for many years. In fact, ever since the first relevant papers (scientific articles) started being published in scientific journals. And, although researchers have been examining athletic endurance systematically for many years, we’ve only recently begun to witness its evolution; mainly, due to the ever-increasing popularity of endurance sports, athletes, events, etc. 

In the last years, endurance sports — especially running, cycling, and triathlon —  have become very popular; and millions of people started training to be a part of the endurance sports community. As a result, a more scientific approach to endurance coaching for coaches became of primary importance. Why? First and foremost, for the safe coaching of the novice endurance athletes and, second, for optimizing their performance. 

Sports science is the field that studies how the human body works and performs during sporting activities. Its main focus is, of course, to understand the physiological mechanisms that lead to adaptations; and to maximize the athlete’s performance, when preparing for races. That being the case, a coach’s objective here is twofold: on one hand, to achieve the best possible results for athletes; and on the other, to lower the risk of injuries.