Training vs Testing: Knowing the Difference

We test things at Round 1.

Not all the time, and certainly not in every training block, but testing weeks appear semi-regularly throughout our programming. Sometimes we'll test a 3RM or 5RM on a lift. Sometimes we'll repeat a benchmark workout. Sometimes it might be a 2km row, a run or another measurable conditioning effort.

Whenever a testing week appears, there's usually a reason for it. Sometimes we need the numbers because of what we're planning to do next. If the next strength block is going to use percentages, for example, we need a reasonably accurate idea of what you're capable of lifting. Telling you to work at 80% isn't particularly useful if the number we're calculating that percentage from bears no relationship to what you can actually do.

Other times, we simply want to measure progress. We've trained something for eight or twelve weeks, we've consistently put the work in and now we want to find out whether we've actually improved. Testing gives us information. It provides some accountability, helps guide what comes next and, let's face it, there's something pretty satisfying about putting a number on the board that you couldn't have achieved a couple of months earlier.

Our current 5km a Day challenge is probably a pretty good example of the difference between training and testing.

The training part is running the 5km every day. You get out there, cover the distance and come back tomorrow to do it again. Some days you might feel great and move pretty quickly. Other days you'll be tired, sore or simply not particularly interested in running. On those days, you slow down, get the kilometres done and move on with your day.

What you definitely don't do is try to run your fastest possible 5km every morning.

If every run became an attempt to set a new PB, the challenge would probably be over pretty quickly. You simply can't stack maximum-effort days on top of one another and expect your body to keep playing along. The whole point of the challenge is accumulating the work. Day after day. Five kilometres at a time.

But if, after weeks of doing that, you wanted to know whether all of those kilometres had made you faster? Well, that's different.

Pick a day. Warm up properly. Set yourself a target.

And test.

That's the distinction. Training is the work that hopefully makes you better. Testing is how you occasionally find out whether it has.

And if we're going to test, there's another part of the deal that I think is just as important.

You actually have to test.

I see this most often with things like a 2km row or run. You start with a target. You know the pace you need to hold and the first few minutes feel pretty good. Then things start getting uncomfortable.

You're a couple of seconds behind the split you wanted. Your breathing isn't quite where you expected it to be. Your legs don't feel great. Maybe yesterday's session is still sitting in your body. Suddenly the internal negotiations begin.

"I'm probably not going to get the time I wanted."

"I don't think I've got it today."

"I'll just have another crack next week."

No. You're testing.

Buckle up and go.

A test isn't supposed to tell you what you're capable of when everything feels perfect and the result is unfolding exactly according to plan. Sometimes the most useful part of a test is finding out what you can produce when you're uncomfortable, under pressure and things aren't quite going your way.

If you start a genuine test, commit to it. The number you get at the end is the number. Maybe it's a PB. Maybe it isn't. Maybe you're disappointed with it. Maybe it tells us the previous block didn't deliver quite what we'd hoped. Maybe it exposes something we need to work on next.

That's OK. That's what testing is for.

The problem comes when we take that testing mentality and apply it to every normal training session.

Most days at the gym, you aren't trying to find the absolute limit of what you can do. You're trying to do the work that gives you a better chance of being capable of more in the future.

That might mean lifting at 70% when you know you could lift more. It might mean holding a prescribed pace through a conditioning session rather than seeing how fast you can complete the first round. It might mean finishing a HYROX session knowing there was still a little bit left in the tank.

None of those things mean you haven't trained hard enough.

And just before anyone gets too excited, “I said I'm training, not testing” is not your new excuse for cruising through class. I'm already regretting writing this article because I can hear that sentence being repeated back to me (probably as soon as tomorrow).

Training still requires effort. Sometimes a lot of it. There will be sessions that are genuinely hard, sets where the last couple of reps are a battle and conditioning pieces where you're hanging on waiting for the clock to save you.

The point isn't that training should be easy.

Hard and maximum aren't the same thing.

We don't need to empty the tank every day to make progress. In fact, constantly trying to prove your fitness can get in the way of actually building it. If every interval becomes a time trial, every strength session becomes an opportunity to max out and every workout becomes a competition, you're not necessarily training harder. You're just testing more often.

And testing isn't where most of the progress happens.

Training is.

There's a time to accumulate volume. There's a time to practise movements, work at controlled percentages, develop your aerobic base and learn how to pace yourself. There's a time to push hard without pushing all the way.

Then, every now and again, there's a time to find out what all that work has produced.

That's when we test.

Strangely enough, I think we sometimes get those two behaviours completely backwards. We'll absolutely empty the tank trying to win a random Wednesday workout that nobody will remember by lunchtime, but halfway through a scheduled test, when things start hurting and the PB suddenly looks uncertain, we're tempted to back away.

It should probably be the other way around.

On training days, follow the program. Hit the prescribed loads and intensities. Do the work. Recover. Come back and do it again.

And when testing day arrives? Test.

Don't protect the result. Don't wait for the perfect day. Don't pull the pin because you're two seconds behind where you hoped you'd be.

Find out.

Then take whatever the test tells you and get back to training.

Because training and testing both matter. You just need to know which one you're doing.