This one really speaks for itself; we are all individuals and we all have individual responses to exercise. We believe everyone is unique and that everyone's response to exercise is different, which is why it's essential to craft training with that in mind.
There may be differences between sexes but also differences within sexes, which is why it's always important to monitor the individual response to training first. What are some of those differences? Differences in genetics, fitness, skill, experience and ability to adapt.
"My training is so different from my friends' training and we are both running the same event, why is that?"
Great question! We all have our own strengths and weaknesses that need addressing during training. It's worth noting that you can still meet the demands of the event with specificity, while respecting the differences that may exist between individuals. Perhaps you have more room to develop your top end with VO2 work, while another person may drive better adaptations focusing on a block of threshold running. Maybe you're in the early years of your running journey and the key driver of fitness is increasing your tolerance to easy running.
Further to this, your own training will differ from year to year as you continue the process of developing. One point that gets lost quite quickly in this discussion is that the difference between elite runners is a lot smaller than the differences between recreational runners (usually due to genetics and their training age), so we need to acknowledge that and frame training accordingly.
Blanket sweeping statements on social media about how to train are not always helpful. One person's ice bath is another person's zone 2. In any discussions about training it's always worth remembering that context comes before content and we get more value understanding the context of the individual and then applying the training within that context.
