[Xpedition]

I’m interested to know how much an average trainee can expect to see their aerobic threshold increase in their first season of training.

I’m coming predominantly from weight lifting and a little bit of rock climbing. My lab test results put my AeT at 146 and my AnT at 176. I saw in a recent article on muscular endurance we should expect to be within 10 percent of our AnT before switching to ME training. So 176 – 17 – 146 = 13 points. Is this doable in a season? Is 30 points Aerobic Deficiency Syndrome? Would it help if I cut the tags out of my underwear?

Thanks in advance!

Topic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on November 15, 2019 at 8:16 am #32038

Xpedition:

AeT improvement depends on two things primarily:

1) Your genetics. The distribution of adaptability is like a bell curve. Luckily, we humans are genetically predisposed towards endurance rather than speed and power. So, the bell curve for this has rather short tails. That means that while there are definitely fast responders and non-responders the vast majority of folks will fall in the middle with decent response to this type of training. Since you can’t control your genetics you’ll just have to find out by doing an experiment of one.

2) VOLUME: This the biggie and it is a universal rule no matter your genetics. For those with ADS the higher the volume of training you can handle just below your AeT (Z2) the faster the improvement will come. Caveat- DON’T TAKE THIS TO MEAN YOU SHOULD JUMP TO RUNNING 100MILES/WEEK. But the volume of this stuff is the main stimulus to improvement.

My TYPICAL observations: For those training under 8 hours/week of Z2 it is going to take 4-6 months to appreciably move the needle. Once over about 12 hours/week decent gains can come in 8-12 weeks.

I hope this helps.
Scott

[Xpedition]

Xpedition on November 15, 2019 at 12:10 pm #32050

Haha, I will attempt to hold back from running 100 miles this week. But yes that’s quite helpful, thank you!

[Adam Fern]

Adam Fern on November 20, 2019 at 5:17 pm #32389

Hi @jeff,

Just some anecdotal reference data from my own experience:

I started working with a UA coach back in Feb 2018 while in the depths of ADS. My first metabolic test indicated my AeT at 120-125 and AT about 165. Fast forward to Jan 2019, I had lost 30 lbs and logged about 275 hours of training (>95% of which was Z1-Z2, and a good chunk of that was fasted training) and my AeT had risen to about 150 with virtually no change to AT. A couple of months ago I did my own aerobic decoupling test to test AeT and concluded it had increased a bit further to 155.

As Scott said, VOLUME and FASTED TRAINING in the low aerobic regime will pay the biggest dividends in increasing AeT. Once fat adaptation is well-established, the benefits of fasted training begin to wane and volume becomes king.

Happy training,
Adam

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on November 22, 2019 at 3:53 pm #32478

@theflyingmtneer: Great job! That is awesome.

@jeff: There is one more factor…

3) How disciplined you are about avoiding anaerobic training while you get your aerobic house in order.

The best results I’ve had in a client was eight weeks. But in addition to being a fast-responder with an impressive work ethic, he also avoided high-intensity training until it was the proper time to add it.