Thanks!
russes011
Forum Replies Created
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ParticipantParticipant
Thanks! Got it.
ParticipantDr T,
Do you recommend a specific podcast or article by Jason Coop, or is it his book?
Steve
ParticipantThis device doesn’t make physiological sense.
It increases PEEP (positive end expiratory pressure) by adding resistance to exhalation. PEEP increases blood oxygenation.
1. Your blood oxygenation, however, is already at 100%, or near 100%, ESPECIALLY during exercise (one exception may be training at very HIGH altitude). Nevertheless, increasing it a few percentage points will not help the average athlete. And no, you can’t make it higher than 100%.
2. PEEP paradoxically reduces ventilation–the volume of air that passes through your lungs with each breath. This is because the device prevents you from fully exhaling. Furthermore, this failure to fully exhale or “air trapping”, makes a higher percent of the air you breath to never reach the lungs–a higher percentage just ‘ventilates’ your airways not your lungs. (This device PARTLY simulates asthma. Asthma also prevents you from fully exhaling and causes air trapping. If you want to simulate asthma to train harder, however, this may be a good purchase.)
3. Your lungs oxygenating your blood, in general, is not a rate limiting problem with exercise. Your blood oxygenation stays near 100% during exercise. Even at moderate altitude, where your oxygen saturation may be less than 100%, exercise naturally opens more alveoli in lungs and increases your saturation by a number of percentage points if below 100%. Air hunger during intense exercise is from CO2 build up (and adrenaline), not a low oxygen level in the blood–increasing PEEP can only make this worse. (O2 can also stimulate breathing but this doesn’t occur until the saturation is quite low, like say <90%).
True rate limiting factors with exercise include your heart during high zone work (hence maxHR), mitochondrial density (and a variety of other enzymatic factors) for low zone work, and MOSTLY your nervous system, which is what they call the ‘governor’–it makes you slow down or stop when things get too hard, heavy, or long, even if your body can keep going.
PS – how do you add a photo of yourself to your profile?
ParticipantThat’s actually an amazing result for 3 months of work. Congrats!
Just curious: what’s your MAF HR?
ParticipantDC,
Grab you covid face shield because there’s firehose of unsolicited spray coming your way.
All day endurance, say trail running, has four interconnected training components: aerobic base, anaerobic base, technique, and durability. By interconnected, I mean each component can’t be optimized without training the others, but at the same time training the others may be paradoxically detrimental to optimizing a specific component.
AEROBIC BASE may be further split into its two components: cardiovascular endurance (CV, “the delivery”, ~VO2max) and muscular endurance (ME, “the uptake”, ~lactate threshold).
ANAEROBIC BASE can also be split into two components: muscular endurance (the same ME as for aerobic base above), and power/strength.
ME functions on a spectrum: one end of the spectrum is more aerobic (lungs are the rate limiters), while the other end is more dependent on power/strength (legs are the rate limiters).
Z1/Z2 training develops the CV component of aerobic base, and to a lesser degree the ME component. Only training Z1/Z2, however, even for a prolonged period of time, will leave the ME component relatively underdeveloped, and therefore one will remain ‘aerobically deficient’ until this is corrected.
Muscle and/or sport specific interval training (eg, hill sprints and hill fartleks) develops the ME component of aerobic base, and to a lesser degree the CV component (it probably develops both equally per unit time). An extreme, nonspecific example of this type of training would be the metabolic circuits done in Crossfit.
One can independently develop either the CV or ME component of aerobic base to an extreme degree (looking at you DC). Extensive CV development does not require ME development per se, and vice versa. But to fully develop ones aerobic base you need both, and preferably both from the start.
The catch is dosing.
Mans’ ability to perform Z1/Z2 training is almost limitless; we are meant to be moving all day, everyday. Improvements over time can be slow but at the same time regression is also slow.
ME training, on the other hand, can only be tolerated in relatively small doses, and when the dosage is HIGH we can only tolerate it for a short periods of time (weeks) before plateauing. Persistent and significant ME training (eg, >20% of total training time—this varies), regardless if its on the aerobic end of the ME spectrum (UA training), or more on the power/strength end of the ME spectrum (metabolic Crossfit circuits), can also lead to hormonal burnout, especially if you have other stressors in your life.
That said, ME training can be healthy to perform year round, and, in fact, is required to build a strong and complete aerobic base. Small amounts of ME training from the get go probably also speeds up your aerobic development–nevertheless, a stout aerobic base still takes forever to develop. ME training should be low dosage, however, especially in the transition phase. For example, <5-10% total training time, or say 1-8x10sec hill sprints and/or 1-8x40sec hill fartleks. This seems like a homeopathic dose, but due to its potency, it can fulfill the requirement for full aerobic base development, while at the same time not causing burnout. It can periodized (ramped up) as you progress from transition, base, and ME phases of your training.
The downside to not performing at least some ME work from the start may be twofold:
Your aerobic base, as defined above with its CV and ME components, may be underdeveloped going into an ME phase, and although you will still benefit highly from the ME workouts, your overall improvement during an ME phase may be handicapped because you started with such a poor ME base. This is often manifested as feeling too weak, and/or with a HR too high, to complete the initial 45-60min ME workouts properly.
You may also be more prone to injury if you go, for example, from only Z1/Z2 workouts, with or without supplemental strength (gym) training, to a cycle with workouts dedicated solely to ME (often 45-90min long), ie, going from 0% to 20% of your workout volume being ME, this often is just too big of a jump, even with a year or more of Z1/Z2 workouts and a well developed CV system. These injuries may manifest as muscle strains and cramps, often in the calf or groin. Alternatively, going from, say, 5% to 20% gradually over time, may be not only better tolerated, but more fruitful.
DC, it’s my opinion that you should incorporate some Z4 into your schedule, even though there’s a >10% difference between your AeT HR and your AnT HR. Start very small, volume wise, and slowly increase it to about 10% of your training volume over the next few weeks—let this become your new baseline. Then feel free to kick into a full ME peak phase whenever you want.
The easy stuff should remain easy. Continue the bulk of your training below a HR of 152, as you’ve been doing for the past year, whether it’s Z1 or Z2, it doesn’t matter much. I wouldn’t suggest doing much in the 152-170 zone, even though it may still be Z2 based on your AeT drift test. Keep in mind easy doesn’t necessarily mean slow, but it should definitely be easy, perhaps too easy.
(My thoughts on these topics are evolving so any comments or corrections would be appreciated.)
ParticipantDC,
In summary, you have performed 780hr (15-16hr/wk) of Z1/Z2 work over the past 12 months as a 34 year old and you still have ADS: an AeT HR of 170 and AnT HR of 190 your separation is 11%. You want to not have ADS before you add higher zone work to your routine, hence your interest in having an AeT HR of 175.
I understand many folks with date specific goals just move on to higher zone work despite knowing (or not knowing) they have a separation of >10%, but to maximize your ability to absorb higher zone work you need to be without ADS, which is a reasonable prerequisite.
So how is it possible that after 780hr you are still aerobically deficient? Well, either the ADS threshold of >10% is not completely reliable (ie you aren’t aerobically deficient), or, alternatively, you’re in fact still aerobically deficient. I don’t know the answer, but I suspect both are partly true.
These are interesting questions I do not know the answer to. I will post again below with my thoughts, but it would be great to hear what others think.
— Steve
ParticipantDC,
I second Sashi in congratulating you on ~15hr/week of <AeT training for the past year.
I’m curious about a few things, if you don’t mind me asking some questions.
To not sidetrack your thread I started a new one with my questions here.
— Steve
ParticipantThanks for the response. Makes sense. Will continue to read about this subject.
ParticipantThanks. Understood.
ParticipantI’m speaking theoretically. I understand that UA has developed its own variation of the MAF method with its aerobic deficiency syndrome training paradigm. I respect both of these methods, especially the latter and practice it in my training. There are, however, reasonable criticisms of the MAF method by many experienced coaches. One that I have yet to rectify in my own mind, is whether strict training only below AeT (ie the MAF method), versus say 80-90% below AeT with the rest being low zone 3, as described above (easy-moderate progressions, fartleks, hills, etc. [not strength training per se]). Said in another way, why is always being below AeT better than occasionally, but routinely, being mildly to moderately above AeT for 10-20% of the time (ie low enough to preclude overtraining) when it comes to raising one’s AeT and eliminating ADS. I say the following tongue-in-cheek, but folks may develop ‘anaerobic deficiency syndrome’ by strictly training below AeT during one’s base, which may be fine for flat-land ultra runners using the MAF method, but perhaps not so much for uphill athletes.
ParticipantThank you for the info Sashi and Lindsay.
Scott’s past post that you linked was what I was looking for in regard to time/volume.
On a separate note, I believe (but am unsure) that there may be different paths to achieving the ability to perform within your aerobic zone without drift or decoupling, versus raising your AeT. I assume achieving latter would by default achieve the former, but am not sure the opposite is true. (Not sure if there is an answer to this question or whether or not it really matters–more just thinking out loud here)
Participantrusses011 on March 9, 2021 at 12:59 pm · in reply to: AeT Heart Rate Drift Test – Negative Result #51797For running, the post says to substitute speed for power:
“The AeT portion of the workout is split into halves. For each half the normalized power (cycling) or speed (running) is divided by the average heart rate to establish two ratios. The ratios are then compared by subtracting the first half ratio from the second half ratio and dividing the remainder by the first half ratio. This produces a power-to-heart rate-ratio percentage of change from the first half to the second half of the aerobic threshold ride. That percentage of change is your rate of decoupling.”
(I used mph: 4mph = 15min pace; 6.6mph = 9min pace)
As previously discussed, it goes on to state:
“Note that there are two ways to do an aerobic threshold coupling workout. You can ride or run while keeping heart rate steady to see what happens to power or speed. Or you can maintain a steady power or speed and see what heart rate does.”
ParticipantHi. I find your question(s) very interesting–because I have similar ones.
When does one know if they no longer have ‘ADS’ (aerobic deficiency syndrome)? Is an AeT within 10% of AnT the best metric? An alternative method used on TP is to determine your current AnT and then take 75-85% (ie ~80% goal) of that (your running Z2 or aerobic zone) and confirm there is a <5% drift while in this zone for an hour. Which is best? Are there others?
I’m also curious, if know, what volume and duration of aerobic base training, on average, is required for most previously untrained and not overweight persons to not have ADS? There must be some ballparks here
— Steve
Participantrusses011 on March 9, 2021 at 3:50 am · in reply to: AeT Heart Rate Drift Test – Negative Result #51764Thank you Lindsay,
Thank you for your post.
Bear with me if this is old news: based on the TP blog post I linked above the way TP calculates Pa:HR decoupling is pretty simple, it’s avg Pa/avg HR for the first half of your run minus avg Pa/avg HR for the second half of your run, with the result then divided by avg Pa/avg HR from the first half of your run. (note: one doesn’t need TP to determine decoupling, per TP)
Your first example yields a decoupling of +40% and your second -53% (if my math is correct, using MPH for Pa).
Nevertheless, I understand your point that the test can yield a negative result under certain circumstances (hills), and this result is likely suspect if the HR drifts down and/or the pace drifts up–specifically.
–Steve