Posted In: Be Gentle With Failure
I should probably have phrased the question slightly differently.
In the book, steep hills sprints are recommended for development of
leg strength. Is there an analogous exercise for upper body that is
safe and appropriate even for people that have relatively weak upper
body?
In Olbrecht’s lactate book “Science of Winning”, he suggests 400m-600m maximum run
to determine anaerobic capacity.
Could you elaborate why an Ironman triathlete or a marathon runner
should maximize anaerobic capacity?
Scott has mentioned several times that even elite athletes suffer
from ADS (but it is probably masked by other abilities).
How does ADS manifest in *elite* athletes, runners or cross-country skiers?
Same as in weekend warriors?
Bjoergen self-reported training zones are quite a bit higher than
typical generic zones. Based on the published data:
HRmax = 173
Aerobic Threshold = 150
Anaerobic Threshold = 160
Her aerobic and anaerobic thresholds are within 6.5% of each other
and her training zones are
LIT: 67% to 86% HRmax (target zone 67% to 75%)
MIT: 87% to 92% HRmax (target zone 89% to 92%)
HIT: 93% to 100% HRmax (target zone 93% to 98%)
So, if she was just following generic zones (eg, for MIT: 82% to 87%) she might have
been doing a completely different training.
A few other interesting observations:
1. She appears to do very little to no training near hear aerobic threshold.
2. She seems to do no intervals shorter than 4 minutes (apart from actual sprint
competitions which would be around 3 minutes).
3. She does a lot of high altitude training year round.
If one trains at high altitude (like Norwegian skiers or Kenyan runners), how are
training intensities and training zones adjusted?
Thanks for detailed reply.
For some reason, I thought that local muscular endurance
training was different than what Seluyanov (who was
Verkohoshansky’s student) is proposing. I am talking about
the biochemical mechanisms that may elicit mitochondria
growth in IIa fiber types. But maybe there are just different
paths to get to the same goal (and the reason why it happens
may not be relevant for training purposes).
Another mitochondria related question is about some research that
showed that elite athletes have much higher mitochondria density
and that endurance training causes this density to change:
http://www.celemans.com/pdfs/2016%20Nielsen%20et%20al%20J%20Physiol.pdf
I am wondering how much of this is genetic and how much can this
be changed with training.
Here’s an article discussing weight training for
improving economy for endurance athletes:
For running there are several ways to improve running economy:
http://www.suunto.com/en-CA/sports/News-Articles-container-page/5-proven-ways-to-improve-running-economy/
Running some uphill intervals is also a good way to improve it.
Maybe loppets would be an exception for cross-country skiing since
most of the races are flat. If you were training for relatively
flat races (like Vasaloppet, Marcialonga, Engadin) how would the
training be different? I presume you would be training for those
more like for a running marathon.
So using a VO2 gadget to measure VO2 biomarker has the same
limitations as HR. Just like HRmax is not the same every day
VO2max isn’t either. So, you would have to know your daily
VO2max (and for particular sport) which is just not practical.
Your insights make me wonder if objective measure of intensity
(power, pace, speed, etc.) is then any better or more appropriate.
You run into the same problem with pace/power. If you are tired
on some day, and you train with some pace/power, you may be going
too hard (going too easy won’t do any damage, so you can live with that)
and not doing the intended.
I definitely agree with you about the benefit of slow/easy training.
But going back to my original question, I haven’t seen a good
explanation of what “slow” or “easy” means or how easy is too easy.
Those are very fluffy terms and I guess that’s where the art of coaching
comes in. So, maybe there’s no solid agreement or definition of it.
Seiler’s polarized training analysis says that 80% of *sessions* are
easy (below AeT or VT1). In terms of *time*, the distribution is 90% of
time is easy.
I looked at Kipchoge’s training before Berlin’s marathon.
His marathon pace (MP) is 2:55/km (say that’s 100% of MP or AeT)
His “easy” runs were at about 4:00/km which is very very slow,
37% slower than his marathon pace.
His “easy / moderate” runs were between 3:45/km to 3:26/km which
is 17% to 30% slower than his marathon pace.
His “moderate” runs were at about 3:22/km – 3:25/km which is
about 15% to 17% slower than his marathon pace.
His long “tempo” runs (40km long) were at 3:16/km which is
about 12% slower than his marathon pace.
All his “hard” sessions were in the range of 2:45/km (6% faster than his MP)
to about 3:00/km (3% slower than his MP). He did have some 400m (in 62s/400m = 2:35/km)
repeats that were about 11% faster than his MP.
If you look at the pace descriptions at the top of the “relative paces” page, Easy is 49-68% of AeT and Moderate is 68-78% of AeT.
Hmmm, I am puzzled by this. 50% of AeT is slow walking pace.
For top marathon runners, their marathon pace is at AeT (so 100% of AeT).
Many top runners don’t go below 80% of AeT unless it’s a regeneration.
Even then due to running biomechanics going slower than some pace is
actually more effort (and therefore harder).
Stephen Seiler analyzed Kipchoge’s published training before 2017 Berlin marathon
in terms of intensity:
Kipchoge's training over 41 days and 59 sessions prior to #berlinmarathon: rough quantification of available training log. pic.twitter.com/UDAbIMDPls
— Stephen Seiler (@StephenSeiler) September 28, 2017
It’s about 70% “easy” and 30% hard(er).
In your post, you mentioned “regeneration” paces. That makes me think that you’ve been reading some Renato Canova? If so, Canova uses “slow” to describe 80-85% of aerobic threshold.
In skiing, people also go for easy “regeneration” skiing in the afternoon after hard morning
session or a race. You just want to be moving, so it’s even easier/slower than “easy”.
Since you mentioned Canova, I just came across this marathon training article:
where the money quote is:
“What does a 2-hour easy run have to do with the marathon? Nothing.”
Renato does not understand why anyone training to run a fast marathon would do long easy runs. It is not specific to the marathon in any way. Following the Golden Rule of Canova, to achieve your best race-day performance, you must practice running at or around goal race pace for long periods of time. A 30-mile trail run up a mountain will get you in good general shape; it won’t, however, make you a faster marathoner.
I understand the theory behind going easy and it makes sense, but if you are an
elite athlete (ie, well trained for years) there surely must be a
point where going too easy doesn’t have much benefit, if any. Going “too slow”
may not hurt you, but it may not have any benefit either.
The way I understand the difference between using HR and EPOC (and using HRV during exercise itself) is accumulated fatigue. Exercise HRV is analyzed and converted to an EPOC value.
So, in theory, long-term accumulated fatigue can be carried from one training session
to another and visible in the EPOC value.
From my understanding, you may therefore have the same heart rate, but very different EPOC values (due to accumulated fatigue). There is a “learned” component to EPOC so that
HRV can be converted to EPOC (and % of VO2max).
Say that you can display EPOC value in real-time as you train, I was wondering if there is
any advantage to using it over HR. In particular, I had two things in mind:
1. Getting around cardiac drift problem. Perhaps EPOC (or % of VO2max if you could
measure it directly) is more robust than HR. Assuming that your VO2max is fairly constant,
you could then train at say 90% of VO2max which could mean different HR on a different day.
2. If you can’t measure pace/speed/power reliably (due to varying terrain, weather, snow
conditions, etc.), but maybe you know that a particular pace corresponds to a certain
percentage of VO2max, you may be able to hit the target pace more accurately.
These are just speculations as I have actually never seen any articles on how to use
this in practice in real-time (only as post analysis). I don’t even know if there is an
actual correlation between target pace and %VO2max.
Thanks for clarifications.
Login to your account below.
