Double Whammy? Hadd do you know what he is taking about

Well I'm not Hadd but I get the sense that this guy either a) does not know what he is talking about or b) does but is incompetent at expressing it coherently as his words seem self-contradictory.

...or both

He is wrong on the first whammy, because your aerobic system WILL increase in efficiency....that is what aerobic training is all about. On the second count he is correct the percieved effort will drop...as your aerobic threshhold gets better, it will move closer to HRmax and so you'll have to be working pretty hard before going anaerobic. However, he is completely wrong that this is a bad thing. It's only bad if you are dumb enough to try training at the upper end of your aerobic threshhold day in, day out and cause overtraining. What he doesn't say is that this is what would happen no matter what kind of training you were doing. The key is that, for him to be correct, you must assume every runner is a fool and is going to do too much, too fast.

If you listen to this guy, then you will go out on your runs and push yourself anaerobic, end up cutting it short from exhaustion, and as you are trying to stop panting and catch your breath congratulate yourself on protecting your anaerobic system.

This guy either knows very little or is a sprinter coach.

I'm certainly no expert, but I see a couple areas where logic really breaks down in this "doubly whammy" train of thought.

It mentions that long slow distance is an example of training that lowers anaerobic capacity. But the in the first consquence it states "lower anaerobic capacity leads to the utilization of the aerobic system more at every effort level while the aerobic system has not increased in capacity". Well, if you are doing long slow distance, you are increasing your aerobic system. So, unless I am missing something here, this logic makes no sense.

In the second consequence, it mentions the "real danger of over-training because his over-confidence has led to increased training loads that he cannot handle". Dangers from increased training loads and over stress I believe accompany intense anaerobic training much more so than LSD.

Again, I'm not the expert, but the information from that website doesn't seem to make sense to me. If he focused on combining aerobic and anaerobic training fine. But his reasoning seems off. Also, if one doesn't have much of an aerobic base, it probably makes sense to focus on that for a while before incorporating anaerobic work.

AH wrote:

This guy either knows very little or is a sprinter coach.

If he's a sprint coach, he's not a very good one.

I know this is a few years to late but after thoroughly researching the ideas on lactate.com I know quite a bit about it. The reference to the double whammy is very vague though. The whole theory is pretty long winded so if anyone is interested to know more go ahead and continue this thread. If you don't I guess you are not interested. Either way I will not be offended. Just thought I'd put it out there. For further info you should really read Jan Olbrecht's books and research, it is quite interesting.

Speak on this Mr. Balance....

tell us balance....please.

balance wrote:

I know this is a few years to late but after thoroughly researching the ideas on lactate.com I know quite a bit about it. The reference to the double whammy is very vague though. The whole theory is pretty long winded so if anyone is interested to know more go ahead and continue this thread. If you don't I guess you are not interested. Either way I will not be offended. Just thought I'd put it out there. For further info you should really read Jan Olbrecht's books and research, it is quite interesting.

There is life out there.

So your interested fine I'll tell you what I know.

First a little background. The "double whammy" is a term made up by the individual who markets the "Accutrend" lactate analyzer on lactate.com. He made up this term to describe some potential problems you may run into if your anaerobic capacity is too low. Lactate.com advocates the use of lactic acid meters in training, but only as a way of testing athletes progress, not as a way to necessarily control the training or even figure out where the Anaerobic threshold is. As far as lactate.com goes it is not important. I will tell you why later. First you must realize that all of the information on lactate.com is based on the work of Jan Olbrecht a Belgium exercise physiologist and former elite swimmer. Olbrecht attended the University of Collogne in Germany where he studied under Madder. Madder developed a theory to why the lactate curve shifts either to the right or to the left. The general consensus by most exercise physiologists and coaches is that a shift to the right is always a good thing. The problem with this thinking is that it is not always true. Madder and Olbrecht have observed that as a season progresses and an athletes anaerobic threshold increases their performances don't always get better and may even decline. Madder and Olbrecht wanted to know why. Madder came up with the theory and Olbrecht tested it on swimmers and runners to see if it was true. His work shows that Madders theory is highly correlated with the shifts seen in the lactate curve, and that it can explain the reason for a decrease in performance for swimmers and runners even when their is an increase in the anaerobic threshold. This is not the first time this has hinted at on these posts. Renato has stated something to this effect about training 800 runners. He is very vague though, and unless you are familiar with Olbrecht's work you probably wouldn't understand what he was talking about. Olbrecht's work has convinced me that it is wrong to believe that an increase in anaerobic threshold is always a good thing. Most coaches and exercise physiologists believe it is, which may be the reason for

a lot of athletes failure to ever reach there potential. They don't know what physiological adaptations they should be looking for, and are therefore unable to reach them.

A lot of coaches know what to do but this is only from observation and common sense, and has nothing to do with lactate testing. If they only focused on the lactate shift they would probably not be as good a coach. American coaches have probably become too concerned with increases in the anaerobic threshold and this may be one of the reasons for our demise. More info to come....

Maybe this seems very obvious to me...

As for the 'double whammy' point #1

"First Consequence - lower anaerobic capacity leads to the utilization of the aerobic system more at every effort level while the aerobic system has not increased in capacity. This is the first whammy. The athlete is not training any harder but is in danger of over-training because he has changed the mixture of energy he is using during each workout."

I really don't think that this was thought through. It is pretty clear to me that the body does adapt to change. If you're mainly using a system, the body is going to learn how to use more of it and improve the process. In other words, the aerobic system is not going to stay stagnet in capacity. I've never heard of a limit on mitchondria, but I assume that if this were to happen you'd have reached a genetic limitation. But honestly, how many of us really reach THAT!? As before mentioned, people got better as their LT curve became "worse". This is obvious why they improved more. The anaerobic system is POWERFUL. You'd be foolish to not train it at all. It is only when that system becomes the main system that you run into efficiency problems- problems you do not want in endurance racing. When running a marathon, the ability to produce a lot of fast energy is not needed or is it any good. You need to be efficient, so you need a good LT curve. Although, if you're running a 5k, you're going to still want a good LT curve, but there is a lot more 'quick' energy needed in that race. A good LT will help with mopping up lactate while it is produced, and you can get energy from BOTH systems. I haven't seen many people prepare of a 5k by preparing for a marathon. You need both energy systems working well to do your best for that day. It is only a matter of in what balance do you need those that your LT becomes 'better' or 'worse'.

As for the 'double whammy' point #2

"Second Consequence - lower anaerobic capacity leads to less perceived stress at every effort level and most will assume that they are now stronger and can handle increased training loads. This is the second whammy. The athlete is in real danger of over-training because his over-confidence has led to increased training loads that he cannot handle. And when declines come from this over stress of the aerobic system, a typical reaction is to train harder."

This sounds, to me, simple enough. A guy's training is going well. While his LT moves, it feels easier to run and so he thinks, "Wow, I should run even more!" There's a tendency to think your invincible due to the effort. So there are two possibilities with this. The first one is simple; the athletes runs so much that he gets an injury. The second one isn't all that complicated either; the athlete runs so much that he is no longer fresh for workouts, and thus they suffer as well, with progress sucessfully being stalled.

Before I begin again I think I should mention that you really should get Olbrecht's book. It explains everything I am talking about and includes charts and graphs that can better explain the theory and its application than I can. I will try though. Now that I have given you some background on where the term "double whammy" came from I will get more into the specifics of what it is really. Lactate.com is very vague and it doesn't really tell you anything. It only leaves you with more questions. I'm here to help with the answers. Lets break the "double whammy” theory into its parts and explain what is really meant by this arbitrary terminology. The following refers to the “double whammy” as seen on lactate.com

The site claims that the lowering of anaerobic capacity has two consequences, and that this can lead to overtraining.

The first claim is that a consequence of lower anaerobic capacity is that it leads to the utilization of the aerobic system more at every effort level while the aerobic system has not increased in capacity. The potential problem of this is that it is possible to over stress your aerobic capacity and therefore become over trained (the first whammy). If your anaerobic capacity was higher you would not be using your aerobic capacity as much because more energy would be supplied from your anaerobic capacity in the form of lactate. An idea I will be more specific about later, but that you need to understand a little about before I go on is that the higher your anaerobic capacity the more lactate you create at every speed you run. So if you measured your lactate level at a six minute mile and found it to be at a particular level, and then trained to increase it over a period of six weeks, you would be creating more lactate at a six minute mile pace six weeks from now.

I'm sure we are all aware by now that lactate is not just a waste product. It is an energy source that our muscles use as fuel every minute of every day. Lactate only becomes a problem when your aerobic capacity is too low to be able utilize the lactate. Your slow twitch muscle fibers use pyvurate as fuel just like carbohydrates proteins and fats. When lactate is produced by the fast twitch fibers (more lactate is produced the faster you run) it is then converted to pyvurate to be used as fuel. When your aerobic capacity is too low you can not utilize all of your fuel sources. When this happens you will not be able to utilize all of the pyvurate that is being created and it will turn back into lactate in the form of lactic acid. If this continues to happen you will eventually have to slow down because of a decrease in cellular activity. Again it is those darn Hydrogen ions, dam them.

The second claim is that "a lower anaerobic capacity leads to less perceived stress at every effort level and most will assume that they are now stronger and can handle increased training loads. This is the second whammy. The athlete is in real danger of over-training because his over-confidence has led to increased training loads that he cannot handle. And when declines come from this over stress of the aerobic system, a typical reaction is to train harder."

The important thing to learn from the “double whammy” is that it is possible to over train even if you are training exclusively aerobically. Aerobic power workouts are very stressful on the system yes? If you are over stressing your aerobic capacity even at slow speeds you will be training your aerobic power not your aerobic capacity and this is the reason you will become over trained.

You may be thinking these ideas kind of put a thorn in the whole Lydiard theory of building a good aerobic base of high quality running. I myself am a huge Lydiard fan, so I didn't want to believe it, but after thinking about it a while I don't really believe Lydiard’s ideas to be totally wrong. I believe his method will work well for those athletes who are naturally born to have very high anaerobic capacities. This would be true of middle distance runners, especially 800m runners. This could explain why Snell was able to train this way but not over train. It is reported that he could run a 200m time trial in about 22-23 seconds after finishing his marathon training and hill training. This is pretty fast for a guy who hasn't done any really speed work. This leads me to believe he naturally had a high anaerobic capacity and in order to be successful at the 800m and mile distances he actually had to purposefully reduce his anaerobic capacity, otherwise he would produce too much lactic acid and not be completive at the 800m and mile distances. It just so happens that very high mileage and long steady runs reduce anaerobic capacity, so this type of training would have been perfect for a guy with Snell’s physical attributes, but not so effective for someone with a low anaerobic capacity. This may be the reason why there are so many different roads to Rome, a different one for each athlete, or for each athletes physical attributes.

It is important to mention that the term as used by Lydiard as far as training anaerobic capacity is not the same as the one used by Olbrecht. Olbrecht defines anaerobic capacity as the ability to utilize carbohydrates as fuel. The higher your anaerobic capacity the more lactate you will be able to produce in an all out 600m run. Olbrecht would describe Lydiard’s four weeks of track training as aerobic power workouts not anaerobic capacity workouts. Olbrecht defines anaerobic power as the ability to maximize ones utilization of there aerobic capacity (VO2max). To Olbrecht a workout would be training aerobic power if it was training at the anaerobic threshold or faster, all the way to 100% of VO2max, or about 3-5k race pace. These are about the speeds Lydiard's runners were performing during their four week track phase.

MTUrunner you are right on point about properly training a 5k runner. You definatly need a good anaerobic capacity and aerobic capacity. Your point about getting the propper balancing is right on point also. Why do you think my username is balance? That is what it is all about.

As for your coment about "A good LT will help with mopping up lactate." Anaerobic threshold is just a term to describe the sudden and steady rise of lactate, it is not a physiological function. There is nothing at the anaerobic threshold mopping up lactate. Thanks for thinking though, you are not far off.

How do you over stress the aerobic system even by running slow?

What is the difference in aerobic power and aerobic capacity and in the workouts involved?

I don't know ask balance. That's who I'm asking.

How do you over stress the aerobic system even by running slow? Slow is relative to each athlete but basically anything close to about marathon race pace would be really stressing the aerobic system even though it is no where near 100% of VO2max. I am sure we have all seen those runners who run about eight minute pace per mile for all of their runs and then run the same pace for a marathon. If they have a very week anaerobic system most of the energy will be created aerobically and they will be in danger of over stressing their aerobic system, this gets worse the more miles they run at this pace. It is also possible to over stress the aerobic system at even slower speeds. If you fatigue your muscles through very high mileage you will be putting more stress on your aerobic system, especially if you are low in stored glycogen from all of those miles. Without adequate supplies of glycogen you will not be able to produce much lactic acid, because aerobic capacity is dependent on your ability to break down carbohydrates. This is why it is possible to overstress your aerobic capacity even at slow speeds.

What is the difference between aerobic power and aerobic capacity and in the workouts involved?

Aerobic capacity(VO2max) is a measure of your ability to utilize oxygen. Say you have a VO2max test done, they can tell you what your measured VO2max is. This does not mean much though because you want to be able to run at a speed that is close to the speed that will benefit from a high measurement. Just because you have a high oxygen utilization does not mean you can run at the speed that maximizes that utilization for very long. Training your muscles to be able to run longer and longer at this speed or close to this speed will require aerobic power workouts. Capacity workouts increase your maximum levels, and power workouts increase your utilization of those levels. Each event requires deferent workouts to maximize the aerobic power. If you are a 10k runner you better practice running at 10k race pace. If you train at a speed faster or slower you will not be training the specific muscle fibers that will be utilized during the race and will not be able to utilize your high VO2max. Not that slower or faster speeds don't help, they will, but they won't be as effective. For some events the closer the anaerobic threshold speed is to VO2max pace the better. This is especially true for the 10k, half marathon and the marathon. Again more on all this later, much much more to discuss.

More on aerobic power workouts.

Easy runs at about 50% of V02max pace to about 70% of Vo2max pace are classified as aerobic capacity workouts.

Olbrecht likes to include a little bit of intensity to maximize aerobic development. He recommends a limited amount of about 3k or so of aerobic power running or very short and fast sprints to increase anaerobic capacity. Small amounts of intensity seem to increase aerobic capacity, while large volumes of intensity actually bring it down. We still need to increase the oxidative capabilities of the fast twitch fibers, but we don’t want to break down the athlete. It is also a very good idea to work on your speed at all times, jus not in high volumes.

Runs at about 80% of V02max pace (about the anaerobic threshold or half marathon race pace) to about 100% vo2max (about 3-5k race pace are classified as aerobic power workouts. you can run faster and still maximize aerobic power but it does not do a better job, so it is basically increasing your risk of injury. That is unless you are a miler, in which case you would probably want to train a race pace for these workouts now and then. An important feature of a good aerobic power workout is that it the faster running should add up to about the race distance. These are tough workouts and you probably don't want to do them more than once every 7 days or so.

Thanks balance and keep it coming! This double whammy thread is turning out to be a good one.

And so for a 10k runner, in order to work on aerobic power you do 10k pace type workouts and for VO2max or aerobic capacity you do faster speed stuff in order to raise maximum effort levels or raise the ability to utilize oxygen? Correct? Or am I way off reading your post.

LT (lactate threshold) falls right above 1/2 marathon pace so certainly LT workouts or tempo workouts are considered aerobic power workouts right?