If Tim Noakes "Central Governor" Model is Correct AND there is NO Lactate Threshold, HOW should this effect my train

dumb answer wrote:

Your panic at not grasping precisely what every last number in every column signifies is the perfect microcosm for the control-freak training mindset that demands to know exactly how many steps to run at exactly which pace, and demands a quasi-physiological explanation for why. Nicely done.

No panic at all here. Nor do I subscribe to control-freak mindset.

The post isn't explained, nor does going to the link help explain what those numbers mean. Rather than your failed ad hominem, perhaps you could explain what the numbers mean?

Nevermind. I just read goooooieeeeee's followup.

Imagine that a few years ago you read something by Jack Daniels that advocated "tempo runs" and explained the physiology behind the recommendation. You we persuaded by what he wrote and began doing these runs. You started racing faster than you'd done before. You've sworn by the tempo runs for years now.

Then you read the Central Governor Theory and it blows all that you believed about the physiology of your tempo runs out of the water. Mind you, they still work. It's just that your understanding of WHY they work that's changed. Are you going to give up what you believe is an essential part of your success just because you're read an article that contradicts your reasons for using that workout?

"No," you say. "I just want to know why the tempo run seems to work." One answer to that question is to respond with another question. You have two conflicting opinions, Daniels' and Noakes'. Why give more credence to Noakes? But even if you have reasons to give Noakes' opinion more credence, you're still left with the fact that the tempo runs seem to work for you.

On the other hand, if you feel like you've milked the tempo runs for all you can and need something else or that they never delivered the results you'd hoped for and were looking for a reason to ditch them and do something else you've now got a reason.

In summary, I don't see any reason why this information should lead you to change your training if you're satisfied with the results its given you. When Tim Hacker won the national xc championship some years ago he was asked if he thought he ahd an advantage over his competitors because he had a graduate degree in exercise physiology. His answer was, "No. Runners figure out what works and physiologists explian why."

HRE wrote:When Tim Hacker won the national xc championship some years ago he was asked if he thought he ahd an advantage over his competitors because he had a graduate degree in exercise physiology. His answer was, "No. Runners figure out what works and physiologists explian why."

Tim Hacker

6packjack wrote:

My question is WHY do they work if there is no LT?

With the demise of the cardiovascular/anaerobic model and lactate threshold theory there is no currently accepted physiological explanation as to why tempo runs work.

Stay tuned, though, as a new physiological theory is on the horizon and it explains why tempo runs work.

Richard_ wrote:

With the demise of the cardiovascular/anaerobic model and lactate threshold theory there is no currently accepted physiological explanation as to why tempo runs work.

Except that there IS no "demise" of said model except in the head of someone who set out to disprove it in the first place.

Stay tuned, though, as a new physiological theory is on the horizon and it explains why tempo runs work.

Top scientists like Richard are working very hard on it. Meanwhile, the rest of us will keep putting in all those miles that Richard says we shouldn't and getting those results he says we can't.

Having read Brain Training and it's supposed revolutionary ideas...

The book talked about how the Central Governor theory changes everything but in training athletes it doesn't change much at all, even if it's true.

Does it matter if lactate directly causes fatigue? Does it matter if glycogen depletion causes fatigue? No. Why? B/c a drop in glycogen sends the signal to the central governor. So it still makes sense to delay glycogen depletion. Same thing with lactate and many other substances that we do not know about yet.

If an increase in substance X sends a signal to the brain that the muscles are fatiguing and to drop fiber recruitment, thus causing "fatigue" then it still makes perfect sense to train to slow down the increase in substance X. It does not matter if substance X is directly causing fatigue in the muscle. A decrease in substance X delays fatigue.

It's easy to get bogged down in all of this physiology and it's why those who make physiology first and coaching 2nd are never great coaches. Coaching comes first.

If you want to use science, use it like Canova. He uses his knowledge of how the body works and comes up with simple models.

For example, he knows when an athlete is tiring it's partly due to a decrease in fiber recruitment. So he comes up with a theory that goes something like the following. You increase the amount of total fibers you can use. You train those fibers in endurance. You train to recruit and use those fibers under heavily fatigued conditions.

That's how it's done.

Why do tempo runs work under the central governor theory? Because they decrease the signal sent to the brain that is causing fatigue at that intensity. Most see this as lowering the amount of lactate produced or increasing the speed at Lactate Threshold. In the end though it doesn't matter, it works.

You mean "affect."

I would be very interested to see Jack Daniels' thoughts on this.

Noakes is ver respectful of Daniels in his book.

If Noakes is right, it would seem that much of the "WHY" stuff in "Running Formula" is wrong and based on a faulty premise. It may still work, and Noakes seems to acknowledge that it does, but the reasons why it does then become unclear.

Tempo Runs work for a very simple and uncomplicated reason:

1. You are running hard for an extended period of time.

To make it more complicated:

-you are running at a level away from homeostatis

-you are running at a level that is much harder than your day to day running

-whether this is 2-3 miles at 10k pace, 3-5 miles at half-marathon pace, upwards of 12-18 miles at marathon pace or a progression run involving a lot of paces depends on what kind of goal you have for such a workout

If you aim to run at 5k in 15:00 and do nothing but easy runs at 7:00 pace or 400s-miles at 15:00 pace then you are missing something. While running at 15:00 pace you have trained your body to look for a resting point. Tempo Runs, and likewise Lydiardesque "Time Trials" seek to make you run at a hard level for an extended period of time just as you would during a race.

Alan

Coolrunning dies, so Richard must find another place to peddle his drivel I see.

If Noakes is correct, and the Central governor model is true, then your brain is slowing you down so that it protects your heart from damage. By its very definition, training is simply overcoming the brain's "set point". So you should train to reset your set point.

If this model were true, hard-training elite athletes would die daily of heart attacks.

spaniel wrote:

If this model were true, hard-training elite athletes would die daily of heart attacks.

That's an incorrect assumption. The fact that their hearts do not redline is the [implied] proof of a governor.

Hey, just a quick bit of levity.

Q: How do you slow down a prostitute?

A: Put a governor on her.

WTF????? Whose backasswards conclusion was that and what fly-by-night definition of "tempo running" were they using? Ever done any running with sub-elite or elite Kenyans? For the vast majority of them, about 40% of their total volume is tempo running - proper tempo running, that is, in contrast with following strict numbers pulled from Penguin Planet magazine's latest pace chart. "Tempo" is not defined by pace; it is a state of being which is not so much "done" as it is "experienced" as a free-spirited, go-with-the-flow sensation. A tempo run pace isn't decided on; it just happens. And how do you know when you've passed it, when you've exceeded your "threshold"? In much the same way as raising a gram of liquid water from zero degrees to 100 degrees demands an energy requirement of one calorie per degree temperature increase, but overcoming the surface tension and changing from the liquid to gaseous state once the 100-degree mark is reached requires an additional whopping 540 calories per gram, exceeding the "tempo" state requires an inordinate amount of effort relative to reaching it in the first place.

How can there possibly be a problem with that?

It's accumulated experience - often at a Darwin Award-winning cost - that taught people certain plants or mushrooms were inedible. If we had to rely exclusively on theory instead, we might guess brightly-colored foods like strawberries or carrots are poisonous precisely because of their aposematic (warning) coloration, so we should play it safe and stick to bland-colored foods like Amanita phalloides (a.k.a. the "Death Cap" mushroom).

Speaking of warning colors and ignorant, stubborn scientists, native Americans living in the desert Southwest knew for ages that Black Widow spider bites could produce much more severe symptoms than the bites of other indigenous spiders, so they were wary of these spiders and checked their clothes and bedding for them as a matter of habit. Yet many university-trained arachnologists and other wildlife "experts" insisted as late as the 1940s that there was no reason to believe these spiders were any more venomous than other spiders. Experience trumps theory, folks.

Sadly, exercise physiologists without enough real-world experience all too often prescribe for runners a training diet laced with poison.

Seriously, don't encourage the guy.

Absolutely. I sort of recall the "invention" of the tempo run and wondering how it was different from what most of us did on the 70s, i.e. pick up the pace as the run went on and we felt good.

The only differences I could see was that the tempo run was planned, or perhaps forced, and the distances were prescribed, or perhaps limited.

800 dude wrote:

Seriously, don't encourage the guy.

I hear you, but I'm thinking most people already know better than to pay attention to the railbirds. Guys like that don't have the first clue how to play the game for real, and if they ever actually sat down at a table with experienced players and followed their own half-assed advice, they'd manage to be losing players even if they held the best starting hand every deal.

Most spontaneous tempo runs shouldn't be "hard," at least not for very long. One of the main benefits of these on-the-fly tempo runs is that they can be simultaneously fast and relatively effort-free. Let's not lose sight of the fact that the goal of improving running performances isn't to run hard; it's to run fast. Running at your limit obviously involves running hard, but making improvements in your ability to efficiently convert stored energy to forward velocity (a.k.a. running economy) is normally maximized by cultivating the ability to relax and maintain effort-saving movements while running fast. Properly relaxed "tempo" running, while it can be done at many different speeds and still remain below a "threshold" of distress (speed and duration of effort being generally inversely related in this equation), affords the opportunity to accumulate more time in an economical state than if the effort produced distress, either orthopedically or metabolically. And more time spent means a broader stimulus for adaptation, as long as (and particularly if) the same state of effort can be reproduced frequently without those orthopedic or metabolic breakdowns resulting.

Some of the adaptations that occur in this sport, particularly in relation to running economy, are either entirely neurological or are intimately tied to neurological signals during effort. For example, in a sustained effort, invoking the fewest motor units (and, normally, those with the lowest threshold for activation) which can accomplish the job is the most effective m.o. and will result in the least squandered energy, the least orthopedic stress, and the most time amassed at that pace. Optimal stride frequency for sustained running varies slightly between individuals based on skeletal structure, muscle fiber composition, muscle mass distribution, etc., but as a general rule (and up to a point normally between 180 and 185 steps per minute for most competitive runners), a faster stride cadence with a lower power generation is more economical at a given steady pace, due to the minimization of vertical oscillation (which is not only wasteful as a result of prolonged "hang time," but often creates unnecessary shock on impact during the plant phase), due to reducing the time spent bending and unbending joints within the plant phase, and due to the involvement of more motor units which can contribute to fine motor control (which also minimizes wobbling and contributes to more stable footstrikes). Correct relaxed tempo running gives you the chance to habitually ingrain and reinforce efficient stride patterns and motor unit recruitment for durations sufficient to produce noticeable adaptations. Struggling and fighting the pace not only hinders the efficient selection of motor units; it reduces the amount of time spent at pace, prolongs recovery time, and effectively dampens the stimulus for adaptation.

Those time trials are what most people think of as tempo runs and what you mean by "running hard for an extended period of time" - the effort is more focused on a certain pace and you're consciously pushing a bit more (and perhaps for a little longer) rather than enjoying the ride for most of the run. Even in these harder efforts, the duration (and peak intensity) of the hard running should be managed so relaxation can be preserved as much as possible as the different energy pathways (such as the lactate system) begin to come more into play as the pace quickens.

A bump in the hopes jtupper will see it and offer his thoughts.