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

The errors are in applied thinking richard, same as all of you non-athlete physiology "experts". If this is truly prof Noakes then i can't find a reason to respect him, the information is of no value as it is already common sensical.

Richard_ wrote:

sim wrote:

Is nobody willing to touch this? Clearly there are errors of thinking.

Perhaps you should touch it. What errors do you think Prof Noakes has made?

First Noakes error. To build up a theory that is out of the science validation. In fact the Central Governator a dubious theory with non scientific fundament. In fact that is a mere speculation. We studied medicine and science physiology and psychology whatever. We know what and where is mitochondria or how and what is anxious or motivation and how all that may interfere in the runner performance. But we don´t know where or how the CG it exists.

Second error is Noakes poor understand of why some runners are able to speed up his pace near the finish when others they don’t or why the same runner in one occasion he is able speed up the pace and others he doesn’t. We have plenty of scientific studies with scientific accuracy to justify the speed up of pace in the final part of a run. If Noakes thinks have a new conclusion about the final sprint the first step would be to contest that studies and not to build up a new theory while he omits and ignores that studies.

Third error isn’t Noakes either. That’s about the fact that you and some more you pretend that he is a physiology expert with a huge contribute to the distance running knowledge and that when we will agree with him and the CG theory our understand about the training will help us to performance enhance.

KISS - Keep It Simple, Stupid.

That's pretty much what I expected you to say - general commentary / expression of your opinion but not a single "error" addressed and supported with evidence/data/facts.

Suddenly Wellnow became awfully silent.

Sorry this is so long but i had to do it. Feel free to point out things i've missed. Oh and how about some of the sentence structure. Not really flowing from the mind of a high thinker.

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The real question that requires to be answered is this: What is the evidence that exercise performance can ever be reduced to a single factor, lactic acid or something else for example calcium leakage as recently proposed?

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or for example a central governor.

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Second, the key prediction of the central governor (CG) theory is that exercise is a behavior regulated in the brain, not to produce a maximal exercise performance regardless of cost, but to insure that exercise terminates BEFORE there is irreversible fatigue or organ damage.

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Revolutionary! Exercise is a behaviour regulated in the brain. What were the other options? The nose?

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In contrast the Hill model predicts that exercise ends only AFTER there has been a failure of organ function causing fatigue or the termination of exercise. (Note that such a strategy would have had little survival value if as now seems clear, humans developed as hunters able to run down prey on the hot African savannah. Without a central regulator that set the pace we would simply have sprinted after our prey which would have had no difficulty outsprinting us. As a biologist you have to consider the evolutionary value of what you study).

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This is a very strange example from a Professor. I'm sure there was common sense occurring in our ancestors and they could quickly (and consciously) make a decision to give up.

The assumption of no decision making capacity is worrying me about the intellectual capacity of this psuedo? prof noakes.

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Indeed one of the assumptions of the blog is that when exercise terminates, marked muscle fatigue is already present. If so, why is it that elite athletes competing at the distances of interest to the readers of this blog (3000m to 21km and sometimes up to 42km) speed up and run the last section of the race faster than any previous section? How can they run the fastest when they are the most tired?

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How can this question even be asked? Any person that has run seriously would not even ask it surely.

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This is compatible with a model in which the brain anticipates what the body can do (or the brain will allow) BEFORE the race starts and chooses the optimum pacing strategy that allows the athlete to complete the event BEFORE catastrophic fatigue develops. Certainly the presence of the endspurt cannot be explained by a model in which fatigue is determined only by the development of a chemically-induced peripheral muscle fatigue. Indeed when you come to the final analysis, the best athlete is always the one with the fastest endspurt. So if you want to understand what makes great athletes, a good start would be to understand the physiology of the endspurt. I suspect that this involves more than the VO2max and the maximum lactate steady state.

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You suspect correctly. It may well be far more than you imagine! Yet again there exists the assumption of no thinking by the athlete, no decision making capacity. Also there is the assumption of no prior experience. Of no training for quite a while in preparation.

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The single most important finding on which the CG theory rests is the finding that exercise always terminates whilst there is still muscle reserve - in other words exercise terminates before all the available muscle fibers in the active limbs have been activated.

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I think it all depends on which system of the body is the least well trained for the task to be undertaken. If it is the local muscular system and it fatigues first then clearly your cardio-vascular system still has capacity remaining. If the cardio is weaker then it fatigues first and the local muscular still has reserves. Hence fibres are not exhausted as you say.

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Thus if you finish a race at a pace less than your peak sprinting speed, then that is because you were unable to activate all the available muscle fibers in your active limbs. (Why this is so is the mystery that the CG theory seeks to answer).

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Mystery? How is it a mystery when an athlete knows how to restrain themselves from their peak effort until that point late in the race when they need it? It is what everyone is training for. Get fit enough for the distance. Then get even fitter so you can sprint at the end. Another angle is that one athlete will train themselves to sprint at the end of a race better than another. In this case the experiment would already be skewed due to different preparation.

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The main effect of Hill's theory was that it caused generations of exercise physiologists to forget this simple fact - without muscle recruitment there cannot be any movement.

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It might well have been assumed due to the fact of common sense. I can't speak for the physiologists population but from the coach/athlete population i think it is well considered.

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And if exercise terminates when a large (~ 60% in a marathon) proportion of the muscle fibers in the active limbs are inactive, then the only reasonable conclusion is that the brain is regulating the exercise performance (by insuring that only a certain number of muscle fibers are allowed to be activated under different conditions).

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It could also mean the limiting factor in such a situation is not the local muscular but instead is the cardio-vascular.

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Finally it is often said that there is no strong scientific support for the CG theory. One of our studies that can be explained only by the CG model (which predicts that the brain can modify the exercise behavior IN ANTICIPATION and before catastrophic fatigue develops) and not by Hill's model has been published in one of more influential scientific publications and can be downloaded from this address: Enjoy it:

http://jp.physoc.org/cgi/reprint/574/3/905

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So heat is a factor when considering whether to train on a really hot day or not?

And then the central governor becomes just a tricky word for homeostasis.

"Such regulation represents homeostatic control, the goal

of which would be to prevent an abnormal rise in body

temperature by regulating the rate of heat production

(Marino et al. 2004; Tucker et al. 2004)."

Tucker et al. 574 (3): 906. (2006)

Common sense or not? Your peripheral muscles switch off due to detection of an abnormal temperature level in core temperature. The activity you are doing (running) is the primary cause of such a temperature. The activity of the muscles is producing more heat than the friction on the ground and with the air and more than the action of the lungs (oh there is the diaphragm). Makes sense to me (in extreme situations).

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Timothy Noakes

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Really?

I'll touch it, and go so far as to say that Mr. Noakes just lost any shred of remaining credibility I gave him up until reading that email.

Mr. Noakes obviously has about as much running experience as Richard does, it appears. As sim pointed out, he assumes that there is no conscious thought on the part of the runner to pace themselves and make sure they finish strong. He ignores the fact that in most high school races where runners are inexperiences, they routinely finish far, far slower than they started because they make no CONSCIOUS effort to pace themselves correctly; there is no centralized, unconscious process necessary to fatigue them. This is an absurd, idiotic, and ignorant view of the running process.

Add this on top of the fact that he continues to tout a THEORY as fact and twist research to support it rather than the other way around, and we're left with someone only masquarading as a scientist.

Your answers indicate you have a pretty incomplete understanding of most of Prof Noakes' comments and the physiological underpinnings of the topic at hand.

Here's one example:

You wrote, "It could also mean the limiting factor in such a situation is not the local muscular but instead is the cardio-vascular." in reply to Noakes observation that at the end of a marathon only about 40% of muscle fibers are active.

You are advancing the argument that the cardiovascular system limits performance in the marathon. In other words, you are saying during the marathon (or at least at the end of the marathon) the athlete is using oxygen at the max rate the cardiovascular system is able to provide it. Yet, marathons are run well below VO2max (average marathon O2 usage range is about 75-88%).

This brings up two questions initially. What evidence can you provide to support your claim that the cardiovascular system is working at max capacity in the marathon and is limiting performance? All races beyond about 5K are run at less than VO2peak.

Second, Noakes said that near the end of a race, runners often speed up and asked how this was physiologically possible under a catastrophic model. You couldn't believe the question was asked. Yet, your explanation for marathon performance (cardiovascular limits) is a catastrophic model and, therefore, would prevent an athlete from speeding up at the end of the race or, indeed, at any time during the race except for very short burst of less than 100m. Runners often "surge" for much longer distances mid-race and near race end, but your explanation renders this phenomenon impossible.

There are other examples but this is sufficient to make my point.

wellnow wrote:

Spaniel, you are clearly out of touch with modern (the last 25 years) research. Are you not aware of the lactate oxidation issue of the lactate shuttle?

Both pyruvate and lactate are intermediates of carbohydrate metabolism. However the terms "aerobic glycolysis" and "anaerobic glycolysis" are outdated. Lactate will always be oxidised by the mitochondria. You are clearly confusing lactate production with "anaerobic respiration"

I suggest you do a bit more research before you try to lecture me on carbohydrate metabolism.

Missed this, let's go back.

If lactate is every bit as good of a fuel as pyruvate, then why with vigorous exercise is lacate flushed out of the cell to accumulate to higher and higher levels in the blood? This is potential energy NOT being used. Pyruvate, on the other hand, remains at low levels since it's being metabolised aerobically pretty much as fast as it is produced via glycolysis.

If lactate were as good of an aerobic fuel, it would not be allowed to exit the cell and accumulate in the blood. Explain this.

Richard_ wrote:

Your answers indicate you have a pretty incomplete understanding of most of Prof Noakes' comments and the physiological underpinnings of the topic at hand.

Every one can read. Only Richard_ can have a complete understand. The master´s voice. The new "Dan Brown _ Da Vinci Code" of Science Physiology. The only one that understands the codified unveilled Noakes.

KISS - Keep it Simple, Stupid

sim wrote:

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Indeed one of the assumptions of the blog is that when exercise terminates, marked muscle fatigue is already present. If so, why is it that elite athletes competing at the distances of interest to the readers of this blog (3000m to 21km and sometimes up to 42km) speed up and run the last section of the race faster than any previous section? How can they run the fastest when they are the most tired?

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Timothy Noakes

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How can this question even be asked? Any person that has run seriously would not even ask it surely.

The "unquote" of the day. Finnaly someone says the king is nude.

You thought you had found your chance finally! lol

Before i tackle your two examples please continue to provide more. I doubt you can as every other example supports the common sense approach to training, not the loony, lets make up whatever we want in order to become famous, approach.

Spaniel does this guy have the thickest skin in History or what?

[quote]Richard_ wrote:

Your answers indicate you have a pretty incomplete understanding of most of Prof Noakes' comments

*examples please*

and the physiological underpinnings of the topic at hand.

Here's one example:

You wrote, "It could also mean the limiting factor in such a situation is not the local muscular but instead is the cardio-vascular." in reply to Noakes observation that at the end of a marathon only about 40% of muscle fibers are active.

You are advancing the argument that the cardiovascular system limits performance in the marathon. In other words, you are saying during the marathon (or at least at the end of the marathon) the athlete is using oxygen at the max rate the cardiovascular system is able to provide it. Yet, marathons are run well below VO2max (average marathon O2 usage range is about 75-88%).

This brings up two questions initially. What evidence can you provide to support your claim that the cardiovascular system is working at max capacity in the marathon and is limiting performance? All races beyond about 5K are run at less than VO2peak.

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Well i would hope i am working to the maximal capacity i can last at for over 2 hours. Otherwise i'm not really racing am i?

What's VO2max got to do with racing other than possibly giving one their natural or genetic capacity for aerobic activities?

So i should have said glycogen stores run out instead. Or maybe muscle cramps stop you. Or maybe your muscles just aren't strong enough to carry you to the finish line. Stomach cramps. Tackled by an irate spectator. Either or all of the above options might limit an individual in any given test situation.

You can generally tell i'm not so interested in the hard science. I'm interested in practicalities. I doing the coaching on the track. Once an athlete learns how to push it to their 'best aerobic capacity' half the coaching job is done. They learn if they push it a bit more they start to get 'lactate' related feelings. They certainly learn where that particular threshold of intensity is. It is like Middle Distance 101. For god's sake!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Second, Noakes said that near the end of a race, runners often speed up and asked how this was physiologically possible under a catastrophic model. You couldn't believe the question was asked. Yet, your explanation for marathon performance (cardiovascular limits) is a catastrophic model and, therefore, would prevent an athlete from speeding up at the end of the race or, indeed, at any time during the race except for very short burst of less than 100m. Runners often "surge" for much longer distances mid-race and near race end, but your explanation renders this phenomenon impossible.

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See here you are stuck in absolutism. Everything is absolute and nothing is relative. Perhaps you can come up to speed because Einstein showed us that relativity was a better way of viewing things than Newton's version. You aren't still thinking according to Newton are you Richard?

Basically, an athlete who is competent at their event knows how to save themselves for the end of the race. This saving is the saving of 'energy' in its most general usage. The athlete then has this 'energy' in reserve if needed at the end of the race, and it is most often needed.

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There are other examples but this is sufficient to make my point.

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please enlighten me as to some of these other examples because i cannot see what point you have made other than picking on my poor VO2.

PS athletes are conscious individuals, your models or theories don't take this into account. A serious mistake really don't you think?

I don't see why Noakes ideas are perceived as so controversial. I think of the Central Governor as a sub-conscious "safety net" that our body develops based on integrating a large number of internal and external factors, as we develop different experiences. As babies, we basically know nothing, and everything we do and learn is a question of exploring our environment, and collecting feedback from our experiences, integrating them into our conscious and sub-concious knowledge base. We learn pleasure, pain, fear, hunger, thirst, and a great many other things, and this experience guides how well we adapt in the real world. Just like Pavlov's dog, we learn a great deal of associations, and can anticipate many things before they happen. Why should training and exercise performance be any different?

Stepping back though, my first comment is that the Central Governor theory is a work in progress. The model was presented some years ago, and Noakes and others are working on studies which validate the model, or caused the model to be refined. It's too early to declare judgements until more validation is done, or refinement is no longer possible.

As you asked though, the alternative to exercise being regulated by the brain, is that exercise is not regulated at all, but rather only limited by physiological constraints. This would mean that everyone's ability to approach, or even exceed physiological limits, and regularly causing long term or permanent damage, is just a matter of conscious will. Yet how often does overtraining result in irreversible damage?

It's similar to breathing. I can consciously control my breathing, and also hold my breath for a long time, but most of the time, it happens without any conscious thoughts, and I believe (but have not tested it) that very few are so strong willed that they can hold their breath until they die.

To argue that we can control every aspect of training *consciously* is arguing a bit too much I think.

I don't see Noakes directly challenging the existence of concepts like VO2max or lactate threshold, but just presenting a model which says that there is also something else, and these physiological limits must be viewed in a different perspective. Developing your "Aerobic Capacity" and pushing your "Lactate Threshold" higher are valid concepts to think about when structuring your training (mainly because the training has been shown to work), but there is accumulating evidence that in the real world, the body is a little more complicated.

Regards,

PS: I didn't see any problem with Noakes' sentence structure, although I wondered about the use of "insure" vs. "ensure".

Why are you asking me? You are the one that claimed the cardiovascular system limited performance in the marathon.

Exactly right. There is no single cause of fatigue - which is what the Central Governor says too. So, why did you clainm the limitation was in the cardiovascular system?

You are projecting your views on me. You claimed a single limitation (the cardiovascular system), not me.

In other words, the athlete has learned how to pace themselves to best performance, just as the Central Governor predicts.

Perhaps then you shouldn't engage in a hard science debate or claim "errors" in hard science if you aren't up to date with all the science.

What´s the name you suggest for that breath theory ? Breath Governator ?

Something else. The body is a little more complicated.

Don´t forget to take your last meal 3 hours before the run.

KISS - Keep It Simple, Stupid

I don't think using your religion in a fundamentalist way is healthy for your mental condition.

Just so you know i said cardio-vascular as an example. Nothing more. Not as an absolute at all. As you can see now that i have explained myself a little more i think there is a massive amount of factors that may limit performance. One of these factors may well be a quality of the mind. (The mind is not the brain). One of those qualities is willpower and individuals exhibit different levels of this quality and situations add or subtract from this quality. Another quality might be focus. Yet another might be concentration. Another might be mental fluidity.

Next:

Since when was this a hard science debate? Look at the question this whole thread is based upon. It's an applied question.

And:

see the next post for this beauty :)

Finally:

Is this all you have got after i exposed my thinking so broadly? One example i made. An example of a category of examples. There goes the absolutism again. I'm all relative maaaan! :)

quote "richard"

In other words, the athlete has learned how to pace themselves to best performance, just as the Central Governor predicts.

----------------------------------------------------------

Richard! What have you done? A massive boo-boo.

Does the central governor have to be trained up? Does it have to learn something? I thought it was part of the autonomous system.

Learning and the central governor. Surely Noakes is turning in his grave. This shit is in the grave now is it not?

Homeostasis remains good enough for me! Check out some writings from George Leonard for an insight into how to change your 'stasis' in a non-physiologic way.

Be careful though. Change too fast and you might lose the plot a bit. Richard is unchanging as a rock so he don't need to worry about that particular mental disease. Inflexibility is his weakness. A lack of water in your horoscope?

I have no intention of debating any of this with you, but will indulge your question about other examples. Here's a few more that support your claim that you aren't about "hard science".

sim wrote:

The real question that requires to be answered is this: What is the evidence that exercise performance can ever be reduced to a single factor, lactic acid or something else for example calcium leakage as recently proposed?

unquote

or for example a central governor.

The Central Governor does not propose a single factor in fatigue, yet your reply indicates it does.

Revolutionary! Exercise is a behaviour regulated in the brain. What were the other options? The nose?

You suggested the cardiovascular system, glycogen stores, runner-tackling spectators, the mind, etc.

So heat is a factor when considering whether to train on a really hot day or not?

That's not even close to what that study was about or said.

Your peripheral muscles switch off due to detection of an abnormal temperature level in core temperature.

Switch off? The brain determines muscle fiber activation and de-activation. By what mechanism other than the brain do you propose the muscles know to "switch off" because they are too hot? What hard science do you have to support your claim that muscles know when they are too hot and switch off?

sim wrote:

Homeostasis remains good enough for me!

By what mechanism does homeostasis "anticipate" the duration of exercise prior to beginning exercise and then set the pace accordingly?

I didn't actually name it, but I think it's something like "autonomous function".Is Governator even a word?

KISS wrote:

What´s the name you suggest for that breath theory ? Breath Governator ?