Is aerobic base training dead???

I saw that. I thought the EPO comment wasn't fair, and at the very least, off-topic.I did think it was cheeky to hint, for the second time, that Renato doesn't understand coaching. I gather you really don't believe that, but you needed a 200 line post about Soviet periodization, balance, zen-ness, and one-ness, to salvage some of that.But that's all off-topic too. Read the link I sent you, and if you want, in just a few words (PLEASE), let me know what you think of that.

flow wrote:

cheers and you are right but i really would not have done it except he decided to jump in, without prior posting, to another thread and accuse me of accusing Renato of using EPO right in front of the man - well as in front of as you can get over the net.

retaliation yes, Christ would turn the other cheek i suppose

sure Mr Ray

i still disagree with Renato's broad training methodology though, i am just trying to get to that really whilst paying respect at the same time for the highly detailed knowledge of all of the facets of training. Essentially i still believe that the overall pattern of training lacks rhythm, whether Soviet style or not.

As for Wellnow i can see he has gained an understanding as well of most of the parts or facets of training. I just want to see from him how he actually puts it all together, for the same reason i want to see more of Renato's work. I basically have a problem with the fact that it is all just buzzwords and labels to him, there appears to be no concrete underlying understanding going on.

So i partially agree when he says:

only partially because it is just one of the challenges - this mechanics training that leads to the correct balance between stride rate and stride frequency. The other two challenges involve the energetics - conditioning the systems of the body and the psychotics - development of the psychological factors. All three are developed in balance. As my coach says you have conditioning and you have technique and they are developed hand in hand.

And again only partial agreement:

yes run long at a good pace, yes in order to cause glycogen depletion and therefore stimulate a greater storage of this glycogen. But also run long at a good pace to raise the anaerobic threshold, or whatever it should be called. It is the raising of this threshold that also causes the increased mitochondria, increased aerobic enzyme amounts, increased capilliarisation and whatever else occurs to increase the aerobic capacity.

He goes on to say things like train don't strain which is excellent in itself and appears to be borrowed from Lydiard, yet moving to the edge of straining whilst still staying short is the real trick for optimisation of any part of the training plan, how to fine tune this is the essence of high performance coaching.

He also uses the word progressive which is essential to optimising this 'edge'. The 'edge' where an well trained high performance athlete spends most of his training life. How to find this edge and then to progressively develop it without going over into injury or over-training is again a thing to be fine tuned.

He also mentions listen to your body - an excellent suggestion and again part of this fine tuning. It is also something to be wary of in oneself for it becomes easy to deceive oneself and use excuses not to work right at your 'edge'.

Slow running between the hard sessions is another excellent piece of advice but what is slow running exactly. For me slow running is not very descriptive and i think if it is used between harder 'edge' developing sessions then it's purpose is for recovery prior to the next harder 'edge' developing session. The recovery sessions should be in the recovery zone which is that effort zone which actively recovers the athlete. In HR terms this must be above 120bpm and probably not much more. In breathing terms it is above that point where the breath is stimulated to actively draw beyond resting levels. It is the level of effort where you can control the breath and keep it drawing from the diaphragm and not allowing it to rise up any higher,into the chest as the main example.

One other thing he mentions is that there is a big variation in what suits one person over another and whilst true it is not something that should be true. It is more in what we like and dislike. The process of training is accepting that certain things are common to human beings and if we dislike something in training this is more centered in a psychological weakness that can be challenged and overcome. So if long steady running is disliked then it should be progressively worked at. If lactate tolerance work is disliked it should be something to be worked at. Dislikes are not good enough when training for high performance nor enough if a non high performance person wished to maximise themselves to their own true capacity.

Finally and most importantly the disregards the need for optimisation of the aerobic capacity, followed by the aerobic power generated from that capacity and for the anaerobic capacity and the anaerobic power generated from that capacity. These are the fundamentals of the energetics of training. This is the biggest flaw i see.

hope not too many words

You don't have a theory, you have some info from very outdated textbooks that anyone can post.

Lactate IS an aerobic fuel, that's a fact. Amongst its many roles, Lactate is a substrate for oxidative phosporylation aka mitochonrial respiration aka aerobic respiration.

At rest it is produced in small amounts, also when jogging it is produced in small amounts, but in a race such as a 10k it is providing a very substantial percentage of the ATP for muscle contraction. At paces beyond that the percentage gets higher and higher.

Mr Ray, thanks for your reasoned response. With regard to base training and aerobic capacity, If a runner has had a few weeks break from running, then 4-6 weeks is a reasonable time frame to regain the mitochonrial mass, much of which may have been lost, a de-training effect. Howvever if a runner has not had a break, then they probably have optimum or very near optimum aerobic capacity. They already have reached a plateau, beyond which they may advance only very slightly with very specialize training before their big races.

I don't know how long mitochondria live for, I wish I did, it's probably just a few days and so we have to train regularly to maintain aerobic base fitness. I think that there is a general myth that it takes years for fast twitch fibers to become more oxidative, why would this be so?

I wonder if very hard training not only increases mitochonrial biogenesis (production) but also cause the mitochondria to have a shorter life too. So an ideal taper before a big race could be very effective, but what is an ideal taper? That's a question for later debate.

Capillarization is an ongoing process throughout our lives. I guess that runners who train regularly will have this development as well as optimum cardiac output by their early twenties for male and late teens for female athletes. Yes this development takes years but for regular exercisers this is a normal development that non regular exercisers don't have.

I think that by this age, late teens early twenties, a serious distance runner should be able to run a fast 800m race. I believe that this is essential for developing stride length. To run two laps in under two minutes takes requires a very long and powerful stride, and if you consider what I say that the second lap is mostly aerobic and the fact that we reach maximum oxygen uptake early in the second lap, then this I believe adds a huge amount of credibility to those coaches who believe that this pace development is essential for young distance runners, especially with regard to what is often refered to as aerobic power. Yes aerobic power is specific to each different event but these qualities also refered to as speed endurance are inter related.

Some races obviously take longer to train for such as the Marathon, but consider that Gebreselassie ran 1.49 indoors for 800 and Wanjiru race 1.48 a few years ago, running a good marathon is a lot more than three months or so of training.

I think that most runners have the belief that the best distance runners have huge aerobic development in terms of oxygen uptake, but I believe this is false. So instead of thinking of aerobic development in terms of oxygen uptake we should think in terms of working towards specific paces which are as much of a learning process than a physical development for someone who is already in a good state of fitness.

Wellnowmy main problem with your approach is the lack of any practical application - like would you practically modify a program such as Lydiard's to account for your theorising? Specifically how? As Nobby said to me tonight Arhtur himself would call you an 'ultimate theorist' and he himself had no time for this type of person, and neither do i (so why do i continue this i wonder?). Since you are not prepared to show a practical modification nor prepared to show your own training diary so we can see how it is you apply your theory what are we meant to do? Just run around at a 'good' pace with the hope that sooner later we have done enough? Add to this some faster paced stuff all the way up to race pace and hope that this is enough? Add some stuff faster than race pace and hope that this is enough? And in between the harder sessions do easier paced running and hope that this is again specific enough?What are we meant to do? Please answer with some sort of training plan so that side of the story can continue.-----------------------------------------------------------The other side of the story - your side - the thoery side

wellnow wrote:

Lactate is an aerobic fuel, that's a fact. Amongst its many roles, Lactate is a substrate for oxidative phosporylation aka mitochondrial respiration aka aerobic respiration.

At rest it is produced in small amounts, also when jogging it is produced in small amounts, but in a race such as a 10k it is providing a very substantial percentage of the ATP for muscle contraction. At paces beyond that the percentage gets higher and higher.

I accept lactate can be used as a fuel for energy production but i have a theory too states that this cannot occur without oxygen. So if aerobic respiration as you call it is being used maximally where is the excess oxygen to turn this lactate into energy?

Even more specifically how quickly does this occur? Do you have any facts on this time frame? Is it quick enough to actually supply any energy during an 800m race, a 1500m race, a 5000m race, a 10000m race?

Lets say it take 3 minutes (the magic number) to turn lactate into energy via this process of lactate shuttling combined with lactate oxidisation how does this help the 800m runner and how does it help the 1500m runner, assuming they begin to produce lactate from the beginning on the race. Furthermore how does it help them if all of the aerobic respiration is being used to provide energy via it's own system.

Lactate shuttling we can save for another time but for now there are three things you could provide

1. a training program either modified from another or of your own unique variety to show how your 'ultimate theorising' can be applied

2. the time frame for lactate usage as a fuel

3. how to use it as a fuel when oxidation is required to turn it into energy and the aerobic respiration energy productionis already maximised within its own system

ok?

Peter, thanks for the appraisal. I think that lactate threshold is an approximate value rather than a fixed value.

Also there must be a different approximate threshold or maximal lactate steady state MLSS for each different runner and each different event. This is because the different muscle fibers produce different amount of lactate and oxidize different amounts of lactate, and since each runner is different in muscle fiber profile and each race has different fiber recruitment patterns, there is going to be some considerable variation in relative rates of appearance of lactate in the blood muscle and clearance of lactate in muscle.

That's why I don't like the term lactate threshold, it's too vague.

So called lactate tolerance is really hydrogen ion tolerance. Lactate production actually consumes hydrogen ions, but it's true to say that at high intensities both will accumulate. However, I dont' think that H+ is the problem because it is a fuel for aerobic respiration, but as heat builds up in the mitochondria towards the end of a race then aerobic respiration will slow down leading to more H+ accumulation and more pain, which is an obvious marker for fatigue. So we consider that the pain causes the fatigue when in fact it's the other way round. This is why we don't want to hurt ourselves too much in training sometimes to prevent too much fatigue, but in important races, we need to ignore the pain and hope that we have paced ourselves well.

Regarding stride length. We optimize our stride length and speed endurance by conditioning ourselves to utilizing eccentric muscle contractions, or more accurately the stretch-shortening cycle whereby muscles lengthen and shorten, to provide more elastic power. When combined with tendon elasticity and good style we can optimize our stride length. But holding that stride length requires a resistance to the fatigue which eccentric muscle contraction causes. This is why lots of fast downhill running causes muscle soreness. But as we can condition ourselves to use eccentric muscle contraction more and more, we can maintain stride length for longer and longer without fatigue.

Ways to do this are strides, running down a gentle hill or running with the wind behind us. I aslo think that running at altitude where the wind resistance is lower must help the East Africans. For 2-3 minutes they can run slightly faster than at sea level before fatigue sets in, but this surely also needs slightly longer recoveries. Some runners claim that running very fast on a treadmill has the same effect.

flow wrote:

Lactate shuttling we can save for another time but for now there are three things you could provide

1. a training program either modified from another or of your own unique variety to show how your 'ultimate theorising' can be applied

2. the time frame for lactate usage as a fuel

3. how to use it as a fuel when oxidation is required to turn it into energy and the aerobic respiration energy productionis already maximised within its own system

ok?

1. I am incapable of following any training programme. I never keep a diary, and every day is a journey into the unknown. Sometimes I decide to do a cetain session and do it, but that is not very often. Yes Lydiard would have no time for me, but that's just fine with me, I have sought advice from my favorite coach in the World Bruce Tulloh, and that's good enough for me. Bruce doesn't theorize, it's all common sense advice from him. I certainly don't think I have the qualities necessary to be a good coach, I have a different role to play. I like to encourage runners of all ages.

2. Lactate takes a few seconds at most to travel from one muscle to another via the blood circulation.

3. When lactate reaches the mitochonrdia it is re-converted to pyruvate before the many reactions of aerobic respiration, these reactions take place at a very fast rate all of them in a split second. Each molecule of lactate yields 34 ATP the same as pyruvate, but overall it is a slightly less efficient process, prouducing heat. However, in the early part of a run, some of this heat might be used to our advantage. In the arterial blood, pyruvate is readily converted to lactate, again producing a small amount of heat. I wonder is this what regulates blood temperature?

Everyone here at letsrun should read up

There's no 'tolerance', just increased efficiency

perhaps you can re-read and respond to each point, i was only in part agreement with what you said, please don't take it as complete agreement

I agree it is approximate but is not the variation between individuals a very, very small variation, in the range of a few percent? And does not each and every one of those individuals have their own exact and precise level? It is vague when referring to population groups but not when talking about an individual. This is an individual sport. A coach trains an athlete individually and that individual has a precise point where lactate and hydrogen ions accumulate beyond resting levels. A little further on up the intensity ladder is another individually precise point where lactate and hydrogen ions stabilise and this is called by the theorists the MLSS.

Each individual has a precise point on the intensity ladder where these exist. Defining them through practical training is a very important part of the coaching process. Are you not obliged to agree - you do have your own precise levels?

All well and good this focus on stride length but what if the athletes problem is stride frequency? The athletes fit into one or the other category not just the stride length problem category.

Also it is not just eccentric training that helps this, it is also concentric training ie the development of strength specific to running. Would you not agree?

Do bounding and we get soreness, do downhill running and we get soreness, but both of these pass within a very short amount of time if the exercise stimulus remains the same - if we bound for 300m in total then we don't get sore from 300m of bounding after a few sessions.

Do weight training and we get soreness, run stairs or uphills and we get soreness, do 1000 stairs and soon no soreness comes from 1000 stairs.

There are both types and both types aid in optimising our stride length not just the eccentric type. Would you not agree?

Aside from this how do you go about the development of 'good' form? What processes do you use to take someone from 'bad' form to 'good' form?

sure it moves around very quickly, the process of osmosis very fast, no problem there. The question was focused at how long it takes before it can be used as a fuel? Are you saying virtually instantly?

interesting questions but i think blood temperature is moreso regulated by the muscles and organs it travels though and runs by rather than or at least far moreso than anything occurring in the actual blood.

Also you are saying lactate does not need aerobic respiration to be converted to pyruvate because it occurs prior? In direct contradiction to others opinions? If what you say is true then lactate shuttling via osmosis could be very important in the theory world in describing why coaching methods work but how does it help the coach modify his training to take advantage of this new knowledge? Or does coaching methodology already do so via it's process of trial and error combined with intuitive thinking.

also what is the process whereby pyruvate is converted to lactate whilst still in the actual arterial blood? What is going on there? What mechanism in arterial blood does this (and yet not in venous blood)

I'm guessing this heat advantage you mention could help an athlete who had not warmed up sufficiently. If sufficient warmup has occurred then it is actually a disadvantage as heat minimisation is key to performance.

I am not a physiologist but having read so many opinions on it get it a little, i won't be reading any studies as they are not valuable in application to coaching methodology - the ideal or close to the ideal methodology has already been discovered by Lydiard for one, Also, i had enough of them whilst i was studying my B.App.Sc. at university. However, i wonder if all of what you are saying is correct. Perhaps a physiology expert can talk about what you are saying.

Peter the word appraisal means evaluation not agreement.

MLSS values vary by a huge amount, between 2 and 10 mmols maybe more.

Sride frequency is or should be natural. We shouldn\'t change the running style we have had since early childhood unless there is some major flaw such as upper body movement or too much forward lead or leaning the head down etc. Some distance runners do 160 strides per minute some do 210 in sprinting we do much higher rates and of course sprinters have the highest rates over short distances.

As for eccentric muscle contraction and the potential for soreness, it\'s important to recognize good recovery in this regard. Too many runners get injured because they run with knotted calves due to insufficient recovery.

This is why very fast and very slow running should complement each other.

good to hear. Would you mind going back and addressing each point then please as you recognise i somewhat disagree with you. After all i gave you the courtesy of addressing each of your original points.

of course this is true and individually variant, however, the thing that doesn't vary much at all is the level of effort required to reach MLSS, as determined in percentage terms from maximal or 100% effort. Because this level of effort is mostly invariable, we can rely on the MLSS quite well. In fact a marathoner better well know where it is, even if it is just in personal feeling terms.

this is certainly taking a large jump into the world of hope. Individuals more often than not have lost where their ideal natural stride frequency is. Yet as a child this was not the case. Somehow through a range or reasons their natural childlike frequency has changed. Often i have found the main reason for this change is due to following a structured training program that has a focus on effort. Too mmuch effort for too long and the young (or old) athlete loses their natural feeling. I spend half my time correcting athletes rhythm so they can find again this natural feeling. It is the second most important factor in any discussion on mechanics i mught have, the first being posture. Do you also propose that posture is or should be natural? That people have not lost their ideal posture? Furthermore, stride frequency (or rhythm) has no ideal perfection attached to it. It is on a continuum from imperfect to perfect and as i'm sure you know perfection is a concept that is akin to infinity. We can never reach it although we might spend a lifetime trying. To refine ourselves further and further to out ideal rhythm (or stride frequency) is part of the goal of any technical/mechanical coaching process.

recovery is so important and we agree on that point. NOw i'm not sure about knotted calves and insufficient recovery, however it is probably a small reason. Larger reasons could be insufficient warmup and cooldowns and the stretching regimes contained within.

But that is beside my point - which was the two points i was trying to make - the first being the balance required between proper eccentric training and proper concentric training, of which in any training program is found at least 50/50 but i have to tell you in my experience is usually favoured towards the concentric training at least 60/40 to be conservative.

The second point was that if progressive overload is not applied almost continuously to the training process then muscle soreness from either activity will cease within a few sessions and at most four, even in an untrained individual.

This again is true but i fear is yet another thing you have read about rather than worked out on your own. Maybe i am wrong though and you can provide more precise definitions of very fast and very slow and possibly the relative proportions of each for the different training phases throughout the year.

I don't mind now that you almost exclusively exist in the world of theorising and even applaud you for encouraging people of all ages to take up running, however, i have a big issue with you constantly criticising other coaches when you almost proudly state you are not a coach and your role is not to be a coach. Please criticise other theorists all you want but when it comes to actual coaches, especially ones like Lydiard who have mastered the art of coaching, i feel you should refrain from commenting at all. After all you freely admit it is not your field of endeavour. Can you stick to your own?

I'm pretty sure you qualify as anyone as well, but neither here nor there. We're both here and posting.

Once again, lactate is not a fuel in and of itself, it must be oxidized first (basically to pyruvate) before it can be used as a fuel. Lactate dehydronase is the enzyme that oxidizes lactate into pyruvate (stripping it of an electron), the discussion between scientists is whether or not sufficient quantities of L NAD+ exists in skeletal muscle mitochondria to be useful. Regardless, this is an oxidative step and ultimately requires O2 to do it (NAD+ is reduced to NADH by the conversion and must, itself, be oxidized back to NAD+ to work on another lactate molecule, thus the need for oxygen in the process). Once converted, normal conversion of pyruvate to ATP and byproducts can proceed.

Again, this is undetermined to what extent this can happen in skeletal tissue. But what is certain is the requirement of additional oxygen to process lactate to pyruvate before energy extraction can occur. It does not come for free and thus remains one step away from pyruvate as a fuel source. The ability to use pyruvate instead of lactate will generate more ATP per oxygen molecule used, so the simple presence of lactate incurs a O2 cost. None of this necessarily means it's a bad thing, if you've got it, use it, and this just one more reason to build a strong aerobic base.

From a running perspective, it matters little whether our mitochondria are burning pyruvate or converting lactate to pyruvate and then burning that, since the presence of lactate means we've already gained additional ATP in the step that produced it in the first place. You just need to be aware of the additional O2 cost associated with it and train accordingly.

macker wrote:

Aerobic capacity is a poor indicator of endurance performance. What matters is what's going on peripherally, in the muscle. On that note, John Hollozy long ago found a 100% increase in mitochondrial density in rats that were run 2 hours per day. I seriously doubt you get that kind of increase in muscle oxidative capacity with 30 second intervals.

This post is simplistic and ignorant of physiology. Aerobic capacity is the ability to take in AND USE oxygen. Since mitochondria is where oxygen is used, more mitochondria equals more oxygen used. VO2max will be higher when mitochondria goes up as it measures oxygen utilization -- which is aerobic capacity.

Capillarization and ventricular output improve oxygen delivery...mitochondrial mass increase improves oxygen utilization. You cannot separate "muscles" from "cardiovascular" when it comes to running.

This whole argument is silly. Fine, go out and run nothing but sprints and lift all day and see how your running goes. Please enter all the same races as me while I continue to do 80 mpw.

spaniel wrote:

[quote]macker wrote:

This whole argument is silly. Fine, go out and run nothing but sprints and lift all day and see how your running goes. Please enter all the same races as me while I continue to do 80 mpw.

Thanks everyone, most sincerely, for the compelling discussion.

spaniel, I love the essence of what you state. However, it occurs to me that one's goal race distance must have some bearing upon the absolute validity of your statement.

I do wonder what would happen if you ran 54 miles per week (2/3's of 80) but included more sprints and weight lifting?

Would that potentially leave you faster for distances at least up to 10K, as a more balanced athlete? I find it interesting that a "gymrat" like Alan Webb was able to defeat Dathan Ritzenhein at 10K, and even more interesting, albeit unconfirmed, that one of the reasons Webb failed so miserably this past year was that he allegedly reduced the frequency of his lifting sessions to log more miles in in preparation of his Olympic bid.

Granted, the Ritz/Webb 10K was but one race, but does that not offer some evidence that a moderately lower mileage, but more balanced athlete might be a better runner than a runner who focuses solely on mileage?

I state this knowing well that Herb Lindsay never ran a fast marathon, in spite of his excellence at shorter road races.

Thanks for your progressive responses!

why bob schul do you sound so like wellnow in so many of your sentences

incredibly suspiscious!

a watcher wrote:

why bob schul do you sound so like wellnow in so many of your sentences

incredibly suspiscious!

I can assure you I don't even know who "wellnow" is, though I appreciate his postings.

You're welcome to email me for confirmation.

Been there, done that. I actually used to run less and lift more. My 5K stagnated around 15:40. Consistent mileage in thhe 80-100 mpw range allowed my to open a 10K in that same 15:40, and close in 15:18. Strength is good, but no substitute for aerobic development and stamina for speed.

spaniel wrote:

This whole argument is silly. Fine, go out and run nothing but sprints and lift all day and see how your running goes.. Please enter all the same races as me while I continue to do 80 mpw.

Been there, done that. I actually used to run less and lift more. My 5K stagnated around 15:40. Consistent mileage in thhe 80-100 mpw range allowed my to open a 10K in that same 15:40, and close in 15:18. Strength is good, but no substitute for aerobic development and stamina for speed.[/quote]

I appreciate that, spaniel.

Could you tell me if your weight, in this comparison, remained the same, or if there was a distinct difference between your weight in these two training approaches you took?

Thank you.