Runningart2004 wrote:
Develop your training plan only using science to confirm what you already know. That has always been the backbone of Exercise Physiology....confirming what coaches have already been practicing
Doesn't this sound a lot like confirmation bias? I take what I see, believe in it, and then find a reason to validate that belief. That's not how we're supposed to build knowledge. We're supposed to be skeptical, not looking for justifications for our prior held beliefs.
Wait, What? wrote:
Runningart2004 wrote:Develop your training plan only using science to confirm what you already know. That has always been the backbone of Exercise Physiology....confirming what coaches have already been practicing
Doesn't this sound a lot like confirmation bias? I take what I see, believe in it, and then find a reason to validate that belief. That's not how we're supposed to build knowledge. We're supposed to be skeptical, not looking for justifications for our prior held beliefs.
That's because Exercise Science is not a true science. It's a soft science. Look back in history. There is a difference between lab science in which scientists simply want to understand the human body and the training field in which coaches want the best result. Lab science is great, but it doesn't always have exact crossover to the training field.
More often than not, coaches try a tactic over and over again, change it up, and measure the results. That is true science as it relates to human performance. By the time such tactics enter the research lab the coaches have moved on.
We also have a tendency to take media reports of lab science and run with them like a crazed man. We polarize everything....Vo2Max is the most important! No Lactate Threshold is!! But what about Running Economy!!!
Stop, or you fail to see the forest through the trees.
Alan
Site your sources wrote:
Sweet Nell Fenwick wrote:Bodies do show specific responses to running at specific speeds. But general conditioning can take place at almost any speed. The reason running within a few seconds per mile (pacewise) of the ventilatory threshold* is cost effective is because most physiological systems (respiration, cardiac output, processing of lactate, and dozens more systems which work together) are invoked at a moderately high level but relaxation is preserved so that a large amount of time can be accumulated working these energy systems.
Not only that, but the nervous system is being trained to orchestrate motor recruitment in a steady and repetitive fashion while all the aforementioned energy systems are experiencing this fairly high but steady state of demand. When the respiratory compensation point is exceeded and hyperventilation ensues, that's when the magic spell of steady effort is broken. Muscle pH decreases and soon the motor units are no longer being recruited in concert. Movements become less efficient.
While it is necessary at times to run at much higher effort levels to race well at faster speeds (basically at every distance from the half marathon down), training in a state of inefficiency can become counterproductive; hence, running at or near the ventilatory threshold (below the state of hyperventilation and struggling) is simply a cost-effective way of amassing the most quality training time. A lot of the adaptations created by running at this effort level could probably be accomplished by running very slowly all the time, too, but it would take much, much longer to get fit and there would be plenty of aspects of fitness that would remain untrained. And of course, it's important to have those slower days and not run at the ventilatory threshold all the time. Those systems do require recovery in order for the body to best adapt, and the impact stress at that pace is usually not repeatable day after day.
One rationale behind interval training follows the same concept - to have a sensible seasonal progression toward workouts which accumulate as much time as possible at fast race paces without sacrificing efficiency to the point of muscular or metabolic breakdown, thereby improving running economy (ability to use the least necessary energy) at those specific race speeds.
* Ventilatory threshold is more precisely defined and is a more reliable marker than lactate threshold, which is nigh impossible to pinpoint.
Interesting stuff. Site your sources.
*cite
http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?board=1&thread=6879558&id=6880325#6880325Site (sic) your sources.
To the OP,
To answer your question, it depends on what you consider "science". If you're talking about laboratory studies, then there's little to no hard findings because the LT is sort of an index on so many other systems going on. In the real world however, it's actually quite a concrete thing. It's a great example of how limited the lab is at describing what happens inside our body.
Looks like Sweet Neil can't site or cite any sources. Just a poser who can string together some exercise physiology terminology. If you can't dazzle them with brilliance baffle them with bullshit.
Ha ha no. This is is a discussion, not an academic journal. If you're dissatisfied with it and want to see the science, then it's your responsibility to do the bibliographic legwork.
The stupidist men in my fraternity were physiology majors. Just saying.
yeah, but... wrote:
The stupidist men in my fraternity...
This is like talking about the shortest guys in a village of pygmies. They're *all* short.
BTW: if it's a word at all, it's spelled "stupidest." Please tell me that you attended a state school.
Looks like Sweet Neil (sic) can't site or cite any sources.
I linked to the ultimate source.
Imagine you're in 1915 and Einstein is giving a speech on Special Relativity and quotes from On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies. Would you yell, "Source?" Uh, no. His work is the source, ya twatwaffle!
Besides, most of this information is so established that it's one step above axiomatic and asking for references regarding it is tantamount to asking for a source that verifies July 4 as U.S. Independence Day.
What that Sweet Nell Fenwick guy said below is good.In a nutshell: (for distance running/racing over 10km). You get most "bang for your buck" with Lactate Threshold/Tempo type of training (think 85-87% of max HR/effort) intensity.You don't induce much lactic acid that you destroy aerobic enzymes,and you can still hold form for a pretty long time (i.e. up to 60-min all out about in a race situation) and so lots of volume for moderate-high quality workout sessions. So the heart and lungs get a good workout, as well as some fast-twitch muscle fiber activation in the legs. You're improving running economy at a specific pace (faster than marathon pace but slower than 10km pace), but likely improving it at paces faster and slower as well.
Sweet Nell Fenwick wrote:
Why would (your body) react specifically to one pace but not another?Bodies do show specific responses to running at specific speeds. But general conditioning can take place at almost any speed. The reason running within a few seconds per mile (pacewise) of the ventilatory threshold* is cost effective is because most physiological systems (respiration, cardiac output, processing of lactate, and dozens more systems which work together) are invoked at a moderately high level but relaxation is preserved so that a large amount of time can be accumulated working these energy systems.
Not only that, but the nervous system is being trained to orchestrate motor recruitment in a steady and repetitive fashion while all the aforementioned energy systems are experiencing this fairly high but steady state of demand. When the respiratory compensation point is exceeded and hyperventilation ensues, that's when the magic spell of steady effort is broken. Muscle pH decreases and soon the motor units are no longer being recruited in concert. Movements become less efficient.
While it is necessary at times to run at much higher effort levels to race well at faster speeds (basically at every distance from the half marathon down), training in a state of inefficiency can become counterproductive; hence, running at or near the ventilatory threshold (below the state of hyperventilation and struggling) is simply a cost-effective way of amassing the most quality training time. A lot of the adaptations created by running at this effort level could probably be accomplished by running very slowly all the time, too, but it would take much, much longer to get fit and there would be plenty of aspects of fitness that would remain untrained. And of course, it's important to have those slower days and not run at the ventilatory threshold all the time. Those systems do require recovery in order for the body to best adapt, and the impact stress at that pace is usually not repeatable day after day.
One rationale behind interval training follows the same concept - to have a sensible seasonal progression toward workouts which accumulate as much time as possible at fast race paces without sacrificing efficiency to the point of muscular or metabolic breakdown, thereby improving running economy (ability to use the least necessary energy) at those specific race speeds.
* Ventilatory threshold is more precisely defined and is a more reliable marker than lactate threshold, which is nigh impossible to pinpoint.
Mileage at 5k is not that limited. You can do repeat miles, 800s, 1k's, etc. at that pace three times a week. But I am a big fan of doing workouts that constitute a transition between VO2 max and longer races, namely, 2M repeats and 4-8 mile tempos, because otherwise, you are not going fairly close to race pace (15-20 seconds/mile) for longer than 1M at a time. You are training your body to expect to rest. It is good that you are training at a fast pace, getting used to 5k or better pace. It is bad that you are going no more than 5-6 minutes hard at a time prior to your race.
How many miles can you do a 5km pace a week? Remember the guy said ONLY doing 5km pace.
How many can you do at tempo pace?
crete wrote:
Site your sources wrote:Interesting stuff. Site your sources.
*cite
Sounds like JK.
numero uno wrote:
Runningart2004 wrote:Give me 100 runners who do nothing but LT. Give me 100 runners who do nothing but work at 5k pace. Have then race a 5k. Guess who wins the majority of the time?
The LT guys win. If you did nothing but 5km pace work you would have no continuous runs longer than your PR. The volume you could do at 5km pace even if broken up would be minuscule.
No, Alan is right. Bannister never "tempoed" but did multiple workouts per week at 4-minute mile pace. Managed ok.
So far, Sweek Nell Fenwick and Canaday are closest to the way I understand the reason for training at "lactate threshold". I'd like to add a few things.
I prefer an older term, Onset of Blood Lactate Accumulation. I like this term becasue, as already mentioned, lactate is always being produced. It's just that as we run faster, the lactate builds up faster than our bodies are able to clear it from the tissues/bloodstream.
Whether OBLA is a CAUSE of fatigue (as is generally accepted by coaches and runners) or whether it simply a MARKER of fatigue (as explained by the Central Governer Model) is irrelevant.
Training at ANY intensity will give a training effect, provided you do it long enough to provide physiological stress to any one of the body's systems responsible for running performance (circulatory, musculoskeletal, nervous, respiratory). The HARDER you work, the GREATER the stimulus. However, the stimulus must be applied for an extended period of time in order to create a response. This is why we don't just run all out 100m sprints every day in training.
In 1981, MacDougal and Sale conducted a meta-analysis of over 75 previous studies on training intensities' influence on oxygen consumption and concluded that TISSUE HYPOXIA was the most important stimulus for development of a large number of the physiological variables that allow the body to use oxygen efficiently (capillarization, mitochondria density, myoglobin concentration, aerobic enzyme function). It just so happens that the intensity that brings about OBLA corresponds to a very hypoxic state. You could run harder, but your muscles wouldn't get any more hypoxic.
So, here is why training at intensities that bring about OBLA, or slightly less intensly, is important. As S.Canaday said, you get more "bang for your buck" . You can run at LT, or OBLA or whatever you want to call it for a relatively long time. You can keep your muscle tissue hypoxic for a relatively long time. You can apply a stimulus which has been shown to increase many important physiological variables for A RELATIVELY LONG TIME without becoming overly fatigued.
There is an old axiom among the coaching ranks: Training Load = Training Frequency (F) X Training Intensity (I) X Time (T). One of my old coaching manuals called it the FIT principle. OBLA represents a relatively high intensity that can be done for a relatively long time. If you followed the training of Marius Bakken when he was in his prime, you could see that it can also be done with a great frequency. Here is an article from back in the stone age (2000) by a very accomplished coach describing his athletes training at OBLA with a very high frequency
http://www.coacheseducation.com/xc/jack_farrell_july_00.php
He never uses the terms OBLA or LT, but he is precisely describing the intensity. The author of the above article was the coach of Kim Mortensen, who still holds the girls national record for 3200m
Diminishing returns wrote:
How many miles can you do a 5km pace a week? Remember the guy said ONLY doing 5km pace.
How many can you do at tempo pace?
A lot if you space them out. Didn't Jack Daniels do an experiment where he had some team alumni running 400m at a time in 75" with 5 minutes rest for literally 8 hours a day?
Even if it's a daily 12x400 or a daily 20' tempo who says the 12x4 guys won't run faster?
TISSUE HYPOXIA was the most important stimulus for development of a large number of the physiological variables that allow the body to use oxygen efficiently (capillarization, mitochondria density, myoglobin concentration, aerobic enzyme function). It just so happens that the intensity that brings about OBLA corresponds to a very hypoxic state. You could run harder, but your muscles wouldn't get any more hypoxic.
This comes about mainly by production of superoxide radicals during high oxygen consumption, which ultimately leads to the subsequent desirable adaptations if the oxidative stress isn't too high.
It also "just so happens" that hypoxia has the most profound effect on the high-oxidative muscle fibers which are recruited at this effort intensity since those are the fibers that consume the most oxygen. The most bang for the buck in every way.
JoeD wrote:
Diminishing returns wrote:How many miles can you do a 5km pace a week? Remember the guy said ONLY doing 5km pace.
How many can you do at tempo pace?
A lot if you space them out. Didn't Jack Daniels do an experiment where he had some team alumni running 400m at a time in 75" with 5 minutes rest for literally 8 hours a day?
Even if it's a daily 12x400 or a daily 20' tempo who says the 12x4 guys won't run faster?
An interesting question. Who is up for trying this with their teams?
tempoes are a joke wrote:
numero uno wrote:The LT guys win. If you did nothing but 5km pace work you would have no continuous runs longer than your PR. The volume you could do at 5km pace even if broken up would be minuscule.
No, Alan is right. Bannister never "tempoed" but did multiple workouts per week at 4-minute mile pace. Managed ok.
Not at 5k. He did tempo as well but that's another story.