Definiton of Aerobic and Anaerobic, lets get up to date here.

wellnow wrote:

Whoa there Rich, you are jumping to conclusions not me. I'm telling you that elite runners are compulsive excercisers, I guarantee that you won't find an elite runner who doesn't have strong forearms.

wellnow,

I appreciate your "gurantee" but prefer something more substantial and credible. Do you have any supporting data/facts/etc to support your opinion? If you are going to negate the study then you will have to prove (not just claim) that the tested muscles were, in fact, trained.

wellnow wrote:

...please consider that many of the criticisms of your work are valid.

Changing topics just for a moment - I'm actually very interested to read valid criticisms of anything I write. Unsupported opinions that are expressed as if they were fact are not often credible or persuasive. However, anytime someone takes the time to debate something and cites credible data/facts/evidence/etc then I always take the time to consider their points.

arterial co2 blood levels begin to decrease with high intensity exercise. the levels of Pa Co2 at rest are 40 mmHg and during high intensity exercise can decrease as low as 32 mmHg. Therefore co2 levels are regulated in conjunction with H+ increases during exercise to maintain acid base balance.

also as you fatigue or suffer from thermal stress more muscle fibers are recruited (more motor neurons) to do the same amount of work and this positively influences the cardiorespiratory center in the brain to increased VE and HR (aka central command).

Nobby wrote:

Now that's interestin... Yup, you're right. Why not become next Juantorena? Good one. You got me on this one! ;o)

I think the mentality problem is actually, "I'm number one in the US...so why try harder?" In fact, this is exactly the question Peter Snell and I will be bringing to Japan next month. We'll be meeting a coach of #1 female Japanese 400m runner and #2 Japanese 400H guy. She moved on to semi-final at Osaka and that was it. Same with the 400H guy. Can they do better in 800 in the world scene?

Nobby. Just mind your own business.

I believe he was ...

troll man wrote:

Nobby wrote:

Now that's interestin... Yup, you're right. Why not become next Juantorena? Good one. You got me on this one! ;o)

I think the mentality problem is actually, "I'm number one in the US...so why try harder?" In fact, this is exactly the question Peter Snell and I will be bringing to Japan next month. We'll be meeting a coach of #1 female Japanese 400m runner and #2 Japanese 400H guy. She moved on to semi-final at Osaka and that was it. Same with the 400H guy. Can they do better in 800 in the world scene?

Nobby. Just mind your own business.

Question for "wellnow": Since we're trying to give good definitions to aerobic and anaerobic, how would you describe/define the following terms, reconciling them with today's up-to-date physiological knowledge:

1) Aerobic Threshold

2) Anaerobic Threshold

3) Aerobic Capacity

4) Anaerobic Capacity

I'm only looking for short answers -- just 1 or 2 lines for each describing what's going on, training intensity and purpose. If you feel like you need to rename, delete, or expand on the terms, please go ahead, but with a short explanation.

Richard_ wrote:

wellnow wrote:

Whoa there Rich, you are jumping to conclusions not me. I'm telling you that elite runners are compulsive excercisers, I guarantee that you won't find an elite runner who doesn't have strong forearms.

wellnow,

I appreciate your "gurantee" but prefer something more substantial and credible. Do you have any supporting data/facts/etc to support your opinion? If you are going to negate the study then you will have to prove (not just claim) that the tested muscles were, in fact, trained.

You want me to prove that elite runners do push ups and pull ups, or other types of excercises which would influence forearm strength?

The study is too silly to debate.

Aerobic Threshold......... no such thing, such a concept is too vague to be an actual identifiable threshold.

Anaerobic Threshold..... same answer. Aerobic and anaerobic fuel sources are always used at any pace.

Aerobic Capacity..... I believe most contemporary researchers refer to this as being the same as Vo2max, the body's maximum ability to absorb, transport, and utilize oxygen? or as Richard_ would prefer us to refer to it; Vo2peak:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=806863&page=1

Anaerobic Capacity... The traditional definition would be maximum amount of lactate that one can produce per unit of time. Some coaches measure this by taking lactate samples in an effort such as an all out 400m run.

However, bearing in mind that lactate is an aerobic fuel, not an anaerobic fuel, this definition is false.

The true Anaerobic Capacity would be the maximum amount of non mitochondrial ATP generated per unit of time and this will occur in a very short sprint, when the athlete reaches maximum velocity, i.e. during a 60m sprint.

The sources of energy here would be Creatine phosphate and Glycolyitc ATP.

Glycolytic ATP and lactate are produced at the same time, but the glycolytic ATP is available sooner for fueling muscle contraction and therefore provides much more fuel in a short sprint.

wellnow wrote:

You want me to prove that elite runners do push ups and pull ups, or other types of excercises which would influence forearm strength?

wellnow,

You are clearly knowledgeable enough about research that you know that to negate the study results you would have to prove that the wrist flexor muscles of the elite runner subjects that participated in the study were, in fact, trained.

Until that happens it does seem silly to debate the study, so I'll end my discussion of the topic here.

Best regards,

Rich

Why are you concerned about improving your speed so much? improving endurance is much more important for you right now. You are running well, but you can still make big improvements in your pace I am sure.

Most posters here and most good coaches would tell you to increase your mileage and that would be my advice too. I am more cautious than most about advising how much extra mileage to run, I would say a steady increase of 1-2 mpw is enough. Others would say; run slower in your long runs and add 5 mpw or so.

I recomend caution because as well as the injury risk involved, there is an extra emotional investment involved, whereby future success would be exciting, but failure would be more distressing. The best way to avoid failure is obviously to aim for constant gradual improvement, rather than sudden big leaps in fitness.

So Saying speed isn't important?

I was tryin to improve my endurance so I asked my coached what I had to do. So fast forward to this year. I'm running 65 wekly miles consistently. I'm a senior and my best 3000 is 11:40 my best 3200 is 12:10 my best 1600 is 5:35

5000 PR is 20:45 road two years ago don't do cross don't like hills. I like running mostly on roads, no injuries and no I'm not fat I'm 5'7 121

My progression below

f 40 mile time 5;40 two mile 12:20

s 45 mile time 5;38 two mile 12:10

j 50 mile time 5;42 two mile 12:17

s 65

Do mile repeats @ 6:00 pace 4 or 5 with equal time rest with 2 minute rest tried a bunch of stuff.

I don't know the problem with what gives is but my problem has to speed. Can I still get it?

My best 100 is 16 I don't know about 200, but 400 is 1:15

What can I realistically hope to achieve?

Am I wrong? If so should I follow the recomendation for what gives on speed?

Ty

A good training programme incorporates all different paces, so speed is just as important as endurance, but neither are more important than the other. My advice to what gives on speed? was not to focus too much on improving speed, rather to increase the mileage.

All round running fitness is the goal and as this improves, pace will improve over all distances from sprinting to long distance running.

How do you improve? Train progressively harder, just a little bit further at the same pace or a little bit faster for the same distance, that's the aim of the hard sessions, but don't expect a constant rate of improvement.

Some days you will be tired, some days the weather will not be in your favor, but as long as you feel you are improving in general fitness, then you are training effectively.

How much can you realistically hope to achieve? It depends on your ambition and dedication and your ego. Low achievers always blame genetics for their slower times. High achievers don't worry about genetics because they refuse to take no for an answer. They know that they are only as good as their fitness level. They find out what training works for them and focus on continual improvement.

Where do you stand in the self belief stakes? Only you can answer that question.If you train progressively for several years, you will become a very fast runner.

wellnow wrote:

How do you improve? Train progressively harder, just a little bit further at the same pace or a little bit faster for the same distance, that's the aim of the hard sessions, but don't expect a constant rate of improvement.

How do you define progressively harder by your physiology ? After done the world tour on physiology what do you have to say is train progressively harder just a littel bit further at the same pace. Whats your physiology for ? Train harder until you will be able to run 4X600m @800m pace long recovery. Simply an impossible workout. Is this your best contribute from your physiology research ?

Nuts.

To g2:

If you're best mile is around 5:40, doing 4-5 mile repeats at 6:00 pace sounds too fast. That's training at about your 2 mile (or 3K) race pace. If that's a speed session, then 5 miles sounds like a lot. If that's not a speed session, it seems that something closer to 7:00 pace is more appropriate.

There's more to training than endurance and speed. There's also a "medium" speed for building stamina. How much of that are you getting in, as part of the 65 mpw?

To g2, and "what's up with speed?", I didn't hear anything about tempo runs, or steady state runs. I think focusing on speed is a common mistake, when increased mileage and tempo runs might be more effective, without overtraining or burning out.

I'm trying to map any of this into my descriptions of my training, and I'm struggling to see how any of this fits.

I guess this is important, if the belief is that coaches need to be armed with the latest physiological thinking in order to improve there athletes training.

I believe I have a pretty good model with interesting training zones each selected for producing a certain physiological effect as a response to that training.

Whether Aerobic and Anaerobic thresholds actually exist or not, the concept, rather than being too vague, has been useful for me to identify zones around them.

If I were to follow your lead, 4 out of 5 of my zones would be simply classified as aerobic. If I throw away my terms, without replacing them with newer appropriate ones, to differentiate my zones, I now have no way to distinguish recovery runs, from endurance runs, to tempo runs, to VO2max intervals, since they are all simply aerobic. Only my 60m sprints merit a special class unto themselves.

At this point, when it comes to describing my training, I think the best advice I could follow is when you said: "you shouldn't be thinking about what energy systems you are using", but rather good pace judgement and feel. This brings me back to my other question -- do coaches need access to modern physiology at all? You suggested that coaching has stagnated so much, that it now lags 20 years behind the physiologists. Perhaps you are just mis-interpreting apathy and superfluousness.

Hello Richard_ and welcome,Since you changed topics, I would like to add one point. Did you supply any data/facts/evidence to support your assertion that unsupported opinions are often not credible or persuasive? I find that very few regularly meet this basic criteria. Opinions can still be valid, even if they are unsupported, not credible, or unpersuasive. Often sufficient data may not exist yet, or can not be reliably collected (e.g. too many confounding variables). The opposite can be true too, that supported, credible, and persuasive opinions end up not being valid (think conspiracy theory or American foreign policy). Just because someone hasn't met some high criteria of criticism doesn't mean you are right.

Richard_ wrote:

wellnow wrote:

...please consider that many of the criticisms of your work are valid.

Changing topics just for a moment - I'm actually very interested to read valid criticisms of anything I write. Unsupported opinions that are expressed as if they were fact are not often credible or persuasive. However, anytime someone takes the time to debate something and cites credible data/facts/evidence/etc then I always take the time to consider their points.

The Light,

Thanks for the welcome.

Based on your comments it seems I should expound on my point. I was specifically saying that it is difficult to impossible to dismiss the data & results of valid, credible research with only an expression of opinion. In other words, claiming something along the lines of "that study is flawed" but providing no reasonable logic, known facts, and/or other data to support that opinion is not persuasive or credible. It was not my intent to suggest that on a global scale that unsupported opinions are not credible or persuasive.

My mile repeats are my tempo runs I think. Steady-state? The vast majority of my runs are between 7;45 and 7;30 pace usually around 50 miles per week. I do warmups/warmdowns only on hard runs such as mile repeats and 400's

troll man wrote:

wellnow wrote:

How do you improve? Train progressively harder, just a little bit further at the same pace or a little bit faster for the same distance, that's the aim of the hard sessions, but don't expect a constant rate of improvement.

How do you define progressively harder by your physiology ? After done the world tour on physiology what do you have to say is train progressively harder just a littel bit further at the same pace. Whats your physiology for ? Train harder until you will be able to run 4X600m @800m pace long recovery. Simply an impossible workout. Is this your best contribute from your physiology research ?

Nuts.

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Why do you say that 4x600m @ target 800m pace is impossible?

It depends how fit you are and how serious you are. I have don 4x400 halfway between 400 and 800 pace + 200m flat out. The only difficulty I had in that session was the last 50m of the session, when my hamstrings became tired.

I had the endurance to do that session because I was regularly running 10k races and running lots of miles.

I had built up my fitness over several years. You can do the same if you want to.