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

Just like the car, especially a performance car like a Ferrari there has to be a high level of balance between components. Electrical system, energy system, engine system, cooling system etc. If you drive a Moke then the balance can afford to be a little more out than the Ferrari. Travel to the moon and your vehicle needs extreme balance. Balance is the key here light in case you don;t know what proportions of things to add together. But i do like you periodicity and half yearly periods. Why not add strength in cycles continuously over the year. I suppose a half year is not bad. You only get two of them a year though. Did you know strength can be added to aerobic work once the initial 10-12 weeks has been done as long as it was done honestly.

Of course a high performance athlete requires a high level of tuning or balancing, just like the ferrari or even the shuttle. You know tuning a car is balancing it yes?

Thats the trick here, how to balance all the factors out in the athlete. How to know what needs rebalancing is probably question number 1. How to build the factors in the athlete so they enhance one another instead of detract is a major skill. How to build the aerobic and not compromise sprinting form and ability is another bit most people get wrong.

See all you have to do is get better at lifting your bodyweight and then with using extra weights. Run a lot so you develop your style and its efficiency and your aerobic capacity. Then have enough time (12-16 weeks) to get ready for the big race of the season. probably sonsult an expert on your form once in a while so you don't go too far off track on that issue. Most people fail in that area alone.

cheers, hope it works for you out on the track

Not too tricky

I really don't care what you said in one post here. When backed into a corner, you have repeatedly and consistently refused to make any concrete recommendations as to how you would change training. Combined with the fact that you admit you have trained no one to acheive anything of note (woohoo, you trained some army guy to do a sub-11 2-miler!) you have no leg to stand on.

Richard's sole revolutionary finding is about how to spout unintelligent garbage on multiple message boards and get otherwise intelligent people to waste their time trying to refute silly, ignorant pseudoscientific crap supported by nothing more than a wish and misquotations.

The Light wrote:

Perhaps the reason for muscle contractile apathy, and the focus on aerobic improvement, is that there is so much more potential improvement to be gained by aerobic improvements.

The Light,

Interesting comment. VO2max changes little with training - somewhere around 10-15% max for an average person. In comparison, 100% increases in muscle power have been measured in runners, strength can increase 250% or more, muscular endurance can increase a 1000% or more. In short, changes in muscles ability to contract dwarf by a huge margin changes in the cardiovascular system.

I will be curious to see if in the next 10 years or so, once science has opened the door and explored the realm of muscle contractility, if I must re-evaluate my muscle outlook.

I'm curious about the same thing. I have been working on a new model explaining the way muscles function and adapt to training. If my new model is correct (and I believe it is) it should result in a reevaluation of the role of muscle in performance by coaches, athletes, and physiologists.

hmmmmm?

Thanks for the enlightenment and encouragement, but my track days are long past. I now reminisce about the glory days, with thoughts like "if I knew then what I know now ...".

Your comment about balance was kind of the point I was trying to make with the car analogy. I guess what I was trying to understand is how Richard's muscle fiber contraction puzzle piece fits in with the other parts, and how big this piece is.

Regards,

A fairly typical response from the small minority who still believe in the primacy of the cardiovascular/anerobic model???????????

Richard_ I can only assume that such a remark was designed to provoke an argument or promote a debate?

I haven't read all of your posts or visited your website in the last few days, been too busy, so please could you summarize your thoughts on the issue of muscle contractility for those of us who are unenlightened on the subject please?

wellnow wrote:

A fairly typical response from the small minority who still believe in the primacy of the cardiovascular/anerobic model???????????

Richard_ I can only assume that such a remark was designed to provoke an argument or promote a debate?

wellnow,

I admit to fooling around with that comment - tongue in cheek. The reason I wrote that is because several on here were telling me that the importance of muscle in performance had long been recognized by the running community and, consequently, the role of muscle was already well represented in training methods, discussion, physiological explanations, etc. When I protested I was told I was wrong.

The responses so far to my comment indicate that the important role muscle plays in performance does not yet seem to be fully recognized by the majority.

The summary of muscle contractility is this: A body of facts and research supports the idea that muscles are the primary determiners of performance - i.e. of all the factors that together determine performance, muscles are by far the dominant one.

Muscles contract and move us around. That's what they do, it's their job. Since muscles are important in performance then muscle contraction is important because that's what muscles do.

Muscle contraction consists of 3 basic parts or factors: how much force a muscle fiber generates when it contracts, how fast a muscle fiber contracts, and how long a fiber can contract before it fatigues. As noted in an earlier post, all 3 of these parts adapt massively to training (much more so than any other physiologically measured factor I'm aware of).

Richard_ wrote:

Muscle contraction consists of 3 basic parts or factors: how much force a muscle fiber generates when it contracts, how fast a muscle fiber contracts, and how long a fiber can contract before it fatigues. As noted in an earlier post, all 3 of these parts adapt massively to training (much more so than any other physiologically measured factor I'm aware of).

Hey, that's what I thought, maybe I'm not so stupid after all?

Richard_ wrote:

Muscle contraction consists of 3 basic parts or factors: how much force a muscle fiber generates when it contracts, how fast a muscle fiber contracts, and how long a fiber can contract before it fatigues. As noted in an earlier post, all 3 of these parts adapt massively to training (much more so than any other physiologically measured factor I'm aware of).

I can agree with the above. But, it is the aer/anaer model that most effectively produces these muscular adaptations to best meet the demands of distance running events.

I've personally tried different training approaches (as have countless others over decades) and the results consistently speak for themselves.

Richard,Although your numbers look impressive, can they really be compared to support a conclusion of "dwarf by a huge margin"? What concerns me more than uncomparable percentage changes from some unspecified starting point, is improvements in velocity (or pace), stamina, and endurance, and the limits to such improvements in the long term.How long does it take me to improve my power by 100%, my strength by 250%, and endurance by 1000%? Can I compound these improvements every 6 months over 5 years? over 20 years?My model, right or wrong, tells me investments in aerobic improvements will result in continuous improvements of my aerobic base over many years. One reference (although dated) I've seen says that, for example, VO2max improvements might plateau after 1 year, LT improvements might plateau after 3-4 years, and then further improvements come due to improved efficiency. But (in my model) muscle strength development plateaus in a couple of months, is typically carried for a few more months, and then you take a break and start over. Once you've developed strength, there is no continuous or compounded improvements over a long term. In your model, is there a similiar timeline and plateau related to muscle power, strength, and non-aerobic muscle endurance improvements?Regards,

Richard_ wrote:

The Light,

Interesting comment. VO2max changes little with training - somewhere around 10-15% max for an average person. In comparison, 100% increases in muscle power have been measured in runners, strength can increase 250% or more, muscular endurance can increase a 1000% or more. In short, changes in muscles ability to contract dwarf by a huge margin changes in the cardiovascular system.

JEH wrote:

Richard_ wrote:

Muscle contraction consists of 3 basic parts or factors: how much force a muscle fiber generates when it contracts, how fast a muscle fiber contracts, and how long a fiber can contract before it fatigues. As noted in an earlier post, all 3 of these parts adapt massively to training (much more so than any other physiologically measured factor I'm aware of).

I can agree with the above. But, it is the aer/anaer model that most effectively produces these muscular adaptations to best meet the demands of distance running events.

I've personally tried different training approaches (as have countless others over decades) and the results consistently speak for themselves.

Not sure what you mean by aer/anaer ? The last thing any runner should be worrying about during a workout is what percentage aerobic/anaerobic their energy production is because there is no way of knowing, and it's pretty much irrelevant anyway.

tinman

RE: Tinman, HADD, JK, JTupperD, anybody with information about Tim Noakes? 12/10/2003 3:25PM - in reply to e Reply | Return to Index | Report Post

I like to use 200m speed as a reference for middle and long distance runners because, as you know, we are typically not blazing fast out of the blocks. Besides, I just like the use of 200m because most middle distance and distance runners can estimate reasonably well their 200m time, not so much with their 100m time.

So, if Hicham is running 20-30 x 200m in 28 second 200s, that is 30% more time than his 21.5 estimated best (shown on a Euro sports website that had an article on the Moroccoan training system). In velocity terms, 28 second repeat 200s is only 76.8% of his max which would put him near his MAP (max aerobic power) pace for that distance. Good middle distance runners can run at about 75% + or - 2% of their maximum sprint speed (based on a 200m sprint time) before maxing out on aerobic power for the 200m distance. Elite distance runners can run closer to 80% + or - 2% of their maximum sprint speed for 200m for short reps like 200m. Ulitimately, it is critical to maximize your 200m sprint speed and then develop your aerobic power to hold a high percentage of it. If you have two milers, the one with better pure sprint speed has greater potential to run a faster mile time. Potential, though, is only potential. Work ethic, desire, and proper training make the other 50% of the difference in performances.

I think one of the best things you can do as a runner is work on your sprint speed so that you can coast along at a lower percentage of your maximum during longer races. Bascially, if you went from being a 25 second 200m runner to a 23 seconds 200m runner it like going from a Buick to a Firebird; you have got more horsepower. Now, once you have more horsepower, you gotta tweek the carburetor so that you don't burn more fuel than necessary over the long haul.

Light,

I wish there was a definitive answer to your questions, but physiologists haven't studied muscles enough to provide endurance athletes with final or definitive answers. In the past physiologists have mostly studied factors of the cardiovascular/anaerobic model and have only in recent years (due to the increasing research data and facts invalidating the c/a model) begun to consider other factors in performance.

One thing we do know is that changes in muscle contractility continue years after changes in VO2max and lactate cease. There was a really interesting study recently on Lance Armstrong by Dr Ed Coyle at UT Austin. Dr. Coyle was able to measure various physiological factors in Lance over a 7 years period, from the time he was a young, just turned professional cyclist to a time after he was a multi-time winner of the Tour de France. During that time there were no changes in Lance's ability to produce energy aerobically, despite the fact that he went from just another cyclist to the best in the world. So, what changes catapulted Lance from also-ran to world's best? Muscle power output - his muscles got more powerful (i.e. increased their contractility) and his power-to-weight ratio increased 18%.

Improvements do occur for many years - the question you raise is whether those on-going changes are aerobic in nature (as conventional wisdom has long taught, but evidence does not support) or if they are found elsewhere in the body (as an increasing body of evidence supports).

Here's a link to my review of the Lance Armstrong study:

http://www.powerrunning.com/Exercise%20Physiology/What%20Makes%20Lance%20Armstrong%20So%20Good.htm

ah shiv. i thought you were richard_ in disguise sorry

Hi to any novices and newly interested runners paying attention to this thread (unlikely now).

If you want to improve your running you are better off finding your local track and asking around for a good coach.

Physiologists who have a severe case of megalomania probably won't be employed anywhere, will have to start their own theories, their own websites, promote themselves beyond all reason and sense, even in the face of overwhleming common sense.

Can anyone tell me if this is how richard_ makes money? Or is this the nightime hobby?

muscles contract and then they release. They have an on phase and an off phase.

I hope you are aware of this Richard_ because it doesn't appear to be a factor in your thinking from what you have said.

In fact to me the main factor, for distance, is how easily they switch on and off through their cycle. How fluid is this process.

I'm not really interested in the cross sectional size of the muscle and who would be for distance. I am interested in the density of the muscle. Do you consider this in your equations?

I'm also interested in how densely the capillaries are laid down in the muscle tissue. Does your model have a way of accounting for this?

Also finally have you ever done a study on elite athletes? As a population it is chalk and cheese to the armchair man.

240 posts, 14 pages. And I still do not know if there even is a "lactate threshold."