Isn't "Event Specificity" More Important Than "VO2max" And "LT" Zones And All That?

sprinter800 wrote:

this is a really interesting concept. Bottle necks, how to open them and the right time to open them.

3 parts.

So is a bottle neck that part of the athletes system which is holding back performance? The energy just cannot transport energy fast enough in a specific way. Eg lactate tolerance or top speed?

Is this on the right track?

Whilst i'm obviously interested in how to open each particular bottleneck what i'm most interested in is this order of opening them you mentioned.

ps what is the name of the German book and is it translated? :)

Actually, not everything I wrote is from this book. The bottle-neck-idea comes from a discussion in a German forum.

The book - as far as I know - is not translated into English. (It is very difficult to find a publisher who is willing to take the risk of translating a foreign book from a speciality: small market, lot of competitors, etc.)

The book: Neumann, Hottenrott: "Das große Buch vom Laufen". (Two German sport scientists, if I am not wrong, they are from Köln, where there is a famous university for sport science).

Your track is right. But rethinking Canovas posts, where he analyses the athletes first, he comes to the conclusion, that sometimes it is not worth the effort, to open a specific bottleneck. It is rather more important to first find the right speciality with the least bottlenecks.

The base bottlenecks are endurance and/or speed.

If you ckeck your race abilities and calculate eg. the according Vdot value, you may see in Daniels' tables, if you are on a horizontal line, or if the line is climbing or falling (first indicating a lack of endurance, second a lack in speed). If you have a speciality somewhere in the "middle", the line might be V-shaped (otherwise it's not your true speciality).

Sometimes it is like digging a hole (the "V") into sand. You have to dig around, to get deeper (so you have to do some basework first, before getting deeper). What Skuj has in mind, is "drilling" instead of digging (the most special way to get quickly a deep hole). I think the functions of the body are more like sand than like a wall, so you have to dig not to drill (in the sense of this metaphor).

So again: a lot of confusing ideas from bottlenecks to holes in the sand...

i like this descriptive type of explanation. I feel it is more inclusive and more organic. Possibly the marijuoliman and skuj might appreciate it :)hope not offended anyone.

This 'Bottle neck' idea i like better than my 'block' idea. I see these particular problems as blocks or blockages to the flow of energy in the same way a technical error may also block the continuous flow of energy. The 'block' gives a feeling of total stoppage and this is never true, it is merely a reduction in the ability fro the energy to flow through that part of the physiology or the mechanics. In a similar way the psychology may suffer similar bottle necks i am thinking. There may also be emotional bottle necks.

In relation to drilling and digging i think i agree with you. Drilling is too invasive. It may cause change too quickly and out of balance with other factors leading to breakdown to loss of performance. The drilling may in fact, due to its speed and effectiveness, creat new bottle necks as it descends. Digging os also quite invasive yet less so. If we are trying to create a V, then i am envisaging an hourglass. The way to get the sand to flow in an hourglass is to open up a hole underneath. Is this possible in the scheme of things? It requires a radical shift in thinking. More than a lateral shift i think it requires a 180 degree switch.

This is really radical and i am worried about presenting it.

See digging and drilling imply that there is something to dig or drill into. What is this thing? Ourselves! We are trying to invade ourselves. Why? To find more depth. In track i think this depth can be related to how trained an individual is.

This invasive approach can be found in the marital arts so i think it applies to sport. It is not the way of seated meditation though. This is another path, possibly not suited to athletes or at least most athletes. Now there are many paths of meditation, of exploration of the self. The one that i believe is the most direct is where the meditator has the singular practise of 'letting go'. All meditative practices are about letting go in some way but usually involve all sorts of ritualistic practices which i'm not into. Simply letting go i think is the essence or commonality throughout all of the practices i've explored.

Why letting go? There is the belief that in letting go of things about yourself that hold you back - you can more easily move forward. In a training sense this approach could mean that letting go of certain inefficient technical patterns or limiting physchological views or destructive emotional habits will all aid in performance without any adjustment to the conditioning training.

But this is where i get stuck - how can letting go of something make someone more conditioned. I can't see any direct way. It seems the conditioning must still be done. Great if it is easier to become conditioned due to those other factors improvement, yet it must still be done.

Yet the letting go of our own inner resistance to training past our comfort zone or if more advanced past our performance or training limits can be of assistance. What is this inner resistance we have? Maybe if we can let go some of that?

Renato,

Thanks so much for your posts superb stuff. Could you tell us more about your winter training for 800m athletes, especially those with weaker endurance but good natural speed. Also how you incorporate the use of the lactate monitor with these type of athletes? Thanks again!!!!!!!

Coach MD

4 years old now.

I'm on page 8 so far and this is a brilliant thread. I'm really enjoying reading Marius and Jack and the candada guy. Kudos skuj for a great thread.

I'm positing to see if anyone else is interested in talking about anything in this thread in light of other threads that are currently out there.

But i'm also interested to know if Antonio is outed as 'boom' at any point.

Mihaly Igloi laughs at this whole thread.

canyonjoe wrote:

Mihaly Igloi laughs at this whole thread.

Er....because Igloi was all about the physiological zones?

Skuj wrote:

Look at this. There he is, 4 years later, at 6:40pm Boston time, new years eve. LOOOOOOOSER!! :)

OK I gotta go now.

Gypsy, if you got anything out of the remaining pages, let me now. Cheers.

Skuj, do you seriously believe this guy was lurking here just waiting for you to post? Don't you see how ridiculous that is?

do you have a time machine???

current time in boston: 6:10 pm new years eve

no one's ever accused him of being overly bright

I know this might seem strange but i don't live in Boston. There is a whole big wide world out there and i live in some part of that. I have other hobbies, but nothing that can be talked about in public.

Anyway i'm still reading. skuj - you come across as unbiased but it seems you are definitely on the side of race pace approach. Are you still thinking this way 4 years later?

9:18pm new years eve, but I'm a 50yr old with a young son whomis I'll, so there is my excuse.

Canada Coach, since 4 yrs ago this guy has been ever present, and one of his favorite handles is "1 who knows", which he used here today before I deleted him. I know it's terribly pathetic, but it's true. And he's here again under new handles.

gypsy, I was talking about my 20 something troll who lives in Boston, who has no life and continues to post here on new years eve. Anyway, your question - I like race pace approach. I used to be a CoeMartin physio zones guy, but then I changed my thinking. However, these debates bore me now. Sorry.

gypsy wrote:

But i'm also interested to know if Antonio is outed as 'boom' at any point.

I did a search on this forum and I notice that my name is on this thread. Then I read your post and I see you name me. I think that Antonio it´s me and no one else.

You are one very funny guy. Kind of an idiot. You open threads and ask questions or you call the debate, you do provocative posts, you bring stuff doubts, but when someone like me replies to your stuff questions but the answer and the opinion doesn´t satisfy you, or is opposed to your main idea, then you know all the answers to the questions you bring to the forum. It´s the case of “Lydiard imitations”. You open the debate with questions, but then when the answer doesn´t satisfy you move to a your question to know more than the other person about the same subject you did bring to the board. Then when the post doesn´t satisfy you because it disagrees with your own ideas you just do rubbish posts to that person or you simply ask the same question on and on, you keep with the trick that the other individual didn´t answer the question when he did really.

Would be better that before your write questions you reveal your opinion first.

As you aren´t the only one to post here and you aren´t the only one to ask me questions I want to posts something about this VO2max versus specific training.

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I have to disagree. The belief to train more pace specific in order to perform better is probably one of the most common mistakes coaches do for 5/10k at least.

They fail to realize that the internal system/metabolism is far more important to optimize than the outer system. A high LT can best be trained with LT sessions and a high LT (unless you are a pure marathon runner) is almost linear to your performance in the 5k/10k.

You must do pace specific also - but just part of the year and usually is is a matter of finding out how little is enough vs how much more can be done.

Marius

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This Marius post is demagogy. Who says that “The belief to train MORE pace specific in order to perform better” More? Why more ? Very specific training tends to lead to rapid performance improvement followed by a plateau.

I don´t say more, I say some parsimony percent of the total mileage, and while it´s done sparsely over the season it´s less total percent probably. Some people do misconcept about the rich specific workout training. Spefics shall be of progressive load.

Since the physiology get higher importance among the training methodology, someone taught that if the VO2max it´s a important physiology parameter to able distance run better performance it would be a good thing to train and be exercised at that same VO2 speed pace to able to improve the VO2max of each individual. This is not true precisely. First of all we know that the VO2max, while can´t be neglected as performance parameter it´s not decisive for the performance result, because the performance result it´s a complex composite of several training parameters out of the VO2max, and actually we know that since the VO2max it´s obtained at the pace and the duration of 8-12min approx. what means 2k to 3k run approx. then its more determinant for performances on that 2k to 3 k distance events, but not absolutely determinant as many scientific studies did prove, and less determinant on 800m-1500m-mile events and less decisive on longer distances from 10k to cross country to road runs and to the HM and marathon.

VO2 max is a measure of aerobic fitness and increases dramatically as the runner moves from an untrained to a trained state., but it´s not adequate when you want to enter into the specific phase.

About this matter you may read my opinion about this subject.

AC: If you take the VO2max of two distance runners - one does for instance 55/ml/kg/min and the other 75/ml/kg/min VO2max. The runner with high 75 VO2max observed will do better performances in middle and long distance events than the low 35ml/kg/min eventually. But what about one with 58 VO2max and other with 62 VO2max?

The Consequence of Time and Space

No one knows who will win and the runner with high VO2max is not the best distance runner necessarily. When it comes to middle and long-distance training, my guide is traditional training methodology rather than training physiology. My knowledge of the history of past and present methods and training contain, as well as my many years of personal experience, have taught me that these are the keys to formulating a training plan. I break the training down into the most basic but objective of training parameters: Time and Space. Space is the distance run and Time is the duration of the run.

The consequence of Time and Space is the pace, the pace of one workout, or race pace referred to one distance event. I guess that race pace is the most important and trustful reference point to elaborate every training program.

I consider the contribution of physiological factors associated with running performance, be VO2max, running economy, lactate and anaerobic threshold, anaerobic energy, fibre type, whatever factor, as well as different aspects such as the brain regulation of exercise performance. However my main coaching lead, my final coach decision is done by training methodology, related to race pace and not physiology.

Something more can be said. It´s proved that many runners did their best performance when their own physiological factors associated with distance run performance do show low values.

It's not the person with the highest VO2max, mitochondria, the highest hematocrit, whatever physiological parameter, who necessarily wins a race. It is simply the person who covers the required distance the fastest, it doesn´t matter what is the physiological factor that did contribute to that win or that new PB.

In the 2004 Olympic season the Portuguese Rui Silva did several physiological tests in the field in 3 moments:

- Start of the season

- Mid-season before the track runs, and

- After his bronze medal in 1500m in the Olympics.

I trust in the protocols. I know how they were done. After that long season with hard training, the tests he did right after the Olympics show the poorest VO2max of the 3 moments, the poorer VO2 velocity to what he tested in the early and mid-season. When he was in his top shape and condition, the tests did show poor lactate, poor hematocrit, poor aerobics etc.

The second reason why vVO2 workouts isn´t of higher top importance it´s because the rule of specificity that was never been denied or replaced by another best rule. The norm that defines of specificity says that “The dominant energy system used during competition must be called upon and the structure of the movement must resemble that present during competition. Or, the best suited training for this purpose it´s something closer to race pace load, and as you know VVO2max it´s not race pace or 800m to mile and from 5k to the marathon.

The one thing that does seem to be pretty sure is that the response to training is truly specific in terms of movement pattern and energy system utilisation. Therefore it makes little sense to spend a long period of the season running slowly to develop an aerobic base and trying to cram all your specific work into a short 6-8 week period. As it WOULD BE MISTAKE TO TRAIN JUST SPECIFICS. It would be one mistake to spend all the time training on race pace effort.

However training does involve working multiple systems, but the interaction between them is so complex that it is difficult to know exactly what is going on.

The idea that while traninig at vVO2max pace it´s the best way to improve its´one naïve idea. Otherwise it´s naïve to think that if you train in the pace of one particular training zone you will JUST AND BEST enhance that physiologic system connect with that pace.

Then my opinion about VO2 workout training is that the vVO2 max doesn´t satisfy the needs of specific pace somehow ,but don´t deny a few interest on VO2max workouts.

Did you attend Colorado State University in the late 1960s? I've only known one person in my life who referred to the "dreaded mahogas" - a great lady who lived on my dorm floor.

bump...this is a good thread (from 2007)

gypsy wrote:

But i'm also interested to know if Antonio is outed as 'boom' at any point.

Antonio Cabral wrote:

I did a search on this forum and I notice that my name is on this thread. Then I read your post and I see you name me. I think that Antonio it´s me and no one else.

You are one very funny guy. Kind of an idiot.

Resurrected from the past - an argument with Cabral.

My opinion now is this, for this topic.

Spend 1 hour progressively running from your slowest possible speed to your fastest.

Pay close attention to how you deal with each and every pace.

The pace you find it easier to run at are the paces you are already adapted to, somewhat.

The paces you find it hard to run at are your weaknesses. Maybe you find it hard to run at very slow paces or possibly the problem is i the middle paces or perhaps in the higher speed phases.

Do this type of investigative session a few times until you have worked out how you personally cope with each and every pace.