Is aerobic base training dead???

I've asked this every time this business of the misuse of the terms "aerobic" and "anaerobic" turns up here and have never really gotten an answer. But what difference does the terminology make?

There's a difference between running at a pace that you can maintain for an hour and a half to two hours and running at a pace that you can't maintain for even a minute and half to two minutes. The old terminology, even if not totally descriptive, did a nice job of allowing us to know which sort of pace and/or effort we were talking about.

Beyond that, the idea that the bottom line is about lengthening your stride is deceptive. Sprinters have wonderfully long strides in most cases and generally couldn't compete at, say the mile, against mediocre high school runners because they get into too much oxygen debt, breathe too hard, become too anaerobic, become too aerobic,

aern't transporting enough oxygen, are transporting loads of oxygen...

I don't know how to describe why the sprinter has trouble racing longer distances now. But we know what happens to him and we know that he probably has great stride length until the effort of hard running for a long time constricts his stride length and frequency and we know he'd do better at the longer distance if he did more running at what we used to call aerobic paces, even if that was done as interval work.

I've asked this every time this business of the misuse of the terms "aerobic" and "anaerobic" turns up here and have never really gotten an answer. But what difference does the terminology make?

There's a difference between running at a pace that you can maintain for an hour and a half to two hours and running at a pace that you can't maintain for even a minute and half to two minutes. The old terminology, even if not totally descriptive, did a nice job of allowing us to know which sort of pace and/or effort we were talking about.

Beyond that, the idea that the bottom line is about lengthening your stride is deceptive. Sprinters have wonderfully long strides in most cases and generally couldn't compete at, say the mile, against mediocre high school runners because they get into too much oxygen debt, breathe too hard, become too anaerobic, become too aerobic,

aern't transporting enough oxygen, are transporting loads of oxygen...

I don't know how to describe why the sprinter has trouble racing longer distances now. But we know what happens to him and we know that he probably has great stride length until the effort of hard running for a long time constricts his stride length and frequency and we know he'd do better at the longer distance if he did more running at what we used to call aerobic paces, even if that was done as interval work.

I've asked this every time this business of the misuse of the terms "aerobic" and "anaerobic" turns up here and have never really gotten an answer. But what difference does the terminology make?

There's a difference between running at a pace that you can maintain for an hour and a half to two hours and running at a pace that you can't maintain for even a minute and half to two minutes. The old terminology, even if not totally descriptive, did a nice job of allowing us to know which sort of pace and/or effort we were talking about.

Beyond that, the idea that the bottom line is about lengthening your stride is deceptive. Sprinters have wonderfully long strides in most cases and generally couldn't compete at, say the mile, against mediocre high school runners because they get into too much oxygen debt, breathe too hard, become too anaerobic, become too aerobic,

aern't transporting enough oxygen, are transporting loads of oxygen...

I don't know how to describe why the sprinter has trouble racing longer distances now. But we know what happens to him and we know that he probably has great stride length until the effort of hard running for a long time constricts his stride length and frequency and we know he'd do better at the longer distance if he did more running at what we used to call aerobic paces, even if that was done as interval work.

Sorry for the four posts. When I tried to post, the screen went to a page that said it couldn't find the web page I was looking for, so I backspaced to the "reply" page and tried again. evidently each of those times the message really was posting.

Peter, the reason why we breathe harder and harder in middle distance races is because we gradually increase our oxygen uptake and then after that O2 intake stabilizes, we are exhaling more and more carbon dioxide which is a result of bicarbonate buffering of blood acidity. The blood itself cannot become acidic or we will die, so blood Ph is maintained as very slightly alkaline.

You don't become more and more anaerobic, it is the opposite, you become more and more aerobic.

Mitochondrial density is limited. What I am suggesting is that this limit is relatively easy to reach. The general idea that fast twitch fibers take years to become more oxidative is fantasy in my opinion. Why would it take more than a few weeks for this to occur?

The same for capillarisation, why would this be a limiting factor in a healthy well trained runner? Mythology, capillarisation is an ongoing process yes, but the idea that the fastest distance runners have considerably more capillaries than well trained but slow distance runners is ridiculous. The slow runners are not limited by their oxygen delivery, but by many other factors.

Lydiard was always saying that aerobic development is unlimited. This is false, it is the muscular power/endurance development that is unlimited, and if you re-think Lydiardism with regard to this issue, you will increase your insight into how to apply his ideas to help Muzungu run as fast as Rift Valley man.

Good luck and happy thought provoking.

Bob Schul disciple wrote:

Wellnow,

I really appreciate you clearing that up for me! I could never understand why speedwork detracted from one's base.

Do you advocate a periodization based program like Lydiard, one that could be personalized from.- or do you prefer a consistent weekly program that has balanced variety in it such as used by DeCastella?

Thank you!

You're welcome. My thoughts on periodization are that we should focus on the same things all year round, but as important races approach we should specialize more on the paces appropriate to that race. One thing that is very important is that different running surfaces give different results. Soft ground is ideal for recovery runs especially when the legs are stiff.

Harder surfaces are much better for developing stride length, as is running a an slight downhill or with the wind behind you. This is very important for maximizing running economy, you ability to hold a good pace with less effort than usual. You know that feeling when you are moving very fast for long periods without the usual fatigue? That's good economy.

You have to be confident in your training. Bob Schul was very confident in his methods which he learned from Mihaly Igloi.

Your confidence comes from preparation. If you are standing on the start line feeling very confident, you will have a good race. If you don't feel confident, you will not have a good race.

Mr Ray, I no longer think in terms of thresholds. I think these labels are misleading and tend to limit our creativity because adhering to such concepts places too much emphasis on controlling some imaginary physiological state rather than just learning to cope with certain paces by feel.

If I could show you how so many physiological concepts are debatable and dubious, you would see my point that these lables are nothing more than conjecture.

Robergs has shown that lactic acidosis is a myth. So where does that leave 100 years of physiology dogma?

On the shelf with all the other physiology dogma.

HRE, don't you think that there is an interesting parallel between fatigue in 100's 200's 400's and 800m races where the battle to maintain stride length is imperative? In all of those distances the athlete is slowing down towards the end.

For many runners the same thing happens in a marathon. It has happened to Gebreselassie a few times.

The same for capillarisation, why would this be a limiting factor in a healthy well trained runner? Mythology, capillarisation is an ongoing process yes, but the idea that the fastest distance runners have considerably more capillaries than well trained but slow distance runners is ridiculous. The slow runners are not limited by their oxygen delivery, but by many other factors.

[/quote]

I'm very interested in your ideas regarding aerobic training, but I just don't get this bit. If oxygen delivery is a non-issue then how would blood doping improve performance? EPO won't give a runner better neuromuscular coordination or more power will it?

Or how about runners who become anaemic and burn out at the end of a track season but are able to rebound by supplementing iron? Doesn't that work because oxygen transport is returned to normal?

Sure. But if the athlete in question had excellent stride length early in their race and poor stride length later in the race, the problem seems to me is that the fatigue that accumulates as the race goes on forces the shorter stride length. Working only on stride length won't help that. You need to be able to resist the fatigue better.

wellnow wrote:

HRE, don't you think that there is an interesting parallel between fatigue in 100's 200's 400's and 800m races where the battle to maintain stride length is imperative? In all of those distances the athlete is slowing down towards the end.

For many runners the same thing happens in a marathon. It has happened to Gebreselassie a few times.

But who says it is a battle to maintain stride length. It is arguably just as much a battle to maintain stride frequency.

wellnow wrote:

it is the muscular power/endurance development that is unlimited,

Stop for a second. Where do you get this notion that muscle 'power' is an entity on it's own? Muscles do not have power, they can only produce it from resources. If they produce it from ATP or CT stores, this is very short lived (about 6 seconds worth) and must be recouped in the body. If they produce it via anaerobic glycolysis, they produce lactate as a by-product and lactate will be oxidized back into pyruvate in the body, and that's oxygen we breathe in. The only other way is to produce it aerobically.

For distance running, muscles are nearly completely dependant on all those other 'aerobic' factors you mentioned to produce power.

Wellnow

Why do you give up to post with your earlier Tinman nickname ?

Is that you Tinman ?

Just to restore the context, your example with Geb focuses on aerobic capacity, when popular myth credits his performance gains via long term improvements in his thresholds. Whether you think about thresholds or not for your own personal situation, you can not debunk a myth if you portray it incorrectly.In the context of training, I think these threshold labels add to our mutual understanding, by giving us the vocabulary to describe how we feel, and how to describe workouts, using a simple model that 99.9% of letsrun posters understand, to create a framework for our training. It doesn't have to limit our creativity, or control the training, or substitute pace by feel, but can provide useful feedback for seasonal and long term performance improvements, as things like blood lactate and VO2max can be measured, or even just estimated.I would argue further that "anaerobic" is not that much of a misnomer, even for mostly aerobic intervals. The key differentiator between fast workouts, and slow workouts is the by-product of "anaerobic" production of ATP. The question is not which "system" provides the greater source of ATP, but are we producing lactate faster than we are consuming it? Why is it confusing then, to label a specific workout "anaerobic intervals", when the desired effect is an over-production of this by-product of "anaerobic" ATP production, to trigger the intended stimulus?What Robergs showed, as I see it, is again, a labeling problem. If I recall, he showed that lactic acidosis should be called metabolic acidosis. I don't see a huge shift required in the physiological paradigm of the last 79 years. Acidosis is still occuring.It's my historical understanding that physiology is always playing catch-up with successful training methodologies. Successful coaches know what works, by a combination of luck and trial and error. What physiologists debate about, or what dubious concepts they developed in the past seem to be completely independent from the tried and true formation of successful training methodologies.So where does that leave physiology? On the shelf, in the lab, and miles away from the track. I'm missing the link between the "dogma", and it's failed consequences on the track.

wellnow wrote:

Mr Ray, I no longer think in terms of thresholds. I think these labels are misleading and tend to limit our creativity because adhering to such concepts places too much emphasis on controlling some imaginary physiological state rather than just learning to cope with certain paces by feel.

If I could show you how so many physiological concepts are debatable and dubious, you would see my point that these lables are nothing more than conjecture.

Robergs has shown that lactic acidosis is a myth. So where does that leave 100 years of physiology dogma?

On the shelf with all the other physiology dogma.

beerintervals wrote:

The same for capillarisation, why would this be a limiting factor in a healthy well trained runner? Mythology, capillarisation is an ongoing process yes, but the idea that the fastest distance runners have considerably more capillaries than well trained but slow distance runners is ridiculous. The slow runners are not limited by their oxygen delivery, but by many other factors.

I'm very interested in your ideas regarding aerobic training, but I just don't get this bit. If oxygen delivery is a non-issue then how would blood doping improve performance? EPO won't give a runner better neuromuscular coordination or more power will it?

Or how about runners who become anaemic and burn out at the end of a track season but are able to rebound by supplementing iron? Doesn't that work because oxygen transport is returned to normal?[/quote]

I suppose the reason synthetic EPO is banned is because it works, it does increase aerobic capacity. But I think that professional cyclists are a crazy bunch of people and many of them took vast amounts of the drug unnecessarily.

Does alititude training do the same thing but less effectively?

I wonder if one of the main benefits of altitude training is that the athlete gets fresh red blood cells. When the athlete returns to sea level the old RBC's are removed from circulation because they aren't needed, so the blood has a lot of new RBC's which are more efficient at transporting oxygen.

Obviously aerobic capacity is hugely important, but I believe it doesn't require many year of extreme training to maximize it. Although I do think that there are ways of getting a slight advantage which are beyond the means of most runners. I'm happy to try and be the best I can without worrying about my RBC mass.

Do you know that a lot of runners think that they are anemic because they have a hematocrit of 39-40 and a hemaglobin count of 13 when in fact they have plenty of RBC's but their blood is diluted by extra plasma because they sweat a lot. Diagnosing anemia in an athlete is often not straightforward, it can require many tests, since the serum ferritin levels vary considerably from person to person.

HRE wrote:

Sure. But if the athlete in question had excellent stride length early in their race and poor stride length later in the race, the problem seems to me is that the fatigue that accumulates as the race goes on forces the shorter stride length. Working only on stride length won't help that. You need to be able to resist the fatigue better.

Yes indeed, maintaining stride length is crucial. How do we do that? I think long slow distance running which is three hours plus for me, helps to give me a rock solid technique, allowing me to hold the pace in a race. It's al about concentration. It takes a huge amount of concentration to hold the same rhythm for that third hour, but you can do it because the physical effort is not high although of course it's tiring towards the end. I don't do this often, but every time I have done it, my concentration at faster paces increases noticeably.

I have a theory too wrote:

wellnow wrote:

it is the muscular power/endurance development that is unlimited,

Stop for a second. Where do you get this notion that muscle 'power' is an entity on it's own? Muscles do not have power, they can only produce it from resources. If they produce it from ATP or CT stores, this is very short lived (about 6 seconds worth) and must be recouped in the body. If they produce it via anaerobic glycolysis, they produce lactate as a by-product and lactate will be oxidized back into pyruvate in the body, and that's oxygen we breathe in. The only other way is to produce it aerobically.

For distance running, muscles are nearly completely dependant on all those other 'aerobic' factors you mentioned to produce power.

******************************************************

Yes, those are fuels for muscle contraction. You do realize that lactate can be oxidized for muscle contraction during exercise too? That is aerobic use of lactate of which up to 80% can be used during exercise for aerobic respiration with the other 20% used in the cori cycle for reconversion to liver glycogen.

When I talk about muscle power in running, I am refering to the contractile force of the muscles and tendons both of which have a considerable elastic component. The more you can use this elasticity, the more power you can generate.

How good is Lance Armstrong at running these days? he's ok, but he don't got a powerful stride compared to his power on the bike.

Lactate is produced anaerobically, but converted through several steps for aerobic regeneration of ATP. In fact all stored carbohydrate is initially broken down anaerobically.

Anaerobic respiration is a separate set of reactions whereby phosphates are used to regenerate ATP anaerobically. This anaerobic respiration occurs as part of glycolysis, the breakdown of blood glucose which comes form the liver, and glycogenolysis the breakdown of muscle glycogen.

When a lot of anaerobic respiration takes place, such as during a sprint, a lot of lactate is produced at the same time. This is necessary because the fuel for anaerobic respiration often called glycolytic ATP, runs out fairly quickly, and lactate comes to the rescue to provide ATP to both fast and slow twitch fibers. In high intensity excercise fast twitch fibers produce more lactate than they consume, and slow twitch fibers eventually consume more than they produce.

Yes acidosis is real, but lactic acid is NOT produced, thus lactic acidosis is a myth. Robergs highlights the fact that physiologists are lousy biochemists, so coaches have been mislead for decades.

So Lydiard and other coaches were not to blame for the misconceptions of exercise physiology. The ideas were mostly right, but the physiological explanations were wrong. I want to help clear this mess up. I am glad to have these debates with you and HRE and Kim, Nobby, Peter and others, and you all are now battle hardened for future debate.

Yes, I realize that, as I had already indicated that in my post.

Key point in here, the conversion of lactate requires oxygen (as you indicated earlier), it does not come for free, and energy production in anaerobic glycolysis in muscle tissue will ultimately use more oxygen than aerobic glycolysis, so let's not attempt to present lactate as though it's a 'free' fuel source, it isn't. When you push yourself into high lactate production, you're breathing hard for a reason.

Now you're blending terms again in pseudo-scientific nonsense. Don't confuse contractile force with elasticity, these are different components. Contractile force requires energy production, you cannot just increase a muscle's 'power' as though it's an entity of it's own. Despite what you're saying here it goes against what you said earlier that muscle 'power' has unlimited development while aerobic development is limited. These items are intimately related and you cannot have one without the other. If one is limited, so is the other. If you want a muscle to produce more force, you need to develop the components it needs to do it. Do this incorrectly and you might have decent speed but you won't be able to sustain it. So you can't just do things to increase a muscle's force production and expect good results. You must develop 'cheap' force production, which means development of your purest aerobic component(s). Even running into lactate (anaerobically) will leverage a strong aerobic base by increasing your capacity to convert lactate back.

As for elasticity, it does not increase force production of it's own but it can be leveraged to retain some energy after a contractile cycle. The bulk of any benefit here is gained by nothing more than having an optimum turnover rate.