Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

Nvm I got it now.

I wanted to reierate what people have been saying. Brilliantly educational thread (even as it went a bit haywire)

In the spirit of things i did a Friel LTHR test last night. its a challanging enough workout. I did it as per Friel's protocol, by myself, late in the evening, 20min warm up, 30 min test, take HR for last 20mins.

Results were Avg HR 175. (Garmin Pro HR strap)

98% of this is 171BPM

Garmin forerunner estimated it at 172 for a slower pace

Friel recommends 95% for a 20min test which would be 166BPM

Training peaks estimates my LTHR at 167. i think TP uses the 20min test

i did a VO2 max test with work for a health promotion thing in May which had it at 167BPM. This was a ramp test

I obviously haven't validated off a Lactate measurement but i was pleased with the consistency between the various methologies.

I guess for me i'll play it on the safe side and stay around 167 but i thought people may find this helpful.

I've yet to see any evidence that LTHR or % of LTHR is valid, or that one single value for heart rate could possibly equate to maximum metabolic steady state across all different types of environmental conditions and durations in spite of decoupling.

There's an awful lot of people doing invalid tests and protocols to guess at where their threshold is when it probably isn't much better than just using RPE, and their efforts would be better focused on doing valid tests, which cannot be mentioned without throwing people into a tizzy despite that a 30 minute maximum effort is a great data point for one of them and it wouldn't require a lactate meter. If you're looking for the baby, it has been thrown out with the bathwater to rapturous applause.

I gave him the benefit of the doubt earlier on but he's becoming meaner than the Wizard...Lexel has some good points but recently he's just become argumentative.

I will try some of the 10x1000 or 5x2000 workouts they suggested to see where my baseline is!

This is an important point. HR can be relatively low with relatively high lactate. One single-HR-fits-all- value is not suitable, not to mention the fact that there is a lag/delay with HR that could lead a runner to running too hard to reach said LTHR, and that would probably cause a spike in lactate.

Im imagining you reading and rereading this thread exclusively from the safety of your fainting couch

Right its a spectrum but the correlation is very very strong when you have good data

if you are seeing massive swings a deviations you might consider fatigue or overtraining as a potential factor at that point

Also, youre not trying to reach the HR, you are definitely trying to stay safely under it

I tried to find room on the fainting couch but it was full of people exhausted from writing essays on how much they don't like a certain user who offended them while contributing nothing besides inane blog posts based entirely on their own feelings. You seem to think that you are in a personality contest and that your Reddit downvotes and snide comments are of any consequence when they're not. Either something is true, or it isn't. Either it can be refuted, or it can't.

You have no evidence supporting the validity of "LTHR". Plenty of metrics can be correlated to "threshold" yet heart rate is notably one of the weakest for the reasons that have already mentioned. It's nonsensical for Togher to prioritize HR over power or grade adjusted pace if he didn't want to just use RPE.

As usual your terminology has strayed a bit from accepted understanding.

Essays? I guess once again we can leave it up to others who’s more voracious in their desperation and vanity to be taken seriously here.

Yes, you should be prioritizing HR over power, especially in running. And the correlation between lactate and HR is pretty well established when you know what you’re doing.

Again, ill leave it up to others as to whether you’re worth listening to or not, not concerned either way.

You’re not contributing other than to the noise at this point. The premise, again, was a simple one, but you are trying to overcomplicate very simple guidelines to attempt to toot some horn you think needs to be played.

Just another person whining about others not adhering to their ‘wisdom’, its a pretty old tune in this thread

I got that from an intervals.icu forum

forum.intervals.icu

LTHR Calculation

It is displayed like “FTP Up” but your LTHR is not automatically updated. It is easy to run a high HR if you get thirsty or it is very hot etc. so you need to decide if the new value is valid or not.

Open link

about half way down some guy references Friel's training bible 5th edition page 50.

the consensus there and here too seems to be that Friel's 30min test (take final 20 mins) needs a haircut to 98% which garmin and intervals icu seems to apply.

Training peaks seems to apply a 95% modifier accrding to that forum which explains the difference.

I took the lower number to be in the ball park but on the right side of the threshold.

I hope that makes sense

I mean you can try to leave it up to your fallacious attempt at a popularity contest that is neither here nor there, yet the fact remains that the boundary between the heavy and the severe domain is literally defined based on the power/speed duration model or maximal lactate steady state. There is little to no evidence supporting the validity of instead defining it using heart rate and it's absurd for you to claim that it is more valid than the others when any rational person can recognize the major issues that it has, issues that you promptly ignored with the only justification being your rather ignorant opinion.

Your post is especially ironic, alleging that I'm overcomplicating it when you're inordinately supporting using HR over RPE which is by far the simplest way to produce a constant sub-threshold effort and it does not require using any tools. What I'm saying, and what everyone should be able to agree with in principle, is that if you're going to bother to try to quantify your "threshold", you should try to be as accurate as possible otherwise it's a waste of time and you're back to guessing.

I'll leave this here.

Here are some data from my recent lactate testing at the track (3rd order polynomial):

HR vs Lactate R-square: 0.999

Power vs Lactate R-square: 0.999

Speed vs Lactate R-square: 0.999

Pretty good, right? CP, CS, and LT2 all lined up very closely.

Note that HR =/= LTHR. There is a zero percent chance that running at LTHR is going to equate to running at critical speed, or LT2 which isn't necessarily MLSS. You can run at either and watch your heart rate vary wildly.

I know you're trying to make a point, but heartrate just isn't THAT variable. It can be at times, sure. And yes, we all get it...LTHR is a range of values, not a fixed, singular value. Pedantic, much?

LT2, as estimated by a graded exercise test, can be very close to MLSS when the ramp has a low enough slope. That's why I do my ramps how I do my ramps and why I do my rams at the track and not on a treadmill.

And you're wrong about "zero percent chances" You're speaking like you're just learning this stuff.

You are well on the right track. Especially when you are getting started, go on the conservative side. Stick to that as your upper limit. Most people training like this from the thread and Strava group are progressing well, the common theme seems to be just build up slowly and be cautious, you will still progress pushing up your threshold from below. It works spectacularly in cycling and whilst I'm clearly not as good a runner as I am a cyclist and never will be, it's still working on a scaled down and more cautious approach on two feet. I'm happy with my results and I don't think my body could have managed in the time I have available, really any other way I would have stayed healthy and become a respectable runner.

Again, people will debate the Friel method all day long. But , you can get a cheap Garmin, a £15 strap and really that will get you to where 95% of your potential using this method as a hobby jogger. You'll have the odd day where you go over your estimated LTHR (it's literally just an estimate , in the spirit of keeping this simple), but guess what, your legs won't fall off and you won't die of overtraining.

Despite all the debate, that's the one thing I'm relatively confident of still, if you can stick to this for a long period of time, you will likely progress on a time crunched schedule and give yourself every other chance of staying healthy and see some PBs.

I'm totally shocked this thread keeps popping up, I speak to a few of the main characters from this thread most days, I can't believe everytime they tell me there's a new post. Whilst the digging in the weeds is totally fine , I just hope people still take away from my posts, while you can go as deep as you want on this, you can also keep it very, very simple.

It's not at all pedantic and I'm not interested in arguing about the details of your protocol and your N=1 regression analysis. Just because heart rate is correlated with intensity and thus power, RPE, lactate, etc. does not mean you can use it to define a threshold effort. The fact that it will vary while running at critical speed or MLSS shows that it literally CANNOT represent a threshold effort unless the other two are wrong.

How can you use it for that purpose if LTHR isn't valid and no set value can possibly equate threshold? You make bullsh!t assumptions based on arbitrarily determined heart rate zones that are worse then just using RPE while pretending it's at all scientific despite that it has no real basis physiology.

Thank you for the link!