How much Lactate Threshold work per week?

Hmmm, I now am starting to wonder if I'm getting back to my old ways of running myself right into the ground. One could suggest that's what I did eight years ago, before it all came crashing down.

A lower intensity would allow you to do more volume without breaking down. If you’re set on that volume, definitely lower the intensity to around 80% Vo2max or whatever the equivalent HR would be since you like using that. It’s just more time efficient to do less volume at the faster LT2 pace. 40 minutes at LT1 pace provides similar aerobic benefits compared to 20 minutes at LT2. You could do 90 minutes worth of work around LT1 and not break down.

For the sake of your legs, however, I recommend doing it 2x/week instead of 3x. You just need time in between those sessions for your legs to recover. You could do double sessions of 6 x 4 minutes, or single sessions of 12 x 4 minutes at LT1 if you wanted (2x/week). I think you’d get a better training effect than doing it every other day.

It’s easy to get ahead of ourselves. Ambition and excitement can cause us to make decisions that aren’t really sound when planning our training. Always good to have an extra set of eyes or a coach that serves as an objective judge of the training.

I don’t think you would need much more than 30-40 minutes of LT2 per week or 60-80 minutes of LT1 type work. It’d actually be better to have more variety in your schedule. Maybe your first workout of the week is ~20 minutes of LT2 work and the other workout is 40 minutes of LT1 work. You need to change the stimulus or at least rotate them or you’ll plateau. Same thing happens if you go to the gym and lift the same weights with same number of reps every time — nothing changes.

Kicker wrote:

Same thing happens if you go to the gym and lift the same weights with same number of reps every time — nothing changes.

But here is a very key point that gets overlooked when performing a rep by time rather than by distance: as one gets fitter, the distance traveled for the same time of repetition increases. The analogy in the gym would be as one gets stronger, they keep increasing the weight for the same number of reps.

Kicker wrote:

A lower intensity would allow you to do more volume without breaking down. If you’re set on that volume, definitely lower the intensity to around 80% Vo2max or whatever the equivalent HR would be ...40 minutes at LT1 pace provides similar aerobic benefits compared to 20 minutes at LT2. You could do 90 minutes worth of work around LT1 and not break down.

For the sake of your legs, however, I recommend doing it 2x/week instead of 3x. You just need time in between those sessions for your legs to recover. You could do double sessions of 6 x 4 minutes, or single sessions of 12 x 4 minutes at LT1 if you wanted (2x/week). I think you’d get a better training effect than doing it every other day.

80% VO2max is 86% HRmax, which is 16.25 RPE (hard) on the Borg Scale. (I extrapolated these values from the "Cardiovascular Rules of Thumb Table" found in the following document:)

The latest 4x4min sessions have been run with the watch High Alert set to 86.3% HRmax. However, due to time lag (and some ego), the average of the Max Heart Rate of the reps is currently coming in at 90.6% HRmax.

Going forward, I have decided to lower the High Alert Target on the watch to 85.1% HRmax, and I'll try to be more disciplined in paying attention to the HR alarm. We'll see how this goes.

Thank you so much for taking the time and energy to participate in this discussion with some really good insight!

Cheers!

Jack Daniels Calculator wrote:

Hmmm, I now am starting to wonder if I'm getting back to my old ways of running myself right into the ground. One could suggest that's what I did eight years ago, before it all came crashing down.

I am risking that myself. I started double workout days 6 weeks ago to reduce the stress on the legs with shorter workouts, but more often to increase recovery but also load. I have 2 or 1 double workout day pr week (alternating hard/easy weeks)

It is hard to not race the workouts for me and that is detremental. Try to agree with yourself what is the goal for each workout. It is very different to do a threshold workout below the LT and slightly above which is too easy to do, Recovery increases much and this can reduce the quality of more speedy sessions later. Key is to recovery

The double threshold philosophy in Norway is to do the first workout more "easy" and the second faster. Intensity control is important and I am not controlling my intensity (trying to force "improvement" by racing the interval splits and measuring "improvement" that is fake)

I see now I need to adhere to my own training principles...

Jon Arne Glomsrud wrote:

It is hard to not race the workouts for me and that is detremental.

Intensity control is important and I am not controlling my intensity (trying to force "improvement" by racing the interval splits and measuring "improvement" that is fake)

This is exactly what I was doing toward the end of last year. I needed to 'prove' my fitness, and got to the point of hammering the reps, not under controlled form.

The distance traveled doesn’t matter, only time and intensity. Distance is just a by-product of time and intensity. The equivalent of changing the number of reps or amount of weight would be changing the time length of the interval, the speed or intensity of the interval, or the rest times in between.

Jack Daniels Calculator wrote:

The latest 4x4min sessions have been run with the watch High Alert set to 86.3% HRmax. However, due to time lag (and some ego), the average of the Max Heart Rate of the reps is currently coming in at 90.6% HRmax.

Going forward, I have decided to lower the High Alert Target on the watch to 85.1% HRmax, and I'll try to be more disciplined in paying attention to the HR alarm. We'll see how this goes.

Thank you so much for taking the time and energy to participate in this discussion with some really good insight!

Cheers!

No problem, keep us updated on your progress!

If you were shooting for 86% and ended up averaging 90%, I might set the alarm even lower, like 83-84% MaxHR. Better to be more conservative.

Kicker wrote:

The distance traveled doesn’t matter, only time and intensity. Distance is just a by-product of time and intensity. The equivalent of changing the number of reps or amount of weight would be changing the time length of the interval, the speed or intensity of the interval, or the rest times in between.

Actually, upon rethinking it, I don't necessarily disagree with you. However, consider the following thought experiment:

Two athletes are preparing to go out for a 1hr easy run.

Athlete A, weight=140 lbs, VO2max=70mL/kg/min, High running economy, VDOT=70, HRmax=200bpm.

Athlete B, weight=140 lbs, VO2max=45mL/kg/min, Low running economy, VDOT=43, HRmax=200bpm.

Both athletes go out for the 1hr easy run, keeping their maximum heart rates at 65% HRmax for the duration of the run (i.e., same time & same Heart Rate, thus same 'Intensity'). Athlete A runs 6min/mile pace, and covers 10 miles during the run. Athlete B runs 12min/mile pace, and covers 5 miles. Did they do the same amount of 'work'? The rule-of-thumb is approximately 100kcal burned per mile, correct?

Speaking of 'work'...time for today's 1st session. Cheers!

Good question.

The work done would be similar between the two. I’d argue that the slower runner may have actually done more work because of how much more difficult it is to run 1 hour with that kind of fitness. At the very least, the stress on runner B would be higher. A higher Vo2max allows you to do more work and still benefit from it. Runner A might be able to do 30-35 minutes of LT2 work and experience the same stress as runner B doing 15-20 minutes of LT2 work.

Obviously there is a difference. The HR-work is the same, but the number of steps is not so the work the body has done is not. Not sure it matters to compare these two runners really. HR is a relative number for one person's different intensities, but I understand the interesting question.

Kicker wrote:

Good question.

The work done would be similar between the two. I’d argue that the slower runner may have actually done more work because of how much more difficult it is to run 1 hour with that kind of fitness.

Yet they were supposedly running the same time at they same intensity, no? You understand the enigma.

Jon Arne Glomsrud wrote:

Obviously there is a difference. The HR-work is the same, but the number of steps is not so the work the body has done is not. ...I understand the interesting question.

And possibly the total EPOC load between the two runners will shed some light in coming up with answers.

At the conclusion of yesterday's second 4x4min session, I added an all-out 4min TT on the track, in which the HR was taken to 99% HRmax. In doing so, the total EPOC load for a session which would have been around 90, instead exploded to 162.

This morning I performed an impromptu 45min shakeout, over mostly soft ground; it possibly helped relieved neuromuscular tension.

A rule-of-thumb is that for aerobic runs kept around 70% HRmax, the EPOC load is ~10 per mile.

On an old thread, 'tinman' listed the following values:

5k pace divided by .93 = Lactate Threshold (4 mmol);

5k pace divided by .90 = 3 mmol (half marathon pace, app.);

5k pace divided by .87 = 2.5 mmol (marathon race pace);

5k pace divided by .75 = 1 mmol (aerobic maintenance pace).

UPDATE on current '4x4min Training Block'

2nd week of training block is complete.

SUMMARY: Total of six 4x4min sessions. Intensity of Reps in all sessions was kept in range of 85-90% HRmax (which is equivalent to intensity between 1/2Marathon and Marathon pace), plus the addition of a 4min all-out Time Trial.

Mon AM: 4x4min on Treadmill, EPOC 107;

Mon PM: 4x4min on Hill Circuit, Asics Nova Blast, EPOC 95;

Wed AM: 4x4min on Hill Circuit, Asics Nova Blast, EPOC 86;

Wed PM: 4x4min +4min TT on Track, VaporFly, EPOC 162;

Fri PM: 4x4min on Hill Circuit, Nike Tempo Nxt%, EPOC 77;

Sat AM: 4x4min on Grass Patch, NB 1500, EPOC 80;

Sat PM: 7x15sec Alactic Hill Sprints*, Skechers Speed 6, EPOC 80**.

**This session was finished with a mile of up-tempo.

*Tip-of-the-hat to Coach 'V' who shared info on another thread regarding performing Alactic Sprints .