Improving Aerobic Power

Aerobic power is really your speed at a given effort. For example vVO2max; Velocity at VO2 max.

Or another one is Lactate threshold pace which is a bit more dubious but it's approximately the pace at which fat is no longer being utilized as fuel.

Traing at all paces contriubutes to these power output levels from jogging to sprinting. They are all valid. How you organize your training around these paces is up to you. But as you improve, your stride will be more powerful for a given amount of glycogen being utilized. That's the really important issue that most people overlook. You are not trying to use more glcyogen in a race, you are trying to get more power from each molecule of glycogen.

Good luck finding anyone who knows this. But both Tinman and Magness have explained it in various ways. I find it disapointing that Magness is criticizing Tinman about the methodology, it is unprofessional because they both have important contributions to make.

Yes you can improve your aerobic system across a spectrum of paces but training near your max steady state (terminology varies between coaches) will improve your aerobic power without the negative effects of low pH

These terms are all pretty meaningless as everyones definition is a bit different. If your best races are 1500m you are aerobically deficient. If you need more. miles, more LT (call it HM-MP pace work) or faster (3k-10k pace) is hard to say. Training at any of those ways will increase all the aerobic factors to some extent but the emphasis is a bit different. Most plans try to hit all 3 and the difference is just when and how often. Most people find doing 5k+ work every week to be too stressful. Either you only do it for 4 weeks or alternate with something else.

parkerjohn wrote:

Yes you can improve your aerobic system across a spectrum of paces but training near your max steady state (terminology varies between coaches) will improve your aerobic power without the negative effects of low pH

What is that supposed to mean in metabolic and energy return terms?

dadsfadsfdasfdsafdas wrote:

If your best races are 1500m you are aerobically deficient.

Huh?

A bigger aerobic base is needed. The sort of stuff Hadd talks about - if you can't race well at high distances its down to poorly develop aerobic metabolism/oxidative capacity in the slow twitch fibres.

The cure for this is lots of easy miles. Maybe buy a heart rate monitor to check that your easy is actually easy - if your half marathon heart rate is 190 and max 210, then 160-165 might feel easy enough but it isn't as good for aerobic development as the true easy pace (65-70%) max heart rate

aerobics wrote:

A bigger aerobic base is needed. The sort of stuff Hadd talks about - if you can't race well at high distances its down to poorly develop aerobic metabolism/oxidative capacity in the slow twitch fibres.

The cure for this is lots of easy miles. Maybe buy a heart rate monitor to check that your easy is actually easy - if your half marathon heart rate is 190 and max 210, then 160-165 might feel easy enough but it isn't as good for aerobic development as the true easy pace (65-70%) max heart rate

You are way off with those numbers. 80% heart rate is general conditioning.

And what is "aerobic development" supposed to mean anyway? I bet you will give a standard wrong answer to that too.

Oxidztive capacity is basic metabolic functionality. You're stuck in the 70s.

Just woke up and saw these responses. Thank you all for your input.

I think for the most part we are all trying to say the same thing, but using different definitions of terms which is leading to some divisions.

I also want to clarify, I don’t think I’m too necessarily aerobically deficient, my 1500 was a 4:20 season opener, at that time I felt I could have run 15:40 or so.

I run 50-60 miles a week on peak mileage, but I often find my best intervals are 200-400s. I don’t have extremely fast natural speed, probably 56 for 400, but I’ve always had a good kick.

My thinking is that because the aerobic engine is the main proprietor in the races I run, that my focus during the base phase should be prepping and improving the aerobic systems (obviously, this is what most people do). But with some higher “aerobic power” work

Here is a sample 2 week schedule

Monday-recovery run

Tuesday-Marathon paced tempo run

Wednesday-double

Thursday-double

Friday-LT paced intervals

Saturday-recovery run

Sunday-long run

Monday-recovery

Tuesday-10k paced short intervals

Wednesday-medium long run

Thursday-double+short hill sprints

Friday- LT paced intervals

Saturday-recovery

Sunday-long run

Some examples of LT work would be anything from 1k to 3k repeats, trying to accumulate 30 mins of pace in the session.

For the 10k work it would be something like 200-400s, and as the 8 weeks progress slowly move the pace down to roughly 5k pace.

In modern training system for Marathon, HM, 10k you do not need training paces more than 5k pace. In order to build aerobic engine:

1) base - cardiovascular system, lungs, capillarisation, running economy, heart stroke volume - all for oxygen and oxygen speed exchange: (easy runs a lot+economy intervals+hills run with low pulse)

2) muscles (LT intervals, economy workout, etc.)

slipper wrote:

Just woke up and saw these responses. Thank you all for your input.

I think for the most part we are all trying to say the same thing, but using different definitions of terms which is leading to some divisions.

I also want to clarify, I don’t think I’m too necessarily aerobically deficient, my 1500 was a 4:20 season opener, at that time I felt I could have run 15:40 or so.

I run 50-60 miles a week on peak mileage, but I often find my best intervals are 200-400s. I don’t have extremely fast natural speed, probably 56 for 400, but I’ve always had a good kick.

If you can run a 15:40 5k off 50-60 mpw with 56s 400m speed and only run 4:20 1500 (4:41 mile), there is something missing in your training that would get you to an appropriate 1500 time.. You should be able to run 4:15 (4:36) or faster with that profile. Hard to find 15:40 5k guys who only run 4:20 in the 1500 (or 4:41 in the mile), especially on that low/moderate mileage. 2:00 800 and 4:10 1500 (4:30 mile) should be doable for you with the right training.

Having a good kick doesn't mean much, if you really try hard at the end of a race you can probably close in 59-60 in a 5k for example. Look at Farah and other elites, he only ran 12.98 in the 100m but can close races extremely close to his all-out 400m due to his speed endurance.

Well, I say I was in 15:40 shape, I never ran a 5k so I could never tell...might have been closer to 15:50.

That 1500 was at the end of the base period with only two more specific workouts, so I really lacked any kind of 1500 type speed as it was a very aerobic block.

But does this idea/trading plan seem sound to you all?

Your aerobic system is fine. That is about as good of 1500m/5000m ratio as you can hope for. Your 1500m is ~10-15s slow cause you aren't doing enough fast work and there is basically zero anaerobic/fast running there. Doing some 3k/5k work would help that but you could also do 1500m specific work if you wanted. Definitely don't need a ton of this type of stuff but some is good.

I do sort of wonder how you are running so few miles with all those doubles and slow workouts. When you do 10k intervals you have to be doing like 8k+ of them right? MP tempo runs are 6+ miles? Long runs are 10+miles? Unless those easy days are like 3+3, I just don't see how you can only at 50- 60miles/week unless you aren't counting things like warmups and the like.

The schedule I listed is for the future block.

The past season it was something like a 12 miler on Sunday and an 8 mile progression on Wednesday. I rarely doubled and ended up doing regular 8 mile distance runs which got me injured really.

update your education wrote:

aerobics wrote:

A bigger aerobic base is needed. The sort of stuff Hadd talks about - if you can't race well at high distances its down to poorly develop aerobic metabolism/oxidative capacity in the slow twitch fibres.

The cure for this is lots of easy miles. Maybe buy a heart rate monitor to check that your easy is actually easy - if your half marathon heart rate is 190 and max 210, then 160-165 might feel easy enough but it isn't as good for aerobic development as the true easy pace (65-70%) max heart rate

You are way off with those numbers. 80% heart rate is general conditioning.

And what is "aerobic development" supposed to mean anyway? I bet you will give a standard wrong answer to that too.

Oxidztive capacity is basic metabolic functionality. You're stuck in the 70s.

For me, 80% hr is too hard for volume easy running. 70% feels just right.

slipper wrote:

The schedule I listed is for the future block.

The past season it was something like a 12 miler on Sunday and an 8 mile progression on Wednesday. I rarely doubled and ended up doing regular 8 mile distance runs which got me injured really.

lol... people are trying to help you; you post a maybe future schedule as fact. Troll much ?

I posted a maybe future schedule as a maybe future schedule. It is my goal to follow the schedule listed if I’m correct in my thinking that 5k-10k work would be beneficial for me. Not trolling.

Alfie wrote:

update your education wrote:

You are way off with those numbers. 80% heart rate is general conditioning.

And what is "aerobic development" supposed to mean anyway? I bet you will give a standard wrong answer to that too.

Oxidztive capacity is basic metabolic functionality. You're stuck in the 70s.

For me, 80% hr is too hard for volume easy running. 70% feels just right.

I didn't say easy running I said general conditioning.

Easy is for recovery. You can run 90 minutes or more at 80% and recover in 24 hours if you are serious about improving.

slipper wrote:

The schedule I listed is for the future block.

The past season it was something like a 12 miler on Sunday and an 8 mile progression on Wednesday. I rarely doubled and ended up doing regular 8 mile distance runs which got me injured really.

So what training did you do that let you run 4:20/15:40? How does this training differ and why do you think you will be able to do the above post without getting injured? There is nothing really wrong with the above plan for a general base (people can argue about details) if you can execute it.

Renato Canova's definition of aerobic power is here, along with a bunch of other definitions.

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=1042829&page=1