There seems to be some misunderstanding on here regarding HR and lactate. Typically when you start measuring lactate you have been working out too hard, priming your glycolytic energy system. Thus it feels ridiculously slow to run at paces where you do not tap too much into this system. You slow your pace and start questioning if this is right for you. Then, as your training progresses (if you are able to stay disciplined and put your ego aside) your lactate will get lower and lower at the same intensity.
This leads to the inevitable no/low lactate at a high heart rate. So to those of you who think that HR is a good guide; it doesn't work like that. What you can learn though is how it *feels* to run at the right intensity. Watch the Norwegian triathletes and see how they predict their lactate levels, normally being within 0.1 mmol. This obviously means that you need a lactate meter.
Not sure I understand? Are you saying that there is no/little correlation between HR and lactate?
I am not agry. In the beginning, yes, maybe correlation is bad, as more you train, more stable your HR data and will be more correlation, also you have to put cardiac drift into equation as well, for example: when I do my single tempo at 20min, I do not run it at 163bpm avg (1hour lactate threshold), I run it at 151-153 bpm avg and feel it spot on, because I know my cardiac drift from many years usage of the HR monitor. Poster is right, you should evaluate effort by feeling, that is why those triathletes know their lactate level without beeing tested by lactate meter... sorry for my bad english...
I am saying that you will respond to whatever training you do. I do not know how interesting this is but from my tests ( 8 x 6min with the same warm up protocol, with 1.5% incline and performed on the same treadmill every time)
Test 1 (January): LT1 (1.2mmol): 13km/h. LT2 (2.8mmol): 15.5km/h
Test 2 (March) LT1 (1.2mmol): 15.5km/h. LT2 (2.7mmol): 16.7km/h
Not particularly interesting on its own of course. But my HR at 15.5km/h during the first test was 166avg with a peak of 173. During the second test my HR at 15.5km/h was 162avg with a peak of 166. Note that during the first test this was LT2 but LT1 during the second test. Sure, you can argue that 162 and 166 aren't the same but I do not know if I would have thought too much about it (my max hr is 191).
The points I would like to drive home are the following:
1) If you increase your capacity at threshold you will produce lower levels of lactate at the same HR. Eventually you will hit the ceiling (unless your vo2 max is high) and some Vo2 max work is required
2) Using HR alone might not be enough. Include RPE if you do not process a lactate meter.
3) It *FELT* easy to run at 15.5km/h the second time even though I was breathing. The first time I could notice how my legs started to run.
This is obviously an n=1 experiment and yes I suck at running.
Time to exhaustion will obviously matter. LT2 could be sustainable for me for 45min and 70 for you, meaning that even if we did obtain the same test results, you would wipe the floor with me. But as I mentioned in the above post, I do not agree with you regarding to how HR follows lactate over time.
Anyway, we agree on RPE being the number one metric :)
Does anybody have idea, why for Jackob 3.0 mmol and 2.2 mmol are magic number?
I found some studies, it may be interesting.
In short, there is a certain point like vLEmin, from which you can very accurately determine the steady state point, and it will be different for each athlete, maybe these 3mmol come from there, and someone has 3.2 and 2.4, someone has 3.5-2.5, someone has 2.8 and 2.0. Like me I understood, the whole dance goes around this point - MLSS. That is, without a laboratory and the construction of a lactate curve, even having a lactate measuring device, it is useless to train trying to copy the values of others?
Maximal Lactate Steady State (MLSS) and Lactate Threshold (LT) are physiologically-related and fundamental concepts within the sports and exercise sciences. Literature supporting their relationship, however, is scarce. Among...
Same AM session: 5x6min, same speed, but pulse already 4 beats lower and by effor it was much easier to run a workout.... all easy runs after second threshold pulse dropped suddenly by 5 beats..., morning pulse dropped too, I was little bit shocked...may be this is sign of overtraining? Of course all this mumbo jumbo "maybe" due to absent of lactate meter... 😏
Weekly mileage: near +-100 miles (12 hours)
Questions:
1) should I keep next week AM sessions with the same speed, or can reduce/increase a little...?
Interestingly, coming from cycling (specifically time trialling) double workouts and a lot of threshold work is how I got to my absolute fittest. By far. 5.3w/kg and mid 18 for a 10 mile TT.
The general premise (and I've seen it mentioned here) is being time crunched and squeezing out next bang for your buck. Basically (I found and I know others did) racking up a lot of time at tempo and threshold racked up a big training load score. (CTL in cycling).
What I also found is my CTL number I could draw parallels at each point with what my power was.
What didn't matter, was how you got to the CTL score. In simple terms, let's say a CTL of 50 equaled around 330w for 20 mins power. It didn't matter if I racked up that stress score in 6-7 hours mostly tempo / threshold work, or 13 hours soft pedalling zone 2. I would still have a peak 20 min power of around 330w.
I would guess something similar is happening here. I don't, however, know enough about running or stressing scores in it etc to know exactly.
I have intervals icu and the "training" socre that give you (I've based it on pace first, heart rate second) and I am seeing SOME correlection between what that number is and my 5k performance no matter how I achieve that score. (I do quite a few park runs, all on the same course).
This only really works if you are very careful at making sure you keep your zones and paced up to date week by week, month by month, as fitness changes.
Anyway, interesting thread really enjoyed reading it.
What role (if any) does altitude play in the Norwegian system? I think the Ingebrigtsens go to altitude training camp, so I'm wondering to what extent that affects their training/LT values, and if others are building altitude into their training or not.
One of my barefoot running connections is a masters runner living in Norway. I see him doing a lot of steep threshold runs like this one where he covers around 1400 ft in 4 miles.
Not all of his running is barefoot but a significant portion of it is. I'm not sure if what he does would be considered typical Norwegian training but he looks pretty good for a masters runner.
Does anybody have idea, why for Jackob 3.0 mmol and 2.2 mmol are magic number?
I found some studies, it may be interesting.
In short, there is a certain point like vLEmin, from which you can very accurately determine the steady state point, and it will be different for each athlete, maybe these 3mmol come from there, and someone has 3.2 and 2.4, someone has 3.5-2.5, someone has 2.8 and 2.0. Like me I understood, the whole dance goes around this point - MLSS. That is, without a laboratory and the construction of a lactate curve, even having a lactate measuring device, it is useless to train trying to copy the values of others?
Does anybody have idea, why for Jackob 3.0 mmol and 2.2 mmol are magic number?
I found some studies, it may be interesting.
In short, there is a certain point like vLEmin, from which you can very accurately determine the steady state point, and it will be different for each athlete, maybe these 3mmol come from there, and someone has 3.2 and 2.4, someone has 3.5-2.5, someone has 2.8 and 2.0. Like me I understood, the whole dance goes around this point - MLSS. That is, without a laboratory and the construction of a lactate curve, even having a lactate measuring device, it is useless to train trying to copy the values of others?
Well you have to take some factors into consideration.
First, they are using a Lactate Pro 2. The values on the Lactate Pro 2 come in a little higher than other meters.
i would say the 'magic numbers' for Jakob are 3.0-3.5 for PM session and <2.2 for AM sessions.
The reasoning behind those numbers would be the AM session is more of a LT1 ish workout. Mostly burning fat, mostly priming the system and muscles for the PM workout. And with the Lactate Pro, the mmol is going to be more in the 1.5-1.7 ranges (all readings on the Lactate Pro 2 are probably about .5 mmol higher)
The PM session you are going to have your standard 10-12x1000 @ Threshold targeting 3.0. That really puts you in the 2.2-2.7 range of where his lab measured threshold likely is (these guys likely dont even have LT2s in the 3.0s) The other PM session is your 'X factor workout designed to push on the threshold slightly by using faster speed (10k-5k), and more intensity (up to 3.5mmol) with slightly longer rest (2:1). That workout is going to put them realistically in the 2.5-3.2 mmol range but with the added benefit of efficiency at that 10k ish speed (supposedly on these they even push down right near 5k pace).
Like i said, if you are copying this work with a Lactate Plus all worth keeping in the front of your mind to avoid overtraining. Also you should first do your own ramp test to try to identify your personal profile. Second, know the numbers on their particular meter tracks slightly higher. Keep that in mind also if you read Bakken. Bakken has only used Lactate Pros, so the numbers he's describing are derived with that particular meter in mind.
I noticed on Strava more and more people start to use the lactate device, even hobby joggers for performance oriented like me... modern training tendency?
I noticed on Strava more and more people start to use the lactate device, even hobby joggers for performance oriented like me... modern training tendency?
#1 reason to use in my mind is because you are measuring stress in order to maximize your time. That's even more important when you are working 40 plus hours a week and trying to squeeze limited training into limited time with limited recovery options. Add children in there, stress can be easily through the roof, so people like to belittle non pros for using gadgets, but try thinking of it as a recovery/injury prevention tool as much as thinking about it as a performance enhancing tool.
Well, there is no need to measure lactate level to improve lactate threshold. Elite runners like Ingebrigtsen and so on are very close to half marathon race pace when running their best lactate threshold and most of them around 15 sec per kilometer slower than 5 k race pace. Then it will be more seconds difference when runners at slower levels. Have been coaching several top runners I know this is a fact. - Magic Wizard- 🧙♂️🇸🇪
Thanks for the response and makes sense. So they are not necessarily trying to improve aerobic capacity with this threshold approach, just lactate clearance? If this is the case, would you advise for newer endurance athletes to first try to develop their aerobic capacity as much as possible and move into this threshold focused approach once one has multiple years of training under their belt?
I’ve always thought of threshold training to develop a better fractional utilization, and this can eventually come at the expense of your upper end and aerobic capacity (similar to the concept of “aerobic power” that Jan Olbrecht talks about). So it’s not necessarily the best approach to Focus one’s training around for long term development.
As for the hill workout you mentioned, I knew that was a staple but didn’t think of it as stimulating the vo2max, more so just keeping speed in the mix to touch on the upper end. Will shorter intervals with longer recoveries like this also develop the aerobic capacity and vo2 max? Thanks
I think you are on to something here. Newer endurance athletes don't have an aerobic threshold, since they probably will get in the 2.0-3.5 mmol/lactate range just on easy runs. Beginning runners need do some anaerobic and mechanical work before they are efficient enough for this kind of pace to make sense.
However, I disagree that threshold training takes away from training other energy systems in experienced runners. The only way I could see this happening is if you put so much time into threshold work that you don't have energy to do anything other hard workouts.
