neuromuscular conditioning vs. aerobic conditioning

Neuro - ability of your muscles to fire, at a fast rate. (Leg turnover)

Aero - oxygen transport capability. (Endurance)

Isn't a high ratio of fast twitch muscle fiber also important there?

MarathonMind wrote:

Isn't a high ratio of fast twitch muscle fiber also important there?

Not necessarily, unless you want to sprint. Slow twitch fibers are controlled by nerves, just like fast twitch muscles are controlled by nerves. And what you are doing with neuomuscular training is training the nervous system to respond faster. You are not training energy systems like teaching the muscle to produce less lactate or function in the presence of more lactate. Just the nerve. This is why you can find research showing a correlation between 5K times and 20 METER (flying) sprint time--the nervous system works faster, so you get shorter ground contact times at footstrike, and that gives you better running economy.

Same thing applies to plyometrics. A marathoner isn't going to be able to jump like Carl Lewis, but you still jump and train your slow twitch muscles to produce force in less time.

To be a little more specific, neuromuscular conditioning is the ability of your muscle fibers to fire in an ORGANIZED fashion. Look at it this way: You finish your season and run a 5k PR. You take 3 months and do NOTHING but slow easy running. Then you try to sprint one day and your muscles feel like they have no idea what they are doing. This is why, especially for high schoolers who don't usually do anything but easy running in the summer, after the first couple of workouts you see a big improvement. It's a matter of your legs re-learning how to run at a certain speed after some time off from that kind of running. This is also why doing 100-200 meter strides/sprints a couple days a week is a good idea, so your legs don't "forget" the organization required to run fast.

Alan

Thanks. This is interesting, and I follow what you're saying, but it it runs contrary to my own experience. After 8 weeks of complete inactivity, I lost a LOT of aerobic fitness but DIDN'T seem to lose much neuromuscular conditionin. For months I had worked my butt off to re-engineer my mechanics and cadence, and following the layoff I fully expected to have to build back up to the quicker turnover, but to my surprise, that wasn't the case. In other words, it seemed like the "neuromuscular fitness" was cemented better than the "aerobic fitness." Why wouldn't both types of fitness see similar declines?

You make it sound like the presence of lactate is a bad thing. You might want to get up to date on lactate.

I would add that neuromuscular training can also involve recruiting additional motor neurons. At low speed running, slow twitch fibers are being used and fast twitch fibers are in reserve for the most part. Pick up the pace and more motor neurons are recruited.

Recruiting those fast twitch muscle fibers can make some of them become more oxidative (although not "converted" in the sense many think). This is good for a distance runner as it reduces the fatigue rate for those fibers.

Good piece on the ground contact time as well.

not really sure on this, but i would guess that you didn't lose your "neuromuscular fitness" because you weren't using those nerves at all, really. so they didn't get reconditioned to work at any other pace.

luv2run- Speed kills is plenty up to date. You should maybe get up to date. Lactate in itself doesn't cause the fatigue, but it corresponds with hydrogen ion build up which many think causes fatigue. Also it corresponds with muscle pH drop which corresponds with muscle fiber contraction failure.

It doesn't matter if lactate causes it or not. All that matters is that we know as lactate increase, other things that do cause it increase at the same rate. That's why speedkills can say what he did. Producing less lactate, means producing less hydrogen ions and less of a drop of muscle pH.

I think luv2run was talking about how the FT IIb fibers can "adapt" into FOG fibers, which more aid in endurance and stamina around the lactate threshold. The build of of lactate in the muscles at higher intensity does correspond to an increase of hydrogen ions though like yesirree says...and the muscle fibers cannot function well in such an acidic environment. Also, though, to get back to the neuromuscular cordination part of the thread, Speedkills said some great things about the importance of decreasing foot ground contact time by using pylometrics and drills, etc. There is a reason why short all-out sprints can improve the economy of even marathon runners. You become "coordinated" at an all out sprint- you run better at all slower speeds. (given you're trained properly). Finally, the short all -out sprints amd drills to improve coordination should remain alactic though, as building up lactic acid would detract from your goal (and make the session become hard). Lydiard always mentioned that when you do 400s you're working against speed. Speed is doing flying 40s with plenty of rest. Deplete the Creatine phosphate, and don't go into anaerobic debt

Speedkills, Treadmill, Luv2Run, Yesirree, Runningart2004:

Thanks for your contributions. I've enjoyed reading them and think i've learned something. But i think my question still stands, and here it is sweet and simple:

Is there evidence that neuromuscular "fitness" doesn't fade as quickly as aerobic fitness? Said differently, is there scientific evidence that the gains in neuromuscular control/sharpness last longer than the gains in aerobic (or anaerobic) fitness?

I think so based upon this recent experience. Could it be that both newly formed and amplified neural pathways used in learning higher cadence just don't die off, so to speak, like other systems. Let's say you learn to ride a bike. Even if you haven't been on a bike for years and years, isn't there a latent/unpotentialized network just waiting to be tapped again? And wouldn't that explain why you can still get back on a bike years later and all the old neural pathways kick in immediately.

_________

Speedkills: you mentioned research that correlates 20m (on the fly) sprints w/ 5K times. Where would i find this?

thx

"Isn't there a latent/unpotentialized network just waiting to be tapped again?"

What i should've said was, "Isn't there a now dormant/previously potentialized network just waiting to be tapped again?"

To put it simply, Yes there is evidence. Studies have shown that neuromuscular fitness takes longer to detrain than aerobic fitness. In addition to this, it's been found that nueromuscular fitness can be maintained for a longer period of time with less work, than aerobic fitness.

Thanks. That's what i was looking for. Do you know off the top of your head where i could find a good book or collection of studies on this sort of thing?

off the top of my head I can't give you many specific articles. I'll try and go through my folders and find some later in the day. I do remember that Costill did a couple of studies in the detraining field. One that I recall was titled something like "effects of reduced training on muscular power"

yesirree wrote:

To put it simply, Yes there is evidence. Studies have shown that neuromuscular fitness takes longer to detrain than aerobic fitness. In addition to this, it's been found that nueromuscular fitness can be maintained for a longer period of time with less work, than aerobic fitness.

Which would probably explain why Daniels prescribes strides/rep work in the early phases of a training program (along with a host of other physiologists and coaches).

I have heard in the past that the most critically ignored aspect of training distance runners is not aerobic capacity as most tend to believe, but the neuromuscular ability. Can anyone offer any credence to this notion? Also can anyone provide some discussion on periodization? I am heavily influenced by Jack Daniels and tend to follow his prescription on periodization, but I have always been intrested in discussing the topic at length.

I don't mean to hijack this thread.

As a runner, I came to believe that speed training of any kind should be strictly relegated to the final phase of training. Speed training was a final sharpening. And that's how we trained. I've never known anything different. Now having read Daniels and some other stuff relating to this, i've changed my approach to training.

As i've already mentioned, it took me about half a year to go from 158-ish to 178-ish in stride rate. But i seemed to be stuck there on easy runs. Just couldn't seem to generate the quick turnover without opening up my stride a good bit, which would then mean running too fast (by Daniel's standards) on the easy runs for where i'm at VO2-wise. Well, a few weeks ago i started doing strides at the end of my easy runs. Nothing fast or hard. Just 2-4 x 80 to 100 meters mostly. I would typically hit a cadence of about 200-210 for those with good recovery between each. I mostly did it just to work on form and to experience the freedom of opening up my stride. Seemed to work out some of the stiffness from the easy run.

A week after beginning those i noticed that 176-78 felt much easier. And this past week i had a big breakthrough (for me) in that i was able to do an easy 12K run at 180-82. (Previously the longest i'd been able to hold that rate in an easy run was for about 4 minutes.) I think it's a huge return on a small investment. I'm anxious to get out in the spring and see how this all translates into races.

On another note, i'm 50, so if an old dude like me can learn this, then the young bucks can do it too.