Is Noakes wrong?

Throughout most of the 20th century, the prevailing theory of exercise fatigue was the so-called "catastrophe" model. According to this theory, fatigue is an involuntary drop in performance caused by the loss of homeostasis (or balance) somewhere in the body. For example, due to lactic-acid buildup, the muscles lose pH balance and become too acidic to function properly, causing you to slow down. Or the muscles become depleted of glycogen (their primary fuel source), so there's no longer sufficient energy available to sustain performance. But in the 1980s, a new generation of exercise scientists, led by Tim Noakes, M.D., of the University of Cape Town, South Africa, began to poke holes in the catastrophe model. First, they found that the common functional breakdowns-things like lactic-acid buildup and glycogen depletion-don't always occur as we tire. Studies, in fact, showed that fatigue often develops before the muscles reach a level of acidity that would cause direct muscle dysfunction, and that you can feel tired even when there is still muscle glycogen available in the working muscles.

It's not Noakes' Theory. Noakes himself writes that A.V. Hill first proposed the Central Governor hypothesis in 1924.

3000m douche wrote:

otter wrote:

What Noakes has said is that the central governor keeps us from ever going anaerobic.

Noakes basic argument is that that the central governor keeps us from going anaerobic enough to damage the heart. We still go anaerobic but it is not that fact alone that slows us down; if that were true your heart would be damaged as much as your muscles.

As for that whole theory, try re-reading the chapter but insert "normal human response to pain" wherever you see the words "central governor" and see if it still makes sense.

If this were the case, the people who suffered a MI would never be able to exercise. Since the heart is already damaged, you would not be able to exercise. Yet they do.

I don't follow your reasoning there luv2run. You either die from a heart attack or you make a recovery with permanent partial damage to the Heart.

Such recovery involves excercise for rehabilitation.

Average_Joe wrote: You [...] shot down a straw man.

Moi???

Methinks you cast the first stone at the scarecrow when you said:

He postulates its existence out of thin air. Almost like Anselm's ontological argument. It must exist because I can't think of an alternative explanation. Yet...

He can't really describe *what* it is.

He doesn't know how it works

He doesn't know where it is located

No sarcasm or strawmen there, eh? "Where it is located" - WTF are you even talking about? Do you want him to identify a specific cluster of neurons, a genetic sequence, what?

And a reminder: Noakes calls the Central Governor a model and, early on in the book, explains what he (and much of the rest of the world) understand "model" to mean. One thing it's not is a sharply defined single fact which is conclusively provable as true or false.

As I see it, Noakes is trying to develop/extend a richer framework which is able to accommodate what we know about the cardio/aerobic stuff, but also muscle power stuff, conscious and less conscious and completely unconscious mind/brain/CNS stuff ranging from more or less hard-wired pain or exhaustion responses to protect the heart or whatever, to more nebulous things like motivation and learned toughness. But I haven't read this in a while, so some of that could be projection or just bad memory.

Sarcasm? A little. Straw man? Nope. Go re-read the chapter.

WTF I am talking about is that he slides far too easily from treating the CG as a "what if" to assuming it has been shown to be true. Before he starts telling me how it completely replaces the current model of exercise physiology, yes, something (anything) more substantial than "perhaps" would be nice.

I don't ask him to do so. My point wasn't that his model was "bad" or "invalid" but rather that he devotes an inordinate amount of time to it without much to back it up except that "it might be that". I could make up my own if that's the only standard to get it into print. I'm not usually a skeptic of such stuff but this in particular stood out as being ridiculous. After the umpteenth mention of it I though, "Yes Tim, thanks, you already told us about it 30 pages ago but you didn't have any evidence for it THEN either."

As I saw it, he is trying to competely replace the current model of what causes fatigue with his own. Again, nobody asked him to conclusively prove such a thing before mentioning it, but if you're going to to tell me how it replaces the current model, you should come up with a little more than "perhaps" and "it might be".

if noakes was a commantator in a race he would say something like this

"And he's barreling down the straightaway, his central governor limiting him"

and when an athelete is kicking it in during the final 200m of a painful 800m race, does he think "how much harder can I push it without pissing off my central governor?"

and should atheletes train any differently because of his theory? not really

I can't confess to having read Noakes' Lore of Running cover to cover, but I have read every chapter, if not sequentially.

Also no exercise physiologist, but I can read. The rest of the book has a tone of synthesis, and describing either the relatively settled scientific consensus, or the range of opinion on controversial topics. There's parts of the book where Noakes' own views don't impose much at all.

Conversely, his writing on the central governor model is more speculative, and inserts more of his own hypothesis into the literature. Now, sure, it's his book, he can write what he wants blah, blah, blah. But it does read oddly in a book that's otherwise a synthesis.

It surprises me that the science of exercise physiology is like the medical research of years past. Experimental design, small numbers of cases, laboratory focused, and concerned about internal validity. You read some of the studies done, and the applicability to competitive athletes is limited. Who, for example, cares if previously untrained people get quicker faster with intervals than with tempo runs. Very limited applicability to the peaking of competitive athletes.

Yet in the real world there's relatively few studies of running training technique that generalize easily to trained athletes looking for that new workout.

Coaches adopt new workouts rather heuristically. Take the current fashion for short hill sprints. I feel they're a good workout and in some ways that's all I need to know. But how much of a difference do they make? Not sure anyone's done an experiment on that.

There is an awful lot of bad Science in the world of Physiology.

Robert Robergs asserts that there is no such thing as lactic acidosis, that we don't even produce lactic acid, and that the Chemistry applied to Physiology by many researchers is woefully inaccurate, and has been so ever since Hill and Meyerhoff's research 80 years ago.

Both Robergs and Noakes are obviously great admirers of Hill's work. My own simplistic interpretation of Central Governor hypothesis is that our brains interpret the pain produced by hydrogen proton accumulation to give us a very accurate estimation of how long we can maintain an effort.

This is a very obvious survival mechanism. Surely no-one can deny it's existence and effectiveness?

It is a measure of the intelligence of this messageboard that this question, one of the most intelligent I have ever seen posted, gets only two pages of responses, half of which contribute absolutely nothing to the discussion, while "You will never see a gay quarterback in the NFL" and "Shitting of the Pants" get three pages each.

Sean Nunn

Raytown MO

It is a measure of the intelligence of this messageboard that this question, one of the most intelligent I have ever seen posted, gets only two pages of responses, half of which contribute absolutely nothing to the discussion, while "You will never see a gay quarterback in the NFL" and "Shitting of the Pants" get three pages each.

Sean Nunn

Raytown MO

Quite.

I wonder what the lydiard group (Nobby, HRE and others) would think of the topic?

Robergs doesnt state that lactic acid is not produced. It is well known that when lactic acid forms it is about 99% dissociated in the body, which means that the reaction is very quick and we are left with lactate and a proton. His argument is that lactate is not the cause of acidosis, but rather slows the acidosis process when formed. This hypothesis is controversial and one that i do not agree with. The Peter Stewart approach to acid-base regulation shows that H and OH ions are dependent variables, they are effected by changes from strong ions and weak ions in the body. The stong ion difference (SID) is the total difference between the positive ions and negative ions, as SID becomes more positive the body fluids become more alkaline, as SID becomes more negative the body fluids become more acidic. This approach is not widely understood, but reading the books makes a great deal of sense, but is much more difficult to understand than traditional pH. Lactate is a negative strong ion, as more lactate forms during exercise, the SID becomes more negative which causes an increase in H ions, which contribute to acidosis. The law of electrical neutrality shows that positive must equal negative ions in the body, so as both positive ions such as Sodium, Potassium, and Calcium form the SID increases, in order to maintain electrical neutrality there is an increase in negative Hydroxyl ions, when there are increase in negative ions such as chloride or lactate, then H ions increase to maintain electrical neutrality.

Average_Joe wrote: My point wasn't that his model was "bad" or "invalid" but rather that he devotes an inordinate amount of time to it without much to back it up except that "it might be that". I could make up my own if that's the only standard to get it into print.

When you manage to get that book published, if you surround your labored and implausible pet theory/model with 900+ pages of mostly solid and occasionally entertaining good stuff, I'll applaud you and your book.

Just be sure to let us know you're the author, unless your book is Better Running Lore: Beyond Noakes by Average_Joe.

For the record, if I hadn't already given this impression, I kinda like (my interpretation of) his CG model. What bugs me more about the book is, in my eyes, his overemphasis of the dangers of high mileage (and to a lesser extent, maybe some over-caution with racing too). He gives bios of a bunch of the best runners in modern history, all but a few of whom succeeded on 100+ miles per week; and then (again I'm working from my selective memory here) seems to repeatedly stress that, oh no, you don't want to do that, you might overtrain and shorten your career! C'mon, Tim, we get the idea that Derek Clayton overdid it, and Salazar repeatedly running himself nearly to death in brutal heat without taking water probably wasn't the smartest; but don't overstate the dangers of running some miles and working hard.

also no exercise physio wrote:

When you manage to get that book published, if you surround your labored and implausible pet theory/model with 900+ pages of mostly solid and occasionally entertaining good stuff, I'll applaud you and your book.

I hope you'll applaud the good stuff but not be afraid to point out the weaknesses of the implausible stuff!

I guess Pheidippides didn't get the memo.

hey thanks for contrubuting something yourself. I would not call the Noakes book a great read. I find it rather bland after the Physiological sections. I find the Cenral governer model very interesting. It made a lot of since to me that the heart can't go anerobic. But there were a lot of unanswered questions as well. I will be like the OP and not takes sides on this one.

One question that I do not remember him touching on is the fact that the blood goes through the heart first. Maybe that is why the heart can keep up aerobically and other muscles cannot. there may not be enough oxygen left. The body redirects blood flow to working muscles well the heart is the most important muscle and the body does a great job protecting vital organs in times of need. What effects would anaerobic actions have on the brain? if the brain and heart are not supplied with enough oxygen during exercise to what extent is it to much that it would do damage to them.

Is it the Central governer that keeps most of us from being able to slap or hit ourselves with all our might (not that I would want to...)

"Is it the Central governer that keeps most of us from being able to slap or hit ourselves with all our might (not that I would want to...)"

no thats common sense. or fear. or lack of will power

take your pick