Isn't "Event Specificity" More Important Than "VO2max" And "LT" Zones And All That?

Ah i get you now ... sorry a bit slow here.

I looked through that article quite slowly as it was written by a fellow Australian.

What are peoples thoughts on this 'alternative' way to train for the 800m.

Kuoy wrote:

This is important. While the Law of Specificity cannot be ignored, general training -- including weights, plyos, hills, striders, flying sprints, etc. -- all play an important role in the overall success of a runner.

Seen It Before! wrote:

http://www.britishmilersclub.com/bmcnews/1997spring.pdf

Please reference any exact quotes. ;0

Well, I must be really slow because I still don't get it. I assume I'm being called out here as you quoted my post. Could you please be more specific as to exactly what phrase you believe has been plagiarised? Thank you.

Seen It Before! wrote: The exact quote used by someone is in that edition.

I did a search through that pdf document looking for some key words in Kuoy's post. You're making this up. He hasn't used an exact quote. If I'm wrong, give us the page number etc so we can have a closer look. Otherwise, be more careful when anonymously accusing someone of plagiarism.

i checked the entire document for the word specificity. It appears twice and are not connected to our discussion here directly. I think someone spoke before checking the facts.

Thanks Jack, and sorry about the 65% if it was my fault, I don't know where I got that figure from, certainly not this thread.

This subject is rather confused, some sources say that the increas in O2 demand for fat metabolism comes from the longer chain of reactions for fat metabolism, but carbohydrate metabolism has many energy transfers too, so I don't know what to believe, especially as some of the calculations seem too simplistic and don't seem to add up.

translator wrote:

We call it "Fettstoffwechsellauf" (Fett -> fat, Stoffwechsel -> metabolism, Lauf -> run). The idea is, that you have a maximum of fat encyme activity in the blood at a certain effort (eg. 75% of HFmax). By having this activity for a longer time, it is thought, that this activity is somehow "trained", so you are using more fat at a quicker pace and therefore you can run longer with your glycogene. But as jtupper showed, you will also need more oxygene for it. So I have no idea, where the optimum is. And by the way: you do not only train the fat metabolism with the long run but also the glycogene storage and maybe other systems as well. So I am a little bit confused, to get this all into a right order.

Thanks translator. I have been experimenting with this approach in training. It requires a lot of concentration to run like this. At the start of a run that is slower than marathon pace; if Glycogen stores are high, fat metabolism is low. As the length of the run increases, fat metabolism increases too, to a very high level.

Another way to do this seems to be to run many hours after the last meal. I am sure that a huge amount of training can be done with mostly fat metabolism. How much will this affect fitness? surely a lot, and must be one of the reasons why Africans are naturally fitter, since they have less access to food, whereas we in rich nations have too much access to food.

In a marathon race however, it is always difficult to get the optimum amount of fat metabolism, because we start with very high glycogen storage, which mean that fat metabolism in the early part of the race is very low.

we may also find it difficult to start slower than race pace, whatever that might be, we can never be sure.

So do we start slowly and build up? or try to run even pace? It's very difficult to get it right.

you are really confusing me here. I don't understand that the energy source for the lowest levels of physical activity can demand more O2 than one for higher levels of activity.

If at around 65% of max VO2 there is a point where fat metabolism is surpassed by carbohydrate metabolism as the primary source of energy for the aerobic system, then can you tell me how this 6.5%, whether fictional or not, is relevant to training. I think marathon training is relevant here than any other event.

That is, why we have the morning runs before breakfast.

I need to add that people say that fat metabolism needs about 20 min. before it is "working". Further you need to train at least about 90 min. to get an effect out of this training.

For me it is hard to understand how they measured it, because you train always more things than one with even with a very specific training.

For the marathon it is said that you need to start slowly because the glycogen metabolism suppresses the fat metabolism, if the first one is to high; but at the end of the race you can accelerate (if you are able to) and the fat metabolism stays dominant or at least relatively high.

This is all very theoretic and far away from the original question but it is interesting for me because it seems that Jack Daniels with his emphasis on threshold training in the marathon tries more to increase the speed at threshold and as a side effect deplete the glycogen stores than relying on fat metabolism training (there are only a few easy runs of about 2.5h in his marathon training plan A).

Everyone is confused about fat metabolism and carbohydrate metabolism, although many pretend otherwise.

There must be ways of increasing fat metabolism during runs of one hour or less, other than running before breakfast.

Fat metabolism is surely very important for distance runners, and a major reason for the success of distance runners in the past 50 years, however, most distance runners don't have 2 hours a day to train, more like 1 hour a day. How can we help them to optimize their fat metabolism?

Renato mentions that when you run at between 92 and 100% of marathon effort you are burning fat at the highest RATE possible (you burn fat at the highest PERCENTAGE possible when you are jogging). When you run faster than marathon pace and approach anaerobic threshold fat utilization decreases very quickly, reaching 0% at anaerobic threshold. So, it seems like you can do a lot of these type of runs (92-100% MP) over shorter distances and still be teaching your body to utilize fat more effectively. RC calls this "aerobic fat power". Long runs and overall general mileage at slower paces seem to me to be better for improving muscular endurance ("aerobic resistance" as RC calls it) than improving aerobic fat power. Not that a lot of slower running doesn't have an effect as well; however, it's just not as efficient as this 8% aerobic power range.

Renato,

you said this about your MAX LASS presentation:

"This is the theme of a my seminar to European Coaches last year, and now is published in the EAA section for articles and researches."

I searched the EAA website and could not find it. Could you point me in the right direction.

Sorry, I'm not Renato. Just quoting him.

I know that. I was just asking a general question to when renato reads the read. I was just replying to the last person in the thread...

Thought so ... Just making sure.

cheers, so what is known? Is anything knows or is it all just supposition and interpretation?

I liked the idea about the fat-metabolism run translator and then to see it backed up by Renato. If the German system has this and Renato's system has this i feel more secure about my decision to fundamentally follow Lydiard's methods with his LSD and extended 'steady state' runs.

sprinter800 wrote:

cheers, so what is known? Is anything knows or is it all just supposition and interpretation?

I liked the idea about the fat-metabolism run translator and then to see it backed up by Renato. If the German system has this and Renato's system has this i feel more secure about my decision to fundamentally follow Lydiard's methods with his LSD and extended 'steady state' runs.

I just have little other figures than Renato. Fat metabolism is more or less completely suppressed at lactate levels of 7 mmol/l and higher.

Further: If you are training regularly - I just read somewhere - your glycogen stores aren't always full and so fat metabolism is trained on shorter runs as well.

What my point is: You say fat-metabolism-run or VO2max intervals or threshold runs. This is just to give it a name. Every training has a lot of different and complex reactions in the body.

[quote/]

I just have little other figures than Renato. Fat metabolism is more or less completely suppressed at lactate levels of 7 mmol/l and higher.

Further: If you are training regularly - I just read somewhere - your glycogen stores aren't always full and so fat metabolism is trained on shorter runs as well.

What my point is: You say fat-metabolism-run or VO2max intervals or threshold runs. This is just to give it a name. Every training has a lot of different and complex reactions in the body.[/quote]

Thanks translator.

Reagrding your first point i'm wondering what is the cause of suppression leading up to or at 7mmol? Or is it due to the intensity of effort raising above a certain threshold that stops the fat metabolic system from being used?

Regarding your second point - would this mean that one of the fat-metabolism or LSD runs would be more effective after anothe session which depletes glycogen?

Re: the third point. I'm trying to get to the bottom of the definitions so i can make connections between different systems. It seems LSD and fat-metabolism-run may be the same thing with different names.

sprinter800 wrote:

Thanks translator.

Reagrding your first point i'm wondering what is the cause of suppression leading up to or at 7mmol? Or is it due to the intensity of effort raising above a certain threshold that stops the fat metabolic system from being used?

Regarding your second point - would this mean that one of the fat-metabolism or LSD runs would be more effective after anothe session which depletes glycogen?

Re: the third point. I'm trying to get to the bottom of the definitions so i can make connections between different systems. It seems LSD and fat-metabolism-run may be the same thing with different names.

To 1) I have to look up, why this happens, I just read THAT it happens (German book about running with a lot of physiological information).

To 2) I meant, that fat metabolism might be trained with regular training as well. So the LSD run is just an optimization.

To 3) Yes, that's what I had in mind.

What I think is this: You can do some tests to find out your bottle necks and then you need to use these training means that destroy those bottle necks without closing other pathways.

Some bottle necks can be opened very quickly while for others you'll need more effort (eg. anaerobic vs. aerobic system).

For me specific training (or an ideal training) is to open all bottle necks at the right time.