The death of aerobic training?

dunnowhy wrote:

This view has a ton flaws/holes...

Not really highly flawed. His mistake is connecting base training with aerobic capacity training. They're not the same. But his ideas for increasing capacity have merit, as any knowledgeable coach would tell you.

He's talking about the context of general health and fitness, not running. He's right: aerobics is dying a much-deserved death. But his alternative (interval training) is only a slight improvement. What people really need is strength training, not any form of cardio.

A is A wrote:

What people really need is strength training, not any form of cardio.

No, cardio is necessary as a fat burner to fight obesity.

He's talking about in terms of performance for sprint athletes and team sports too.

The problem is he equates VO2max as aerobic performance, which it is not.

His entire argument is seemingly based on interval training increasing VO2max more than base training. Well, if VO2max was the be all end all, he'd have an argument, but it's not.

Another problem is his muscle fiber theory is too simplistic.

He basically states that it doesn't apply to distance running, so aerobic training is still very much alive for our sport (>=800m). Nothing to see here.

Yes, but is aerobic training no needed for ice hockey or soccer or other team sports? Is it not needed even for sprinting?

The best sprint coaches still use some aerobic training, except for the heavy drug coaches like Francis.

Mike Boyle has more knowledge of physiology in his pinky finger than you have in your entire brain. Nice try.

dunnowhy wrote:

Yes, but is aerobic training no needed for ice hockey or soccer or other team sports? Is it not needed even for sprinting?

The best sprint coaches still use some aerobic training, except for the heavy drug coaches like Francis.

Troll Alert wrote:

Mike Boyle has more knowledge of physiology in his pinky finger than you have in your entire brain. Nice try.

dunnowhy wrote:

Yes, but is aerobic training no needed for ice hockey or soccer or other team sports? Is it not needed even for sprinting?

The best sprint coaches still use some aerobic training, except for the heavy drug coaches like Francis.

Well he doesn't show his knowledge in the stuff he writes.

He's the same guy who says death to squats.

I think all that makes sense. Why do you think so many people have been slaving away at the gym doing slow 30-45 min runs on the TM at "fat burning pace" only to see very small results.

They need to get in there an hit it HARD and HURT. Most people would rather do the less intese work for a longer period of time.

There is no fat burning pace. That is a myth based on not understanding physiology.

His basic message is use it or lose it. Nothing new here, but it does not mean that there is no benefit to aerobic training. that is the message that most coaches will take from this. In addition, he does not do distance coaches any favor by saying cross country runners are not athletes

Well you probably need to nail down a few terms:

- What does he call aerobic training?

- What does he mean by interval training?

I would call VO2max intervals a form of aerobic training.

He's talking about the applicability of aerobic training for sprinters or other sports like hockey. Most sports require a short term burst of energy, with the luxury of recoveries in between. This is interval training.

He said that 10K runners would need some of aerobic training -- there is some principal of specificity which requires that.

He also says aerobic training (base building) allows you to support interval training.

He's not saying anything radical, as long as you know the right context -- unless he means distance athletes too.

See above..."principal of specificity"

When does a boxer put forth 30-60 minutes of continued low intensity effort? They why do boxers log miles on the road? Wouldn't a better conditioning program include intense bouts of 3 minute efforts with 1 minute recoveries? Even more specific to the same example (boxer) would be 5-10s max effort bursts with 20-30s low intensity movements for 3-5 minutes then full recovery for 1 minute.

What Boyle is talking about is old news to anyone who actually trains "athletes", not "runners".

In fact I challenge you all to try this:

1. Find yourself a Scwhinn Airdyne or similar stationary bike w/handles

2. Warm-up for 3-5 minutes.

3. Perform 30 seconds all-out balls to the wall sprints with 90 seconds recovery. Repeat 6 times.

4. Cool-down for 3-5 minutes.

5. Compare how you feel immediately afterwards, 30 minutes afters, 3 hours afterwards, etc with how you feel after a bout of "distance running intervals".

Fact is, the above protocol is much better for long term fat loss as well as more specific for 99% of athletes.

Look at this research:

Tremblay, A., J. Simoneau, and C. Bouchard, Impact of Exercise Intensity on Body Fatness and Skeletal Muscle Metabolism. Metabolism.43:814-818, 1994.

Tabata, I., Irishawa, K., Kuzaki, M., Nishimura, K., Ogita, F., and Miyachi, M., Metabolic Profile of High-Intensity Intermittent Exercises. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 29(3), 390-395, 1997).

Bahr, R., and O.M. Sejersted. Effect of intensity of exercise on excess postexercise O2 consumption. Metabolism. 40:836-841, 1991.

The problem is...

We know specificity needs to be supported.

If specificity was the only thing that mattered. Then we'd all be training like the track runners of the 1930's, like Glenn Cunningham.

Tabata's research is flawed in the sence that it equates VO2max=aerobic (insert your favorite term..capacity/performance/etc.), which simply isn't true.

The one complaint I have on Boyle is his use of muscle fiber conversion. Fast to slow fiber type conversion is a long process. To go from FT-a to ST is a complicated process.

If he's so worried about fiber type conversion why is he doing any sprint training? Sprint training/lifting consistantly shows a conversion from FT-b to FT-a. If fiber type conversion was the only thing we had to worry about then we should do nothing at all.

Boyle simplifies things to far.

ray wrote:

His basic message is use it or lose it. Nothing new here, but it does not mean that there is no benefit to aerobic training. that is the message that most coaches will take from this. In addition, he does not do distance coaches any favor by saying cross country runners are not athletes

His views are similar to that of 99% of strength & conditioning coaches out there...and that is sad.

There's always been this slight animosity between "distance runners" (or most endurance athletes) and "athletes". Probably because both refuse to listen to each other and both think their way is the best and only way to reach a high level of fitness.

So as far as being an "athlete" goes the question becomes "what makes a good athlete?". For that you'd have to go through a battery of tests measuring the 5 aspects of physical fitness: body composition, muscular strength, muscular endurance, cardiovascular endurance, flexibility. You could also include the 5 aspects of performance: power, speed/quickness, agility, balance, motor skill.

Breaking down the first five:

1. Cardiorespiratory Fitness: Runners and endurance athletes would easily dominate.

2. Muscular Endurance: Depends on what % of max effort you are measuring, depends on what test as well. Any strength oriented athlete would dominate typical tests such as sit up or push-ups tests. Pushup or bodyweight squat tests would be optimal as you are testing your endurance using your own bodyweight vs external weight.

3. Muscular Strength: Endurance athletes would be dominated by most other athletes.

4. Flexibility: Depends on the nature of the athlete. Runners operate in a very short range of motion lending to a "natural" inflexibility.

5. Body Composition: Sprinters would top the list, followed by marathon runners and most other distance runners. Some strength/power athletes would be near the top as well (many boxers/mma athletes...some 'big 3' athletes).

Once you get into the performance based measurements many other athletes would dominate as distance runners tend to lack power, quickness, agility, motor skill, etc.

Alan

dunnowhy wrote:

He's talking about in terms of performance for sprint athletes and team sports too.

The problem is he equates VO2max as aerobic performance, which it is not.

His entire argument is seemingly based on interval training increasing VO2max more than base training. Well, if VO2max was the be all end all, he'd have an argument, but it's not.

Another problem is his muscle fiber theory is too simplistic.

Vo2max interval training will improve Vo2max far better than base training will. The intensity for base training is low enough (at least as practiced by most folks I am aware of) that improvements in VO2max are going to be small especially in a trained person. Most of us here will detrain doing a classic base training period (low intensity, high volume). We might get better at running longer distances, but LT pace and VO2max are going to decline. There might be a good reason to sacrifice this (for instance, increasing training tolerance well above what one was doing).

dunnowhy wrote:

He's talking about in terms of performance for sprint athletes and team sports too.

The problem is he equates VO2max as aerobic performance, which it is not.

His entire argument is seemingly based on interval training increasing VO2max more than base training. Well, if VO2max was the be all end all, he'd have an argument, but it's not.

Another problem is his muscle fiber theory is too simplistic.

PS: while Vo2max is not the end all, it is certainly an important factor. To be a good/great distance runner, you had better have a sufficiently high VO2max. Yes, the LT and economy are important and there are those rare cases of a runner with a relatively low Vo2max doing well (Shorter), they are by far the exceptions. Your odds are better off having a high Vo2max and then developing LT and economy (although at least in running RE and VO2max seem to have a bit of an inverse connection in that high Vo2max means economy might get worse--maybe it is the central governor kicking in!).

Runningart2004 wrote:

See above..."principal of specificity"

When does a boxer put forth 30-60 minutes of continued low intensity effort? Then why do boxers log miles on the road? Wouldn't a better conditioning program include intense bouts of 3 minute efforts with 1 minute recoveries? Even more specific to the same example (boxer) would be 5-10s max effort bursts with 20-30s low intensity movements for 3-5 minutes then full recovery for 1 minute.

Really weak analogy/example or whatever you want to call it. Why? Because...

a) I can retort with: when does an 800m or mile runner move (in a race) at a slow to moderate pace for 1-1.5 hrs? Never. Yet this has been the cornerstone of the training of many great 800m-mile runners. I guess, since you love specificity so much, all those guys had it wrong? They should have been training MOSTLY at exact race pace for 2-4 minutes (like your boxing examples) ? That would have been too intense to do on a daily basis, and produced not enough aerobic developement.

b) many boxers already do they type of traing you suggest. It's called sparring. Is THAT for specific enough for you? And boxers like Holyfield have been running more intervals than long slow distance for awhile. And they do various other types of intense work in the gym that produces the intensity you are looking for. So, they already do intense stuff. But the long road work produces a great aerobic stimulus for them. And a 12 round fight IS an aerobic event. So throwing out that road work doesn't make sense to me (and of course it is not ALL they are doing). Yes, Boxing is anaerobic also. Depending on the fight, it is similar to soccer (bursts of power/speed/anerobic/creatine system moments, with lots of aerobic moments). The later rounds, like the 2nd half in a soccer game, demand a highly AEROBICALLY conditioned athlete . There is no doubt about it.

The specificity of long lower-intensity work for boxing, soccer, or mid distance running, is that this type of training produces aerobic development, and all those sports are ones where aerobic conditioning is of the utmost importance (however, they also demand power and lactate buffering ability to boot).

First off...thanks for a reply without animosity...good show.

Yeah, my boxing analogy was a big off...as 12 rounds is a long time....still the majority of the movement isn't exactly intense...repeated bouts of intense effort may prove more beneficial than easy road work..especially in the experienced boxer.

Find me one thousand 800m runners. Find me 1000 marathon runners. Their "base training" will be loads different. The law of specificity still applies. Also, 800m runners and marathon runners still share much of the same needed traits. An 800m runner or marathoner and a boxer or hockey player or baseball player or basketball player share virtually NONE of the same traits.

You can get aerobically conditioned without doing aerobics...ie: long slow road work...especially in the untrained. The aerobic needs of other sports are far different than that of running. I think that is what Mike Boyle is talking about and he's trained highly competitive athletes in various sports for over 25 years. I think he knows what the flipping hell he's talking about when it comes to training athletes in other sports.

Boyle goes a bit far with "blanket statements" as that sells. I'm not a fan of his anti-squat stance. Sure some road work will help as a means of conditioning, but I can see the majority of cardiovascular conditioning coming from what you've mentioned: sparring, intervals, gym work, etc and I think that is what Boyle and others are refering to. It's old dogma that athletes need loads of road work...typically they don't. Of course it all depends on the individual, but once you're already a conditioned athlete you really don't need a period of road work to 'get into shape' in the same way a young unconditioned athlete may need it.

Alan