Aerobic Threshhold Training

What is your goal distance?

You probably won´t improve that much on aerobic threshold by running always "at a steady clip but always relaxed". You NEED those more intense sessions to keep improving aerobically. Avoid high lactates though when building the aerobic engine.

My target distances are 8 and 15, and am wondering if slogging out the miles is as beneficial for me as shorter running but of a more intense nature, being careful of course not to leave myself with an empty gas tank for workouts

hhhg wrote:Avoid high lactates though when building the aerobic engine.

A lot of very reputable coaching strategies rely primarily on stressing the anaerobic glycolysis pathway producing as much lactate possible, within reason. So be wary of this whole, 'avoid lactate when building the aerobic engine'. Your body's response to a high system ph (one of the major effects of the anaerobic fermentation of glucose) has been shown to strengthen many aspects of your aerobic ability. If you only had a small amount of time for this, I would recommend concentrating either on very heavy daniels interval-esque work, as well as occasional aggressive lactate threshold work. Neither of those workouts should have to exceed [30 - 45] minutes even with proper warm up and cool down.

Then again, hhhg had a great point which he opened with... what distance are you training for?

BBQ wrote:

My target distances are 8 and 15, and am wondering if slogging out the miles is as beneficial for me as shorter running but of a more intense nature, being careful of course not to leave myself with an empty gas tank for workouts

Oh, sorry I did not read this before i posted. In that case, I stand by my reasoning. You don't need necessarily need high volume workouts and lots of easy mileage to greatly excel in the mid distance events, ESPECIALLY the 8. There are different strategies but I have seen 25 miles a week with 10 of them being pure vo2max targeting training to get great results.

Thx for replies so far.

I've also seen guys do very well on lower milage, but am wondering if this is just a short term strategy to getting fast, or if one's fitness gained from this type of training can be maintained if one does not overtrain.

Last thing I wanna do is spend the next year training this way, only to eventually fall apart.

You´re talking about power training=short term, I was talking about capacity training=long term. I haven´t heard about this "reputable coaching strategie". Mitochondrial buildup won´t happen under high acidosis, that´s why you should avoid HIGH lactates like I wrote earlier. I didn´t wrote "avoid lactate".

"I have seen 25 miles a week with 10 of them being

pure vo2max targeting training to get great results."

Care to elaborate on this statement, thanks in advance.

lolak wrote:

Oh, sorry I did not read this before i posted. In that case, I stand by my reasoning. You don't need necessarily need high volume workouts and lots ofeasy mileage to greatly excel in the mid distance events, ESPECIALLY the 8. There are different strategies but I have seen 25 miles a week with 10 of them being pure vo2max targeting training to get great results.

VO2Max training is power training and it won´t help you in the long term. You can read some information from here;

"VO2 Max (Aerobic Power)

And finally we come to VO2 max/anaerobic power intervals, perhaps one of the most misunderstood concepts around. To understand this topic, I need to talk a little bit about what VO2 max is. Conceptually, VO2 max represents the maximum amount of oxygen that can be utilized by the body. As I discussed in Predictors of Endurance Performance, it was once though to be the determinant of performance although we know now that this isn’t the case.

VO2 max actually has two major determinants. The first is the heart’s ability to pump blood which has to do with both stroke volume and heart rate. The second has do to with the muscle’s ability to extract and utilize that oxygen. Essentially, VO2 max has both a central (heart) and peripheral (muscle) component.

I know I said in Methods of Endurance Training Part 1 that I’d be focusing mainly on skeletal muscle but this is a place where the distinction is critical. Not only in terms of training content but to understand why many of the claims being made regarding interval training are mistaken.

This distinction in mechanisms is actually reflected in the terminology of some sports. In rowing for example, base endurance training is referred to as Uptake (or UT) training suggesting that it primarily impacts on the muscle’s ability to uptake oxygen from the blood. In contrast, Vo2 max intervals, which I’ll define in a second, are referred to as Transport training; basically they improve the heart’s ability to transport oxygen in the first place.

Maximizing VO2 max means maximizing both transport (primarily determined by cardiac function) and uptake (primarily determined by muscle function and a host of adaptations that occur there). I mentioned in Methods of Endurance Training: Interval Training Part 1 that the main benefit of interval training was thought to be on the heart. In the 80’s this idea reversed itself, coaches felt that long duration training mainly affected the heart and intervals affected skeletal muscle.

It turns out that the early ideas were correct. Interval training, specifically the kind that drives athletes to achieve VO2 max primarily affects heart function. Certainly there are going to be peripheral effects in muscle but the main effect is in heart."

hhhg wrote:

VO2Max training is power training and it won´t help you in the long term. You can read some information from here;

Where in any way do you get won't help you in the long term? A large part of your aerobic system is your capacity to deliver oxygen from the air you breathe to your muscles. I am saying is that there are many coaches I know of that are held to high esteem in their community for their success in their athletes, but not necessarily for what training they do. Regardless, the training they do is fairly low mileage with a lot of intense 'strength work' as you put it. Aggressive vo2max intervals or workouts geared generally to raise the ph in your system as much as possible to emulate all out race conditions. These workouts increase the ability of your body to deliver oxygen to your muscles to a point that can be measured quite easily. Therefore, these workouts do good for your aerobic system in general. The reason i bring up this training style is because he said he was pressed for time.

To the OP, I do not personally think this is the best approach to training. However, I do know several athletes at the elite high school level that generally follow the approach I am referring to. Now, these kids are obviously talented to begin, and do more mileage in the offseason. I know of a runner sitting at about 25 miles a week in season, with about 3 anaerobic workouts a week, combined with a few pure speed workouts, that encompass a good portion of his volume. Now, he has done more mileage in the past, but his yearly average can't be above 35. And trust me, he has more had more success in his high school career so far than most solid D3 runners will have their entire career.

I understand that there are many other aspects of your aerobic system, but in practice this approach works. Does it work best, most certainly not. But it works. That's really what is important that can be said about training philosophy, right?

As for the long term issue, I'm not sure that really makes sense. As long as you rest well, and train this way intelligently, you should see gains that will be permanent barring any serious lapse in training.

While that training works in high school, it doesn't result in much improvement after. You max out those systems much much more quickly, and to continue improving you have to continue increasing intensity. A lot of talented high school runners end up constantly injured in college because they need to work out so hard to improve and have no aerobic base to speak of.

Thanks for all the feedback so far.

I used to have more time to run and made good use of it, but would end up going to group practice tired and having subpar workouts as a result of having less energy.

I was running 50 to 60mpw with up to 35/40 of that comprised of base milage.

I now only have time for 30 or so, and am having better workouts, going to workouts feeling fresh.

That said, I am not "racing workouts" and am trying to figure out how to squeeze in some recovery runs on my non workout days.

How long is long enough for an off day run to work my aerobic system? I know this is a difficult question to answer but just looking for a way to improve aerobically with a constricted time period to work with.

BBQ wrote:

How long is long enough for an off day run to work my aerobic system? I know this is a difficult question to answer but just looking for a way to improve aerobically with a constricted time period to work with.

A 30min easy run will do the most work, you probably can recover from it easily while still getting some maintenance work done between harder workouts. What I´ve learned through the years is that I shouldn´t run more than 1-2 30min recovery runs on an off day, but the hard days should be hard enough (but not too hard) to break the state of homeostasis. Of course I´m just speaking for myself and very talented lads can deal much more training. Get the balance of stress and recovery right and your body has a change to get stronger.

*chance I meant

hhhg wrote:

VO2 max actually has two major determinants. The first is the heart’s ability to pump blood which has to do with both stroke volume and heart rate. The second has do to with the muscle’s ability to extract and utilize that oxygen. Essentially, VO2 max has both a central (heart) and peripheral (muscle) component.

wrong

there are at least 3 other factors

in some cases, VO2Max is limited by lungs ability to process oxygen. Heard about all these asthma steroids banned by WADA? They do nothing but increase lung capacity.

VO2Max is limited by blood capacity to transport oxygen, hence EPO is banned by WADA

Last one, most important - our muscles need oxygen AND food to work. For example, there is metabolic track in liver processing lactate into glycogen.

just my 2 cents

Most all running will let you improve aerobically. For example, 400m repeats with partial recovery at 10K pace is a good aerobic workout.I saw a rule of thumb that 10 days about as long as you can go, without working a specific system, before you start losing it.But why are you so unusually focused on aerobic improvements? You should think more in terms of general training, to support specific training, for your desired events. There is no competition for the most aerobically developed athlete. They rank you by time, not VO2.If you scale down to 30 or so mpw, you may not improve as quickly, but you shouldn't start going backwards.

BBQ wrote:

I am aware of the benefits of increasing milage as it pertains to aerobic strength.

I am also aware that to push up one's aerobic threshhold, one has to run at a pace that will make this happen, meaning that one is running at a steady clip but always relaxed.

If one is short on time do to life constraints, is it possible to continue to improve aerobically while keeping training sessions relatively short but bumping up intensity?

wrong

Read more carefully; "VO2 max actually has two major determinants." See, two MAJOR determinants. Of course there are other factors too.

Relating to lactic threshhold training, is there only so far that this training will take you before you max it out?

Look here (scroll down to the graph at the Bottom Line):

http://home.hia.no/~stephens/timecors.htm

The graphs and timeline are generalized, but it indicates that VO2max and Lactate Threshold adaptations max out within the short to mid-term, and thereafter, remaining long term improvements come from gains in efficiency.

What you are going to get on threads like this is lots of dogma about 'aerobic development' completly missing the fundamental issue of neuromuscular coordination. 'Aerobic development' happens normally and naturally in teenage years for healthy active people. However, runners like to mythologize about mitochondria biogenesis and improved capillarization as being processes which require huge amounts of training, when in fact they are natural developments for normal oxygen delivery in healthy active people.You can have all the aerobic development you want and still be a slow runner, but that point is ingnored by 99.99% of people who give information about training.Why is there even a term 'aerobic threshold'? how silly is that?Work to improve endurance at every pace, that is the important issue. With regard to your question:

BBQ wrote:

I am aware of the benefits of increasing milage as it pertains to aerobic strength.

I am also aware that to push up one's aerobic threshhold, one has to run at a pace that will make this happen, meaning that one is running at a steady clip but always relaxed.

If one is short on time do to life constraints, is it possible to continue to improve aerobically while keeping training sessions relatively short but bumping up intensity?

I wouldn't advise bumping up the intensity of your tempo runs, rather it is better to let your pace improve naturally over a period of time by either running a little further in the same time or by adding a slight amount of distance each time. But above all, listen to your body and let the pace come to you naturally, rather than you trying to force to pace to come.