Lydiard's pdf guide - 15. It is a fallacy that anaerobic training develops speed. It in fact counteracts speed.

This, I think, was sorta addressed a few weeks ago here: http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=3645513.

From what I've gathered from Lydiard's ways, it seems like anaerobic training is just like the finishing touches/refining late season to a huge aerobic buildup, but I don't see how it "counteracts speed?"

The only thing I'm thinking of right now is that anaerobic training, like all intense training, does counteract speed but only temporarily I.e. miniscule muscle tears and just general fatigue and soreness, but body adapts/improves within 3-4plus days

And hammering intense anaerobic stuff 3x/wk year round also "counteracts speed"

But Otherwise I don't know what he means by "counteracts speed"

If I eat a bowl of beans that counteracts the speed of my digestive system?

It depends on what he means by 'anaerobic training'. Most runners would call 12x400m w/200m recovery as 'anaerobic training', which it is not. What many runners think of 'anaerobic training' is actually just fast aerobic training.

50m-100m sprints with full recovery is anaerobic training.

Alan

50m-100m sprints with full recovery is anaerobic training.

WRONG!!!!!

Griswalds brother wrote:

50m-100m sprints with full recovery is anaerobic training.

WRONG!!!!!

Explain.

"Anaerobic is a technical word which literally means without air (where "air" is generally used to mean oxygen), as opposed to aerobic"

"Anaerobic exercise is exercise intense enough to trigger anaerobic metabolism"

"There are two types of anaerobic energy systems: 1) the high energy phosphates, ATP adenosine triphosphate and CP creatine phosphate and, 2) anaerobic glycolysis"

So it depends on which anaerobic energy pathway we're talking about. SPEED is developed within the first pathway and typically lasts no more than 10s.

Alan

When I have stomach ache all I do is open the tank and grunt a bit and I am all done within 9secs like Usain Bolt...100percent anaerobic!

I think Lydiard would catch a lot less flack if he would have just made up his own words for this stuff, unfortunately some people get so caught up trying to fight this battle over semantics that what he really meant gets lost.

But yes, Alan is right. All out short sprints are by definition anaerobic.

Is that an all-inclusive definition for anaerobic

hahahahahahahahahahaha - wow....

Runningart2004 wrote:

50m-100m sprints with full recovery is anaerobic training.

Alan

True in a sense, but Lydiard explicitly said spring training was good, all year round.

He was referring to hitting very high levels of oxygen debt too often i.e. middle distance intervals.

Its' best to keep the physiology out of it. He observed patterns in training, and only later tried to fit them to physiological models which were poorly understood at the time. The observation was pretty simple: run hard intervals too often for too many weeks and you get stale and slow down.

As Arthur described things speed training was done when you were sprinting or close to it and getting fast turnover.

Anaerobic training was to develop your ability to run at high intensities for extended time. But the build up of fatigue by products actually slowed you down after a while so he didn't think of it as training for speed.

ROFL

Upper Decker in the Tank wrote:

When I have stomach ache all I do is open the tank and grunt a bit and I am all done within 9secs like Usain Bolt...100percent anaerobic!

HRE wrote:

But the build up of fatigue by products actually slowed you down after a while so he didn't think of it as training for speed.

interesting

I'm not an expert, but I think Lydiard clarifies this some back on p. 6 of the document when he describes anaerobic training.

"Anaerobic training is essential if you want to race well. Bear in mind, however, that if you overdo anaerobic work, you will sacrifice the very thing you have worked so hard to achieve, your good conidtion, which determines your performance level."

Also on p. 6, Lydiard doesn't define precisely the distances necessary for an anaerobic workout other than it should be at least 200m or more.