Mr. Renato Canova: Could You Please Answer a Question About Effective Ways to Improve the Lactate Threshold?

MODERN TRAINING INVESTIGATION

I would be so sure that I don´t know Marius training.

Actually, modern investigation that´s a science – police investigation, private investigation, commercial espionage, or training investigation.

That the last step and ending part of the investigation that´s to ask the source. We start collecting data, and cross information, and we are build a “robot picture” based in all elements that we have access.
With all previous knowledge we build each individual running profile based in knowledge “training principles” and we see what´s new and what fits and not fits in that basic generalised principles.
Most of times ther´s no need to come close the direct subject of our investigation because we know all that we need to know without using the source. When we come close to the subject of our investigation and eventually we ask him directly – when have all the job done, that´s just to know if what he says that´s true. Following that logic, if eventually i´m concern to know Marius training and basic concepts, and working llong science investigation, the last step of my investigation that´s to have the Marius daily training schedule. So, as you see in that context to know the training schedule that´s quite irrelevant. All investigation is like to build a puzzle piece by piece.

The case of running training that´s very easy since the individual can´t catch at home and do that, or we need to investigate that deeper. But since you need to go out and training that´s very easy.

I want to give a few clues or some tips what that would be done. That´s not that I have a special interest to know Marius training or that I do any special initiative to work accordingly.

A few seasons ago, I was doing my regular jogging in the same park in Lisbon that I use to do 30 years ago, when I group of 2 guys – that immediately I identify as “new kids in town” that were training differently than all the rest.

At that time I didn´t imagine yet who is Marius Bakken. I didn´t enter in his site, and i´m not so sure if that Marius site that did exist the day I saw that runners training.
They were in group with a female, but they were doing an outdoor continuous run faster than usual, and as I have any inch of that park measured, I took one split and I knew what pace they did run. After X minutes periods in that 3:05-3:10 by kilo pace, they did 2 minutes recover with easy runs and then another set and another up to 40-50 minutes that style. They did that for 3 to 4 days. That takes time to understand all the rest.

That I forget almost completely. But as I have some training relate expertise since I read first Marius training ideas, and as Marius do some photos of him in his site – I immediately relate that past fact that 2 runners that I saw in my local track.

Now, when Marius say I do my AT runs often by minutes or distance with rest periods, I know that he is saying the true and I know the essentials to be able to extrapolate lots of information. But that would be just the beginning.

Later on I did knew, people that train with him in USA, and later on I did knew people that knew him in Kenya and how he trains. Do you see how the world is small ?

A friend of mine once told me that he did participate in a study that come to the conclusion that in modern and world global communication – internet and so - after doing the connection with 7 people maximum, we can have an information with the guy that is in the more remote part of the world and that we don´t know nothing at all.

Recently, I did relate daily with a Norwegian sailor that actually he is retired and write novels and he used to be a runner and actually he does jogging, that told me that he lives close to Marius, that knew Marius father – a past runner also – and that trains in the same park(s) that Marius trains when he is in Norway, and saw him doing outdoor runs as well as track workouts. This is nothing in special, just tips, but just to made you understand that´s not hard to know the essentials without the need to come close to the source. All the rest that is really vital to the investigation I don´t tell you, because I want to preserve privacy of those who told me something...

I'm really suprised to read some of the latest posts. I ask my self: "Why this focus on Marius' training and results, or lack of good results?" I have to say that I'm suprised of the statements some of you have posted too.

With all respect, I believe that you will get less inside information about what went wrong during Athens, or details about his training, when you accuse the "target man". Poor strategy.

I also believe that most of you seem to undermind Marius' training schedule, since you seem to not understand that his training does not contain ONLY of exercise at his lactate threshold. Marius are actually carrying out quite much training near, or faster than his race speed too. How much of "this" and how much of "that" depend of which phase he is in during the year.

Finally, I do not understand why you need to have spesific information about the different training sessions Marius and others do?

Most of their training will not fit you, and to copy them will probably not help you at all.

It is more important to design your training to the target - your body - to fit the exercise intensity with the biological quality you have to develop.

Antonio,

I remember the time in Lisbon. However that was in relation to a race, a 10.000 meter down there. I stayed only for a couple of days and did just a few runs down there.

In the US I trained at college under an American coach, though at that time I was under a very different program than my current one.

It is true that my father used to do sports, but he was a soccer player :)

Either way, if your fascination for running ever take you to Oslo (Bislett Games?) let me know - would be fun to discuss those things with you in person.

Marius

Antonio = Fruitcake

"Shit" did happen to Mamede.

Mamede was "psicoweak". Shit happens all the time to "sicoweacks"; portuguese ones, spanish ones, german ones, american ones....
Rod

"It is more important to design your training to the target - your body - to fit the exercise intensity with the biological quality you have to develop."

Marius seems to have a very specific way of doing this. My personal interest in his program is not what HE does on a day to day basis exactly but how he deciedes WHAT he will do based on feed back from his workouts and measerments he takes during them. Because he has probably performed more tests on a human than almost anyone with regard to lactate levels his knowlege is invaluable to the discussion hear.

I really hope Marius you are not offended by what I have said. Your input to this discussion is appreciated. How many places do you have two to three successful coaches (not me) and a 13:06 self coached athlete discussing training? There is going to be a lot of ego involved but under that is a great opportunity to learn. I would be very intrerested in reading your opinion (Marius) on how you eveluate yourself (or any generic athlete) to determine what their next workout(s) should be... and further how you progress through a season to peak performance over 5000m. Maybe this is better as another write up on your sight under training corner?

PurdueGrad

Frank

Once again.

When i was doing my comments about a portuguese inquire that involves exclusively portuguese runners and that is concern with the original thread “what are the best way to improve LT…”, it comes a post confronting me and my ideas with data relate to Marius results and Marius career.

1/If I did comment the Portuguese inquire that´s because all runners they sign an authorization that allows me to use that material.

2/Every public spectacle or event – as the Olympics – i´m free to comment. Besides – if you want to know - I did comment that in the Portuguese television.

3/About Marius, I simply made a few comments in what is public and what he did in the Olympics. That doesn´t concern any training comment or training consideration, I simply said that Marius replies with training justifications for the result he did in the Olympics that have no sense to me – once again – relating the Olympics.
That olympic heat you aren´t able to catch me and you can´t allow me to comment as I wish, to comment that from my point of view. But from the some posts comments (not all) I understand that some people would love to use censorship to forbid me to express my opinion.

4/If ther´s any earlier focus intentions on Marius that´s not me own. That´s einstein123, that´s Marius himself by posting about the subject and to me and to einstein123, and many other and recently - you. For me one post about that issue would be enough. Don´t you realise that what made me keep on with that my intervention is that because you keep on posting, and you keep on asking me questions and you keep on doing judges from my opinion ? So, i´ve “intellectual right” to reply when someone directs me a post as you did. If you keep on going about my first reply to einstein123 – mainly are facts about portuguese runners.

5/I guess that in Let´sRunCom site aren´t no censorship, but since there are legal restrictions to post contains and since there are Administrators, they will judge if my posts are not quite adequate or violate any rule. If that´s the case clean up, if you please.

6/Following my post philosophy (or ethic – if you wish) I wouldn´t never turn on private comments into public comments. That means that any individual consideration I would do that to Marius only personal, not in public.

All the rest that´s quite irrelevant for me. What Marius trains or doesn´t trains I have no special interest really. For what I understand and (once again) that I have public knowledge - you are right - that doesn´t fit for me or those I love to coach – and I have no special interest to analyse or study. As far as I know that don´t fit in my training logic and my training philosophy.

But that Olympic run that I consider a “fiasco” no one can forbid me to comment. In that run I have the chrono splits, everybody knew Marius that took the lead, everybody knows that Marius did come in 12th place, everybody knows the final result. Thus we able to comment in that context, or do you want to cover the facts, independently of the “external facts” that eventually it justify that result. If I would analyse Marius “external facts” thus I would need to analyse the “external facts” that justifies the other runners results.

My best wishes
Antonio Cabral

Antonio thanks for posting here I like it! Keep up the good work, hopefully Renato Canova comes back soon and you two can chat :D

why do you do those gay faces all the time? go back to dyestat!

About the Frank post

QUESTION: I'm really suprised to read some of the latest posts. I ask my self: Why this focus on Marius' training and results, or lack of good results?& I have to say that I'm suprised of the statements some of you have posted too.

ANSWER: First – in the factual field this is not true. Among hundreds of daily posts, the ones that focus on Marius that are a very little percent. Go to the “search” of this site and type El Guerrouj, or Gebre, or Bekele, or Tergat, or Rui Silva, or Alan Webb, or Cherono/Shaeenan or Bob Kennedy, or Carlos Lopes, or Baldini, or Sebastian Coe, or Ron Clark, or Peter Snell. Etc. etc. – and that´s not me that just posts that – and you will see that Marius last comments are simply “is a drop of water in the ocean.
Secondly – do you read this post frequently ? We have been posts, discussions and comments from and about what are consider the world´s best coaches in distance running and about those runners. Some comments are more technical, some are more scientific, some are comments about the race results, some are just rubbish. So, I wouldn´t be not so surprised. What I never read here is that a runner that comes in his self defence or self arguments as Marius did.

QUESTION: With all respect, I believe that you will get less inside information about what went wrong during Athens, or details about his training, when you accuse the "target man". Poor strategy.

ANSWER: No one ever takes the lead of a run by speed up the main event pace - involuntary. What happened before or after doesn´t invalid that act of poor strategy.

QUESTION: I also believe that most of you seem to undermind Marius' training schedule, since you seem to not understand that his training does not contain ONLY of exercise at his lactate threshold. Marius are actually carrying out quite much training near, or faster than his race speed too. How much of "this" and how much of "that" depend of which phase he is in during the year.

Finally, I do not understand why you need to have specific information about the different training sessions Marius and others do?

ANSWER: When someone say an idea or a comment in a public discussion that idea to be effective and consistent needs to be support by facts, testimonials, or strong arguments. In a court (that we aren´t) when you defend or accuse you need to show to all community the evidences and proves what your line of argumentation. Everybody may have the same access without restraints to the prove evidences. How may we contest or argue if you catch the evidence ? Also, you have no right, or null evidence, if you argue with no proves. Thus, it will be no fair that you claim that “the training is perfect” if you don´t show the training at all. Your argumentation simply that´s null. That´s what Marius and you tried to introduce here. His training argumentation – but that´s null, because we don´t know what it is as he knows. Even in situations that we are testimonials “as that olympic run”, you don´t want to say the reasons, you simply say that “we don´t know”, but we have seen it ! So, the argument that´s null.

QUESTION: Most of their training will not fit you, and to copy them will probably not help you at all.

It is more important to design your training to the target - your body - to fit the exercise intensity with the biological quality you have to develop.

ANSWER: all over the world a few people comes to me – some are runners that I coach - saying that they think that they ask lots of interesting questions about “generic training questions” and Marius Bakken training (not daily schedule or daily workouts) in Marius Bakken site and for some reason they never get Marius answer – to a point that some have give up to keep on posting and asking that questions. Recently Marius Bakken said in one post of his site that “he loves a good discussion”. That same people are very surprise that Marius posts some of his own training concepts and arguments about in this LetsRunCom site and did participate in a site with an intervention that he used to refuse in his own. But he is free to do so !. Since Marius declared interest for “AT” or “LT” (whatever) as a valid training format is known by his own expression I see as natural that people be interest in what Marius do in this issue and in Marius participation in this thread “that´s the main reason why people show interest in Marius training and nothing more.

But what we people we really don´t understand is that as you say - if the Marius training “to copy them will probably not help you at all” why is Marius so willing to send us information about Sebastian Coe weekly mileage or workouts – that he did express in 2 posts oif this saem thread. Now, in the Sebastian Coe individual case ther´s not the danger that the runners copy and uses and fits that inadequately or why in that Coe specific case Marius thinks that people need to have specific information about the different training sessions ? Or Marius did a mistake according your idea? Or the case of Coe or that of Marocco training that Marius have in his site that´s different, in that cases ther´s no problem of misuse ?

My best wishes
Antonio Cabral

Mr. Evertsen I am very interested in this report. Renado Canova has written that some kenyan 60:00 type 1/2 marathon runners run the event as high as 6.0 mmol L-1. This seems to be very different from the athletes you tested in the following report. Do you feel that the 6.0 number is even possible?



Frank Evertsen is an Olympic team physiologist, specializing in Kenyan training and training intensity. He has worked with Kenyan athletes since 1990 and been involved with names such as Sammy Kipketer, John Kibowen, Abraham Cherono, Vivian Cheriouyt and Emmanuel Kemboi. All of these word class runners that have been/are in the Evertsen training group together with a around 20 other athletes on the way up. Since 1990 he has been in Kenya doing research 4-5 time periods every year, as well as bringing the Kenyans to Norway in the summer for lab research. Here he tells us about the Kenyan training system.

Kenyan Training System

During the last decades the East African runners, especially the Kenyans, have dominated the world of running. One question that arises is what makes these Kenyans so successful. Several factors may play a role, but the most important may be the genetic endowment in combination with intense training at moderate altitude (2000-2600 m.a.s.l.). However, this section gives only a short schematic description of their middle- and long distance training. These data are obtained from the daily training and from laboratory facilities.

Measurements of the VO2 uptake during different type of training and lab tests

Measurements of the HR during different type of training and lab tests

Measurement of blood lactate during different type of training and lab tests

Analysis of biopsy samples during different type of training and lab tests

Analysis of other blood parameters related both to sea and altitude training
Shortly, the results form our study suggests that most of the basic training carried out by the Kenyans consists of exercise close to lactate threshold (90% of VO2max). Our biopsy data support that exercise related to lactate threshold both at moderate altitude (2000-2600m.a.s.l.), and at sea level is very effective to improve the performance in already well trained elite runners and cross-country skiers, compared to controls carrying out training far under and above the lactate threshold (Evertsen et al, 1997, 2000a, 2000b, and unpublished data obtained between 1991-2000). No changes were found in the VO2max, but the performance at lactate threshold and the performance were increased significantly. These changes in physiological feature and in performance were significantly higher compared to controls. Less positive correlations were found between the biopsy data and the performance.

In summary, the physiological characteristics in Kenyan runners, running 5000m from 13:24 to 12.56 are:


VO2max >80 ml kg-1 min-1

High capillary density

Many and large mitochondria

Highly developed running economy

High running velocity at lactate 2, 4, 7 mmol L-1

High aerobic enzyme activity, but less anaerobic enzyme activity

High red blood cell mass (35 ml/kg)

Normal Hemoglobin and Hematocrit (14-18 g/dl)

High ability to utilise fat even during intense exercise (% VO2max)

High blood and muscle buffer capacity

Normal EPO values

High Hemoglobin-oxygen affinity

Larger slow twitch muscle fibre pool than FT muscle fibre pool

(Evertsen, unpublished data, 1990-2000)

Category Training HR S0 Warm- up/down 65-70 £ 0.8
Continuous
S1 Easy 65-75 £ 0.8 30-90 7
S2 Medium 30-25 2.5-3.0 30-90 4
S3 High 25-20 3.0-4.0 45-60 4
Intervals
S2 Med 30-25 2.5-3.0 30-60 1
S3 High 25-20 3.0-4.0 30-45 3
S4 Very High 20-15 ³ 5.0 30-45 1

this is Marius' Training:

120-150mpw:

"so in one week, I might do (as an example only) 2000 plyojumps, 1000 flat/1000 uphill, 2 weight sessions but different types (max3-4 reps/endurance 30+reps), 4-5 AT runs but all at different distances/surfaces (treadmill, asphalt, cinder) 1-2 sprint sessions (one with a 5 kg weight behind, another longer with spikes) and 1 sometimes 2 Vo2 max at least one on the track. That is an EXAMPLE of a hard week (type A+ week) in the buildup, but it gives you are fair idea. I will not comment on it further."

how is this guy recovering?

I simply cannot understand the propensity for athletes saying that their training is secret as though if everyone knew it all the world would be running 13:06 for 5,000m.

Marius is a fantastic athlete but giving even some examples, such as a good AT session for a 5,000m runner, is not so much to ask for yet he refuses to do it.

I have seen many, many posts on his site not even asking for HIS schedule but only some ideas for improving their own running but he will not answer.

Marius does his LT-training in intervals only.
"Two reasons for the intervals instead of continious; lactate testing and recovery of the central nervous system." For example 5x5000m or 3-10 min intervals with 60-90sec rec.

"I do need recovery days with very easy runs - but is a no problem to double up hard workouts on the same day as long as time span between the sessions is not too long (4-5 hours), making it almost seem like one long recovery between the last intervall on the first and the first on the second workout. That makes the muscle soreness and hormonal response be as if it was one session though the volume (in terms of adaption in terms of muscular chemistry and heart) you end up with twice as much work done."

bump

A serious question; where is Renato?

He said quite clearly he would be back October 3 after the WHMCh in New Delhi. It is now almost November and he has not returned.

Is he alright or is he just not posting anymore?

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Renato Canova wrote:
c) Due to these considerations, I think that the problem of the Threshold is a false problem. Not always to work for raising the threshold is important, of course if you have already a good level of threshold. The threshold is the base for the SPECIFICITY of every event, only for 10000 and HM is a specifism itself.

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f) This is the reason because normally I don't do any tests with African runners : because I already know what is better for their improvement, without testing every time their Threshold.

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g) In any case, for stimulating a quality (in this case the AnT) you need to give stimula to the body, putting the same in crisis, having the goal to stimulate the answer of the body. If you don't do stimula enough, there is no training, and the athletes cannot repeat the same results.

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I move this to the top so perhaps Renato can reply.