This article says runners can't continue to improve aerobically after their first 2-3 years of running???

Many articles say many things.

Its not all aerobic, there are tons of things not discussed in amateur running forums your know?

How much do you know about spicific hormonal imporvement, bone density, wideing of respiratory tracks, adaption to foods, ligaments changes,etc.

Its not all just the aerobic part.

centro does it better wrote:

This article discusses Galen Rupp and how his heart was only minimally stronger between age 18 and age 24. It says virtually all of his performance gains came from improved efficiency.

I'm newer to running so I might be wrong, but I always hear that it takes many years to develop an aerobic base, and your aerobic base is the main source of improved race times. This seems to contradict what the article says.

Am I misunderstanding something or is this an inconsistency?

No inconsistency. There are two forms of aerobic fitness. The article is only discussing "structural" aerobic fitness, i.e., the heart and lungs. Obviously your heart cannot continue to develop indefinitely, and your lung capacity is also limited.

What you can continue to develop well after 2-3 years are your capillarization and mitochondria count. Indirectly, this also includes the "efficiency" gained from being able to better utilize the aerobic system (not just the heart and lungs, but the blood and oxygen that flows from the heart and lungs).

What that article is mischaracterizing, is the fact that "efficiency" is actually part of the aerobic gains you continue to make. Of course you also have "efficiency" gains from improved muscular and skeletal structure.

If you train right, it's more like the first 2-3 months

The article mentions capillarization and mitochondrial density as part of the aerobic adaptation that max out after a few years. Obviously these adaptations have to max out at some point, but I doubt it's 2-3 years unless you hit pretty high volumes early on. Most hobbyists probably don't get that many miles in during the first few years and I would think they could at least achieve additional adaptations by increasing their weekly aerobic mileage.

Also, I hate the study they cite about how runners self-select the most optimal student length naturally. Of course someone will be less efficient if you force them to run with a different student than the one they have used habitually for years. Their body has every reason to optimize itself for that particular stride. What we don't know is whether they could become more efficient by purposefully changing their stride and running with that new stride for a substantial amount of training, say a year or more.

Here's a simple model I found (credit to Stephen Seiler):

1) Power: VO2max related performance improvements: ~1 year (oxygen delivery)

2) Stamina: LT related performance improvements: ~3-4 years (oxygen utilisation)

3) Ease of effort: Efficiency related performance improvements: thereafter (non-oxygen gains)

So you can call it "aerobic base training", and you can talk about many years of "building your aerobic house", but the physiological changes are never purely aerobic, and change as you get fitter.

If you train and not just jog around, your Vo2max reaches a ceiling very quickly, within a couple years.

The vast majority of improvement after the first couple years of training is due to efficiency. That is your speed at Vo2max will improve.

Articles like to use antiquated terminology. "Aerobic" and "Anaerobic" are very misleading terms.

Alan

This is why many Africans, including Dennis Kimetto, can go from not running to world class in a couple of years.

All runners have a ceiling. It's the reason why, if you coach long enough, an athlete can train for 6 years, race 15:00 for 5km, then get injured, miss 2-3 months, but within 2-3 months of training can run 15:00 again.

Canova preaches that after your early 20s you need to stop doing tons of "base building" and just get into specific work for your target races. The aerobic work just breaks you down and doesn't get you faster after a certain point.

All that guff about capillarization and mitochondria from base phase makes no sense, nor does the notion that said base is aerobically stressful at all. Yes, you might slowly, slowly, slowly improve over 10 years if all you do is jog, jog, jog, but you can improve the same amount in one or two years with middle-distance track workouts.

Aerobic capacity is highest when muscle pH is low, because this facilitates gas exchange between blood and muscle. That's why you have to be warmed up to race. People get confused by "percentage" aerobic, like 1500 being 50/50 and 10,000 being a higher percentage. That really means the 10,000 is less anaerobic - the 1500 still consumes oxygen at a much higher rate. 800 pushes it right to the edge.

In a good MD track workout you spend most of the time in or near a state of acidosis. This speeds oxygen uptake by working muscle which greatly increases its demand for oxygen. That is what drives capillarization and more mitochondria, not jogging.

Do 6 weeks at 150 miles a week at high end aerobic, then drop to 50 miles a week pushing the pace every third day. You won't have to read any articles

Oh, I forgot to say that it might take you 4 years to reach the point where you can run 150 high end miles a week by feel.

This is why I think that running shouldn't be treated any differently than weight training. Running is weight training, just of your slow twitch fibers. Your slow twitch fibers get stronger, you can run faster using the same uptake of oxygen. If you want to call this economy that's fine. But the same way fast twitch fibers get stronger by lifting something really heavy a small number of times, slow twitch fibers get stronger by lifting something well within it's capacity (i.e. slow running) 10,000 times. Intermediate fibers get trained by lifting something in multiple sets on the order of 200 times (interval training).

Its aimed at hobby joggers and runenrs who thing they are serious but are not really they can definitely improve past 3 years because they have reached nowewhere near their max

Like D1 said its more complicated that but take even a reasonable club runner doing 50-60 miles a wk. They can definitely improve both heart and lungs by doing more miles

"This pattern does not continue, however. After two or three years of training and competing, serious runners see only minimal gains in aerobic power."

Bullshite. His definition of a serious runner is mickey mouse.

Why do you think Takahashi was running 180 mile weeks @ 7000 feet in Colorado at 8 minute pace? Maybe because she was serious about run 2:19.

fred wrote:

"This pattern does not continue, however. After two or three years of training and competing, serious runners see only minimal gains in aerobic power."

Bullshite. His definition of a serious runner is mickey mouse.

Why do you think Takahashi was running 180 mile weeks @ 7000 feet in Colorado at 8 minute pace? Maybe because she was serious about run 2:19.

Maybe because the limited oxygen means you can't push yourself hard, so you never engage anything but slow twitch fibers which means you can train them for a longer amount of time and they are able to get stronger.

Kuhgjjkgkhj wrote:

If you train right, it's more like the first 2-3 months

does that mean your vo2max will not grow just 2-3 months later from sedentary state?

can you explain how? running 50mile per weeks after 2-3 months?

can anyone explain to me that how long one will max out his vo2max by running 50 miles per week?

Nothing really unusual or odd until you reach the end where Matt has fallen in love with Noakes Central Governor theory.

Bop wrote:

Maybe because the limited oxygen means you can't push yourself hard, so you never engage anything but slow twitch fibers which means you can train them for a longer amount of time and they are able to get stronger.

That makes no sense. Why not just run slow at sea level?

"The best evidence suggests that while aerobic development peters out after a few years,"

Yet he doesn't provide the evidence.