Important moments and concepts in the history and development of Intermittent training

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konfused wrote:

HIIT wrote:

3) Funnily enough the thread that has the most pages in all this board is about a physiological definition: lactate threshold. It is quite interesting to see how most of posters use terms, while they evidently don’t know definitions: there is so much confusion! How many are really able to give a physiological definition of aerobic threshold, anaerobic threshold, MLSS, OBLA, lactate threshold. Then, most of them use it in their everyday training with a wrong conception. It is useless? It is stupidities from/for physiologists? So why did people did write 108 pages about it? A little contradiction...

Perhaps you could please supply your definitions of those terms?

I notice you haven't answered the question HIIT.

Konfused,

I am sorry that my reply comes late. I think that some other posters defined very well all these terms in another post called “Lactic Acid Update”. See particularly posts of Riva, for the definitions, but all the comments about interpretations and eventually use in training are very interesting. I should have read it before writing my first post to Antonio Cabral, because his posts are really of a different style, that I prefer, compared to this thread.

A question to Antonio:

Do you know if M. Paiva of University of Porto sometimes tested Portuguese marathoners (Antonio Pinto, others) before Sydney OG?

Antonio

could you please post some of the Spanish style interval/intermittent training when you get a chance?

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Lindsay Dunn wrote:

Tegla Laroupe and Joyce Chepchumba ... an indoor 200 metre track they ran 20 x 1k with 20 seconds recovery at 10k pace. Tegla went from 3--09 s early to 3-05/7 at the end. They also ran session which I did not see 25 x 400 with 20 secs recovery in 72s -69s.

I started her off with 8 x 400 with 20 second recoveries at 81/82 pace and eventually she was able to run 12 reps in 77 with 12 secs turnaround recovery .

I shall increase the number of reps but not to the 20 mark !

This doesn't make sense to me. She is aiming for the 10k yes?

So why not increase to doing 25 of them, instead of stopping -- with rests in between -- at less than 1/2 of the distance.

Lindsay Dunn wrote:

Morag would be very hard pushed to run faster than 68 for a 400.

Winter 2001/2002 In December started very short recovery sessions.

We only used the session occasionally however.

she has come back and ran 3 races. PB 1500: PB 5k winning first Inter Counties Title in pb 16-16 and pb 10k 33-56 in World Champ Trial race.

She ran recently 10 x 400 with a turnaround recovery of 12 secs or so in 76/77s well in control and can now run 1k reps in under 3-20 with that recovery – 6 reps.

I think that cross country is her strongest race.

And why only use the session occasionally?

Her 5k and 10k are just about equivalent times. With her strength, however, it seems she would be faster at the 10k.

In a race you are running 25x 400m with no rests, so it seems to me that 25x 400m in practice with 12-20s recoveries should be quite manageable.

Lindsay,

Another question. Is the 12s from stopwatch to stopwatch? Or does she stop first and then start the 12s.

A friend of mine was always talking about his 200's with 30s recoveries. One time we were at the track together and he did some, where I timed his rests off to the side. He would stop, check his time, then time his recovery, which he then still said were 30s rests, whereas my watch showed he was taking 45s recoveries after each of them.

So could you please clarify if this is from the finish of one, or does the runner stop first and then time the recoveries.

By the way I always use a departure time, the same as in swimming, so there is no question of the intervals for recovery.

Lindsay,

Thank you very much for your helpfulness and sharing the interesting information about training.

Your continued misspelling of Toni Nett's name makes it

hard to believe that you know what you're talking about.

Hello Antonio,

I know that this is an old thread that you may not be interested in reviving, but I didn't get a chance to read it until the past few days. There were a couple of requests from other posters which urged you to share more details and insights concerning the training of Carlos Lopes. I'm particularly interested in his long term approach to training. I am approaching 30 years old and over the last year have finally had the health and opportunity to devote myself full time to running (I still have the desire to reach the international level over 5k/10k and perhaps the marathon). My advancing age and my newly discovered (over the past year) affinity for hard continuous running in training has made me hungry for more knowledge about how Lopes went about progressing his training. Thanks in advance for anything you may share with us.

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JZ are you training in Spain ?

I wonder if mr. cabral still reads these boards. We never did get a reply from him about the training of spanish middle distance runners (estevez, cacho...). I was wondering if mr. cabral or anyone else that has training information on these guys would share this information

Cabral copyright

2 kinds of runners. Which are you?

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=2375989&page=0

Cabral post

When it comes to middle and long-distance training, my guide is traditional training methodology rather than training physiology. My knowledge of the history of past and present methods, as well as my many years of personal experience have taught me that these are the key to formulating a training plan. I break the training down into the most basic of training parameters; time and space.

Space (distance): the exterior objective materialistic reality

Time (duration): the inner/abstract/subjective reality

The combination of time and space, i.e. the time it takes you to cover a certain distance (or vice-versa - the space you cover in a certain time), that's the pace (intensity).

Adhering to simplicity, I divide all middle and long distance training into three main categories:

1. Aerobic runs: covering everything from recovery runs to more dynamic paces.

2. Moderate/medium/submaximal runs. The effort that has become known as modern LT training. Whatever the terminology used, these are all intense, but submaximal paces. There has been great debate (perhaps too much) on these paces in recent years.

3. Fast/Maximal Training Runs: Includes all paces from close to maximal all the way up to supra-maximal but always respective to the target event distance. Intermittent training is commonly used at these running intensities.

Cabral copyright

2 kinds of runners. Which are you?

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=2375989&page=0

Cabral post

Before continuing, let me explain what intermittent training means to me; it is my own interpretation, and explains what I see as the difference in methodology behind each form of intermittent training.

It has become apparent to me from what I have read over the years that I differ from many “experts” when discussing intermittent training. I feel therefore I need to explain some basic definitions so that when I go on to discuss any particular form of intermittent training it will be obvious what I am referring to.

Definition of intermittent training

Intermittent training is a generic “umbrella” concept that covers any type of training that does not have a steady or continuous pace as its main design. It is used in describing fast/intense periods of time/distance interspersed with other periods of time/distance made up of inactivity/complete rest or runs of a slower intensity/active rest.

Such training is sometimes referred to as, “In-Out”. At this point it does not really matter the type of running surface, the training format, the total distance, the number of sets and so on.

Let me make one initial distinction between types of intermittent training.

On the one hand we have predetermined intermittent training in which one, some or all of the elements are fixed: could be the pace, or the number of sets, the total distance, and so on.

Interval training (and please read later what I mean by that term, because it is not what many others mean when they use the term) is a perfect example of a predetermined workout.

On the other hand there is “spontaneous”, not-predetermined intermittent training. This might be considered more “chaotic” (in the sense of Chaos Theory, rather than simply meaning disorganised).

Fartlek in the “natural style” might be a perfect example. But a natural fartlek, where no set pace is determined, no number of sets, nor distances run, nor set duration of distance/time run before changing from one pace to the other. Basically you run “by feeling”, rather than to any calculated design template.

Fractional/Repetition training

Actually the word fractional and the word repetitions or fractional/repetition workout it means different things to different coaches and runners. For me fractional it simply means the notion of “division” or of “fraction” and repetition it simply means “to repeat”.

Fractional training it comes from one primary concept of intermittent training is that it is a workout formed by cutting or dividing a race distance into a number of smaller parts (e.g.: 5-10 x 1,000m for a target 10k event). Each set distance is then run while you try to maintain a running velocity close to the race pace. The aim is to “repeat” the same distance over and over again at near race pace with a suitable recovery interval in between.

Organising the workout this way has proven to be an effective method of allowing running at race pace.

Early on, before the introduction of the interval training concept, the recovery was simply a pause long enough to allow a number of repetitions to be run at the same (near race) pace.

Therefore, when we discuss repetition workouts, the prime focus should be on the running pace, the recovery interval is of secondary importance. The recovery interval is solely to allow the runner to have a near-complete recovery between repetitions. To allow the runner to manage to run (a number of times) at close to race pace, the number of reps is always determined by dividing the target event.

Naturally, longer distance reps are utilised when the target is a long distance event; (e.g.: 6-10 x 1000m or 3-5 x 2000m for a target 10k race). While in middle distance events the repetitions tend to be shorter (e.g.: 7-10 x 500m or 4-5 x 1000m for 5k run and 4 x 400m or 2 x 800m for the Mile).

With the development of the repetition method, and the development of intermittent concepts in various formats and for different purposes such as those based on physiological concepts, or experience, or trial-and-error, the original concept behind repetition training has been changed.

Actually the repetition workout concept is more flexible. There is no longer a need to cover the total event distance in reps; longer reps can be done by time rather than distance, and repetition training has become merged into a generic “interval” training commonly used by long distance runners. But in my opinion the major change in the repetition workouts is that is used a pace that is different or faster than the race pace, it is more a “best” pace for the total repetition units. E.g.: a 3:45 1500m runner instead of do 5 x 500m 1:15 race pace does 5X500m quite all flat out faster than 1:15 race pace and delay the rest periods to allow a complete recovery.