Are VO2max workouts a waste of time?

My point is that workouts should be based on current fitness, not a goal. Basing workouts on current fitness is what can get you closer to a goal.

Let’s say we have two runners that respond to training the same way and both have 15:30 5k PRs. One guy has a goal of 15:20 and the other has a goal of 15:10. Are you going to train them differently? You should base workouts off of a goal right?

It depends. What are their mile PRS?

So are your workouts going to be based on 15:10, 15:20, or 15:30 pace? Why would I base my workouts on 15:30 pace if my goal is 15:10?

PR doesn’t matter, PR isn’t current fitness. PR is just PR.

I’m positive we all have examples of running workouts at X pace then when we race X pace is what we end up running.

Alan

For those that haven't read his book he references several studies and makes these claims based on the studies:

1. Improving VO2max does not improve performance

2. In well trained athletes VO2max does not change

3. Well trained runners will improve performance without improving VO2max

4. Based on above we should not focus our training on improving VO2max

Three women runners had VO2max of 73, 69 and 60,4 Their vVO2max values were 331, 329 and 328, and their best 3k times were 9:07, 9:04 and 9:08. Which is a better predictor of performance -- VO2max or vVO2max? And vVO2max can be improved by increasing VO2max or improving economy.

hog wrote:

Three women runners had VO2max of 73, 69 and 60,4 Their vVO2max values were 331, 329 and 328, and their best 3k times were 9:07, 9:04 and 9:08. Which is a better predictor of performance -- VO2max or vVO2max? And vVO2max can be improved by increasing VO2max or improving economy.

From his book Magness would say that studies show that vVO2max and VO2max have nothing to do with improving performance.

Ok, I’ll be more specific. We have 2 runners at a current fitness level of 15:30, meaning that is the best they could possibly do in a 5k. They both respond to the same type of training. One guy happens to be a little more ambitious than the other and has a goal of 15:10 while the other’s goal is 15:20. Physiologically speaking, there has got to be an ideal way to train both of these guys, and that is not going to change just because one has a different goal.

If these two guys are doing a lactate threshold run, they should base it off of their 15:30 fitness. If they are doing a 5k pace workout, they should base it off of their 15:30 fitness, not 15:10 or 15:20. I believe training at a current fitness level allows for better racing because in most cases, the athlete will show up to the line healthier and hungrier. Having some restraint in training will allow for more consistent training on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

It seems like your school of thought is that training is 100% about improving your fitness. But others believe that training should also consist of practice for the race.

I think a lot of people who value practice and not just training believe that doing workouts at your goal pace and faster than goal pace help you run that pace in the race. They design workouts that are mentally and physically applicable to the race you're practicing for, not just a generic stimulus to boost fitness that you run and then forget about.

So while you might be able to cite studies that show improving VO2Max or LT will improve results, and workouts at slower than goal race pace are ideal for improving VO2Max or LT, the guy who practices goal race pace more may perform better.

And that's what the OP is about, right? Design your training 100% based on what will directly help you perform in the race, not this roundabout method of trying to find particular physiological attributes which contribute to faster performances and then training purely to improve those physiological attributes.

poppyseed wrote:

So while you might be able to cite studies that show improving VO2Max or LT will improve results, and workouts at slower than goal race pace are ideal for improving VO2Max or LT, the guy who practices goal race pace more may perform better.

And that's what the OP is about, right? Design your training 100% based on what will directly help you perform in the race, not this roundabout method of trying to find particular physiological attributes which contribute to faster performances and then training purely to improve those physiological attributes.

But therein lies the issue.

We have good science out there that vo2max is trainable. Some argue that it is not, but I think the majority of the studies out there suggest a degree of trainability and the majority of those that suggest it is not trainable refer to trained athletes. That makes sense to me - you can get most of the adaptation available at a given time with about 6 weeks worth of work on the attribute in question, after that, there is little marginal return. But for those who train in periodized training cycles, there will be 2 or 3 times a year when you are not at your vo2max peak. So doing vo2max workouts would indeed in most cases improved vo2max (there are certainly some outlier low responders out there for whom this might be less true).

Where is the science that says that running at goal race pace better prepares your for racing at that pace?

I get that many people don't like the reductionist approach of training LT, running economy and vo2max in an effort to improve racing performance. I don't totally get there, but the argument that there is something to training at some paces other than those paces is an argument that I understand - there are so many things that we haven't figured out when it comes to the human body that it would be silly to think that we have figured it all out and if it doesn't fit into the vo2max. LT or running economy box, it is not worth doing.

But that is a long way away from saying that running at goal pace is somehow better for race preparedness than running at vo2max pace. I just don't think that there is good science out there to support that, which leaves us with intuition, anecdote and perhaps individual personal experience. Those are fine, but if I am going to choose between two approaches, I would prefer to go with the approach that has at least some scientific basis underlying it, especially since there is decades of evidence that these approaches to training do indeed lead to improved performance.

Could people be improving despite some kind of inefficiency in this approach? Might there be a better and more efficient way of training? Is vo2max training simply succeeding because training at that pace is actually training some unknown variable which happens to correlate to vo2max? Sure, maybe so with respect to each instance. But, and this could just be a quirk of my personality, I'd like a stronger basis for abandoning a conventional approach grounded in science with a good track record of practical application than an intuitive appeal.

Except as Magness says, improving VO2max does not improve performance.

I'm not the person to ask to link scientific studies. If they exist, I don't know about them. But I'd like to at least discuss the topic anyway.

Imagine two identical runners who train for the 10k for 10 years. I chose the 10k since 10k pace isn't a typical training pace. So these guys train for the 10k by doing long runs, LT work, VO2Max work, a little speed, strength training, whatever. They never "practice for the race" or do any 10k race pace work, goal pace or otherwise. They just train to get fitter. Except one guy runs several 10k races a year, while the other guy never races the 10k once in his life. At the end of the 10 years, who would win in a race, the racer or the trainer?

The trainer should be fitter because every time the racer was racing a 10k, the trainer was doing workouts that yielded more useful physiological adaptations. So you'd bet on the trainer? The racer has been wasting his time and energy practicing the 10k all these years? I really can't believe this is the position someone would take but I'm not sure how else to interpret your dismissal of practicing race pace.

I never said you can’t train at or faster than your goal pace. That’s what doing some things at current 3k pace, current mile pace, etc are for. Volume and rest just need to be adjusted accordingly to fit the pace. If people keep thinking about goal 5k pace, goal 3k pace, goal mile pace, generally they are training too hard.

There are so many things that go into the overall scope of training, and some of that is faster interval training, strides, hill sprints, etc. I just only happened to mention lactate threshold and 5k pace work (vo2max work) in my last post. Is that not included in your definition of practicing running faster than goal pace?

As long as the trainer has some general racing experience, he/she will be fine. What if the racer has too lofty of a goal for the 10k, and he/she goes out too hard and blows up? Plenty of people have great 10k debuts. It’s not necessarily a factor of who has practiced the race more, but a factor of many other things, with fitness being #1.

Or, do what Mark Nenow did and race yourself into shape.

A few thoughts: first, I honestly don't think that the racer in your experiment is really better prepared to race the 10k because he or she raced it some. The skill set required for the 5k and 10k are so similar, I just don't see the bit of distance specific racing making all that much of a difference. If they were both roughly equally fit, sure I'd give the racer the nod solely based on the race experience being the only distinguishing factor between the two.

And I also don't see the racer being at a huge disadvantage as a result of missing workouts that the trainer was doing. Races are among the best workouts you can get, so I wouldn't think that the racer is worse off as a result of running 6 miles at 10 seconds per mile slower than the pace at which the trainer is doing 4 x 1 mile with 3:00-4:00 rest.

But your example is both an example so extreme that the applicability of whatever point you are making is extremely limited, and is based on an assumption that I don't agree with: that the trainer would never train at race pace. If I am going to train for a 10k, I would do a cycle that emphasized rep work early, then vo2max work, and then at the end of the cycle, with 2-3 weeks to go, my workouts would shift to workouts that included 10k paced efforts so as to have some familiarity with the distance. At this point, whatever running economy and vo2max gains that were available would have been obtained, and you'd be able to maintain them with some work at 10k pace while building some familiarity with race pace.

Finally, none of that really goes to the OP's question of whether or not vo2max work is useless. I don't think saying that doing some work at 10k pace is a good idea at all diminishes the validity or usefulness of work at vo2max pace.

Smoove wrote:

my workouts would shift to workouts that included 10k paced efforts so as to have some familiarity with the distance. At this point, whatever running economy and vo2max gains that were available would have been obtained, and you'd be able to maintain them with some work at 10k pace while building some familiarity with race pace.

Then I'm not sure I understand what you were getting at when you said this:

Smoove wrote:

Where is the science that says that running at goal race pace better prepares your for racing at that pace?

Why would you start doing 10k pace effort and build familiarity with race pace if you don't think it helps prepare you to race at that pace?

If your VO2 drops, so does your performance so you better work on it.

I do think it prepares you to race by helping you gain familiarity with what that pace feels like. It is about mental preparation, not physical preparation. By the time that you get to the last few weeks of a training cycle, the physical adaptations are (or should be) established, and whatever workouts you donthose last 2-3 weeks will have little, if any, impact on your physical preparedness. But familiarity with pace does have psychological benefits.

I wouldn't do 10k pace work to increase my fitness, but rather to increase my mental preparedness.

As an aside, I raced the 5000m throughout my college career. I raced the 10,000m twice, and all of my core period training was done at vo2max pace pace. I did not touch on 10,000m pace at all. I just went out and raced it once to get the standard for a particular meet, then again at that meet. My time was a little slower than my 5000m would have predicted, but was pretty. I have in line with that time if you adjust for the race circumstances. Anecdotal, but it is a bit of additional real world confirmation for me that the practical and theoretical line up (I recognize it wouldn't be meaningful to someone else).

poppyseed wrote:

Smoove wrote:

my workouts would shift to workouts that included 10k paced efforts so as to have some familiarity with the distance. At this point, whatever running economy and vo2max gains that were available would have been obtained, and you'd be able to maintain them with some work at 10k pace while building some familiarity with race pace.

Then I'm not sure I understand what you were getting at when you said this:

Smoove wrote:

Where is the science that says that running at goal race pace better prepares your for racing at that pace?

Why would you start doing 10k pace effort and build familiarity with race pace if you don't think it helps prepare you to race at that pace?

And this is where the art of coaching meets the science of training.

I’m sure we can find science to support both training at current pace and training at goal pace.

The issue is finding studies which are long enough and include trained runners.

I try to look at this logically. What is the purpose of interval training? How can I adjust the variables to meet my goal long term? Rest is a variable we don’t often adjust as much as we probably should. So as an example, what if your current 2 mile pace is 72 sec per 400m. So let’s try to train for 70 sec per 400m. Let’s say as an example, 8 x 400m at 70 sec, w/70 sec recovery. Over time reduce the rest. If you can get all 8 at 70 or better then drop 10s from the rest, train, adapt, drop the rest again....you see where this is going? Too often we get stuck in dogmatic principles or focused on outside variables and lose sight of what the goal is.....faster racing.

Alan

use it or lose it wrote:

If your VO2 drops, so does your performance so you better work on it.

Didn't Ron Hill only have a vo2 max of 69? Same deal for Cam Levins. There are many different factors that effect performance i.e. running economy, mental strength, pain tolerance etc. For what it worth the highest vo2 max ever recorded was by a xc skier and his 10k pr was only 30 minutes. Does vo2 max workouts improve performance? Well compared to what? When it comes to 10k runners and above overall mileage, tempo runs, progression runs and hilly fartlek runs will do way more to improve your overall performance than doing a vo2 max workout.

Just my 0.02