More aerobic than people think?

interesting

This might explain why Clyde Hart's 400m Runners are consistantly the best in the world.

It's very hard to get it across to people that even 400 runners need some aerobic training, and as the study shows, it's a necessity. Even the USATF Level I book has old data. I think it said the energy contribution for the 1500 meters was 50-50. If anyone knows of any other recent studies like this, please post because I am sure there are many people who will find them useful. And, yes, if you have looked at Clyde Hart's training, you'll notice there is a lot of overdistance work.

J Sports Sci. 1999 Jun;17(6):477-83

Energy system contributions in middle-distance running events.

Hill DW.

Department of Kinesiology, University of North Texas, Denton 76203-1337, USA.

dhill@unt.edu

The aim of this study was to estimate the energy contributions in middle-distance running events for male and female university athletes.

The oxygen uptake (VO2) response during high-speed running was measured directly during exhaustive treadmill tests. Muscle mass was estimated using anthropometry. Each athlete completed an average of three races over 400 m, 800 m or 1500 m. Five minutes after each race, they provided a blood sample for determination of blood lactate concentration. For each race, energy cost, which was expressed as oxygen equivalents, was calculated as the sum of the aerobic and anaerobic components.

The aerobic contribution was calculated as the sum of oxygen stores (2.3 ml O2.kg body mass-1) and total VO2 (based on the VO2 response to treadmill running). The anaerobic contribution was calculated as the sum of the energy available from phosphocreatine stores (37 ml O2.kg muscle mass-1) and the energy from glycolysis (3.0 ml O2.kg body mass-1 per mmol.l-1 increase in blood lactate concentration).

For the women, the anaerobic energy contributions for the 400 m, 800 m and 1500 m averaged 62%, 33% and 17%, respectively.

For the men, the anaerobic contributions averaged 63%, 39% and 20%, respectively. This information will help coaches and sport scientists to design and implement individualized training programmes.

Women:

400 - 38% Aer + 62% Anaer

800 - 67% Aer + 33% Anaer

1500 - 83% Aer + 17% Anaer

Men:

400 - 37% Aer + 63% Anaer

800 - 61% Aer + 39% Anaer

1500 - 80% Aer + 20% Anaer

hill city wrote:

It's very hard to get it across to people that even 400 runners need some aerobic training, and as the study shows, it's a necessity. Even the USATF Level I book has old data. I think it said the energy contribution for the 1500 meters was 50-50. If anyone knows of any other recent studies like this, please post because I am sure there are many people who will find them useful. And, yes, if you have looked at Clyde Hart's training, you'll notice there is a lot of overdistance work.

I have a big beef with the USATF Coaching Certification Program. It has been my experience that it is complete BS, especially their approach to distance training. The seem to think that Lactic Acid Tolerance and VO2 Max are the most important things for distance runners. They seem to completely neglect Lactacte Threshold and Muscular Endurance. In my experience, LAT and VO2 Max don't mean squat compared to the later two.

I bookmarked this a couple of weeks ago. I believe the article is citing the same study:http://ingrid-kristiansen.com/holisticfitness/running.htm

Training Better Distance Runners

Martin, D.E. and P. N. Coe 1991; Leisure Press, Champaign Il, USA p127

Table 3.4

The difference in energy sources that contribute to racing performances in Olympic Distance Events

800m: Phosphate 5%, Lactate 38%, Aerobic 57%

1500m: Phosphate 2%, Lactate 22%, Aerobic 76%

3000m: Phosphate <1%, Lactate 12%, Aerobic 88%

5000m: Phosphate <1%, Lactate 7%, Aerobic 93%

10000m: Phosphate <1%, Lactate 3%, Aerobic 97%

Marathon: Phosphate <1%, Lactate <1%, Aerobic 99%

It is arguable, that you cannot get high levels of lactate in the middle distances WITHOUT a high level aerobic system because the body cannot properly sustain running at speed without it. 400m in 45 seconds is probably achievable on lactate and high muscle power, but the demands almost certainly lead to a deterioration in the muscle cell making the body susceptible to injuries after about 6-8 years of this work.

If you look at Coe when he ran his world records he was certainly not in Lactate stress at the end. If he had reached figures higher than 15mm he would likely have retched at the end, not just jogged away.

Most of my lactate came from trying to sprint (badly) at the end of races and this gives a false picture of the race demands as a whole.

Someone once posted a study about how drastic the drop off to aerobic is at around 100 seconds. For Novices who have less VO2 max and aerobic development, it would be different.

The results showed that a strong majority of the 800m is aerobic.

what's more intereseting are the instantaneous energy substrates enroute

Thing is what this means is that surely it follows that the training sessions we assume to be more anaerobic are probably more aerobic than previosuly thought also? So no change necessarily in approach.

Where do you coach TX coach?

I think that the important apects to emphasise are:

-the last part of the 800m relies heavily on aerobic resources

-aerobic systems require far more work to develop than anerobic systems

This is a pro high mileage web sight. You guys are pretending science backs up what you want to believe.

Can a 400m runner benefit from doing relative large volumes of work slower than race pace?

example:

46 sec 400 runner

4x300 @ 42 sec

4x200 @ 26 sec

J Sports Sci. 2005 Mar;23(3):299-307

Energy system contribution to 400-metre and 800-metre track running.

Duffield R, Dawson B, Goodman C.

School of Human Movement and Exercise Science, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia.

rduffield@csu.edu.au

As a wide range of values has been reported for the relative energetics of 400-m and 800-m track running events, this study aimed to quantify the respective aerobic and anaerobic energy contributions to these events during track running.

Sixteen trained 400-m (11 males, 5 females) and 11 trained 800-m (9 males, 2 females) athletes participated in this study. The participants performed (on separate days) a laboratory graded exercsie test and multiple race time-trials. The relative energy system contribution was calculated by multiple methods based upon measures of race VO2, accumulated oxygen deficit (AOD), blood lactate and estimated phosphocreatine degradation (lactate/PCr).

The aerobic/anaerobic energy system contribution (AOD method) to the 400-m event was calculated as 41/59% (male) and 45/55% (female).

For the 800-m event, an increased aerobic involvement was noted with a 60/40% (male) and 70/30% (female) respective contribution.

Significant (P < 0.05) negative correlations were noted between race performance and anaerobic energy system involvement (lactate/PCr) for the male 800-m and female 400-m events (r = - 0.77 and - 0.87 respectively).

These track running data compare well with previous estimates of the relative energy system contributions to the 400-m and 800-m events. Additionally, the relative importance and speed of interaction of the respective metabolic pathways has implications to training for these events.

fgfg wrote:

This is a pro high mileage web sight. You guys are pretending science backs up what you want to believe.

Perhaps that and the training of just about every great 800m runner in modern history.

Is it possible to receive the original study?

Thanks ahead,

amitarad@013.net

It is fascinating when a thread from 11 years ago pops up...

What I found interesting was the complaint about USATF having out of date information. I attended my first USATF level 1 in 1997 and noted that the values for the 800 were out of date. The person in charged looked at me like "What the hell do you know"? Well I was just finishing up a masters in exercise science and had had Dr. Dave Martin as a prof and had just been hired by the USOC so maybe I knew something HAVING READ THE LITERATURE. Okay, I just pointed out that the current literature had different values and the methods for measuring were more accurate now.

Move forward to a couple of years ago. I go to a level 1 refresher course. Very little had changed in the 15 or so years since I took level 1. And the numbers for the 800 were still wrong.

Since I had met the coaching certification director at USATF, I dropped her an email and included references. Never even got a response. Really frustrated me on two levels. 1) I was a member and certified coach and 2) she knew me from my days in a similar position for another organization.