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Aerobic, anaerobic, thresholds
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Also my understanding is that if you are purely looking to build aerobic fitness in this period you should not do any work at faster than aerobic base.
I'll leave it to the man with the Sports Phys. degree to explain why:-)
I had gleaned from the Base Training thread that it is said that you should not do any work faster than aerobic base, but unlike some of the other principles set out, that one didn't seem to be particularly well justified to me; however I don't have the grip on the physiology that Panto has, and I was interested to see whether he has a clear answer. The trouble is, for club purposes, I need to be competitive by the beginning of October, so I would rather not just do easy running in August and Sept unless there is a really good reason to do that.
By training your musles at lower intensity you get more or your muscles fibres (also type IIa fast twitch muscle fibres) to behave like slow twitch musles fibres that are good at doing just that.
After that base phase you train at higher intensity your type IIb fibres to do what they're good at ie anaerobically converting glucose into energy.
I suppose that the theory is that you can't train your type IIa fibres to be aerobically strong and anaerobically strong at the same time.
Please explain again properly if I completely misunderstood this!
I do enjoy hills though and do some serious off road trekking from time to time.
Is there a downside to some anaerobic events happening during mainly aerobic sessions? Perhaps 10-20% of a session once a week?
Thanks again for input..
JFB - I know you have to run a very low mileage comparative to your ability so you would be better off with more intensity than someone on higher mileage. Also you have a longer background in the sport.
I'd say the plan looks ideal - keep the hill reps / long intervals to LT and not faster; make the "steady" runs around AeT/MP (slightly slower first, then build up watching for cardiac drift - multiple short loops are ideal for this); throw in some strides and or mini hill reps (60m on 15% grad min) on one of the easy runs too - that'll keep strength and speed in place.
Re. anaerobic work negating aerobic work. I thought this was established and excepted by all (almost - there's always Micksta!) - I read Renato Canova saying the same the other day, but cannot find the quote. If I find later on, I'll post it up.
Imski - something like that... :-)
"There is one thing that you absolutely cannot skip, and this is to prepare your body for endurance. This is an enzymatic problem, and it's very different when you run, not with training, but naturally, when you are very, very young...
I think you need maybe 10 years for building your body. So when you are European or an American now who has a passion for running, and the passion starts at 15, 16 years old, in many cases, he has to do from 15 to 25 years [old] the basic work for building his body. And one of the big problems is that nobody has the patience to do this, because after two or three years they want already to go into very specific training, but it is not possible to get good results, because there is not a good base. So we want to build a house from the third floor. It's not possible...
Using the intervals for example, it's like the cherry on the cake — it's not the cake, it's the cherry on the cake. But if you have not the cake, where you put the cherry? This is the problem...
You can improve continuously in your aerobic level for 10, 12 years. We are speaking about aerobic resistance... Resistance is low intensity. Endurance is high specific intensity. But for arriving there you must prepare your body before."
Will be interested to see it if you do find the Canova quote, it seems such a key point to me.
My mate at Harrow, Chris Finill, is probably an ideal demonstration of what Canova says there, a guy who has been running steadily for 25 years or so and has recently become a GB international (at 100K); he attributes his fitness to the year-in,year-out steady training. He has never done huge mileages, but the cumulative effect has really paid dividends.
Consistency is the key - as you say year in year out steady training. That's my approach anyway.
My goal is to run a marathon as fast as I can in my life - not something I'll be doing in the next year or two, but the work I am doing is for then more than it is for now.
Remember: A lifetime PB is a single run...
Aerobic="with oxygen"if exercise is not too fast and is steady, then the heart can supply all the oxygen the muscles need.
Anaerobic="without oxygen"if exercise is done in short fast bursts, the heart cannot suplly blood and oxygen to the muscles as fast as the cells use them, therefore the reaction is incomplete and produces a waste product, a bit like incomplete combustion!
Also with training for long distance, maybe doing some shorter sessions could help. For example:
4x1500m with a 15 min gap between
Panto, what you say reminds me how much of a difference it can make if you compete with a club rather than going for the monster PB.
No, I thought not.
My club is low key and friendly and I am never expected to do any race other than what I choose. It is a great approach when seeking that "monster PB", IMHO.
I was just indulging in a bit of envy, if the truth be told!
However it is the process and the goal here. If if was unable to run any more from today I would have lots of good memories to look back on. If I had focused everything on the one goal I might not have. Then again Pantman's highs will be higher than a silver medal in the S.Yorks road relay cos Rotherham did not turn up:-)
I was really just concerned that, with the confusion around these concepts, people are not only mislead by a short answer but that it can steer them in the wrong direction. Long intervals for instance have a place but only right at the end of long-term aerobic training.
ah well, back to the thread eh? it's been a good one.
I'm on the first floor of the house and planning on focussinmg totally on the aerobic stuff for the forseeable future.
On the club front, tried it once and didn't like it. Elitist and arogant, I'm sure there are exceptions though!
Mr. "Cut my arm and it bleeds Barnsley AC"!!!
:-D
I have a low max HR at about 175 and RHR at 50.
85% sounds about right.
Also, just to put this aerobic anaerobic thing into perspective. The body is up to 18 times (!!!!!!!!!) more efficient when working aerobically to anaerobically. THAT is why you must keep your HR down when taking part in a distance event......keep away from that wall!
Anaerobic threshold runs are 90-93%
I've been through the Hadd system though of training yourself to run as efficiently (with as little lactate as possible) at lower HR ranges before moving on to those.
When we started out we simply did easy running, one long run (but not too long) and a couple of these sessions. NO LT work, let alone anything harder.
The AeT runs started out with about 20min @82%MHR. This then increased extensively (building up to 3 x 5K with 800m jog recovery) and, later on, intensively (building up to 88%MHR). The key is to never progress with these runs until "cardiac drift" is almost zero. In other words, you want the HR/pace to remain constant on the 2nd rep or else you wouldn't progress to a 3rd; to remain constant at 82%MHR or you wouldn't progress to 85%.
The theory, simply stated as I understand it, is that you gradually teach more and more fibres to work aerobically. Your FT fibres will "instinctively" "prefer" gylcolysis (anaerobic respiration = burning carbs and producing lactate). You start with ST fibres and make sure they trained to burn fat and work aerobically (lotsa easy miles) and then, fibre by fibre, go up the chain teaching the FTa fibres to work like ST ones.
If you jump up too quickly, sure you train the FTa fibres still and will get faster, but they do not learn to "become aerobic" to the same extent. Short term gain, but long term hinderance.
You see unlike a car which uses the
whole engine whatever speed you drive, when you run you use a muscle fibre at a time - never more than you need. And each time you run you come back and use the same fibres on the slower runs. So by slowly and patiently increasing the distance/intensity of these AeT runs you ensure each new set of fibres are adapting before moving on.
That is why AeT is only raised by "pushing up from below" - if you train over AeT you do not raise it, but lower it. Like a ball floating on the water it is raised from below and pushed down from above.
However, with AnT/LT you can push from below and/or pull up from above. Training close to LT (whether slightly slower or faster) will improve it. All you are doing is "embarrassing" the aerobic system to force it to improve - increasing oxygen uptake in the muscles. AeT by contrast is more concerned with the TYPE of metabolism and the fuel used.
The way we tend to approach it is like this. Work at AeT first. Focus on this and get the lower intensity sorted first. Noakes talks about not doing more than you need to, but applies it to mileage. I think it is a sound principle but better applied to intensity. When you work on AeT, unless you are already very fit, you will be raising LT speed (if not %MHR) too. No need to work any faster yet. This gives you a great foundation/base for future work too because you can hold a higher mileage. (In fact, you could work at mileage with just easy running before even starting AeT work - same principle a step further back).
When you can hold 3 (or even 4) x 5K (800m jog rec.) with no significant cardiac drift (no more than 2bpm) at 88%MHR, your AeT is AWESOME!!! Better than many people's LT! Trained to run a great marathon! After that you need to go away and improve LT...
As I understand it (and I'm no expert), you need to work on LT to improve oxygen uptake by the muscle. The muscle fibres are already using the oxygen they get as efficiently as possible cos you've been working on AeT. To improve further you need to just get more oxygen into the muscles - once that adaptation has taken place you can return to improving the utilisation of that oxygen.
Eventually (in the dim distant future for most of us), the limiting factor becomes getting enough oxygen TO the muscles as opposed to being TAKEN INTO the muscles. Then you need to work on your basic cardiac output - the lungs and heart getting more oxygen pumping around. But that's another story... ;-)
I hope this is of help, but like I say don't hold me to accuracy TOO much - I really am no expert in all this and am just sharing what I have learnt.
I have a big challenge at the moment with cardiac drift. I am now very focussed on keeping and eye on the HRM and adjusting pace to keep it steady inside 70-75% MHR.
I am also now only doing aerobic running and, subject to family ties, aiming to run every day for 1:00 to 1:30 and a longer run on Sunday.....patience it seems is a virtue!
Looking forward to a cracking set of results in Oct/Nov 10k and Half and January Marathon!