Angelo

I’ve got some future articles planned that will get into this in some more detail and hopefully clear it up a bit.

Lyle

I get the equation:
Endurance Performance = VO2 max * Functional threshold * Efficiency

But what is the relationship between the earlier mentioned aerobic engine and the equation?
“Because, simply put, the guy with the bigger aerobic engine will outperform the guy running on higher anaerobic capacities. ”

Practically, when people are speaking about the aerobic/anaerobic system/capacities, could I interpreted it as:
Aerobic engine = VO2max
Anaerobic engine = Functional threshold
?

Thanks for the help
Angelo

As to your point about pedantics, it’s probably worth noting that no less of an authority then Wasserman merely pointed out that there was a non-linear change in pulmonary ventilation and blood lactate accumulation and that it corresponded ‘real good’ to individual work capacity. As you stated, it wasn’t until the other geeks got into the action that we started arguing over whether or not it was actually a threshold or not or if it was anaerobic or not and so on and so on…

To Clyde’s point, count me as someone who is a big believer in the LT concept/terminology. I’ve found it to be a very good metric (especially when coupled with metabolic data) for performance prediction and training plan development.

No disagreement here. The Lance study seems to have been fudged (I forget the details but it was discussed on the scienceofsport blog). Efficiency is clearly a determinant of performance, I was only questioning how much it could actually change.

Of course, running is different from many other endurance sports due to the ability to use elastic recoil from non-active tissues. I’ve seen work that weights and plyos can improve running efficiency for this reason, the athlete gets better at recovering energy passively.

Thanks for the comment,
Lyle

In sports such as running though, efficiency (and moreover economy) has always been regarded as at least one of, if the major factor governing endurance performance. It is generally economy (ml/kg/km) rather than efficiency is used as it better reflects changes in performance. There are plenty of studies comparing running economy (including many showing comparisons between African and European athletes, one famous example is discussed at http://www.sportsscientists.com/2007/12/running-economy-part-i.html ).

As for whether training can impact efficiency (in sports other than cycling) this is almost unquestionably correct, and is totally logical when peripheral adaptations (i.e. increased enzyme concentration, capillarisation, fibre type morphology etc) are considered.

One particularly interesting study on Paula Radcliffe titled “The Physiology of the World Record Holder for the Women’s Marathon” ( http://www.athleticscoaching.ca/UserFiles/File/Sport%20Science/Theory%20&%20Methodology/Endurance/General%20Concepts/Jones%20Physiology%20Womens%20WR%20Holder%20Marathon.pdf ) shows no increase in VO2 Max from age 18 to 29 but an improvement in economy from around 205 down to 175 ml/kg/km, and a subsequent increase in velocity at VO2 max from 20.5 to 23.5 km/hr. Combined with a significant improvement in lactate curve this lead to performance improvements resulting in going from being an excellent junior to becoming the best female marathoner of all time, with no overall change in VO2 max.

I think this shows even at the elite level genetic VO2 max is far from limiting, especially in true endurance events.

For the poster asking what level of endurance training 800 runners do, the answer is a lot. This page attempts to go through the base training of some of the alltime greats (although there are some dubious comments), and as you’ll see most base their training on a heap of low intensity endurance work.

I did address some of this in the long series on intervals vs. steady state already on the site. Including why sprinters do ‘aerobic’ work (usually in the form of extensive tempo). You’ll find your answer there.

They very short answer is that, in almost all sports, the majority of training volume is done at low intensities. Charlie Francis used to comment that about 65% of his sprinter’s volumes was low intensity. For true endurance sports it’s often closer to 75-80%.

There is simply a limit to how much high intensity work can or should be done during the week despite what the internet claims.

The slightly longer answer is that 800m guys do a fair bit of aerobic work although it depends on their relative strengths and weaknesses. Guys with speed (often coming up from the 400m) need more endurance, guys with endurance (coming down from the mile) need more speed.

Again, this isn’t the place for this discussion, save it for when I actually write about training the different pathways.

Lyle

Thanks for another thought-provoking article. I know I’ve seen you make similar comments to this article on the forums. If memory serves me right, some posts about even sprinters during aerobic work come to mind. Is that for anything more than general recovery?

I hope this isn’t too much of a tangent to the purpose of the article but I was hoping you could expand on this quote, “Strictly speaking, pretty much any event lasting about 2 minutes or longer has an endurance component ”

Say someone was training for a race that lasted close to 2 minutes, but slightly less, for ex. men’s 800m at the olympic level, where the WR time is 1:41

On average, what % of training time would you allocate towards aerobic work? And what would be the main benefits you would expect to get out of it?

Matt

Yes, that is another consideration for sure and I agree. Recovery between training tends to be aerobically determined and a bigger aerobic engine will facilitate overall recovery for sure.

Lyle

For example…you might see a 2Km row semi-final one day and a 2Km row the next…or some other event that has both a semi-final and final on the same day.

I thought that having a good aerobic base and recovery ability would be helpful in these instances.