I'll try and take a stab at this (one element of my ex phys research has tangented away from high performance and into holistic well being). Read up on what Dr. Inigo San Milan is doing in this space. He's got some great stuff.

We know that athletes that move throughout the day retain more of the fitness they earned in their training as opposed to those that are 8 hour desk jockeys. At what point that activity level becomes detrimental to recovery? I'm not sure what that is.

I *believe* Yann Le Meur (the guy that does the ex phys graphics on twitter) has made a graphical representation of the study that I'm referring to. I can't recall off the top of my head the exacts of how much better a daily active person is vs a desk jockey.

---

36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
Garmin Glycogen Use App | Garmin Fat Use App

FWIW, cyclists have long employed long training sessions that build to race pace during the last hour or so. The approach also seems to be catching on in running (or runners have also been doing it all along, and I'm just getting wind of it). It can be bit risky, but also seems to be rather effective, perhaps because glycogen depletion, per session, seems to be one of the triggers of the metabolic adaptations to training.

I get this, and doing a long run with some race pace or maybe even slightly faster can be useful. I don't know many "good" runners that would do what the guy I replied to is doing. He mentioned interval pace, which leads me to believe he is talking Daniels I pace which is more of a vO2max type of stimulus, and doing it after already running 2 hours. Maybe I'm way outta the loop, but doing 30 minutes of vO2max effort stuff after already having run 16-18 miles doesn't seem to have any real point. Running the 2nd hour of a 2 hour run at marathon pace? Makes total sense.

I'd also add it's not really "faddist" because the alternative strategies, e.g. "the 2x20" threshold religion" have no more solid basis. They're just "fads" that are now accepted as mainstream doctrine.

As Coggan said you can get your training stimulus over a wide range. He's probably right that, at this point, seeking the "perfect stimulus plan" is probably folly. But that doesn't mean that it's wrong to experiment with certain stimulus patterns based on anecdotal evidence. A training plan needs *some* kind of governing structure.

to quote myself,

Never underestimate how much improvement you can get from consistent aerobic training. There was a great interview with Peter Snell at Runners' World, but it's vanished now. Luckily letsrun has preserved it (about a third of the way down the page).
"Most physiologists are trained on the idea of specificity, and simply can't understand that slow training makes you faster. "
Bear in mind that Dr. Snell is himself a physiologist.

---

"It is a good feeling for old men who have begun to fear failure, any sort of failure, to set a schedule for exercise and stick to it. If an aging man can run a distance of three miles, for instance, he knows that whatever his other failures may be, he is not completely wasted away." Romain Gary, SI interview

from the Peter Snell interview mentioned in my last post,
"When you run at a moderate pace, your slow twitch muscle fibers are the first ones recruited. But if you run far enough, they become glycogen depleted and can no longer contract, so eventually the fast twitch fibers are recruited."
Slow training trains all the parts..

Also as MarkyV mentioned - mitochondria and capillary development happens at all training speeds, but the slower training (specifically for running here) allows more consistency in training, which ends up maximizing the training effects. HIT and HIIT always ends in tears and breakdowns unless very carefully coached/monitored.

My fault, I wasn't specific enough. Elevated capillarity and mitochondrial kinetics are classic explanations for longer endurance events (or those where the peripheral utilization of oxygen limits performance), as they allow you to work at an increasing percentage of max VO2. This is logical. My question is, what are the mechanisms by which slow training improves performance in VO2 max-dominated events, where the local ability to process oxygen outstrips the heart's ability to deliver it.

And I don't know about Peter Snell's explanation. With all due respect, I'd be surprised if he could find a single peer reviewed reference to support that claim, regardless of the race distance.

---

---------------------------------------------------------------

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/profile/domingjm

Even ignoring the importance of increases in a-vO2diff to training-induced improvements in VO2max, one could hypothesize that it takes a very large volume of training to maximize central cardiac adaptations, and hence maximal cardiac output.


Snell's statement is absolutely correct. (This is undergraduate exercise physiology textbook-level knowledge.)

And surely it isn't just about the training effect and adaptation from any one session. It is probably quite easy to demonstrate how one session provides a more optimal set of adaptations than another. The art surely is in writing a plan, containing multiple sessions across all relevant disciplines, that creates training stress yet allows adaptation through sufficient recovery. The art is in balancing the stress and the recovery in a way that creates the best long term adaptation, and then the fine art is in writing a more nuanced plan in such a way as to target your adaptation curve to maximise at the right time for your most important event.

I'm no coach or sports scientist, just an avid reader round these parts.. but it seems very important to me to take a step back, and then another step back again and look at a much wider picture. Without somebody painting your picture for you in a more nuanced way (ie an experienced coach), the polarized approach is probably a very simple and effective formula for balancing out stress vs recovery.

Which raises the question, wherein lies the sweet spot?

IOW, if you were going to train at only one intensity all the time, what would be hard enough to still provide a stimulus for adaptation, without requiring enormous volumes of exercise, yet not so hard that total volume must be unduly limited, or even different adaptations induced?

Does it have to be "only one intensity". Why can't it be a combination of intensities that give the same training load/score and duration?

No, of course it doesn't have to be one intensity.

OTOH, depending on your goals (and tolerance for tedium), one intensity may be all that is required.

Really, though, it was meant to be more of a hypothetical/thought-provoking question.

I'm on a Carmichael/Rutberg plan from the time crunched series. I don't have 11 hours a week to ride my bike just to be a Cat 5 road racer this year.

So, the plans focus on the tasks for the event: being able to surge and recover in limited time and repeat. It's mostly high intensity and threshold work with a couple hours of endurance miles each week. Even then the endurance miles are NOT what I'd consider LSB, LSB being probably around 100 to 130 watts. My endurance rides average around 200w or so, up to a metric century.

LSB is often used by pros with unlimited training time, since it is their job. Tour riders easily ride 400 miles a week on a low/medium week. That's 16 hours if you even do it at 25mph average. I'm in a Strava club with our company's pro team, and those guys are just a lower tier pro team, not TdF or Giro caliber but always are doing 350, 385, 425 miles per week.

Maybe you should ask the guy that kind of created the term sweet spot ....

LSB = long, slow base?

Historically, it's been termed long, slow distance (LSD), or, alternatively, long, steady distance (since the "slow" is only relative to the heavily interval-centric training programs of the Zapotek/Ryun/Prefontaine era that preceded the popularity of LSD).

Bah, what does that guy know?

As it (low intensity to glycogen depletion) dictates the order of motor unit types recruited, of course. But in the context of the OP's question, to say that training fast fibers is optimally accomplished only after glycogen depletion of slow fibers???

---

---------------------------------------------------------------

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/profile/domingjm

Snell was quoted as saying that fast twitch fibers will be recruited, and hence trained, even at lower intensities of exercise, provided that the duration is sufficient. This was offered as a possible explanation for why training at lower intensities of exercise still enhances performance at higher intensities of exercise. Whether this is the optimal approach is a different question.

I see. I was fixated on slow training being optimal.
This is just me mumbling publicly, but I still have a conceptual mental blockade that's preventing me from appreciating how operating consistently at (for instance) 60% max VO2 will translate to improved performance in a highly-trained individual's 5k (for instance), accomplished at ~95% max VO2. I just can't understand how training at those intensities (or higher) isn't paramount, practically to the exclusion of all other intensities. And I feel like for the professional athlete, we're always interested in "optimal" training conditions.
Similarly, if you're going to run for 90 minutes, when would it ever produce favorable results to run at 60% max instead of 65% max? Or 70% max?

---

---------------------------------------------------------------

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/profile/domingjm

did you read the Peter Snell interview ?
As Andrew mentioned, for a long time run training was based on the HIIT methods of Stampfl, Zatopek et al.
Long-term run training this way is guaranteed to produce injuries, burnout, overloaded sympathetic nervous system, etc etc, for the vast majority of athletes. We already know this, because it has been tried. There's a reason Lydiard-style run training is now orthodoxy.

Stampfl famously trained/advised Roger Bannister to the 4-minute mile. What is not so well known is the large volume of slower work Bannister did previously, which let him tolerate and benefit from those HIITs. Bannister's book "The Four-Minute Mile" shows he started building base as a schoolboy, then added to it with marathon bike rides as a student.
"my bicycle expeditions grew longer and longer, 70 miles in a day was a common average."
And, those 70 miles/day were most likely done on a 50lb bike with no gearing..
He also took up rowing shortly before starting at Oxford, and ran cross-country for Oxford.
There was a lot of training there that isn't high-intensity intervals.

For basic run training philosophy I am in complete agreement with Dave Roche, see
http://trailrunnermag.com/...r-trail-runners.html
Most running is done easy, but it is also necessary to do run economy and higher intensity work. Too much time at the high intensity is counterproductive.

See Seiler's hierarchy of training needs, paper cited here,

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...ost=6265044#p6265044

And Dr Seiler himself on slowtwitch,
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...ost=4940045#p4940045
"I also am still of the opinion that 3 zones works quite well for most people: Green zone (talking intensity, starts feeling like you are working after an hour, feel like eating as soon as you are finished, Yellow Zone (threshold, typical zone for those 45-60 minute workouts you hustle to squeeze in after work, pretty tough workout, but you did not have to go near your personal cellar of mental fortitude to finish), Red zone (requires mental mobilization, clear increasing perception of effort with every interval bout, no appetite for about an hour after training). And of course the most common training mistake is that a green zone session becomes yellow because of half wheeling, and the next day's planned red zone session fades to uhhhh....pink. Show me a champion and I will show you a person with intensity discipline who plans the work and works the plan, even on days when someone rides past them that they know they could reel in :-) "

And,
https://journals.humankinetics.com/...0.1123/ijspp.5.3.276
"Endurance athletes appear to self-organize toward a high-volume training approach with careful application of high-intensity training incorporated throughout the training cycle. Training intensification studies performed on already well-trained athletes do not provide any convincing evidence that a greater emphasis on high-intensity interval training in this highly trained athlete population gives long-term performance gains."

I am trying out this train slow, run fast method this year. All of my runs are being done under 150 bpm (my max is 197). I'm doing 45-55 mph depending on what phase of build I'm in. I have found my runs can differ in pace up to 30 seconds per mile depending on how I feel and the terrain. Should I just run at a consistent pace every single day or should I run off HR and let my pace fluctuate. If I do this, my pace can drop into faster zones so I feel I'm going too fast for this method.

Thanks for all of the references Doug. I mean, I can't be the only one that thinks "run slow, race fast" is counter-intuitive. Hopefully these help me make some sense out of it.

---

---------------------------------------------------------------

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/profile/domingjm

What is the rationale for using 150?

In general, yeah, the idea is to follow HR as a proxy for lactate. Occasionally you'll see an athlete tweet about how their "50min loop" was "an hour loop today." Such that they are letting feel or HR guide them to what is needed that day... i.e. i feel like shit but not so bad as to skip the workout thus i'll just slow it down and jog nice and easy."

In the case of running a too fast a pace because that's what HR said to do I would consider the possibility that you are/were carbohydrate depleted during that session or were carrying a significant amount of fatigue such that raising HR was difficult. Chatting with a prospective athlete today we discussed a session where he was supposed to be hitting a max effort over a 30min period at conclusion of which his avg BPM for the segment was 15-20 BPM below what it should have been were he fresh.

---

36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
Garmin Glycogen Use App | Garmin Fat Use App

It was good to get a little better understanding of Seiler's 3 zones in the latest video or at least to me it helped me understand better as he described it . Of course it would be even better (for me) if Seiler had a graphic that corresponded with Coggan's classic levels. He said that his 3 zones is based on a 5 zones used in Norway.

Starting at 0:14:00

However, my desire to understand his zones has nothing to do with my own training. I continue with my own training based out of WKO using the new ilevels. That is the personal preference path I have chosen to measure training and progress.

On a different note and I was really intrigued by Amanda Coker's go at the women's world record for most miles in a year last year. We could not call what she did as train slow (even though this was a record attempt and not training) because her daily average was between 230 to 240 miles a day with a 20+ mph average. Fairly fast for 240 miles/12 hour day and yet it had to be a low intensity effort because she only had a few hours of rest between the next day. I never attempted to see what kind of TSS that would be even if it was low L2. What was amazing was toward the end of the year she was holding 25mph for a number of miles so she seemed to show improvement even after a very long span of time in high volume low intensity. Just to get a better understanding of this I did a flat solo rails to trails path and was able to maintain a 22 mph average at my low L2, but still ended up with 0.8 IF to hold that over 40 miles with the slightest up gradient in some areas. I wanted to see how fast I could maintain and yet end up with the lowest TSS to get an idea. Even at lower wattage and only 40 miles I could still feel a slight bit of fatigue the next day. I just found what she did daily for a year interesting when it comes to fatigue.

But this too is not the path that I can take for training based on my weekly life structure. The best bang for the buck that I have found is sweet spot indoors during the work week with a 90 minute limit and if the weather permits I will do longer courses on the weekends at a mixed intensity with most of it at L2 and with hope to keep the ride under 300 TSS in order to stay consistent with the training schedule. Eventually, if things are progressing it all moves up and sweet spot is now the previous L4 and repeat and repeat while this thing stews in the crock pot. I will say that cooking in the crock pot of SST type training is that a lot of the time things don't seem to move for weeks and then all the sudden a big jump. I have just learned to stay patient with the schedule and wait for the adaptation.

I can see where those who have more weekly training time available could pick the train slow race fast path or even the polarized path.

FWIW, Rick Murphy also came to much the same conclusion.