No, I'm promoting the idea that base training is bullshit is ridiculous.

You just quoted that in your post. Why are you asking again?

And before you ignore that, I'll throw it out there again for you to also ignore: percentages of intensity relative to overall training change throughout the year. You've alluded to that as well with the break and build example. In addition, at peak fitness you're no longer adding anything to anything. You're maintaining or regressing. That's why it's a peak. Now you can go on and on about constant improving and all if you must, but in human physiology and proper methodology there is a clearly defined performance peak followed by a fitness decline. Following such a period is a return to that sub-threshold/endurance focus. It is not all just "base" and it sure as hell is not all "base training".

You can refuse to call it base and call it "cheddar-eating with bob" time if you want. That doesn't change the concept, nor does it change the notion of training that has a greater focus on those lower intensities than the high intensities.

x3

Return to sub threshold/endurance focus?

FTP is endurance. You don't have to reduce intensity while base training.

I think the reason why you're getting so frustrated is because you do not know how to qualify training load.

needmoreair wrote:

Base should be focused more on increasing aerobic development than maximizing anaerobic abilities as those erode the aerobic base.

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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/9927024/


CONCLUSION: Performance and aerobic factors associated with the performance were not altered by the 4 wk of intensive training at vVO2max despite the increase of plasma noradrenaline.


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Interval training at VO2max: effects on aerobic performance and overtraining markers.
AuthorsBillat VL, et al. Show allJournal
Med Sci Sports Exerc. 1999 Jan;31(1):156-63.
Affiliation
Sport Science Laboratory, Université Lille 2, Centre de Médicine du Sport C.C.A.S., Paris, France.

you must try harder if I may say so ;-)

I wasn't dismissing the idea of "aerobic base" but rather the idea that higher intensities erode endurance. Of course base is important and like Brian (and pretty much everyone else) has pointed out, everything you do contributes to your base, not just easy efforts. Even if we were to constrain our training to efforts that are primarily fueled aerobically, we would still be training up to and including VO2max type efforts which certainly add to one's fitness base.

Now that it seems you have allowed for some intensity during "base training" what intensities do you thin are appropriate? Would it make sense to do some threshold work? Maybe some VO2max efforts? Higher? And how often would these be appropriate?

Shane

Yes, I know. That's why I said practice. Is there any evidence that practice intense restraint erodes your ability to practice restraint over the long run?

For me its like this: I can do shitloads of training in Z2&3. I can accumulate 150-200TSS per day for a pretty long time as long as I keep the rides easy. This leads to pretty sweet gains in my zone 2 and 3, ie my heart rate gets lower and lower at these levels even after correcting for FTP gains (which ofc also occur). I can also ride for longer at a given watt watt without fatigueing as long as I am working <80%.

I can not do shitloads of training in upper Z3, Z4 or even Z5. I frequently do it, anyhow, to continue developing these systems. About once per week for now, during early winter.

Later on I will start reducing my easy milages and use the "extra TSS" that I free up to work more directly on FTP. I find that after doing a lot of volume I can withstand these stresses better and by that - make better more direct gains on my FTP.

This is why I do 8 weeks of building volume and TSS at a pretty low intensity before I start more intense training.

During racing season its hard to get a high enough training stress to cause further adaptions. There is always a race that you want to appear fresh and ready for it seems like, haha. Of course there is a lot of training stress from races but since you dont control them, like you do in a workout, you often overdo it and get sore and need a few days of extra rest. This is no way to get fit. This reduces fitness.

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Endurance coach | Physiotherapist (primary care) | Bikefitter | Swede

You don't? So you'll, say, do threshold intervals Tuesday, VO2 on Thursday, and race Sat and Sun? Year-round? Because that's never worked for anyone I've ever heard of for more than a couple of months. Why? Because you're putting out a ton of suprathreshold efforts on a continuous basis that isn't sustainable.

It's not frustration. It's more...intrigue. Perhaps the issue here is that so many of you are focused on work/races that involve racing and training under FTP so aren't familiar with the concept of multiple weeks of anaerobic work that's more prevalent in road racing where the intensity is so high and maintained for such long durations. So when you guys are talking about intensity, the vast majority of your work is still aerobic and you're not overextending yourself to the points I keep mentioning. Could be a key difference here.

Perhaps the "intensity" hasn't been qualified correctly, though I have continually repeated "above threshold/anaerobic".

4 weeks of 3x VO2 max workouts doesn't address what I'm talking about in the least. I could do that for 6-8 weeks and maintain normal training volume and come out singing on the other side, as I'm sure many others could.

I'm repeating myself here for the umpteenth time. Brian said base training is b.s., which is what the entire OP was about. He just dismissed it outright and then went on a tangent about a cumulative aerobic base. Base training is not bullshit, which is what my continued involvement in this thread is about. When you're in a peak/race phase, you are not doing base-training and you are not "contributing to base". You are not improving, you are maintaining and trying to prevent regressing for as long as your priority race sessions last. There is nothing building on anything, here. Building comes during the rest of the year, during those base and build periods. Neither of those periods is bullshit, despite Brian claiming base training is.

I have said from my very first couple of responses that intensity has its place year-round and one of the key attributes to a decent training plan is modulating the percentages of intensity relative to training load. That applies doubly to the concept of base-training because the focus there will be less superthreshold intensity and more sub and threshold work. There are any number of efforts one might incorporate and some that may eclipse (speed and strength work especially), but the point is that training is not focused on those superthreshold efforts and the vast, vast, vast majority of training and focus for that period is subthreshold.

Your practice of intense restraint involves making irrelevant posts, then simply insulting people when you can't adequately respond to what they've written?

You've got a lot of work to do.

At the risk of getting caught in the middle....

Isn't there a conflation here of intensity and overall training load?

Hypothetically if I go out and do only flat out high intensity three times a week for an excessive duration (or for example race a lot) to the extent that I cannot do any other training due to the necessity of recovery then my overall fitness may well start to drop as my overall training load is lower.

None of those high intensity sessions "eroded" my fitness base of themselves, indeed each of them probably added to it, but the overall impact on my fitness has been a negative one.

A poorly structured training load will be bad for fitness. I don't think anyone would disagree about that.

This seems to be entirely about semantics with no new ground being broken.

It's about managing training load, not about avoiding efforts above threshold/anaerobic. I think everyone agrees that peak training loads are not sustainable year-round. Depending on your race distance, that peak training load may consist of above threshold efforts or of lower intensity steady efforts. Clearly, there need to be periods during the year that overall training load is decreased to allow some recovery, but there's absolutely no reason that those periods of decreased training load shouldn't consist of intense threshold or VO2 max intervals or tempo rides. You just adjust total volume accordingly.

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-Andrew

Rather more elegantly put than I managed.

- Andrew (and coincidentally initials AMT!)

So are you saying that if I do a race that the stress of the event does not result in any fitness gains? Further, that it is impossible to arrive at the beginning of race season and through both training and racing finish the season with better fitness than at the beginning?


So the question I asked was how much, of what type and how often? Since the higher intensity sessions erode endurance, how many of these sessions should be prescribed per week so that the athlete builds fitness instead of regressing? What intensities will be appropriate in order to build fitness?

Shane

  
This: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxig2AF1-gw

What you are talking about here is a reduction in training volume. When you reduce training volume your fitness declines. It really has nothing to do with high intensity intervals directly reducing aerobic fitness. The fact is that unless you are doing sprint workouts which are hitting the neuromuscular side of the equation, everything you do, contributes to aerobic development. In fact there is a recent study that just came across that shows that these shorter interval can help aerobic development as measured in VO2 max.

http://www.tandfonline.com/....853841#.UoI1v_mshQa

The problem I see, and I've painfully waded through this whole post, is that because you are, at least what I would call over-racing, you are seeing a decline in fitness. In the cycling world this tends to be a much larger problem than in running or triathlon. Early season tends to be longer road races and then you get into crit season. Racers get into a cycle of race/recover/race/recover. The problem is that the week's volume goes from 15-20 hours when not racing to 8-10 when racing. This is especially true when there is a lot of travel involved. The problem is a massive reduction in volume and not that the high intensity work is eroding your fitness.

If you look at domestic pro cyclists, you'll notice that while even they suffer a bit from this, it is not as great as amateurs. The big reason why is that they are still putting in long L2 rides during the week since they don't have to sit at a desk all day.

When you say " So you'll, say, do threshold intervals Tuesday, VO2 on Thursday, and race Sat and Sun? Year-round? Because that's never worked for anyone I've ever heard of for more than a couple of months. Why? Because you're putting out a ton of suprathreshold efforts on a continuous basis that isn't sustainable." I'll just say you are doing it wrong. You have to balance the load. This is not sustainable because it is not a balanced plan and does not allow for enough recovery which leads to a reduction in volume, not because the workouts themselves degrade aerobic fitness.

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Heath Dotson
HD Coaching:Website |Twitter: 140 Characters or Less|Facebook:Follow us on Facebook

There's a lot of semantics.

That's a good point and can certainly be applicable if done the way you describe.

However, maintain the same training load yet shift the intensities to a much higher percentage of superthreshold work and you'll plateau and later regress as well (allowing for a decoupling from stagnation due to adaptation from an unchanging stimulus). There simply has to be a return to sustainable intensities with diminishing focus on superthreshold work relative to total workload at some point in the cycle. It's inevitable.

I understand the argument about overall training load. I addressed it in my previous reply. That's not what I'm talking about here.

Great point about the domestic pros that goes hand in hand with what I'm saying:

Modulation of percentages of intensity relative to overall training load. They're maintaining volume so we can disregard the aspect about lowering overall load. But domestic pros get worn down over a season. There are substantial down times and there are base/build periods throughout the season. I trained and raced with and against domestic pros for a few years. You come out of the spring crit block and you recharge. You back off that intensity and return to that subthreshold focus. You don't keep hammering away at crits (well, if you're fortunate enough) the entire season without a good chunk of time away from the intensity of racing and the high-end training necessary to be competitive at that level.

Simply because you're training above threshold doesn't mean you're not adding to your aerobic fitness. Training (and fitness) is a continuum. Although I'm certain there are some exceptions, pretty much whatever you do in terms of training will add to your fitness. Somethings promote certain adaptations better than others, but it all adds to it.

Additionally, just being over threshold doesn't make training this horrible evil thing that will destroy your fitness. Training at an intensity above threshold, i.e. Coggan Level 5 is *still* nearly a 100% aerobic workload, it's even possible for a workout focused heavily on Coggan Level 6 to be a strongly aerobic session.


It's sustainable if you manage the workload of your training properly. Is it possible that you'll reach a plateau in your performance or even a decline in performance doing this type of training indefinitely? Certainly, though the reasons for it have nothing to do with an erosion of your aerobic base. It's because you are not providing your body with an adequate stimulus to get stronger, or you are not doing enough work to maintain your fitness.

Not a lot of time just to click on random links.

If that's about being 10% wrong and all, maybe you can just give me a synopsis?

Thanks.

Hmmmm - it's interesting that we typed pretty close to the same thing.

There's a basic understanding of periodization and peaking here, right?

Are you adding to your fitness when you're peaked? Why can we not sustain a prolonged peak if it's all a continuum and we're simply adding to base?

During peak fitness, are we not providing the body with an adequate stimulus to get stronger or doing enough work to maintain fitness? See where I'm going, here?