Near the end he suggests trying triple-threshold-days. Crazy.

I Think that if I started doing that I would burn out physically and mentally pretty fast.

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Morten Falk Størling
Blog l Instagram l Facebook

The threshold he is referring to isn't your typical instagram threshold :)

urgh, sorry man. i tried, but ain't nobody got time to read that!

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https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

only on slowtwitch does "norwegian model" mean what it means here. i love you guys ;-)

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

this is a good article, thanks for posting. the idea of stacking harder workouts (which sounds like they are carefully constrained to not be THAT hard) so that you can work hard on fewer days is interesting.

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Dimond Bikes Superfan

Yes.

But I did the image search just to confirm.

Thanks, this made my day! Hilarious.

Pure clickbait!!

Mike Smith is getting a little bit of attention with doing this set up with his pro and NAU runners as well. It makes sense and the old becomes new.

Interesting read


I'll say.


Anything coming out of, done in, or practiced in Norway in the world of Endurance Sports is ALWAYS worth the time to read through, digest and ingest. There are ALWAYS big takeaways!

In some respects there's not a whole lot of new here at a high-level.

That modulation of workload just below, right at and just above the Lactate Threshold has always been key. I seem to recall reading something a while back, and the article touches on this, is that the Kenyan's in middle and long distance running, have been absolute Masters at this for a long time!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

What was old is new again.

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http://www.magnoliamasters.com
http://www.snappingtortuga.com
http://www.swimeasyspeed.com

So how does the author of the article define anaerobic threshold? There are dozens of different definitions with huge differences in resulting lactate concentrations? I find it odd that he writes an entire article about how useful lactate training is but he fails to define the most important parameter. 2-3 mmol can mean something very different to different athletes.

There is a sort of defintion in another article but it is not really clear if he means LT1 or LT2.

Anyone know how Blu/Iden define their LT2? Their protocol is well known but I haven't heard yet how the derive LT2 from this.

this is one of my biggest frustrations with this whole issue. since the 90s when i got my first heart rate monitor as a teenager, i've read more articles, training guides, or protocols that play fast and loose with these terms. Aerobic threshold, anaerobic threshold, lactate threshold, ventilatory threshold, %max HR, %of threshold, % of FTP, %of VO2 max. there are all sorts of different scales for "zones," for HR, power, lactate, or perceived exertion, and so on. hell, i've heard both arild and olav explicitly say, "our training is quite polarized" and "our training is not polarized."

there's so much variation here that i think everyone needs to have a sort of 'pedantic paragraph' at the beginning where they say, "here's exactly what we mean with our measures of workout effort."

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https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

He's talking about LT2 as he says conventional literature talks about LT2 being 4mmol but in the real world it is most of the time somewhere between 2 and 3mmol for very well trained athletes. Also training slightly below the actual threshold allows to spend more time in the zone and better for recovery. At least that's my take of what they're saying.

Also, the longer the interval they lower in the range (more toward 2mmol) you go, and the shorter intervals (400m for running for example) you do them closer to 3mmol (but based on your individual profile through testing and frequent lactate measuring).

But yes agree with you that it can all be very confusing.

yes, but what does he use for the actual threshold?

I THINK blu etc say LT2 is 4mml

But it is confusing so maybe I misunderstood

Agreed

Add to that the inaccuracies of some heart rate monitors, power meters etc. And now the trend seems to be going by CP and not FTP

Disagreements what each term actually means

Disagreements on the most basic things such as how to accurately establish the number which all their training is based off of such as CP or FTP

How to actually find an athletes true max heart rate

If max heart rate in each of the 3 disciplines matters or not


3 zones 5 zones 7 zones

Of course not even talking about the best way to train these different levels/zones. Or if an athlete even should train them based upon level of experience, race distance etc

And some saying in the end well each person is different so yiu need to see what each athlete needs and what we said the Forst 90% of the program really doesn’t mean anything

Which of course is code for just buy our next book or hire us to be your coach so we can tell you the REAL way you should train

Its a shit show

I guess this uncertainty goes some way to explain why this article has been fertile ground for confirmation bias.

Are we all biased towards confusion? :)

I see a general notion that Norwegians are worth listening to (and worth looking at if you enter the wrong search terms), but no real conclusions beyond that because the article is nontrival to unravel.

Science of ultra podcast episode 10 has a great discussion on how to define LT. The answer is unfortunately that there’s no single point where lactate starts to accumulate faster than steady state due to it being a curve. There is no inflection point so any definition of it is arbitrary.

Science of ultra podcast episode 112 makes the point that the three zone model coincides with how people normally define LT1 and LT2 but is not identical. If you want to talk about lactate you use LT1 and LT2 but if you want to take about training zones LT is not the best. The suggestion in ep112 is:


“ Because I want to say precisely what I mean and mean precisely what I say, I talk about two thresholds, an economy threshold and the fatigue threshold. The former is not a true threshold in the sense of a discreet point but rather a very narrow range of intensity below which you have the same energy cost per unit of output and above which it costs you more energy for each increment in output (like running faster) - i.e., one value for economy for any pace or effort below the threshold and a progressively higher value for paces and efforts above it. The economy threshold is often found to coincide with, but I emphasize not identical to, the first lactate threshold, the first ventilatory threshold, the gas exchange threshold, and the aerobic threshold (though a few decades ago was actually called the anaerobic threshold before that term was moved to describe a second threshold). The second of the two thresholds I use is the fatigue threshold and this one is synonymous with critical power or critical speed. Work rates below it are sustainable at a steady state (assuming you maintain body temperature, fluid balance, and carbohydrate intake) and work rates above it will always bring fatigue at a highly predictable moment if the parameters of the person's work capacity are measured and known. This threshold is just above the maximal steady states (like maximal lactate steady state) and roughly coincide with the second ventilatory threshold, second lactate threshold, and the respiratory compensation threshold.

I use the terms economy and fatigue to label these points because that is exactly what I mean and exactly what we are concerned with in demonstrable function, ability, and capacity. For this reason, I only consider a three zone model to be physiologically relevant to running - or any endurance pursuit for that matter. ”

https://www.scienceofultra.com/blog/zones

You mean like he does in the article?

"I soon found out that lowering the lactate level from the standard level of 4.0 mmol/l down initially to below 3.0 – usually staying from 2.3 up to 3.0 on sessions gave not only far better results, you could also do huge amounts of “threshold training” – substantially more versus a level of close to 4.0, without wearing down. "

???????

"I soon found out that lowering the lactate level from the standard level of 4.0 mmol/l down initially to below 3.0 – usually staying from 2.3 up to 3.0 on sessions gave not only far better results, you could also do huge amounts of “threshold training” – substantially more versus a level of close to 4.0, without wearing down. "

He means LT2

Then you misunderstood

"Note that the post below is by no means a scientific article – and it is not meant to either. Rather, it is some thoughts, reflections, and experiences from an empirical perspective."