Sets like 6*60s all out, 6 minute rest between intervals. 8*45s all out, 5 minutes rest between intervals. 12*30s, 3 min RBI

You see the common denominator? Very short intervals, very hard, very long rest (you will want to rebuild most of your anaerobic capacity before pushing it out again).

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

A.k.a., the "go hard, puke, go home" approach common in many sprint sports (e.g., athletics, track cycling).

just curious....would this sort of training be of any use to a triathlete who competes in sprint tri's mostly? Or is something like threshold workouts and 'longer' V02 workouts of more benefit?

And a follow up to that question, could the development of the anaerobic system be to the detriment of the aerobic system ? I read some stuff that it did ,but was not sure how much credence to put into it.

I sure hope so. TR has me doing a mix of these in my training plan.

im in the offseason here in AUS and do them for cycle racing. I would suspect for shorter tri's they would be helpful?

Just re: previous posters comments, i did a full tri season focused on sprint tris. I did a team bike leg for a 70.3 at the end of the season, and through my own fault, didnt do huge amounts of steady long rides. Sure i did some, longer 80/85%FTP intervals, 2.5hr rides etc. But i did have a shocker of a bike leg on race day (comparatively to my sprint results). First 40kms felt great. Not so the back half. And that was pacing with a powermeter spot on as well. There is something to be said for specificity!

As I understand it, you anaerobic capacity will be "metered out" over the course of something like a 1 hour duration event. I don't know how to quantify this correctly in an example but your anaerobic capacity divided by one is a much larger number to add to your aerobic capacity than your anaerobic capacity divided by four or five (for a 70.3)... so anaerobic capacity is much more important for something like a sprint than a half-iron (but aerobic capacity still dominates in importance).

Disclaimer:

haha sounds about right!

Dr Coggan, can I get your opinion on the following paragraph, especially the bolded part.


I copied it from http://www.lactate.com/...bic_controlling.html

Do you believe there is such thing as overtraining one's anaerobic capacity at the expense of performance in mid to long distance tri ?


One of the important implications of the last principle is that the amount of the aerobic system an athlete can access during a race is dependent upon the strength of the anaerobic system. The stronger the anaerobic system, the lower the percentage of aerobic capacity an athlete will reach at the maximum lactate steady state. For longer races this is one of the most important factors affecting performance. Essentially, the anaerobic system acts as a Gate Keeper for the aerobic system. It determines how much can get used. An athlete may have a huge aerobic capacity and not be able to access most of it because of the anaerobic capacity.

Almost certainly not.

yes, time spend developing the anaerobic system is time your not spending toward the other one..... in this sense, it s detrimental to your developpement..(energy not well spent)

''Sprint'' triathlon is a aerobic event where sprinting ability is irrelevant

As for Coates: you are not doing much anaerobic work in your training outside of cycling races. 99% of your training is aerobic. Better keep it that way if you want to get faster in triathlon!

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Jonathan Caron / Professional Coach / ironman champions / age group world champions
Jonnyo Coaching
Instargram

completely agree.

But if you look at that link above and text it almost sounds like it's worst than just having lost valuable training and recovery time.

"An athlete may have a huge aerobic capacity and not be able to access most of it because of the anaerobic capacity".

this intrigues me. Wonder if it's true.

Oh bollox I agree. Hate it when I agree with Dr Coggan.

It goes further than that. There are things that happen on a cellular level with anaerobic development that completely contradict what happen during aerobic development. I'll let ex phys guys explain details so i don't screw them up but it goes past a "the time you're spending on A could be used on B".. more of a "Developing A actively chips away at B".



This is why anaerobic training for road cyclists is silly (besides improving neuromuscular firing patterns). Its not all "icing on cake".. some of it is "F'ing up the cake"

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yes, thank you. That is exactly what the above article is saying and what I was asking Dr Coggan about.

I'm guessing anaerobic is defined here in 'bursts' of 10 or so seconds? How are we defining anaerobic? Just curious because I know sufferfest 'violater' is all about 15 sec bursts etc

Big difference between 15 second max efforts with complete full recovery between each and 15 second efforts inside a larger interval (no clue what the sufferfest workout is, but since you said bursts I'm assuming the latter)

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http://cyclussports.com/ - #ZeroPositive #CyclusSports
http://app.strava.com/athletes/355549
https://twitter.com/ryanAjoyce

coates_hbk wrote:

I'm guessing anaerobic is defined here in 'bursts' of 10 or so seconds? How are we defining anaerobic? Just curious because I know sufferfest 'violater' is all about 15 sec bursts etc

We could use this

http://home.trainingpeaks.com/...ower-training-levels

Level 6, greater than 120% of FTP : Short (30 s to 3 min), high intensity intervals designed to increase anaerobic capacity.

One would think 3mins @ 120%ftp or more would assist in sprint tri training if it's done several times?

Since, I wrote this, I will tell you where it comes from. It is from Jan Olbrecht who was Luc van Lierde's training adviser and who now works with Luc and his triathletes. Also you should know that Olbrecht's definition of anaerobic capacity is different from what many academics use.

There seems to be some confusion about how anaerobic capacity fits in with endurance events. The paragraph above is about suppressing anaerobic capacity not building it up. So one wants to lower it or make it weaker for an endurance event. It is adjusting it down to a proper level.

For all events one wants maximum aerobic capacity but for anaerobic capacity one wants to fine tune it for the event. The lower it is the more the athlete can access his VO2 max during a race or essentially it is about raising the threshold. But too low becomes counter productive.

It is not about providing energy through the anaerobic system though some cyclists have told us that the anaerobic system is important for certain tactics in cycling which require accessing the anaerobic system for speed and acceleration for short periods of time.


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Jerry Cosgrove

Sports Resource Group
http://www.lactate.com
https://twitter.com/@LactatedotCom

First of all thanks for chiming in.
Your website actually convinced to read Olbrecht's book. I found it a little to specific to swimming but that's just an opinion.

If I transpose to cycling, is it fair to say Olbrecht's definition of anaerobic capacity is as Dr Coggan's ie 120+ % of FTP ?
Is it safe to say that someone with a large AWC has one at then expense of using their aerobic capacity ?



Do you believe that doing intervals at 120%, especially when you have an overestimated FTP, as many do, is detrimental to performance at or below threshold ?

When I read all this last year I left with the belief that developing VO2max was best done around 110% of true threshold and much higher than that was counter productive. Was I wrong ?

This is totally the key here. In order to go as hard as needed to make gains in the anaerobic system, you will need to be rested. You will have to replace your aerobic intervals with these anaerobic ones. Your aerobic conditioning will be the distance training only, and even that might have to go down a little in order to give you the legs for such hard workouts.

For sprint triathlon, a high vo2max and threshold is everything. You do not, however, need a flat power curve that a lot of distance training can give you. Such a power:duration curve is vital for 70.3 and 140.6, and there some of the very hard aerobic intervals might instead suffer in order to get enough volume in.

There is a need for balance in every training program, but of course the principle of specificity will force certain changes. For anaerobic events like the kilo that will lead to less aerobic conditioning and for a sprint tri that will lead to more aerobic intervall and lower volume.

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

Mountain bike racing.

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The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.

LOL. This.

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float , hammer , and jog