Just wondering if when you’re doing intervals above threshold (in any sport), the “amount” you work above threshold is more important than simply “being” there. My team (uni team so v poor students) works off perceived effort for workouts. E1 is recovery, E2a is lower aerobic, E2b is solid work, E3 is threshold (25m TT or 1500m swim) and E4 is high end (10m TT, 400m swim etc).
I would like to know if simply being “in” E4 gets you the benefits of being above threshold or if digging a bit deeper and pushing harder achieves greater fitness. I know it’s not that simple and energy systems are on a linear scale but any insight is welcome
Energy systems aren’t on a liner scale.
In order to increase your threshold you need to work above threshold. In order to increase the amount of time you can do work at threshold you need to do work at threshold for periods of time.
Energy systems aren’t on a liner scale.
In order to increase your threshold you need to work above threshold. In order to increase the amount of time you can do work at threshold you need to do work at threshold for periods of time.
Oh contrare mon frare.
Where were you giving that lecture again 
It all depends on what your goals and type of racing you are preparing for. For example: a runnerA training for an event lasting between 20 seconds up to 3 minutes or so(200m up to the 1600m) will benefit greatly from very intense workouts far above threshold. They will be fitter. However, if someone doing an event that lasts much longer than 3 minutes runnerB (i.e.5k and up)…but does the same workouts as the other group previously mentioned…well then runnerB is technically “less fit” because they will not be hitting the energy levels and lower intesity that they should be in workouts. They will all have had the same workouts…and be equally fit…but since they have different targets and goals…the ones who trained most closely to their target race distance and effort will be “the fittest”. Going far above threshold has just a small place in endurance events, especially something lasting over several hours. It does have a place though. especially if you are strapped for time and cant do the long sustained workouts. If you are training for a long event…I would consider keeping right at or below threshold for most of your workouts. I hope this helps.
perhaps i should have mentioned that i’m training for short course, sprint and olympic distance
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Yes, that helps alot. I believe you will benefit more from the above threshold workouts especially compared to HIM or above. That being said, I would focus more on being able to sustain the threshold workouts instead of completely exhausting yourself by giving everything you got all at once. They call them Sprint Triathlons however, at the cellular level it is far from sprint. Maybe push your last 1 or 2 sets of threshold work to your limits but spend the majority of your time right there AT that threshold. You will gain very little in this sport by focusing too much time at such high intensities as your body will NEVER be able to sustain maximum effort for more than a few minutes no matter how much training you do.
I don’t have any say in what the workouts are since they are written for the team as a whole only how much effort i put in. Are you saying that on the above threshold sessions should reign the effort in to just above threshold rather than pushing for the high end?
why would you want to follow some massive generalized plan if you have no idea if it is any good for you? different folks need different amounts of stress and rest to improve. you might as well use the universal answer of 42
yes, that is correct. It sounds as if you have a coach. Heres why you should NOT push too hard…too often…even though you may feel like you can. If yuou push too far above threshold today…then your body will need more than just tonight and tomorrow to recover or (rebuild what you you just tore down). The harder you go…the more rest and recovery your body needs. Without that time your body breaks down instead of builds up. This break down can come in the form of many things including…illness, injury, fatigue(malaise), or just general decrease in performance. You are probably a very aggressive athlete and want to push harder for more gains…but that can be a recipe for disaster in endurance sports. I know, I was a collegiate sprinter and football player and struggled with keeping my intensity in check when i started tri. Still do. Trust in your coach and read up more on energy systems and recovery.
Donno about you, but the energy for a 10mile TT is mostly aerobic glycolytic. It’s 20 min even if you can tt at 30mph.
Also, the zones are continuos, not quantized. So even at high endurance, there will be anaerobic glycolysis, just not a lot of it. Conversely, the adaptations of work in one zone will be manifested in improvement in another
But most importantly, you need to think in terms of lactate clearance. If some sort of a steady state can be maintained, then you can go for quite a while. Otoh, if you start accumulating more lactate than you can clear, then the duration will be much shorter. Also, as another poster pointed out, accumulation of lactate is not linear wrt intensity.
As for a 20min stand alone effort, i’d personally do 105-108% of FTP.
You also mentioned the issue of work in E4, and it seems you are implying work in VO2max zone, which is an effort sustainable for 8 minutes or so (read, you may ride 4 miles in that time). The key is to a) elicit vo2max, and b) duration at vo2max. That you are pushing a even higher wattage doesn’t help with vo2max, per se, as those contributions are mostly anaerobic. However, it may be useful to really punch it and then try to stay as close to vo2max as possible for the purpose of lactate clearance, but that itself doesn’t affect vo2max, which is upstream of the muscle cells doing the work.
If you are indeed interested in tgis stuff Dr Phil Skiba is an expert on the issue and he often posts here
Apologies, you are right. On review of the team handbook E4 effort is listed as “an effort where you would reach maximum heartrate after 10 minutes” so yes that is VO2 max effort
There’s a good discussion about this on wattage forum, and i think Lydiard also mentions it a bit.
I think the view is time @vO2max, regardless of power or any other factor.
Here’s an example. In a traditional 5 on 5 off vo2max workout, it essentially takes 1.5 minutes or so for oxygen delivery to hit its max. Therefore, only 3.5 min of actual vo2max time even if it’s an evenly paced effort. Your O2 carrying capacity will drop after the first interval, but most likely not to the level before the first, so for the second interval onward, you may only need say 60-75 seconds to reach vo2max.
Another example posited by Coggan was 45 on ( i think 150%) and 45 off (forgot the percent, but i think 50%), reapeat for 10 minutes. This is actually a vo2 max workout in disguise as o2 carrying capacity doesn’t drop so much in the 45 second of off period, and you’ll reach vo2max a lot quicker for the next on period.
Just wondering if when you’re doing intervals above threshold (in any sport), the “amount” you work above threshold is more important than simply “being” there.
Take this for what it is worth. It comes from the ideas of Jan Olbrecht who has observed that different fiber types respond differently to different training stimuli.
It is best if you understand what a workout at varying intensities will do to your physiology and specifically what it does to each fiber type. Each workout affects both the aerobic and anaerobic capacity of the muscle fibers and each workout will probably affect slow twitch and fast twitch fibers differently.
Workouts above threshold affect both the fast twitch and slow twitch fibers in different ways. Intense intervals will help develop aerobic capacity in fast twitch fibers while having a negative effect on slow twitch fibers. So too much above threshold will have negative effects on endurance capacity. So to get back to your original question, the “amount” does matter because of its effect on each of the fiber types.
The threshold is determined by the strength of both the aerobic and anaerobic systems. Since each type of workout affects these systems in different ways, one has to be careful in order to move the threshold in the right direction. It is necessary to know what is causing one’s particular threshold at the moment in the training cycle to do this efficiently.
Intense workouts also tend to increase anaerobic capacity which will lower one’s threshold. This can be offset by workouts at levels well below threshold which tends to lower anaerobic capacity, builds aerobic capacity in slow twitch fibre and helps regeneration. Training is a complicated procedure with the objective of building aerobic capacity to as high as possible in the current training cycle and then adjusting the anaerobic capacity to the right level just prior to the important race.
Over several training cycles, the main objective is to build aerobic capacity higher and higher and this requires training each of the fiber types in different ways.
Since the triathlon is composed of three disciplines and time for many is very limited, ideal training is just not feasible for all. But it will help if one understands just what a workout will do when parcelling out your training time.
Food for thought but the one thing to consider is that every workout will probably have both positive and negative effects and any good training program has to be a mix.
Just wondering if when you’re doing intervals above threshold (in any sport), the “amount” you work above threshold is more important than simply “being” there.
Workouts above threshold affect both the fast twitch and slow twitch fibers in different ways. Intense intervals will help develop aerobic capacity in fast twitch fibers while having a negative effect on slow twitch fibers. So too much above threshold will have negative effects on endurance capacity. So to get back to your original question, the “amount” does matter because of its effect on each of the fiber types.
NO. The only negative effect is that if the intensity is high, then the volume will necessarily be lower. Since SO fibers are activated at lower intensities, they are most effectively stimulated to develop with higher volumes. If the intensity is high and the volume is low, the SO fibers will not be sufficiently stimulated and will ultimately detrain. This is not a “negative effect”, just a lack of sufficient positive effect. It’s an important distinction though due to the misinterpretation that many hold that high intensity (supra threshold) training “ruins your base”. There is no actual harm done by the high intensity training, just that one generally needs to trade off some volume if the intensity is too much.
The threshold is determined by the strength of both the aerobic and anaerobic systems. Since each type of workout affects these systems in different ways, one has to be careful in order to move the threshold in the right direction. It is necessary to know what is causing one’s particular threshold at the moment in the training cycle to do this efficiently.
NO again. The “threshold” is really only determined by the “strength” of the aerobic systems. The “strength” of the “anaerobic” system(s) is inversely proportional to the “threshold”.
Sorry for all the quotes, but there are a lot of colloquialisms in there.
Thank you for posting this correction. I read slowtwitch a lot and it seems like there is always someone posting stuff that is simply wrong or at best misleading. I do not think there intention is to mislead but the results are the same. World class coaches and exercise physiologists post on this cite. Read their work and you will learn what you need.
You know that the various “zones” are arbitrary. The body does not really know or care what “zone” it’s in. Furthermore, perhaps you are running along in “Zone 2” different muscles and muscle fibers, maybe in different “zones”. The initial firing of certain hip flexer muscle fibers in the running gait may be a bit more explosive with more fast-twitch fiber recruitment and be more in say “Zone 4”, even though you are running along in “Zone” 2, by heart-rate. That’s why, even some top coaches toss all these zones out the window!
In application - read what Desert Dude said!
You know that the various “zones” are arbitrary. The body does not really know or care what “zone” it’s in.
hmmm
I think you mean to say something more like that the zones do not exist as discrete buckets but are merely arbitrary lines drawn along a continuum.
That continuum is very real, has meaning, and your body certainly does ‘care’ where along it you are, in various ways and senses.
NO. The only negative effect is that if the intensity is high, then the volume will necessarily be lower
This is part of what I said. I gave a reason for why the volume should be limited. Olbrecht talks about the negative effect on ST fibers with high intensity training. So I would see his book, The Science of Winning. I am just passing on what he recommends.
NO again. The “threshold” is really only determined by the “strength” of the aerobic systems. The “strength” of the “anaerobic” system(s) is inversely proportional to the “threshold”.
The threshold is determined by the glycolytic (the main anaerobic system) as well as the aerobic system. As the anaerobic system gets weaker (produces less lactate and hydrogen ions) the threshold goes up. As the anaerobic system gets stronger (produces more lactate and hydrogen ions) the threshold goes down. So I am not sure what you point is. The anaerobic system is trainable up or down and as an athlete does this the threshold will change accordingly. So yes, the threshold is inversely related to the strength of the anaerobic system which is what I originally said. For the theory behind this see
Mader, A. and H. Heck (1986). “A theory of the metabolic origin of “anaerobic threshold”.” International Journal of Sports Medicine 7(Sup): S45-S65.
Mader, A. (1991). “Evaluation of the endurance performance of marathon runners and theoretical analysis of test results.” Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness 31(1): 1-19.
Mader, A. (2003). “Glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation as a function of cytosolic phosphorylation state and power output of the muscle cell.” European Journal of Applied Physiology 88(4-5): 317-38.
These are very technical articles but come down to what I have been saying.
This as well as the training ideas on fiber types are discussed in detail in Jan Olbrecht’s The Science of Winning. The threshold is also discussed in detail on our website at
http://www.lactate.com/lactate_threshold.html
http://www.lactate.com/threshold.html
A lot of times when an athlete sees a change in the threshold it is due primarily to changes of anaerobic capacity.
hmmm
I think you mean to say something more like that the zones do not exist as discrete buckets but are merely arbitrary lines drawn along a continuum.
That continuum is very real, has meaning, and your body certainly does ‘care’ where along it you are, in various ways and senses.
Jack,
Yes. Absolutely right.
Thank you.
Thank you for posting this correction. I read slowtwitch a lot and it seems like there is always someone posting stuff that is simply wrong or at best misleading. I do not think there intention is to mislead but the results are the same. World class coaches and exercise physiologists post on this cite. Read their work and you will learn what you need.
I think the confusion stems from a persons definition of threshold, some people consider it FTP or what pace you could hold for an hour. Others base it on race distance etc (IM, HIM threshold etc) Some will also confuse lactic or anaerobic capacity with resistance, which are two different things.
A miler may have a peak lactic capacity in the 20’s where as an elite marathon runner may peak out at 8. This is the ability to recruit the anaerobic system. They both may have a similar VO2 max.
In terms of world class coaches there are some out there who are manipulating training based on the theory that anaerobic capacity does get in the way of aerobic utilization, in other words the size or present ability and ratio of each system affects the distribution or utilization of these systems across all “zones” or intensities.
Take a look at some of JerryC other posts, some really good debate on this subject.
Maurice,