[Scott Johnston]

Brian:

Bjorn is correct.  All your metabolic markers like Aet and AnT are going to be sport specific.

I have seen your exact situation occur hundreds of time and it’s why I advocate for muscular endurance training.  The BIGGEST limiting factor to maintain submaximal intensity like Z3/4 or AnT work is going to be local muscular fatigue, even for elites.  You have picked up up on this as you see your HR drop from rep to rep in those workouts.  That’s not because you heart can’t keep up with muscular demand. It is because as the muscles fatigue and motor units drop out of the recruitment pool, the muscle, doing less work needs less oxygen so the heart rate slows.  The heart responds to the muscle not the other way around.

Now, you can develop ME with Z3-4 work.  That has been the traditional way and works very well for the very fit elites.  But that method imposes a significant global fatigue.  Specific ME workouts like no poles uphill skating trash your legs and build ME fast they don’t impose nearly the global fatigue load.

Scott