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Scott Johnston
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Great question but here’s a not great answer:
No one knows how where that point of diminishing returns is! The comment you heard from me in a podcast is: If you can’t deadlift your body weight you might see gains in running performance with increasing that number. This is just my opinion that deadlifting 1.5xBW and back squatting 1xBW are likely to help your overall sport performance and durability. Speding hours and hours in the gym trying to increase your deadlift to 2xBW is just going to take time away from more spent specific training. These lifts are great general strength movements but, again in my opinion, have poor transferability to endurance sports once these numbers are reached. However they can provide a great base for progressing to more sport specific strength and power movements as well as muscular endurance. Power (the rate at which force or strength can be applied)and muscular endurance (the ability of a muscle to produce a high % of of its max force for many repetitions) are really what we care about in sports. Those general strength movements are done at speeds in on the order of 1-4 seconds. This is far slower than the rate of force production in running for instance. Thus the brain is not learning to recruit and fire the propelling muscles in the same way it would do in, say, running. So, while those power lifters are very strong they are not necessarily very powerful. The Olympic lifts of clean-and-jerk and snatch are the epitome of power. To enhance endurance sport performance strength must be converted to the much more spent specific qualities of power and muscular endurance. Even when developed in only semi sport-specific ways like high rep Bulgarian split squat as an example of a muscular endurance exercise or hurdle hops when it comes to power, these transfer very well to improving endurance performance.Think of the progression being:
#1- Increase general strength
#2- Move on to more sport specific strength
#3- Use that sport specific strength to develop sport specific power and muscular endurance.
All that said I have had many athletes just do #3 when they have limited general strength experience, have a rapidly approaching event, or don’t have access to a gym. They will see good gains in both power and muscular endurance. Maybe not as big of gains as they would have it they had many months for the full progression, but impressive gains regardless. But this method is less likely to reduce sarcopenia or improve daily strength.
The hill sprint workout described here is my go to power exercise for all mountain athletes. Similarly the various forms of muscular endurance routine described here have a powerful training effect and transfer well to all mountain sports.
I hope this helps,
Scott
Fred:
Sorry for the late reply. First let me say that your English is great. I’ve met native English speakers who cold not put there sentences together so well. Now on to your question.
Clearly the last test started at too high of of a speed so disregard it. While it is possible that your aerobic capacity increased in one week, I doubt your AeT would increase very much. Regardless of the test results if training with 148 as an AeT leaves you quite tired with heavy legs this is too high of a speed/heart rate. Given your life history I think your choice of 140 as the top of your Zone 2 or AeT is a better place for you to train for the next 6 weeks. There will be a day sometime after 4 weeks of careful training in the 130-14o range when you notice that you are going faster. Maybe you will be on a trail you go to frequently and that day you will notice that you are (I’m just making up the number) 2min faster than normal to some land mark. This is happening because your aerobic capacity has increased and this would be a good time to do another drift test maybe using 145 as the starting HR. This process takes patience but you will see gains over the months in both pace and HR at AeT. Don’t try to force the improvement. Let it happen. If you need to walk on some hills to stay below 140 that is what you must do. The biggest improvement in aerobic capacity will come from consistency and a high volume of this training. If your legs are too tired for training too hard you will not be able to achieve either a high volume of consistency.
I hope this helps
Scott
maolillia;
So sorry to hear about your prolonged struggle with injury. My answer might be too late for you this time but consider it for the future. Here is what we typically do with injured runners: cycling, elliptical, treadmill hiking at an incline, using a device like the Lever .
I hope this helps and sorry to be so slow in replying.
Scott
Welcome to the world of mountain running. You have figured out that it is not as simple as training for road running. One of the reasons we suggest tracking distance, vertical and most importantly HOURS. A 15km run on rolling terrain and good footing is a very different animal than a muddy 15km on rough trails with 900m of vert. One of the difficulties of training for mountain running is that you must train for these extremes and everything in between. you might want read this article https://evokeendurance.com/resources/training-for-mountain-running/
I suggest the Luke Nelson plan.
Scott
I confess to being bit confused by your question. The Z2 base work is critical for success in long events. However I would normally recommend just adding more easy volume to the weeks in the plan if you feel you handle it. It sounds like you extended your base period another 2 weeks. Nothing wrong with that. I would not cutout the gym ME from the plan. I question the wisdom of doing another race 2 weeks prior to the original planned date. Because you will need to taper for that race and then need some recovery time afterward. Both of those cut into valuable training time. If I am missing the point please add more detail.
Scott
Risto:
With a mountaineering goal and 8-12 weeks left to prepare I suggest continuing the weighted uphill ME workouts along with the Z1, 2 and 3 work you suggest.
Scott
So sorry to have missed this question. By now you are already closing in on your race. But hopefully this will help you next time. Subbing 30-30s for the uphill Z3 work makes sense because this event is shorter and flatter. The benefit of the 30-30s is that they allow you to recruit higher force fibers and give them an aerobic stimulus. This will lead to an increase in running economy.
Sorry again and good luck in your race,
Scott
You’ve just shown that the advertising slogan “Red Bull Gives Wings” is true. The sugar boosted the glycolytic (carbs) contribution to the energy needed for these test. The caffeine jacked your HR. As test you can put on your HR chest strap and drink a Red Bull. You will see your resting HR 5-10bpm higher if not more. Rising from 155 to low 160s over the test (3-4%) indicates that you were very close to your aerobic threshold when you started at 155. My recommendation would be to use that for the upper end of Z2 and retest, without the Red Bull, in a 4-6 weeks.
I hope this helps,
ScottGuys:
Sorry for your troubles using TP. I recommend contacting TP customer support so you can address specific details. I don’t know what the problems are that are causing you so much trouble but hundreds of people each month buy training plans and I have never heard these complaints. In the end this is way above my pay grade and all I can offer is to contact TP help. Do this by clicking on Training Peaks in the upper right hand corner of you calendar and submit a help ticket.
Scott
Mattias:
It is fine to mix max strength and ME in the same week as they have entirely different training effects. The max strength workouts should not be exhausting and could even involve some single leg lower body exercises like box step ups and Bulgarian Split Squat. Try that and see if you are recovering well. If not recovering drop the lower body max strength.
Scott
Natro:
Sorry got the slow reply. It has been rather busy around here with lots of guys in the final weeks of training before they are off to selection. If you have no alternative then for sure you can and should substitute exercises that you can do in your gym. Of course you won’t be able to load up the weight as much using KBs. But do the exercises as closely as you can.
Scott
The stair machine is a very effective and specific tool for increasing ME for going up hill. With the numbers you supplied you are already in zone 3 on these workouts. I think you will find them more effective if done with weight. Try 10% BW at first. I predict you will see a lower HR at the onset of that “burn”.
Scott
Sorry for the slow reply to your very good questions.
Do the AnT on the terrain that simulates your goal event. For most mountain runners we have used 15% to 30% depending on the athlete level and having access to an incline trainer. For mixing terrain you may need to do both the AeT and AnT tests on flattish and steep grades. Some people will find these thresholds to be the same for steep and flat. But, others will see a big difference depending on grade.
We suggest the steeper incline for the AnT test because it simulates the terrain and grades where most mountain runners are hitting their limit.
Scott
Hey Steve:
Thanks for the questions and sorry for the slow reply.
Read this article that specifically addresses your issue. https://evokeendurance.com/resources/aerobic-deficiency-syndrome-ads/
But you are not alone. In fact the vast majority of folks that come to us are in the same boat as you find yourself when they do not have a solid aerobic base. We see this especially with the Special Ops guys we work with. You have already begun to see an improvement in your running vs walking time. We use that run/walk progression often. It will take months to build this aerobic base and you must be patient. In the 25 years we’ve been preaching this method we have never encountered a non-responder to this type of training. We often see folks move from the 13-14min/mile range of running pace to 9min/mile in 6 months to a year. This improvement depends exclusively on the volume of this low intensity work.
Scott
Hey Andrew:
Thanks for writing in with your great question. Below is the easy implement into the training of several world class mountain runners.
- The slow/heavy stair machine/incline trainer carries come quite early in the building phase. This is because as you note they are the least specific because of the slow turnover. However, they are a good base for what we then layer on top. The progression is to climb more steps in the hour 15%BW is enough runners. We often use 1kg ankle weights in this phase which lasts about 6 weeks during which the other focuses are on increasing running volume and strength work.
- Then we move outside to hills that are 15-20%. Start with 3×10 run up with 3min recovery between. At the top, drop the weight, water works best and run down fast. Can be progressed to 3x20min as you adapt. Ankle weights can be added.
- This is done in conjunction with special steep 25% incline trainer run/hike workouts that include poles or ski erg mounted in front of the treadmill.
I hope this helps,
Scott
