[Scott Johnston]

Christian:

This is a great and very deep question. You always ask challenging ones. I’m sorry I didn’t see this earlier but……

This has been the age old problem for coaches and athletes.  How to quantify the training load and the fatigue that coes with it. Training load is a term that, while vague and defined in several different ways, is a concept that captures all the things you speak about: duration of individual workouts, intensity, frequency, and total volume.  The best method for capturing training load that I am familiar with are incorporated in the metrics that Training Peaks uses. These are based on TSS (training stress score).  The TSS is calculated using an algorithm which involves power output (running or cycling), pace (running or simming) or heart rate (as a last resort when these others are not available. The TSS is a function of duration and intensity and the time spent above and below what we call AnT (TP calls this Threshold or FPT-functional threshold pace or power).  So now you have this single number, TSS that is a proxy for training load.  The power and pace baed TSS is much more accurate that heart rate based TSS.

From other algorithms TP comes up with CTL= chronic training load which is a proxy for fitness or work capacity.  ATL= accute training load which is a proxy for fatigue and TSB=training stress balance which is an approximation of your form on any given day if you need to perform well.

These were all developed by Andrew Coggan PhD.

Like all algorithms, though; they need good data to give good results. That is why power and pace give more accurate TSS numbers than heart rate does.

I should do one of our book club sessions on TP metrics.

Watch for an a couple of upcoming podcasts on using power meters for running and hiking.  I think you will enjoy them.

Scott

[Scott Johnston]

No concerns at all. It is a very well-designed, long-term progression of training load that has gotten rave reviews from the military crowd.  The only undesirable side effect might be saluting your wife or your boss.

Scott

[Scott Johnston]

Joe:  Great questions.  Have you done an AnT test to see the spread between AeT and AnT?  With a 9:30 pace at AeT it is possible that this spread might be less than 10%, in which case you might want to be doing more of your aerobic base training down in Zone 1 or around 125-135.  That’s not far off your suggested 124 starting HR. Pacing on longer runs is always tricky.  Have you tried that strategy of starting in the 102s?  If so did you feel better at the end than if you start in Z2?

The bigger question is how do you feel the next day after longer runs done with these two strategies?  It sounds like you blow up if starting in Z2.  That in itself tells you the answer.  Z2 is unsustainable for you for more than 2 hours right now.  It will improve with time but the best route to accomplishing that is to do more easier volume.

I hope the helps,
Scott

[Scott Johnston]

14rcole:

if you ran this test on a running track the pace to heart rate ratio is supplied in the Analytics on Training Peaks.  We can see that in the data you shared.    The algorithm that TP uses for calculating Pa: Hr will account for those heart rate swings.  Your first test was probably a bit winky do to the stairs.

Scott

 

[Scott Johnston]

Tamas;

What an amazing story.  Thank you so much for your kind words. I wish I could take credit but……I may have pointed you in the right direction, but you were the one that forged the path and did all the work to get these impressive results.   Our mission here at Evoke is to inspire more people, point them in the right direction, and support them on their own journey.  Your story will serve as inspiration to the timid, the reluctant, to the undecided to take the first steps like you did.   Congratulations.  I am proud to have played a small part in your story.

Scott

PS.  I hope we do cross paths sometime. I would be honored to have my picture taken with you.

[Scott Johnston]

Christian:

How prescient of you!  I addressed just this question in last night’s book group lecture. I think your mental model is good.  As mathematician George Box said: All models are wrong (meaning that they are not perfect representations of reality), but some are useful.

Glycolysis and its resultant pyruvate production occur in the cell’s cytosol outside the mitochondria.  A process of converting it to acetyl-coA allows it to pass through the mitochondrial membrane and get used in the Kreb’s cycle for aerobic metabolism.

Glycolysis can and will take place in the full spectrum of muscle fiber types.  The faster the FT fibers the more they will rely upon glycolysis and the less mitochondrial content they have.  Thus they are less endurance endowed.

Yes, one of the main goals of endurance training is to increase the mitochondrial content of faster and faster twitch fibers. Improving their endurance characteristics can provide propelling force for longer before fatiguing.  As you point out.  This moves the AnT upward in terms of power output.  You can run faster for longer (i.e., more endurance).

The vacuum analogy is a perfect example of George Box’s little ditty. The vacuum is comprised of: mitochondria in those same muscle cells where pyruvate is being produced, more remote mitochondria, the liver, and the heart.

While the fibers do apparently exist along a continuum thing of the slower twitch fibers acting as the vacuum for the next level up the FT scale.  This is what I talked about in the book group’s second physiology chapter. I think it will help you.  But you essentially have it, at least at the macro level we need to understand it.

Scott

[Scott Johnston]

Quentin:

I’m sorry to be slow in answering this. I did reply a week ago, but for some reason, my reply didn’t stick.  Your English is great.  I butcher our language more.

Your race results indicate that you have a good work capacity even though your training volume is not high.  I guess you can thank your parents for good genes.

I think using this plan of using training for the 42 km race as A priority is a good way to go.  Prepping for the 42 km race will give you a good base for the longer race in October.

I can’t explain the most effective modifications to the Category 1 100km plan.  The reason is that I don’t know enough about you and your training and fitness. If your goals are 42 and 75km, why are us using the 100km plan?  Could it be that you feel you can handle the volume in that plan?  Given the results you have gotten from quite a low volume of training, I’m not sure you need to jump to the 100km plan.  A jump in volume like you are contemplating, from 275 hours to 500 hours, is much larger than I would normally think prudent.  There is an injury risk when making a bog increase in running volume like you are planning.

Scott

[Scott Johnston]

Todd:

Thanks for the thoughtful questions and comments.  I’m glad you are paying close attention and are provoked to think more deeply about these things.

You may recall this quote from Per Astrand, one of the fathers of modern exercise science:

“It is an important but unsolved question which type of training is most effective: to maintain a level representing 90% of the maximal oxygen uptake for 40 min, or to tax 100% of the oxygen uptake capacity for 16 min’’

You are asking this same question essentially, and no one knows the answer definitively.

The study I cited is: Adaptations to aerobic interval training: interactive effects of exercise intensity and total work duration. S Seiler, K Jøranson, B V Olesen, K J Hetlelid Scand. J. Med. Sci. Sports 23:74-83, 2013 I recommend you read it since you are curious about it.  The summary I was making when I said that the 4x8min group improved their endurance was that they showed significantly greater gains than the other groups in the following qualities:  maxVO2, power at maxVO2, power at 4mMol/l blood lactate, and time to exhaustion at 80% of max power.  This test was done with cyclists, hence the power data.

All of those qualities combined, but especially the last one, indicate increased endurance.

For anyone but an elite-level athlete, a maximum effort of 8 minutes is going to give an intensity of just over the AnT.  Local muscular fatigue will end up being the limitation to sustaining this output. The same holds that for most people, the 16-minute reps are going to be just below AnT or Zone 3 intensity.

This study is not saying that 4x8min is the holy grail of interval workouts and that is all you need to do. It is only showing that these did produce the biggest gains in endurance qualities.

The thing you need to understand is that just as the aerobic base serves as foundation for all the higher intensities but increasing the size of the vacuum cleaner in the ST fibers, each increasingly faster twitch group of fibers serves as the vacuum cleaner for the next higher level of FT fibers just above it.  The reason intervals of different lengths are important is that the longer, lower-intensity ones serve as aerobic support for the shorter, higher-intensity ones.

I hope this helps.

It sounds like I might need to write an article or do a podcast about this topic.  Thanks for prompting me.

Scott

 

 

 

 

[Scott Johnston]

Great question:

I’ll sum it up with this statement- the best training is not the most training you can do but the least training it takes to get the best results. In other words, DON’T GET GREEDY.

From a training/performance trade-off standpoint, two strength/core sessions/wk will get you where you need to be and allow enough recovery to see progress.  Strength training, as with high-intensity training, will show diminishing returns as volume increases.  More is not usually better in these cases.  What is important is progress. If you are seeing progress with the current program, why change? Your body is responding positively to the training stimulus.

All that being said, if you need this type of stimulus 5-6 x/wk to stay healthy……… go for it.  Because the bulk of core musculature is slow twitch it recovers quickly.

Scott

 

 

[Scott Johnston]

Sorry Folks;

I was busy with some other writing projects like this article https://evokeendurance.com/training-fast-twitch-and-slow-twitch-endurance-athletes/.

@ Rachel:  I suspect the root of the problem is that you changed treadmills mid-test.  Treadmills, unless they are of laboratory quality like the Woodway are notorious for being inaccurate and inconsistent.  Here is an article I wrote about this last fall https://evokeendurance.com/treadmill-season/. I suggest doing your warm-up and test on the same treadmill to minimize this problem. Stop then restart the t-mill after your warm-up, so you get an hour of test data. However, if you only can capture 45 min of test data, you will still get a decent idea of the drift.  I hope that helps.

@ kilfatmike: Both these tests sound like they were well done, and you have interpreted the AeT test data well.  I’d use the 139 as the AnT because of the shorter test and the slower HR ramp-up.  Good job.

Thanks to both of you for writing in. I will review testing in-depth on the Book Group monthly zoom meetings, so don’t miss that.

Scott

 

[Scott Johnston]

Santiago:

Thanks for your question.  I would disagree that the results of fat adaptation are mere placebo. There have been exhaustive studies showing conclusively the rate at which fat can be metabolized in a well fat adapted athlete being over 3x that of non fat adapted athlete.  I detail all of this on both my books; Training for the New Aplinism and Training for the Uphill Athlete.  I too have found Science of Ultra a good resource. You might wat to listen to this podcast that address the fat adaptation subject head on. https://www.scienceofultra.com/podcasts/119

Scott

 

[Scott Johnston]

Thanks for your questions;

We have 1 on 1 coached many military athletes for SFAS, Ranger, the long walk, Dev Gru and more selections. We use esentially the same methods I spoke about in those MOPs and MOEs podcasts that you listened to and have had pretty much a perfect record of getting guys through those selections (one guy got dropped but invited back to the long walk).  We don’t advertise this but we’ve been doing this for years and consult with a few of the SOF groups on training programs.

You need tons of Zone 2 work mostly running.  Everyone is going to be fit for the first week.  What you need though is to be fit and recover well all the way through the progrm and that is what this aerobic base will do for you.

We are still building the Tactical section of our website and I hope to have that up this month.  There you will find a hiuge amount of info pertaining to all these selections.  They all share one thing: The use long duration, day after day movements and scenarios so require that aerobic base.

We have produced one tactical training plan that has now been tested by a few dozen Rangers and has gotten great reviews. I have not had time to get it up on the site yet but here is a link to it in the Training Peaks store https://www.trainingpeaks.com/training-plans/other/tp-376820/military-athlete-foundational-plan

Stay tuned for more plans and the Tactical Section.

Scott

 

 

[Scott Johnston]

Alice:

Great questions.

1. In the image of the three athlete metabolic profiles, how are % fats vs % carbs measured in each athlete?  Calories of each. Sometimes this is done in grams of each but since fat has roughly twice as many calories/gram as carbs that makes that sort of comparison an apples to oranges thing. So, I prefer cal to cal.

2. What advice do you have for finding the right balance between higher intensity lactate threshold workouts vs low intensity aerobic workouts? If you are aerobically deficient (which we’ll dig into next time) that should be the focus. Fix that isse first and then think about supplementing with HIT. This holds true unless you are within a couple of months of some important event.  Then you need to add intensity regardless of your aerobic base.  If you are not aerobically deficient, what Kilian and I came up with in the book Training for the Uphill Athete is to add intensity volume at the rate and to the extent that you are still recovering well and not having to reduce overall aerobic base volume by more than 10%.  This is a general rule of course and would need to be adjusted if you are tapering for an event., The idea is to not let the aerobic base slide much since it is the support for that high intensity work. I’ve read/heard about the 10/90% guidance, but what I’m more curious about is what athletes should be paying attention to most or measure/track when trying to find this balance?  Recovery is the thing to pay attention to.  The 90/10 balance is when viewed on an annual basis and will certainly shift to 80/20 or so in during blocks where HIT is a priority.  Kilian and I covered this in our podcast last week.  

3. When you talk about fat metabolism, what kind of nutrition and fueling should athletes consider? If you are training over about 6-8 hours of aerobic base work a week you are probably getting well fat adapted because you are getting glycogen depleted frequently. This is true especially if you are doing one session over 2 hours.  Recall the little joke I made with Kilian about his diet when we first met. He was breakfasting on lots of sugary donuts and rolls. When you are training 20+ hours a week like him you can eat anything you want and still be fat adapted. It might not be the heathiest diet but you will get fat adapted. I don’t think any special diet is needed for most endurance athletes. We see very high level ultra runners with diets ranging from full carnivore to vegan.  The most important thing is to get enough calories. Calorie restriction for endurnace athletes is a very dangerous thing to do. Nothing will push you into an overtraining situation faster if you are a serious endurance athlete than a calorie restricted diet. Etlespecially for leaner, smaller athletes who don’t have a lot of body fat reserves. Where is the fat in the “fat metabolism” you mentioned coming from in the body? The fat used for this fat metabolism during exercise is coming from the fat stores in the muscles. The next time you are at the butcher shop look at the grass fed beef. Notice that it has a lot of little fat lines running through the red meat.  That’s because grass fed beef spend their days walking around in an aerobic state using fat for fuel.  Your muscles develop similar fat stores within them. That makes the fat easily accessible to the muscle cells for energy.  The adipose fat, the kind you can grab a hold of is not as easily used for fuel.  That is why it is so hard to lose adipose fat.   Feed lot fed beef that stand around a lot and eat a very high calorie diet develop a lot of adipose fat. This is the layer of fat you see around the edges of the steak in the butcher case.  This is why I mentioned that even the leanest marathon runner will have huge fat stores. You can’t see that fat on their body. It is in the muscles themselves as opposed to between the muscle and the skin.  The more fat adapted the athlete the greater the amount of fat stored this way.

4. What are the positive signs that one’s aerobic base training is working?  Increased heart rate, decreased pace while maintaining aerobic work? If one is aerobically deficient the HR at aerobic threshold will move up as the aerobic capacity improves. At the same time the pace at AeT will also increase. You will be be moving faster because your aerobic system is now producing more energy (ATP) so it can support a higher power output.  Depending on the volume of training and your genetics you should begin to notce that you are moving faster at the same HR after about 4-6 weeks., When you see some improvement in your daily runs, like:  “wow I am 3 minutes faster on my normal morning running route than I was a month ago”.  When you see that, you know your aerobic metabolism is becoming more productive. Aerobic capacity is increasing and it time to re-evaluate your AeT because there is good chance your AeT HR has gone up as well.  Eventually (like after 61-12 months of consistent aerobic base training) the AeT HR will cease to increase.  BUT…the AeT pace can and will continue to increase.  I have seen AeT pace increase in an elite athlete for 10 consecutive years.  This is how Eliud Kipchoge and other can manage to get their AeT pace down to 4:30/mile.  In their case it took decades and very good genetics but the rest of can still make masive gains in this area.

 

[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

[Scott Johnston]

Thanks for writing in with your questions.  Let me see if I can help.

You are wise to continue aerobic base building in between mountaineering goals.  There is no such thing as having too much aerobic capacity.

You can use the 16 week aerobic progression from your 16 week plan as guidance.  Keep in mind though that these plans are the minimum training load we recommend.  You may need more, or less.  I suggest instead of following the plan blindly you assess your time and energy capacity for these aerobic sessions. Remember that the biggest stimulus to aerobic capacity developoment is volume. More is always going to better up to the point where you are not recovering between sessions.

You must also keep in mind that the improvement in aeriobic pace takes place very slowly.  Since you say that are very slow it seems like that you are relatively new to this kind of training and may have aerobic deficiencey.  This is something that will take many months of consistent high aerobic training volume to affect.  We typically see significant improvements in pace after 6 months of 6-8 hours/week of Z1-2 training.  Patience is key here.

Another contributing factor to your speed being slow when you are on a mountain is strength and movement economy. While treadmills and stair machines can build fitness, walking on rough terrain especially with a heavy pack requires strength and skills that must be developed with strength and muscular endurance training coupled with moving in alpine terrain.

All this is to say; don’t give up hope. Since I started writing about these methods, thousands of people have hd good success with them. You will too. I just takes time.

Scott

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