Double Whammy? Hadd do you know what he is taking about

I'll anxiously await more of you info Balance.

And yet another question, once you train for aerobic capacity what next?

pwr and capacity wrote:

LT (lactate threshold) falls right above 1/2 marathon pace so certainly LT workouts or tempo workouts are considered aerobic power workouts right?

Exactly!

please define wrote:

I'll anxiously await more of you info Balance.

And yet another question, once you train for aerobic capacity what next?

If you are a 3k runner and up, you would want to start training your aerobic power. If you are an 800m runner or below you train your anaerobic power. I'll tell you more about anaerobic power workouts later. A miler falls somewhere in the middle, so they would have to do both aerobic power and anaerobic power training. This is basically your precompetition phase. The amount of power workouts and volumes of training are very dependent on your conditioning. Olbrecht monitors the conditioning levels with lactate tests that he has developed. I don't know if I will go into the lactate testing part of it. You can get all of that info from lactate.com. You may have to order some info and read Olbrecht's book but I feel it is worth it.

Olbrecht believes it takes about 6 weeks to see any real improvement in aerobic power, so you would want to start doing those workouts at least six weeks before you would do any racing that you really cared about performing well in. 3k,5k, and 10k races are great for developing aerobic power so you could include races in your schedule if you want. This would be great early on in the track season, when you don't run a workout. Half marathon races are good also, but the volume of running may overstress your aerobic capacity and require a long recovery period. 10k's can also have this effect so you wouldn't want to do too many of them close to all out.

Anaerobic power workouts produce results much quicker (about 3 weeks) You should be able to maximize your anaerobic power in a very short time span. Just as aerobic power workouts are designed to maximize your ability to utilize your aerobic capacity, your anaerobic power workouts are designed to maximize your anaerobic capacity. So far we have really only discussed aerobic workouts, I will speak to anaerobic workouts in a later post. Who knows could be today.

What I meant to say was anaerobic power workouts are designed to maximize your ability to utilize your anaerobic capacity. Oops..too much typing.

O.K so here's what I got so far. For a 5k runner and up. Train for aerobic capacity first with workouts like LSD with small intervals of fast running (like fartleks at 3k to 5k speed). Do this for about 2 months. Then move on to working aerobic power by adding faster workouts and tempo runs at 80% of VO2max or 1/2 MP about once a week. Do this for about 6 weeks. Only then do you move on to traditional speed workouts? Also is it correct to seperate phases as I did above for aerobic capacity and aerobic power? OR do you mix it up the whole way?

Keep dropping the knowledge Balance!

How should he prepare to race? Periodizaion or training is a good start since it is very difficult to train to maximize every system at the same time. So basically we have the base period to develop your aerobic capacity to its maximum. Then you have your precompetition phase where you maximize your event specific power requirements, be it aerobic power or anaerobic power. Anaerobic capacity fits into the Base phase of training. As I stated earlier we don't want to over stress our aerobic system and over train, so we need to have our anaerobic capacity at least moderately high during this phase of training, this way we can perform more running that actually is improving our aerobic capacity. The best way to increase your anaerobic capacity is by performing short close to all out short sprints. You want to increase your body’s ability to use sugar as its main fuel source. If you start to sprint the energy created to run is mostly provided by creatien phosphate. After about six seconds your glycolic (sugar burning)system begins to provide most of the energy needed to keep running. When performing these workouts it is important not to run so far as to begin to actually strain and tie up. If you run past this point you will be training your anaerobic power, not your anaerobic capacity. How far you can sprint before this happens is really an individual matter. You can usually tell though. You shouldn't do too many repeats of fast sprints either, or you will break down in stead of build up. About six repeats is about right. You can probably do two of these sessions per week, preferably near the beginning of your LSD runs and after a good warm up. You don't want to be glycogen depleted for these workouts or you will not have enough fuel to maximize sugar utilization. Performing these workouts at the end of a longish run will increase the chance that you are low in the required fuel. After about six weeks of this training you should see an increase in the maximum amount of lactate you can produce in an all out 600m run.

The difficult part is trying to figure out what level of anaerobic capacity is right. It is different for each phase of training and each type of runner. We don't have to worry so much about aerobic capacity because we want it as high as possible, but with anaerobic capacity it really depends on which event you are running. Sprinters really need high anaerobic capacity, while marathoners need a very low one.

In the Base phase of a marathoners training, it would be important to have a relatively high anaerobic capacity as measured with a lactate meter. A good level would be about 10 mmol/l for a marathoner in this phase of training. Not so high that they can not perform a large amount of volume, but high enough that they will have a difficult time tryin to lower in when the time comes to run the race. A marathoner really needs to have a maximum lactate reading of about 5 mmol/l on the 600m sprint test when they are ready to race. If it is not low enough they will produce to much lactate at every speed and will either have to run really slow in order to be able to finish the distance at a constant speed, or they will try to run at a desired speed and run out of fuel and hit the wall or bonk. Anaerobic energy is created by utilizing sugar as its fuel source. Since stored glycogen is very important to a marathoner they would not want to run out of it sooner than the end of the race.

At the other end of the spectrum is the 200m runner they need a crap load of energy to be provided very quickly. Aerobic energy is not produced fast enough, but lactate can be created very quickly by a runner with a high anaerobic capacity. Individual differences in levels of anaerobic capacity is one of the reasons some people are slow and others are very fast. If you can't produce energy quickly you aren't getting anywhere quickly. The difference between a marathon runner is that they are an efficient vehicle like one of those new hybrid vehicles, they aren’t very fast but they utilize fuel efficiently and can go very far at a relatively quick tempo without slowing down. A 200m runner on the other hand isn't very fuel efficient, he is like a mustang, he can run the quarter mile fast but he will be lucky if he can even jog a marathon. He just uses up fuel too dam fast. It is perfect for his event though.

[quote]please define wrote:

O.K so here's what I got so far. For a 5k runner and up. Train for aerobic capacity first with workouts like LSD with small intervals of fast running (like fartleks at 3k to 5k speed). Do this for about 2 months. Then move on to working aerobic power by adding faster workouts and tempo runs at 80% of VO2max or 1/2 MP about once a week. Do this for about 6 weeks. Only then do you move on to traditional speed workouts? Also is it correct to separate phases as I did above for aerobic capacity and aerobic power? OR do you mix it up the whole way?

Aerobic power is developed by performing runs at about 80% of VO2max or faster. All the way up to about 3k race pace. Again you should try to develop aerobic power at the speed you want to race so a 5k runner would run at 5k race pace. A good workout would be 6 x 800m at 5k race pace with about a 60 second recovery.

Aerobic power workouts are traditional speed workouts just like the one I just mentioned. There are really only three phases in this system (Base, Precompetition, and Competition).

You perform LSD and the fartlek type workouts in the base phase, then you do the traditional track workouts in the precompetition phase. The competition phase is just racing and you do what ever work you need to keep race sharp. Usually just small amounts of power workouts, but not too much, just like Lydiard suggested.

You always mix it up, you just focus on one type of training more than anouther in the two phases.

I mentioned earlier that a good level would be about 10 mmol/l for a marathoner in this phase of training. Not so high that they can not perform a large amount of volume, but high enough that they will have a difficult time tryin to lower in when the time comes to run the race.

I meant to say Not so high that they can not perform a large amount of volume, but high enough that they will not have a difficult time trying to lower in when the time comes to run the race.

But how is an aerobic power workout considered a traditional speed workout on the track when an aerobic power workout could be a 4 mile tempo run at LT pace.

I have a feeling some people might be hung up on traditional anaerobic threshold runs like Daniel's Prescribes. According to Olbrecht there is noting magical that would occur by training at the anaerobic threshold that can't happen by running at faster speeds. Basically, and here is my favorite part, aerobic power workouts have the effect of not only maximizing your ability to utilize your aerobic capacity, they also tend to lower your anaerobic capacity. Pay attention here please. As I mentioned earlier an increase in anaerobic capacity will increase the amount of lactate produced at every speed. This is a good thing in some instances of which I have already mentioned. Most people believe that running at the speed where the anaerobic threshold occurs is the best way to increase the anaerobic threshold speed. It certainly does increase the speed that this occurs but not necesarily for the reasons most believe. There is basically no difference between running at the Anaerobic threshold or running faster as it pertains to the effect it will have on what speed the anaerobic threshold occurs. You can see this visually if you conduct an anaerobic threshold test and plot lactate levels at various speeds. If there is an improvement you will see a shift in the lactate curve to the right. I often see people refer to an increase in the anaerobic threshold as being increased because they believe that training at or around this speed they are either teaching there body not to create lactate or they are teaching their body how to clear it. Although each of these might be true (not proven) it doesn't really matter. What you need to understand is that Running at this pace or faster is going to reduce anaerobic capacity, and in doing so will reduce the amount of lactate produced at every speed, therefore increasing the speed that your anaerobic threshold occurs. Since aerobic power workouts have the effect of reducing anaerobic capacity, and this is the real reason that the speed that your anaerobic threshold increases, you shouldn’t give running at the anaerobic threshold more importance than it really deserves, that is unless you are a half marathon runner in which case it is pretty important since the anaerobic threshold is about race pace for this runner.

If you want to increase your so called anaerobic threshold, run tempo runs if you like, but if you are a 5k runner you would be better served by running your aerobic power workouts at 5k race pace, you will increase your anaerobic threshold just as much as a tempo run, while also increasing your aerobic power at your desired race pace. More bang for your buck I say.

Interesting. So drop the tempo and go for 6x800 at 5k pace?

but wrote:

But how is an aerobic power workout considered a traditional speed workout on the track when an aerobic power workout could be a 4 mile tempo run at LT pace.

I guess it depends on what your definition of a traditional speed workout is. I would describe it as race pace work. Be more specific please. I would love to be able to answer this question effectively.

Thanks for all your inquires. I will continue to post as long as you have questions. I don't want to be preachy.

wait a minute, wait a minute, tinman is that you.

balance=tinman

I don't know but your posts have been very informative and have made this become a good quality thread. Something I haven't seen in a while. Keep sharing!

but wrote:

Interesting. So drop the tempo and go for 6x800 at 5k pace?

Well basically, but I wouldn’t necessarily totally drop the tempo run completely, it is probably a good workout for strength endurance. I'd mix it up a bit if I was you. Do 6 x 800m on Tuesday, and a 20-30 minute tempo run on Friday.

6 x 800m is a pretty stressful workout, while a 20-30 minute tempo run tends not to take so much out of you. You could do two workouts comfortably this way. You could perform two track sessions during the precompetition phase, but this is really for those runners with very high aerobic capacities. You would know if you had a higher than average aerobic capacity because you would be recovering quite quickly from your track workouts if you did. if it feels like it is taking a long time to recover from the first one, you probably shouldn't do another.

Ask me what strength endurance is if you don't know.

very similar wrote:

wait a minute, wait a minute, tinman is that you.

balance=tinman

This is not tinman, I have emailed him inquiring about any information he might know on this subject though. He is quite aware of Olbrecht's theory and training. He didn't have much to offer though. I got the most significant details by calling Olbrecht himself. He was very glad to help. He is very busy though and hard to reach. He is in Belgium you know. six hours ahead and all. He does speak English relatively well though. Sorry this isn’t tinman.

Well it's Easter weekend and I may not be able to post again untill Monday. If you have any questions go ahead and ask them, but I may not be able to respond to them right away.

ok this balance person is got to write a book...or coach the world of runners..g'dam

balance wrote:

Thanks for all your inquires. I will continue to post as long as you have questions. I don't want to be preachy.

Preach on brother!