"Depletion runs" from the Chris Solinsky interview. This might be the worst idea I've ever heard.

Case studies are not "studies" per se.

If you look for Louise Burke online, I bet you will find interviews on actual studies that have been done at AIS and her thoughts on this sort of training. I also think the key is that CHO intake should track with training load. Also, just because of life people are going to do some training in a less than ideal CHO state so you will get these sorts of stimuli without having to make yourself intentionally miserable.

bob d. wrote:

poor solinsky wrote:

New technique? Hobby joggers do this every effin Sunday the last two months before they attempt that elusive sub 4h marathon.

Science? There's NO science to back this crap up. Where are the studies that show that slugging along half dead will "train your body to use alternate fuel sources" better than running at a decent clip.

Please don't answer. You've proven yourself a retard.

Sadly you are the retard. There is info to back this up - I guess you are out of the loop.

janet weiss wrote:

yep^

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20452283

untrained subjects, not really applicable to trained runners.

adsfads wrote:

June Squib wrote:

That is science but a super small sample size.

There must be more out there?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21051570

So did performance improve in the CHO fasted state? It is well-established that what you eat immediately prior to an exercise bout can alter fuel usage. Guess what, if you stop eating CHO for days and exercise you will utilize more fat (and possibly protein depending on duration) during exercise. However, how well do you think you will perform?

isjsj wrote:

eh.. wrote:

If you wait a minute I will look up coach Canova´s telephone number for you. I´m sure he will appreciate your superior knowledge.

I didn't say it was superior knowledge. It's just knowledge. It's a fact that carbs provide more energy than fat. Are you suggesting otherwise?

That is poorly written. A gram of fat contains 2x more energy than a gram of CHO. However, it takes more oxygen to use that gram of fat. Turning fat into ATP also takes many, many more steps. Fat is more energy dense, a better way to store energy.

But if one wants to go fast then glycogen is the preferred fuel as it takes far fewer steps so is faster at producing ATP.

get it straight wrote:

Canova gets superior results. That makes his knowledge more superior than yours.

The debate isn't whether carbs provide more energy. It is if glycogen depleted runs are beneficial in training.

False. That doesn't make his knowledge superior. It makes his results superior. I didn't say the debate was about carbs providing more energy. I said the debate was unnecessary because carbs are better and can be eaten during a run. So this whole debate is dumb.

either way, this guy is going to get obliterated in any serious/major marathon he runs, so he can try whatever he wants. for a super-elite marathoner, the difference between 2:12 and 2:09, in the grand scheme, is still several minutes behind/not competitive with the best in the world. this won't make a real difference in his performance.

your body can only process food so quickly, and for fast people that rate isn't enough to compensate for the fuel they're burning. So a significant portion of your energy needs to come from fat reserves.

Ho Hum wrote:

your body can only process food so quickly, and for fast people that rate isn't enough to compensate for the fuel they're burning. So a significant portion of your energy needs to come from fat reserves.

This isn't true. Fat adaptation is completely unnecessary. The rate at which your body processes food is plenty fast enough.

Been used in cycling for 30 plus years.

isjsj wrote:

get it straight wrote:

Canova gets superior results. That makes his knowledge more superior than yours.

The debate isn't whether carbs provide more energy. It is if glycogen depleted runs are beneficial in training.

False. That doesn't make his knowledge superior. It makes his results superior. I didn't say the debate was about carbs providing more energy. I said the debate was unnecessary because carbs are better and can be eaten during a run. So this whole debate is dumb.

But don't you still burn fat as fuel even when your glycogen stores are full?

get it straight wrote:

But don't you still burn fat as fuel even when your glycogen stores are full?

Yes, what is your point?

isjsj wrote:

get it straight wrote:

But don't you still burn fat as fuel even when your glycogen stores are full?

Yes, what is your point?

Why wouldn't you want to make your body more efficient using fat? Or is your arguement that you can't make your body more efficient?

Thread where Canova mentions carb depleted training runs and the benefit.

Most endurance athletes have chronically depleted carbohydrate stores, and the evidence about what that does to performance is conclusive.

Whether occasional carbohydrate depletion is worthwhile is a more controversial subject, but there are some indications that it may be. The most convincing explanation for me is that it's simply mental (call it "central governor" if you wish) training. Familiarity with the particularly kinds of pain that you will experience is crucial if you're going to push through it.

An anecdote that may sound familiar to some of you: When I was training for a marathon a few years back, I was in the shape of my life. Very low body fat, very high mileage, knocking out awesome workouts. I entered a mile race at an all comers meet, just for fun, and I ended up running a 4:36, which was embarrassingly slow at the time. I wasn't used to the experience of real oxygen debt, so I just kind of freaked out. I was so embarrassed by my performance that I ran another mile by myself, solo, right after the meet. I ran 4:22. The difference was that I was mentally prepared for the experience the second time around.

get it straight wrote:

Why wouldn't you want to make your body more efficient using fat? Or is your arguement that you can't make your body more efficient?

Thread where Canova mentions carb depleted training runs and the benefit.

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=3923991&page=2

Because it's not an issue. You have enough fat to run multiple marathons so you don't need to be more efficient at burning it. I don't understand why you don't understand my argument. I said it clearly - fats are inferior to carbs so just eat some carbs and don't worry about how your body burns fat.

they will do harm if done continually, that's what Prof Burke found (see below).

a couple of them won't hurt anything much though. However no marathoner should ever be in that state - only undertrained runners (or sick runners, with enough diarrhea anyone can get depleted) would experience it.

http://www.inigomujika.com/en/2013/08/interviews-with-the-elite-louise-m-burke-i-am-always-suspicious-when-new-dietary-crazes-hit/

"The problem was that this “glycogen sparing” didn’t appear to improve performance —and we tried it many times over exercise protocols lasting from 2 hours to 5 hours. Finally, the results from two studies explained what was going on. The first study came from our collaboration with Trent Stellingwerff and Lawrence Spriet in Canada. They looked at some of the muscle we collected from our fat-adapted athletes and found that although we had up-regulated fat burning, we had interfered with carbohydrate utilisation at the same time. The activity of a key enzyme that helps the muscle shepherd carbohydrate into fuel pathways was reduced. The bottom line was that we hadn’t “spared” muscle glycogen use, but rather, we had “impaired” it. The second study, from Lize Havemann and Tim Noakes Lab in South Africa showed more clearly why this was important. They examined the ability of cyclists to do a 100 km time trial after the fat adaptation/carbohydrate restoration program —a protocol that was more similar to real life performance than what we had been examining in our studies. Overall the differences in 100 km race time between the two different dietary preparations were not statistically significant (although the high carbohydrate trial was actually several minutes faster than the fat-adapted/carbohydrate-restored trial). But during the 100 km, the cyclists were asked to do some sprints —over 1 km and 4 km distances. When intensity was increased, the fat adapted cyclists performed worse. In fact, their times and power outputs for the 1 km sprints were significantly impaired. This showed clearly that lower intensity exercise is preserved in the fat adapted athlete, but “when the going gets tough” and the muscle needs to burn carbohydrate to support higher exercise intensity, the impairment of carbohydrate metabolism interferes with performance. At that point, we stopped being interested in our fat adaptation protocol, because with all the events we work with, athletes need to have “a top gear” or an ability to surge up a hill or sprint to the line. Even if the majority of the event is done at submaximal intensities, the race defining moments need carbohydrate systems fully tuned to produce power."

This is an outdated theory.

Would you get in a car accident to test yourself for a potential future car accident?

He should focus more on nutrition and what type of pace is sustainable in his training. If you are running a pace that is sustainable for your total body/nutrition you will not bonk.

Remember those graphical charts on the old treadmills and bikes at any hotel gym that illustrate where the 'fat burning' zone is? That's what we are talking about here.

I got news for everyone - you don't magically switch from burning carbs to fat at the end of a race when you are carb depleted. You are burning both fat and carbs all along in a marathon. Just at different ratios throughout the run.

Chris and all potential marathoners could learn a thing or two from ultra-runners. The idea is to teach your body to burn a higher percentage of fat at the early parts of long runs and races. Then you ingest more carbs later in the run/race as they are converted to fuel faster.

So a training strategy that would work is to go out and do long runs where you loaded up on fatty foods the night before / morning of a long run/race. Run at a pace that feels comfortable for 90 minutes or more. Then you try to run at your goal marathon pace for as long as you can and start fueling with carbs at that point. If you start ingesting carbs too quickly in long runs your body likes it and will start using that as fuel. If you wait until 90 minutes or more it will rely more on the fat you previously ingested if the pace is slow enough for the fat to fuel it.

This works - just ask ultra-runners who are able to run 5:XX pace at mile 45 in a 50 mile race. And yes, those people do exist - I've seen them. Read about Rob Krar's North Face 50 from this past December. Or about how Timmy Olson fuels up with Seasame Butter or Almond Butter before runs.

read your links dumbfvcks wrote:

Yes, there is more crap out there.

That study restrains the athletes from doing their best training. If you eat and drink properly you can train harder. But they simply let the sane and healthy group of athletes follow the same training schedule as the starved athletes.

And now please tell me, dimwits, when did Renato deprive his athletes from that morning tea full of sugar so that they should "burn more fat"?

Those of you who defend starvation please grab a tinfoil hat when you leave.

But also in the Italian Methodology of 20 years ago (producing Bordin, Pizzolato, Poli, Bettiol and many ladies), we used sometimes to go for long run WITHOUT using any refueling, in order to oblige the body in seeking the residual energy in some store, that normally is closed.

Similar situation we use when we go for SPECIAL BLOCKS of VOLUME (for example, in the morning 10 km in 33' + 15 km at MP (3'04" is 46'), the same in the afternoon). This means 20 km at 90% of MP + 30 km at MP in the day. In order to stimulate the body in using ALL the risources for lasting at MP, between the first and second session the athlete easts only vegetables and drinks water, without filling his tank again with carbohydrates. The final goal is to teach to the runner to use ALL the resources that he has.

That's the reason because a lot of km at low intensity, for an athlete already mature, cannot produce any effect.

What we need, is not a global very high volume,but the ability in growing, year after year, IN THE LENGTH OF THE SINGLE RUN AT HIGH INTENSITY. To increase the SPECIFIC MARATHON ENDURANCE is a physiological problem, as the athlete must change his ability in building the right fuel, using LESS percentage of glycogen and MORE percentage of fat for the same speed. We can reach this effect only using SPECIFIC SPEED for long time,not a lot of volume not stimulating the body in "scratching the bottom of the barrel".

Read more:

isjsj wrote:

get it straight wrote:

Canova gets superior results. That makes his knowledge more superior than yours.

The debate isn't whether carbs provide more energy. It is if glycogen depleted runs are beneficial in training.

False. That doesn't make his knowledge superior. It makes his results superior. I didn't say the debate was about carbs providing more energy. I said the debate was unnecessary because carbs are better and can be eaten during a run. So this whole debate is dumb.

How about you geniuses post scientific studies supporting your facts? We've posted plenty of research pointing to our argument.