training workouts

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Workout 1 – the vVO2max session

Whether you are an endurance rower, runner, cyclist, swimmer, skier or race-walker, you can compute your vVO2max by going as far as you can in six minutes. The pace you establish over this six-minute period is then your velocity at VO2max (vVO2max), one of the most powerful predictors of endurance performance. Once you have estimated vVO2max, the workout you should use for vVO2max enhancement is straightforward: just warm up and complete five three-minute work intervals at your calculated vVO2max, with three-minute recoveries. The workout is great for improving vVO2max, lactate threshold, efficiency at close-to-VO2max paces, strength, power, and psychological courage and confidence during intense effort. With regard to specificity (goal 7), it is also great specific preparation for races which last for about 5-7 minutes. Thus, the vVO2max session is an incredible workout, which allows you to work on six (and maybe even all) of your seven goals. It definitely deserves premier ranking.

Workout 2 – the lactate stacker

Again, it doesn’t matter what kind of endurance athlete you are. Simply warm up and then go almost all out for 60 seconds. Work easily for 120 seconds, and then return to all-out effort for 60 seconds. Continue in this 60-120 pattern until significant fatigue rears its head. This workout builds up phenomenal levels of blood lactate and thus is great for lactate-threshold speed. In addition – surprise, surprise, given the ‘anaerobic’ nature of the effort – it causes you to reach VO2max as things unfold, and thus is great for vVO2max. Yes, it’s also good for economy (especially efficiency at high intensity), strength, power, psychological courage, and – from the specificity standpoint – your ‘kicks’ at the ends of your races. This session is another high-ranker!

Workout 3 – fartlek

As you are probably well aware, you complete fartlek sessions by warming up and then alternating – in a relatively spontaneous manner – 2-6-minute efforts at an intensity which you might sustain in a 12-20-minute race with 2-4 minutes of easy effort. Most endurance athletes attain VO2max at some point during this session, so it is good for vVO2max. Lactate levels also build, so there is a positive effect on lactate-threshold speed. Efficiency during competitions lasting 12-20 minutes is also improved, and there are modest effects on strength and power, as well as psychological comfort at fairly intense paces. Specific preparation for races lasting 12-20 minutes is decent, too, giving this workout a high ranking overall.

Workout 4 – hill session

After warming up, attack either an incredibly steep 50-100m hill at close-to-max intensity or a longer, more gradual incline at an intensity you might use in a race lasting 12-15 minutes. Recover by moving back to the bottom easily, and continue until significant fatigue ensues. (Of course, swimmers and rowers may omit this workout, although both could simulate a hill session by working against a strong river or stream current.) Although hill work has classically been said to improve strength and economy, the truth is that it also causes athletes to reach VO2max and exceed – by a long way – lactate threshold. Hill work is also fundamental to improving power (first you get strength, then you apply that strength more quickly to achieve power), toughens the mind and is fine preparation for hilly race courses. Another great workout!

Workout 5 – long session

This can be defined as a training session which exceeds the length of your normal workout by about 33%. For example, if you usually train for 60 minutes per day, a long workout would be anything exceeding 80 minutes-or-so.

Endurance athletes usually say that they perform long workouts for three key reasons: to build strength, boost endurance and add bulk (volume) to the overall training load, presumably leading to significant gains in physiological fitness. VO2max, for example, is generally considered to increase directly and predictably in response to increased training mileage.

Unfortunately, these popular assumptions are slightly misleading. Taking the notion that long sessions build strength, for example, it is important to remember that strength is always speed-specific; that is, if you utilise slow movements in your effort to improve your strength, your strength will be improved during slow movements but not fast ones – and vice versa.

Of course, long workouts are almost always carried out at moderate-to-low intensities and so, while they do build strength, it is not the kind of strength needed at competitive intensities, which tend to be high. For endurance runners, for example, even a prolonged event like the marathon is usually completed at an intensity of 85% VO2max-or-so – well above a typical long-run intensity of 70-75% VO2max. Long sessions primarily build the strength needed to complete more long sessions (provided injury does not intervene), not the strength needed during competition.

A similar argument can be constructed against the belief that long efforts favour endurance. The problem is that endurance is also intensity-specific, and thus the building of endurance at prolonged-effort intensities does not ensure endurance at competitive intensities.

Do long workouts work any better in relation to their third presumed benefit – of enhancing fitness via the volume effect? It would be nice to give prolonged efforts a glowing review in this area, but our most truthful and accurate answer would have to be: it depends. Basically, if you are already training for about 7-8 hours per week, adding on a two-hour workout would be unlikely to add much to your fitness. The problem is that the relationship between fitness and training volume is a perfect example of the law of diminishing returns; specifically, as volume increases to higher levels, the gains in fitness become smaller and smaller. Eventually, in fact, fitness does not respond at all to advances in volume, and for many athletes this ‘unhooking’ of the relationship occurs above about 7-8 hours of training per week. Thus, adding a two-hour workout to an existing eight-hour week wouldn’t to do much for VO2max. Worse still, long workouts do little for lactate threshold, since they are conducted at below-lactate-threshold intensity, and they probably improve economy primarily at the relatively low intensities chosen for the long workouts. In addition, they are poor producers of power, and they offer true specific preparation only for ultra-type events.

However, long workouts can work well if you are currently training for about 5-6 hours per week or less. If you can add a 90-120-minute exertion to such a programme without getting hurt, you can probably upgrade your VO2max, and thus potentially your vVO2max. Note, though, that there is no scientific evidence to support the idea that a two-hour workout is better than two separate one-hour sessions; in fact, one might argue that breaking a two-hour workout into one-hour chunks would actually be better, since it would permit higher average training intensities. To summarise, we can say that prolonged workouts are not actually necessary for optimising VO2max; the process can occur without the need to have a ‘biggie’ in your workout bag. Perhaps the greatest benefit of long efforts is that they do steel the mind for exhausting exercise, and such preparation can be very useful in competitive situations. If during a long run you can keep on going at a reasonable pace when your mind and muscles are screaming ‘no’, your confidence in your toughness and ability will be enhanced, and you will be more likely to keep on going at the ends of tough races.

Workout 6 – tempo session

By definition, tempo sessions are completed at very close to your actual lactate-threshold intensity; the basic idea is to warm up and then work continuously at lactate threshold for about 25 minutes. The trouble with this workout is that, since you are at threshold, blood-lactate levels are fairly low, and there is little stimulus for the muscles to improve their ability to clear lactate from the blood. Thus, the lactate-stacker session works better in terms of lactate-threshold improvement. Tempo efforts improve efficiency at lactate-threshold velocity (and thus in races lasting about an hour), and they are good for building confidence at such intensities. Unfortunately, though, they are weak boosters of vVO2max and power.

Now that you know what popular workouts actually do for you, you are in a much better position than before. If you know, for example, that your vVO2max or lactate threshold is deficient, you also know which workouts you should be emphasising in your training, and the answers to your questions about what you should do tomorrow – and in the coming weeks – should be much clearer.

The remaining problem, though, is to be clear about your areas of deficiency. How do you really know it is your vVO2max which is below par? Isn’t it equally possible that your lactate-threshold is on the blink or your sport-specific strength in need of a boost?

Well-supported athletes have an advantage here, because they can visit an exercise physiology laboratory and undergo regular check-ups for vVO2max, lactate threshold, economy, and so on. Progress in these areas can be charted and negative dips addressed with corrective training. What should the rest of us do? We will just have to emulate the great Kenyan distance runners and figure out things on our own.

Fortunately, there are some simple practical steps you can take to determine whether your key performance variables are heading in the right direction. For example, since vVO2max is such an important predictor of performance, you should be checking it every six weeks-or-so during training (by conducting the six-minute test described above). You would be wise to keep a log of your vVO2max readings (either as distances covered during your tests or actual computed speeds), and your vVO2max should show a steady upwards trend during the portion of the year when you are training seriously. If you notice a downturn, it’s time to place more emphasis on vVO2max development in your training. Don’t forget, however, that occasional low readings for vVO2max may simply reflect a ‘bad day’, when you feel tired and lacking in energy and enthusiasm, and shouldn’t be taken too seriously.

Lactate threshold is slightly more difficult to keep tabs on, but only because you will need to purchase one of the lactate-measuring kits which are now available for athletes, and stab yourself in the finger at the end of your test exertion. Fortunately, these devices are quite accurate and are becoming less expensive. The lactate-threshold test is quite simple: after a great warm-up, exercise for exactly 10 minutes at an intensity which represents 92% of your vVO2max. At 10 minutes, stop and immediately check your blood-lactate level (trying to move around a bit as you do so to ease the stress of the sudden stop on your heart). Naturally, you should keep a record of these lactate readings over time, just as you do for vVO2max. Interestingly enough, the 92% vVO2max level of intensity is not your lactate threshold: it is above it. The key point is that this intensity is high enough to be associated with fairly high blood-lactate levels, but these will fall over time as your actual lactate threshold improves. Note, too, that 92% of vVO2max is very easy for you to calculate. If you are a cyclist, for example, it is simply 92% of your cycling speed during the six-minute vVO2max test (or 92% of the average intensity in Watts which you achieve during the test).

Economy is a little tougher to keep tabs on, partly because you will have to rely on that notoriously inaccurate measure of fitness – your heart. Without accurate oxygen-measuring equipment, the heart is simply the best efficiency yardstick you have at your beck and call. For this test to work you must first select a movement speed, and you should choose one which you think you would sustain in a race lasting 20 minutes. Obviously, you many not ever enter 20-minute races, but you should have a good idea of how fast you could move in such a contest. Once you have made your choice, you should continue to use the speed throughout your training season.

Here is the economy test: warm up well, then move along for 10 minutes at your chosen 20-minute race speed. (Note that all of these tests are also fairly decent workouts in their own right.) If you have a good heart monitor, measure your average heart rate for the 10 minutes and keep a record of it; it should drop over time as your economy improves. If you have never purchased a heart monitor, we don’t blame you at all; you can manually record your heart rate (do it quickly so as not to disrupt the sustained movement too much) after five minutes and then again at the end of 10 minutes, entering the average of the two readings into your log book.

To assess your strength, you will have to choose a movement which is very specific to your sport and chart your strength while performing that movement. Runners, for example, might choose a running-specific movement like the partial one-leg squat with barbell resistance (basically, a one-leg squat to just 45°, with a barbell of specific weight on the shoulders) and should then see how many reps they can complete on each leg before exhaustion. Another alternative for runners would be to measure stride length (easily accomplished on a dusty road) while running at a fixed pace; as running-specific strength improves, there is a natural tendency for stride length to expand. Even better is the ‘hop test’, in which a runner attempts to cover 30m on one leg with as few hops as possible; the number of hops required should drop (for each leg) as strength improves.

The power test is a no-brainer: from a ‘flying’ start (i.e. good-but-not-maximal speed), you should cover 100m as quickly as you can. The time required for this effort will decrease steadily as your maximal movement speed improves, and this is a great thing: it means that you have extended the range of speeds into which you can progress as you upgrade your neuromuscular capabilities. Thus, your performances in races can improve not just because of positive changes in your underlying physiology (vVO2max, lactate threshold, and economy) but also because you have the capability of generating greater power than you did before.

So what is the absolute-best workout for you to do tomorrow? You don’t know just yet, but you do know exactly what you need to work on, and you have a much clearer idea of the effects which various types of workouts have on your competitive fitness. Over the rest of your training year, you can chart your progress in improving vVO2max, lactate threshold, economy, strength, and power, and you will be able to do exactly the right things to achieve the greatest gains in those variables. As you do so, you will also achieve substantial improvements in your performances.

Owen Anderson

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