slow training

4 Free Sports Injury reports: To download your free Achilles Tendinitis, Knee Pain, Core Stability and Shoulder Injuries reports, use the form below: (As a bonus, we'll start sending you our free weekly newsletter, Sports Performance Bulletin.)

Email:
Where?
Sport?
You?

Slow Training: Why long, slow training runs may be best after all

Tags:

For some time now, experts have been downgrading the value of long slow workouts for endurance runners in favour of briefer bouts of high intensity exercise.

But now a Spanish study, which followed eight well-trained sub-elite endurance runners during the six-month lead-up to their national cross-country championships, has thrown that wisdom into doubt.

The researchers found that the runners spent most of their training time at low intensities (below 60% VO2max). But they also found evidence to suggest that total training time spent at low intensities was associated with improved performance in highly intense endurance events.

The runners’ heart rates were continuously recorded, using a technique called telemetry, during each training session between August and February leading up to the championships, where they competed either in the short race (4.175k) or the long race (10.130k).

The researchers quantified total cumulative time spent by each runner in zone 1 (low-intensity), zone 2 (moderate intensity – 60-85% VO2max) and zone 3 (high intensity – above 85% VO2max) and then related these to final race performance. Their two key findings were:

That these regional/national class endurance runners spent most (71%) of their training time in zone 1 and a mere 8% in zone 3;
That total training time spent in zone 1 was linked with improved performance time during both races, particularly the long one.

‘Our findings suggest,’ the researchers conclude, ‘that total training time spent at low intensities might be associated with improved performance during highly intense endurance events, at least if the event duration is [around] 35 minutes. Interventional studies are needed to corroborate our findings.’

They cannot easily explain these unexpected results but suggest that athletes might engage in a form of ‘pacing’ that occurs over a very long period of time. ‘Just as athletes must distribute their energetic resources within a competition… it appears that they must also perform a certain level of pacing over long periods of time, so that the balance of the training stress and training adaptations remains favourable.’

Med Sci Sports Exerc, vol 37, no 3, 496-504