I didn't realize what I was saying mathematically was so unclear. I will upload some example spreadsheets to play with. Oh gees don't worry. It was probably clear for most, but it can never be clear enough for a dumb like me. Thanks for your explanations. I understand much better now. I have a friend which is a physics experts that is currently analyzing all this and dumming all your stuff down for me.
Nope, don't like that workout (for me personally). I haven't checked, but I'm not sure you mentioned all the active recovery before. Still, aren't you repeating that set 5x? And the 50 was "dessert"? Seems like an odd sprinter set to me. And I'm just wondering if elite sprint specialists really do it ... No, the set is not to be repeated 5 times. The whole set duration is around 60min already. The active recovery portion is made of 50m on your back (breathe breathe breathe), then 50m kick (relax breathe relax breathe relax breathe) then a 100m relaxed full stroke to get back into free style feeling prior performing the next overloaded distance. Note that this active recovery is important to allow for blood ph to get back to close to normal levels as rapidly as possible.
This is not a race pace set, hence the fact that I just qualified this final 50 as the desert. It's a pure aerobic capacity set which would allow a decent sprinter to log between 5-7 minutes (really fair guessed here) at max o2 peak. This is not a race pace set, it's a vo2max set which sprinters may see as something fun to perform, since the core of the set takes them gradually in their comfort zone.
What would be your suggestion as an aerobic capacity set? How would you approach this sort of work, if you thought it was important to address?
@Lindsay, here's what an exercise physiologist has to go through in creating a model. We like to think that well, they overlook things etc, but I do not think it is the case.
Just about anything you and I can think of in term of caveat etc, they can find out too. This post can be found somewhere on cyclingforums. It is not an attempt at demonstrating his skills etc, or to do any bling-bling. And of course, it is far from being exhaustive. Exercise physiology is a very complex matter that would require a full book.
Not only that, but the algorithm isn't really based on production and clearance rates of lactate at all (or at least not directly). It's like I told Kirk Willett the other day: the algorithm is intended to "track" numerous physiological responses, but none of them in particular. Changes in steady-state (or quasi-steady-state) blood lactate concentrations were simply used as a proxy to estimate the degree of curvature of numerous physiological and metabolic responses that respond in a non-linear fashion as a function of exercise intensity. This approach/logic (which is also the basis for TRIMP) is made possible by the fact that they all seem to follow a comparable pattern - that is, there is a high correlation between blood lactate levels and the rate of lactate release from exercising muscle, between the rate of lactate release and the rate of lactate production/accumulation, between the rate of lactate production/accumulation and the rate of glycogenolysis, between the rate of glycogenolysis and changes in muscle "energy charge" (e.g., (=)/), between muscle "energy charge" and the rate of glucose oxidation, between the rate of glucose oxidation and the rate of glucose uptake, between the rate of glucose uptake and the rate of glucose production, between changes in sympathetic nervous system activity (as indicated by changes in plasma norepinephrine and epinephrine) and changes in carbohydrate utilization, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc. To focus excessively on blood lactate (e.g., on the pattern of accumulation during the "30/30" intervals that Billat has studied) is, quite simply, missing the point. (With apologies to RapDaddyo and frenchyge, because in all fairness there's really no reason to expect them to have realized this, unless perhaps they happen to be trained in exercise physiology.)
It probably took him a full decade to complete his works, lots of lab testing, and several hundreds of file analysis, married to a trackie, himself a top level time trialist etc etc etc etc. Also let us not forget that this model is kind of based on Timp somehow, which also took more than a decade to elaborate. All this work done by extremely smart people, Banister already has some entries in sports history literature, and Coggan, obviously it's just a matter of time. They both focused solely on one thing: achieving a model that respects the principles of exercise physiology as they learned it during the course of their PhD.
@sstuart
No data available about TSS. Andy told me that most data (if not all) available on the Trimp system was done using short duration event. I didn't ask him to define "short duration" though. He says that there's an exhaustive list of reference available somewhere on TrainingPeaks. I'll get the info and report back.
Falling back on a somewhat tired but valid analogy, I don't think most people would be satisfied at looking at the training schemes of all Olympic runners, from 100m sprinters to marathon runners, and talking about the average volume of training of Olympic level runners.
Likewise, talking about the capacity to do work without qualifying it with regard to intensity strikes me as throwing away too much information. Taking it a step further and substituting time for volume seems like another step in the wrong direction.
If you are talking about training for a specific endurance-oriented event and a somewhat standardized training scheme then these simplifications make more sense, the information isn't lost, it has just become implicit. In that sense, if we assume that a swimmer is training in "typical fashion" then just talking about the total volume does tell you something about their state of fitness. But if the question under discussion is intensity versus volume then it doesn't make sense to me.
:bolt:
Q wrote:
Lindsay, I believe it is impossible to train the anaerobic system without also training the aerobic system.
Would you disagree that it's possible to be well trained for the 50 and 100 while being poorly trained for the 1500? Or vice versa?
I did say:
Wouldn't it make more sense to talk about an aerobic base and an anaerobic base and then say that an LSD set will contribute to the former while a sprint set will contribute to both?
We've been talking Trimps here, Trimps there.
It stand for TrainImpulses. It's an impulse-response model that is not very well documented on the web unfortunately. Several entries do not describe what the model is. That said a lot of these entries do propose valid options.
Trimp is achieved by multiplying duration (minutes) by intensity (hr) multiplied by some magic formula, a weighting factor.
Say you perform a hard workout and end up with a score of 100.
That's 100 on Tuesday. That 100 created a desired training effect (positive impact on Base, which can be anything right?). And it also creates some fatigue effect. CTL and ATL respectively as we now call them. Stands for Chronic Training Load and Acute Training Load.
This effect will diminish day after day if you don't train. The second magic to this concept is that it is tuned in a way that the fatigue will lower more rapidly. When you train it increases faster than the Base, but it dissipates more rapidly too. The difference between ATL and CTL is your overall fitness level. Nothing specific. But a positive TSB (Training Stress Balance), or fitness value will undoubtedly be felt. One of those days where you just can't believe how everything feels great and remarkably easy.
That's trimp. Then guys like Q found some scoring system, most of them taking into account relative intensity though (speed relative to your top speed over x duration) to better take into account physiology impact. Problem is that the response of most physiological changes is exponential, not linear. So these folks try to catch 'em. HR factors it already. Only got to care about max HR which sets your relative intensity. These scores are processed in the Trimp rolling avg mechanism so to speak. So they all predict peak performance. Let me call this process Assisted Performance Modeling.
Now, people around the world validate these models by reconciling their performance level with the TSB value. Did you score your best yes or no, and did the model predict it yes or no. That(!) is what people using these models care about really.
Coggan kindly invites everyone around the world to submit files that would not reflect the reality, either compared to RPE or whatever the measure. Can't find a scientific study that is ongoing forever involving thousands of subjects. And he's got plenty of time for training, family, working etc. So there's probably not that many files submitted for analysis.
Wouldn't it make more sense to talk about an aerobic base and an anaerobic base and then say that an LSD set will contribute to the former while a sprint set will contribute to both?
Not in my mind. Easier to talk about the Base in general, since for me Base simply refers to your ability to do work.
I agree with Lindsay. It may be "easier" to talk about base as a single variable, but that doesn't mean it's capturing everything.
Anaerobic and aerobic energy systems are different. This is presumably not controversial.
In order to for either of these energy systems to be improved, it must be overloaded. This is also presumably not controversial.
The dose-response models (any of them) seem to provide a reasonable description of how these energy systems react to overload, and that's why they're useful. But it doesn't follow that both energy systems can be described equally well by one score (whether denominated in trimps or TSS or energy points or whatever).
Doing a set of short, hard intervals will tax aerobic and anaerobic energy systems, and thus has the potential to overload them both, leading to improvements in both. But doing a long, slow, distance set will only work (and perhaps not even overload) the aerobic energy system. It might grow you more mitochondria, but it won't build more enzymes for glycolysis.
By viewing "base" as the capacity to do work, you're saying only the aerobic component is relevant. Which may work fine for distance training. But that doesn't mean the same score will tell you the status (fatigue, fitness, performance potential) of your anaerobic energy pathways, or that doing LSD is good training for a 50.
I believe that all Lindsay is saying is that base alone is not a good predictor of performance. More variables are needed.
Base alone is not a good predictor of performance.
base is anything
Anything alone is not a good predictor of performance
Nothing is a good predictor of performance
Falling back on a somewhat tired but valid analogy, I don't think most people would be satisfied at looking at the training schemes of all Olympic runners, from 100m sprinters to marathon runners, and talking about the average volume of training of Olympic level runners. True that. That's probably why Jack Daniels also created his own scoring system.
Likewise, talking about the capacity to do work without qualifying it with regard to intensity strikes me as throwing away too much information. This concept dates back to 35 years ago, and has been submitted to *massive* pair review.
I can not think of a exercise training specific proposal that received more *heat* than Canadian Banister's TRIMP.
Trimp is duration*intensity. So it includes just about any sort of work (obviously). The downside with TRIMP is that it relies on HR data. And HR response to very short and very intense bouts is too slow.
Like Chris said though, the Base is not a performance indicator or predictor. It's just what it is: an indicator of the amount of work you can routinely perform.
Volumes don't mean much. Back to my parallel with the cycling world, which is far ahead of the swimming world in their ability to quantify work, educated people no longer wonder about how many kilometers or miles is required for later reaching this or that level of performance. We now wonder about how many TSS/d you can sustain routinely.
It is as simple as that.
Again, a tremendous amount of pair review, criticism, improvement over the last 35years.
The main difference between the power derived scoring models and that proposed by Q, is that the former calculates the relative intensity. Swimming on a 1:20/100 pace will tax more someone for whom this pace is close to their maximal effort over the duration. Newer models take this individual relative intensity into account.
To a certain extent, TRIMP too. It accepts your max and min hr and calculate your relative intensity based on these two inputs.
Great summary. But I'm confused about the contradiction(?) between these two statements:
2. If a muscle is getting any anaerobic energy, then it is at 100% aerobic capacity. If a muscle has oxygen, it is going to use it.
Interval training gives the aerobic system in the swimming muscles a break.
The first statement is how I make sense out of the studies that show that interval training does as well as or better than longer-distance, aerobic training. When you're doing intervals, you're automatically working your aerobic energy systems. Presumably enough to cause a training effect. (And perhaps enough that I don't get much additional benefit from extra purely aerobic work, although that's the controversial point.)
So what do you mean when you say that interval training gives the aerobic system a break?
Lactate is a waste product to anaerobic energy production.
Blood Lactate is now seen as a proxy who's level goes up and down parallel to a bunch of other physiological changes that are believed to cause fatigue. In essence, it is not wrong to state that Lactate is a waste product since you will slow down anyway as its level increases.
As for the aerobic vs anaerobic metabolism's rate development, they are mostly conditioned by the efficiency of Enzymes responsible for supporting these processes. Like you mentioned, that is taking place within the muscle fiber itself.
These Enzymes are like the employees in a shop. Training aerobically will in turn train the employees responsible for operating the aerobic metabolism to do their job faster. The result is that this metabolism will operate at higher rate. Whereas training mostly anaerobically will train a different employee department. So it's a major thing. Especially since these employees aren't even working out of the same building at all.
Aerobic employees work in buildings called the Mitochondria, which you find in greater number on the Slow Twitch Muscle Fiber Boulevard. Purely anaerobic employees work in plants found on the Fast Twitch Type IIB Boulevard.
And there's a special category of employees who work in plants on special Boulevard called Fast Twitch Type IIA. These are probably the most important employees to train (both aerobically and anaerobically) since your ability to perform a fast 100 highly depends on the efficiency of these special muscle fibers.
Maglischo was the first to teach me about the fact that En2 (threshold pace training) was a great way to train these muscle fibers. And this really explains why he recommends sprinters to train aerobically on this pace. More Fast Twitch Type IIa specific.
Although a lot of aerobic energy is needed to convert lactate back to sugar, this process isn't done in your swimming muscles, and does not benefit your aerobic swimming at all.
If you refer to this mysterious process during which the Liver converts Lactate back into glycogen, you're absolutely correct. This process in fact kind of slows you down. It ain't aimed at helping the working muscles, but rather to make absolutely 110% positively sure that your brain will never lack blood glucose. So this glyco is likely going to be converted back to glucose where it will travel the blood stream up to your brain.
THAT said though, aerobic contribution to lactate metabolism isn't limited to this mysterious phenomenon. Not at all. Quite simple Q. Lactic Acid becomes Pyruvate which can then reenter the mitochondria for being oxidized. I think that this process is often referred to as being Cellular Respiration. This way, Lactate is definitely considered as a fuel, a powerful one. And it helps boosting your swim endurance pace velocity as well as delaying severe acidosis (resulting from sprinting a full 100 for instance).
So in the end, training anaerobically vs aerobically might train different muscle cells (TypeI vs TypeIIa vs TypeIIb), might train different enzymes which operate in different places.
The first statement is how I make sense out of the studies that show that interval training does as well as or better than longer-distance, aerobic training. When you're doing intervals, you're automatically working your aerobic energy systems. Presumably enough to cause a training effect. (And perhaps enough that I don't get much additional benefit from extra purely aerobic work, although that's the controversial point.)
So what do you mean when you say that interval training gives the aerobic system a break?
This is how I see it but I don't have a background in physiology or biology.
Since localization is an issue, when you are doing interval work, aerobic activity is occurring in the swimming muscles, and when you are rest on the wall, it is occurring in the liver. So while you are swimming anaerobically, you are at 100% aerobic capacity in those muscles, but while you are resting on the wall, you are not.
So do these breaks prevent the maximization of aerobic capacity? Would one long easy continuous swim improve aerobic capacity? Can hard anaerobic interval training along maximize aerobic capacity?
I am using aerobic capacity to mean something like V02Max not some measure of endurance. When I sprint, I want to use as much oxygen as possible per breath, because that provides considerably more energy than not using oxygen.
My opinion right now is that a long continuous swim would be beneficial to aerobic capacity. It doesn't really matter too much, I lack the willpower to train anaerobic every day anyway so I will just make my easy swims continuous just in case :)
By the way, localization is not something I had considered until I started reading about the need for lactate to be shuttled to the liver. Overall, it makes sense that the entire body is using aerobic energy constantly, either for locomotion or to recover from energy debt, but I was thinking too broadly.
