Athletic Balance

No, today’s blog isn’t about that kind of balance. The balance that I am talking about in the title of today’s post is the balance across the training intensity spectrum.

But, before I get into that, Mat has written a great post this week on some of the limiters to Ironman performance that, as athletes we often fail to/don’t want to consider (e.g. day to day nutrition…Sugar addicts stand up! :-) Check it out - http://msteinmetz.blogspot.com/

In his post, Mat talks about the components of fitness. I want to explore that a little more in my own post this week.

In my mind there are two schools of thought on preparation for Ironman racing. On one side of the fence we have the following basic theory of training:

Position 1: Raise the athlete’s functional threshold to the highest level possible - since functional threshold is the best predictor of athletic performance in all aerobic events (yeah, right!) then make sure the athlete paces the race at the appropriate % of this functional threshold. If the athlete races under what their functional threshold # would indicate, it is clearly a pacing problem.

I hope you feel the sarcastic tone in the above paragraph. This myopic viewpoint of training really bugs me on a pretty deep level and the fact that there are a number of PhD’s (often in unrelated fields) out there espousing this viewpoint right now, bugs me even more. Excuse my grumpiness this morning. I’m a little undercaffeinated :-)

Anyhow, position 2: Miles make champions. Increase aerobic training volume to the limits of the athlete’s long term tolerance. Avoid high intensity training as it will ultimately limit the athlete’s training volume.

I want to point out that I have a strong lean (almost to the point of falling over sideways) toward this position. However, recently my experience in coaching and testing athletes has led me to reach the conclusion that despite the fact that 80% of the Ironman field would benefit from simply doing more, there is a select portion that is distinctly lacking in the top end abilities required to reach the next level of athletic performance.

I also believe that this 20% or so is growing as more and more people are selecting “training for an Ironman” as their first foray into triathlon training (or their reintroduction after a long lay-off) without following the natural progression of sprint tri, Olympic tri, Half Ironman followed by an Ironman several years into their triathletic development.

It can be very difficult for an athlete to determine how much ‘top end’ is enough? Folks like Gordo perform at the elite level of Ironman racing with, what would be considered, relatively pedestrian values of functional threshold, and especially, VO2max (within his elite peer group). However, I’m willing to stake a guess that Gordo’s functional threshold is higher than yours! OK, so you’re not looking to challenge Gordo at Vineman or even your age-group winner for that matter, but the question remains are you lacking in top end horsepower?

More numerically inclined exercise physiologists have been trying to equate relative performances over various race distances for years. Folks from Gardner and Purdy (1970), to Tom Osler (1978), Davies and Thompson (1979) all the way to Daniels and Gilbert’s famous VDOT tables (1979), have looked to equate a given VO2max value with performances from 800m through to (and in some cases beyond) the marathon. For the most part, these tables do show a relatively high predictive validity within this race duration spectrum. This makes a lot of sense when we consider that the relative ergogenesis of these events consists of an aerobic (glycolytic) contribution ranging from 80-99% (Hawley and Hopkins, 1995).

However, when put into practice, coaches who subscribe to this training model have noticed that for middle distance runners (400-1500m), the numbers don’t line up. Athletes in this category (unsurprisingly) tend to under-perform at the longer end of the duration spectrum and over-perform at the short end, despite having equal VO2max values to distance runners in the same performance category. For this reason, folks like Daniels (1998) and Martin and Coe (1995) have deduced modified ‘ideal’ performance tables for these athletes due to their ability to contribute anaerobic resources to performance that are independent of VO2max. Unfortunately, with the relative lack of sports science interest in ultra-endurance events, similar calculations have not been made for events in which aerobic lipolytic energy production begins to outweigh the aerobic glycolytic energy production that is largely dependent on physiological qualities like VO2max and Anaerobic (or Functional) Threshold. This is the major oversight that folks who espouse the Functional Threshold model of training fail to ‘get’.

So, let’s get down to the nitty gritty, if we take this lipolytic energy contribution into play, how does it affect the relative performance-duration curve?

I’ve presented a couple of predictive curves below. A distance curve from the tables of Daniels and Gilbert, a middle distance curve from Martin and Coe and an ultra-distance curve from real world data on elite ultra endurance athletes (ultra-runners and Ironman elites).

The x axis at the bottom of the chart reflects race duration (in hours). The y axis reflects the % of their vVO2 that the athlete sustains for the event.

The chart indicates that elite Ironman athletes’ race specific pace (and presumably power) is ~5% higher than what would be predicted from the normative curves of shorter distance athletes (on which many training models are based). In specific preparation for an ultra-distance event, this 5% greater endurance is something that should be trained before an effort is made to further elevate the functional threshold or VO2max of the athlete, especially since this adaptation is ultimately more trainable over the long term. Practical example:

Athlete with a PR of a 20:00 5K should be able to hold >70% of their vVO2max after an 8hr big day (~9:10/mi) before any emphasis should be given to speed training to further elevate the VO2max or Functional Threshold.

Keep in mind that the blue line on the chart is indicative of very well trained (although not ‘ultra trained’ distance runners, often running 100mi plus per week). It is likely that the difference between your own ‘blue line’ and ‘red line’ is substantially greater, especially if you have been emphasizing higher intensity training (FT/FT+ training) within your own training program.

It is for this reason that most (though not all) Ironman athletes can vastly benefit from a multi-month period that focuses on building base and raising the % of your vVO2 or max power that you can hold over the race duration.

If, on the other hand, you’re running an IM marathon at or close to 70% of your vVO2, a focus on ‘speedwork’ may be prudent. But first, of course (you know what I'm going to say), you must prove it!