Augustus F-N
Level 7 Valued Member
On health, diminishing returns and LED:
Kettlebell Kettlebell Cardio & Endurance
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North Coast Miller
Level 9 Valued Member
Several thoughts/ observations from this post -
- you observed actual adaptation to the specific intensity range you trained. In my experience the more well trained someone is the more they will see benefit from focused training. Specificity says there is no one-size-fits-all and your experiences square very well.
- the strength training you did had good carry-over in ways you could measure (RPE to gearing ratio).
- 10% up or down in a training adapted person is actually a pretty serious loss or gain in performance, so if any of these qualities were needed for a specific event it is well worth tailoring your training.
My take away after reading a lot of the literature is that while HIIT and LSD produce some similar responses, they really are two different systems, not two ways of doing the same thing. A competitive athlete should be doing both and for GPP you could do either /or /neither and still be pretty healthy by most informal metrics.
offwidth
Level 10 Valued Member
Well said. I couldn't agree more...
And this mirrors my real world experience precisely
vegpedlr
Level 6 Valued Member
Yup, it's all about that base.
The bigger and better the base, the more of the end stuff can be added later. Base fitness takes the longest to develop, like years, but it doesn't go away very quickly. Even laying off for a few weeks doesn't kill it. And whatever is lost can be rebuilt quickly. We often see this with former athletes who quit, sometimes even for years, yet seem to bounce right back when they start up again.
I suspect this is why elite athletes use a polarized 80/20 training style of high vs low intensity. Most of the time and season is spent on expanding that base. But us regular folk get bored with that, and focus on the sexy, exciting, high intensity 20%. We get real excited about the dramatic results, then sad when they disappear after six weeks.
It seems to me that all this applies to both strength and endurance qualities.
The bigger and better the base, the more of the end stuff can be added later. Base fitness takes the longest to develop, like years, but it doesn't go away very quickly. Even laying off for a few weeks doesn't kill it. And whatever is lost can be rebuilt quickly. We often see this with former athletes who quit, sometimes even for years, yet seem to bounce right back when they start up again.
I suspect this is why elite athletes use a polarized 80/20 training style of high vs low intensity. Most of the time and season is spent on expanding that base. But us regular folk get bored with that, and focus on the sexy, exciting, high intensity 20%. We get real excited about the dramatic results, then sad when they disappear after six weeks.
It seems to me that all this applies to both strength and endurance qualities.
Bret S.
Level 9 Valued Member
Yes, I guess it comes down to specificity and duration of task. I was thinking each person would do whatever they wanted in training to be in the best shape possible without dipping into each others specific training mode.
You may have a point about the race duration..
Bret S.
Level 9 Valued Member
The guy who just trained cycling would have an advantage.. Is this because he's training in all modalities by practicing for the event?
I was thinking they all practiced cycling for equal time with no interference to their aerobic training. The aerobic training has no restriction other than sticking with their assigned modality.
That's interesting, plugging in VWC or A+A to replace some 'junk miles' with kettlebells, it could probably work. Good point on avoiding joint wear and tear.
Bret S.
Level 9 Valued Member
Yes and no, I'm interested to learn all I can but my focus is mostly on gathering knowledge on the effects of the VWC training protocol. Your observations make sense as there appears to be no 'magic bullet' modality of aerobic training.
Bret S.
Level 9 Valued Member
What in your mind is 'too much risk'? Is it the choice of training mode or the intensity in application of the same? Or is it just the higher level of training intensity in general?
Bret S.
Level 9 Valued Member
What is S.A.I.D.?
offwidth
Level 10 Valued Member
The oft repeated 'goals' comes into play as well.
A persons training should be more or less harmonized with those goals.
Referring back to the cycling example for instance...
Maybe an extreme example but...
No amount of VWC or A+A Snatches is ever going to replace thousand of hours in the saddle to prepare a rider for the Tour de France.
Do professional cyclists do other training? You bet. But the lions share is LED cycling. (These guys even ride a few hours on their 'rest days'
)
A persons training should be more or less harmonized with those goals.
Referring back to the cycling example for instance...
Maybe an extreme example but...
No amount of VWC or A+A Snatches is ever going to replace thousand of hours in the saddle to prepare a rider for the Tour de France.
Do professional cyclists do other training? You bet. But the lions share is LED cycling. (These guys even ride a few hours on their 'rest days'
)
Specific Adaptations to Imposed Demands. The body adapts to what you ask it to do.
I think this would work to some extent, but running is so specific, you really just have to put the miles in to get more efficient at it. Beyond basic fitness, running becomes more about the elasticity of the tissues than it is about cardiovascular adaptations. I think @mprevost has provided us with some good reference material on that in past posts.
I haven't done VWC but I'm guessing the effects are more like HIIT, and I have done HIIT intervals on the Airdyne. I'm pretty convinced that true HIIT (as opposed to what some people call HIIT but is really more like wear-you-out metcons) is an effective way to get additional cardiovascular adaptations and increase V02max -- at least to some degree, as V02max is largely genetically determined and marginally trainable. But yes, it does cause your body to respond in some way, no doubt about it. I just wouldn't rely on it exclusively or extensively for more than once or twice per week.
Let's make the distinction though, between HIIT training (brief, high intensity intervals with recovery between them) and glycolytic training that's more like metcons (the "easy come easy go" that I referred to and the "too much risk" that @vegpedlr referred to). Which one is VWC? I'm not really sure.
- Here is a typical HIIT session as I would define it: 20 sec all-out effort followed by 1 min 40 sec easy pedal on Airdyne, repeat 5x total (10 minutes). Add a few minutes of easy warm-up and cool-down to the beginning and end. The hard work efforts are 20 seconds long.
- Here is a typical glycolytic peaking session as I would define it: 2 min snatches, rest 2 minutes, 2-3 minutes snatches at a pace slightly higher than 5-min snatch pace, rest 2 minutes, repeat 2-3 more times. The hard work efforts are 2-3 minutes long.
offwidth
Level 10 Valued Member
Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demand
vegpedlr
Level 6 Valued Member
What a great thread! Lots of great sharing here, as always.
By "too much risk" in the example of using VWC, I actually meant two different things, so let me clarify. First, by taking training time and recovery energy away from the primary sport, you risk your eventual performance. If you're invested in that goal performance, why risk it with a training deviation? Also, any training at that intensity carries real risk of injury and burnout. Why carry that risk with a supplementary activity?
RE: Junk Miles
I hate this term, probably because it reflects HIIT dogma and bias. It's also a misuse of the terms quality and quantity, as in, low intensity equals "junk." By this definition, all elite endurance athletes primarily train "junk." Which is of course different from training their junk, but I digress . . .
I've come to realize that all fitness attributes are skills, whether they seem that way consciously or not. To the body, it's a skill at the metabolic level, structural etc. beyond what we consciously think of as technique. To the body, running is just as much a skill to be learned and improved as anything else. How does one improve any skill? Right, practice. Since the key component of a marathon program is the long run, the idea that the other runs are "junk" is nothing new. Many programs have come and gone trying to replace the "junk" with "quality." Mixed results, they can work for experienced runners who already have a great base and lots of experience. But most people need a lot more practice. To draw an analogy to SF, since S&S, PTTP, GT(, etc. consists of daily moderate efforts, any single session isn't that important and can be missed, right? Does that make them "junk?"
I hope not.
By "too much risk" in the example of using VWC, I actually meant two different things, so let me clarify. First, by taking training time and recovery energy away from the primary sport, you risk your eventual performance. If you're invested in that goal performance, why risk it with a training deviation? Also, any training at that intensity carries real risk of injury and burnout. Why carry that risk with a supplementary activity?
RE: Junk Miles
I hate this term, probably because it reflects HIIT dogma and bias. It's also a misuse of the terms quality and quantity, as in, low intensity equals "junk." By this definition, all elite endurance athletes primarily train "junk." Which is of course different from training their junk, but I digress . . .
I've come to realize that all fitness attributes are skills, whether they seem that way consciously or not. To the body, it's a skill at the metabolic level, structural etc. beyond what we consciously think of as technique. To the body, running is just as much a skill to be learned and improved as anything else. How does one improve any skill? Right, practice. Since the key component of a marathon program is the long run, the idea that the other runs are "junk" is nothing new. Many programs have come and gone trying to replace the "junk" with "quality." Mixed results, they can work for experienced runners who already have a great base and lots of experience. But most people need a lot more practice. To draw an analogy to SF, since S&S, PTTP, GT(, etc. consists of daily moderate efforts, any single session isn't that important and can be missed, right? Does that make them "junk?"
I hope not.
Great definition of two important aspects of risk for those activities.
I always took "junk miles" to mean, for endurance sports, the "zone 3" riding or running that most people have a tendency to do, kind of giving their best hard effort for the session but not targeting an easier or true hard effort. For me "zone 3" is a HR of about 150 -- hard-ish, sustainable, somewhat stressful, but not really an all-out effort. I'll admit I end up doing plenty of it on my weekly bike rides most of the time, but I'm not really targeting improvement as much as sustaining what I have with that right now.
More effective for endurance training would be about 80% of the sessions or total training time in "zone 1-2" (recovery or aerobic), and 20% of the time in "zone 4-5" (lactate threshold/AnT or anaerobic power), staying away from that middle zone 3 which is not stressful enough to drive adaptations, but stressful enough to make recovery difficult and compromise the next training session.
But I agree.... might be "junk" in some ways (not effective for targeting improvement), but it's still training, it's still activity, and there are still benefits.
offwidth
Level 10 Valued Member
There are also some minor differences in HR zone classifications and different interpretations of such. But I agree with @Anna C on the definition of 'Junk Miles'...
Too hard to be 'easy' and not hard enough to elicit the benefits of HIT
From the 'system' that I subscribe to, that is Z2 or 75%-80% of HRmax.
(House/Johnston)
But as an athlete becomes highly trained their Z1 sort of expands and encompasses Z2. Whereas Z3 and Z4 become 'narrower'.
Too hard to be 'easy' and not hard enough to elicit the benefits of HIT
From the 'system' that I subscribe to, that is Z2 or 75%-80% of HRmax.
(House/Johnston)
But as an athlete becomes highly trained their Z1 sort of expands and encompasses Z2. Whereas Z3 and Z4 become 'narrower'.
North Coast Miller
Level 9 Valued Member
I'd add, at some point these HR zone and intensity definitions become very difficult to apply to resistance training as well as aerobic endurance.
Likewise the relative durability of any exercise adaptation. There are a lot of variables out there.
Likewise the relative durability of any exercise adaptation. There are a lot of variables out there.
vegpedlr
Level 6 Valued Member
Ah yes, the terminology gets confusing.
All the discussion I've encountered regarding junk miles refers to short to moderate length, low intensity sessions because they don't seem to be doing anything. Not long enough, or hard enough. But what they do is reinforce, maintain, and build base aerobic fitness. That's why I use the marathon program example. Many people question the value of those weekday runs.
What Anna is calling junk I have always seen referred to as "gray zone" or "no man's land." Exactly as Anna describes it, not hard enough to get those benefits, not easy enough for base benefits, but requiring some dedicated recovery.
BUT, those intensities are actual race intensity for many longer events, leading one coach I listen to describe it as the "money zone" since it is race specific. For cycling, it's now often referred to as "sweet spot" training. It's lower intensity than typical LT intervals, putting it as high tempo by most rubrics.
I haven't tried it yet, but what I think makes sweet spot different from no man's land is structure and programming. Sweet spot training uses work and recovery intervals, as well as considering the recovery issues required by those sessions. No man's land is when people just get swept along by the effort to something kinda hard but fun, but don't balance out the effort with appropriate recovery.
All the discussion I've encountered regarding junk miles refers to short to moderate length, low intensity sessions because they don't seem to be doing anything. Not long enough, or hard enough. But what they do is reinforce, maintain, and build base aerobic fitness. That's why I use the marathon program example. Many people question the value of those weekday runs.
What Anna is calling junk I have always seen referred to as "gray zone" or "no man's land." Exactly as Anna describes it, not hard enough to get those benefits, not easy enough for base benefits, but requiring some dedicated recovery.
BUT, those intensities are actual race intensity for many longer events, leading one coach I listen to describe it as the "money zone" since it is race specific. For cycling, it's now often referred to as "sweet spot" training. It's lower intensity than typical LT intervals, putting it as high tempo by most rubrics.
I haven't tried it yet, but what I think makes sweet spot different from no man's land is structure and programming. Sweet spot training uses work and recovery intervals, as well as considering the recovery issues required by those sessions. No man's land is when people just get swept along by the effort to something kinda hard but fun, but don't balance out the effort with appropriate recovery.
Shawn
Level 5 Valued Member
Thanks guys! This is a very interesting thread. I always wondered what would be the best way to train for a person like myself. I have to drag, lift and pull on my jobs. Sometimes you can get out of breath. I always thought does this do anything to the heart if it's not conditioned for the activity.
I think diet has more of an affect on the heart. But, even now, I was always confused as to what would be the best way to train to condition the heart.
I think diet has more of an affect on the heart. But, even now, I was always confused as to what would be the best way to train to condition the heart.
kurt perham
Level 5 Valued Member
kurt perham
Level 5 Valued Member
as a working stiff dad who still races some XC and marathon MTB events (and some long trail running events)...a lot of my non strength (Kettlebell) training is near this range.
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