As we head into spring training, most athletes are planning their schedules and hoping to reach summer in a strong position. This will be your year!! This will be the season it all comes together!!
It’s common at this time of year for people to test themselves and establish a benchmark. About now, triathletes and cyclists everywhere are considering their 20 minute FTP test, or maximal incremental ramp test. Runners may be considering something similar on the treadmill, track or road. But one of the biggest issues with selecting testing protocols, it how it then potentially impacts your subsequent training.
VO2 Max
Max aerobic power
Max aerobic speed
Max 20 minute power
Max 3 minute power
Max sprint test
Above is just a selection of tests that people commonly use. In case you haven’t noticed the obvious… all of the above tests include the word MAX.
Let’s now consider how trying to improve a MAXIMUM SCORE, may impact your choice of training. If improving MAXIMAL 20 minute power or improving VO2 MAX is your chosen target, are you likely to choose steady zone 1 / 2 aerobic exercise as a means of achieving your goal or are you perhaps be more likely to choose more high intensity workouts? If the testing we use to gauge our progress includes the word MAX, then we’re subliminally influencing our training choices right from the start.
How do we measure economy?
We offer VO2 Max testing as a service for runners, cyclists and triathletes. We also complete VO2 Max testing with all our coached athletes. However, from the data gathered by the test, the actual VO2 Max score is the least important thing. VO2 Max testing became popular in the 80’s as it gave sports scientists a means of ‘quantifying people’. If we could give everyone a number which measures their fitness and the person with the highest number is the fittest of all, wouldn’t that be simple! Now of course, your watch predicts your VO2 Max and if the number goes up, your fitness must be getting better. Sadly it’s not that simple.
When we complete VO2 testing, we can measure lots of things accurately. For most people racing endurance sports (perhaps as much as 80% of athletes), it’s economy that they need to develop, not VO2 Max. They can already go at the pace required to hit their race goal time, they just can’t keep it going for long enough. Think of it like a car engine, some engines are huge and can generate a lot of power, but they also use a huge amount of fuel and the tank goes empty pretty quickly. By contrast, a more economical car may be able to keep going all day at a reasonable speed.
From a physiology point of view, economy is the amount of oxygen you need to swim, bike and run at any given pace. For example, if your aim is to run 8 minutes per mile for 26 miles, how much oxygen do you require each minute to do so. The amount of oxygen you require is linked to how many Kcal you’re using (if you need more energy, you’ll use more oxygen) and your heart rate and breathing will also be an indicator. People who are very economical use less energy and less oxygen and therefore have a lower heart rate and breathing rate.
There are some simple ways to test your own economy score. Just run on a treadmill at a moderate speed or cycle at a moderate power output and note your heart rate and breathing rate. As your economy improves, you’ll be able to run or cycle at the same speed with a lower heart rate and breathing rate.
So, let’s re-word our earlier comments about choice of test this winter. If you are trying to improve your ECONOMY SCORE this spring, are you likely to choose steady zone 1 / 2 aerobic riding as a means of achieving goal or lots of maximal intervals? Has the answer now reversed? So by simply changing your test, you’ve now changed your training ethos? Be wary of focusing on your MAX.
Let’s consider endorphins…
There is of course another key player here which is the endorphins or the ‘feel good factor’. Most people feel far more satisfied and get far more ‘reward’ from pushing themselves hard, than they do exercising at a moderate intensity. If you finish ‘in pieces’ then it must have been a great workout. When you couple that with the fact that most people find it extremely difficult to compute how riding or running at a moderate intensity can be beneficial, you can understand why people prefer high intensity workouts. It’s difficult to have faith and play the long game, when you know you can instant short term benefits from harder workouts. It’s difficult to trust a long term schedule, if you can’t ‘measure’ the benefits. If you could see your ‘economy scores’ improving each session, you’d be more tempted to follow that path of training. Measuring and seeing improvements in economy are just not as simple as measuring ‘maximal output’, so we naturally gravitate to what we can clearly see and measure.
So intervals don’t work?
They absolutely do work. High intensity interval training can give you a real boost in performance, that’s been known for many years, but there is a limit. For most people the benefits peak after 6-10 weeks, followed by a plateau and then often a dip. You get instant gains in the first 6 weeks which gives you a mental boost, but by the time you’ve reached 10 weeks, the progress has halted and the performances are often getting worse.
“This is so frustrating, how can a training session that was clearly working 6 weeks ago, not be working now??” The answer? It’s limited to 6-10 weeks, there’s a cap on it. You can’t just do it for 52 weeks. You need to work on your personal key basics such as economy or maximal strength & speed (which can continue to progress for months / years) then add the intervals 6-10 weeks before your key races, that’s how it works. It’s call periodisation.
So here’s your take away message…
1. Accept that there’s far more to performance than MAXIMAL scores
2. Understand which of those things are your personal weaknesses
3. Know how to improve them
4. Select a test / benchmark which accurately measures them
5. Remember that the benefits of hard intervals plateau at 6-10 weeks
6. Just because everyone does it, doesn’t mean it’s right
7. Don’t get obsessed with testing. It can be extremely beneficial, but your results on event day are what really count.
Regards
The Endurance Coach
We offer coaching from £40 per month for triathletes and runners. We also offer lactate threshold and VO2 Max testing with consultation for £60, to help you better structure your training. You can read more by GOING HERE