The Muscle Factor Model (Read 3142 times)

 

 

 

I'm kind of curious about this part (which I agree with, btw).  Is the primary incremental benefit of quality-in-a-long-run workouts physiological or psychological?  I definitely come away with more confidence and more knowledge of what my body can do and will feel like when tired and pushed.  But I have no idea what's going on in there, physiologically, let alone if there's been a benefit over doing the whole LR at regular training pace.

 

 

The primary benefit of the long run is physiological - it trains a subset of the slow twitch fibers, causing them to adapt and improve.

 

That being said, fiber types are not homogeneous, they are not all the same.  For example, all slow twitch fibers are not the same - they don't all contract at the same rate, produce the same amount of force when they contract, or fatigue at the same rate.  If you tested the contractile properties (speed, strength, and endurance) of a large pool of slow twitch fibers and graphed the results you would find a continuum of contractile properties. 

 

This fact has significant training implications.

 

Due to the way muscle fibers are activated, slow paced long runs overload (trains) slower, weaker, but more enduring slow fibers.

 

Faster paced long runs overload an different subset of slow fibers - fibers that are faster and stronger and hence not trained by slower long runs.

 

Every different pace overloads a different subset of fibers.

With all this running I've been doing my tolerance for alcohol is gotten pretty low and, due to dietary and time constraints, I'm not interested in drinking every day to get it back up. So, if on Monday I drink a couple beers, on Wednesday I drink a glass of wine, and on the weekend I have a couple shots, will I be able to keep up with the best of them come Octoberfest and drink all night long without puking???

Groundbreaking and amazing.

 

In other news, I invented the term "comet" as it applies to message boards.

 

I also won a contest in the early 80s and had a superhero published in a DC comic book.

I here there is some sort of event involving really hard 400m repeats with 8oz beer consumption intervening, but I'm not sure if this has training benefit.

 I believe this is called cross training for my Octoberfest model.

With all this running I've been doing my tolerance for alcohol is gotten pretty low and, due to dietary and time constraints, I'm not interested in drinking every day to get it back up. So, if on Monday I drink a couple beers, on Wednesday I drink a glass of wine, and on the weekend I have a couple shots, will I be able to keep up with the best of them come Octoberfest and drink all night long without puking???

 Chris,

 

I"m sure you'll get lots of different responses on this.  My sense is that your training volume is kind of light -- you'd be well served by drinking lots, mostly easy, sometimes hard.  Also, the THIRST training program may work for some, but my feeling is that you'll see more improvement by adding drinking days than by trying to drink just three days per week.  If you can't get yourself up to drinking six days per week, I'd at least aim for four or five, then augment your drinking on one of those days (rather than adding a little extra imbibement to each day).  You'll also see more benefit if you don't do doubles, given your volume.

So a more optimum drinking week might look like this:

 

MON: 1 beer at conversational pace

TUE: 1 beer at conversational pace

WED:3 beers at conversational pace

THU: no drinking; burping and dry heave drills

FRI: half a beer warmup; 3 shots, slammed, with sip of beer recoveries; half a beer cooldown

SAT: cross-training (maybe some Gatorade or juice)

SUN: binge drinking (not to exceed 40% of your total week's volume)

 

If you have any questions, just let me know and I'll post a multi-screen response that's only tangentially on-point or helpful.

 

--Coach Clive

Anyone interested in the training implications of the the muscle factor model can read about 6 paces training here:  6 Paces Training

 

 

Interestingly, Mr Magill prescribes 7 paces in his article - long run, long intervals, short intervals, long hill repeats, short hill repeats, tempo, and progression.

 This is obtuse even for you.  Hill repeats are not a variation of pace, and, by definition, a progression is multiple paces within itself.  If you ever actually got out of your mom's basement and hit the pavement this would be self-evident.

My apologies.  You are right.  He prescribes 7 workouts conducted at different paces, intensities, & durations so as to train different subsets of muscle fibers.  Similarly my 6 paces training is actually 6 different workouts conducted at different paces, intensities, and durations.  As a shorthand I just called it "different paces" mistakenly thinking you would understand. 

 

Thank you for your attention to detail.