Power Running Physiology Enters the Mainstream (Read 2197 times)

This is a very interesting quote. Thanks for posting it. This part of that quote is significant in terms of conventional thinking on the source of fatigue - "...endurance training reduces blood levels of lactate, even while cells continue to produce the same amount of lactate".

I was thinking more along the lines of muscle acidity. When it became accepted that lactate does not cause fatigue, some shifted the focus from lactate to H+ (hydrogen ions), which are associated with lactate production, as the cause of fatigue. In short, here was the story: it was suggested that increasing muscle acidity was the cause of fatigue. Acidity was brought about by an increase in H+ in the cell. H+ increased as lactate production increased. More lactate = more H+ = more acidity. The quote you posted said that lactate production did NOT decrease. Instead, the rate of usage of lactate increased (i.e. the same amount of lactate was produced, but lactate was being burned at a faster rate), which is why blood lactate levels dropped. Well, if the rate of lactate production is the same before and after training then muscle acidity would be the same since the claim is that H+ production is tied to lactate production. Yet, the athlete is now running faster at the same level of blood lactate concentration. Running faster = more lactate being produced. But since lactate is being burned at a faster rate, blood lactate levels are not higher. Which means that the runner is actually running at a higher level of muscle acidity. This brings up the question - is acidity really the cause of fatigue if the runner can run at a higher level of acidity after training than before?

That's good stuff. Thanks.

Jim: That is a very interesting point. I guess Arthur's original boys, when they were doing 100 miles a week for their main training for conditioning, they would cut back their mileage down to 40~50 miles during track workout; plus (I never counted so I don't know if this is with or without) they were doing up to 50 minutes of easy jogging in the morning. Interestingly, I just had the worst 5k race of the season yesterday. My Achilles has been borhering me so I wasn't really doing much running (though still doing twice a day); on Wednesday, I went to the club and ran on the treadmill. It felt so easy to run and did a few fast strides (only for 30 seconds) and 9.5MPH felt like jogging. I felt so good so I just packed it up after 30 minutes. First mile felt fine but ran out of gas... Another interesting thing is; so I've been doing almost twice a day about 5 times a week. My morning jog loop was about 25 minutes earlier. That became 18-minutes so I added some extra on dirt trail; down to the tunnel; which was about 42 minutes out and back... Now it's about 36 minutes so I need to add some more. A part of it, I'm sure, is getting used to running in the morning (I work out of my house so I get my daughter off to school at 6:50 and then go out at 7) but I'm getting faster by running more. I'm sure I'm not the only one to have found this...

Jim, Very good information for me as I'm one of those guys running a marathon in two weeks off of my best mileage ever but still peaking at around 50 and even then for only a handful of weeks (I've had some inconsistent miles the last two weeks with a 10 mile race and a few extra days off after that with really sore legs) I do tend to run many of my miles close to or even below what I think may be MP so I think I have a large portion of my miles that might be characterized as "intensity". I think I'm reading that you recommend maintaining my miles and intensity for one more week with a slightly shorter long run 1 week out (maybe something like 13)?

Dick likes to take snippets from other people and paste them in, then pretend that those other people support the gibberish he preaches. Dick claims over and over that the "old" aerobic story of running is dead and disproven. He claims that his theories are now mainstream, supported by Hudson in his new book. Remember, you cannot separate pieces of Dick's theory -- in order for his house of cards to stand, cardiovascular factors must be unimportant he said so himself. I already posted one article where Dick said data supported his claims, yet conveniently left out that the authors who generated that data wholeheartedly disagreed with him. With that in mind, let's look at another excerpt from Brad Hudson's new book that Dick claims supports his theories and "brings them into the mainstream": "Oxygen is a big part of the sport of running. One of the signature physiological characteristics of the best distance runners is a large aerobic capacity, or the ability to consume oxygen at a very high rate while sustaining fast running speeds. And one of the primary effects of training as a distance runner is a significant increase in the ability to consume oxygen when running hard. Why is aerobic capacity so important to running performance? Because oxygen plays a direct role in releasing energy in the muscles. The more oxygen your muscles are able to consume as you run, the more energy they can pour into moving your body forward and the faster you can run over any distance exceeding a few hundred meters. The muscles are also able to release energy without oxygen, or anaerobically. And, in fact, anaerobic metabolism is well suited to provide large amounts of energy that are needed to fuel very high-intensity efforts, such as short sprints. However, anaerobic metabolism is much more wasteful than aerobic metabolism. The aerobic breakdown of a single glucose molecule yields 20 times as much energy as the anaerobic breakdown of the same glucose molecule. In addition, the aerobic system can metabolize fat, the body’s most abundant energy source, whereas the anaerobic system cannot. Aerobic metabolism is therefore better suited to sustaining submaximal efforts. Working muscles always release energy both aerobically and anaerobically, but the lower the intensity of exercise, the more they rely on aerobic metabolism, and the higher the intensity of exercise, the more they rely on anaerobic metabolism." Funny, Dick, how someone who you claim supports your gibberish begins his book by reiterating everything your detractors here and elsewhere repeat ad nauseum. If he is supporting you, you support this quoted above.

This is the first quote I posted from the book: "As important as it is, the aerobic system is only one of two major physiological factors in the running performance equation. The neuromuscular system is the other major factor. Neuromuscular fitness, which manifests itself as stride power, stride efficiency, and fatigue resistance, affects performance as much as aerobic fitness does." The authors are saying that the aerobic system and the nueromuscular system are equally important in performance - which is quite different from traditional training wisdom which places little to no importance on the neuromuscular system as a key component in performance.

Balance and equal are two very different things. Nice try and creating an agreement that doesn't exist now. But let's go with that for a moment. Now you agree that the aerobic system and neuromusclular systam are equally important?? As for "traditional" placing "little to no" importants on neuromuscular, you are making that up. Hill bounding was a key compenent of the Lydiard system 50 years ago. Keep on lying to yourself that you're telling anything new or even accurate.

Hey Dick, turns out Coolrunning still exists as a forum: http://community.active.com/community/coolrunning?view=discussions Any chance you could return there?