Can Sprints also Build Endurance? (Read 1163 times)

I really thought this was written by Richard Gibbens (particularly when I read the part "I recommend...")

Sprint training is becoming a new way to train.

People like this is the worst kind--they are not a scientist; they are certainly not a coach; they are a marketer who create illusion that the "trend" is shifting by wording like this so the new to the sport and innocent will follow the (imaginary) herd. What does she mean by "becoming a new way to train"? Who are those people who are training this way and beating the butts of those who train "traditional" way? This was written a year ago--do we see people sprinting along the neighborhood lately?

In fact, one study found that just six sessions of 4-7 all-out 30 second sprints (with four minutes of recovery) could be as effective in improving cardiovascular fitness as an hour of daily moderate activity.

Once again, so do we now see peolpe sprinting down the street instead of going out for an hour's jog? If it's "as effective" and done much less time, why don't we see more people doing this type of workouts? Those marketers, and unfortunately quite often many "researchers" are this way as well, need to come up with "NEW AND IMPROVED!" something. They want to be a trend-setter. And in many cases, they mislead people. Of course, she also mentioned the following: "To build a base, follow the 10 percent rule, and gradually increase your training volume. Launching into a sprint program will be difficult and cause delayed onset muscle soreness if you haven't done much before. I recommend having about 3 to 4 weeks of base fitness before beginning." So what's the appropriate "volume" of training before you start sprinting training? What kind of "base fitness" training would she recommend? An hour a day? By the way, I just went back and calculated; so you do 30 seconds all-out sprint and then 4 minutes recovery... If you do that 4 times (minimum?) and do that 6 sessions? So the whole damn thing takes almost 2 hours? I'd (personally) rather go for a nice 2-hour stroll around the lakes. Or does she actually mean "6 sessions (6 times a week)" in which case the whole week's work is equivalent of one hour run? Surely, she didn't mean; if you go down the park and do 4~7 sprints; that's as effective as running an hour??? I mean, that's what people used to do in the 1940s~1950s. Then came coaches like Lydiard, Cerutty and van Aaken whose runners kicked their butts in the Olympics simply because they ran hell of a lot more=they were much better-conditioned. People like this, to me, is trying to bring us back to the Dark Age by saying, "Look, do it this way because it's quicker and easier! (you can lose 20lb in 2 weeks by only 5-minutes a day of tightening your butt muscles every other day...!)" I mean, c'mon...! Before you buy into something, use your common sense. Just because it's written and published (and it's on the internet!); doesn't mean it's real. Anybody writes anything on line today and pretend they're an expert. Be careful which one you believe. It is VERY dangerous to just to take a line or paragraph and go by that; particularly written by some marketers, not a coach. If they really know something new and innovative that works better than so-called "traditional" or "conventional" training program (which some people love to crticize), they should be leading the US Olympic team to Beijing (but they are not).

It reads like a 30 second ab commercial. There is nothing new here. It's just speed work added on to a base, although they never clearly state what type of base is required. I suspect that the more you add the more improvement you'll see in endurance. Hmmm... Tom

you can lose weight while sleeping too

The two scientific articles quoted studied cycling NOT running! Since running is a weight bearing and high impact activity versus cycling, there are physical adaptations that you would get from doing longer but less intense running training that you would not get from just sprinting 7 times a day. On the other hand, if you can do 200x 100 meters every day, I think you could still build some decent running endurance that way as long as you kept the recovery down to maybe the same or half the time as your running repeats.

Interesting... http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1995688

Short-term sprint interval versus traditional endurance training: similar initial adaptations in human skeletal muscle and exercise performance Brief, intense exercise training may induce metabolic and performance adaptations comparable to traditional endurance training. However, no study has directly compared these diverse training strategies in a standardized manner. We therefore examined changes in exercise capacity and molecular and cellular adaptations in skeletal muscle after low volume sprint-interval training (SIT) and high volume endurance... [...] ...In conclusion, the most striking finding from the present study was that two very diverse forms of training induced remarkably similar changes in exercise capacity and selected muscle adaptations that are related to exercise tolerance. Given the markedly lower training volume in the SIT group, our results suggest that intense interval training is indeed a time-efficient strategy to induce rapid muscle and performance adaptations comparable to traditional endurance training. Additional research is warranted to clarify the effect of different acute exercise ‘impulses’ on molecular signalling events in human skeletal muscle, and the precise time course and mechanisms responsible for the contraction-induced changes that facilitate the training adaptation.

Interesting... http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1995688

I've seen that sort of thing before. Here's the thing: Higher intensity work will make you faster. That is an undeniable fact. That being said, your chance for injury will increase, your risk of burnout will go up, and you're not going to experience the long-term gains. Unfortunately, these studies generally only cover weeks of training, not months or years. I have yet to meet someone who could maintain high intensity throughout, every day, every week, all year long, for years.

Periodization, non?

Periodization works, sure. But doing intervals all the time isn't really periodization.