This article was provided by Complete Track and Field

Since the early days of exercise science testing and experimentation, it has been accepted that aerobic power development is one of four training domains used in preparing distance runners.  Consider the combined energy zone events of the 800 meters through the 10,000 meters; including both short and long cross country competitions.  Improvement in the anaerobic glycolytic domain in all of these races hinges on better management of hydrogen/lactate ion presence; while aerobically, the three domains are: improving running economy, shifting the lactate threshold, and boosting aerobic power.  These three aerobic domains have a sliding influence based on the distance of the race.  The shorter distance races lean more toward aerobic power, while the longer races lean more toward running economy.  Today we will consider how this relates to when to deemphasize VO_{2 max} training.

For exercise scientists studying aerobic power, there is a maximum rate of oxygen consumption that can be measured during incremental exercise, or exercise of increasing intensity.  This maximum value is called VO_2 max (V is volume, O₂ is molecular oxygen, and _max is maximum).

Maximal oxygen consumption reflects the cardiovascular and respiratory fitness of an individual.  For distance coaches, VO_2 max is an important determinant of aerobic power during prolonged exercise and is a crucial variable in race performance.

 

* Training Resource: Speed Development for Distance Runners

 

In experienced runners, once the VO_{2 max} system is nearly developed through a combination of athlete physical maturity, and plenty of prior vVO_2 max work, a switch to the other two training domains of lactate threshold and running economy is necessary for continued success.  The training route most commonly taken is to implement a series of workouts that fractionalizes individual vVO_2 max intensity into longer training runs.  These can be done as either continuous runs or inter-style workouts as shown in table 1.

Let’s look at a couple of case studies on how vVO_{2 max} fractionization can be used in training to either add to or replace 100% vVO_{2 max} work.

1. Shannon is a junior and has been on both the high school varsity cross country and track teams for the past two years. She has run 5:05 for 1600 meters, 11:12 for 3200 meters, and 18:43 for 5000 meters in cross country.  Her tempo run pace always correlates to her 85% vVO_{2 max} date pace and she seems to recover in 24 hours from the workout.  As expected, her improvement has slowed a bit as she has gotten older.  Let’s diagnose Shannon and look at specific training.  Shannon no doubt has a mature VO_{2 max} system already in place, so despite continued workouts at vVO_{2 max} pace, it is not going to improve much.  Her aerobic capacity work, mainly done as long runs, are her favorite thing to do because they come easily to her.  Typically, females are a couple of years ahead of males in VO_{2 max} development, and some more than that.  If Shannon is to get faster at distance races, then her best route to success is to try to raise her LT pace from 85% vVO_{2 max} to a value closer to 90% vVO_{2 max}.  Her LT paced workouts need to evolve from continuous tempo runs to critical velocity (CV) runs done as intervals (table 1). To address this, Shannon should continue to do vVO_{2 max} paced training sessions bi-weekly beginning half-way through the general preparation period, and concurrently do CV paced runs bi-weekly at the same time; doing both all the way to the championship meets in the competition period.  When Shannon begins the CV interval sessions she will first have to start with a 3200 meter test to determine her vVO_{2 max} date pace and then do the mathematics to determine CV pace. Let’s say on August 10, Shannon runs 11:40 to exhaustion for a 3200 meter time trial, so her present-day vVO_{2 max} pace is 5:50 per mile.  For the next fourteen weeks, Shannon should do seven spaced workouts at her date CV pace, in this case, 90% vVO_{2 max}, to improve her LT.  The typical total volume for each of the seven sessions should be 4-5 miles done as intervals.  The date pace for Shannon is set at 350 seconds (5:50/mile) divided by .90 for a workout pace of 6:28 per mile, but she will not run a full mile at that pace, so one more mathematical division must be done. Shannon’s typical CV workout is 6 x 1000 meters with 90 seconds recovery between each repetition.  Her calculated date pace for today is 6:28/mile or 4:03/1000 meters.  As her 3200 improves throughout the year, the fractionally derived CV pace will too.

1. Jack is a 21-year-old junior in a successful collegiate program. His athlete profile for 5000 meter personal bests notes 14:35 as a freshman and 14:21 as a sophomore. His desire is to compete in 10 kilometer championship track and cross country races over the remaining two years of school.  In high school, his best marks were 4:14 for the 1600 meters and 9:15 for the 3200 meters.  Jack’s improvement has slowed a bit as he has gotten older and the chances of running sub 14:00 in college have dimmed.  Let’s diagnose Jack and look at specific training.  Jack has spent his career stimulating adaptation to his VO_{2 max} system and it has reached developmental maturity. So, despite continued workouts at vVO_{2 max} pace, it is not going to improve much more.  In moving to frequent LT work sessions, Jack will not only shift to an aerobic capacity emphasis to perform well at 10k, but his 5k time may drop as well; probably lower than it ever would have with just continued vVO_{2 max} paced work.  During each week of training, Jack should do a long run with frequent surges that accounts for 22% of his weekly volume, a tempo run of five miles at 85% of his vVO_{2 max}, and a critical velocity (CV) pace workout.  The rest of the week is basically recovery runs at the aerobic threshold.  A typical CV work session for Jack would be 4 x 2000 meters at 90% of vVO_{2 max} with two minutes of recovery between repeats.  Follow this unit with five minutes rest and then do 3 x 200 meters at 800 meter pace with 90 seconds recovery between repeats.

Aerobic power training exercises are not done in isolation from the other aerobic domains.  Work sessions directed toward VO_{2 max} improvement also concurrently improve aerobic capacity and running economy.  Greater aerobic power can also help shift the lactate threshold to a higher pace.

 

* Coaching Resource: Training Model for High School Cross Country

 

Running economy, which is the efficiency a distance runner consumes food energy and oxygen molecules to facilitate movement, is dependent on aerobic power because the economy too is heavily dependent on greater blood flow to the muscles.  Running economy improves with VO_2 max training, as does lactate threshold velocity.  However, there comes a time when VO_{2 max} training needs to be deemphasized and economy and lactate threshold training emphasized with specifically targeted workouts if further development of the cross country runner is to occur.

 

This post was provided by Complete Track and Field

By Scott Christensen

Why do distance runners need to train all summer, effectively doubling the length of their fall season, in order to be competitive in the championship cross country meets at the end of the year?  The answer lies in the rate by which physiological changes occur in humans.  Today we will discuss stimulus, adaptation, fitness, and timeframes as they relate to the training of the cross country athlete.

Fitness gains to the aerobic energy system requires enough time for structural changes in tissue to occur.  In the same light, strength improvements in the muscular system’s Type 1 fibers requires enough time for the cross-sectional diameter size of the myosin filaments to increase; again, a change in tissue structure.  Improvements in both the aerobic energy system and Type 1 muscular fibers lead to increased aerobic fitness which is the most important aspect of not only the cross country race itself, but the ability to effectively maintain day to day training.

The other side of the cross country training coin is anaerobic fitness.  Improvements to the anaerobic energy system are chiefly biochemical in nature and not structural, thus considerably less length of training time is needed to show positive changes.  Improvements in Type 2 muscle fiber activity does involve some small structural changes, but adaptation is mainly neural in nature.

Neural-muscular activity improvement lies in better synchronization and recruitment of Type 2 muscular fibers themselves, rather than size changes; again, requiring less weeks of training to evoke changes.

Cross country training involves a mix of aerobic and anaerobic stimuli and is volume and intensity driven.  Table 1 indicates many of the adaptations necessary to improve a cross country runners fitness along with seven columns of increasing heart rate (HR) training intensity (found in Table 2).  While a variety of training markers can be used to measure intensity, Table 1 uses heart rate (HR), while also indicating a 1-5 score for each level and degree of expected stimulus.

There are many valid means for measuring training intensity with some more accurate than others.  These can vary from lactate analyzers to heart rate monitors to the athletes simply mentally “measuring and scaling” how they feel with a modified Borg Scale of perceived exertion.

 

Table 2 uses heart rate and vVO_{2 max} mathematics to discriminate training intensities, along with corresponding perceived exertion on a ten-point scale found in Table 3.  Heart rate is one of the easier hematological characteristics to measure, and most cross country runners fall into similar quantitative training ranges.

 

 

* Training Resource: Peaking Workouts for Cross Country Runners

 

Table 2 is set up for a runner with a maximum heart rate of 215 bpm which would be common for a person 16-20 years old.  Perceived exertion is more variable with athletes qualitatively assessing somewhat different intensities for the same effort. (The seven levels in Table 2 correspond to the same seven columns found in Table 1.)

Besides considering the training intensity stimuli needed for cross country fitness adaptations there are also timeframes to develop when scheming a training program.  Using the same crucial physiological adaptations found in Table 1, a timeframefor each of their developments can be charted.

 

* Coaching Resource: Advanced Topics Symposium in Cross Country

 

The timeframes can be found in Table 4.  Remember, the data are set up to reflect maximum development of each adaptation.  A shorter timeframe merely means a somewhat less, but immeasurable degree of adaptation.

Allow ample time for training cross country runners.  Many adaptations are significant to fitness, but all take quite a long length of time to develop.  Gauge training intensities to desired adaptation outcome in the training plan.

 

This article was provided by Complete Track and Field

By Scott Christensen

Winter and summer training periods are the ideal time in the annual plan to develop effective hill racing skills and to use various forms of hill training to develop strength in cross country runners.  Most geographical locations in the United States possess ideal physical changes in topography which are suitable for hill tactics and training.  The extreme mountainous regions and the very flat areas do provide challenges to planning effective workout strategies, but these can be overcome with creative thinking on the part of the coach.  It is just as important when you do hill training as it is what you do in this training domain.

The essence of the great Arthur Lydiard’s training program was the development of strength.  He tried to accomplish tremendous strength gains in his athletes by prescribing an abundance of training miles as well as bouts of interval running on sand dunes and hills.  Lydiard recognized that different hill characteristics have different training effects and adaptations, so he varied the prescribed work to fit the athlete and the period in the training cycle.  Arthur Lydiard was one of the first coaches to incorporate hill training into the annual plan.  He advocated for up to five weeks of 1-3 sessions per week of hill training in any given training phase.  He also advocated for hill training to cycle in these five week blocks of time throughout the general and specific preparation periods, but then be eliminated during the general and specific competition periods of training.  Lydiard determined that hill training helped delay the peaking period in an athlete and when that runner progressed

 

During the five week blocks of training time athletes should perform most of the hill work using their normal running technique, but some variety may be good from time to time.  For example, the Lydiard technique of hill-bounding and also modified skip bounding can sometimes be introduced to the more advanced cross country runners.  Hill bounding must be performed on a grass or earthen surface as asphalt is much too hard to hill-bound on.  Lydiard learned this technique from the great Australian coach Percy Cerutty who developed effective hill-bounding routines on the beach sand dunes of Australia working with the likes of Herb Elliot.  The technique worked because the surface was soft enough to accommodate the work.

 

Training Resource:  Peaking Workouts for Distance Runners

 

Once the workout surface has been selected, the parameters left to decide are the intensity of each bout of work and the total volume of the training session.  The rest interval between each bout of work should be active with generally just a jog recovery back down the hill viewed as adequate.  However, if the uphill is less than 50 meters in length, then an extended loop to the bottom should be prescribed.

Hill length varies in every town as does the pitch of the hill.  Use common sense in choosing the proper combination of pitch and length in prescribing work.  A general suggestion of the total volume of anaerobic work to done in a single session would be to limit it to no more than one mile.  For example, the anaerobic work prescribed could be divided into 8 x 200 meter hill, 3 x 500 meter hill or 15 x 60 meter hill.  The training theme should be, the shorter the hill, the greater the pitch.  The goal is try to achieve maximum heart rate near the top of any of the hill you work with.

Periodizing the hill workouts should be schemed so that the longer hills are done in the general preparation period such as winter or summer training.  As the athletes progress to the specific preparation period, the hills should get shorter in length and steeper in pitch for a different training effect.

A training model could resemble the following:  June 25-August 1, five weeks total, one day per week, a typical session would include a two mile general warm-up followed by 6 x 300 meter hill, jog recovery, followed by a three mile cool down.  Take three weeks off.  August 21-October 1, five weeks total, one day per week, a typical session would include a two mile general warm-up, followed by 10 x 150 meter hill, jog recovery, followed by a three mile cool down.  Physiologists consider the overall recovery of these workouts to be about 24 hours.  Repeat the summer block during the period January 1 – February 10 and then repeat again March 5 – April 15.

 

Want Every Single Cross Country Workout from June Through Nationals?

Check out:  Training Model for High School Cross Country

 

Many coaches also add hilly routes to their arsenal of continuous runs done during the season or in preparation for the season.  Great idea, as this adds variety and interest to base runs or long runs.  However, do not substitute these types of runs for dedicated hill training sessions.  Too many hills in a route would not be appropriate for timed VO_{2 max} workouts or tempo runs done at a fraction of VO_{2 max} pace.