Crank it up!

I spend a lot of time in these pages talking about base and volume and the critical adaptations we get from both. Recently, I went to the other end of the spectrum and covered some ideas on power endurance and lactate tolerance. Admittedly, the amount of time you spend both training and racing on the former is large and, on the latter, small. In the middle, lies a critical zone of intensity which is probably where the real selection in races is made. We don't spend a ton of time here when competing but it often represents the most decisive zone in which we operate in a race. In a word, it's called THRESHOLD. This is what you exceed when you blow trying to hang with the leaders on a climb. In a ski mountaineering race, your threshold either keeps you in the hunt on the climbs or you watch the top placings move away from you up the skin track. In a cycling time trial, threshold is where you try to spend 99% of the race. God, do we ever hear a lot about this these days.

Lactate Threshold Testing

When I was doing my graduate work in exercise physiology I spent a fair amount of time in the lab torturing people. In 1989, I resurrected an old lactate analyzer from the shelf and started pricking fingers, drawing blood and plotting out lactate levels during max VO2 tests. We did not have watt meters back then (except in the lab) and most training recommendations were heart rate based. To find an athlete's threshold you simply looked at the plot of the lactate numbers with millimoles of lactate on one axis and time/heart rate on the other. Time and resistance increased together as these tests involved incremental increases in resistance to failure.

Typically, as power/time increased, so did lactate. Before threshold, the relationship is linear. However, at threshold, or what the Norwegians liked to call the "OOBLA" (say that with your funniest Swedish chef muppet voice) there is a sudden increase in the steepness of the line, a break point. By the way, OOBLA stands for "Onset of Blood Lactic Acid." Simply said, this is the point where the production of lactate exceeds our ability to metabolize it. This leads to a rapid lowering of pH in the muscles, an increase in pain and an eventual rapid decrease in performance. In other words, you have to slow down or explode!

The next step is to look at the heart rate at which the break point occurred and, viola, you have your threshold heart rate. When doing intervals, this is a common intensity zone in which to complete the work. For the most part, this is a good place to start. Of course, anyone with a monitor will attest to the fact that heart rate varies from day to day due to a variety of physiologic/environmental conditions. In addition, when our fitness improves with training, our OOBLA also changes. That's a good thing. But it also changes the heart rate at which we should be doing these threshold intervals. As you can see, precision gets lost along the way. This has always been my problem with this type of specific training recommendation...it's just not that exact.

Power Meters

Enter the modern age. Heart rate and it's limitations are SOOO yesterday. Nowadays, everyone talks in wattage. If you don't train with a SRM or Powertap you are just not training scientifically. Riiiight! Okay, as most of you know, I don't have one and do not have a ton of experience with these devices. I get the concept and it makes sense to me. I do not, however, feel it is vital for success to use one. What they do provide is a nice point of reference for coaches to monitor their athletes and govern work out loads. If I was coaching, I would definitely use one. If you're bored, you can get a dose of my opinion on this stuff here. 

To take the max test one step further, these days, instead of looking at what heart rate the break point occurred, we now look at what power output it occurred. You can then crank out that same wattage on any surface or terrain and do your threshold intervals at, well, your power threshold. Simple, right? Pretty much. However, with training, this level is going to change so, in a perfect world, you will need to repeat the test after an appropriate training block and readjust the threshold wattage as appropriate.

Is all this necessary to go fast? Well, the people who sell these expensive toys would have you believe as much. I, on the other hand, feel we can do well without them but we must be in tune with our motor. This means you have to pay attention when doing these intervals. What's your breathing doing? What are the sensations in your legs? Are your arms getting hot? These points provide clues to what is happening and guide your effort. Do a test with a watt meter if you must and take note of the sensations. Remember them the next time you do an interval session and try to match it. You will probably be close to where you need to be.

And why do we need to be here? Simply because if we want to compete at this power output or, better yet, learn to operate at an even higher level, we have to train here to cause the necessary physiologic adaptations.

Getting down to business

Anyone who has ever stormed uphill on skis for a half hour, run a 10k for time or ridden a bicycle time trial like they meant it knows what threshold is. This is where we operate for these kinds of efforts. So, now that we know how hard to go, what's next? Well, you have to do the work, stupid! But how much? Uhh, just enough! Yeah, I'm being a wise ass but, for the most part, this is basically true. The amount of this vital, quality work that will yield your best performance varies from athlete to athlete. With an adequate amount of attention paid to the base/volume end of things, these intense efforts are the final sharpening strokes to a honed performance. 

Frequency

I'm not going to plan out your year here. There are plenty of resources for that. But I will paint some broad concept strokes just to get you going. Once an adequate base is developed, interval training can commence. Truth be told, I do this kind of intensity year around. The difference is, during the early season, it is very unstructured. I just make sure that, at least once a week, I breath hard at some point in a workout. I feel that keeps the shell shock to a minimum once a structured program is started.

Once structured training begins, my opinion is that, starting out, doing this kind of effort once and then twice a week is plenty. Once I'm at twice a week, I do longer efforts on one day and shorter on the other. There should be at least one easier day in between. I think it's important to keep the overall volume of these days pretty low and focus on quality. As I like to say, "...go hard or go long but don't do both in the same workout too often." The long AND hard should be saved for race day. 

Volume

The next consideration is how much of this stuff to do during any one workout. As a rule, the longer the interval effort, the fewer you will do. In other words, you don't need to do as many 6 minute efforts as you do 1 minute efforts. Duh! I prefer to look at total time spent at threshold for any given session. This does not include the rest interval in between, of course. Early in the season, 10 minutes of work will be adequate. You may build this gradually to 20 or even 30 minutes of effort later in the season. I should add that, if in a busy block of racing, the volume of these efforts mid-week might actually be quite small depending upon form and recovery. But that's another topic. BEFORE racing gets started, work the volume up to the 20 minute range and you are doing some good. The rest interval will often be a similar time span although you can use shorter rest periods to vary the stimulus. I think a mix of hill repeats, flat jumps leading into sustained threshold efforts and steady threshold bouts on the TT bike provide a nice variety and prepare us for the demands of various racing scenarios. For the ski mountaineer where attacking is not really an issue, doing these efforts on varying terrain will accomplish similar goals in terms of broad preparation. Be sure to include some steep skinning on groomers requiring significant "arm waxing" to train this crucial skill.

Race Simulation

I have a saying (another one), "Don't expect to do anything in a race that you have not first done in training." This idea can help guide your efforts on interval days. Sports psychologists love to talk about visualization. This is important to do when training. Turn off the IPod or the TV and start thinking about racing. Imagine what your competitors would do with the terrain at hand. Come up with imaginary tactical situations and act them out. On group rides this happens organically but you can also create the same scenarios alone. I always do these on solo rides so I'm not distracted by another rider's program. It's up to you. 

Variety is key

You are really only limited by your imagination when it comes to structuring these sessions. Once you decide on the appropriate volume, you can break it up any way you want. Here are a few of my favorites.

- 30/30  This is 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off continuously. These allow you to go just above threshold and recover for the next without getting buried. The rest interval is spent moving along slowly. Adjust the work intensity so that you are just recovered enough to hit each one without exploding. It won't take long to find the groove. Experimentally, these have been shown to increase VO2 max over the short term.

- Over/Unders  With a watt meter, you can be precise about how "over" or "under" threshold you go. Try doing them 10 watts on either side for a minute each for 5-6 minutes. Try five minutes full recovery in between. Do three or four of these. This forces you to learn to recover slightly after going a little too deep during a sustained effort. You can imagine a number of different race scenarios where this might occur.

- 3 on/3 off  Another variation on a similar theme. I like to break these up on the minute, sometimes ramping up the intensity, sometimes starting high and going down for different effects. 5-7 of these work nicely.

- Hill Repeats  This is the classic cycling/skimo workout. Pick a hill and ride up it a bunch of times. Simple. However, you can make it more interesting by playing around with each one. I like simulating speed surges on the way up longer hills of 5-6 minutes. Grab a gear and spend 10 or 15 seconds out of the saddle. Then gear back down and try to recover without losing your original, steady-state speed. After a minute, go again. Also, as a rule, accelerate at the top, always. How far down you start this is up to you. Be brave and commit to it!

Shorter Efforts

The second hard day in my training week is usually spent doing some type of sprint training. This is not so important in skimo racing, of course. But for cycling, this is vital unless you have no desire to win a race or make the break. The most important concept here is to make each effort truly maximal. For this to occur several times, complete recovery is key. Even after only a 20 second effort at full gas, 5 minutes of easy recovery spinning might not be enough. Pay attention and adjust accordingly.

In a perfect world, everyone would have a motor to pace behind leading into these efforts. This would truly mimic a race situation. We can at least dream...

For skimo training, there may be some merit to doing 30-40 second efforts at suprathreshold pace and then shutting it down before you completely load up. Careful attention needs to be paid to technique here. These will help get you off the line without thrashing about. Once again, full recovery is key.

So, there you go. No big secrets revealed here. Just honest effort yielding predictable results. Coax your form upward, don't overshoot too often, sleep well and come to the line ready. - Brian

Comments

[Ray]

Brian, I was browsing through Mark Twight's Extreme Alpinism book the other day and was reading up on his lactate training section. In it, he recommends keeping the rest period low (30-60s) to prevent full recovery. I've also heard that same thing that you mentioned above about threshold training, which is to fully recover between intervals. Obviously, neither one is always the right scenario, but I was curious if you favor one over the other?