Impact of anaerobic training on aerobic adaptations

[S.S.]

Originally Posted by Damon Stewart

Got it, thank you. After 7 years of anaerobic training am experimenting with increasing my aerobic capacity. Any thoughts on Lydiards's assertion that max anaerobic capacity is a derivative of aerobic base?

I think there's a lot of merit to that and it's pretty well-accepted in the endurance community as far as I'm aware. It basically only takes a few weeks of dedicated speed training to achieve all the speed you're going to need for an endurance event. Anything beyond that is going to be fruitless because you won't have the aerobic base necessary to sustain that level of speed. On the other hand, increasing your aerobic ability can only be beneficial in endurance sports.

The Lydiard program basically has you spending only a few weeks of fine tuning dedicated speed work and it's worked for a lot of elite athletes over the years.


I think this is why CrossFit Endurance brings about some temporary success in a lot of experienced endurance athletes. They add some anaerobic training to their aerobic base and this results in improved performance. However, I'm not convinced doing this year-round will lead to continued success. Elite endurance athletes don't do speedwork cycles year round because they would eventually hit a plateau.

[Steven Low]

I've seen something around 4-6 weeks for max anaerobic adaptations (via HIIT or speed work) for primarily aerobic events. I can't exactly recall what Lydiard specifically said... I have the thing around here somehwere though.

Gotta be a little careful with the wording though... max anaerobic capabilities is variable to the event you're doing. For something such as 100m or powerlifting the aerobic base isn't needed at all for the max anaerobic capability whereas it starts to become a factor for 400m and beyond.

Regardles, any type of anaerobic work (and weight training as well) in primarily aerobic races will have to be cycled on/off depending on competition schedule and other factors to peak at the right times. So in reality you have to have some really competent programmers to do this especially with longer race seasons. If you had just one race or goal it's much easier to plan out a schedule to peak for that.


Check out some of Hicham El Guerrouj's off season/competition scheduling to see how they worked in

1. power
2. weight training
3. HIIT
4. Speed work
5. aerobic base

into his training schedule. It's pretty interesting to see how they planned it out:

wfs
http://run-down.com/guests/mv_el_guerrouj.php

Proper programming will have all 5 of these facets within a training schedule. If anyone wants to become a good endurance runner/cyclist/rower/etc. they need to have competent program for all of these qualities. Normally, you just see most people doing the long runs without anything else. They can benefit from added speed work/HIIT/weight training/power work. Likewise,, someone only doing HIIT/fartlek + aerobic base can benefit if they added in power/strength/etc.

So while amateur or intermediate runners can't handle all that kind of volume (and would have to modify programming accordingly.... generally focus on building the aerobic base + getting strong with strength/power work first... the move into HIIT/speed as you near competition and drop volume on strength/power)... you really do need to have some of each integrated with a mostly aerobic base work to perform optimally.

If you've read any of the stuff on advanced weightlifting programming you can see similarities across the different fields. It's quite interesting to say the least. Elite performanc is elite performance whether it's running, lifting, or whatever.

[S.S.]

Originally Posted by Steven Low

Gotta be a little careful with the wording though... max anaerobic capabilities is variable to the event you're doing. For something such as 100m or powerlifting the aerobic base isn't needed at all for the max anaerobic capability whereas it starts to become a factor for 400m and beyond.

Right, that's why I said:

Originally Posted by Shane Skowron

It basically only takes a few weeks of dedicated speed training to achieve all the speed you're going to need for an endurance event.

Whereas for a non-endurance based event it would be beneficial to do exclusively anaerobic training.

[Aushion Chatman]

Originally Posted by Steven Low

If you've read any of the stuff on advanced weightlifting programming you can see similarities across the different fields. It's quite interesting to say the least. Elite performanc is elite performance whether it's running, lifting, or whatever.

In general this is key...I think the way I heard it said is "good information doesn't displace good information." Everyone tends to naturally isolate, so they think their sport is SO unique, when in reality there are general training truths no matter what your sport is.