That Triathlon Show | EP#169 - FTP, VO2max and VLaMax

This is exactly what I’m after. Guess that means I’ll have to go back and read all your posts!

Could you give some details as what tests you used with lactate meter to guide your training? I don’t have a lactate meter yet and didn’t do incsyd testing but I’m very interested in the physiology behind training.

I’ve described my training in the thread about interview with Steve Neal and my focus for now is increasing my VO2Max (capacity). If you can share what you did it would be very helpful!

The Aerobic Capacity Training in chapter 2 (Science of Winning) includes anaerobic capacity exercises or short intense efforts as part of longer z2 work. Its not clear from what you wrote if you avoided all suprathreshold work, or if you view “suprathreshold intervals” as synonymous with things like 4x8 intervals.

From TTS198 Training structure, periodisation and the science of winning with Jan Olbrecht, PhD | EP#198

That sounds like what you wrote.

On the other hand, from The Science of Winning

that doesn’t sound like what happened.

just a few immediate thoughts from reading your post.

Well I said most, not all suprathreshold work. I did almost none between Oct-Jan, then did 6x4 5x5, 4x7 and then 4x7, 4x7, 4x8 @ 105% target as my intensity each week. But the intensity of the 105% was actually self-selected as the power I could maintain throughout. It started right around 300 watts, but as the intervals got longer and the rest got shorter, it fell to around 285 or so.

You highlighted some of the chapter, but I believe there’s also a blurb that doing too much aerobic capacity work can also increase your anaerobic capacity as the intermittent sprints are both a potent stimulus for both aerobic and anaerobic capacity. In his swimming examples, he rarely sees a detriment to having a low anaerobic capacity, as in the majority of the distances, he argues that having a higher anaerobic contribution at threshold means you tend to be faster. The longest swimming event in major international competition is only 15 minutes, and he talks only briefly in the book about how the distance swimmers need to do things slightly different.

The reason though that the work increases aerobic capacity is that you have activated all your muscle fibers, so instead of doing intermittent sprints, I added volume at the end of most of my workouts. First with SSB1 from Oct to end of Dec, then I did a threshold/polarized VO2 block. Just because I wasn’t doing the interspersed hard efforts with high volume, doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a positive effect on capacity. Volume in itself is a stimulus for capacity, but I didn’t want to also stimulate anaerobic with the hard efforts.

I think we also need to differentiate VO2 max and power at VO2 max. I’ve never tested VO2, so I don’t know if you can truly reach your max VO2 without highly developed power capability. It seems like Olbrecht is using an estimate of VO2 max based on submaximal effort like the firstbeat calcs on a garmin. So in that sense, my VO2 has stayed the same by power:hr ratio… but without developing the ability to sustain power at the high levels of O2 uptake is it really your VO2 max? The terminology gets really confusing, and I think that was one think Mikael didn’t like about the interview.

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I have been including my lactate testing protocol and results here adding to darth shivious’:

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yes its in the second screenshot above, second bullet item beginning with “possibly in an increase of anaerobic capacity”.

I’m sure you know there are cycling coaches that use a working proxy for power at vo2max - usually a 5 min or 6 min max effort. For non-elite enthusiasts like myself, I think there is a lot of value in taking a pragmatic/practical approach (estimating via max efforts) as opposed to going into a lab and getting hooked up to a cart. Its also fun to discuss :slight_smile: so thank you!

Sorry, I don’t understand this. Wouldn’t a higher anaerobic contribution at threshold mean a higher anaerobic capacity, not lower?

yeah, that must be a typo. Most of those swimming events are 1-5 minutes, so he noticed that the faster swimmers at those distances tended to have higher lactate values.

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I thought I remember there being a table that said that the aerobic capacity workouts he prescribed DID raise anaerobic capacity as well. They raise both aerobic and anaerobic capacity. The bullet you quoted is saying aerobic power went down possibly because anaerobic capacity went up. However I did not say I did the aerobic capacity workouts as he prescribed in the science of winning, but more so what I was doing appears to have maintained my capacity from last season. I actually specifically avoided those due to the increase in VLamax that tends to come with them. Both Olbrecht’s book, and Lydiard approaches have the athletes doing more LIT in offseason with waiting until the last 8-16 weeks before competition before doing the really hard stuff.

I keep meaning to pick up this book. I enjoyed the interviews with Olbrecht. Unfortunately, it seems only available on Kindle or mail order from Europe.

I’ve been wondering if it’s possible to achieve similar testing/training prescriptions that you get from Inscyd with testing protocols and lactate measurements.

The Shannon Grady interview on TTS podcast was interesting as well as frustrating. It sounds like she trains with lactate testing (mostly running). The frustrating part was that she basically gave zero actionable information in the podcast. You have to buy the book I guess. From what I gather, she tests athlete’s lactate at various distances/paces to gauge fitness and prescribe training.

Fairly certain this was my physiology.

For a while I focused specifically on time trials that were between 15 - 30 minuets long. My CP20 was close to 270 watts but CP20 was more like 235. Had low durability but could crush it for 10-13 miles. Did one lactate test during that time and had very high measures compared to what one would expect. I was almost 4 at recovery power levels and 8-10 at threshold.

Fast forward and with different training my lactate numbers are much more what one would expect with a 2mMol LT1 around 175 and about 5.5 at MLSS.

FWIW

this one?

that is from a paper (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321420353_Individualisation_of_training_based_on_metabolic_measures) but same info in book.

I have another interview with Sebastian scheduled and will do the interview on Monday. Happy to take suggestions for questions/topics here (although I can’t guarantee all of them will be included).

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Thanks Mikael. Your last interview with home was very interesting - one of the most useful podcasts I have listened to in the past few years :+1:t3:

A few proposed Qs aa follows:

  • What is your opinion of polarized vs sweet spot? Are there certain instances or riders where one kind of training is more effective than the other to improve FTP (e.g. fast twitch vs slow twitch rider)?
  • Short of doing an INSCYD test or similar, are there signs from training about when to focus on increasing VO2max vs increasing fractional utilization / reducing VLaMax?
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I agree with @DaveWh regarding your interview with Sebastion and am also very interested in the second question he asked.

I have one of my own, not sure if it is interesting: Does looking at the training Pros are doing outside of racing make sense? Majority of them looks to be doing mostly long rides with a some sweet spot. (Except perhaps when there is time to have some more focus without racing.) One would think that that alone would not be enough intensity and races is the missing piece. Is the training for them just about resting then?

Maybe think of a related question? Weber answered several ways in the previous interview (ep#169):

Training to increase VO2max:

  • Polarised training seems to favour development of your VO2max in a simplified manner.

Training to decrease VLaMax

  • The sweet spot training, a little below threshold, trying to do endurance exercises at this intensity will help a lot with decreasing your VLaMax.

Training to increase VLaMax:

  • Look towards polarised training that avoids mid-range.

My summary:

  • Polarized increases VO2Max and (possibly) increases VLAmax
  • Sweet spot lowers VLAmax
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Thank you, @Mikael_Eriksson for asking. My questions are:

  1. What are his top workout recommendations to improve the different aspects of VO2max (peripheral vs central adaptations) and how do these recommendations depend on the age/experience of the athlete?

  2. From the viewpoint of workflow, how does INSCYD’s Power-Performance Decoder work? (Do I still need a testing center/coach? Pricing? Pro and Cons compared to INSCYD’s 4-phase lactate protocol?)

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Also very interested in this. I don’t have much of a clue but it seems as if the power-only Inscyd protocol doesn’t take more “input” than your power profile, so why can’t you make some (at least rough) estimates based on the latter yourself? (Dan Lorang is doing this in Bora Hansgrohe’s instagram “AskDan” series…)

Another question: I guess many athletes want both (increase VO2max, decrease VLamax), and in this case, is it better to do some kind of block periodization (if so how long should the “blocks” be) or just alternate and “throw in a bit of everything” every week?

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+1

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