Be that as it may (and after coming back to life like an avatar in a video game), personality fit and rapport is very important in the coach-athlete relationship, especially if they are all just doing a variation of the same stuff (an argument I have heard a few times from forum members and prominent coaches alike…I don’t fully agree with this, but it’s not completely wrong either).
If the podcast, which is essentially an advertisement, is any indication of what my interaction with someone is going to be like, I cannot say I disagree with the sentiment, just the delivery.
ISM has already said all he needs to say on the half dozen or so podcasts he’s been on (and twitter, and instagram). It gets repetitive. What would he have to gain by appearing on KM podcast? A bunch of questions thinly disguised as criticisms of Brooks? Who cares.
I guess you get what you pay for, but thanks for listening and for the thoughtful feedback. I feel very welcome here and I’m glad I started checking these notifications again.
Maybe you are right. In an absolute level is insignificant. But relative to what I expected that conversation to be and what it turned out to be, it was deflating.
This is what “content creators” are trained to say. But the more apt model is opportunity cost.
Check Mark Burnley episode on his YT Channel, a better exposition on allometry.
It’s a slang term I made up with my broken English, to denote a smug, low-brow confrontational attitude.
Interesting. He prefers high zone 2 vs low zone 2. So maybe it is more a Friel kind of zone2 setup?
So the question is. What is better? 10h ISM Z2 or 15h ‘normal’ zone 2 (60-70% ftp)?
One thing that is key here is that ISM has tools to measure the exact lactate turning points, and thus precisely pinpointing that “high rev gear 1” training that he said that he prefers.
For some that might be 70% of “FTP” (again, which “FTP”?), and for some that might be 75%, or 65%.
Unless you know this, you better stay on the low end or you’re going to be riding tempo…
Riding 10h of ISM Z2 just on the limit is probably going to be a lot of fatigue, and he is very very vague on how he prescribes it.
He never says to go out and ride there for 2-3 hours, he just says he prefers riding close to the limit.
Non-educated guess is that it’s probably optimal for most to ride easy (IF 0.55-6) and then incorporate intervals at the “high rev” Z2, which would be just limit of high Z2. But again, you need to know where that is, otherwise it’s better to stay below.
One reason I went with FasCat for coaching is that in the past Frank did a lot of physiological testing, and then for most athletes kept it simple by switching to power. What do I do now is pretty simple. I do a lot of endurance. I spend a lot of time pushing the top of “zone2” within a broader endurance target. I do some work below and above my “ftp” or upper threshold, and its aligned with events and goals. I’ve been taught how to listen to my body. I can have a conversation with my coach about where my upper threshold is based on unstable physiology (increasing HR on bike computer, and my breathing gets faster/heavier/ragged/barely-holding-on). We use both power and heart rate. We test assumptions at several durations a few times a year.
Finally he has put this “no intensity-harm z2” thing into context. It DEPENDS! If you’re fit/trained lactate gets cleared easily. Here the one example that I have already shared numerous times here. About 5-6 minutes until fat ox has recoverd. And recovered at an higher level! Correcting the low fat ox caused by pre-workout carb intake.
Hard to swallow pill: most of us don’t actually know our fatmax unless it’s been tested by indirect calorimeter and LT1 is not a good indication of fatmax.
Also each new podcast he does seems to confuse people even more.
It depends on the person’s model parameters. For someone like me, fatmax is low relative to my LT1. For someone who has elite physiology, their fatmax is very close to LT1.
In Mader’s model, the highest point on the lack of pyruvate curve (the green “fat” curve for INSCYD) is associated with fatmax. I think Jeukendrup, 2001 supports this.
With a blood lactate meter, I believe you can see fatmax, (or this maximum lack of pyruvate) if you do a long enough ramp test with a shallow enough slope to see where baseline lactate values decrease relative to an increasing workload and then the levels rise.
Who cares.
