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Aerobic Workouts: Introduction

Developing the aerobic metabolism is the number one goal of any distance runner. Why? Take a look at the percent energy contributions from the following three metabolisms, keeping in mind that aerobic means “with oxygen.”

Distance Aerobic % Anaerobic % Phosphogen %
1,600m 80% 20% 0-2%
3,200m 90% 10% 0-2%
5,000m 95% 5% 0-2%
10,000m 98% 2% 0-1%

The second key with the aerobic metabolism is that you can improve it year after year. This is why the best marathoners in the world tend to be older than the best sprinters in the world…and it’s why many masters runners, who come to running later in life, continue to run faster year after year.

The way I like to think about the aerobic metabolism is that you’re building your engine when you train aerobically. Now, you need a strong chassis to handle this engine (so LMLS and SAM work daily – videos here), but the key to your long term success as a runner, and the way you’ll run PRs at a variety of distances, is to continue to improve your aerobic system.

What follows are four fundamental aerobic workouts. They are presented in roughly the same progression that you would do the workouts, one per week for the busy adult and perhaps two per week for serious high school and collegiate athletes. The long run is the key aerobic workout of the week and I’m assuming that you’ll be doing a long run virtually every week that you’re training. [Read more…]

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Lactate is not a dead-end metabolite

This originally appeared on February 21st, 2012 at NikeRunning.com.

“Lactate is not a dead-end metabolite.”

Those were the words my undergraduate exercise physiology professor loved to share during our discussion of the anaerobic metabolism. He rarely used the term “lactic acid” but rather referred to “lactate.” You should too. Your muscles don’t produce “lactic acid” but rather, they produce a compound called “lactate” in response to intense exercise, exercise where the energetic need in the working muscle is higher than can be produced by aerobic metabolism alone. But the cool thing about lactate is that your body can use it as a fuel source. Another professor of mine used remind us that “the heart loves lactate” as an energy source (just as the muscles love using stored glycogen). And what you’re probably thinking is, “Wait – I thought the muscle soreness I feel after a hard workout is from the lactic acid?” Nope. The soreness is primarily due to a mechanical breakage at the cellular level of the muscle. You end a track workout with a certain percentage of your muscle cells literally broken (and you’ll need some recovery time to allow them to repair…which they will).

So why all of this exercise physiology? Simple. I want you to embrace lactate, and workouts that introduce lactate, as part of the path to becoming a better runner. I love to assign athletes fartlek workouts where the “on” portion is run faster than threshold pace. Running faster than threshold pace will bump up the amount of lactate in the system. This is followed by running the “off” portion slower than threshold pace (still at a steady pace), allowing the body to deal with the lactate and make a physiological adaptation. The bottom line is that you can teach your body to become better at dealing with lactate and this efficiency helps runners from 800m runners to marathon runners.

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