Access to Journal articles?

Does someone have direct or library access to the journal Medicine and
Science in Sports & Exercise who could post the following article and
letters as HTMLs or PDFs someplace? I think all of us who are
interested in cross-country ski training methods and debates would be
greatly appreciative.

rm

Aerobic High-Intensity Intervals Improve VO2max More Than Moderate
Training. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. 39(4):665-671, April
2007. HELGERUD, JAN [et al]

LETTER.
PRESCRIBING, QUANTIFYING, AND MONITORING EXERCISE INTENSITY DURING
INTERVAL TRAINING. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. 39
(10):1885, October 2007. Morton, James

RESPONSE.
Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. 39(10):1886, October 2007.
Helgerud, Jan

in article , at
wrote on 2/5/08 5:33 PM:

Aerobic High-Intensity Intervals Improve VO2max More Than Moderate
Training. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. 39(4):665-671, April
2007. HELGERUD, JAN [et al]
You can access the abstract without a subscription at
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez, PubMed
JC

Well, yeah, that's how I had all that information in my OP.

Jeffery Clarke wrote:

in article , at
wrote on 2/5/08 5:33 PM:

Aerobic High-Intensity Intervals Improve VO2max More Than Moderate
Training. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. 39(4):665-671, April
2007. HELGERUD, JAN [et al]
You can access the abstract without a subscription at
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez, PubMed
JC

Originally Posted by

Does someone have direct or library access to the journal Medicine and
Science in Sports & Exercise who could post the following article and
letters as HTMLs or PDFs someplace? I think all of us who are
interested in cross-country ski training methods and debates would be
greatly appreciative.

rm

Aerobic High-Intensity Intervals Improve VO2max More Than Moderate
Training. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. 39(4):665-671, April
2007. HELGERUD, JAN [et al]

LETTER.
PRESCRIBING, QUANTIFYING, AND MONITORING EXERCISE INTENSITY DURING
INTERVAL TRAINING. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. 39
(10):1885, October 2007. Morton, James

RESPONSE.
Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. 39(10):1886, October 2007.
Helgerud, Jan

I have access to the majority of these journals through my University so if you want any specific articles that you find on NCBI, just let me know and I'll track down a full copy. Here is a full .pdf file of the April Helgerud study.
http://rapidshare.com/files/89789682/VO2_MAX.pdf.html

doogiski wrote:
Aerobic High-Intensity Intervals Improve VO2max More Than Moderate
Training. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. 39(4):665-671,
April
2007. HELGERUD, JAN [et al]

I have access to the majority of these journals through my University
so if you want any specific articles that you find on NCBI, just let me
know and I'll track down a full copy. Here is a full .pdf file of the
April Helgerud study.
http://rapidshare.com/files/89789682/VO2_MAX.pdf.html

Very interesting, and definitely in line with my own experience!

The conclusion is that 4x4 min intervals at 90-95% of HRmax is the best
way to improve VO2max, i.e. interval training at or above the lactate
threshold.

I have done quite a bit of training (xc, running and orienteering) with
my Polar HR monitor, and the most obvious finding is that (this is also
mentioned in the report) VO2max is very dependent upon activity type:

Training is specific, you have to train in the activity where you want
to compete.

When skiing a long continuous uphill, I can get up to about 170 bpm, but
I cannot sustain that for the entire hill. (My max HR is about 185)

Interval training (uphill running) makes it easy to get up to the
175-180 bpm level at the top of the hill, but average HR is well below
this of course.

However, when I'm orienteering I can sustain much higher average HR than
in any other activity, i.e. I've done multiple 40-60 min competitions
with up to 172 bpm (93% of HRmax) as the average, and last fall I ran a
longer competition, taking 80 min, with an average HR of 170 bpm (92%).

Terje
--
-
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"

I agree, Terje, but like you imply, people with experience in training
would know that without a study. And 4x4 three times a week is not
what the intensity block debate that Helgerud is pushing is all about,
which makes the whole thing kind of strange. Even those who focus more
on slower distance training, which I assume includes the Norwegian men's
team, often do anywhere from 2 to 4 interval sessions a week in summer
and fall.

Helgerud's real thing is about the VO2 max effect, the argument being
that high VO2max is the key to success in top level athletics - and
intensity blocks yield the highest VO2max's. As true as the first
seems, especially in x-c skiing, I don't believe there's actually any
published study evidence for it. You'd have to know everyone's VO2s and
compare against finishing orders over many races, if not years. That
would be hard to set up across national teams.

There is anecdotal evidence, such as Daehlie and his infamous 96, but
you need more than that. There was a successful U.S. marathoner,
Frank Shorter I believe, who had a relatively low VO2max, something
like 80, but had great ability to maximize the use of oxygen, which is
probably the key to all this. After all, max oxygen uptake is largely
genetically determined. My guess is that at the top level, maybe the top
20 or 30 on the WC standings, VO2max's are highest and make for sort of
an entry ticket. Then from there other characteristics and factors come
into play, in general and on any given day.

RM

Terje Mathisen wrote:

doogiski wrote:
Aerobic High-Intensity Intervals Improve VO2max More Than Moderate
Training. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. 39(4):665-671,
April
2007. HELGERUD, JAN [et al]

Very interesting, and definitely in line with my own experience!

The conclusion is that 4x4 min intervals at 90-95% of HRmax is the best
way to improve VO2max, i.e. interval training at or above the lactate
threshold.

I have done quite a bit of training (xc, running and orienteering) with
my Polar HR monitor, and the most obvious finding is that (this is also
mentioned in the report) VO2max is very dependent upon activity type:

Training is specific, you have to train in the activity where you want
to compete.

When skiing a long continuous uphill, I can get up to about 170 bpm, but
I cannot sustain that for the entire hill. (My max HR is about 185)

Interval training (uphill running) makes it easy to get up to the
175-180 bpm level at the top of the hill, but average HR is well below
this of course.

However, when I'm orienteering I can sustain much higher average HR than
in any other activity, i.e. I've done multiple 40-60 min competitions
with up to 172 bpm (93% of HRmax) as the average, and last fall I ran a
longer competition, taking 80 min, with an average HR of 170 bpm (92%).

Terje
--
-
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"

wrote:
I agree, Terje, but like you imply, people with experience in training
would know that without a study. And 4x4 three times a week is not
what the intensity block debate that Helgerud is pushing is all about,
which makes the whole thing kind of strange. Even those who focus more
on slower distance training, which I assume includes the Norwegian men's
team, often do anywhere from 2 to 4 interval sessions a week in summer
and fall.

Oh, absolutely.

Helgerud's real thing is about the VO2 max effect, the argument being
that high VO2max is the key to success in top level athletics - and
intensity blocks yield the highest VO2max's. As true as the first
seems, especially in x-c skiing, I don't believe there's actually any
published study evidence for it. You'd have to know everyone's VO2s and
compare against finishing orders over many races, if not years. That
would be hard to set up across national teams.

There is anecdotal evidence, such as Daehlie and his infamous 96, but
you need more than that. There was a successful U.S. marathoner,
Frank Shorter I believe, who had a relatively low VO2max, something
like 80, but had great ability to maximize the use of oxygen, which is
probably the key to all this. After all, max oxygen uptake is largely

Helgerud does mention that running efficiency increased significantly
even over the relatively short period of this study, and that this
improvement was in the same ballpark as the improvement in VO2max.

genetically determined. My guess is that at the top level, maybe the top
20 or 30 on the WC standings, VO2max's are highest and make for sort of
an entry ticket. Then from there other characteristics and factors come
into play, in general and on any given day.

This has actually been studied, and the conclusion (afair) is quite simple:

All the top WC xc racers have very high VO2max, i.e. mostly in the 80+
bracket, right? As you noted, this is mostly genetics.

Within the group there is very low (if any) correlation between VO2max
and world cup points/wins!

However, when they measured VO2max doing mostly upper-body effort, i.e.
something like double-poling uphill, they got a different (significantly
lower of course) set of VO2max numbers, and this set was highly
correlated with actual competition results.

Terje

--
-
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"

Terje Mathisen wrote:

genetically determined. My guess is that at the top level, maybe the top
20 or 30 on the WC standings, VO2max's are highest and make for sort of
an entry ticket. Then from there other characteristics and factors come
into play, in general and on any given day.

This has actually been studied, and the conclusion (afair) is quite simple:

All the top WC xc racers have very high VO2max, i.e. mostly in the 80+
bracket, right? As you noted, this is mostly genetics.

Within the group there is very low (if any) correlation between VO2max
and world cup points/wins!

As one would expect. If the intensity block folks are going to win the
day, they need to come up with a different way to establish its
efficacy. They really are stuck on the VO2max=success formula. How
this applies to aging masters skiers is a whole other thing. This
debate goes back to the work of some Japanese scientist and the idea
that one can get a lot out of very little time spent. In the extreme,
there are these gyms around, if they can be called that, that claim
something like 45 second or 2 minute (vibrating?) workouts will give the
full thing. Then there's that $14K exercise machine that supposedly
does it in 5 minutes/day.

However, when they measured VO2max doing mostly upper-body effort, i.e.
something like double-poling uphill, they got a different (significantly
lower of course) set of VO2max numbers, and this set was highly
correlated with actual competition results.

Yes, I've seen this. I'm vaguely recalling that the study was done on
a treadmill with near-elite skiers in the US, altho maybe there was a
Scandinavian equivalent.

Thanks for posting this article - and for these responses to it. The
study was interesting and useful in helping structure a training plan
for the next year. I was surprised to see the relatively small
difference in max VO2 increase between the (in)famous 4x4 intervals
and the "15/15" regimen (15 seconds at 90-95% of max VO2 and 15
seconds at 70% of max, repeated 47 (!) times). Not that the 15/15 is
somehow easier, but I'd never read about such short intervals, much
less about their ability to increase max VO2 - 5.5% versus 7.3% for
the 4x4 regimen. Does anyone out there really use the 15/15 regimen,
or is it a lab-only sort of exercise?

Christopher

15/15 is very good for speed drills, and doing them or something
similar consistently does increase speed. See Richard Taylor's book, "No
Pain No Gain?" Also Andy Newell had some ideas about speed training in
the SkiPost newsletter.

The thing to know about VO2max is that for someone already training, a
good program will bump it up a bit, but the question is open for debate
whether masters or citizens should worry much about that measure.
For us, being able to ski around LT for some time seems a lot more
important and thus the issue is whether 4x4 at 90-95% is the best way
to go. There was a NYT article recently (Gina Kolata) that suggested
maybe yes. OTOH, I wonder how many of us have real, measured LTs for an
hour or two at 90-95% maxHR. More of the training regimens I've seen
recently suggest one LT and one L4 workout/week during summer. Also
note the study only lasted 8 weeks.


tassava wrote:

Thanks for posting this article - and for these responses to it. The
study was interesting and useful in helping structure a training plan
for the next year. I was surprised to see the relatively small
difference in max VO2 increase between the (in)famous 4x4 intervals
and the "15/15" regimen (15 seconds at 90-95% of max VO2 and 15
seconds at 70% of max, repeated 47 (!) times). Not that the 15/15 is
somehow easier, but I'd never read about such short intervals, much
less about their ability to increase max VO2 - 5.5% versus 7.3% for
the 4x4 regimen. Does anyone out there really use the 15/15 regimen,
or is it a lab-only sort of exercise?

Christopher