Training polarization (Stephen Seiler)

Gene:

Thanks for the offer. The first slide on this section is at 27:!6 of the video. Title of study is "Does Polarized Training Improve Performance in Recreational Runners" Journal of Sport Physiology and Performance, 2013 (Iker Munoz,Seiler, ....) (ePublished ahead of print)
VO2 Max was around 62--I have no idea if that's typical or high (I assume "recreational athlete" in Norway may be at a bit of a higher level than here in the States.)

Jon wrote:
Gene:

Thanks for the offer. The first slide on this section is at 27:!6 of
the video. Title of study is "Does Polarized Training Improve
Performance in Recreational Runners" Journal of Sport Physiology and
Performance, 2013 (Iker Munoz,Seiler, ....) (ePublished ahead of
print) VO2 Max was around 62--I have no idea if that's typical or
high (I assume "recreational athlete" in Norway may be at a bit of a
higher level than here in the States.)

Quite a big "bit" indeed. :-)

I'm 57 now, a few years ago I had a full max O2 test with EKG monitoring
(due to family heart problems): I ended up at 56, which the NIMI
(Norwegian Sports Medicine Institute) doctor told was at the low end of
their top bracket, i.e. "world class" for my age group. (I bet the top
50-100 racers in H55-60 in Birkebeineren would all be at my level or
higher.)

This was with a max heart rate of 185, which is pretty normal for my age
and activity level, right?

20 years earlier my max rate was 235-240 beats per minute, at that time
uphills never bothered me since I had an additional 15-20% reserve at
the top end, my main problem was bad running efficiency on the flats and
downhills so I always lost time there.

Terje

--
- Terje.Mathisen at tmsw.no
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"

Surprisingly, the MSU library doesn't have access to it, so I put in an
interlibrary loan request with the town library. It should come soon, as
I think they receive articles by email. I'll let you know.

No reason recreational runners should be higher in Norway that I know
of. It depends a lot on age. Mine was last tested (5200' altitude) at
59 when I was 52 yrs old (max HRM = 184), which is considered high -
they called it "Olympic level" - and it looks now like I may have even
developed exercise-induced asthma by then. That test wasn't in ski
season and I wasn't really a runner, tho I often jogged the downhills on
hikes.

I'm looking at the video and the polarized training group VO2 max was
61 +/- 8.4 and the other group was 64.1 +/- 7.3. Mean difference in 10k
times for those who actually trained as instructed was 7.0 +/- 3.6% vs.
1.6 +/- 4% (n for polarized training group not given, tho Seiler seems
to imply everyone). Both those group VO2 max's suggest recreational
runners who train and maybe race a lot and who do so in part because
they were born with healthy oxygen handling capacities that bring
results which reinforce their interest.

Gene


On Mon, 8 Dec 2014 17:42:50 -0800 (PST)
Jon wrote:

Gene:

Thanks for the offer. The first slide on this section is at 27:!6 of
the video. Title of study is "Does Polarized Training Improve
Performance in Recreational Runners" Journal of Sport Physiology and
Performance, 2013 (Iker Munoz,Seiler, ....) (ePublished ahead of
print) VO2 Max was around 62--I have no idea if that's typical or
high (I assume "recreational athlete" in Norway may be at a bit of a
higher level than here in the States.)

wrote:
Surprisingly, the MSU library doesn't have access to it, so I put in an
interlibrary loan request with the town library. It should come soon, as
I think they receive articles by email. I'll let you know.

No reason recreational runners should be higher in Norway that I know

There are not that many serious "recreational" runners in Norway, what
we have a lot of is xc skiers who take their recreation very seriously
indeed, to the point where Norway's main financial newspaper (Dagens
Næringsliv) dedicates _many_ full-page spreads to articles about how to
train for Birken, how to wax, what the Aukland brothers are up to etc.

I think it has peaked by now, but it is still considered good for your
professional career that you "get the (Birken) pin" every year.

of. It depends a lot on age. Mine was last tested (5200' altitude) at
59 when I was 52 yrs old (max HRM = 184), which is considered high -
they called it "Olympic level" - and it looks now like I may have even

Yeah, that puts you in exactly the same range as me. Welcome! :-)

developed exercise-induced asthma by then. That test wasn't in ski
season and I wasn't really a runner, tho I often jogged the downhills on
hikes.

Running uphill is a relatively good test for both runners and skiers,
much better than biking which was the default alternative when I was tested.

I'm looking at the video and the polarized training group VO2 max was
61 +/- 8.4 and the other group was 64.1 +/- 7.3. Mean difference in 10k
times for those who actually trained as instructed was 7.0 +/- 3.6% vs.
1.6 +/- 4% (n for polarized training group not given, tho Seiler seems
to imply everyone). Both those group VO2 max's suggest recreational
runners who train and maybe race a lot and who do so in part because
they were born with healthy oxygen handling capacities that bring
results which reinforce their interest.

Sure.

I probably wouldn't have started in 75 competitions every year if I was
struggling all the time, but the days when I feel like flying seems to
be long gone. :-(

The last time I remember was maybe 10 years ago, on a Thu evening
(training) race when I felt like what Bjørn Dæhlie described during his
best years: "Yes! Another steep uphill! Now I can gain even more time n
all the rest!"

BTW, have you guys noted the first world cup results this year?

OK in Finland, then a massive blowout for the Norwegian skiers this last
weekend in Lillehammer on the 3-day mini-tour: 4 women and 5 men before
the first foreigner?

Last winter Andy Musgrave won the Norwegian champs you know!

Terje


On Mon, 8 Dec 2014 17:42:50 -0800 (PST)
Jon wrote:

Gene:

Thanks for the offer. The first slide on this section is at 27:!6 of
the video. Title of study is "Does Polarized Training Improve
Performance in Recreational Runners" Journal of Sport Physiology and
Performance, 2013 (Iker Munoz,Seiler, ....) (ePublished ahead of
print) VO2 Max was around 62--I have no idea if that's typical or
high (I assume "recreational athlete" in Norway may be at a bit of a
higher level than here in the States.)


--
- Terje.Mathisen at tmsw.no
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"

Den 09.12.2014 09:07, skrev Terje Mathisen:
Jon wrote:
Gene:

Thanks for the offer. The first slide on this section is at 27:!6 of
the video. Title of study is "Does Polarized Training Improve
Performance in Recreational Runners" Journal of Sport Physiology and
Performance, 2013 (Iker Munoz,Seiler, ....) (ePublished ahead of
print) VO2 Max was around 62--I have no idea if that's typical or
high (I assume "recreational athlete" in Norway may be at a bit of a
higher level than here in the States.)

Quite a big "bit" indeed. :-)

I'm 57 now, a few years ago I had a full max O2 test with EKG monitoring
(due to family heart problems): I ended up at 56, which the NIMI
(Norwegian Sports Medicine Institute) doctor told was at the low end of
their top bracket, i.e. "world class" for my age group. (I bet the top
50-100 racers in H55-60 in Birkebeineren would all be at my level or
higher.)

This was with a max heart rate of 185, which is pretty normal for my age
and activity level, right?

20 years earlier my max rate was 235-240 beats per minute, at that time
uphills never bothered me since I had an additional 15-20% reserve at
the top end, my main problem was bad running efficiency on the flats and
downhills so I always lost time there.


To estimate your max heartrate, the most common rule is to use (220 -
your age). I had a max heart rate at 210 one time at the age of 21. When
I was 55, I couldn't get above 155.



--
Terje Henriksen
Kirkenes

On Tue, 09 Dec 2014 16:49:02 +0100
Terje Henriksen wrote:

To estimate your max heartrate, the most common rule is to use (220 -
your age). I had a max heart rate at 210 one time at the age of 21.
When I was 55, I couldn't get above 155.

Do you know the story behind that? See below. Like 98.6F as normal
body temperature, which Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich came up with in
the 1800s, although he had a sample of 25,000, the max HR formula
still lasts as popular lore.
--------

From a NYT article in 2001:
"The common formula was devised in 1970 by Dr. William Haskell, then a
young physician in the federal Public Health Service and his mentor,
Dr. Samuel Fox, who led the service's program on heart disease. They
were trying to determine how strenuously heart disease patients could
exercise.

In preparation for a medical meeting , Dr. Haskell culled data from
about 10 published studies in which people of different ages had been
tested to find their maximum heart rates.

The subjects were never meant to be a representative sample of the
population, said Dr. Haskell, who is now a professor of medicine at
Stanford. Most were under 55 and some were smokers or had heart disease.

On an airplane traveling to the meeting, Dr. Haskell pulled out his
data and showed them to Dr. Fox. ''We drew a line through the points
and I said, 'Gee, if you extrapolate that out it looks like at age 20,
the heart rate maximum is 200 and at age 40 it's 180 and at age 60 it's
160,'' Dr. Haskell said.

At that point, Dr. Fox suggested a formula: maximum heart rate equals
220 minus age."

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/24/he...hallenged.html

Den 09.12.2014 17:44, skrev :
On Tue, 09 Dec 2014 16:49:02 +0100
Terje Henriksen wrote:

To estimate your max heartrate, the most common rule is to use (220 -
your age). I had a max heart rate at 210 one time at the age of 21.
When I was 55, I couldn't get above 155.

Do you know the story behind that? See below. Like 98.6F as normal
body temperature, which Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich came up with in
the 1800s, although he had a sample of 25,000, the max HR formula
still lasts as popular lore.
--------

From a NYT article in 2001:
"The common formula was devised in 1970 by Dr. William Haskell, then a
young physician in the federal Public Health Service and his mentor,
Dr. Samuel Fox, who led the service's program on heart disease. They
were trying to determine how strenuously heart disease patients could
exercise.

In preparation for a medical meeting , Dr. Haskell culled data from
about 10 published studies in which people of different ages had been
tested to find their maximum heart rates.

The subjects were never meant to be a representative sample of the
population, said Dr. Haskell, who is now a professor of medicine at
Stanford. Most were under 55 and some were smokers or had heart disease.

On an airplane traveling to the meeting, Dr. Haskell pulled out his
data and showed them to Dr. Fox. ''We drew a line through the points
and I said, 'Gee, if you extrapolate that out it looks like at age 20,
the heart rate maximum is 200 and at age 40 it's 180 and at age 60 it's
160,'' Dr. Haskell said.

At that point, Dr. Fox suggested a formula: maximum heart rate equals
220 minus age."

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/24/he...hallenged.html


That rule has usually worked well for me up throught the years.

--
Terje Henriksen
Kirkenes

On Tue, 09 Dec 2014 18:05:40 +0100
Terje Henriksen wrote:

At that point, Dr. Fox suggested a formula: maximum heart rate
equals 220 minus age."

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/24/he...hallenged.html


That rule has usually worked well for me up throught the years.

The point is, to the extent it works for any individual, it is a
combination of coincidence and self reinforcement. That is, if it
hadn't worked, you would have sought information elsewhere.

Gene

wrote:
On Tue, 09 Dec 2014 18:05:40 +0100
Terje Henriksen wrote:

At that point, Dr. Fox suggested a formula: maximum heart rate
equals 220 minus age."

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/24/he...hallenged.html


That rule has usually worked well for me up throught the years.

The point is, to the extent it works for any individual, it is a
combination of coincidence and self reinforcement. That is, if it
hadn't worked, you would have sought information elsewhere.

I once read (i.e. I can't remember when or when) that for trained
athletes the drop in max heart rate seems to be slower, with a
-0.7*years slope instead of -1.

I.e. with 'rate = 215 - 0.7*years' you get 201 at age 20, but only
dropping to 180 at age 50 instead of 170.

Terje

--
- Terje.Mathisen at tmsw.no
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"

Got the article. Recreational runners (32) were Spaniards living and
training around Madrid, mean competition experience 5.5 years,
regularly running 10k and half marathon races. Only the data from
those that fulfilled several stringent requirements during the study
were included.

Gene

On Sun, 7 Dec 2014 05:22:36 -0800 (PST)
Jon wrote:

I just watched the video a third time, this time stopping it to
examine the charts. An interesting takeaway was one of the last
studies examining polarized training in recreational athletes. Under
the most favorable assumptions, 10k race time was improved by around
8% for polarized trainers compared with around 1% for threshold
trainers. Thing is they don't give a measure of weekly training
hours, so it's hard to know just how "recreational" the runners are.
(They just give total training hours for the period of the study.)
The study appeared in a physiology journal that's fairly common among
medical professionals--would anyone happen to have access to it who
might be able to answer that question?