Interval Training and Lactate Testing. How new is it really?

It seems to me that there is a great deal of attention and fascination about what the Norwegians are doing in their training. Rightly so, because of the fantastic performances of their athletes in triathlon and middle distance running.

Is there anything new in what they are doing? In my opinion……. Not really! The same methods have been around for decades.

From my observation and reading, one of the main strategies of their improvement has been the double run day where the first morning session is high intensity shorter speed effort and the afternoon session is a longer high intensity anaerobic threshold.

Kenyan runners have been doing similar sessions for a long time. Even at Trisutto our head coach has had the 'Kenyan Day' locked in for over 25 years where there a 3 run sessions in the one day.

Also, there has been a renewed interest in Lactate testing. This testing, apparently is to ensure efforts and intensities are not too hard or too easy.

Well, lactate testing has been around for well over 50 years. Not that it has ever been forgotten or lost any of its importance but many coaches have moved on from the expense and interruption to training sessions that exists with this type of invasive monitoring.

Now, we tend to rely on heart rates, timed efforts and low and behold, observation!

How does the athlete look?

How is the technique?

Does the technique fall apart under pressure?

How hard is the athlete breathing or recovering from the effort?

What times is the athlete holding and how do they compare with similar previous sessions?

Lactate testing does not provide any of the above information. It does not tell the coach what training session or sessions they have completed in the previous days or what other stresses the athlete may be going through with family or work.

A more recent 'revelation', again coming out of Norway from Bent Rønnestad, has been the use of High Intensity Intervals Training(HIIT). The researcher has packaged his training session into a 30 sec hard/15 sec easy x 13 and repeated it 3 times in full. Why specifically those exact times and repetitions? Probably so that it is called the Rønnestad set. Would a slight variation on those times and number of repeats change the outcome? I doubt it!

Is it any different to many training sets that have been around for decades?........ Not really!

• Swimming has had the 25m hard/ 25m easy x 20 a very long time as well as many other variations on that theme.

  
  

• Cycling, well again the set of 30 sec hard /30 sec easy x 30 or 60 sec hard/60 sec easy x 20 has been in the sport for a very long time.

  
  

• The Moneghetti set in running where equal time of hard and easy in an incremental build has been around for at least 40 years. This starts off at 15 sec hard/ 15 sec easy and builds by 15 sec up to a 90 sec with equal amount of rest time then works its way back down.

Brett Sutton has been using a similar set for 30 years: 8 x 4 x 200m departing on 1 minute with an extra 30 sec recovery after each set. Over weeks or months this progresses to 4 x 8 x 200 on 1 min then 4 x 10 x 200m on 1 min with the goal set being 1 x 50 x 200m all departing on a minute and holding your goal pace. If we breakdown the 4 x 8 x 200m in time, then the good athlete covers the 200m in 35-40 sec(36 sec = 3min/km pace) with a 20-25 sec recovery.

So if we now breakdown the Rønnstad set (13 x 3 =39 repetitions) and the

Sutton set(4 x 8 =32 repetitions). Total time at High Intensity for Rønnstad =19:30 min and for Sutton’s (32 x 35 sec=18:30min). Monaghetti set (approx. 18 minute of intensity when completed three times through. All very similar.

So, to answer my initial question. No, these sessions and testing are not new.

So why do we even do these high intensity sets anyway? The sport of triathlon, even

standard distance but especially the 70.3 and Ironman are 90-100% aerobic.

Research has found that anaerobic training caused a high level of difference in terms of aerobic capacity values, and thus increased aerobic capacity. Lactate or anaerobic threshold is the intensity of exercise at which lactate, or lactic acid, accumulates faster than it can be removed. Training in the anaerobic zone raises the lactate threshold by increasing the muscle alkaline reserves, allowing them to work in the increased presence of lactic acid.

During a triathlon, athletes aim to stay in their aerobic zone but occasionally when pushed to go harder may enter into their anaerobic zone. If highly trained, they can manage that then recover and push on aerobically.

Another advantage of doing higher intensity intervals and speed work is to improve

muscular adaptations, such as strength, the efficiency and the firing of motor neurons when muscles are working at maximum or near maximum capacity. Research has shown there have also been higher blood levels of testosterone and cortisol (which is a good thing!)

So High Intensity Intervals of approximately 30-60 seconds has been demonstrated as an excellent training addition to most athletes’ programs for an increase in their performance. This can be either swim, bike or run. Just remember to overload the training progressively in small increments.

Another advantage of the shorter intervals is that athletes can maintain form or technique for a longer period of time when they have a short recovery after each effort.

So, many training methods and systems appear from time to time. Usually, they are a re-invention of something that has been around for many years and just packaged differently. Still, the key to triathlon is consistency and repetition. That is why the Norwegians are performing so well. Plus the fact that Kristian Blummenfelt and Jacob Ingebrigtsen have inherited some extremely good genes!