Intensity and Suffering

Intensity is relative. Suffering is relative.

Recently, a friend of mine performed both a VO2max test at the UofU and a lactate threshold test with Dr. Max Testa from TOSH. After the latter test he spoke with Dr. Testa about the results of his test and about the implications of the ‘shape’ of his HR-blood lactate curve and his Power-blood lactate curve. My friend was both encouraged and disappointed by the results. Of course he had hoped for higher power at the onset of blood lactate accumulation (OBLA)! Don’t we all? Be he was also motivated by the results to work more ‘intensely’ and ‘suffer’ more in the upcoming months. I’ve thought a lot about what intensity means since that time and will summarize a bit of my philosophy here.

I should note at the outset that I’m only a moderate fan of diagnostic VO2max and lactate threshold tests and especially the interpretation of results from these tests. Sure they provide a means for comparing baseline measures from different cyclists and they certainly have value for determining a sensible starting point for structuring a training program, but they don’t tell you more about how to make yourself suffer than you probably already know. And they only provide a transient estimate of your current capacity. After a couple weeks of intense training, the results are no longer valid. Also, many cyclists put way too much confidence in their lactate threshold power estimate, not recognizing that it can be skewed by a significant amount depending on their stress level, hydration level, previous training, etc. at the time of the test. Furthermore, a lactate threshold test only reveals an estimate of the ‘amount’ of accumulated lactate in the blood after brief (steady-state) efforts, and does not account for the ‘rate’ of lactate accumulation during each effort nor for the capacity of the rider to tolerate the accumulation during each effort. The amount of time you can suffer and tolerate the build up of lactate at any power level higher than your OBLA power or the relative rate at which you can buffer lactate at the higher power may be much better indicators of your intensity and possibly of your riding capacity.

To convince yourself of the fact that the ‘threshold’ may not be all that you believe, try riding non-stop at just below your estimated threshold power and see if you really do remain at or near that power with the same HR or stress level as indefinitely as the term ‘threshold’ suggests. Of course you may conclude that the term ‘threshold’ is simply a misnomer and that it is just a question of semantics. Or you may conclude that the increase in HR is due to cardiac drift or dehydration or whatever. But in the end you probably know that you’re really not working intensely enough to make big performance gains, and you’re not really riding easily enough to recover. According to some people, if you train at the power level associated with your lactate threshold, you’re just adding on extra miles that keep you uncomfortably at the status quo.

In addition to the potentially weak measure of intensity these tests provide, they don’t account for the amount of internal and psychological suffering that a cyclist endures to achieve a specific power output or blood lactate concentration. For example, if an untrained cyclist is asked to ride for 2 minutes at 6 W/kg, he/she will be ‘suffering’ a lot more intensely than a national class rider who does the same. So you might conclude that intensity and suffering are a function of training time/type or of the amount of relative lactic acid that accumulates during the 2 minutes. However, even if 2 highly trained cyclists with nearly identical power-endurance profiles, the same physical builds, and the same relative VO2max and OBLA powers ride at 6 W/kg, one of these riders will outlast the other simply due to suffering more or longer. If the two riders were physically equal, then one had to be riding more intensely than the other to last longer. Factors that contribute to suffering, such as tolerance of physical, emotional, and psychological stress, aren’t reproducibly measurable and these factors constantly change based on environmental conditions or the immediate ‘stress’ level of the cyclist.

While I can’t conclude what is the best way to actually measure suffering or intensity, I can suggest a simple strategy for ensuring that you’re really riding intensely and that you’ll get higher and faster gains. First of all, consider upping your effort by riding more hours during the week. The best riders tend to put in a lot more time than the rest of us. That’s obvious. Then, when it’s time to go hard, go really hard! Much harder than you normally do and harder than you think you can. Don’t fool yourself into believing that you’re already working hard enough and that other stronger riders are simply more talented. You’ve got to stress your body way beyond your comfort level to make strident progress. During a hard session, ask yourself if you can possibly handle another 30 seconds or 1 minute or more at your interval power. If the answer is no, then do a bit anyway. I think most people succumb to the stress much too soon during a hard effort. And, when you’re doing longer hard steady-state workouts, include many random bursts of very hard effort with minimal recovery during the ride. Be intense! Surprise yourself by doing these back to back sometimes. Not only does this better simulate real performance efforts, but it leads to bigger and faster gains. Near the end of your longer rides, treat the workout like the finish to a serious performance event and ‘kick’ for the final 30 seconds, 1-2 minutes, or even 10 minutes. Absolutely leave nothing left in the tank on a lot more rides than just once per month. Then, when it’s time to relax, really relax!

I think too many cyclists claim that other riders are better than they are simply because they’re more genetically gifted. That’s hogwash! While there are awesome physical specimens out there, most freak riders simply suffer much more deeply than the rest of us a lot more often. Don’t pass off lots of hard work as a free lunch pass! You’ve got to put in the time and definitely put in the real suffering. For almost any cyclist at any level, quality training must be included in quantity training to make the best gains. Now I’m not suggesting that every workout you do should lead to complete physical destruction. Also, I know you can’t fake long distance endurance or ride without recovery hours/miles, so you’ve got to put in rides appropriate to your event distance or intensity or fatigue level. But I am suggesting that in lieu of using pre-determined HR ranges or power measures determined from diagnostic VO2max or lactate threshold tests, just go as hard as you can on many of your rides for the entire time you’re planning on riding. You can usually do these efforts by feel. Think about it. You know what real intensity is. If you are able to mindlessly think about your day or about what you’ve got going on after the ride, instead of the raw intensity of the effort, you’re probably not suffering enough. If you can talk to a friend during your ride or if you can even recognize that it’s your friend next to you, you might not be going hard enough. If you want serious gains, you’ve got to seriously suffer. Choose a metabolic stress that puts every piece of your body and mind on edge and work as if you don’t know that there’s an easier way. Forget about your heart rate and how far above your threshold you are. Just ride hard! Most of the time, I think pre-determined HR ranges and work loads are too constraining to reach that level of intensity anyway.

Once you get better at this type of effort, and if you’re really intense, the next step might be to do your rides indoors at the same power levels without any outside stimulus or motivation. I know this seems a bit crazy, but try a focused 90 minute ride without a friend, the TV, radio, or even a fan or much lighting sometime. This level of psychological stressor, combined with the metabolic stress of the ride tends to train your body and mind into believing that all the other lower efforts just aren’t that bad. Perhaps to epitomize this concept, a friend recently reminded me of a nice analogy. He said that survivors in concentration camps would intentionally inflict pain upon themselves at a higher level than the torture they’d receive, so that when they were tortured the effective pain and stress was a bit reduced, because they had already ‘trained’ their bodies and minds how to really suffer.

Remember, suffering is relative. If you can train your mind and body to suffer better than your competitors, you’ll have at least one edge over them. As Dean Karnazes said, “If it doesn’t require extraordinary effort, you’re not pushing hard enough.”

J-Naut

The Specificity of Cross Training

Occasionally I’ll read or hear about athletes that have incorporated a lot of non-specific “cross training” in their weekly training, which for them has yielded greater performance and fitness improvements than when working at their specific sport itself. For cyclists, vigorous snowshoeing in knee deep powder in hilly terrain may be one example of cross training that can yield faster or higher gains in cycling performance than cycling itself. According to general perceptions of specificity, this shouldn’t be possible. Antagonists to cross training adamantly tout that specificity is key and that “You get good at exactly what you work at.” This perspective implies that by specifically working at the target skill (ie. race-pace cycling intensity at race distances) you’ll gain the most optimum improvements in that skill itself. I don’t think that many people would argue this point—at least not at its core.

Here’s the bottom line question then: How much “cross training” versus “specificity training” should be included in training to achieve the highest and most efficient gains in cycling? If choosing specificity, should you avoid all lower-intensity riding because it’s not specific enough? Most riders know that without some variation in the intensity of target ‘peak’ riding intensity, you’ll break down fast and become badly overtrained. On the other hand, if cross training may bring balance or the ability to avoid injury, but no alleged cycling specific gains, then why does empirical evidence support the notion that cross training can bolster performance in cycling?

I am a big fan of certain types of cross training—even at the expense of displacing cycling specific workouts. In a perfectly ideal situation where motivation and time were always abundant and boredom and burnout (and the potential for overuse or other injuries) didn’t exist, I think pure specificity would be the best option year round. However, for most people who aren’t able to maintain that level of focus or perfect discipline, I think cross training will facilitate the faster achievement of high-end fitness for cycling. Furthermore, I believe most people begin to stagnate or decline in their motivation and intensity when they perform a single act without change or regular distractions like cross training.

Here are a few reasons (both psychological and physiologic) why I think people should include some cross training at very high intensities to increase their ability at cycling:
1. Cross training offers a mental break from the monotony of spinning and cycling, and the psychology of variation simply makes hard training more enjoyable (so you’re more likely to do it) that can lead to higher fitness gains.
2. The holistic approach to “balance” and working complementary muscles or performing impactive weight-bearing exercises (for injury prevention or higher overall fitness diversity) makes cross training appealing, so people gain fitness faster (again this is mostly psychological).
3. Some types of cross training allow for a greater utilization of more muscles that increases the overall physiologic demand for oxygen, thereby forcing the body to become more efficient at oxygen utilization than with cycling alone.
4. Some cross training activities are more efficient for lipid metabolism, which has an indirect downstream benefit to cycling or other endurance exercises that favor metabolic efficiency.
5. Maybe the muscle stabilizing effects of some cross training exercises physically assist cycling specific muscles or help to distribute the work load amongst more muscles when riding. (Although I’d bet that if a person truly worked with absolute specificity in their intensity at cycling, this wouldn’t be a factor).

My solution to the question is really quite simple. I cross train regularly at high intensities to gain the psychological benefits of avoiding boredom and burnout, while keeping some overall balance of muscular strength, good bone density, coordination, enjoyment of other activities etc.. Then when I ride, I try to truly be as specific as possible with my intensity and duration. Of course I’ll include “base” training sessions to keep decent biomechanical and metabolic efficiency and to support tougher efforts later on. But many of my rides are at or near race-pace so I can gain the benefits of specificity. Then when my target events approach, I’ll focus much more on the specificity portion of my training and let the psychological benefits of cross training slide. After all, a lot of suffering well (and a lot) on the bike really boils down to learning to ignore the weak parts of your psychology and just pushing yourself to the limit—as specifically as possible.

Always train hard!

J-Naut

Ramblings about intense training during the off-season.

It’s weird how returning to the basics of training can often improve your fitness more than the honing effects of peaking for specific events. Maybe it’s because I feel less stress now than when I had to perform perfectly on “race” day. Or maybe it’s because I’m just getting the rest/recovery I needed all along or because I’m re-including the foundation training that I need to support the extreme efforts that I continue to do to keep my level of fitness reasonably high. I imagine that a good portion of the improvements are coming from my inclusion of a couple of ferociously intense efforts in the “pain cave” each week. I think the infamous Ultramarathon man, Dean Karnazes, used the expression: “If it doesn’t require extraordinary effort, you’re not pushing hard enough.” Whatever the case, I feel amazingly strong and fit right now—both with my high end sustainable power and with my muscular strength. In fact, I’d bet I’m stronger now than I was during this entire year in both explosive and sustained climbing power and in distance riding.

This begs an interesting question. Why do I continue with high-end fitness training during the off-season when my target events are 10 months away? Don’t I need a period of low-end base training or mental freshness to restart my training year? Probably…to some extent. But I suppose these perspectives don’t satisfy my desire to continually improve. And I’m afraid if I give myself an inch, I’ll take a mile, when it comes to relaxation. I think many athletes sacrifice more of their hard-earned fitness than they need to by over-resting and reducing nearly all their intense training efforts for the sake of “base-training” during the off-season.

I won’t try and convince others of any of my unorthodox training perspectives nor do I feel the need to justify why I like to push hard regularly and adhere strictly to the adage “Quality over Quantity”. I’d rather just worry about what I like to do. In fact, one question that has crossed my mind a lot recently is: “Why would my body adapt to a higher level of exertion and sustainability, if it’s already capable of doing what I demand of it?” Doesn’t the obvious response to this question apply year round?

While I know It’s normal to live in cycles of varying volume and intensity throughout the training week/month/year, I think an athlete has to regularly “remind” his/her body of exactly what (an)aerobic suffering is, if they don’t want to lose too much ground in the off-season. After all, in nearly every other pursuit in life, I’m expected to be at some minimum level of performance and can’t simply take a complete “off” season from life to rest for long from the challenges I face. Why should I think this principle doesn’t apply to training too?

I guess this banter just means one thing for me if I plan on cyclically, yet continually, getting fitter—even during the off-season. I’ve got to ‘put up’ or ‘shut up’. This includes my continuing efforts to try and eat fewer doughnuts and keep up a variety of complementary activities that all contribute to my end goals. And of course, I’ll make sure the intensity is occasionally high enough to bring on blood-shot eyes and a viscerally fierce pain that elicits a deep training stimulus for me to keep getting stronger.

Have fun!

J-Naut

Off-season training

So here are the basics:

My main objective for now is to drop some pounds and 'reset' my body for a tough year to come. For the next several months I'll be doing about 75-90 mins of base conditioning each weekday morning, combining both jogging and spinning. The spinning is specific to my efforts and helps with biomechanical and metabolic efficiency. Although non-specific to cycling, the jogging helps a bit with mental freshness, joint strength, muscular balance (think hamstrings) and flexibility, impact tolerance, and because I'm so inefficient at it, I burn more calories than spinning for the time invested. Also, it will prep me a bit to survivie the SLC marathon in April.
For the base work I'm keeping my HR at around 65% of max (ie. 125 bpm) to hopefully gain a bit more metabolic efficiency, while not overworking (which will just tempt me to overeat). On Saturday mornings, I'll do between 3-4 hrs of mixed training and with the same lower HR. My total base hours will be around 10+ hrs.

To rebuild my structural strength and my muscular fatigue resistance in the off-season, I'll do some high rep squats 1-2 times per week. It will take me 2 months to *comfortably* get to 3 sets of 100 reps with a 95 lb bar (at about 40 reps/min). And usually the weight is low enough and the reps high enough that I don't hypertrophy much. Instead I typically gain a huge amount of muscular tolerance and endurance, while keeping my bone density up and my joint strength high. Depending on weight loss, I may work up to the same sets/reps with 135 lbs. Man these hurt! But in the end, my legs are much more capable of pushing serious power and the strength work complements the pure base training well for me.

Finally, I'll add in 2 brief "pain cave" sessions per week, which tends to keep my anaerobic threshold high and my mind happy. The pain sessions and the weights will add up to around 2 hrs per week, which is roughly 15% of my total hours.

For a significant portion of the training, I'll work with Brutus, who is amazing at motivating me when I don't want to train, and who is willing to suffer until he absolutely has nothing more to give. Also, I'll be in regular contact with B-Horn to keep on track with my diet and efficiency. B-Horn is immensely knowledgable about nearly every aspect of training and diet and has proven more than anybody that he can even break my bad eating and training habits. What's more, he has changed his own body from a grande burrito to a lean machine, so he knows exactly what I'm up against.

I'll detail more as the weeks progress.

J-Naut

New Beginnings

Superior firepower. Supreme conditioning. Brute Force.