Vo2max What Makes The Good Good?

[[old] Slowkiwi]

Hi all,<br /><br />OK I admit it, I'm at work and its kinda quiet.<br /><br />It is one of the great frustrations of my life that I am no endurance athlete! <br /><br />Can anyone, perhaps from an exercise physiology background, enlighten me as to what makes a Lance Artmstrong or Rob Waddell so good. Are they able to get more oxygen through their lungs, are they able to transport or use oxygen more effectively. Training aside these guys must have some genetic advantage over me, and everyone else for that matter!<br /><br />Cheers<br /><br />Duncan

[[old] rickster]

Hi Duncan In my view from experience with working in gyms and Professional training for Squash everyone has the ability for endurance if they train for it. A hugh amount of Lance Armstrong's training is built up for endurance (Long Distance)<br /><br />Sprinters train for very short distances so they are not going to have very good endurance attributes. Horses for courses i think the saying is.<br /><br />If you want to improve your endurance then train for it mentally and physically. Believe me it is not all genetic its how much you want it in your head. Your can do anything if you put your mind to it. <br /><br />Rickster (Taff Attack)<br /><br />

[[old] TomR/the elder]

Elite athletes do have genetic advantages. I've read that muscle biopsies of elite oarsman show they have uncommonly high percentages of slow twitch muscle fiber. There's a chart in the The Lore of Running that shows the VO2 Max of elite marathon runners; they ain't average. And I think Armstrong has a heart the size of a Buick Roadster. <br /><br />That said, you can substantially improve your endurance performance by doing the right training, which will increase the percentage of slow-twitch fiber, among other things. But doing the right training won't necessarily put you among the elite. Even lots of it. Since you're only competing to become your best self, what the other guy can do is irrelevant. <br /><br />Tom

[[old] Almostflipped]

Most elites are a combination of an ability to get oxygen into themselves (lung size), move the oxygen around (heart), and use the oxygen (mitochondria). A very high anaerobic threshold is key to making it to the top and is in many ways a better determinant than VO2max for potential. This last statement is partially because most elites are able to perform a 2k at roughly 95% of VO2max and AT is part of the equation in being able to do this. Here's a link that talks about this some and about how much is hereditary vs training <br /><br /><a href='http://www.usrowing.org/itemdisplay.asp?id=1134' target='_blank'>http://www.usrowing.org/itemdisplay.asp?id=1134</a><br /><br />Interesting thing though, among the guys at the top very few are truly extreme at both oxygen transport and utilization. Fritz Hagerman did another study on this and only found 3 or 4 athletes who were truly on the extreme ends of both.<br /><br />As for slow twitch vs fast twitch muscles, its been suggested that you may be able to change the percent but really hasn't been absolutely proven. More of an issue really of increasing the size of the slow twitch fibers and converting the fast twitch fibers to a hybrid version (II-b becomes II-c which has some of the aerobic properties of slow twitch while maintaining the power of a fast twitch).<br /><br />Anycase, train and enjoy the process. If you are destined to become elite all the better, but not the be all end all of endurance sport.

[[old] Carl Henrik]

<!--QuoteBegin-Almostflipped+Feb 12 2005, 03:23 AM--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(Almostflipped @ Feb 12 2005, 03:23 AM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Most elites are a combination of an ability to get oxygen into themselves (lung size), move the oxygen around (heart), and use the oxygen (mitochondria).  A very high anaerobic threshold is key to making it to the top and is in many ways a better determinant than VO2max for potential. This last statement is partially because most elites are able to perform a 2k at roughly 95% of VO2max and AT is part of the equation in being able to do this. Here's a link that talks about this some and about how much is hereditary vs training <br /><br /><a href='http://www.usrowing.org/itemdisplay.asp?id=1134' target='_blank'>http://www.usrowing.org/itemdisplay.asp?id=1134</a><br /><br />Interesting thing though, among the guys at the top very few are truly extreme at both oxygen transport and utilization. Fritz Hagerman did another study on this and only found 3 or 4 athletes who were truly on the extreme ends of both.<br /><br />As for slow twitch vs fast twitch muscles, its been suggested that you may be able to change the percent but really hasn't been absolutely proven. More of an issue really of increasing the size of the slow twitch fibers and converting the fast twitch fibers to a hybrid version (II-b becomes II-c which has some of the aerobic properties of slow twitch while maintaining the power of a fast twitch).<br /><br />Anycase, train and enjoy the process. If you are destined to become elite all the better, but not the be all end all of endurance sport. <br /> </td></tr></table><br /><br />Interesting article. Not too surprising the group conducting more quality and quantity training got better results than those doing less and at a lower intensity. <br /><br />Because of that lay up (10min well below AT vs 5x3 min at or above for example) well below risk of over training, the conclusions from the study do not concern how to best spend a limited energy or stress tolerance to gain maximal improvment or reach the highest levels of rowing capacity at the far end of ones potential.<br /><br />What you can say is this: If you are only training three times a week with limited time to < 60 min, then high intensity training will be good for you, equally so or better may low intensity training be if you would have more time to match that stress level, but the study does not concern that.

[[old] Almostflipped]

I forgot that part of the article was even there. Yeah the second half of the article is a bunch of crap. All that study did was prove periodization (notice how the group that did SS first saw larger improvements after doing the TR work?). Fritz did a presentation at the USRowing conference anyhow stating that the article was a poor representation of what he really meant. What was intended to be said was that transport work should be done year round, however in lower doses than what would be done during the competitive period. The specific reasoning being (watered down a little) that SS will not do much for the Transport system, and if you don't use it you will lose it.<br /><br />A correction in my last post though, I always confuse Type IIA with IIB. So it is really IIA that transforms into a hybridized version.