For background, I'm a retired physician and a rowing coach of a large high school team, specifically a club team where the kids train year-round. We have 50 ergs in our erging facility (a rented room) and the kids typically put in 60-90 minutes of erging per night for the majority of their workouts (steady state). Those workouts are pretty standard-- do 60 or 90 minutes, go to your prescribed watts for steady state (SS), and watch the movie on the big screeen (a 9' screen, darkened room, big sound system, very good ventilation). Stop and drink whenever you want. Get up and move from a stationary erg to the slides when you wish (usually by boat but chaos theory relied upon to keep all ergs full at all times). The varsity members have been through lactate testing including step test, lactate recovery, and steady state. Steady state testing is ongoing, typically doing 20 tests per night to keep kids dialed in. The novices and JV rely on heart rate monitors (HRM) or just, "It feels right-- not too hard, not too light".
So here's my question:
So that was my question. Cast me to the wolves or educate me.I'm going to toss a topic out to the wolves- I have this notion that some athletes are simply "too anaerobic" and that blunts their response in a 2K.
Let me explain. "Too anaerobic" means that these athletes are big lactate producers, and they produce lactate better than they consume it. Lactate is not, as once thought, an evil by-product of anaerobic work. It is a significant energy source to the aerobic system during exercise.
If one trains primarily the anaerobic system on a daily basis, then lactate development is enhanced. Conversely, if one trains the aerobic system primarily, then lactate consumption is improved. Somewhere there is a fine balance between the two systems that results in the fastest 2K time that an individual can achieve, other physiologic parameters being constant (well, we can't do that). If the aerobic system's ability to consume lactate so overwhelms the anaerobic system's ability to produce it, then insufficient energy will be available (as well as insufficient "sprint" strength). If the anaerobic system is so emphasized in training that it overwhelms the aerobic system with lactate, then the lactate level rises precipitously and blunts a 2K race result.
In reviewing > 500 lactate levels to date, done in both step, lactate recovery and steady state testing, several trends are developing. Those kids who push themselves without regard to the nature of the workout (ie, always racing, never recovering), will suffer a precipitous rise in lactate after 1 minute and it will remain elevated. That is, their aerobic system does not consume the lactate that their anaerobic system so magnificently produces. Meanwhile, the really aerobic kids do not have that precipitous rise and their recovery curve represents a steeper drop. That is, their aerobic system consumes lactate with abandon.
Interestingly, when reviewing the data, it is clear where the fastest kids are-- they are on the more aerobic end of the spectrum. While some slower erg scores do creep into this fast aerobic group, I feel that this phenomenon probably represents, at least for this sprinkling of slower rowers, their ideal position on the aerobic-anaerobic continuum for their physiology.
The fastest kids are those who continue to improve with each erg test, eventually becoming the fastest in the club. The once fastest kids, those who became stale and plateaued, are easily identified on testing. They are all anaerobes.
While I have lots more work to do (little issues of statistical significance and prospectively, how kids who have become stale in their training, do as we move them along this continuum toward the more aerobic end), I am surprised by the lack of scientific articles regarding this topic.
