Is there such a thing as Too Anaerobic?

[tewbz]

How about looking at percentage of power also? You already have the 2K time. You can work off a percentage of that. For the everyday long rows you probably want them to be about 85 percent of 2K speed (NOT POWER). Do you have any longer tests, preferably at least 10K? If not then why not give them one or better yet a 60 minute test. You would then see how close their everyday workouts are to their max. You could set the range of their 60 minute workouts paces to something like their 10K test + 6 to 12 seconds, or their 60 minute test pace + 4 to 10 seconds. Add 2 to 3 seconds for the 90 minute workout.
Doing a long test will let you know how close to their maximum they are. More importantly it will show them. You can give them some articles or web links that explain what relative intensity they should be working at, and that they should not be working too hard on these.

i like the idea of a 10k test but a 60:00 test? i dont think he wants to torture them that much!

[mchase]

I'm neither a coach nor an exercise physiologist, but reading this thread, IMHO, there's waaay toooo muuuch focus on testing in general and lactate testing specifically! These are high schoolers not Olympic athletes for crying out loud. If you're their coach, you need to have a coaching plan for the whole group and for each individual. Yo're the one that coaches and motivates and instill habits that foster the discipline to train properly. There are plenty of good periodization and race training plans out there. Probably a good forum for high school coaches to share ideas too. But IMO, you need to deemphasize the testing and its frequency and work on gettign your athletes in sync with a training regime that leads to specific goals. Otherwise, there's a tendency for young inexperienced rowers to try to "outdo" everybody everytime and they wind up leaving everything on the training floor and performing poorly when it counts.

From your description, if seems like you have the facilities, many high school and smaller colleges and even masters groups would kill for. But it's up to you to make the most of these with the population of rowers you have in th emost effective manner. I don't think using lactate testing on a continual basis is the way to accomplish this. Others mileage may vary.

We have a training regimen. Some kids are, in my opinion, over-training the anaerobic and under-training the aerobic. This is America where kids believe that they can do better by trying harder. Trying harder means pushing it harder in workouts. They are not "over-training" in the traditional sense, but rather over-training the anaerobic system. That is my sense.

The most common refrain I have after drawing a lactate is, "You are going too hard during steady state." Does that sound like an in-your-face coach screaming at kids to go faster, try harder or you'll be in the last boat exhortation? Lactate testing is to let these kids know where they are, particularly during steady state. It is not some evil plot to inspire them to push themselves harder. Very few of these kids need to push harder. When a kid is pulling a lactate of 17 during steady state, he needs no encouragement to go harder; instead he should be discouraged from doing this. It's steady state.

[mchase]

I could make money doing literature reviews and searches.
Not a definitive paper but it follows others stuff I read today.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article ... p00192.pdf

I think you are all trying to way over simplify this and suggest that lactate is a perfect measure of one's ability. It works in general but there will always be outliers. And no matter how much training some people do their genetics are such that they won't clear lactate well. Look at the enzymes in many Asians and Native Americans for clearing alcohol. You may convince this rower to go slower and he may improve or he may not. That is the genetic cards we are dealt.

I think there is merit to what you say. My problem of course is to get every kid to his highest level that that kid wishes to go. We've got lots of motivated kids. I turned to lactate testing to help. I'm surprised at what I find. Some really well-motivated kids are running high lactates always and these kids are those who are primarily in the stale group. We've got kids who run lower lactates and are fast and continuously improving. Maybe it's just a reflection of genetics (ouch, that hurts) or maybe it's a reflection of their work ethic and desire to improve. But I find nobody who recommends a steady state lactate north of 10 or 15 and certainly not 17 for an hour. So maybe these stale but hard working kids are just rowing themselves into that staleness. And that's the essence of my question-- Can they be too anaerobic? Genetics is a plausible answer but not one I want to turn to yet.

[mchase]

It almost sounds more like overtraining to me. Have you tried putting those kids on a forced recovery for a week or two? It sounds like they are not disciplined enough to manage their pacing.

I don't believe it's as much a lack of discipline as it is a lack of knowledge or awareness. If you're near you anaerobic threshold, it doesn't take much to skyrocket your lactate. These are kids, not well-trained elite athletes. They are not as "in touch" with their splits. Some may be able to recite the Krebs Cycle from their biology final, but really don't understand the implications. Heck, I'm have enough questions after lots more academic and athletic training.

[Nosmo]

i like the idea of a 10k test but a 60:00 test? i dont think he wants to torture them that much!

Sounds like some of them are torturing themselves just fine without him!

I'm thinking all this talk of lactate and over training the anaerobic systems is getting in the way of what is needed. If kids are working too hard they will stagnate. mchase needs to get them to take it easier to see if they improve. If he can't do that by showing them lactate levels, then perhaps an endurance test will do it. Or even have them do 1K or 2K tests each week, the day after long workouts and emphasis that they need to take it easy because they will be tested the next day.

[luckylindy]

From what I've read, a lot of rowers push relatively hard each workout, or go for PBs quite often. As someone with a background in running, this seemed very odd to me. In running, competitive runners typically train at a relatively slow pace for ~80% of all miles. For example, a great class runner who runs a 4:20/mile 5k on the track would likely do their distance running at ~6:30/mile (FA slower than their marathon pace). But in rowing, it seems rather common for rowers to pull at faster than marathon pace every single day, even on slow/recovery days.

What interests me about this "Too Anaerobic" thread is that I've seen many amateur runners become better when they slow down their base training. Many amateur/intermediate runners will run each day at a pace that is much faster than marathon pace (just like many rowers). These runners seem to plateau much faster than the runners who run ~30s/mile slower than marathon pace for their mid-long distance run and run another 20-30% of their miles at higher speeds (interval training, tempo runs, etc). This is particularly evident in high school XC, where many of the hardest working individuals "burn out" early in the season, while the "lazy" runners continue to improve throughout.

I realize running and rowing are different, but it's hard to believe that the energy pathways would be different enough that similar training intensities would yield far different results.

[H2O]

Some kids are, in my opinion, over-training the anaerobic and under-training the aerobic....
When a kid is pulling a lactate of 17 during steady state, he needs no encouragement to go harder; instead he should be discouraged from doing this. It's steady state.

In steady state rowing for 30+ minutes the anaerobic system does almost no work.

I would explain to my rowers that they need to get complete control of their effort.
As they are rowing you sound the trumpet and this means that they now have to be within 5 Watts of target pace
on every stroke (3 Watts if it is under 180W).
If a stroke is discovered outside the band an entry is made into the book of records.
The trumpet is sounded again and they can now slack off to within 10W off target (6 Watts if it is under 180W).
The sound of the trumpet breaks up the boredom of the long pieces.

Too many entries and it's good bye, there are other clubs.

I don't think that SS rowing only all winter long is the optimal approach.
I would put in one 6K and one 2K a week a little below race effort again with pace control being the prime objective.

[slwiser]

In steady state rowing for 30+ minutes the anaerobic system does almost no work.

I would like to understand this better. You say at 30+ no anaerobic work is done. Even if I am above 95%+ HRmax after the first 10 minutes?

[mchase]

H20,
Thanks for your note and ideas. I think, as lactate testing and dialing in the watts for each rower continues, that those who benefit will become the envy of those who think just banging hard on the erg day after day will eventually win.

Look at any endurance sport, and there's lots of long and slow work done.

I'm not sure that anyone truly understands the phenomenon at the cellular level that allows "easier" intensity to ultimately win the 2K battle. I think what will be talked about in years to come are the specific molecular signaling mechanisms in the muscle cell which up-regulate the anaerobic or aerobic system of each cell (calcium-calmodulin kinases, etc), depending on the stimulus provided. Then it will begin to make more sense.

We do workouts other than SS. Hard workouts are hard; easy workouts are easy (and long). Not too much in the middle.

[gregsmith01748]

Hi,

I am no expert, but I wonder if a more structured approach to the long steady state rows might help your "anaerobes" to stick in a more reasonable effort range and break out of a training "rut". Have you tried them on rate limited stuff like Wolverine Plan L4s? In those workouts, since the stroke rate and split is closely proscribed, it should be easier to keep track of how hard different rowers are pushing?

Personally, I used to watch movies when I did long rows, but now doing L4 workouts, I find the time passes faster just focusing on the rates and splits and listening to my ipod.

I'm fascinated with your posts though. As someone who has not had a lot of experience in structured competitive sports, I do wonder about the range of human potential, beyond the basics of height, weight and basic fitness level. I think the genetics angle might have some merit, but I bet that a modification in training approach could make a world of difference for many athletes that have plateaued.

[H2O]

I would like to understand this better. You say at 30+ no anaerobic work is done. Even if I am above 95%+ HRmax after the first 10 minutes?

Here is a link:
http://www.coachr.org/energy_system_con ... _in_tr.htm

5000m track running (<15min) is already 96% aerobic.

[NavigationHazard]

In steady state rowing for 30+ minutes the anaerobic system does almost no work.

I would like to understand this better. You say at 30+ no anaerobic work is done. Even if I am above 95%+ HRmax after the first 10 minutes?

I gather it's very hard to assess the relative contribution of the various energy pathways (among other problems, the physiology may be rather exercise-specific and the testing/modelling is extremely sensitive to conditions and assumptions). Still there have been lots and lots of efforts over the years, and no doubt more are continuing. This recent one: https://www.cds.caltech.edu/~doyle/HRre ... ycling.pdf finds the anaerobic contribution in cycling around 12.5% at metabolic steady state (which is not necessarily the same as steady-state pace). I think no more than around 10% anaerobic is a reasonable assumption for rowing at metabolic steady state. It'll be less if you're chugging along at something less than metabolic lactate steady-state intensity.

FWIW recent work suggests a 2k in rowing may be as much as 85-88% aerobic.

[mchase]

Wow. That was a dense article. I got lost in the math and nomenclature in a few minutes.

There is a way to fairly accurately assess the relative contribution of the oxidative versus anaerobic pathways while exercising, in vivo. It uses phosphorus magnetic resonance spectroscopy (P-MRS) and requires the subjects to exercise in an MR scanner (a real limitation for someone on an erg) with a special coil. From there, the relative concentrations of phosphocreatine (PCr), inorganic phosphate(Pi), phosphomonoesters (PME) and ATP were calculated. ADP was calculated using PCr and pH....and finally the relative contribution of each energy source. Anyway, the article is:
Eur J Appl Physiol (2009) 106:229–242
Does oxidative capacity affect energy cost? An in vivo MR investigation of skeletal muscle energetics
Gwenael Layec et al.

The article detailed the energy sources used by endurance trained versus sedentary individuals during are 30/sec repetitive exercise for 6 min (close to the duration of a 2K). There are some interesting graphs showing how anaerobic prevails for the first 30sec and aerobic takes over and anaerobic drops quickly for both groups, but lower for the endurance trained group. The endurance trained athletes obviously were more aerobic than anaerobic. PM me (or send a note to mchasemd @ medtuity.com and I can send you the article).

[mchase]

After reading about the magnetic resonance spectroscopy as a means of evaluating aerobic (oxidative) versus anaerobic contribution to energy, I changed my search criteria. Here's an interesting case report (and I've written Dr. Newcomer for a full-text copy). Anyway, heres the abstract:
___________________

Abstract

Objective:31P magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) was used to document long lasting losses in muscle oxidative capacity after bouts of intense endurance exercise.

Methods: The subject was a 34 year old highly fit female cyclist (Vo2max  =  53.3 ml/kg/min). Over a five month period, she participated in three separate intense bouts of acute unaccustomed exercise. 31P MRS measurements were performed seven weeks after the first bout and every two weeks for 14 more weeks. In all cases, 31P MRS measurements followed three days after each bout.

Results: The subject showed a decreased ability to generate ATP from oxidative phosphorylation and an increased reliance on anaerobic ATP production during the 70% and 100% maximal voluntary contractions after the exercise bouts. Increased rates of fatigue and increased indicators of exercise difficulty also accompanied these reductions in muscle oxidative capacity. Increased oxidative and anaerobic ATP production were needed to maintain the work level during a submaximal 45% maximal voluntary contraction exercise.

Conclusions: Acute increases in intensity accompanied by a change in exercise mode can influence the ability of muscle to generate ATP. The muscles were less economical and required more ATP to generate force during the submaximal exercises. During the maximal exercises, the muscle’s mitochondria showed a reduced oxidative capacity. However, these reductions in oxidative capacity at the muscle level were not associated with changes in whole body maximal oxygen uptake. Finally, these reductions in muscular oxidative capacity were accompanied by increased rates of anaerobic ATP production, fatigue, and indicators of exercise difficulty.
________________________

This is interesting stuff because as coaches we have considered aerobic ability to be dependent upon cardiac output, pulmonary exchange, oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood, density of capillaries surrounding the involved myocytes, cross-section of the myocyte (ie, how close are the capillaries to the mitochondria), and mitochondrial count. That is, how effective is the athlete in taking up 02, transporting it to the cell, unloading the O2, and getting it into the mitochondria. I'll bet none of these parameters changed in this cyclists. That is, her heart didn't suddenly get smaller, or her capillary density decrease, or her mitochondria count diminish. So what happened when she exercised harder, she became less aerobic.

[BradL]

This is the most interesting thread I have seen in these forums. The idea of tailoring the workouts to fit an athlete's physiology is obviously important. For my own purposes, I have always excelled at short, hard bursts of activity, and not been what you would classify as a great aerobic athlete. Is this situation because of my physiology or my psychology? Going hard all the time seems to be something I have done without considering another option, but testing of this sort would identify the proper training for each athlete, and also would identify the area each athlete might best be suited for. There are athletes that specialize in different distances in running, biking, and swimming. Why would that not be the case for rowing?