The Best Endurance Workout
Earlier this year I wrote about VO2max being all the rage. Essentially, this intensity, and the workout structures around it, were gassed up to the max as people around the fitness world learned more about the potential benefits associated with it for both health and fitness. In today’s World, a single study or mention from a big platform can set things in motion very fast, and with it, context can be lost. The best thing to ask yourself when these types of things happen is, compared to what and at what opportunity cost? At the end of the day, whether you are deciding on how to structure your diet, or what workout to do, it isn’t just about what that food or workout can do for you, but what it can not that other options could. This is where the nuance comes into play.
So what? If V02max, zone 2, and threshold sessions are not better or worse than one another, what exactly should we be doing with our finite fitness time and energy? This is where it helps to get a grasp of the individual. Without getting too bogged down in proper order of operations generally speaking, or intensity actually being a spectrum that has bleed over impact across it at any intensity exposure, let’s just assume that the main intensities endurance athletes often target are worth targeting. Also, the most direct way to improve them is directly doing them. In other words, they have a place and the next step is deciding when to do them.
This is where it becomes important to assess your global fitness. Where is your balance between these intensities? Are you a mileage monster who can run all day, but get bodied by 10 minutes of total volume for short intervals? Do you fade quickly after 60 minutes of zone 2 work, but cannot be messed with on the track for short intervals? It likely will not be this extreme, but these are the trends you want to be considering. When it comes to balancing out your fitness, it is likely that you will be more developed at what you have been focusing on more, and have a higher ceiling for improvement where you are weakest.
How do you know if it is not as obvious as the above examples? Dig into the data if you have it. If not, it may be worth doing some field tests or getting a metabolic cart test done. If you have the data available on any of the running GPX file sites like strava, you can dive into it and tease out where you have been spending most of your training time. You can also compare things like pace at intensity. Assuming you can pull data from similar conditions (consider weather and terrain difficulty), you should be able to get a look at the gap you have between these intensities, which can highlight where you are strongest and weakest.
Let’s say someone wants to cut to the chase and see their profile, so they go into an exercise physiology lab and get a metabolic cart test. The results show that the space between rest and their aerobic threshold is huge, but the gap between their aerobic threshold, and their lactate threshold is relatively small, and the gap between their lactate threshold and their VO2max is also relatively small when compared to averages. This would be a sign they may be more developed along the lower intensities, and they have an opportunity to take a bigger step forward by doing a speed work development phase, which will help boost their ceiling, and as a result pull up their pace at the lower intensities. If the opposite is true, the opportunity for the best long term improvement would be to invest more training time in the lower zones 1 and 2. This will give them a stronger foundation for moderate and high intensities to sit on.
Let’s say you do not have an opportunity to get a metabolic cart test, and you cannot dive into old data. You can test some of these intensities and get an estimate into the pace gap between them. You can also reflect back on what training inputs you have been focusing on recently, as it is likely those are more developed. I like when different measurements speak the same language, as it bolsters the likelihood of accuracy. Here are some examples to consider if going the field test route. Just remember these will give you estimates, and depending on experience and specific developments may need further confirmation. For VO2max, a hard effort for approximately 12-minutes can be a good estimate of how fast you are, or your velocity, at VO2max. For lactate threshold, the pace you can sustain for approximately 30-minutes untapered in training by yourself, or closer to 45-60 minutes in a race day setting, can serve as an approximation of where your pace is currently at lactate threshold. For aerobic threshold, the pace you can sustain without an increase in labor for one of your longer training sessions (approximately 90 minutes) at an effort you can easily carry a two person conversation may provide an estimate of your pace at aerobic threshold. For further confirmation, you can also use the pace you produce at approximately 85% of your lactate threshold heart rate, which you can gather from your lactate threshold test (take the average of the final 20 minutes of the 30-minute field test) to get a second look.
When you have this information sorted, it can highlight if a specific training intensity is worth focusing more or less on in the near term. Being relatively strong at these intensities, with maybe a slight lean towards the intensity you plan to race at can set you up for a peaking phase, where you will likely want to spend more focus developing the intensity you plan to race. If you are simply looking for good overall health, a healthy balance among these intensities will go a long way in checking the aerobic conditioning benefits. Next time you see a key intensity come into favor, just use it as a reminder to take a peak at if you personally carry a strength or weakness within it.
If you are interested in some additional support, I am currently onboarding for my group coaching package. It is designed for all abilities, and race targets that will help you better understand the training and racing process. It includes: access to my complete catalog of training plans from 5km to 200+ miles, two weekly group meetings to help adjust your plan and cover questions/topics, recordings of meetings, future guest speakers, and a private forum for all members. Details can be found here.
Current Picks: here are some endurance training products I currently use, and a list of my favorite endurance books. Enjoy!
Podcast:zachbitter.com/hpo