Inspired by Stephen Seiler and fellrnr, I was looking into how training can be specific, and what are trainable.
Trainable Factors
- VO2Max - Aerobic capacity is on the top of the list.
- It consists of heart rate, stroke volume and oxygen concentration in blood.
- Out of the three, typically only the stroke volume is trainable (stronger/bigger heart) to have a long lasting benefit (heart rate decreases with age. oxygen concentrain can temporarily increase with altitude adaptation, which is often short lived).
- Its adaptation is typically achieved in weeks or months, and then becomes stable even with harder training.
- Can be trained via High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)
- Running economy
- It can continue improve over time (many years).
- It consists of 1:
- metabolic adaptations within the muscle such as increased mitochondria and oxidative enzymes
- the ability of the muscles to store and release elastic energy by increasing the stiffness of the muscles
- more efficient mechanics leading to less energy wasted on braking forces and excessive vertical oscillation
- Major factors contributing to RE 2:
- Smaller vertical oscillation “showed significant moderate associations” with better RE.
- A higher leg stiffness also showed “significant moderate associations” with better RE. Though some research estimate leg stiffness using ground contact time.
- A higher cadence “showed a small significant association” with better RE.
- No impact on RE:
- Where foot first contacts the ground
- Ground contact time, stride length, ankle/knee/hip angles A higher stride rate “showed a small significant association” with better RE.
- Can be trained via
- HIIT
- Explosive (plyometrics) or maximal strength training
- intermittent hypoxia (Breath control?)
- Endurance
- Both skeletal and cardiac muscle endurance
- Typically, eccentric load is the most harmful to skeletal muscles during fatigue, which should be emphasized.
- Can be trained via
- eccentric strength training
- Long run
- Fractional utilization - how much O2 can be utilized
- Heat/altitude adaptation
Summary
The following forms of exercises offers specific benefits for running:
- Long run - Endurance
- HIIT - VO2Max, running economy
- Strength training - running economy, endurance
- Plyometrics - running economy
- Hill run - can be considered as a combination of HIIT (uphill) and Strength training (downhill, focusing on eccentric load)