In today's Research Roundup we bring you four recent studies. How world-class Norwegian endurance coaches programme strength and speed, the factors determining how a runner's physiology holds up over two and a half hours of running, a defence of the critical power model written by the people who built it, and a polarised versus high-intensity trial in cyclists with a result neither of us expected.
HIGHLIGHTS AND KEY TOPICS:
Strength and speed training across eight Olympic endurance sports (including triathlon, swimming, cycling and running), from 12 world-class Norwegian coaches whose athletes have won over 400 international medals. How many hours a year each sport does, and which sport sits at the bottom of the table.
What those sessions look like: exercises, sets, reps and how close to failure the athletes are taken, which is a long way from what randomised trials prescribe. Plus the 10 hours a year of speed training every sport did, and what it looks like.
How Daniel and Mikael each place strength and speed work in a real training week, where they differ from the Norwegian model, and why an age-group athlete in their forties is a different case from an Olympic athlete in their twenties.
Physiological resilience (durability) during two and a half hours of continuous unfed running, with thresholds, running economy and VO2max retested at the end. Which variables fall most, which barely move, and how runners of different ability differ.
Mikael sets the running economy decline against what a pair of carbon shoes buys you and asks which is bigger. Plus the two qualities that separated the runners who held up, one aerobic and one from the gym.
Ten common criticisms of the critical power model, answered by the group that built it: whether CP is just FTP renamed, whether the model claims you can hold CP forever, whether a power law fits the curve better, and where the authors concede most.
Critical power as a moving number rather than a fixed one, what that does to how you prescribe a threshold session, and the gap between the test durations the paper recommends and the ones Mikael actually uses.
Polarised against high intensity with the hard sessions held identical, three a week for six weeks, one group adding four hours a week of easy riding. What the time trial showed, and why Mikael thinks the result is wrong (a strong statement!).
SHOWNOTES, LINKS, RESOURCES AND RELATED EPISODES:
Follow Daniel Rowland and Endurance Ideas and Implementation on his website, Substack and Instagram.
The shownotes for today's episode can be found here.
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