SESSION NOTES: Running (943)
Complete as many total meters as possible over the following running intervals. As fast as possible on each interval while still maintaining pace: 9x 5s work, 60s passive rest. 6x 10s work, 120s passive rest. 3x 15s work, 180s passive rest.
Programming Science:
This session trains an anaerobic energy pathway, improving your ability to run using the phosphocreatine energy system to produce energy, training the anaerobic threshold.
The intervals train the phosphocreatine energy system, and because of their low duration, do not produce hydrogen ions as a byproduct. Therefore the recovery can be passive (complete rest) with a 1:12 work to rest ratio which allows partial recovery of this energy system.
The intervals progress from short to long to minimise the loss in intensity that would occur if the order were reversed (which would then reduce the benefits to the shorter, more intensive energy systems).
Health and Body Composition Benefits:
Cardiorespiratory exercise has considerable health benefits, with this session creating favourable changes to cardiovascular disease (including reductions in blood pressure) and respiratory disease. This session will also lower your resting heart rate and increase blood flow to the brain.
The cyclical nature of running is the most effective type of movement to stimulate the release of endorphins, feel good chemicals that will not only improve mood and mental health, but will also help to reduce pain levels in the body.
As a result of this style of session, you will experience changes in blood chemistry, including favourable effects on cholesterol, blood glucose, triglyceride and lipid levels.
Although this session isn’t optimally effective as a stand-alone method of modifying body composition and weight management, it will aid in reducing levels of body fat when included in conjunction with your strength and resistance training based sessions.
Similarly, although this style of session doesn’t have as powerful a long term effect on your resting metabolic rate as resistance-based exercise, cardiovascular exercise at high intensities will put your body into a prolonged state of ‘EPOC’ (excess post- exercise oxygen consumption), meaning you’ll continue burning energy long after you finish training – further aiding healthy body composition.
Performance Benefits:
This session is specifically programmed as a weakness biased session to improve running ability across shorter time domains and energy systems.
The primary benefit of training for cardiorespiratory endurance from a performance perspective is to improve the ability of your body to sustain repeated muscle contractions.
This session achieves this by training multiple energy systems which generates ‘ATP’ (adenosine triphosphate) which fuels movement. By completing this session and training these energy systems, we’re able to raise the threshold at which fatigue kicks in. This results in the session not only improving your work rate, but also improving your ability to sustain a higher work rate for longer, with less fatigue.
As a result of this session, you’ll experience performance-boosting changes in intramuscular substrate storage (increasing energy availability for muscle contractions) and increased enzyme activities (increasing the rate of energy delivery to the muscles).
Additionally, the repetitive muscle contractions create positive changes at a muscular level.
The high repetition movements in this session train the ability of your muscles to resist fatigue – increasing their stamina. This comes from improvements in the efficiency of slow twitch (fatigue resistant) muscle fibres.
As a result of the volume of repetitions, this session will increase the mitochondrial density in your muscle cells, allowing them to more efficiently convert energy into fuel. This means you can sustain higher rates of muscle contraction before fatigue or failure.
The higher volumes will also increase capillary density in your muscles, allowing for efficient delivery of oxygen and fuel, and removal of waste products (further adding to the fatigue resistance).
These muscular changes also occur in the ventilatory muscles, improving breathing efficiency.
From a psychological point of view, if your pacing is correct, this session can be an effective method of entering a ‘flow state’, an optimal physical and mental zone which can help to maximise your performance.
Strategy:
The intervals should be maximal speed, without discomfort (they’re not long enough to cause the byproducts of anaerobic exercise that cause discomfort).
How it Should Feel:
You should feel equally limited by your cardiorespiratory endurance and strength/stamina. It should be difficult both because the loads are heavy, and because you’re breathing hard.
During each interval, even though you’re holding a consistent workrate, the rate of perceived exertion should increase.
This session will make you feel unfit – don’t worry, that’s normal.
Scaling Guidelines:
As this session is completed at a pace relative to the abilities of the individual, scaling is not necessary.
Modify around injuries with exercises as close as possible to the stimulus of the movement you’re modifying. For example, rowing is not a suitable substitute, as, although the same energy systems may be trained, the specific weakness of running will not be.
Common Mistakes:
Going too slow in the shortest intervals (these need to be max effort). If you are not able to maintain the same pace (your maximum sustainable pace) throughout the entire interval, you’ve started too fast and are not receiving the maximum benefit.
