Abstract
The regulation of endurance training is usually based on the prescription of exercise intensity. Exercise duration, another important variable of training load, is rarely prescribed by individual measures and mostly set from experience. As the specific exercise duration for any intensity plays a substantial role regarding the different kind of cellular stressors, degree, and kind of fatigue as well as training effects, concepts integrating the prescription of both intensity and duration within one model are needed. An according recent approach was the critical power concept which seems to have a physiological basis; however, the mathematical approach of this concept does not allow applying the three zones/two threshold model of metabolism and its different physiological consequences. Here we show the combination of exercise intensity and duration prescription on an individual basis applying the power/speed to distance/time relationship. The concept is based on both the differentiation of intensities by two lactate or gas exchange variables derived turn points, and on the relationship between power (or velocity) and duration (or distance). The turn points define three zones of intensities with distinct acute metabolic, hormonal, and cardio-respiratory responses for endurance exercise. A maximal duration exists for any single power or velocity such as described in the power-duration relationship. Using percentages of the maximal duration allows regulating fatigue, recovery time, and adaptation for any single endurance training session. Four domains of duration with respect to induced fatigue can be derived from maximal duration obtained by the power-duration curve. For any micro-cycle, target intensities and durations may be chosen on an individual basis. The model described here is the first conceptual framework of integrating physiologically defined intensities and fatigue related durations to optimize high-performance exercise training.
Highlights
The regulation of endurance training is usually based on the prescription of individual exercise intensity zones/domains, (Meyer et al, 2005; Pescatello, 2014, p. 168) whereas, in contrast, exercise duration is rarely prescribed by individual measures and mostly set from personal experience or “usual” settings
It is a fact that any certain intensity has its own critical time limit which is dependent on the type of exercise and the kind of athletes, but may be used as an individual diagnostic tool to prescribe exercise duration (Vanhatalo et al, 2011; Pettitt, FIGURE 4 | Speed-duration relationship of endurance-type world records in running from 800 m to marathon race distance (A) and swimming (B) was shown to be linear in a logarithmic scale for male and female athletes. 2016; Poole et al, 2016)
The concept to combine turn point derived intensities and optimized durations may be interesting with respect to the new polarized training concept (Seiler and Kjerland, 2006; Seiler, 2010; Muñoz et al, 2014a,b; Tønnessen et al, 2014) where 80–90% of training volume is set below LTP1/VT1 and up to 22% above LTP2/VT2 with very low volumes between both thresholds
Summary
The regulation of endurance training is usually based on the prescription of individual exercise intensity zones/domains, (Meyer et al, 2005; Pescatello, 2014, p. 168) whereas, in contrast, exercise duration is rarely prescribed by individual measures and mostly set from personal experience or “usual” settings. Tremblay et al (2005) critically mentioned that little research tempting to isolate the effect of exercise duration has been done but they suggested a duration threshold for hormonal responses especially for low intensity exercise. Dekerle et al (2003) as well as Pringle and Jones (2002) showed that the critical power calculated from a given range of exhaustion time did not correspond to the maximal lactate steady state (mLaSS) similar to Brickley et al (2002) indicating the need to combine both aspects into one model recently shown by Burnley and Jones (2016) It is well-prescribed that competitive endurance athletes using the polarization model train up to 13 training sessions per week with an intensity distribution of about 80% of total training volume performed at low intensity and about 20% high-intensity work such as interval training (Esteve-Lanao et al, 2005; Seiler and Kjerland, 2006; Seiler, 2010; Stöggl and Sperlich, 2015). Aim of the paper is to give a theoretical framework prescribing both intensity and duration for endurance training
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