ISPORTSCIENCE - sportsci.org eee Seca ae This issue Intervals, Thresholds, and Long Slow Distance: the Role of Intensity and Duration in Endurance Training ‘Stephen Seiler! and Espen Tennessen? Sportscience 13, 32-53, 2008 (sports. 9/2008. htm) 1 Univarsty of Agder, Faculty of Heath and Spor, Krsiansand 4604, Norway. Em 2 Norwegian Olympt and Paralympic Comtee National Traning Center, Oso, Norway. Ema Reviewers tiga Mujka, Araba Sport Cli, ior, Span; Stephen Ingham, Englsh Intute of Sport, Loughoorough Univorsty, Leicestershire, LE1t 3TU, UK. H Endurance training involves manipulation of intensity, duration, and frequency of training sessions. The relative impact of short, high-intensity training versus longer, slower distance training has been studied and debated for decades among athletes, coaches, and scientists. Currently, the popularity pendulum has swung towards high-intensity interval training. Many fitness experts, as ‘well as some scientists, now argue that brief, high-intensity interval work is the only form of training necessary for performance optimization. Research on the impact of interval {and continuous training with untrained to moderately trained subjects does not support the current interval craze, but the evidence does suggest that short intense training bouts and longer continuous exercise sessions should both be a part of effective endurance training. Elite endurance athletes perform 80 % or more of their training at intensities clearly below their lactate threshold and use highsintensity training surprisingly sparingly. Studies involving intensification of training in already well-trained athletes have shown equivocal results at best. The available evidence suggests that combining large volumes of low-intensity training with careful_use of high-intensity interval training throughout the annual training cycle is the best-practice model for development of endurance performance. KEYWORDS: lactate threshold, maximal oxygen uptake, VOzmax, periodization. Reprint pdf - Reprint doc Reviewer's Commentary Exercise Intensity Zones Training Plans and Cellular Signaling Training Intensities of Elite Endurance Athletes Units for Training Intensity ‘The 80:20 Rule for Intensity Training Volume of Elite Athletes intensified-Training Studi Intensity for Recreational Athletes ‘Training Manipulation Case 1From Soccer Pro to Elite Cyclist Case 2-From Modem Pentathlete to Runner Valid Comparisons of Training Interventions ‘Conclusions References ‘The evening before the start of the 2009 European College of Sport Science Congress in Oslo, the two of us were sitting at a doctoral dissertation defense dimmer that is part of the time honored tradition of the “doctoral disputas” in Scandinavia. One of us was the relieved disputant (Tomnessen) who had successfully defended his dissertation. ‘The other had played the adversarial role of “forsteopponent.” Tonnessen’s research on the talent development process included extensive empirical analyses of the training characteristics of selected world champion female endurance athletes. His career case-study series systematized training diary logs of over 15,000 training sessions from three World and/or Olympic champions in three sports: distance running, cross-country skiing, and orienteering. Common for all three champions was that over their long, successful careers, about 85 % of their training sessions were performed as continuous efforts at low to moderate intensity (blood lactate <2 mM). Among the 40 guests sat coaches, scientists, and former athletes who had been directly or indirectly involved in winning mote endurance sport Olympic gold medals and world championships than we could count. One guest, Dag Kaas, had coached 12 individual world champions in four different sports. In his toast to the candidate he remarked, "My experience as a coach tells me that to become world champion in endurance disciplines, you have to train SMART, AND you have to train a LOT. One without the other is insufficient.” So what is smart endurance training? The question is timely: research and popular interest in interval training for fitness, rehabilitation, and performance has skyrocketed in recent years on the back of new research studies and even more marketing by various players in the health and fitness industry. Some recentinvestigations on untrained or moderately trained subjects have suggested that 2-8 ‘wk of 2-3 times weekly intense interval training can induce rapid and substantial metabolic and cardiovascular performance improvements (Daussin et al., 2007; Helgerud et al., 2007; Talanian et al., 2007). Some popular media articles have interpreted these findings to mean that long, steady distance sessions are a waste of time. Whether well founded or not, this interpretation raises reasonable questions about the importance and quantity of high- (and low-) intensity training in the overall training process of the endurance athlete. Our goal with this article is to discuss this issue in a way that integrates research and practice. In view of the recent hype and the explosion in the number of studies investigating interval training in various health, rehabilitation, and performance settings, one could be forgiven for assuming that this training form was some magic training pill scientists had devised comparatively recently The reality is that athletes have been using interval training for at least 60 years. So, some discussion of interval training research is in order before we address the broader question of training intensity distribution in competitive endurance athletes. Interval Training: a Long History International running coach Peter ‘Thompson wrote in Athletics Weekly that clear references to “repetition training” were seen already by the early 1900s (Thompson, 2005). Nobel Prize winning physiologist AV Hill incorporated intermittent exercise into his studies of exercising humans already in the 1920s (Hill et al., 1924a; Hill et al., 1924b), About this time, Swede Gosta Holmer introduced Fartlek to distance running (fart~ speed and lek play in Swedish). The specific term interval training is attributed to Getman coach Waldemer Gerschler, Influenced by work physiologist Hans Reindell in the late 1930s, he was convinced that alternating periods of hard work and recovery was an effective adaptive stimulus for the heart. They apparently adopted the term because they both believed that it was the recovery interval that was vital to the training effect, Since then, the terms intermittent exercise, repetition training, and interval training have all been used to describe a broad range of training prescriptions involving alternating work and rest periods (Daniels and Scardina, 1984). In the 1960s, Swedish physiologists, led by Per Astrand, performed groundbreaking research demonstrating how manipulation of work duration and rest duration could dramatically impact physiological responses to intermittent exercise (Astrand et al., 1960; Astrand I, 1960; Christensen, 1960; Christensen et al., 1960). As Daniels and Scardina (1984) concluded 25 years ago, their work laid the foundation for all interval training research to follow. In their classic chapter Physical Training in Textbook of Work Physiology, Astrand and Rodahl (1986) wrote, “it is an important but unsolved question which type of training is most effective: to maintain a level representing 90 % of the maximal oxygen uptake for 40 min, or to tax 100 % of the oxygen uptake capacity for about 16 min.” (The same chapter from the 4th edition, published in 2003, can be read here.) This quote serves as an appropriate background for defining high intensity aerobic interval training (HIT) as we will use it in this, article: repeated bouts of exercise lasting ~I t0 8 min and eliciting an oxygen demand equal to ~90 t0 100 % of VOamax, separated by rest periods of 1 to 5 min (Seiler and Sjursen, 2004; Seiler and Hetlelid, 2005). Controlled studies comparing the physiological and performance impact of continuous training (CT) below the lactate tumpoint (typically 60-75 % of VO2max for 30 min or more) and HIT began to emerge in the 1970s. Sample sizes were small and the results were mixed, with superior results for HIT (Henrikson and Reitman, 1976; Wenger and Macnab, 1975), superior results for CT (Saltin et al, 1976), and little difference (Cunningham et al., 1979; Eddy et al., 1977; Gregory, 1979). Like most published studies comparing the two types of training, the CT and HIT interventions compared in these studies were matched for total work (iso-energetic). In the context of how athletes actually train and perceive training stress, this situation is artificial, and one we will come back to Later. McDougall and Sale (1981) published one of the earliest reviews comparing the effects of continuous and interval training, directed at coaches and athletes. They concluded that both forms of training were important, but for different reasons. Two physiological assumptions that are now largely disproven influenced their interpretation. First, they concluded that HIT was superior for inducing peripheral changes, because the higher work intensity induced a greater degree of skel muscle hypoxia. We now know that in healthy subjects, incr accumulation in the blood during exercise need not be due to incre hypoxia (Gladden, 2004). Second, they concluded that since stroke volume already plateaus at 40-50 %VO2max, higher exercise intensities would not enhance ventricular filling. We now know that stroke volume continues to rise at higher intensities, perhaps even to VO2max, in well trained athletes (Gledhill et al., 1994; Zhou et al, 2001). Assuming a stroke volume plateau at low exercise intensity, they concluded that the benefit of exercise on cardiac performance was derived via stimulation of high cardiac contractility, which they argued peaked at about 75 %VOxmax. Thus, moderate-intensity continuous exercise over longer durations and therefore more heart beats was deemed most beneficial for enhancing cardiac performance. While newer research no longer supports their specific conclusions,they did raise the important point that there are underlying characteristics of the physiological response to HIT and CT that should help explain any differential impact on adaptive responses. Poole and Gaesser (1985) published a citation classic comparing & wk of 3 x weekly training of untrained subjects for either 55min at 50 %VO2max, 35 min at 75 %VOrmax, or 10 * 2 min at 105 %VO2max with 2-min recoveries. They observed no differences in the magnitude of the increase in either VO2max or power at lactate threshold among the three groups, Their findings were corroborated by Bhambini and Singh (1985) in a study of similar design published the same year. Gorostiaga et al. (1991) reported findings that challenged MeDougall and Sale's conclusions regarding the adaptive specificity of interval and continuous training. They had untrained subjects exercise for 30 min, three days a week either as CT at 50 % of the lowest power eliciting VOzmax, or as HIT, alternating 30 s at 100 % of power at VOzmax and 30 s rest, such that total work ‘was matched. Directly counter to McDougall and Sales conclusions, they found HIT to induce greater changes in VO2max, while CT was more effective in improving peripheral oxidative capacity and the lactate profile. At the beginning of the 1990s, the available data did not support a consensus regarding the relative efficacy of CT vs HIT in inducing peripheral or central changes related to endurance performance. ‘Twenty years on, research continues regarding the extent to which VO2max, fractional utilization of VOomax, and work efficiency/economy are differentially impacted by CT and HIT in healthy, initially untrained individuals. Study results continue to be mixed, with some studies showing no differences in peripheral and central adaptations to CT vs HIT (Berger et al., 2006; Edge et al., 2006; Overend et al, 1992) and others greater improvements with HIT (Daussin et al., 20082; Daussin et al., 2008b; Helgerud et al., 2007). When dilferences are seen, they lean in the direction that continuous work at sub-maximal intensities promotes greater peripheral adaptations and HIT promotes greater central adaptations (Helgerud et al, 2007). Controlled studies directly comparing CT and HIT in already well-trained subjects were essentially absent from the literature until recently. However, a few single-group design studies involving endurance athletes did emerge in the 1990s. Acevedo and Goldfarb (1989) reported improved 10-km performance and treadmill time to exhaustion at the same pace up a 2 % grade in well-trained runners who increased their training intensity to 90-95 %VO2max on three of their weekly training days. In these already well-trained athletes, VO2max was unchanged after 8 wk of training intensification, but a right shift in the blood lactate profile was observed. In 1996 -97, South African sport scientists published the results of a single group intervention involving competitive cyclists (Lindsay et al., 1996; Weston et al., 1997). They trained regionally competitive cyclists who were specifically selected for study based on the criteria that they had not undertaken any interval training in the 3-4 months prior to study initiation. When 15 % of their normal training volume was replaced with 2 d.wk"! interval training for 3-4 wk (six training sessions of six S-min high intensity work bouts), 40-km time trial performance, peak sustained power output (PPO), and time to fatigue at 150 %PPO ‘were all modestly improved. Physiological measurements such as VO2max and lactate profile changes were not reported. Stepto and colleagues then addressed the question of interval-training optimization in a similar sample of non-interval trained, regional cyclists (Stepto et al., 1999). They compared interval bouts ranging from 80 to 175 % of peak aerobic power (30 s to 8 min duration, 6-32 min total work) Group sizes were small (n~3-4), but the one group that consistently improved endurance test performance (~3 %) had used 4-min intervals at 85 % PPO. These controlled training intensification studies essentially confirmed what athletes and coaches seemed to have known for decades: some high-intensity interval training should be integrated into the training program for optimal performance gains. These studies also seemed to trigger a surge in interest in the role of HIT in athlete performance development that has further grown in recent years. If doing some HIT (I-2 bouts per week) gives a performance boost, is more even better? Billat and colleagues explored this question in a group of middle distance runners initially training six sessions per week of CT only. They found that, a training intensification to four CT sessions, one HIT session, and one lactate threshold (LT) session resulted in improved running speed at VO2max (but not VOomax itself) and runing economy. Further intensification to two CT sessions, three HIT sessions and one LT session each week gave no additional adaptive benefit, but did increase subjective training stress and indicators of impending overtraining (Billat ct al., 1999). In fact, training intensification over periods of 2-8 wk with frequent high-intensity bouts (3-4 sessions per week) is an effective means of temporarily compromising performance and inducing overreaching and possibly overtraining symptoms in athletes (Halson and Jeukendrup, 2004). There is likely an appropriate balance between high and low-intensity training in the day-to-day intensity distribution of the endurance athlete. These findings bring us to two related questions: how do really good endurance athletes actually train, and is there an optimal training intensity distribution for long-term performance development?