UT1 or AT

[JackHoare]

Apologies if this has been covered before.

What I want: To improve aerobic performance.

So what I'm asking is for my long ergs (40, 60 and 90mins at 20spm), is it more effective to train in the UT1 or AT zones in terms of increasing aerobic performance? I'm training 6 days a week currently, this includes on the water and gym work.

I realise that I would recover faster from training at UT1, which it useful for my current work load, but does it have any other benefits over training at AT? Or does nothing beat pushing as hard as you can.

Cheers in advance

[gregsmith01748]

[I am not qualified to render this opinion, but since this is the internet, I will render it anyway.]

In general, training long rows at or below your aerobic threshold (2.0mmol/l) provides the greatest benefit in terms of increased aerobic capacity. If you train at higher powers, you are training a different metabolic process. It would be better to do your long rows at UT1 and take advantage of the improved recovery to really go at harder threshold and sprint workouts with hammer and tongs.

To develop aerobic capacity, what you are trying to do is to increase the rate at which your body can process fat for energy. As you increase the intensity, you cut over to processing carbohydrate which generates lactate, but the fat processing engine is not working any harder, so the gains are the same (or less) and the recovery time increases.

Here's a good academic reference about the crossover point between fat and CHO metabolism during exercise:

http://www.colorado.edu/intphys/Class/I ... ssover.pdf

[gregsmith01748]

And another thing! Just saw this article: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4008806/

Which has an interesting insight. They are saying that a high level of muscular glycogen prior to starting exercise will essentially shut down the fat metabolism process and force you into using carbohydrates preferentially. Not sure if it's true, but if you believe it, that's a good argument to do your endurance sessions in a relatively fasted state and drink water instead of sports drink.

Here's the money quote:

Several studies have demonstrated that increasing the muscle glycogen content before exercise, and the availability of exogenous carbohydrate before and during dynamic exercise, increases carbohydrate oxidation and reciprocally decreases fat oxidation [14, 23–25].

[hjs]

And another thing! Just saw this article: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4008806/

Which has an interesting insight. They are saying that a high level of muscular glycogen prior to starting exercise will essentially shut down the fat metabolism process and force you into using carbohydrates preferentially. Not sure if it's true, but if you believe it, that's a good argument to do your endurance sessions in a relatively fasted state and drink water instead of sports drink.

Here's the money quote:

Several studies have demonstrated that increasing the muscle glycogen content before exercise, and the availability of exogenous carbohydrate before and during dynamic exercise, increases carbohydrate oxidation and reciprocally decreases fat oxidation [14, 23–25].

Why? You would get lighter. Not what a fit athlete needs.

Re At versus ut ish. At every day for long sessions would be way to tough. Train aerobic fitness long and slow, and anaerobic power short and very hard. Don,t mix it up.

[gregsmith01748]

I never said that long and slow everyday is the thing to do. I agree with your don't mix it up thought.

And training in the fat burning zone is not to make you lighter, it's to increase the % of vo2max where your cross over happens so that you go anaerobic later in a race.

[Millie]

Greg - I always thought that UT1 was above the aerobic threshold, i.e. UT1 is between about 2.0mmol and 4.0mmol. So to get the maximum aerobic capacity benefits you mentioned, wouldn't that mean UT2 so maybe more like 18spm for the long rows not 20spm?

I always find that if I do a UT2 session shortly after eating food or having had coffee that my lactate levels are surprisingly high eg same watts that would normally see me at <1.5mmol/L would have me at over 2.5 or 3. So I now do all my UT2 work fasted ie no food / coffee for past few hours. Had no idea why, but think the paper you reference probably explains it - thanks for that!

[gregsmith01748]

Since I think of the zones in terms of heart rate, I take some drift into account. A 2 mmol intensity for me gets into UT1 after about 40 minutes of rowing.

[hjs]

I never said that long and slow everyday is the thing to do. I agree with your don't mix it up thought.

And training in the fat burning zone is not to make you lighter, it's to increase the % of vo2max where your cross over happens so that you go anaerobic later in a race.

You did not talk about fat burning zone, but about food and training. Low carbers will burn more fat at any training level. Just like big carb eaters will burn more carbs at any level.

Going anaerobic is mostly not getting enough Oxigion in the muscle. Which can burn both fat and sugars.

[G-dub]

If I may ask a tangent question...
When doing an AT paced training piece, my heart rate doesn't stay in AT - it creeps upward into TR. Does that matter as it relates to what you are trying to get out of the session, which for me would be ability to go longer at AT pace? It wouldn't seem to matter, since the end product being sought is the ability to endure hard ish effort for longer periods. And you are committing to the "black hole" for that session anyway, which we know we don't want a steady diet of but is useful. Or is there magic about that HR band, like UT, that needs to be respected?

[jackarabit]

And AT heart rate zone is only half as "wide" as others (80-85% HRR+RHR). In my case that's only 6bpm bottom to top. As a practical matter, shouldn't we be pushing thru AT and the wider TR band to 96% HRR and above on the short stuff and wear our <80% caps for the long steady state pieces. Alternatively, is there benefit to had by dwelling on the narrow "threshold"? What is it?

[gregsmith01748]

I think you've raised an interesting question. I'm not sure if I am doing it right, but the way I have interpreted the guidelines to implement polarized training is that the easy stuff should be below AT and the hard stuff should be above AT. In other words, the only time I rowed in the AT zone was on my way up to TR where I did almost all of my intervals and hard distance rowing.

I got very pedantic about it over the winter of 2013/2014 and logged the time I spent in each HR zone to check if I was doing what I set out to do.

Here is my personal report card for January of 2014.



So the report card:
Rest days
- target: one day per week of nothing or all subUT2.
- result: Because of illness 7 rest days taken. Way too many to make progress

Black hole workouts:
- target: 0
- result: 2. One was a legit overcooked endurance workout. The other is a false alarm. It was one of my brief race prep sessions that was high intensity, but short enough to fall into the criteria. So, about the same as December. I need to be more careful when the steady state is not going well.

Intensity
- Target: 10% in TR/AN and more in AN relative to TR is better
- result: 11% versus 13% in December, so that's good, but only 15 minutes in the red versus 39 in December, so less really intense work.

[G-dub]

I can handle the HR within the band at TR for a tempo type workout, but not the associated speed as derived from the Interactive program. And AT workouts seem to be acceptable within the interactive plan and even running plans that profess 80/20 (Matt Fitzgerald). Seillor even talks about intervals of 20 minutes each at what sounds like AT /TR. I was thinking that the issue was that they needed to be counted as a hard session. I'm not sure how I would train for 10-K without doing AT paced work since this is where the pace is for the length for me.

From Seiller: "The most powerful stimulus for change in skeletal muscle aerobic capacity is different from the most powerful stmulus for cardiac functional changes! Hard but short interval training fails here. We MUST put in the hours of continuous constant intensity exercise to maximize these adaptations! This will range from steady state efforts at 65-75% of VO2max lasting 45 to 120 minutes to repeated "Anaerobic Threshold work" at 80-90% of VO2 max for 15 to 30 minutes."

I notice there is a 5 % gap in his percentages above. I can also see that 80-90% of Vo2 max is not very doable for me for 15-30 minutes. This is faster than I can do a 5K. But the 70 % efforts is what I can do but the HR creeps right on through AT eventually.

http://web.archive.org/web/200710210338 ... terval.htm

[Carl Watts]

UT1 or UT2 would be the majority of your rows at 20spm on those times.

You would find anything higher is simply not sustainable if you also want to maintain regular rows and cover a decent distance each week, week after week.

Not sure what others here are doing distance wise but put simply distance and average pace are linked. Currently I'm finding 2:02.5 pace at a true 20spm for 30 minutes five times a week more than enough. Each row is then followed by a 12 minute cool down at 2:10 pace 18spm for a total of about 50Km a week. Trying this for another month then will push to try to get the magic 2:00.0 average pace or anything starting with a "1" looks so much better.

What we don't get is very much discussion on distance each week and then there is also the big difference between "Junk metres" and actual training meters in the right HR bands. I guess any activity on the rower is better than no activity but there must be a point at which your simply not optimising and actually improving your performance.

[G-dub]

I agree with you that most (80%) of training should be UT because that is what the research says. I think what you are saying is that "tempo" rows (to use the running term) should be more high UT1 than AT. But if you look at his percentages, he is really high as a percentage of VO2 Max (or 2K PB). So I get confused or maybe my AT is super low! I do think that a tempo row (hard row) at AT should only happen in the base phase and should only happen once a week. I think there is a misunderstanding somewhere as it relates to tempo paced workouts. Are they limited by HR or by pace? As mentioned, running programs that are in spirit of 80/20 still include tempo in the base phase.

[G-dub]

I think I learned the answer to my question. Even though the Interactive site gives paces for the AT band and the other bands, The Tempo (hard) row does not necessarily stay within the AT band depending upon how long it lasts. At some point as you get more fit the HR and the pace stay together for longer periods.