Alway anaerobic shortage

Tisztul_A_Visztula said:

between TE and EPOC is not a continuous function, but a sort of step function

To be clear, EPOC is continuous within each metabolic contribution, because it is an accumulation. What is discontinuous is when each contribution passed some thresholds, the training effect label changes.

I have gotten some anaerobic workouts that were assessed at tempo, apparently just because my anaerobic contribution was 2.9 instead of 3.0. Had I done another interval, I would have gotten it.

Ah, this is a perfect example of what happens to me many times. Because we exercise in a group sometimes after the interval training i am between 2.5-3.0 (even though nowadays I even added the aerobic/anaerobic training effect to datafield to my screen I won't continue, because we do other things with the group). So what does this mean? Does it not increase let's say my VO2max because I only reached 2.9? Or it does, but not as much as it would if I got to 3.0?

Or let's ask it this way: when I train alone, and I planned to do a certain amount of running, and at the end I see I have 2.8. Should I continue to reach 3.0 and only stop then? Or it doesn't really matter for my real fitness, and it's not worth to do that just to make the watch happy?

flocsy🤠 said:

Maybe it's worth trying to set my max HR, and LT and my zones as good as possible, because when they are correct then looking at the watch's recommendation can really increase my fitness?

Exactly my approach.

flocsy🤠 said:

Maybe it's worth to pay money to be measured in a lab?

Maybe. I didn't because I don't think the extra confidence will change my training approach anyway. But if you do, you will get extra confidence in the value estimated by the watch. If the value if completely off, you still don't know if the value on the watch is correlated to the actual value, so you would have to test several times to see if trends on the watch are reflected in reality.

My approach is different. I consider this tool to be an alternative to a private coach that I would have to pay hundreds to customize my training plans and update my metrics, plus hundreds to get regular tests. If my professional life depended on it, I would do so. I am only a recreational enthusiast, so I don't see the value.

It is a little bit like measuring fuel in the gas tank. Most cars give you an estimate good enough that you don't run dry, but we all know how bad they are. But if you are a F1 driver, you need a very accurate fuel reading during the race.

flocsy🤠 said:

Maybe I should experience with manually changing these numbers and see when can I increase "my" VO2max?

Even if each estimate of your VO2 Max is slghltly more "off" because of less accurate HR Max, the correlation with the real VO2 Max will be OK, so the trends will be there. You will however need to keep your pace and HR data as accurate as possible, continue perform high intensity workouts, recovery etc. to give it a fighting chance.

flocsy🤠 said:

What you wrote about auto HR only increasing is also not true because about 2 month ago my max HR was decreased from 192 to 191 by the watch.

As I wrote, this might be due to a firmware update that reset your max HR to its default value. I am going off the Garmin documentation that explains how HR Max detection works. If no value is there, it uses the 220-age formula. Then it filters higher readings if they occur for reliability (to avoid spurious readings). If OK, they record the new higher value. Note that this end up being *peak* HR, not HR Max. Peak readings are *always* lower or equal than HR Max by definition.

flocsy🤠 said:

Or it doesn't really matter for my real fitness, and it's not worth to do that just to make the watch happy?

We all want the gratification of reaching our objectives, and we want immediate gratification. So Garmin and co. come up with stuff that try to give us that. The truth is that your fitness doesn't improve suddenly, only progressively.

Additionally, if you are already well trained, your VO2 Max won't improve that much because it can't. As you grow older, the upper limit will go down. Slower if you are well trained, but up to about 1 point a year.

All these graphs (acute load, VO2 Max, FTP, HRV, ), they tend to give the impression that the sky is the limit. It is not true. Increasing acute load will not always maximize benefit. There is always a cost to training. There is a physiological limit to VO2max as well, and each individual genes, physiology and history will yield a different limit.

Athletes that have maxed out their VO2 max after years and years of training focus on specialized objectives like their maximum power (for sprinters), their anaerobic capacity (for time trialers), their critical and FTP over VO2 max, for endurance athletes, etc.

flocsy🤠 said:

According to the watch my LT is 165 bpm. Does it make sense that I can run 20 minutes above LT? Probably not.

Yes, it is possible to run about 45 mn at LT, and about 20mn. It depends on your pace-duration curve. Some runners have a very steep curve, so they can run at higher power for longer times. Some have a flatter curve. Below threshold, all the pace-duration curves are pretty similar and flatter, so the more significant differences are precisely above threshold.

In my case, a 20mn interval is above threshold but still below my VO2 Max interval (4mn in my case).

Some marathon runners run the *entire marathon* at 95%+ of their Critical Power, which can be higher than their FTP.

NB: Critical Power is a steady state power-duration threshold, while FTP is a 60mn power-duration metric. They tend to be close to each other, as well as close to lactate threshold (which is really a respiratory threshold. So it is OK to consider them equivalent.

Etupes25 said:

To be clear, EPOC is continuous within each metabolic contribution, because it is an accumulation. What is discontinuous is when each contribution passed some thresholds, the training effect label changes.

I know that based on its white paper EPOC is continuous, and I can confirm that Aerobic TE behaves this way. But as I wrote even in this thread my observation is that Anaerobic TE tends to jump a lot after just one additional sprint of 30-40 seconds, so I cannot agree that it does not behave as a partly step-function.  

Tisztul_A_Visztula said:

Anaerobic TE tends to jump a lot after just one additional sprint of 30-40 seconds, so I cannot agree that it does not behave as a partly step-function

While it is continuous, it can be jumpy because the split between aerobic and anaerobic can only be finalized after the work period and finished. The following diagrams explain EPOC when compared to rest.

As the work interval starts, there is immediately a deficit of oxygen (the full line). The energy is supplied by the anaerobic system to start with, then respiration increases, HR increases as well and the aerobic system starts contributing (the dotted line below the full line). When the work is done, the watch can evaluate what area has been created under the full line, before the dotted line (anaerobic contribution). The aerobic contribution is the area between the dotted line and the rest zone.

https://assets.firstbeat.com/firstbeat/uploads/2015/10/white_paper_epoc.pdf

In a real workout, there are a lot of things goind on (variation of intensity, etc) so I would expect that the balance is updated several times but not necessarily continuously.

Microsoft Word - EPOC_based_training_effect_assesment_REVISED 2.doc (firstbeat.com)

Etupes25 said:

While it is continuous, it can be jumpy because the split between aerobic and anaerobic can only be finalized after the work period and finished.

I suppose that earlier you may have read the following report of mine, but you might not have  considered it so strange as did I. Anyway if you think that it is not against your logics I guess I cannot say more in this part of our discussion:

Tisztul_A_Visztula said:

My contribution is that I would not dare to say that the calculated AnTE is too low, but I say something smells.

Today I decided to check it after each of my sprints of 30-40 seconds.

After my first one it was 0.1, after the second still 0.1, after the third still 0.1. I was on the verge of dying, I had been trying so hard.

While jogging after the third all-out sprint I decided that having gotten back home I would be writing a sort of bug report saying that sw 24.00 must have ruined AnTE calculation, but after my 4th sprint which was again 30-40 secs long (its pace was a tad weaker)  AnTE jumped  immediately to 1.8.

So first an all-out sprint for time X, AnTE went up to 0.1, then appr. 2 minutes of easy jog,

again an all-out run for time X, AnTE was still 0.1,  then appr 2 mins of easy jog,

the third sprint was slower but for time X, AnTE jumped up tp 1.8.

I could command myself to swallow it as logical, but I know that I would not obey. :-)

Tisztul_A_Visztula said:

AnTE jumped  immediately to 1.8

I saw that. I would have expected anaerobic to just a bit more after the second interval instead of jumping only after the 3rd. So I dug a bit more in the white paper about EPOC and I found that table that indicates that not only how high the peak EPOC is but also how fast it builds up identifies the type of workout. So it is possible that at some point, the border from "high" to "very high" EPOC peak is breached, and the assessment shifts towards anaerobic.