How Running Makes You Less Fit

Found this Article.  We thought it was worth sharing with you all.  Enjoy!!

Chances are you are slower over very short distance than your couch potato twin.
Written by: Matt Fitzgerald

In exercise science laboratories, the Wingate test is often used to assess various dimensions of fitness. It’s a simple, unpleasant test consisting in 30 seconds of all-out pedaling at a fixed resistance level on a stationary bike. Power output is recorded in five-second intervals throughout the protocol.
As you might imagine, Wingate test subjects almost always achieve their peak power output in the first five seconds of the test. After that, power begins to decline as the subject fatigues. The power output level in the first five seconds of a Wingate test is therefore a good assessment of maximum power output capacity in the legs. Trained strength and power athletes typically put up the best numbers in this part of the test.
The average power output for the full 30-second span of the test is a decent measure of a person’s anaerobic capacity—that is, a person’s capacity to sustain very high levels of work output. Anaerobic capacity is largely a function of anaerobic glycolytic metabolism, which is the use of carbohydrate to fuel muscle contractions without the aid of oxygen. As you might expect, athletes who engage in a lot of anaerobic efforts in their training and competition tend to put up the best numbers in this aspect of the Wingate test. Think hockey players and boxers.
The Wingate test can also be used in a somewhat oblique way to assess aerobic capacity. As I mentioned above, in the typical Wingate test, peak power is attained in the first five seconds of the test and then power declines through the remainder of the test. However, there is a high degree of inter-individual variation in the rate of power loss. Trained endurance athletes tend to lose significantly less power than other types of subjects. That’s because a Wingate test is not a purely anaerobic challenge. Endurance athletes are able to call on their well-developed aerobic systems to help out their failing anaerobic systems as the test wears on.
Here’s an interesting fact: On average, trained endurance athletes record lower peak power outputs in a Wingate test than completely untrained, sedentary couch potatoes. Put another way, if you performed a Wingate test in a state of peak 10K race fitness, then stopped running cold turkey for eight weeks, and then did another Wingate test, you would more than likely record a better peak power number in the second test.
Endurance training does a lot of great things, but it saps power.
But is that a good thing or a bad thing? The answer is complicated. It certainly is not necessarily a bad thing. In a study performed a number of years ago, researchers took measurements of various characteristics of the muscle fibers of collegiate cross country runners over the course of a season. They found that the maximum force production capacity of individual muscle fibers decreased. But the cross-sectional area of individual fibers decreased even more. In other words, the muscle fibers basically shrunk. In fact, they shrunk enough so that the ratio of maximum force production to cross-sectional area of the muscle fibers actually increased. Loosely put, the runners got weaker, but they also got smaller, such that their “strength-to-size” ratio improved. And oh, by the way, so did their running performance.
Endurance training works like this: It curtails an athlete’s top-end speed, but it increases the percentage of top-end speed that he or she can sustain over race distances even more.
Does endurance training necessarily curtail top-end speed, though? I don’t think this question is quite answerable as framed, but I can say this: Plenty of research has shown that endurance performance improves when athletes make some training efforts to preserve their top-end speed.
These efforts must not go too far, however. A long time ago I read an article about how endurance athletes train all wrong, which was written by a well-known expert on…weightlifting. He argued that endurance athletes should try not merely to preserve but to increase their maximum speed. His logic went like this: If your 10K speed is 50 percent of your maximum speed, and your maximum speed is 18 mph, then you can run a 10K at 9 mph (or in 41:20). But if you increase your maximum speed to 20 mph, then 50 percent of your maximum speed becomes 10 mph. Now you can run a 10K in 37:12.
Except it doesn’t work like that. The problem with this weightlifting expert’s argument is that the training required to increase your maximum sprint speed will reduce—sharply, in most cases—the percentage of maximum speed that can be sustained over long durations. So the runner who begins with a maximum speed of 18 mph and the ability to sustain 50 percent of that speed over 10K, and who then increases his or her maximum speed to 20 mph, is now able to sustain only 40 percent of his or her maximum speed over 10K and goes from a 41:20 10K runner to a 46:30 10K runner.
I think there’s a happy medium. Distance runners stand to perform best in races if they do more sprint training than distance runners typically do but not so much that speed gains come at the expense of endurance gains. Besides, you don’t really want to lose a Wingate test to a couch potato, do you?

Is Your Coach Qualified/Certified

The question on the table..."Is Your Coach Certified."  With Ironman Louisville raising awarness of triathlons one would only expect more individuals to venture into the sport.  On any given day we see these individuals come through the shop looking for advice.  The "What am i getting myslef into,"  "Where do i sign up," "When should i start training, " & of course "How far is an Ironman," guy or gal.  It is exciting to see their faces aglow with their new found passion only to see them completely demoralized after their first sprint triathlon because they went at it alone.  Now some people are naturally gifted and confident in their abilities and have found the magic pill that works for them.  Those individuals make it seem easy and effortless but in most situations that is not the case for the masses.  They have to work harder, train longer, & discover through trial & error what works for them.  Sometimes they nail it from the start & sometimes you find them huddled in a port-a-pot-sauna on mile 18 of the run with intestinal cramps that rival birthing pains. 

If we could take all the collective knowledge of the seasoned Tri Vet's and put it down in a 20 week workout plan, it might work for 25% of the masses.  The old saying that "No Two People Are Alike",  has never been truer than when comparing Triathletes and their workout plans.  This is where a certified coach can come into play.  Someone on the outside looking in.  Someone who know's and understand that its not just about GPS Heart Rate, and the likes.  Do not assume as an athlete that because you are paying a few hundred dollars a month you are getting a customized workout plan. Is the plan periodized? Does it change with an athlete's changes in fitness and availability? Does it constantly test and evaluate the athlete, and give the athlete feedback? 

In this day of training plan wizard writing software,  libraries of pre-written triathlon programs, and a glut of free online workouts, it basically takes a chimpanzee to tell a triathlete when to swim, bike and run (that, or good copy-and-paste skills on the computer).What you must understand is that workouts are not the holy grail and that there is more to having a coach than this. Any triathlon coach on the face of the planet can deliver you workouts in a timely fashion, but are they effective?  The catch: it takes a wise triathlon coach to intertwine a triathlete's swim, bike and run routines with changes in lifestyle, health, social obligations and injury status.

A triathlon coach must have full access to a team with collective expert knowledge that goes far beyond what they could provide to an athlete on their own. A triathlon coach must be able to call a doctor on the phone and ask them about an athlete they are coaching, check in with a Registered Dietitian to deliver a triathlete's logged meals, and refer an athlete to a higher power when necessary.
If there is no evidence that your triathlon coach has the ability to reach beyond their knowledge and speak about an athlete's status with experts in specific healing and nutritional fields, then there is no evidence that the triathlon coach is fully equipped to get ideal results

In closing if you are looking for a coach don't be afraid to ask the tough questions.  You are the one making the investment, you are the one spending the money, Ask them if they are a certified USAT Coach?  What makes them qualified to coach you?  A good coach will be more than glad to take time and answer these questions.  If they get defensive or can't produce the credentials or qualifications.....Move on.

Give us some feeback.....Whats your opinion?