Aerobic capacity and lactate threshold training

A note on spring programing:

For all of those that are paying attention to our accessory work beyond our regular class times. There will be a slight shift in accessory conditioning for the next few months. Expect 1-2 days of aerobic threshold training (typically running) which will be programed in. These will be slightly longer workouts to build up aerobic capacity while still providing enough speed and glycolytic adaptation to push the needle forward. This aerobic base building is needed for the next part to be effective.

When we do high intensity work the muscles quickly fill with lactate. This will hit high enough levels that motor recruitment begins to shut down and we lose power and capacity. Typically this is the moment where you double over catching your breath or the muscles are too pumped out to do another set or lift. To make maters worse, lactate quickly dumps into the blood stream. This will directly cause pre-fatigue in muscles that haven’t even been worked yet making it hard to recover.

This is where lactic threshold training comes in. If we can teach our aerobic system and the muscles that are not at work to process blood lactate faster, we can have more head room in the muscle groups that are hard at work. How do we do this? Brief bouts of extremely high intensity followed by slow active recovery. High intensity work will cause lactate to dump into the system, the recovery work teaches our body to use that lactate as fuel and tolerate it better. This is about continuous motion. During metcons we often have to take breaks. This work will make it so you need fewer of them. Expect to see things like 5 min EMOM 10-30 seconds of ME work (and I really do mean maximum effort) followed by a period of extremely easy but continuous movement. Things like time, movement difficulty, or weight will go up as we progress through spring.

-Jake