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How Intense are you? - Preparing for Race intensity

An article by Mike Schultz CSCS of Highland Training

Preparing to race requires a strong focus towards training, diet, and rest. The more focused you are within your training, the better prepared you will be to handle the physiological and psychological stress of race day. Preparing well will also allow you to become faster. Adding in higher end intensity within your training program six to eight weeks from your main event will help you gain good muscle adaptations to your higher end, race pace, energy systems. Placing the right amount of stress on the body’s ability to deliver oxygen to the working muscle, clear lactic acid for energy, and use fat as a major fuel source, while working higher end energy, is the key to preparing for race pace intensity. Clearing lactic acid, delivering oxygen and using more fat as fuel all starts with a good aerobic base from endurance focused training.

As you get closer to your first important race, adding in the appropriate intensity will help you gain important aerobic adaptations to the muscles anaerobic focused fibers. Any race duration or effort that last longer than two to three minutes will call upon aerobic energy to help complete the action. This means that as you are going hard within a one hour race, using all muscle fibers including your type one slow twitch and type two fast twitch fibers, you will begin to call upon oxygen within all muscle fibers to help clear lactic acid for use as fuel. The duration and intensity (power output) of your effort will depend on how well you clear lactic acid and save your limited muscle glycogen and blood glucose for fuel. You can not save all the muscle glycogen, over the duration of a race, as a deficit will take place. But the more glycogen you can save, using it at a slower rate by relying on more fat for energy, the higher your power output will be for a given intensity over a longer duration of time. This happens with increased aerobic properties within the muscle.

It takes a combination of different intensities and durations to help gain muscle adaptations to increase the intensity and duration of your upper end power. Working above your threshold heart rate is not always a wise idea since your main fuel source, blood sugar (glucose), is very limited. Using blood sugar is associated with the production of two hydrogen molecules, compared to the production of one hydrogen molecule when using sugar stored within your muscle (muscle glycogen). This is believed to be one of the reasons you feel more of a muscle burning sensation while working a hard effort at or above your threshold heart rate. Working five to seven beats below your threshold heart rate for longer periods of time is a great way to stress the appropriate muscle fibers while not depleting too much valuable fuel. This will also depend on the amount of training stress you bring into the day and your heart rate responses to intensity. Working with power, cadence, force, mechanics and rest periods between efforts are just a few other factors that are related to your interval days. Creating the right combination of all of these factors, geared towards your goals is the best way to prepare for the efforts in a race.

Using a heart rate monitor along with your breath and perceived exertion is a very effective way to guide your intensity as you train with intervals. Power meters for cycling also make a great tool to use since you can see if you are working at a higher power output for each given interval. Power meters can also allow you to see when your power is down. A decrease in power is often associated with a higher perceived exertion, increased breathing rates and sluggish heart rate. So as power is a nice tool, using heart rates, perceived exertion and breathing can be very effective. Be smart with your training intensity. Use your breath, perceived exertion and heart rate as your guide but most importantly, have fun as you prepare for your next big event.

Mike Schultz CSCS