Here are my notes from the Allen Lim seminar Lim was scheduled to talk for 1 hr, but he went for more than two, and I think he would gladly have stayed longer to answer more questions. A made four pages of notes during the talk and as you might expect a lot of the material is familiar, so I decided to focus on the more novel ideas that emerged in his talk. -------------------- Allen Lim Seminar June 28, 2003 Hamilton Ont. Outline (included) Variables to Track Acute Demands of Training Chronic Demands of Training (* indicates major heading) *Training -Progression -Specificity -reproduce demands of competition -specificity of fatigue -Individuality -individual response is very unpredicatble (variable) -possible to have same/similar performances with different attributes -Nurtue vs. Nature -genetic potential is fixed (fields are born, winners made) *Training Dose-Response Relationship stimulus->response (adaptation and exhaustion) How to quantify dose ? -duration -intensity stress (actual load, W) or strain (response, eg. HR) -how to relate the two -frequency -type/mode i) duration x intensity = work (acute work) kJ is his preferred way to express training dose. He didn't say this explicitly, but his examples usually used kJ to quantify dose. factoid: Even the CDC is using kJ. CDC recommends 1500 cal/wk physical exercise to significantly reduce risk for heart disease. ii) volume (chronic work) eg. Foster's Index = RPE x min and Training Impulse = HR x min He also addressed the accuracy of the SRM and PT. He uses a dyno to check all powermeters his athletes use and has found the SRM pro units to be pretty accurate and reproducible from unit to unit and PT to be very reproducible from unit to unit. He typically sees PT power as 3-6 W lower than SRM wattge due to drivetrain losses. factoid: A clean and new drivetrain saves maybe 2 W Altoona gender study, at this race men/women race the same circuits (distance) the same day, so it is ideal for looking at gender differences, but the main point was the following: In general HR underestimates intensity in short events (like the prologue) and greatly over estimates time over LT in longer events. No surprise here. I'm sure you've seen people look at their HRM after a ride and say something like "I spent x minutes in my threshold zone", when powerwise they didn't even come close. Still believes HR can provide useful information, esp. with regards to who is having a good/bad day. Elevated HR wrt. power suggest a 'bad day' (but with his riders I think he's discarded HR and goes with power and PE which he thinks gives the same info as HR). Actute fatigue --> high HR (or PE) at given power Chronic fatigue --> low HR (or PE) at given power Discovered a rider who was losing many minutes in the HP stage race was actually very strong and fit according to data but was racing poorly because of poor technique (not drafting well, wasting energy etc.). Dede Demet won the Montral WC despite not having the best fitness in the field (she was popped on the penultimate climb) and was not actually going as hard when she made her winning move where she buried it on the descent as she was while getting dropped. *Periodization He says the pattern of training and involution (temporary decrease in performance) followed by compensation and supercompensation is very variable across individuals but he has pegged it down for some of his clients. He can make good predictions about their response to the training dose. Riders are urged to experiment and discover what their respose to training dose is, particularly developing riders. Some interesting ideas here. Showed the example of a weekend warrior who averages 600kJ/day weekly but does tough workouts once a week and is stagnating. His approach is to vary the weekly kJ/day (rolling) average over the season and limit the kJ worked on the toughest day. Workload on the toughest day, no more than 2 std. dev. above the current weekly average workload. (I may be missing some details here about where this SD comes from, this 2-SD high band is apparently something used in financial markets). *Aerodynamics Not much here we haven't discussed. He claims to get very good estimates from having riders do passes at constant velocity through speed traps as short as 200m. Power is simply averaged over the interval, but zero net acceleration is important. Not knowing more details, it does seem some riders have used this method to tune their positions quite well. *Practical thoughts and Applications -define training goal -define levels and strengths and weaknesses -have a way to measure training load -measure acute and chronic response to training -use backwards calendar to chart progress leading to an event -be your own experiment The following come from questions posed by the audience. Warming Up ---------- Day before - opening up: 15-20 min LT 10 min VO2max 1-2 min supra-VO2max total 1-1.5 hrs Shown that this promotes the dilation of blood vessels during activity. It is okay to go pretty hard the day before as long as you eat right after you get off the bike. TT warmup: Has seen best resutls with 1-1.5 hrs sub-threshold, as long as thermal stress is minimized. Avoid: burning too much CHO, any anaerobic contribution and heating up during the warm-up. Does not recommend hard short efforts, that a lot of people practice. In any case where high intensity intervals are performed, the first interval is always the most powerful. So it doesn't make sense to do hard efforts before the race. Thermal stress is the biggest problem with long warmups. He had Dede wearing a ice-vest during her warmup for the Nats, this sight might become more common. Efficiency ---------- Typical gross efficiency is about 22%, he's seen a range of 18-28%. He hasn't found any physiological markers for GE including muscle fiber type, (he doesn't buy the Coyle work, apparently Coyle has a 1990 review paper where he culls data from different group, though I expect he should be aware of the Coyle '91 study). Only correlations seem to be with riders who have been riding/training a long time. Anything above 24% is considered really good, and he's only obsereved that in riders that have done a grand tour. There might be some correlation between body type and GE, with those with 'T-rex type' bodies, large legs (and ass I guess) and small upper body having better efficiency (I think Olano the GE champion maybe, might fit this profile). a Performance Tests ----------------- Lim Flagstaff Test 3000kJ within 4.5 hrs pre-fatigue climb Flagstaff in Colo in less than 30 mins. If you can do that, you can make the first group on the Alpe d'Huez. Many can crack 30 mins. for Flagstaff, but few can do it after the pre-fatigue. or 6 W/kg (5 for women) for as long as possible. Overtraining ------------ The only marker for overtraining is decreased performance. He doesn't define feeling lousy, getting sick etc. as overtraining if there isn't a decrease in performance, but is very careful to monitor his athletes for signs of sickness and will demand days off/easy days if they so as much cough in his presence. (end of notes) Also the new and supposedly much improved PT software should be available by this October. and there is software in the works from other providers (he mentioned Hunter Allen was having some software developed as well). Lim has a great deal of insight since he's able to work with many elite athletes and share their data, he also has access to very good equipment and research. I enjoyed his approach since he thinks and talks like a scientist, and he doesn't dwell on issues which aren't applicable to the real world, ie. racing and race performance. He was very open with sharing his ideas and data from his athletes. He had very specific answers to various questions posed. When the topic of overtraining came up, I considered asking about his opinion on Rick Crawford's ideas, but held back knowing they both operate out of Colo. and write for bike.com, though I could've asked him afterwards in private.