Can I Train for Faster Recovery?

Hypnospin said:

a seat of the pants pre-hrm, pre power meter training strategy was to ride at desired pace, race pace plus or thereabouts depending, until the pace drops. at that time, back off for recoverey.
this self governed application of power output and recoverey can still be used, if only as another type of training day.

Well, at higher power levels (e.g., zones 5 and above), shorter intervals are automatic because one can't hold it very long. But, at lower power levels (e.g., zone 4) we have a choice between longer or shorter intervals. Does one or the other specifically benefit recovery rates?

RapDaddyo said:

But, at lower power levels (e.g., zone 4) we have a choice between longer or shorter intervals. Does one or the other specifically benefit recovery rates?

Hello RapDaddyo,
I think that doing 2 times 20 min at x value power (and you can provide that power 🙄 ) have much more impact on your body stress than doing 10 times of 4 min.
If you see Recovery in term of "full recovery" (not only in term of lactate recovery) of your body during next hours/days under ormonal, muscolar, energetic profile, long intervals are more difficult to digest.
Anyway, if your target is increase average sustainable power, i think a good mix of both kind can help you; thinking to use:
- long training interval when you can fully recovery (during next days)
- short training interval when you need short recovery period or you don't want high stress.

Ciao Matteo 🙂

matteobma said:

If you see Recovery in term of "full recovery" (not only in term of lactate recovery) of your body during next hours/days under ormonal, muscolar, energetic profile, long intervals are more difficult to digest.

Let me clarify. I am interested in improving what I'll call "dynamic recovery," or my ability to bring my power back up to a target level following a push above that target. So, let's say my 40K TT power is 275w and I want to employ a variable power pacing strategy in a 40K TT. If I push my power up to, say, 375w for 1 minute on a climb, I want to shorten my recovery time at, say, 200w following the push. Andy Coggan's normalized power algorithm provides a useful benchmark for estimating this dynamic recovery time. But, the issue I am addressing is my ability to improve on that predicted recovery time through a training regimen.

RapDaddyo said:

Let me clarify...If I push my power up to, say, 375w for 1 minute on a climb, I want to shorten my recovery time at, say, 200w following the push.

My opinion is that using frequent(relatively short) intervals, you provide many times this "stress/recovery" scenario, and your body has more opportunity/capability to adapt.

...in this view my preceding note,
use:
- long training intervals when you can fully recovery (during next days)
- short training intervals when you need short recovery period or you don't want high stress.

Ciao Matteo 🙂

RapDaddyo said:

[font=Verdana]If my body adapts to recoveries by repeat recoveries, the latter interval session appears to yield two benefits instead of one. I'm really interested in the physiology of acidosis recovery and any research in training methodologies for this specific benefit.[/font]

I agree that you'll want to target the mechanisms that aid recovery or improve the processes that limits recovery, but I doubt that just increasing the number of 'ups and downs' will accomplish that. Looking at the benefits chart, I would guess that VO2 and muscle capillarization would be the most important for rapid recovery, but I'm not an authority by any means.

RapDaddyo said:

Let me clarify. I am interested in improving what I'll call "dynamic recovery," or my ability to bring my power back up to a target level following a push above that target. So, let's say my 40K TT power is 275w and I want to employ a variable power pacing strategy in a 40K TT. If I push my power up to, say, 375w for 1 minute on a climb, I want to shorten my recovery time at, say, 200w following the push. Andy Coggan's normalized power algorithm provides a useful benchmark for estimating this dynamic recovery time. But, the issue I am addressing is my ability to improve on that predicted recovery time through a training regimen.

Hi Rd,
The example you quoted isn't at all uncommon IME is bumping your power to 130-140% of FT in a TT (as demanded by a shortish hill etc.)

in AC power levels this is clearly L6 and to my simple mind you can train that region (both power production and recovery) simply by doing L6 intervals. Of course that's on top of your regular training. In some ways I find a session of say ten 1-min L6 intervals with ~3min recoveries fairly easy compared to long L4 intervals or even L5.

Have you done or are you doing any L6 work right now?

Another possibility, although with less dramatic power swings, is what's sometimes termed criss-cross training where you ride at lower L4 effort for XX minutes, then increase the power to L5 for perhaps 2-3 minutes before dropping back to LL4. Repeat as often as you can stand 😉

To me, this sounds like it meets the specificity^3 rule very well but has to be a very tough workout.

regards,
rmur

rmur17 said:

Hi Rd,
The example you quoted isn't at all uncommon IME is bumping your power to 130-140% of FT in a TT (as demanded by a shortish hill etc.)

in AC power levels this is clearly L6 and to my simple mind you can train that region (both power production and recovery) simply by doing L6 intervals. Of course that's on top of your regular training. In some ways I find a session of say ten 1-min L6 intervals with ~3min recoveries fairly easy compared to long L4 intervals or even L5.

Have you done or are you doing any L6 work right now?

Another possibility, although with less dramatic power swings, is what's sometimes termed criss-cross training where you ride at lower L4 effort for XX minutes, then increase the power to L5 for perhaps 2-3 minutes before dropping back to LL4. Repeat as often as you can stand 😉

To me, this sounds like it meets the specificity^3 rule very well but has to be a very tough workout.

regards,
rmur

Yes, I do L6 work now, primarily on hill repeats. Actually, I'm nursing sore glutes (gluteus medius muscles to be specific) at the moment, so I'm getting off the saddle any time I go over 200w to ease the strain on the glutes. I'm also working on increasing my cadence off the saddle, with little to no involvement with my upper body. I've been getting some very interesting results -- the watts just soar when you climb off the saddle at high cadence. That Armstrong guy may have been onto something. But, L6 intervals sort of force one into short intervals and lots of repeats (because of the intensity). What I'm wondering is if I should break up my L4 intervals into multiple shorter segments (I could hold an L4 interval for 20 minutes, but do I want to?). If the body adapts to dynamic recoveries, then I want it to get lots of practice, because I believe rapid dynamic recovery is a strategic and tactical advantage. Bottom line, I want to beat Andy's 4th power curve.

RapDaddyo,

My sense is that you want to train one system, hence one intensity, at a time. Your recovery is mostly determined by your aerobic fitness (LT), so 2 x 20's or similar is still important.

Like rmur says, L6 is important, too. It'll enable you to go faster during jumps, but recovery depends much on LT....that's why NP works so well, though some may argue that (not I).

Jimmy

jws said:

RapDaddyo,

My sense is that you want to train one system, hence one intensity, at a time. Your recovery is mostly determined by your aerobic fitness (LT), so 2 x 20's or similar is still important.

Like rmur says, L6 is important, too. It'll enable you to go faster during jumps, but recovery depends much on LT....that's why NP works so well, though some may argue that (not I).

Jimmy

Thanks, Jimmy. Well, as I said in my original post, raising my LT or 40K TT power is clearly training priority #1, and gets the majority of my attention. But, I have become intrigued with the question of whether specific training can shorten dynamic recoveries or whether this is simply a byproduct of raising one's fitness (LT). Take, for example, recovery rides. I have been doing these at a pretty constant power (~200w). But, I am reconsidering this approach. Specifically, I am thinking about riding at a highly variable pace such as 5 mins at 200w, 5 mins at 100w, etc. Again, my goal would be to train my body to dynamically recover better by forcing it to recover more frequently. As the original Mayor Daley of Chicago said, "Vote early and often." Paul

RapDaddyo said:

[font=Verdana]Clearly, my primary training objective is to increase my average sustainable power over benchmark durations such as 40K. But, the reality in both mass start races and TTs is that rapid recovery from pushes above the average sustainable power level is key to performance. By recovery, I mean reduction of acidosis to the level at which I can resume my maximum average sustainable power for the duration of the race or TT. Can I specifically train for such rapid recovery or is recovery rate simply a by-product of becoming more fit by raising my average sustainable power? For example, let’s say I want to spend 40 minutes at 250w. Normally, I might do 2 x 20 min intervals. But, what if I did 10 x 4 min intervals? It’s the same number of minutes at 250w. But, in the latter case it’s 10 recoveries vs. 2 recoveries. If my body adapts to recoveries by repeat recoveries, the latter interval session appears to yield two benefits instead of one. I'm really interested in the physiology of acidosis recovery and any research in training methodologies for this specific benefit.[/font]

Hi Daddyo,

*HUGE* props for not using the word 'lactate' once!!🙂 There are three things off the top of my head that regulate acidosis in a muscle cell- the rate of proton production (which is pretty much caused by aerobic metabolism being unable to cope with cellular energy demands), the rate of its intracellular buffering and the rate of clearance. In that case you want to train in a way that would increase buffering and also increase rates of clearance. There have been a few studies which have shown unexpected increases in 40k TT performance with so-called sprint training, see:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&dopt=Citation&list_uids=12439086

as an example. The proposed mechanism is improvements in the two processes I mentioned above, so perhaps this might be the way to go.

L.

biker-linz said:

Hi Daddyo,

*HUGE* props for not using the word 'lactate' once!!🙂 There are three things off the top of my head that regulate acidosis in a muscle cell- the rate of proton production (which is pretty much caused by aerobic metabolism being unable to cope with cellular energy demands), the rate of its intracellular buffering and the rate of clearance. In that case you want to train in a way that would increase buffering and also increase rates of clearance. There have been a few studies which have shown unexpected increases in 40k TT performance with so-called sprint training, see:

ncbi.nlm.nih.govquery.fcgiOpen ↗

as an example. The proposed mechanism is improvements in the two processes I mentioned above, so perhaps this might be the way to go.

L.

Thanks, Lindsay. That's a very interesting study. Two follow-up questions: (1) the summary of the study doesn't give the duration of Group 2's recovery at 65%MHR -- was it equal to the duration of the interval? (2) are there any studies that have specifically measured rate of reduction in acidosis following a high-intensity effort, before and after different training regimens? And, at a general level, is it sufficient to reduce acidosis to a certain level before resuming high-intensity effort at, say, 40K TT power? Or, is there a cumulative acidosis penalty? Thanks again. Paul

RapDaddyo,

Although I have no idea what it's doing for me, It relates to your recovery ideas, so here it is.

When I want to ride something like a high zone4, which for me is maxed out at 159hr, I've been piddling with what I have decided to call "recovery sprints". I'm sure it has an actual name, but I have no idea what it would be.

Here's the scenario. To ride at zone5 for anybody is the upper limit, you push there and see how long you survive in it. My idea was to ride up slightly short of it, say 155 (for me), and then give a modest 30 second effort or so and wait for the HR to hit 160, get aero, and stop peddling. The HR climbs up into zone 5, I'm not doing anything but being aero. It climbs up in, settles, and starts to recover. At the point it recovers back to 159, I start peddling again. The HR recovers to about 155 while I'm peddling, starts to climb back up, and I let off at 160, it climbs up into zone 5, and then drops back out.

It's kind of a challenge to hit right, and I find it passes the time, from time to time. Especially on days where you intend to ride a strict zone 2 recovery. Maybe sneak in a little zone 3, but not by peddling there. A fun cheat thing. Like I said, I'm just killing time with it. Just fun. 🙂

My recovery times, I feel, are pretty respectable. If I'm riding at 155, stop peddling long enough to grab a bottle, take a swig and put it back, I'm at 145, and working to get it back up. Seems like I can recover pretty easy a beat a second down to about 80, even with light peddling. be nice to put some watts on that for a good idea what it is. That's gonna happen monday. 🙂

stormer94 said:

My recovery times, I feel, are pretty respectable. If I'm riding at 155, stop peddling long enough to grab a bottle, take a swig and put it back, I'm at 145, and working to get it back up. Seems like I can recover pretty easy a beat a second down to about 80, even with light peddling. be nice to put some watts on that for a good idea what it is. That's gonna happen monday. 🙂

Stormer, the basic problem is that you're using HR as a proxy for recovery completion, whereas what you want is acidosis recovery and I don't think HR is a good proxy for that. I'm not sure there is a good proxy for acidosis recovery (other than in a lab environment) other than a time estimate based on research data. Paul

RapDaddyo said:

Stormer, the basic problem is that you're using HR as a proxy for recovery completion, whereas what you want is acidosis recovery and I don't think HR is a good proxy for that. I'm not sure there is a good proxy for acidosis recovery (other than in a lab environment) other than a time estimate based on research data. Paul

Daddyo, try this:

http://www.ausport.gov.au/fulltext/2001/acsms/papers/LAUR.pdf

Lactate is a proxy for muscular acidosis but it reacts rather slowly. However a much better indicator of whether your muscle has recovered or not might simply be whether you can perform the same level of work again; if not fully recovered then acidosis (and lactate) will 'stack up'. This is where a PM is really handy- just adjust power in your workout so that you can compelte however many intervals you want. Whether or not acidosis is the only fatigue-mechanism at work is another story again. Repeated high-intensity bouts will also quickly deplete glycogen stores.

L.

biker-linz said:

Daddyo, try this:

ausport.gov.auLAUR.pdfOpen ↗

Lactate is a proxy for muscular acidosis but it reacts rather slowly. However a much better indicator of whether your muscle has recovered or not might simply be whether you can perform the same level of work again; if not fully recovered then acidosis (and lactate) will 'stack up'. This is where a PM is really handy- just adjust power in your workout so that you can compelte however many intervals you want. Whether or not acidosis is the only fatigue-mechanism at work is another story again. Repeated high-intensity bouts will also quickly deplete glycogen stores.

L.

Thanks for the link and additional info, Lindsay. But, let me get this straight. Competition cycling by its nature places a very high performance premium on not only the ability to generate high power but also on the ability to recover quickly from such high power intervals. RRs and crits are notoriously surge, recover, surge, recover, ... And, the optimal TT pacing strategy appears to be the strategic uses of power greatly in excess of one's maximum sustainable steady-state power for the duration of the race, followed by recovery, so again it's surge, recover, ... Now, in spite of the importance of recovery from pushes into non-sustainable power zones, acidosis recovery hasn't been specifically measured and recovery performance improvements under different HIT training protocols hasn't been measured? I'm not being flippant here. I just assume there's a very good reason this logical (to me) relationship hasn't been explored scientifically. What is that reason? Paul

RapDaddyo said:

Thanks for the link and additional info, Lindsay. But, let me get this straight. Competition cycling by its nature places a very high performance premium on not only the ability to generate high power but also on the ability to recover quickly from such high power intervals. RRs and crits are notoriously surge, recover, surge, recover, ... And, the optimal TT pacing strategy appears to be the strategic uses of power greatly in excess of one's maximum sustainable steady-state power for the duration of the race, followed by recovery, so again it's surge, recover, ... Now, in spite of the importance of recovery from pushes into non-sustainable power zones, acidosis recovery hasn't been specifically measured and recovery performance improvements under different HIT training protocols hasn't been measured? I'm not being flippant here. I just assume there's a very good reason this logical (to me) relationship hasn't been explored scientifically. What is that reason? Paul

Well, bearing in mind that lactate usually acts as a proxy for acidosis you might want to try:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&dopt=Citation&list_uids=10562610

It's a good question though, and you've really got me thinking. I think that in general blood or muscle lactate levels will generally reflect metabolic acidosis, unless you have a ferret and some cyanide to hand, see:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&dopt=Citation&list_uids=8145137

I guess buffering is the only one that may not be reflected in blood and muscle lactate levels. Also, far from everyone has accepted that lactate production and metabolic acidosis are not one and the same yet, so this distinction is still pretty new. All that having been said, any training which decreases blood lactate at a given intensity will mean correspondingly favourable changes in intramuscular acid-base kinetics.

L.

biker-linz said:

Well, bearing in mind that lactate usually acts as a proxy for acidosis you might want to try:
ncbi.nlm.nih.govquery.fcgiOpen ↗

It's a good question though, and you've really got me thinking. I think that in general blood or muscle lactate levels will generally reflect metabolic acidosis, unless you have a ferret and some cyanide to hand, see:

ncbi.nlm.nih.govquery.fcgiOpen ↗

I guess buffering is the only one that may not be reflected in blood and muscle lactate levels. Also, far from everyone has accepted that lactate production and metabolic acidosis are not one and the same yet, so this distinction is still pretty new. All that having been said, any training which decreases blood lactate at a given intensity will mean correspondingly favourable changes in intramuscular acid-base kinetics.

L.

Well, let's see -- I need to cut out my daily doses of cyanide and fingernail polish remover.😄 Seriously, I'm still looking for some data on tested rates of acidosis reduction (clearance?) among highly trained cyclists. Apart from the question of improving the clearance rate (which may be simply a byproduct of raising 40K MP and VO2MAX) is the question of modeling the clearance rate for a realistic variable power (or highly variable power) pacing model. When I use NP to model, say, a 400w push for 1 minute (assuming a 275w 40K MP), I get a recovery requirement of 5 1/2 minutes at 150w. That's a high recovery price for a "wee little push." Anyway, thanks for the continued input, Lindsay, and I'm glad I've got you thinking about it. Paul

RapDaddyo said:

Well, let's see -- I need to cut out my daily doses of cyanide and fingernail polish remover.😄 Seriously, I'm still looking for some data on tested rates of acidosis reduction (clearance?) among highly trained cyclists. Apart from the question of improving the clearance rate (which may be simply a byproduct of raising 40K MP and VO2MAX) is the question of modeling the clearance rate for a realistic variable power (or highly variable power) pacing model. When I use NP to model, say, a 400w push for 1 minute (assuming a 275w 40K MP), I get a recovery requirement of 5 1/2 minutes at 150w. That's a high recovery price for a "wee little push." Anyway, thanks for the continued input, Lindsay, and I'm glad I've got you thinking about it. Paul

Well, the membrane transport proteins responsible for lactate clearance are the same ones which move protons from the cell (this is a 'symport', see http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/symport), so just look for papers investigating lactate clearance rates (I think the one I sent you covers this). As I said before, the model of metabolic acidosis which we're talking about is still new and not fully accepted, so there may not be any research which investigates levels of acidosis as separate from lactate levels. Even if there were, I think you'd probably find that the findings would be near identical to those measuring lactate levels.

L.

biker-linz said:

Well, the membrane transport proteins responsible for lactate clearance are the same ones which move protons from the cell (this is a 'symport', see medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.comsymportOpen ↗), so just look for papers investigating lactate clearance rates (I think the one I sent you covers this). As I said before, the model of metabolic acidosis which we're talking about is still new and not fully accepted, so there may not be any research which investigates levels of acidosis as separate from lactate levels. Even if there were, I think you'd probably find that the findings would be near identical to those measuring lactate levels.

L.

I assume you're referring to the 1999 study at UC Berkeley. I did see that they allude to leg lactate clearance, and I haven't bought the full text yet, but the study design didn't give me much reason for optimism. Here's why. If a study is focused on recovery (clearance) rates from intensities above sustainable levels (e.g., 40K MP), it would dynamically measure lactate at widely varying intensities relative to a base intensity such as 40K MP (e.g., B+Xw for 2 mins, B-Xw until lactate is reduced to Y, where X is 25, 50, 75, 100,... and Y is lactate at a sustainable level). The test would specifically simulate race-like intensities (i.e., widely variable) and there would be lots of discussion about the level of lactate over time after intensity is reduced below the non-sustainable level. The studies would also address the question of whether clearance rates modulate over time as a function of cumulative fatigue. The 1999 study and most others that I have seen talk about steady-state intensity training and measuring. What am I missing? Do any studies come to mind that measure clearance rates from widely varying intensities? Paul