Balancing Theory with Craft - A Forum with Allen Lim

Balancing Theory with Craft;
A Forum with Allen Lim
March 15, 2009
Presented by CRCA, New York, NY

A Re-cap by Ann Marie Miller, MA

What a thrill to be able to spend an afternoon discussing the latest advances in training and cycling with the mastermind behind the Garmin Slipstream Cycling team, Allen Lim. Recognized as a leader in the study of training with power, and his work with Powertap power meters, Allen has been the mentor to many of the world’s top cyclists.

John Eustice, 2 time US Pro Champion and promoter of the Univest Grand Prix, served as moderator for the presentation and discussion with Allen Lim. The afternoon started with a review of what had been a stellar week for the Garmin-Slipstream team on the European circuit; with stage wins at both Paris-Nice (Christian Vandevelde) and Tirreno-Adriatico, including a breakthrough win by Tyler Farrar over uber-sprinters Mark Cavendish, Tom Boonen, et al. Allen feels like it is no surprise the team is coming together; he could see from testing and results on training that they have the potential for these wins and even bigger things.

Although Allen is known for crunching numbers and analyzing Power files, the presentation focused more on the intuitive side of training and progression. Allen continued to emphasize the importance of applying science individually, and how his method isto ask riders how they feel after workouts and races to teach the athlete how to interpret these sensations along with the data they collect form these rides.

He noted how other aspects of fitness, such as body awareness, flexibility and core strength contribute to improved performance. Even body weight strength exercises, like squats, push ups, etc., can aid in overall muscle efficiency. He believes strength training, even just body-weight exercises like 1 legged squats, and core work with a physioball can make a huge difference in a rider’s integrity and performance. He cited the fact that Christian Vandevelde suffered from back problems for years, but started a core training regime using physioballs, and does not have those pains anymore. He claims Christian keeps up a maintenance routine even when they are racing in season! He said the Garmin team looks like a traveling circus checking into hotels with their physioballs, foam rollers, and other fitness accessories! (Good news for me – everyone makes fun of me for doing strength training year round. Not to mention my “aerobic warm-up” packed with squats, push-ups and core work of all manner).

Allen noted that strength training was a catalyst to improved performance, and emphasized strength training for Masters’ Athletes, to maintain fast-twitch muscle fibers. He admitted not having worked extensively with the Masters’ population, but reiterated the studies that show Masters’ athletes tend to maintain slow-twitch muscle fiber over time, and that those who continue to exercise don’t show much of a loss of cardiovascular fitness, but the fast twitch muscle fibers are the first to go with age. Strength training and plyometrics can delay the decrease in fast-twitch muscle performance.

Since gains from strength training show a steep decline after 6 weeks of de-training, he advocates maintenance strength training throughout the year, if possible.

He reviewed the periodization calendar of the Garmin team; riders peaking for the Classics in March-May do high volume training in December; those aiming for the mid-season and the Tour De France train for volume in January, while riders peaking for late-season and the World Champiosnhips might not start volume training until March.

He believes in focusing on skills and easy pace for early-season training, and says your body will only do what it can handle, so start slowly.

Although Garmin does extensive testing, he does not prescribe exercised in terms of “Lactate Threshhold”. Although they don’t use LT to prescribe exercise, he said it is valuable to teach athletes to identify their limits. Rather, they start with intervals such as 20 minutes at a steady pace, then break the 20 minute segment in to halves, doing “negative splits”, then quarters, using a “hard/easy, hard/easy” approach. Then they proceed to motorpacing, using “watts/kg” as the criteria for intensity. They break the levels into 2-4 watts/kg pace, 4/6 watts/kg pace, 4-6 watts/kg, 6-8 watts/kg, and as unthinkable as it sounds, 8+watts/kg. In my dreams!!!

He discussed some of the adaptations the Garmin team had to make as Americans racing in Europe. Basically, they did best by maintaining their identity as Americans, rather than trying to convert to European culture. They cling to American-style eating and lifestyle habits.

I expected his philosophy would be strictly scientific, and I was pleased to see how he married science with the humanity of the sport. He uses a lot of intuitive application in exercise prescription; some riders respond to certain training or stimulus; others need another approach. They try to give the riders as much information as they can accept, in a way they can deal with it; he doesn’t hit riders over the head with facts & figures. He admits he has no proof that the scientific information is helping the riders, but he uses is because it is the best evidence they have.

He expressed reservations about taking the results of LT testing too literally because he believes the stages in a typical LT test are too short. He claims that LT results would be very different for most riders if the stages were longer, and that these stages that are too short may over-estimate an individual’s LT

Working one of the preeminent physiologists who served on powerhouse squads like ONCE Allen says the data from the Garmin riders suggest they are as strong, if not stronger than the ONCE athletes had been, so he has high hopes for their performance this year.

He noted that yes, it IS possible to have breakthrough performances after utterly “bad days”. In truth, if an athlete bonks, or reaches glycogen depletion, and then restores the muscle glycogen, there is a “Supercompensation effect” that allows the muscles to increase their capacity to absorb glycogen. This is basis behind the old “carbohydrate-depletion, carbo-loading philosophy, in which athletes would limit carbohydrate consumption while training, and then increase carb intake while cutting their training load to max out glycogen storage. (Can’t imagine how cranky I’d be craving a chocolate chip cookie if I had to restrict my carb intake!)

Some of the most innovative approaches they use concern recovery methods. They use pneumatic compression devices (developed to promote circulation in lymphodema patients) applied to the legs after races to gently “pump” blood through the muscles. He said a key to recovery was to lower the high core temperature to stop the catabolic processes.

Although icing can reduce inflammation, it constricts the capillaries and reduces local blood flow to the muscles, so they prefer the pneumatic devices for recovery.

Acknowledging variation between riders, he said people with different LT values can get similar performance results using different mechanisms; there are many ways to get a good result – different bodies rely on different systems and physical mechanisms.

He said physical asymmetries were the biggest injury problem for pro cyclists; and correcting these problems had to be done off the bike, “fix it in the gym first”, in real life, and then on the bike.

He does not believe in IV’s for rehydration after long endurance events; he will not let his athletes “take a needle”. He says if the IV solution contains glucose, you miss an important step in muscle glycogen storage because when glucose hits your small intestine, it stimulates a hormone which aids in glycogen storage.

Also, the bolus of cold water hitting your gut aids in cooling & minimizing muscle catabolism.

Since Allen is the stage racing expert for the team, I asked what the local amateur racer could learn from his Grand Tour experience and apply to shorter stage races like Fitchburg, Green Mountain, etc. He offered these tips:

* Weigh before & after each stage & replace the amount of fluids lost as soon after the race as possible. Many riders sink into a gradual state of dehydration from day to day in stage races.
* Eat a recovery meal consisting of carbs & some protein immediately after the race; and fuel adequately later as well.
* Increase your sleep by 1-2 hours the week prior to the event.
* Get off your feet as soon as possible after the race, & STAY off your feet as much as you can.

*\36-48 hours before a prologue, the Garmin team does a “Hot workout” in an elevated temperature to induce profuse sweating. This releases a hormone to improve aerobic performance by increasing blood plasma volume. For our purposes, the workout could be 1- 1 ½ hours long, with at least 20 minutes high intensity.

To avoid burn-out, he suggests taking a break in the middle of your season for a week or two, so you are “hungry” to return to training.

Since his name is synonymous with power meters, he encourages riders to train with power to create greater awareness. But he asks his athletes to fill out manual “training logs” & comment on how they feel when training to compare with actual power output data. He is developing software to allow an athlete to record their physical sensations and feelings and compare to power output.

Allen’s likable boyish approach and blend of the most advanced scientific information with sensitivity to the individual’s personality is most appealing and a good model for any coach or mentor. Next time, I’d love to have him spend a day leading a training session!

Fatigue and the Endurance Athlete

TRAINING AND FATIGUE
If you are an endurance cyclist you have probably experienced fatigue. Although some fatigue is ok, and even desirable, severe fatigue can be very detrimental to your fitness and your goals. As an athlete or coach you must be able to differentiate between fatigue that will yield performance enhancements and that which will hamper growth and recovery.

An athlete who is unable to produce the same performance they did just a week ago is fatigued. Put simply, fatigue is the inability to perform at a level that was once possible in recent history (excluding illness or injury).

Athletes can perceive fatigue differently. Some athletes avoid fatigue at all cost while others never slow down. If training becomes excessive enough and poor recovery habits are taken persistent fatigue can follow which will ultimately interfere with performance.

One of the difficult aspects of training and coaching is determining how much training and stress will fatigue an individual athlete and if how this fatigue will impact their training prescription.
Power meters and heart rate monitoring have made the diagnosis of fatigue and the ability to track the amount of training stress easier and more accurate. Frequent fitness testing with a power meter or field test allows cyclists to document the effects of training on particular aspects of performance. For an athlete, a range of performance and perceptions may follow a rigorous training block;

1. The athlete feels good and performance is improved
2. The athlete feels good but performance is poor
3. The athlete feels tired and performance is poor
4. The athlete feels tired but performance is excellent

Depending on the training and recovery prior to the test, all responses are possible and all results indicate something different. With the use of power meters, every cycling effort can be compared to a personal best clearly indicating when a cyclist is tired and when they are fresh. Patterns between training and performance will emerge providing insight into managing fatigue.
There are four main classifications of fatigue and they are described below.

PERCEPTUAL FATIGUE
There is little denying the perception of fatigue but oftentimes once you get going you are feeling great and beating the locals feeling full of energy. Experienced athletes know that it usually takes exercise to evaluate whether fatigue is severe enough or not to cancel a training session. Perceptual fatigue can be very persuasive so don't give up without trying. You may be capable of much more than you imagined. If you have finished a sufficient warm-up and you are struggling to reach and hold the given power levels then it is advisable to listen to what your body is saying and take a break!

SHORT-TERM PRODUCTIVE FATIGUE
Every daily training session results in short-term fatigue. As you become tired, heart rate and the perception of effort increases for a given workload or power output. Fatigue may increase to the point that a desired workload is not achievable. However, after a good meal and sleep most athletes will be ready for more abuse the next day. If the training bout is severe enough, two to three days may be required to regain previous form. This is considered short-term fatigue and is productive because the performance outcome is positive, increasing your performance, after sufficient recovery.

LONG-TERM PRODUCTIVE FATIGUE
What happens when you train hard for six days in a row? As you would expect, you are probably tired. Many times a fatigued cyclist can find it difficult to cope with a hard training session for up to a week after this effort. There are often complaints about heavy legs and heart rate suppression during hard efforts. The training which leads to this sustained fatigue is termed 'overreaching'. Fortunately for those suffering from this type of fatigue, performance rebounds to desirable levels following 7-12 days of quality recovery. However, many athletes mismanage this fatigue and start training or competing well before they are fully recovered. Ironically, it is the athlete that feels the best that is most at risk for this type of fatigue. Athletes experiencing great form feel like superman, neglecting the proper nutrition and recovery habits needed. But eventually the fatigue will accumulate. Often the most severe fatigue comes following a week or two of incredible form. Be very careful when power production reaches an all-time high. With appropriate management - particularly the inclusion of recovery days in your training program - it's possible to maintain top form for weeks, if not months.

LONG-TERM NON-PRODUCTIVE FATIGUE
This type of fatigue is commonly known as overtraining. Many athletes are extremely motivated, very fit, and also living a very stressful lifestyle. These situations often cause a loss in fitness before fatigue dissipates. Thus, despite rigorous training and following weeks of recovery, performance never rebounds. Lifestyle stress, poor nutrition and disturbed sleep all contribute to the extremely heavy fatigue experienced by athletes.

Despite numerous attempts by sport scientists, there is no one physiological marker that can be used to identify the magnitude of fatigue or that when it has reached some critical level. Although resting heart rate can be a useful indicator of training stress there is little solid scientific data to support using this marker as a guide to training.

It's important not to confuse overtraining with non-specific training. It is possible that a lack of specific training for a certain event is responsible for the poor performance. Lots of cycling on the flat is unlikely to promote a rider's climbing capacity. So when evaluating your performance also think about the amount of specific training you've been doing for your event. Again, if a cyclist is using a power meter and recording training sessions it becomes fairly easy to retrospectively examine the time spent at a power output and cadence that is sport specific. Unfortunately, an athlete with persistent fatigue may need to stop training and focus on a good diet and adequate rest.

SUMMARY
When it comes to cycling and endurance sports, fatigue is almost always present and can develop in many different forms. Most types are easy to deal with and fairly short lived. However, the perception of fatigue is not always associated with performance. Athletes should try out their legs and start a training session before making the conclusion that they are too tired to train. General or short-term fatigue is characterized by an increased perception of effort for a given power output, but the ability to produce power is generally maintained. More severe or long-term fatigue is associated with a decrease in performance and possibly a suppressed heart rate and elevated perception of effort for a given power output. Although excessive training can lead to persistent fatigue, this condition is very rare. When endurance athletes are unusually tired for a long time there are usually other environmental variables contributing to it.

Fortunately, power meters can now be used to track training volume and quantify whether performance is really compromised. This type of feedback combined with frequent performance testing can be used by cyclists to better understand the effects of fatiguing bouts of training and racing.