SPORTSCIENCE |
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Review / Training and Performance |
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Effects of
High-intensity Training on Performance and Physiology of Endurance Athletes
Carl
D Paton, Will G Hopkins
Sportscience 8, 25-40, 2004
(sportsci.org/jour/04/cdp.htm)
Centre for Sport and Exercise Science, The
Sport and Recreation,
Reviewers: Philo Saunders and David Pyne, Physiology, Australian Institute of
Sport, PO Box 176, Belconnen, ACT 2616,
Australia; Carl Foster, Exercise and
Sport Science, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, Wisconsin 54601.
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Most endurance athletes use high-intensity training
to prepare for competitions. In this review we consider the effects of
high-intensity interval and resistance training on endurance performance and related
physiological measures of competitive endurance athletes. METHODS. There were
22 relevant training studies. We classified training as intervals
(supramaximal, maximal, submaximal) and resistance (including explosive,
plyometrics, and weights). We converted
all effects on performance into percent changes in mean power and included
effects on physiological measures that impact endurance performance.
FINDINGS. All but one study was performed in non-competitive phases of the
athletes’ programs, when there was otherwise little or no high-intensity
training. Endurance performance of the shortest durations was enhanced most
by supramaximal intervals (~4%) and explosive sport-specific resistance
training (4-8%). Endurance performance
of the longest durations was enhanced most by intervals of maximal and
supramaximal intensities (~6%), but resistance training had smaller effects
(~2%). Interval training achieved its
effects through improvements of maximum oxygen consumption, anaerobic
threshold, and economy, whereas resistance training had benefits mainly on
economy. Effects of some forms of
high-intensity training on performance or physiology were unclear.
CONCLUSIONS. Addition of explosive resistance and high-intensity interval
training to a generally low-intensity training program will produce
substantial gains in performance. More
research is needed to clarify the effects of the various forms of
high-intensity training on endurance performance, to determine whether
prescribing specific forms of resistance training can improve specific
deficits of an endurance athlete's physiology, and to determine the effects
of combining the various forms in periodized programs. KEYWORDS: aerobic, anaerobic threshold,
economy, plyometrics, resistance, strength. Reprint pdf ·
Reprint doc · Commentaries by Foster and Saunders and Pyne. |
Analysis of
Physiological Effects
Conclusions and
Training Implications
Endurance
in relation to athletic performance has been defined in various ways. In this
article we have reviewed effects of high-intensity training not only on
athletic endurance performance but also on underlying changes in the aerobic
energy system. Endurance for our
purposes therefore refers to sustained high-intensity events powered mainly by
aerobic metabolism. Such events last ~30 s or more (Greenhaff and
Timmons, 1998).
Training
for endurance athletes generally emphasizes participation in long-duration low-
or moderate-intensity exercise during the base or preparation phase of the
season, with the inclusion of shorter-duration high-intensity efforts as the
competitive phase approaches. The effects of low- to moderate-intensity
endurance training on aerobic fitness are well documented (see Jones and Carter, 2000 for review), but reviews of high-intensity
training on endurance performance have focused only on describing the effects
of resistance training (Tanaka and Swensen,
1998), the effects of resistance
training with runners (Jung, 2003), and the different types of
interval training used by athletes (Billat, 2001a) and studied by researchers (Billat, 2001b). Furthermore, previous reviews
have included the effects of high-intensity training on untrained or
recreationally active subjects, so findings may not be applicable to
competitive athletes. The purpose of this review was therefore to describe the
effects of high-intensity training on performance and relevant physiological
characteristics of endurance athletes.
We
identified most relevant publications through previous reviews and our own
reference collections. We found 22 original-research peer-reviewed articles
that identified competitive endurance athletes as the subjects in a study of
effects of high-intensity training on performance or related physiology. We excluded studies of recreationally active
subjects or of subjects whose characteristics were not consistent with those of
competitive athletes, including Daniels et al. (1978), Hickson
et al. (1988), Tabata
et al. (1996), Franch
et al. (1998), and Norris and Petersen (1998).
We did not perform a systematic search of SportDiscus or Medline
databases for theses or for non-English articles, and we did not include data
from chapters in books.
We
assigned the training to two categories:
• Resistance training: sets of explosive sport-specific movements against added resistance, usual or traditional weight training (slow repeated movements of weights), explosive weight training, or plyometrics and other explosive movements resisted only by body mass (Table 1).
• Interval training: single or repeated intervals of sport-specific exercise with no additional resistance (Table 2).
Classification
of some resistance-training studies was difficult, owing to the mix of
exercises or lack of detail. In
particular, all the studies we classified under explosive sport-specific resisted movements
probably included some non-explosive resisted movements and some plyometrics.
We classified the duration and intensity of intervals in Table 2 as follows: supramaximal (<2 min), maximal (2-10 min) and submaximal (>10 min), where "maximal" refers to the intensity corresponding to maximum oxygen consumption (VO2max). The supramaximal intervals will have been performed at or near all-out effort; the maximal intervals will have started at less than maximum effort, but effort will have approached maximum by the end of each interval; the submaximal intervals can be considered as being close to anaerobic threshold pace (a pace that can be sustained for ~45 min), and effort will have risen to near maximum by the end of each interval.