Development of Strength Endurance:

The Key to Improvement in the Middle and Long Distance Events

Renato Canova, ITA

Развитие силы выносливости:

Ключ к совершенствованию на средних и дальних дистанциях

Ренато Канова, ITA

The training process represents a combined action of different stimuli, designed to build and modify the qualities of an individual.  This is what happens for every individual.  If we are talking about an athlete, the stimuli have the task to build a stronger specialist in specified events.  This process starts from the first day of life and persists all through life.   Every situation of life is able to develop conditional qualities; in a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way.  Taking this into account, the habitat of the individual and the social and cultural education play a very important role in building a future champion.

When we speak about African runners we must think that, normally, the best athletes are able to start their official athletic careers from a level of 90% of their final performance because they are already well prepared, without official coaches, using at home the most important type of training for a distance runner: long runs (from 5 to 12-15 km), very fast.

Through this type of training the most talented runners are able to greatly improve their Anaerobic Threshold, building a special MAX LASS, that is very difficult to reach with Caucasian runners from western countries.  This is due to a lack of natural power – endurance for the natural training done during the first 12 – 15 years of life.

MAX LASS (Maximum Lactate Steady State) is the capacity to work at a special level of Steady – State, very much higher than the conventional Threshold of 4 mmol.   This is a specific quality for the top specialists of 3000 / 5000 / 10000m, and depends not only on the level of AnT (Anaerobic Threshold), but especially on the type of training that we use for building this quality.

Personally, during the last 6 years, I have chosen the ‘road’ to work on developing the STRENGTH ENDURANCE of the athlete, after working for 3 months developing the AnT, because I think that there is a very strong connection between MAX LASS and STRENGTH ENDURANCE.

It may be that my terms are different from the official scientific terms.  I apologise for this problem that may be connected to the fact that English is not my first language but also with the fact that, normally, Physiologists speak about research undertaken with normal, average athletes and not with elite runners.

I shall try to explain my point of view.

1. In the middle and long distances, THE SPECIFITY IS A SPECIFITY OF EXTENSION.  So, the philosophy of training for every event of this sector is TO EXTEND THE CAPACITY TO LAST AT A FIXED SPEED, specific for the performance that you want to build.

2. In this type of philosophy, EVERY EVENT IS AN EVENT OF SPEED (because always the winner is the athlete who is ‘FASTER’ at the end of the competition), but most of the training is TRAINING OF POWER – ENDURANCE (where ‘Power’ is the speed that every athlete is able to maintain for about ¾ of the distance, and ‘Endurance’ is the training to maintain, at the same speed, the full competition distance).

3. As ‘SPEED’ is strictly connected with ‘STRENGTH’, we must develop ‘Strength’ to provide a better biomechanical support.

4. As ‘ENDURANCE’ is strictly connected with ‘ENZYMATIC DEVELOPMENT’, we must develop ‘Aerobic Power and Aerobic Capacity’ to have a better enzymatic support.

5. And, during the specific period of training, we must have the goal to develop the ‘STRENGTH ENDURANCE’, using a ‘Strength’ like base of intensity during workouts of Endurance, and an ‘Endurance' like base of quantity during workouts of quality.

Speaking about Lactate, for example, we can see, using a test derived from the classic Faraggiana – Gigliotti test, that the same athlete can build his MAX LASS during a period of 5 months.  This is the experience that I have had with 3 different athletes.

1. Saaeed Saif SHAHEEN  (former Stephen Cherono),

World Champion and WORLD RECORD 3000s/c

2. Nicholas KEMBOI, 

4th all time, 10000m (26:30.03)

3. James KWALIA,

2nd IN THE WORLD 2004, 3000m (7:28.28)

The Faraggiana-Gigliotti Test consists in running a distance of 1000m, 1200m, or 2000m at competition pace, taking blood to investigate the lactate level after every test run.  The runs are repeated over the same distance 4-5 times, with very short recovery.   Sometimes we finish the work with a last test at maximum speed over a shorter distance to understand the ‘Power’ of the ‘engine’.

We use this test normally once every 4-6 weeks, in order to control the improvement in SPECIFIC ENDURANCE. 

The goal of this test is to identify the MAX LASS at the moment.

We will present data regarding the 3 athletes above, explaining their different tests.

SAAEED SAIF SHAHEEN

Test: 5 x 1000m (13:10 pace - 2:38)[1:00 / 1:15]