Balancing Aerobic and Anaerobic Training

The topic of Scott Christensen's presentation, "Mitigating Mitochondrial Fatigue" caught my attention the minute he proposed it during an email exchange. If you've heard Scott give a presentation, you know there would be sound physiological reasoning behind everything he said and last night was no different. He knocked it out of the park with a ton of information that was new to me.

I have seen some debate that speed-endurance or anaerobic work doesn't detract from endurance, but from a practical standpoint, this certainly isn't what I have observed with my own teams.

In my early years of coaching, I would stack a bunch of fast 200's, 300's and 400's at the end of the year to "peak" and all of the sudden my kids were running thirty seconds slower in the 3200 meters at the state meet. These workouts, although well-intentioned, produced a lot of acidity in the muscle cells. Christensen noted that this acidic environment can cause mitochondrial damage; and for events like the 3200m, you need all of the mitochondria you can get.

To balance the need for specific workouts, such as the 8x400 at Mile Pace that Christensen noted, you have to be able to balance that session with aerobic work and allow the proper recovery before the next workout. It's this reason Christensen uses longer than one week microcycles.

A couple of key takeaways from the webinar:

• There are specific workouts you can use to increase mitochondrial quantity

• There are specific workouts you can use to develop mitochondrial quality

  • Both are important

• You should know the aerobic and anaerobic contributions for different races.

  • This will guide your training

• The chart that showed the aerobic vs anaerobic utilization during a 1500m race was super interesting and showed the importance of anaerobic capacity or development

  • The key is getting the balance correct; and no one will ever get this right

I'd really encourage you check this out and take a bunch of notes. It really made me consider spacing between workouts and the importance of balancing the aerobic and anaerobic demands of each event.

Scott Christensen Webinar

The Christensen webinar, along with all others in the archive (30+) are free to access for D-Crew Members.

Also, stay tuned for the 2025 Off-Season Cross Country plan which will come out early May.

jc