The VO2 Max Forum

Background

To answer the question posed in the title of this post, it depends. Truthfully, the answer to most questions posed in the world of sports science is “it depends”. In brief, it truly doesn’t matter what time of day you choose to train, or when your athletes train if you are a coach, as whatever time works best for you to fit in your training as easily and efficiently as possible will always be best. However, if you are an athlete that has some flexibility in the time of day you choose to fit in your training session(s) and you want to maximize your sessions to the best of your ability, there are some important differences in your physiology that characterize morning versus evening times of day. Let’s discuss these differences next.

Time of Day: Morning versus Evening

Firstly, let’s define “morning” and “evening”. Most studies that investigate morning…

Background

Barefoot and minimalist footwear running has garnered a lot of controversy among athletes, coaches, and researchers since the turn of the century. Those in favor of more minimalist running footwear claim that they benefit from a lower likelihood of injury and improved performance. However, those in favor of more traditional or maximalist footwear also make similar claims. Research literature exploring this topic has further added to this confusion at times as some research favors minimalist footwear for certain outcomes while other research favors more traditional or maximalist footwear. The purpose of this post is to help you, as the reader, make some sense out of the confusion on this topic and better understand what the pros and cons are to running in different types of footwear. The topic of barefoot running is a separate topic on its own; so, for the purposes of this post, the conversation will be…

Background

Over the years, the scientific community has come to recognize various factors that are strongly related to endurance performance. These factors are primarily physiological characteristics and include VO2max, lactate threshold, efficiency/movement economy, and most recently, durability (sometimes referred to as aerobic endurance) (1,2). The determination that these factors relate positively to endurance performance has come about from many decades of lab-based experimental research and field-based observational research. However, any sensible exercise scientist or coach working with athletes will know that overall endurance performance of an athlete is a product of much more than just these four physiological qualities described above.

Physiological development of an endurance athlete is, of course, critical to success. Yet, there are other factors that potentially influence performance as well. Nutritional factors, psychological factors, and health-related factors are just some of the other variables influencing performance. It is difficult to establish some of these as determinants…

Background on Training Variables: Frequency, Intensity, Time/Duration, and Type/Mode

Endurance athletes have a few key training variables that can be manipulated to optimize training adaptation and maximize race-day performance. These variables include the following: