Thursday, 5 March 2009

Tough run session yesterday!

What a tough run session I had yesterday! I had already swam before work (about 45 mins) and then did a vVO2max intervals session on the treadmill.

This essentially meant a warm up for 20 minutes at 135bpm (with a couple of 30s speed-ups in there), a quick stretch and then 3 x 3mins at my vVO2max average pace. 3min rest between intervals at the speed of my earlier warm up and then a 15 minute warm down.

This was tough work, and hurt during the last minute of the last rep, but it feels great once you stop and you have the satisfaction of knowing you've just completed another tough session. I loved it!

These efforts are meant improve leg muscle strength and power, thus leading to improved economy. I can definately feel it today, therefore it must be good!

Train smart bloggers!

6 comments:

Sags said...

Looks like you've lost weight too Frank!

Mark "Frank" Whittle said...

Too much you think? :-)

Turbo Man said...

vVO2 - what's this?

Mark "Frank" Whittle said...

vVO2max is the speed which essentially produces your VO2max. You do a 6 minute test on the treadmill, where you run as far as you can in 6 minutes (as fast as you can). You record your distance and if the machine is a gucci one, your average speed. For example, if you cover 1.7km in 6 minutes then your average speed is 17kph. You can then do various intervals at this speed to increase your muscle strength and power, i.e. 30 secs on/30 secs recovery or like my session which was 3 mins on and 3 mins recovery.

These are tough sessions, but they have the potential to produce some good gains. You should repeat the 6 minute test every 4-6 weeks to determine your new vV02max.

Simple!

Turbo Man said...

I understand. Coach Neill tried to get me to do that but it sounded much too painful.

Mark "Frank" Whittle said...

Where do you think I got them from? :-)