On today's episode of Run with Coach Parry we're talking some running lingo. Specifically, what is "threshold"? We're constantly hearing people talk about running at / below / above threshold - what does this mean and how important is it for my training?

Coach Parry gives insight into the different terms used and the physiology behind this concept. He also advises on what portion of your training should be done at this intensity.

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What is "threshold" training?

 

BRAD
Welcome back on to this edition of RUN with Coach Parry. I am Brad Brown, the coach Lindsey Parry is with me once again, Lindsey, how's it?

LINDSEY
All good.

BRAD
Today we're going to be tackling some lingo and we always laugh about it in the Comrades webinars over the years, we talk about our South Africanisms, and we have to have some of the locals translate for the foreigners. But today, we've got some running lingo and I think a lot of people hear it thrown around quite often, they don't know what it is. I'm talking about the word 'threshold'. Lindsey, the term 'threshold', we hear it often in training programmes and people saying I'm running a threshold or below threshold above threshold, what is it?

LINDSEY
So look, unfortunately, it should be a universal term but it's not because people use it slightly differently and people have slightly different understanding of exactly what it is and importantly, where it is. So typically, when people are talking about threshold, what they are speaking about is a point on the spectrum of intensity, which represents what we call an anaerobic threshold, or the point at which we start to contribute most of our energy from non oxygen pathways.

Now, this is a very common mistake people make, that doesn't mean that suddenly we get to a line and the body stops using oxygen and pathways that are derived using oxygen for energy. Now it will only use non oxygen pathways, it just means we get to a point where the intensity is high enough that we can no longer rely mostly on oxygen to provide the impetus for that energy. Now the same is true that below that line, it doesn't mean all of our energy is coming from oxygen pathways, okay.

So that line typically represents when we are going to a point of intensity that we cannot sustain indefinitely. And that is where different people will understand, and depending on exactly where they put that that line, there is a slightly different understanding of what it means. There is a range. Unfortunately, all coaches speak a slightly different language, but there tends to be a range from all the literature and books that I've read, that speaks to threshold being at the point where you can hold that, or sustain that intensity for between 30 and 45 minutes. Now, that is one hell of a difference in intensity, I've got to tell you, it's big.

So I typically use the 30 minute line, that is my point. So if I'm doing a test for for threshold for my faster runners, I'll typically use something like 8K or 10K, depending exactly how fast those runners are, but a distance that I know would take them roughly 30 minutes and then based on that time, I will then use that as my threshold and then calculate intensities based on that whereas there are other users that prefer to use 40 or 45 minutes.

The important thing is that you know and understand where that line is for you or how you are interpreting it. Then you want to work out your intensities based on a relative value of that. Now, the way to use it is, and it's more and more popular in the literature, people are more and more being won over and seeing that it is the way, the truth, and the light, and that is that you should spend very little training actually at or around that intensity, you should spend a lot of training, or the majority of your training, well below that threshold point, and then a little bit of your training at or close to that point and then still relatively quite a small amount at quite high values of that threshold.

So typically, what we talk about there is 80/20. But for me that still speaks more to your kind of elite or very fast population. I prefer to work on 85% well below threshold and 10 to 15% at or above threshold in a range of of intensities there. The more intense your work is, the more time you spend moving around in your job, the more time you spend on your feet, the smaller I would make that percentage. Essentially the more non exercise stress you've got in your life, the smaller that portion of high intensity should be.

BRAD
Brilliant and Lindsey, we also talked about that and the running below and training below, we did a podcast a while ago about slowing down to run faster and that plays into that as well and that's exactly what you're saying whereas a lot of people just tend to do it around that line and all their training is done at the same level but when you do split them, that's when you start seeing big results.