Abstract
Purpose
Very low intensity endurance training (LIT) does not seem to improve maximal oxygen uptake. The purpose of the present study was to investigate if very high volume of LIT could compensate the lack of intensity and is LIT affecting differently low and high intensity performances.
Methods
Recreationally active untrained participants (n = 35; 21 females) cycled either LIT (mean training time 6.7 ± 0.7 h / week at 63% of maximal heart rate, n = 16) or high intensity training (HIT) (1.6 ± 0.2 h /week, n = 19) for 10 weeks. Two categories of variables were measured: Low (first lactate threshold, fat oxidation at low intensity exercise, post-exercise recovery) and high (aerobic capacity, second lactate threshold, sprinting power, maximal stroke volume) intensity performance.
Results
Only LIT enhanced pooled low intensity performance (LIT: p = 0.01, ES = 0.49, HIT: p = 0.20, ES = 0.20) and HIT pooled high intensity performance (LIT: p = 0.34, ES = 0.05, HIT: p = 0.007, ES = 0.48).
Conclusions
Overall, very low endurance training intensity cannot fully be compensated by high training volume in adaptations to high intensity performance, but it nevertheless improved low intensity performance. Therefore, the intensity threshold for improving low intensity performance is lower than that for improving high intensity performance. Consequently, evaluating the effectiveness of LIT on endurance performance cannot be solely determined by high intensity performance tests.
Citation: Matomäki P, Heinonen OJ, Nummela A, Kyröläinen H (2024) Endurance training volume cannot entirely substitute for the lack of intensity. PLoS ONE 19(7):
e0307275.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307275
Editor: Daniel Boullosa, Universidad de León Facultad de la Ciencias de la Actividad Física y el Deporte: Universidad de Leon Facultad de la Ciencias de la Actividad Fisica y el Deporte, SPAIN
Received: November 10, 2023; Accepted: July 2, 2024; Published: July 22, 2024
Copyright: © 2024 Matomäki et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Data Availability: Data cannot be shared publicly because of a contract with a third party. Data are available upon reasonable request by contacting Research Support Services of Open Science Center of University of Jyväskylä, Finland. DOI of the data is 10.17011/jyx/dataset/94492.
Funding: Heart rate monitors, power meters, and salary for two research assistants were received from Firstbeat Analytics. Firstbeat Analytics received data from the research measurements, and it does not benefit from the results of the present study.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.