A longitudinal assessment of anaerobic threshold and distance-running performance

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
TANAKA, KIYOJI, YOSHIYUKI MATSUURA, AKIRA MATSUZAKA, KOHJI HIRAKOBA, SHUZO KUMAGAI, SUB O. SUN, and KATSUMI ASANO. A longitudinal assessment of anaerobic threshold and distance-running performance. Med. Sci. Sports Exerc., Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 278–282, 1984. Longitudinal changes in the anaerobic threshold (AT) and distance-running performances (DRP) were assessed with a 4.5-month interval between the pre-, mid-, and post-tests in a relatively homogeneous (in terms of both maximal aerobic power and DRP) sample of 21 male, trained, endurance runners (X̄ age = 18.5 yr) than had been employed previously. ANOVA with repeated measures followed by the Newman-Keuls post-hoc comparison revealed that there were significant alterations in both DRP and AT. Even in this improved state, higher relationships (r≥0.75) between the DRP and AT-related attributes held up consistently over the 9-month training period. Anaerobic threshold (expressed as ml O2·min-1·kg-1) showed a correlation higher than 0.80 with 10,000-m race time in every set of tests. When the relationships between the absolute amount of change in the V̇O2@AT and the absolute amount of change in DRP were evaluated, significant correlations (r=-0.56 to −0.83) were found in several different time periods. Running velocity at AT ([email protected]) also improved significantly, and was closely related to DRP changes. It is speculated that DRP changes are more directly accounted for by the V̇O2@AT and/or [email protected] changes rather than changes in other physiological attributes.