Training

A Comparison of the Five Training Elements

Part 3 – Reduced Training Duration

After examining a decrease in exercise frequency, Hickson then studied decreases in exercise duration, while maintaining frequency and intensity.  He again followed the 10 week protocol as explained in part 1.  Upon completion of the initial 10 weeks of training, Hickson had the subjects reduce exercise duration by either 1/3 to 26 minutes per day or 2/3 to 13 minutes per day, 6-days per week, for an additional 15 weeks.

There were a few changes in this study as compared to his two previous studies.  First, during the 10 week initial training phase level of resistance was plateaued during the final three weeks.  In the previous two studies the absolute intensity of resistance (or as the researchers put it, the absolute intensity of work) was increased throughout the 10 week training period.  So, the absolute intensity of work did not reach as high a level during this study as in the previous studies, and the level of resistance maintained during the subsequent 15 week phase, was not as high as in previous studies either.

Second, a test of the long term endurance of the subjects was added to the testing protocol by having the subjects cycle to exhaustion at a work rate requiring approximately 80% of pre-training VO2max.  This test of long term endurance was conducted three times - pre-training, after 10 weeks of training, and then finally after 15 weeks of reduced training, with absolute work rates maintained during all three tests.

Results

One of the first things the researchers noted with this study was that performance did not increase as much during the initial 10 week training phase as in the two previous studies.  The researchers suggested that this may have been due to some unidentified physiological limitations in this particular group of subjects or, as they alternatively suggest and is the more likely reason, that performance was not as high due to the lesser overall training intensity.  Recall that this study plateaued training intensity during weeks 7 – 10 of the initial training phase and did not increase it for the remainder of the study.

What were the effects of reducing training duration by 1/3 to 26 minutes per day or 2/3 to 13 minutes per day?  No decrease in performance – mostly.  Short term endurance performance remained the same during the entire 15 week reduced training period for both the 26-min and the 13-min groups.  In fact, there was actually an increase in performance for the 26-min group, though the increase did not reach the level of significance.

Long term endurance was a slightly different story.  Long term performance remained level for the 26-min group, but decreased in the 13-min group by 10%.  Recall that long term endurance was measured by having the subjects cycle to exhaustion at a work rate equivalent to 80% of VO2max.  During the pre-training test, exhaustion was reached in less than 75 minutes.  At the end of the initial 10 week training phase, long term endurance had improved to more than 2 hours.  After 15 weeks of reduced training, the long term endurance of the 13-min group had decreased from 139 minutes to 123 minutes.  So, long term endurance in the 13-min group decreased, but stayed significantly above pre-training levels.

Table 2:  Effect of 1/3 or 2/3 decrease in duration on short- and long-term cycling performance

* approximate times, derived from fig. 1 in research study

Discussion

The results of this study reinforce the results of the previous study examining reduced training frequency.  At first glance, this study suggests that the volume of training required to improve performance is more than that required to maintain performance.

If we dig a bit deeper though, there are important additional things to consider.  Recall that the magnitude of improvement during the initial 10 weeks of training for this study was less than in Hickson’s previous two studies.  Since volume of training during this phase was exactly the same as in the previous two studies, something must account for the relatively smaller level of improvement.  The one variable that was changed between the first two studies and this study was intensity.  This strongly suggests that intensity plays, a very important and perhaps the dominant role in improving performance.

Also, even though performance at the end of 10 weeks was not as high as in previous studies, at the end of the 15 week reduction period short term performance was maintained despite a 1/3 or 2/3 decrease in exercise duration.  Intensity levels during this study’s 15 week reduced training period, while not as high on an absolute level compared to the previous frequency reduction study (the level of resistance was lower), were the same percentage of capacity as the previous study.  Performance, when matched between the reduced frequency and reduced duration studies, was maintained equally well by the same relative percentage of intensity. Again, this suggests that intensity plays a primary role in performance, no matter what the absolute level of resistance.

Lastly, long term endurance was maintained in the 26-min group, but decreased 10% in the 13-minute group.  The researchers speculated that “The adaptations responsible for maintenance of VO2max and short term endurance cannot be entirely responsible for or contribute to the same extent in the ability to maintain long term endurance”.  I echo those comments, which brings us to the training element of specificity.  Remember that specificity is the combination of duration and intensity.  In this case 40 minutes of training is much closer, specifically speaking, to the long term test of endurance used in this study than either 26-min or 13-min of training.  The 10% decrease for the 13-min group suggests that a 2/3 reduction in specificity is too great a drop to maintain performance in a specific event.  Combined with the fact that a 1/3 drop in duration did not affect long-term endurance suggests, to me at least, that specificity, while important, may not be as important in performance as intensity.  It also suggests that specificity plays a more important role than does volume of training.

Summary

When we combine the results and observations from this study with the previous study on reduced training frequency we gain some powerful clues as to the relative importance of frequency, duration, intensity, specificity, and volume.  Since volume of training is comprised of the combination of frequency and duration, on the surface these two studies suggest that volume of training is less important in maintaining performance than in increasing performance.  However, the additional observations about intensity and specificity strongly indicate that the influence of volume of training on improving performance is both less than intensity and specificity and less than is commonly promoted by conventional training wisdom.

Next:  Part 4 - Reduced Training Intensity and Review