Happy Sunday, everyone. Welcome back to another installment of Dr. Evans, The Science of Running, newsletter. This past week, I made a post about different types of training, followed it up with a podcast. If you
haven’t done so already, go check out the podcast. https://open.spotify.com/episode/4oC9aU4aQAZpnavzNdYJ3h?si=80d12b8523484e97

I also had the privilege of talking with Mr. Brandon Miller. Brandon won the 800m in a time of 1:43 at the Prefontaine Classic. The field was stacked, but Brandon pulled off a massive kick to take home the win. He breaks down a typical week of training, shares what motivates him, and whether he can beat Caitlin Clark in one on one.

This newsletter is going to break down one of my favorite papers on the rate and magnitude of the training response. You’ll learn exactly how we came to do workouts like 5 × 1 mile, what to expect from them, and whether doing hard workouts on the bike matters.

As always, 1) listen to the podcast, 2) follow on Instagram, and 3) if you are interested in being
coached, apply for a free consult at https://www.endurancelaboratory.com/

In 2018, I began running again after about a 7 year hiatus. Given my history of back surgery and joint issues, I was overly cautious and was reluctant to run more than 20 miles per week. My solution was simple: I would only run 3 days per week, essentially all of my workouts e.g., intervals, thresholds, and strides, while all other easy volume would happen on the elliptical.

The outcome? I PR’ed in the 800m, 5k, and 8k by considerable amounts.

My reasoning was based on a famous study by RC Hickson and John Holloszy [1] , which is what we’ll cover in this newsletter. This is by far one of my favorite studies, and if you want to read other amazing studies, take a look at RC Hickson’s work. He published several studies on changes in oxygen
consumption following training, and is really the father of modern interval training [2-4] .

John Holloszy had already demonstrated that oxygen consumption increased rapidly in rats subjected to vigorous exercise. However, it wasn’t clear how these changes generalized to humans.

Hickson concocted one of the gnarliest protocols I’ve ever seen, and it undergirded the rationale for much of the training in the 80s to 90s. The training consisted of cycling for 3 days per week of 6 x 5 minute repetitions at VO2 max . These reps were broken up by “easy” cycling at
50-60% of VO2 max for 2 minutes. Overall, participants accumulated roughly 18 minutes of exercise at VO2max per day, or 54 minutes per week. But guess what? On days they weren’t cycling (the other 3 days), they ran as far as they could in 30-40 minutes.

I know what you’re thinking. This is dumb. Why would anyone crush people as hard as they could like this? Well, the point of the study wasn’t to employ a perfectly detailed progression, it was to determine the rate and magnitude of adaptation in VO2 max . The rationale wasn’t based on a perfect training paradigm, but on a simple paradigm to progressively increase intensity and
duration while controlling for as many other variables as possible. Regardless, it worked, and we can learn a lot from it.

The results were awesome. Despite training for only 10 weeks, VO₂max increased by 5% after just one week.

Moreover, it continued to rise almost perfectly linearly throughout the study. On average, participants improved their VO₂max by 44%, with an average increase of 16.8 mL/kg/min.
Several participants finished the study with VO₂max values exceeding 60 mL/kg/min, and one subject who continued training for another three weeks improved his VO₂max by 77% over baseline [1].

Time to exhaustion increased almost perfectly in parallel with VO₂max.

Another thing I love about old studies is that they show you everyone’s data. These are the actual participant’s values week over week.

Participant C’s VO2max rose as high as 67 ml/kg/min. This is on par with sub elite athletes! After only 10 weeks!

The application for me was pretty simple. Cross-training still increases VO2, and if you’re coming off injury, pregnancy, or just normal downtime, cross training is an amazing option for increasing VO2max. There’s one key caveat though: you probably need to work a little while you’re doing it. It’s not enough to just do it. You need to actually exercise at VO2max. This isn’t
for the faint of heart. This is, in part, why I agree with Jack when he says you need to know the purpose of every workout you’re doing. Are you working on aerobic development? Running economy? Mental toughness? What’s the point?

If your goal is to maximize aerobic development, your body doesn't care whether the oxygen demand comes from running, cycling, the elliptical, or another modality. This is why it’s often said that, “work is work”. Your body responds to the physiological stress. That's exactly why, when I returned to running in 2018, I kept my running mileage intentionally low while replacing much of my easy volume with the elliptical. I still ran every workout
because specificity matters, but I dramatically reduced the impact between sessions. It allowed me to stay healthy, accumulate more aerobic work, and ultimately run personal bests from the 800m through the 8k.

Training works. If you’ve followed me for any duration of time, then you’ve seen me post this, and this is where it comes from. It didn’t matter whether these people were heavy or light, or had high or low baseline VO2 maxes. All of them improved from their untrained state because the intensity was closely monitored, and so too were their training loads. If you do this, it’s
impossible NOT to get better. Even if you are highly trained, you will improve performance from wherever you are at “baseline” if the progression and periodization is appropriate. Also, if you don’t increase intensity and duration, expect your progression to slow by about the 3rd or 4th
week of that cycle. This study explains why we don’t just start with VO2 as well. If you are highly trained, you have less of a dynamic range. We need to be ABLE to increase intensity. In highly trained people, this means you need to start at an intensity and duration that can actually go somewhere. As we
said above, work is work, so you’ll still adapt to this, it enables you to build as time goes. I think this is part of the magic of threshold training: it encourages a proper progression because every workout is inherently less intense, so you have more room to move at the end of the season.

Book a free coaching consultation call if you are interested in joining the team, here: https://www.endurancelaboratory.com