Sacramento Running News

Your brain is in charge.

There is a growing body of evidence in support of the theory that your brain is the limiting factor in your running performance. This article from the Globe and Mail, sent to me by alert reader Chris, describes yet another study that reinforces this theory.

What was intriguing to me about this study is that it gives some indication that not only can you trick your brain into increasing your VO2max, but that the effects are apparently enduring.

Researchers took several athletes and tested their VO2max using a traditional protocol–slowly ramping up the pace of the treadmill until the athletes oxygen uptake hit a plateau.

Then, they turned the test on its head, starting at a level above the previously established VO2max and incrementally decreased the pace until the athlete’s oxygen uptake plateaued.  The main difference between the two tests, from the athletes’ perspectives, was that it was going to get easier rather than harder as they proceeded.

What they found should come as no surprise to anyone has been bonking at the end of a race and barely able to run until the finish line was in sight.

Using the inverted  test, the researchers found the athletes had a significantly higher VO2max–averaging 4.4 percent improvement.

The researchers reasoned that, since the subjects knew that the decremental test would become progressively easier, their brains would be less likely to pre-emptively apply the brakes in self-defence.

What was most amazing (to me) was that subsequent tests on the athletes using the traditional protocol showed the new, higher VO2max to persist.

Read the article. Then figure out how to work this into your training. (Don’t ask me how!)