Australian Track Cyclist Brad McGee won the individual pursuit (4km) at the World Championships in 2002 after completing more than 30,000 km of cycling that year. After racing in Grand Tours (~1400km per week) Brad and his team mates set a World Record in the 2004 Olympic Team Pursuit event (~4min duration). Similarly, track cyclist Shayne Kelly, completed more than 25,000km per year, with a large proportion of LSD training leading up to his three World Championship wins in the kilometre, an event that last ~1min. Traditionally exercise physiologists have focused on cardiovascular and skeletal muscle adaptations in response to different types of training intensity. However, the effects of endurance training on brain chemistry and function has also become a topic of interest (Dishman, Berthoud et al. 2006). Because movement patterns and corresponding skeletal muscle and cardiovascular load during LSD is not competition specific, and because improvements in VO2max are greatest following high-intensity interval training, some have questioned the efficacy of LSD training (Helgerud, Hoydal et al. 2007). Perhaps the primary benefits of LSD are brain derived. Joe Henderson, an early adopter of LSD terminology and training practices, focused on the mental compared to physical aspects of LSD. Henderson wrote that "LSD was less a training system than a recovery system. We raced better by staying healthier and happier, not by training harder" (Henderson 1969). Sport specific, high intensity training can lead to desired improvements in aerobic fitness. However this high intensity training is often associated with elevations in stress hormones, body heat, and high impact forces. Some researchers have identified high volumes of high intensity training as the primary cause of "overtraining" (Lehmann, Foster et al. 1993). Animal studies demonstrate that endurance trained animals are more resistant to unavoidable stressors that lead to "learned helplessness" (Greenwood and Fleshner 2008). Exercise can have centrally mediated anti-depressive effects (Dishman, Berthoud et al. 2006) and the effects of endurance exercise on neural structure and function is in different regions of the brain are beginning to be better described (Cotman, Berchtold et al. 2007). These observations raise the possibility that LSD training may prepare the brain to be more receptive and tolerant to competition specific, high intensity training which then directly leads to improvements in endurance performance in sports like track cycling, rowing and swimming.
© Copyright 2009 14th annual Congress of the European College of Sport Science, Oslo/Norway, June 24-27, 2009, Book of Abstracts. Veröffentlicht von The Norwegian School of Sport Sciences. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.