Mostrar menúJosé Andrés Cañadas is one of the lucky winners of the spectacular initiative carried out by Sport Life & Gatorade to take to New York to the ten prizewinners that will run the famous marathon in the city that does not sleep.
The prize is providing to ten runners all the needed to take part successfully in the New York Marathon. That is, personal trainer, nutritionist, effort tests, trip, stay, etc. Well, a dream.
If it was not enough, Five Textil designed exclusive clothing for José Andrés to enjoy the best and most advanced garments to ensure that all of this would not be a problem.
FAT PERCENTAGE
This analysis, (Fig. 1) allowed us to know the fat percentage of the whole athlete´s mass. It is measured independently in the upper and lower body. Each of them has quite different tolerances as the upper body has no direct intervention in the running motion.
In the torso, we measured a 26% percentage, slightly over the idyllic to run as an amateur, whose upper limit is 20%. In his legs, more relevant due to its continuous movement whilst running, the fat percentage could drop down to the 0% if needed or a consequence of the physical activity. José Andrés features a 16%. The great work of the nutritionist had the desired effect and for the race day José Andrés will be in the desired range.
The negative consequences of this fat excess are a higher energetic cost and articular harm because of the mechanical stress, all of it coming from the fact of moving an added weight that “is not ours”. Hence the necessity of optimizing our weight, something noticeable in all of the life spheres, not only in the sportive one.
However, fat loss and excessive bodybuilding would turn into more power, but also a heavier weight. The ideal proportion between fat and lean mass (everything but fat) should be determined by a specialist according to each user, his/her biotype, sport and its practice level.
Fig. 1.
LEG POWER
This test (Fig. 2) is executed by making the athlete jumping and measuring the maximum reached height with an extremely accurate optical measuring device. Jumps start from a static position and legs bent at 90º (Squat Jump, SJ in the graphic), from standing position and bending your legs for impulse purposes (Counter Movement Jump (CMJ in the graphic), with the help of your arms (A. Brazos in the graphic) or drop jumping from stairs at a determined height (Drop Jump, DJ in the graphic).
Short distance runners obtain more power from their legs and, therefore, jump higher. It happens just the opposite for gran fondo runners. In the case of the Squat Jump and international level marathon runner jumps at a 28 cms. average height. José Andrés scored 22.5, not bad for a non pro.
We are to go back once more to the incidence of the fat added weight that burdens the jumper. Without it, all of the marks would have been way better.
Black bars in the graphic point out the reached height after drop jumping from different height and using the jump elastic energy to impulse oneself up. As a curiosity, José Andrés does his best when jumping from 60 centimeters. Now you know at which height he should jump once and again to stimulate his muscle boosting.
Fig. 2.
EFFORT TEST
Through this test we can check the runner evolution within a continuous and increasing intensity effort. We manage three main parameters:
– In blood lactate concentration (Mm, millimoles). Lactate is our body safety mechanism to avoid irreparable damages when achieving a limit effort. As intensity increases, lactate appears and avoids muscle contraction, generates rigidity and incoordination among other effects.
– Heart rate. It is a clear indicator of the effort level. The harder, the higher rate.
– Speed: The motion activity generates a movement (run) that has place at a higher speed the harder the effort is.
José Andrés can run up to 9.7 km/h. while keeping his lactate level. (Fig. 3) Up to 11.3 km/h. (vertical blue line) his metabolism eliminates all of the lactate his body generates (2.1mM). That is, theoretically he could run endlessly at this pace what means a 5 minutes and 19 seconds per kilometer. Thus, the whole marathon time would be 3h43´. At a higher speed, he generates more lactate than he can eliminate and it would get accumulated in blood with all the known effects.
As you cannot control your optimum lactate level on the run nor the speed without a GPS, we can translate his running pace into heart bits: 143 bpm, something easier to check with a heart rate monitor. (Pink line in Fig. 3).
Genetic predisposition determines up to a 30% (a lot) of your performance. The rest depends of factors such as nutrition, training and the, sometimes forgotten, rest. If among the aforementioned factors we modify the ones that we can, that is, training, nutrition and rest, we could move up inside the yellow zone in such a way that our ideal pace were more intense and we could maintain a 15km/h. speed without the lactate to harm us.
As a consequence, José Andrés will have to run every single kilometer at the NYC Marathon at 11.e km/h. or spending 5´19´´ per kilometer. If nothing happens, that pace will make him reaching the finish line.
Fig. 3.
CARDIOVASCULAR TRAINING
Once in movement, we could obtain some clear conclusions about the current José Andrés´ situation and what he should do to finish the marathon and/or how to increase his performance through a selective training. The different paces should be set in virtue of:
– Heart rate.
– Speed.
– Time per kilometer.
– Subjective effort perception (RPE Borg).
As a result, he will be able to control himself by paying attention to the most advisable or available parameter: sometimes it will be the heart rate and other, per example, time per kilometer.
In the graphic 4 you can see specific José Andrés´ results, but an effort test should provide unique parameters for each individual.
The five distinguishable ranges as objective working target are:
– RA- Active recovery: The known as active rest, the warm exercise before training and the pace to come back to calm after an effort.
– CAE- Extensive Aerobic Capacity. Training zone to boost the extensive resistance, in other words, long distance races capacity such as cycling tours, several days marathons, etc.
– CAI- Intensive Aerobic Capacity. Training zone for one day events.
– UA- Competition, cruising speed. Training target for one day long distance events in which you could find more demanding moments.
– UA- Anaerobic threshold, lactate threshold. You can train here knowing that we are right in the limit over which our body would generate such a lactate amount that could not be eliminated via sweating, urine, breathing and some chemical processes. Training within this zone would favor that our cruising speed that can be maintained for long time periods was higher. This is the most noticeable improvement zone.
– CLA- Lactate capacity zone, aerobic capacity zone. Our body is unable of taking all the needed oxygen and enters into a metabolic crisis zone that generates more lactic acid that can be eliminated. Training here will help in very intense but moderated in time length efforts, as a cycling breakaway, jump out the peloton to catch a rival or the final kilometers of a marathon.
– VO2 max. Maximum aerobic consumption, maximum aerobic power. These efforts can be maintained or under three minute periods as sprints.
Fig. 4.
RUNNING BIOMECHANICAL
You must think that, within the whole race, you never step with both feet at the same time. There is a moment in which all the weight lays in one single leg and, in the same way, all the force for impulse is done by a single leg as well. It means a huge effort and, therefore, knowing the way our muscle-skeletal structures do their job is extremely important.
Angular kinetic study allows us to know the muscle-skeletal predisposition (or the lack of it) for the sport we practice.
We already had the chance od analyzing José Andrés´ run previously, reason why updating all the related data was easier. In his case, he is almost neutral (Fig. 5) That is, medial-lateral displacement are within the considered as normal range. In other words, he steps very vertically and his knee-ankle-foot alignment is very good.
If it were not like that, he should boost specific muscles to reach a knee or ankle stability that ensured he could finish the marathon gently.
Fig. 5.
SURFACE
A made and manufactured by SPORT LAB system allows us to know the surface the athlete features, either frontal or sagittal. It might seem more interesting for cyclists due to the higher movement speed and, subsequently, a key incidence of his frontal surface.
However, when runners are the matter, it allows us to cross frontal surface and body composition (fat/lean %) data (Fig. 6 & 7) and evaluate the incidence of the routine, exercise and nutrition we prescribed the athlete.
This very advanced photogrammetry device, or what is the same, measuring through photography, makes possible an adequate postural hygiene via some statically taken and extremely precise measurements that tell us about the sportsperson and his muscle-skeletal structures. That is:
– The Sagittal picture (Fig. 7) helps us to calculate the column´s lumbar and dorsal curvature.
– Hip and escapolohumeral waist (shoulders) symmetry or dysmetria.
Neither Gatorade nor Sport Life have skimped on for all the prized with the trip to New York to enjoy the experience, as much in the personal side as in the sportive side.
This unique initiative will remain for always in the ones´ who knew it mind but, above all, in the ones´who lived it.