Inigo San Millan is a researcher and cycling coach for Tadej Pogacar, one of the world’s most dominant cyclists (for those that don’t know).
I believe this article is especially apt for those of us following this method.
“In endurance events, the athlete who can sustain the highest power output while remaining in equilibrium wins.”
“Two athletes with identical VO₂max values can have significant different performance outcomes if one of them can maintain metabolic equilibrium at a much higher fraction of that ceiling. The ceiling matters. But so does the height at which the system can sustain balance. In most real-world performance contexts, it is the latter that separates elite from good.”
From a separate article by Millan he speaks about targeted intervention to raise the efficiency of handling lactate
“When I first tested this athlete, his VO₂max was 72.2 ml/kg/min, a strong value, solidly within elite range. More importantly, his lactate profile was poor.”
“Over the following two years, we restructured his training around cellular metabolic adaptation, sustained work in Zone 2 to maximize fat oxidation and mitochondrial function. We were not chasing a higher VO₂max. We were building a better engine. Two years later: VO₂max of 72.7 ml/kg/min. Essentially unchanged, within measurement noise. But his lactate at the same 4.5 W/kg workload had dropped from 5.8 to 1.7 mmol/L. A reduction of 4 mmol/L. In those two years, his performance level raised dramatically. From being in the middle of the pack of his category, to one of the best.”
https://substack.com/home/post/p-191346516
This goes hand in hand with the spirit of NSA, to raise the roof from below. That is to elevate performance by targeting the body’s ability to handle lactate more efficiently.
I think if there is bad news though, is that it might take a while. In the example above, these reductions were over two years of sustained training. Oddly enough, that’s about how long it took James Copeland to go from a decent runner to someone that I’d call pretty damn good.