Combined Endurance and Resistance Circuit Training in Highly Trained/top-Level Female Race Walkers: A Case Report

051_058_LaTorre:Sport
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Sport Sci Health (2008) 4:5158

DOI 10.1007/s11332-008-0067-1
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Combined endurance and resistance circuit training in highly

trained/top-level female race walkers: a case report
Antonio La Torre Gianluca Vernillo Pierluigi Fiorella Clara Mauri Luca Agnello
Received: 23 October 2008 / Accepted: 20 November 2008

Springer-Verlag 2008
Abstract Race walking can be considered as a long-distance performance and it can be described as the technical and athletic expression of fast walking. The physiological determinants of these performances have been
well documented; moreover, several recent studies
demonstrated that concurrent strength and endurance
training can improve performance in endurance athletes.
Thus, the purpose of this report was to monitor the adaptations of a combined strength, performed by circuit resistance training (CRT), and endurance programme in two
top level female race walkers. The subjects were examined before and after 12 weeks of CRT and endurance
training and performed an incremental field test to determine maximum oxygen uptake (VO2max), running
economy (RE) and lactate threshold (LT). The results
A. La Torre G. Vernillo
Faculty of Exercise Sciences
University of Milan
Milan, Italy
P.L. Fiorella C. Mauri
Medicine and Sport Science Institute
Italian National Olympic Committee
Rome, Italy
L. Agnello
Department of Basic and Applied Medical Sciences
University G. dAnnunzio
Chieti-Pescara, Italy
A. La Torre ()
Istituto di Esercizio Fisico, Salute e Attivit Sportiva (IEFSAS)
Via Giuseppe Colombo 71
20133 Milan, Italy
e-mail: antonio.latorre@unimi.it
showed that 12 weeks of combined CRT and endurance

O2max
programme did not correspond to an alteration in V
and RE, while improvements in LT and 5-km performance were seen.
Key words Race walking Explosive strength
Circuit resistance training
Introduction
The general assumption for walking said that process of
locomotion in which the moving body is supported by
first one leg and then the other. When the moving body
passes over the supporting leg, the other leg swings forward in preparation for its next support phase. One foot
or the other is always on the ground, and during that period, when the support of the body is transferred from the
trailing to the leading leg, there is a brief period when
both feet are on the ground [1].
Race walking can be described as the technical and
athletic expression of fast walking; competition walkers
attain speeds about double the maximum walking speed
of an average person with a less step increase in energy
expenditure, maybe due to two factors: (i) less mechanical work done to move forwards and/or (ii) the efficiency of positive work [2, 3]. Moreover, race walking
has some other technical aspects, ruled by International
Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) rule 230,
which increase the difficulty of locomotion: (i) loss of
contact; and (ii) bent knee.
The difference between common walking and race
walking and the limits to race walking performance derive directly from these technical and ruling aspects, thus,
even endowed with extraordinary physiological qualities,
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52
a race walker without a strong technique may never

achieve significant results.
The physiological determinants of long-distance running performance, as race walking, have been well documented. Traditionally, it has been suggested that these
factors are: (i) maximum oxygen uptake (VO 2max)
[46]; (ii) lactate threshold (LT) [6, 7]; (iii) running
economy (RE) [4, 6, 8, 9]; and (iv) percent of maximum oxygen uptake (%VO2max) [4]. These determinants explain >70% of the between-subject variance in
long-distance running performance [10]. Factors related to muscular power, such as neuromuscular and
anaerobic aspects, have been recently added. Noakes
[11] and Green and Patla [12] have suggested that
VO2max and endurance performance may be limited not
only by central factors related to O2 uptake (VO2max)
but also by so-called muscle power factors affected
by an interaction of neuromuscular and anaerobic characteristics [13].
These factors can limit, and even can be the precursors to, endurance performance [1416]. These physiological determinants can be considered as intrinsic factors [17], such as genetic [1821] and psychic characteristics [22], and extrinsic factors [17], such as lifestyle
and daily activity [17, 23, 24], training [23, 25] and environment conditions [26, 27].
It has been suggested that simultaneous training for
both strength and endurance may be associated with limited strength development in endurance athletes [11, 26,
27] without changes in the endurance determinants.
Whereas, explosive and plyometric training programmes, in endurance athletes, does not behave the development of the endurance determinants [13, 28, 29].
Moreover, a different kind of strength training, circuit
resistance training (CRT), deemphasises the brief intervals of heavy, local muscle overload in standard resistance training, providing a more general conditioning
that improves body composition, muscular resistance
and endurance, and cardiovascular fitness [43, 44].
Although the effect of combined strength and endurance training on physical performance has become a
popular research topic in the last decade [33], a few studies have analysed the impact of resistance training on the
endurance disciplines and have reported that: (i) plyometric training improves RE and ultimately distancerunning performance, although the exact mechanism by
which this occurs remains unclear [13, 34, 35]; (ii) CRT
sets are quantitatively similar to traditional strength training sets, but the cardiovascular load is substantially
greater. CRT may be an effective training strategy for the
promotion of both strength and cardiovascular adaptations and alone induced strength and power improvements that were significantly greater than when resis-
tance and endurance training were combined [45, 46].

Moreover, in the literature, there are no studies concerning these aspects in race walking.
Thus, the aim of this report was to monitor the adaptations of a combined strength, performed by CRT, and
endurance programmes in two highly trained female race
walkers.
Materials and methods
Subjects
Two highly trained females with 111 years experience,
who competed in the IAAF Race Walking Challenge and
World Race Walking Cup 2008, were analysed in the present study. The averages of the subjects physical and
physiological characteristics before and after the training
period are presented in Table 1.
All participants were fully informed about the aims of
the study, the procedures and the training, and gave their
voluntary consent before participation. The experimental
procedures were in agreement with the Declaration of
Helsinki on human experimentation.
Training project
The experimental training period lasted for 12 weeks. The
total training volume was 120030 h/year but 10% of
training hours were replaced by CRT.
CRT sessions lasted for 2030 min at a frequency of
3 times per week. The programme included eight different exercises (Fig. 1) without additional weight or with
low loads but high or maximal movement velocities
(64160 contractions/training session and 812 repetitions/set). The load of the exercises ranged between 0 and
40% of the one-repetition maximum.
Table 1 Physical characteristics and training background of the

experimental group
Variable
Experimental group
Before
Age (years)
Height (cm)
Body weight (kg)
BMI
Training background
Training (h/year)
Circuit training times/week
Values are meansSD
23
171.50.5
53.43.6
18.11.4
111
120030
2
After
524.1
17.71.5
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53
Fig. 1 CRT programme
100 %
strenght
90 %
aerobic endurance
95% of the LT
80 %
above LT
70 %
60 %
50 %
40 %
30 %
20 %
10 %
0%
Fig. 2 Relative volumes (%) of different training during course of 12-week simultaneous CRT and aerobic endurance training
In detail, workload intensities ranged from 20% to

75% of the athletes limits, below (75%) or above (20%)
the individual lactate threshold (LT), for example 31000
or 12000 race walking with 2 min rest between repetitions (Fig. 2).
Measurements
Highly trained race walkers were examined before and after 12 weeks of training. The tests were performed in
February and then in April before the competition peri-
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54
od. All tests were performed on a synthetic 400-m track

in a climate of 816C without wind. Two testing sessions
were conducted. In the first one, the subjects performed
an incremental field test to determine maximal oxygen
uptake (VO2max) where the speed was increased by 1
km/h each minute. Two days later, in the second session,
RE was measured as steady-state sub-maximal oxygen
uptake during incremental steps of eight minutes at constant velocity with 30 sec of recovery.
Throughout the incremental test, the subjects adopted
the required velocity by use of an audio-visual system.
This system included guide marks set at 20-m intervals
along the track and audio signals to determine the speed
needed to cover the intervals.
A peripheral lactate increase over velocity corresponding to 4 mmolL1 during an incremental exercise
test can be adopted as an evaluation criterion of the anaer CO2 and VE were measured
obic threshold [47]. VO2, V
throughout the test using a telemetric system (K4b2,
Cosmed, Rome, Italy) [48, 49] and heart rate (HR) was
monitored continuously for all sessions (Polar Electro,
Kempele, Finland). Expired gases were measured breathby-breath and averaged every 5 s. Before each test, the
O2 analysis system was calibrated using ambient air
(20.9% O2 and 0.04% CO2) and calibration gas (16% O2
and 5% CO2). The calibration of the turbine flow-meter
of the analyser was performed with a 3-l syringe.
During the exercise test, a capillary blood sample was
obtained from the ear lobe and analysed for blood lactate
concentration (Lactate Pro LT, Arkay Inc., Kyoto, Japan)
[50]. The samples were taken immediately after the warmup and after each velocity at the end of the incremental test.
Results
The VO2max before and after 12 weeks of CRT was
3209436 vs. 2882651 mlkg1min1, respectively
(Fig. 3). Before and after the 12 week programme, immediately after the end of the VO2max test, mean blood
lactate concentration was 8.751.06 mmolL1 and
8.850.64 mmolL1, respectively (Fig. 4). The LT at velocity corresponding to 4 mmolL1 was, before and after the protocol, 12.40.2 kmh1 and 12.90.1 kmh1,
respectively. There were no changes in RE (Fig. 5). The
maximal heart rate was, before and after training, 1898
vs. 1907 beatsmin1, respectively (Fig. 6).
Discussion
The main purpose of the present report was to test the
effects of a CRT on race walking performance. As showed
by Paavolainen et al. [13], the combined explosive
strength and endurance training improved force, running
velocity, RE and 5-km running performance in well
O2max,
trained endurance athletes without any changes in V
according to what we find in the present report, where
the aerobic capacity of the subjects does not improve after 12 weeks of combined CRT and endurance training.
Moreover, in the literature there are discordant data
about the possible changes of the LT after concomitant
endurance and strength training. Several studies have
shown no changes in LT after the training protocol [13,
40], while Marcinik et al. found an improvement in the
subjects LT [42]. Along with Jung [41], we hypothe-
4000
pre
post
VO2max (mLkg-1min-1)
3500
3000
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
0
12.00
13.00
14.00
Speed (kmh-1)
Fig. 3 VO2max and speed relationship before and after 12 weeks of CRT. Values are meansSD
15.00
16.00
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12.00
pre
Blood lactate concentration (mmolL-1)
post
10.00
8.00
6.00
4.00
2.00
0.00
11.00
12.00
13.00
Speed
14.00
15.00
(kmh-1)
Fig. 4 Blood lactate curve before and after 12 weeks of CRT. Values are meansSD
300.0
pre
post
RWE (mLkg-1min-1)
250.0
200.0
150.0
100.0
50.0
0.0
11.00
12.00
13.00
Speed (kmh-1)
Fig. 5 RWE and speed relationship before and after the 12 weeks of CRT. Values are meansSD
sise that after CRT the muscle fibres are capable of producing more absolute force, working at a lower percentage of maximum strength during endurance activity compared with pre-training. This decrease in effort
may have resulted in a decrease in anaerobic energy production, resulting in a decrease in blood lactate concentration [42].
Regarding the RE, but in our opinion it would be better to refer to race walking economy (RWE), in contrast
to the literature [35, 39], we found a worsening. This may
be due to the intrinsic factors of race walking, as the technical and biomechanical aspects may require a longer period of adaptation after the training.
In conclusion, we have shown that 12 weeks of a combined circuit training and endurance programme improve
the 5-km performances but there were no corresponding
O2max.
alterations in V
Further research is needed to establish whether such
race walking improvements derive from an increased
stride length or stride frequency or both and, as suggest-
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56

210
pre
post
Heart rate (beatsmin-1)
200
190
180
170
160
150
11.00
12.00
13.00
Speed
14.00
15.00
(kmh-1)
Fig. 6 Heart rate and speed relationship before and after 12 weeks of CRT. Values are meansSD
0.24.46
0.24.29
5 km performance (hmmss)
0.24.12
0.23.54
0.23.37
0.23.20
0.23.02
0.22.45
0.22.28
0.22.11
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
Years
Fig. 7 Average of the 5-km performance from 2005 to 2008
ed by Nummela et al. [51], if these improvements might

be due to enhancement in ground contact times.
In our opinion, this improvement might enhance 5-km
performance (Fig. 7) after 12 weeks of training. Thus, further research is needed to establish if this improvement
is due to combined CRT and endurance training.
According to Hkkinen et al. [52] the present data do not
support the concept of the interference effect in strength
development and muscle hypertrophy when strength training is performed concurrently with endurance training.
Instead, in our opinion, explosive strength development in
the subjects seems to be due to an improvement in the rapid
neural activation of the trained muscles. In addition, according to Nummela et al. [51], the results of the present
study support the idea that distance runners performance is
related to neuromuscular capacity to produce force.
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Practical applications
Collectively, these findings add further support to the interpretation of the results of the training study in which
combined endurance and CRT improved skeletal muscle
forcevelocity characteristics, such as, maybe, motor unit
recruitment and synchronisation.
Further research is needed to determine whether
more intense or more prolonged circuit training improves RE and the performance of highly trained race
walkers.
Acknowledgements The authors wish to thank the athletes and
coach Vincenzo Fiorillo for his assistance in data collection and
technical support.
Conflict of interest statement The authors declare that they
have no conflict of interest related to the publication of this
article.
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Sport Sci Health (2008) 4:5158