Why maximum speed is a limiting factor for endurance performance

Maximum speed has not been widely used as a fitness metric and especially not for endurance athletes but is in fact, instrumental in dictating performance. Here’s an overly simplified example: If you could only run at 15 kilometers per hour when sprinting, you could obviously never run a 5 km race at 16 kilometers per hour. This hints that maximum speed acts in some way as a limiting factor for human performance. The question is: Why does maximum speed matter and how can we use it?

If we want to improve our fitness, it can be very beneficial to raise our lactate threshold, improve our running economy, and increase our VO2Max. It is true that when you know all three parameters for a given individual, you can relatively accurately predict their performance over various distances from 800 meters up to the marathon distance. However, none of these parameters can tell you how fast someone can run shorter distances such as a 100-meter or 400-meter race. We lack the ability to predict the maximum speed of an athlete based on data other than having the athlete perform an all-out sprint. The maximum speed is an obvious limiting factor over shorter distances, but it is also one factor that can limit performance over longer distances.

Conventional fitness metrics are not good at predicting performance over shortest distances (100 m - 400 m) and the longest distances (42.2 km - 100 km).

Usain Bolt is the fastest 100-meter and 200-meter runner the world has ever seen, and he had one of the highest maximum speed measurements in history. Nevertheless, he was not a world-class 800-meter or 1500-meter runner. This is because his endurance was not high—around 5 to10 percent in Driftline’s estimation. It’s very important for someone with high maximum speed and low endurance to know where they stand, otherwise they will never maximize their benefits from each training session. If someone like Usain Bolt, for example, wanted to train for longer events he would still run very fast in the shorter intervals but if he was doing a long run, it would initially be at a similar pace as the average runner.

Maximum speed and training

It is common to see training programs focus on one or two training thresholds and try to improve them as much as possible. We also see polarized training like the 80/20, where 80 percent of training is very easy running and 20 percent is demanding. With more elite training, the focus is much more specific. Athletes complete a lot of speed work— even marathon runners. Speed work means a lot of different things for different athletes, but the primary focus is to improve your speed and running economy. This makes racing and training at slower speeds feel easier. This is in tune with what we believe at Driftline.

If you improve your maximum speed while maintaining your endurance, you will race faster.

By analyzing heart rate data from a submaximal run, Driftline is able to predict your maximum speed

The best runners in the world usually start off their season with a lot of easy running and build up their mileage gradually. This includes a lot of threshold work, moderate runs, and short sprints for neuromuscular stimulation. In simplified terms, this means the athletes are improving their endurance while maintaining their current maximum speed. As the season progresses, the athletes often move away from high mileage and start incorporating a lot of focused speed work. The goal is to increase their maximum speed while maintaining the endurance that they built up over the previous months.

A recent change in marathon training, popularized by the famous Italian coach Renato Canova, includes incorporation of 8- to 10-second all-out hill sprints. This gives the runner the chance to exercise the energy and power fast twitch muscle fibers are responsible for, while activating the phosphate-creatine energy system. Canova says that without these sprints, the body is not able to use this extra energy. This concept is not a new training component. In fact, Arthur Lydiard used these “wind sprints” regularly where the athletes would run for 50 to 80 meters as fast as they could and jog for 320 to 350 meters between each sprint. Both coaches are extremely successful, and we believe that their training methods are very well-suited to help maintain and increase the maximum speed of runners.

How to track your maximum speed?

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to find out your maximum speed without having to exert yourself? Or to be able to track your progress or current fitness level without elaborate equipment? Driftline wants to be the answer to these questions and give you the key to many important fitness parameters in an easier and more accessible way than ever before.

If you want to know your maximum speed, it is not just as simple as going to the track and then sprinting as hard as you can. Yes, you will get an approximation, but without proper warm-up and measurements, you will not receive much information, and put yourself at risk of a serious injury. This is something that we found out the hard way during our early days of research.

Driftline makes it easy

Our discoveries in human physiology have given us the capabilities to determine a person's maximum speed by only looking at heart rate data from submaximal running. This means that we can for example have a football squad jog at the same speed for 20 minutes and then by analyzing how their heart rate curves behave, we are able to line them up from the fastest to the slowest runner. Imagine being able to decide the outcome of an elite race based on the heart rate data from an easy run.

We know how important maximum speed is for performance, so we want to give everybody access to this information in an easier way than ever before. No more straining… only training!