Aerobic Capacity and running economy in sprinters, middle distance, long distance and 400m runners

Forty-eight national level male runners: ten sprinters (S) (184.9 4.8 cm, 76.6 4.8 kg), personal best (PB) on 100m sprint = 10.87 0.41s ; fifteen 400m (S4)( 180.9 4.2 cm, 73.0 6.3 kg), PB on 400m 49.5 1.9s ; ten middle distance (MD) (180.4 5.7 cm, 68.6 6.2 kg) and thirteen long distance (LD) (n=13 ; 179.1 6.7 cm, 69.5 7.0 kg ) runners participated in the study. All subjects performed two incremental treadmill tests: the first (1 km/h speed increase per minute, 1.5% grade), for determination of VO2max and the anaerobic ventilatory threshold (AnT, respiratory compensation point according to Wasserman), and a second one (2 km/h speed increase every 4 minutes, 1.5% grade) to determine running economy for the speeed range below the ventilatory anaerobic threshold. With increasing length of track covered for a given running event, a progressive increase of aerobic capacity as well as increase of running economy was found. The groups differed significantly regarding both VO2max (55.4 ± ; 3.4 ; 59.6 ± ; 4.6 ; 64.4 ± ; 4.4 and 66.4 ± ; 4.7 ml/kg• min-1, p C10 > C12, p<0.05).