...and we need oxygen to process ATP, do we not? ATP is a fuel. We "burn" whatever the fuel we have in our body. And we need oxygen to "burn" those fuels, don't we?

I don't de-emphasize "power". We do hill training; we do tempo and intervals which you categorize as "power running". I even suggested, just a few posts ago to Jacques to include some hills to "develop power in the strides". Trying to de-emphasize" oxygen based on ONE research is rather silly, is it not? Isn't it a "physiological fact" that we do need oxygen to produce "power"? They are ALL interconnected. You cannot pick one over the other and fight which one comes above which one. I'm sure you'd come back and ask "then why oxygen?" It's because distance running is an aerobic affair; it's not a power event. It just does not make any sense (call me old-fashion conventional traditional whatever) to categorize it in the "power" event like shot put or body building (which is probably not necessarily the "power" event but anyways...). It is, once again, known fact that endurance training actually decreases explosive power and, in fact, just by stopping all the endurance exercise, we actually regain that lost power. I'm not saying that's right--that's why we do hills and drills. But I highly doubt, and feel free to give us the "evidence" if you think otherwise, focusing on improving one's vertical jump (power oriented) would make you a better distance runner than, say, going for a long run.

I don't think you need oxygen to 'burn' atp, but you sure do need it to produce it. The body can produce it for less than 2 minutes without oxygen. I think the process goes atp stores for 2 seconds, creatine phoshate for 5 seconds, then lactate sources for about 90 seconds. But there's a catch. Once you start depleting these sources, the body regenerates them and that consumes oxygen. Processes like gluconeogenesis that turn lactate back into usable fuel consume oxygen.

In a nutshell, even 'anaerobic' processes use oxygen, they just don't do it directly and they are not particularly efficient. In fact, it's all that aerobic based muscle tissue and those aerobic pathways you've been working on that does the bulk of this job. Nothing comes for free, and 'muscle power' ultimately needs O2 to even exist.

http://health.howstuffworks.com/sports-physiology5.htm

Exercise and Aerobic Respiration

+By two minutes of exercise, the body responds to supply working muscles
with oxygen. When oxygen is present, glucose can be completely broken
down into carbon dioxide and water in a process called aerobic respiration. The glucose can come from three different places:+

• remaining glycogen supplies in the muscles
• breakdown of the liver's glycogen into glucose, which gets to working muscle through the bloodstream
• absorption of glucose from food in the intestine, which gets to working muscle through the bloodstream

You can reduce oxygen use by simply not bobbing up and down as much, not overstriding (and having to recoupe the momentum lost as a result) or even not move your arms as much...all sorts of stuff Do any or all of those things and you can run at the same pace with less oxygen consumption. No secret there. These steps will improve running economy and don't involve any changes at all to running muscles.

You can't make any given muscle tissue produce more power without consuming more oxygen. It's as simple as that. Running economy doesn't contradict any of this because running economy is all about eliminating wasted energy, not producing more energy from given muscle tissue on less oxygen...this just doesn't happen.

Get rid of sources of wasted energy. Then maximize the use of slow-twitchers over fast-twitchers because they're more efficient users of oxygen beyond that initial 2 minutes of running. After that, to get faster means more oxygen, so build that mitochondria and build those capillary beds, increase the stroke volume and do all those things to get more and use more oxygen.

Do you remember that Chinese woman who runs with very awkward looking arm swing (or not-swing)? I think Sun something was her name. She is of course one of half a dozen women to have broken 2:20 barrier in the marathon. Apparently she didn't get picked to run Beijing by Chinese Federation (she's done with her ban). I wonder if her un-orthodox style of minimum arm swing has anythnig to do with her running economy... She runs very well--didn't she even medal in the WC in 10000 some years ago? She does swing her arms, mind you, when she picks up speed. It looks almost like she's disciplined to minimize her arm swing during the other non-critical part of the race... I don't know. I just thought about it. Lydiard always liked low arm swing. Peter Snell had low arm swing. I ran 1:40 yesterday with the lady I'm coaching (and we pushed quite hard and she nearly killed me!)--she has a low arm swing. I know I carry my arms a bit higher (normal height?) and I feel comfortable like that. But sometimes my shoulders do get tired. I always tell her that her style reminds me of Snell.

(formerly martinjames)

I have a theory that it takes more energy to keep your arms from swinging than it does to let them swing.

Hey Nobby, there was a section in the latest Runners World where one of the question/answer segments asked 'who do you consider the best coach'. In the response (not sure who the responder was), the author called Lydiard 'the father of long slow distance'.