Chris,

Mike certainly has created some controversy with his recent videos.

Regarding his 'anti-aerobic, pro-interval' video ...

"Intervals develop aerobic capacity better than aerobic training"

Interesting statement. What type of intervals? This isn't the real problem with that statement. The problem is that he claims it as an absolute. This may work for selling products though. The situation the athlete is in will dictate the methods utilized.

The word INTERVALS give NO notion of the specific energy system(s) utilized/trained.

"Fastest way to improve VO2Max is to do intervals"

Again, what type of intervals are we speaking of? Sure, there are certain intervals that help improve VO2Max (not much though), but there must be defining heart rates, volumes, durations, etc. Performing anaerobic-alactic intervals will not improve VO2Max.

"VO2Max is the standard measurement of aerobic fitness"

VO2Max gives no indication how ‘fit’ your aerobic capacity is.

"Want to look better? Do Interval training"

Come on. More absolutes. Lets dismiss millions of people that have NOT done intervals to look better.

”No one should do aerobic training

Really? I think the obvious problem with this video is there is no defining aerobic training. This shouldn’t be necessary if he would just use the correct terminology for his statements.

I imagine he is stating intervals are variations of anaerobic-lactic intervals, and I imagine he is stating aerobics is steady state long duration pure aerobic or aerobic-ana training

What about the positive influence pure aerobic training has on eccentric cardiac hypertrophy?

”No reason for an aerobic base”

Really? The most efficient energy producing system in your body and you don’t want anything from it? There is ZERO reason to believe you must do long duration steady state aerobic or aerobic-anaerobic work to develop this system. Again, this falls back to problem with the lack of defining what he is talking about.

This statement is another bad thing for this field. Especially for young upcoming coaches that are trying to assimilate all possible informational pieces together to make some sense of it all. Unfortunately, most people will gravitate towards people that make absolute statements/claims. It’s a hell of a lot easier to understand, “Do this, don’t do that”.

Re: his Charlie Francis comments.

Perhaps you he should reread Charlie’s work again. These guys are doing a great deal of extensive tempo work, which is primarily aerobic-ana based (depending on HR with respect to their own AT of course).
The biggest problems are the lack of defining context, and the lack of properly used terminology.

Perhaps Mike goes into further explanations that may shed some more light on these topics. This video seemed to be a short sample to his new DVD series, and is apart of his marketing pages. This would insinuate to me that the samples provided mirrored the rest of the product. But, with that said, I will not give an opinion whether or not you should order this.

,
Landon Evans