Originally Posted by
TerrenceM
The point is that efficiency is not the goal.. the goal is performance. Sometimes you need actually need to be LESS efficient to improve performance.. but you can just throw an couple extra snickers bars and a coke on the fire 😀
What is likely a WAY more fruitful endeavour is to make improvements in “economy” rather than “efficiency” which at this stage [efficiency changes ] will likely be tiny..
Well yeah, for sure, the goal (and the measure that training is working) is always performance. But when one has maxed out the big gains (VO₂max, LT)--and if you're in the masters category, those are going down--you have to start looking around for the tweaks that produce gains and/or slow the performance decline. And one of those tweaks is definitely efficiency.
Keep in mind what Steven Seiler writes:
"Since, ultimately, we have a limited "engine" size, improvements in efficiency are critical to additional improvements in performance time...But, if you have been training in sport for a year or more, you must construct your training program with more and more care to continue making progress in those adaptations that have "room to improve" while maintaining the levels of those that have plateaued or are beginning to."
After many years of solid training--and once Father Time starts turning down VO₂max and LF--efficiency is one thing that may still have "room to improve".
Here's Seiler's illustrative graph of adaptations:
