Last newsletter's Ranking Spotlight fell on Chris Brett of Loughborough University, and under the spotlight's vicious glare he cracked and revealed one of his favourite workouts, known as the Loughborough Death Sesh. For those of you coming in late this was described as basically consisting of holding your desired 2,000 metre split for as long as you can until you miss it for three strokes in a row. You then fall off and rest for 5 minutes and then repeat. You are supposed to continue until you can't even get down to the desired split.One of our readers Chris Harrison asked: While it just sounds ludicrous, is there any physiological reason for this being an effective workout? It's not repeating to failure in the strictest sense because you're stopping while in control. It's not a traditional endurance piece because you're going at a level that must be way over your AT [Anaerobic Threshold].Why should this be more effective, say, than a traditional 5-on-5-off for 10 reps? Is it the conditioning of the body to work at the desired level? If so, wouldn't aiming to hold the split at target minus 5 seconds make more sense? Terry O'Neill: Along with the physical benefits from training there are also psychological benefits to be gained. Variations in the programme that are either fun or really challenging will help keep the athlete focused and are therefore beneficial even if from a strictly physiological aspect they are dubious. The training session you mention would fall into this category and also I can see team building benefits when used for groups.I agree that you would be training above AT and in the transport range. During a 2,000 metres row there is lactate accumulation and some recent papers have identified that training at an intensity that causes lactate to build up also develops enzymes that allow the lactate to be reprocessed quicker. In sports where lactate accumulation is part and parcel then this form of training would have obvious benefits.There is another school of thought which believes that the building up of lactate should be avoided as much as possible during training. This was widely believed in the old East Germany and in countries that now have ex DDR coaches, the training regimes tend to be based on lots of low intensity work (GB and France for example). The theory here is that the long low intensity training will increase muscle capilliarisation leading to increased crossover time for oxygen to pass from the blood stream to the mitochondria and hence reduce lactate build up.However you increase your muscular efficiency you will not be able to avoid lactate accumulation in a 2,000 metre row so I am firmly in the higher intensity training camp. It has also been established that capilliarisation takes place at a higher rate when training at 85% of maximum and so for people with limited time, shorter high intensity programmes will offer the best results.I would not want to do the Loughborough Death Sesh too often but I would leave it in the programme.