well as usual i am let down by a woman and short of looking for a new one right now i'll spend some of my extra free-time doing this ;)
I'm glad as i've found this is the hardest thing to put into words, but it does go further and i for one realise further than i've managed to perceive so far in my life. One way i look at it is to see that we are all only being part of our true full selves. We only express a part of our full nature. For me training is as much attempting to grow into this full nature as developing what we already already have access to at any given time in our lives. This is as much a psychological thing as it is a physical one. Actually any mind/body studies are attempting to move from this dichotomy of mind and body and bring them into a state of oneness, where they seem to be as one. When we maximise ourselves then this is as close to we get to this oneness state. Orgasm is a oneness state where the mind is merged into the body and the body into the mind. Certain training and competition states can do similar to our state of consciousness. Anyway enough of that i think
This is where it gets confusing for me thanks to bloody Lydiard :). I was trained under the standard periodisation method as worked out and defined by the Soviets in the beginning. You can imagine thousands of athletes being coached by thousands of coaches who closely and continuously interacted with thousands of scientists and quite a few philosopher/scientists of which the founder of periodisation was. All this being done with the purpose of beating those 'Damn American's :). So in essence what the Soviets did for the rest of the world was in competition with the Americans. Without such a competition it would not have occurred. The advantage the Soviets had was their governmental state which allowed for a combined focussed effort by it's entire population. The Americans on the other hand had no advantage, instead it was advantaged by retaining more connection to a natural state. The Soviets in my opinion lost this natural state by becoming too scientific. I was lucky my coach was 'natural' enough in his thinking to feel the need to leave this 'rationalised and intellectualised' Soviet mentality for a place which allowed him to be more 'natural'.In his case Australia. It was a close call he says with alternatively going to the US. In the end the decision was not his otherwise he would now be living in the US.
So as his system taught him through their massive human experiment that even periods was the best method, Lydiard literally on his own with a small experimental group discovered another way of approaching it. But now i think about it it was not so different after all.
Soviet periodisation has 4 blocks but can easily be reduced to 2 with each having 2 parts. (half year periodisation as the example)
Preparation: 12 weeks
part A pure aerobic
part B aerobic progressively blended with strength
Competition: 12 weeks
part A strength blended with power
part B power blended with speed
Active Rest 2 weeks
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Lydiardism as i know it so far
Base training 12 weeks pure aerobic blended progressively with strength
Non base training: 12-14 weeks
part a: Hill training 4 weeks aerobic, strength, power mix
part b: Track repetitions 4 weeks part strength, part power,
part c: Sharpening (peaking) 4-6 weeks
So in essence the base training preparation phases are half of the total time period for both the Soviets and Lydiard, the massive human experiment of the Soviets and the small human experiment of Lydiard. Pretty much same same.
as i see it and i don't mean any rudeness here, we can and have to let go of one end of the training spectrum to more fully focus on developing the other. Your argument in reverse would see the need to maintain aerobic conditioning deep into the final phase, right up to the final compeititon of that particular phase.
To transfer this thinking to growing another form of life than humans, ie plants this would see the same conditions being necessary as a plant is a seedling compared to that same plant flowering and fruiting at the end of its yearly cycle (if it was an annual). The conditions (like the training conditions) differ greatly from one end to the other. The amount of sunshine is the main one i guess and the others like soil nutrients add or subtract to this. A serious grower will provide extra of certain nutrients to enhance the flowering/fruiting phase if he wishes to gain the best possible result from his plant. since in plants (as the other form of life to animals) requires these differences so i see do humans also.
For me to let go of the need to keep in touch with my own speed and power requires overcoming a certain fear and it si only fear that must be let go of to allow us to focus on development more fully, and not to diminish this development by spending time and energy on other factors which are not yet relevant. We have a finite amount of the time and energy.
very nice adaption. Could i suggest that in the beginning 8 weeks forget the hill session and simply run up it a number of times during your longer running. Add more of it progressively throughout the 8 weeks until you are running up it every 3 minutes or so. It will also be necessary to work the downhill section so as to retain this correctly elevated HR. I believe the main goal of aerobic development is to continue the steady state running (and steady correct HR level) and the reason sort of goes like this:
To develop any system we need to pressurise it. If we don't add pressure it won't develop. For the aerobic bubble to be expanded it has to be pressurised just like a balloon. Similarly to a balloon (which obeys the natural laws of the universe that we are also subject to) we can observe that if there is not enough pressure it will stop expanding before it's ideal size is reached. As an athlete it is on our interest to reach this optimal size. The length of time required to expand the balloon to this optimal size is also a necessary quality to observe.
Also the balloon can be expanded at different rates and it is observable that too much pressure will have two potential effects. As the balloon starts to expand it will only be able to do so at a certain rate and any more pressure will not bring any faster expansion. So there is another important rule for training, there is an optimal rate of expansion. Now consider a very fragile balloon, one that has been blown up many times and has suffered a weakening of its structure. The strong balloon and the new balloon can deal with a rapid expansion. The weak and old not so much. Just the same the young and strong athlete can withstand a rapid expansion without immediate negative effect, but in doing so the balloon is stretched more than it can handle and so begins to weaken. rapid expansion many times and it may more easily pop somewhere before full expansion has occurred.The pop being the netaphor for an injury.
So this means that the slower we pressurise the balloon each and every time we blow it up, the more chances we have to blow it up and the larger the balloon that can be blown up. If we relate this to the athlete then aerobic pressure needs to be applied slowly and steadily.
What all of this means to me is that when Lydiard says to create pressure in the system he means what the balloon outlines.
And the most important part of this for me right now (and the most recent in understanding) relates to the constantly increasing capilliarisation and the glycogen depletion aspects of long running. If the pressure is too great then it will be used to pressurise say the lungs or the heart or one part of the body more than another. If the pressure is applied slowly then it will fill up all the little corners, the nooks and crannies, the unused capillary beds. It will also enable us to deplete our glycogen stores before we have to stop because another part of the system has been over-pressured already.
damn a little trouble is always fun :) - can you tell me which forum?