Antonio Cabral Training System

He is not that good.

He loves the sport and has learned a lot about it but he doesn't have any relevant results as a coach.

wolde wrote:

Few years ago, I read Antonio Cabral´s articles and in my opinion, he was one of the best coach here. He know everything about training history and methology, and more importantly, he trains runners of all levels.

Does he write here nowadays?

I would like to hear his opinion about how to structure the training to improve 32:30 in 10k.

Thanks and have a great week.

Avoid like the plague.

None of his claims of being a former elite athlete and then coach of Portuguese elites are verifiable. That should be a huge red flag for you.

There are much better options out there for you to try (pretty much any option tbh).

"Don't do long run! Lydiard is the worst! Run intervals!" Something like that

From what I've read he seems to be spot on on certain issuess, but than way off on other issues. Like he said something about how Ron Clarke wasn't good or something. And other issues like that. Although I do recommend reading two types of runners and summer of Antonio.

not good wrote:

None of his claims of being a former elite athlete and then coach of Portuguese elites are verifiable.

Still his contributions to many threads were interesting.

I've found his "Summer of Antonio" plan streamlined and pretty good:

He is much better than most people posting here, because he knows what he is saying and he has a lot of experience in running.

Nobody is explaining training concepts like him.

Do you have any advice for me, better than Antonio Cabral´s? I don´t think so.

He was one of the best coaches here.

Have a great day!

wolde wrote:

He is much better than most people posting here, because he knows what he is saying and he has a lot of experience in running.

Nobody is explaining training concepts like him.

Do you have any advice for me, better than Antonio Cabral´s? I don´t think so.

He was one of the best coaches here.

Have a great day!

With all due respect, you have no idea what you are talking about, please don't lose your time and energy. Would you take marathon training advice from say, Kip Litton? You are talking about the same sort of person when it comes to running claims. Research yourself on the internet to see that his supposed credentials are all false.

If you want to look for advice/guidance/principles that will get you much closer to your potential as a distance runner, look up Kellogg, Tinman, some of Canova's writings (adapt the principles to your level as Canova deals with elites and prescribes huge sessions), Lydiard, Jack Daniels (the poster Smoove provides some interpretations of Daniels in some threads), some of Malmo's posts just to give you a few starting points. All provide much more sound advice on training and all have a much better understanding of what is required to come close to your potential. This is because they base their understanding on their verifiable experience as coaches and/or athletes. They didn't just suddenly appear on the internet claiming to be elite coaches based on nothing verifiable whatsoever.

Good luck with your running.

I'm betting that you're actually responding to Antonio who was always King of the Alternate Identity.

I have read everything about Tinman, John Kellogg, Canova....all of them have good training ideas but on the otherh hand....they lack some training knowledge, as the importance of recovery between intervals.

I know you love Tinman, Kellogg....because they are from America and Cabral is from Portugal, you know Cabral have incredible knowledge about intervals, repetitions, rest between reps....

Tinman prescribes the same for slow twitch or fast twitch runners, 200m jog recovery between CV-Threshold for all. Is this the right system? I don't thinks so.

Slow twitch runners need longer recovery and probably not jogging, slow walk is better.

Fast twitch should jog between reps, because they lack that aerobic development.

Cabral knows this all better than Tinman, Kellogg....

Have a nice day.

I met Antonio in Lisbon about 9 or 10 years ago when my family was in Portugal on vacation. He got me an elite entry to the Lisbon half through his local connections (I was a "decent" masters guy hoping for 1:12, didn't crack 1:15 I don't think). Here are the things I can tell you:

- he is a genuine person, with wide ranging interests and deep care for people. He spent a weekend hosting us around Lisbon as his guests (even though we'd never met before), showing us the sights, explaining local culture, food, etc

- he is a very well regarded coach in Lisbon, and trains a wide range of athletes, knows and is known by that whole community. One of his vision-impaired athletes ran 1:11 that day if I recall

- he is passionate about distance running, and extremely knowledgeable about the history of the sport, and the range of training methods employed by successful athletes

- he has good taste in music (we shared a love for Mark Knopfler for example)

I'm not sure people should judge anybody from their encounters on a message board, particularly when the other person is not a native English speaker. I dismiss out of hand the nonsense critical comments in this thread as coming from disgruntled anonymous people with an axe to grind. Perhaps they were shown up by Antonio in some long ago discussion

That´s fantastic! (banned Pete)

Thank´s for sharing your experience. I´m from Europe and I feel these people who critique Antonio, in reality, they admire him because they know how incredible is Antonio´s knowledge.

His long posts in Letsrun confirm that. There are tons of articles discussing training ideas and Antonio knows everything in that aspect.

He treats every athlete individually and doesn´t give general training schedules, only different advices to follow, taking into account what type of runner you are. I miss his post/advices here in Letsrun.

Some months ago I tryed to email him, but I couldn´t contact....Do you know some way to do that?

Thanks!!! I hope Antonio is fine and continues training all level portuguese runners .

Cheers

wolde wrote:

His long posts in Letsrun confirm that.

Hilarious. Just because someone writes a lot about something does not mean that they understand what they are writing about. Nor does it mean that what they are proposing will work. Very often people who talk/write a lot don't understand what they are going on about.

Anyway as you are such a fan maybe you can tell us when and in what race he broke the Portuguese National record for 1500m:

Quote from the Antonio Cabral's entry into the guest page of Bob Hodge's (American marathon running legend) website:

"My running story is also a road running devoted story, but with more success than you in the tracks – I did 3:39,8 in 1975 (Portuguese rec. at that time")

It does not appear in any Portuguese Track and Field statistics page. I wonder why?

I can name 100s of coaches who have better results than Jack Daniels. You should also remeber that when he coaches he is far away from what he prescribes in "Daniels running fomula". He had Jerry Lawson run up to 200 mpw.

Antonio will individualize training better than Jack Daniels, I´m 100% sure.

He knows everything about slow twitch runners and fast twitch runners and how each one responds to training. Maybe you don´t understand that but it doesn´t matter, good coaches should it.

He and John Hadd explained in a perfect way how to train each runner. I think training our strengths is more important than training our weaknesses but we should train the weaknesses each week.

Read and learn about training history and methods, you will see that Antonio knows more than you think.

Have a nice week!

wolde wrote:

Antonio will individualize training better than Jack Daniels, I´m 100% sure.

He knows everything about slow twitch runners and fast twitch runners and how each one responds to training. Maybe you don´t understand that but it doesn´t matter, good coaches should it.

He and John Hadd explained in a perfect way how to train each runner. I think training our strengths is more important than training our weaknesses but we should train the weaknesses each week.

Read and learn about training history and methods, you will see that Antonio knows more than you think.

Have a nice week!

Good words I think out from the threads I have read with Antonio Cabral`s comments. The thing here on LRC is that the American (U.S.A) coaches of course are favored. But most of them are only half as good as many Americans want to persevere.

wolde wrote:

Antonio will individualize training better than Jack Daniels, I´m 100% sure.

He knows everything about slow twitch runners and fast twitch runners and how each one responds to training. Maybe you don´t understand that but it doesn´t matter, good coaches should it.

He and John Hadd explained in a perfect way how to train each runner. I think training our strengths is more important than training our weaknesses but we should train the weaknesses each week.

Read and learn about training history and methods, you will see that Antonio knows more than you think.

Have a nice week!

Cabral is a turd. Met him at a conference years ago. Arrogant turd who lies about his times and the times of his athletes.

But he knows much more than you. It seems that you don´t like training history, training theory, periodization, how to individualize training for each runner...because he explained ALL in the past.

I don´t read such a good posts in Letsrun nowadays. Everything is explained without good reasons.

When you post something interesting, we would like to read.

wolde wrote:

I have read everything about Tinman, John Kellogg, Canova....all of them have good training ideas but on the otherh hand....they lack some training knowledge, as the importance of recovery between intervals.

I know you love Tinman, Kellogg....because they are from America and Cabral is from Portugal, you know Cabral have incredible knowledge about intervals, repetitions, rest between reps....

Tinman prescribes the same for slow twitch or fast twitch runners, 200m jog recovery between CV-Threshold for all. Is this the right system? I don't thinks so.

Slow twitch runners need longer recovery and probably not jogging, slow walk is better.

Fast twitch should jog between reps, because they lack that aerobic development.

Cabral knows this all better than Tinman, Kellogg....

Have a nice day.

Sorry but there is a lot of things that you got wrong.

Tinmans CV workouts are EASY - they are not a super challenging workout, and not supposed to be. It's short repeats at 10k pace - usually around 1k. This is neither challenging for a ST or a FT runner! Tinman however says that FT runners should run them a bit slower than ST runners, to make them more aerobic and work on their endurance.

Any type of runner should run recovery periods. The question is how fast - according to Tinman, each runner should run so he is recovered for the next rep. In practice this means that ST can often keep shuffling at 7:30-8:00 pace, whereas a FT runner needs to run more like 9:00 pace to recover enough.

Also ST runners could handle alternation workouts very well (like 5x(800 5k pace, 800 steady pace/MP)), whereas FT runners have troubles with that. However, Magness also said that despite this weakness it might still be good for FT runners to do some of these workouts, to work on their weakness.

Apart from that, I fully agree with you - fiber characteristics are extremely important and neglected by 98%+ of trainers. Magness is the only one that really gets it and knows how to individualize (although he is not very successful as coach himself, Houston didn't even make D1 cross country nationals last year if I remember).

wolde wrote:

But he knows much more than you. It seems that you don´t like training history, training theory, periodization, how to individualize training for each runner...because he explained ALL in the past.

I don´t read such a good posts in Letsrun nowadays. Everything is explained without good reasons.

When you post something interesting, we would like to read.

Hi Antonio