Van Aaken and Harald Norporth training insights and

Mr. Cabral, I became interested in the training methods of Dr. van Aaken in the late 70s by way of studying the training methods of runners who used them, such as Meinrad Nagele. It is good to see a renewed interest in them.

I speak German, so I also wanted to add that you did a very fine job with the translation.

Thank you for sharing this. I'm looking forward to your second post.

late bloomer

Thus keep on posting and with your contribution.

One of my major emotional afinities with van aaken personality is that - in the old european style tradition - he consecrate his own life to a "mission" that´s difuse his training ideas and what are their belives.

Actually with over-prefessionalism, ther´s no more that charismatic coaches style - if they exist that´s an exception.

I think that new generations will benefit a lot to study van Aaken ideas and van Aaken personality. In some aspects he is an utopic coach, but not so much. When in 1970 he said that 5000m and 10000m and marathon records in 2010 they will be close 12:30, 26:30, and 2h 04m no one did believe him in his futurism. But the performances and WR are here to prove that he was right.

Also when he said that the women relate to men have their best performances in long distances events, he was right.

Let me ask one question. What´s in you opinion are the strong and weak points van Aaken´s method ?

What I liked about the van Aaken method was the simplicity.

Also, Dr. van Aaken emphasized, in addition to endurance training, a special diet. He recommended only natural foods. He also recommended occasional days of fasting. Meinrad Nagele went on a 36-hour fast once a week for four consecutive weeks. The last one was on the day before a marathon-distance run, as recommended by Dr. van Aaken.

Mr.Cabral,

Thank you for sharing your knowledge and contributing to this forum. My question is: what can an aging 5k - 10k runner, with limited time for training, take from the ideas of van Aaken to produce faster races. As an aside American runners of my vintage remember the differences between Prefontaine and Norpoth, in body type, training and disposition. Pre was not fond of Norpoth.

late bloomer

i think that van Aaken method is a “modern one method” in many aspects but mainly because:

1/in a period that people ws doing "interval training" and anaerobic runs mainly - he acts as a counter culture at that past ages, and he did an emphasis in that AEROBIC OUTPUT that´s the key to all training distance, that means easy "stedy state" aerobic runs, and that volume more than the intensity that´s the major improving factor.

Only a little anaerobic stuff in te total averege that´s enough.

2/van Aaken he did realise that so many times the runners train faster/intenser more than they should.

3/Renato Canova the “master” did made that statements:

A/…The different speed are connected between, but for every speed you can find the direct support only from the speed immediately slower (for endurance), and from the speed immediately faster (for speed)

B/…So, every speed is a different mean of training. The difference between the old and the modern system, is that in the old we considered only 3 big groups of speed : AEROBIC very slow, developing volume at low intensity, LONG RUN at AnT level, developing endurance at medium intensity, and SPEED ENDURANCE, running short intervals very fast.

Now, we can see that the connection among so far speeds are very little, and is difficult to improve : there is no connection between running 400m in 55.0 and the marathon, but there is also no connection between running 2 hours at 4:00 or 3:45 per km, and 1500m in 3:35...

Thus, following that logic that “modern training” uses for specifics paces closer/relate to race pace – in my opinion van Aaken may be consider the first of “modern training”, since he prescribes that specifics workouts rarely that may be done in paces much faster than race pace. Of course that he used sprint strides, of course that from times to times he used faster than race pace or speed endurance power as a training format. But what is intersting is that he disagrees with most of the coaches of that time that did prescribe workouts tremendously faster than race pace.

One detail I want to make it clear I that van Aaken method usues specific workouts relate to runner talent and runner targets, because that are so many people that wrongly thinks that van Aaken method is just LSD – long slow distance. That´s wrong, that´s a van Aaken wrong myth – as you will see later in the Harald Norport Schedule van Aaken uses specific workouts often.

Now, late bloomer regarding your post comments, I agree with you. Since max.VO2 is relate to weight van Aaken considers the weight relate to tall (weight indice) a very important item from the training and also from the shape condition. DIET. One of their sentences that´s “train daily, train long and don´t eat like a pig” In certain cases he prescribes faster that´s right. I will come to this issue, because s you know, he says that´s not by running and training and the exerecise that we get the weight down, but mainly by eating less food. One other interesting issue that´s SLEEP. Contrary to what´s usual opinion he says that people sleeps more than they should ! and that 5 hopurs sleep a day that´s enough in most of the cases even with people that trains lots of volume. That´s very controversial, but I would love your opinion to all that original van Aaken ideas.

Gelindo (Bordin !)

If van Aaken that´s an intersting method is that contrary to many other - he fits perfect into young kids to older runners. Why ? Because van Aaken did build an training method profile that´s no elitist at all. All people are able to train along that principles. One another van Aaken

sentence that´s "everybody is trainable". Once he did an experience with a man that did a serious heart disease "cardi-vascular disease". Coming to recover from that disease he start to do aerobic very moderate exercises. Then he start training very softly with medical surveillance. In some months he did a few long runs. In 1 years of training he did a complete marathon in more than 4 hours just to prove that he is almost cured.

I think that if ther´s a training method that shall be apllied to master runners and non elit runners that´s that van Aaken training method.

There was more fast running in van Aaken's system than many understood, partly, I believe because van Aaken presented what he did in a way that emphasized slow running. For example, he described a workout of Norpoth's that consisted of 10x400 in 2 minutes each, followed by 2km at a minute slower than his best time, followed by another 10x400, another 2km until Norptoth had run 15-17kms.

It sounds slow, but the 400s were really 350s done with a 50 meter walk. That means the 350s were done in one minute. That works out to 68.5 per 400. And Norpoth best 2,000 was around 5 minutes, so he'd do about 6:00 in training. So Norpoth was doing roughly 10 miles in that sessions and more than 90% of the running was between 4:34 and 4:50 per mile, not "fast" for a runner of Norpoth's abilities, but very good paced running for a reasonably long distance.

Manfred Steffney was one of van Aaken's runners and wrote a book on marathon preparation using van Aaken's principles and the training is not all slow jogging. There is a respectable amount of faster running, but always with an emphasis on controlling the tempo on the faster runs, keeping the effort below all-out, and always surrounded by plenty of easy distance runs.

Antonio Cabral wrote:

Since max.VO2 is relate to weight van Aaken considers the weight relate to tall (weight indice) a very important item from the training and also from the shape condition. DIET. One of their sentences that´s “train daily, train long and don´t eat like a pig” In certain cases he prescribes faster that´s right.

Yes, Van Aaken recommends losing as much weight as is possible. He feels that fasting is important because it makes the metabolism more efficient. Fasting helps to prevent waste products from accumulating in the cells and tissues. That more efficient metabolism, combined with low weight, makes a runner more efficient. It was at first the diet part that got me interested in van Aaken's methods.

Mr. Cabral, all of what you say is interesting. There is still so much that I'm trying to learn (thus my name "late bloomer"), so I would be pleased to mostly listen to you since you know far more than I do. Wherever I can comment, I will.

Thank you for your contributions.

HRE

Thanks for your insight. Yes, you are right !

Manfred Steffny with Harald Norport are the 2 great disciples of van Aaken. Unhappily Harald Norport did a tragic destiny. He die in a crash car accident (like Prefontaine that he used to compete, but manfred Steffny is a master runner now. he is an olymoic runner trained directly for van Aaken at that time. Actually he is Spiridon magazine director and editor in the german version.

http://www.laufmagazin-spiridon.de/

Manfred Steffnny (born in 14.08.1941 in Trier)

PBs

800 m 1:56,1 (1965), 1 000 m 2:28,7 (1963), 1 500 m 3:52,0 (1964), 3 000 m 8:18,0 (1967), 5 000 m 14:03,8 (1972), 10 000 m 29:06,8 (1972), Marathon 2:16:45 (1972)

17th place in 1968 Mexico Olympic marathon

31th place in 1972 Munich Olympic marathon

Spiridon - that´s for what who don+t know that´s the family name of first greec marathon winner in the first olympics - Louis Spiridon - and in Europe they use that name to publish magazines that promotes distance running - equivalent to american Runner´s World. the first Spridon it comes in Switzerland in the late 60s from a great runner passionate and a professional translator - Noel Tamini. That´s in french language. Lots of articles and interviews with van Aaken. That swiss Spiridon it ends in 76. A portuguese version of that Spridon magazine it stills exists in Portugal in portuguese language.

late bloomer

yes, you are right. In long distances we need to be able to use fats from fuel as an energy source. In the marathon and extra long events this is very important as you know.

van Aaken uses a formula that i´m able to write that just in metric and kilos, not in american mesures.

the whoe idea is that you need to take down 20% of your weight relate to tall in centimeters or decimal metric part.

Think that a 1.70 meters tall average man have 70kilos, thus a 1/1 or 100% relate the decimal part (.70 consider as an integral figure) to the weight in kilos.

If you have the same 1.70 tall but an weight that´s .70 less 5%= 70-3,5=66.5 kilos that will be intersting.

If you have the same 1.70 tall but an weight that´s .70 less 10%= 70-7=63 kilos that will be more intersting you seems to be in the profile of a distance runner.

If you have the same 1.70 tall but an weight that´s .70 less 15%= 70-10.5=59.5 kilos that will be a top runner body build.

If you have the same 1.70 tall but an weight that´s .70 less 20%= 70-14=56 kilos that will be a top class runner figure !

I bought his book for a great price, I loved it. One needs to run much distance many times beyond his or her distance. Van Aaken also predicted times very well. Jackie Hanson, first female (American as well) to run a sub 2:40 marathon. He had his runners run hard but never all out! That is important. All out running depletes our energy stores. It is ok in a race, but nothing else! His diet regimen is questionable, but needs to be looked at. The fasting part is mainly due to kick in the fat burning process'.

Nick

What is described there is what tinman, JTupper, JK & others have termed AT & LT.

True. It was a fairly uncommon idea in US distance running in van Aaken's day. The current method which I think most closely paralells van Aaken is Hadd's.

So...66.9 inches tall or about 5'7" & 123lb, sounds about right. A weight to hieght ratio in lb/inches of 1.84lb:inch.

Yes Hadd! I forgot him, oops. Also could add Phil Maffetone to the Van Aaken like-thoughts folder.

If i dedicate that thread to Timan that´s not by chance.

I really think that Tinman for his own ideas he can become the future "american van Aaken" - not just because some training similarities, but also because i see Tinman ideas as revolutionary in the american running conservative stablishement context, and i also consider Tinman a training "counter-culture coach" which is very positive - despite my little disagreement with some Tinman ideas, but i also dont consider van Aaken perfect. No one is perfect.

HRE wrote:

There was more fast running in van Aaken's system than many understood, partly, I believe because van Aaken presented what he did in a way that emphasized slow running. For example, he described a workout of Norpoth's that consisted of 10x400 in 2 minutes each, followed by 2km at a minute slower than his best time, followed by another 10x400, another 2km until Norptoth had run 15-17kms.

It sounds slow, but the 400s were really 350s done with a 50 meter walk. That means the 350s were done in one minute.

No, it doesn't. I've done 20km runs on the track going 350 run/50 walk as Van Aaken suggests. It takes me 25-30 seconds to walk the 50m interval regardless of how fast the 350 goes. Going 2 minutes per 400 means you run the 350 in 90-95 seconds, which translates to around 1:45 for 400m (7 min/mile, 3:45/km pace). Van Aaken wasn't running 69 pace for 350 and then taking a minute to walk 50m. Try walking 50m in a minute sometime, it's like the speed you move standing in a slowly-moving line.

I've found a straight 350/50 run (that is, no breaks to run fast 2km repeats sprinkled in) to be a good indicator recovery run. If I'm truly tired, I stay stuck at the same pace for the 350s, but if I'm feeling at all recovered from prior efforts, the 350s start to get faster as the run progresses w/o even trying. I did 13 miles on the track once where I was running the 350s in just over 90 seconds at the start, feeling stiff and heavy-legged. By the end the 350s were taking just over a minute and felt smooth and relaxed. The last two miles, with a walking break every lap, went in 12:20, and it felt much easier than 6:10 pace at the end of a 13 miler would normally feel. The 350/50 recovery run offers its own feedback in a way that ordinary runs often don't. If you're struggling to get through workouts and feeling flat or stale in general, I recommend it highly. You'll get strange looks from the other people using the track but who cares.

Some of what Van Aaken says in his book, about eating 1,000 calories a day and sleeping only 5 hours while running 4-5 times, is pure sci-fi. Despite this, the core message of more easy aerobic running improving your running is a good one. He offers an antidote to the endless miles of hammering that fry so many people. It's easy to see why Pre, patron saint of all hammerheads, didn't like Norpoth--they viewed training from completely different perspectives. Which one got an Olympic medal?

Antonio Cabral wrote:

If i dedicate that thread to Timan that´s not by chance.

I really think that Tinman for his own ideas he can become the future "american van Aaken" - not just because some training similarities, but also because i see Tinman ideas as revolutionary in the american running conservative stablishement context, and i also consider Tinman a training "counter-culture coach" which is very positive - despite my little disagreement with some Tinman ideas, but i also dont consider van Aaken perfect. No one is perfect.

Renato -

Thanks for this great thread. What would you change in his system in regards to training (besides the sleeping and eating)?

Van Aaken ideas in 1975

Q:You told us that your motto is “run long, run daily, drink little and don´t eat like a pig” ?

VAN AAKEN: my whole teaching in one sentence is “run long, run daily, drink little and don´t eat like a pig”.

Q:Everything we have heard – and i´m sure a lot of what we´ve herd has been distort – has been that a runner should be almost emaciated. After what you´ve said about fat as fuel, i´m wondering if Harald Norporth (6´2”. 130-pound former would record holder coached by van Aaken) is indeed your ideal runner ?

VAN AAKEN: The most important thing is the weight. In the future, it´ll be the person who has a large heart and the least weight who does best. It doesn´t matter so much how much is muscle and how much is fat. It´s mainly a matter of weight. Everybody is trainable. Everybody can bring their weight down, and everybody can train their heart. So, everybody can bring themselves closer to this ideal.

Q:You have said, look at the “ideal weight charts and get 20% bellow this. Steve Prefontaine for one criticizes this, saying he has big bones and could never get down to that. He´d be so weak he couldn´t run.

VAN AAKEN: If you take 2 men of exactly the same weight, one a shot putter, and the other Harald Norport and you weight the bones, the difference in weight of the bones is only going to be 900grams (about 2 pounds). The normal weight is a function of the muscles, tissues, tye water and the connective tissues.

Q:Would you advise a big-boned, heavily-muscled runner like Prefontaine to lose weight ?

VAN AAKEN: He probably couldn´t bring his weight down further, any more than Norport could bring his weight down further. Every person has his own weight whwre he has gotten rid of practically all of the fat. He can´t down lower than that. I´m quite sure that Norport has a larger heart than Prefontaine and he (Norport) has better leverage in his rms and legs because they are longer. Prefontaine is smaller. He runs 13:20 for 5000m which Norport also has run. But Norport has the potencial to run under 13:00. Filbert Bay of Tanzania (1500m WR holder) incidently is exactly the same height as Norport and Lasse Viren also has the same build…

Q:Keeping light, then is one of your principles. Another is to run slowly. How slowly ?

VAN AAKEN: With Harald Norport I had to TEACH HIM TO RUN SLOWLY ! By slowly I mean 400mets in 2 minutes (about 8 minutes mile pace) but just as a start !

He´do 10X400m=4000m total as a training start. Of course, that training could last for 10 hours !

Q:If you are going to have that low quality, then who much quality would a runner do? Surely Norporth did more than 10X400m at that pace ?

VAN AAKEN: After he run the 10 rounds of 400mts, he runs 2000mts – one minute slower than his PB. His PB is 5:00, so he would run in 6 minutes. Then he did 10 more more slow 400m run, then another 2000m and on until he ran 17-18kilos total. Even the little hildren in Waldniel run that way, 10 kilos a day. After one little girl of six had done this for an half a year she ran 5000m in 22 minutes. Many of the older runners in germany have also started this way.

Q: What´s important here to note here is that Norport run 2000m in 6 minutes. Now, that´s not bad. That´s quality running for a workout. Apparently we-ve had the misconception that you never use fast training?

VA: We hava a misconception of interval training. The founder of intervals was Hannes Kolehmainen – 10000 and marathon finland Olympic champ) he said: “Why should I run 10000m in one stetch? I can run 10000m 10 times. He improved greatly when in addiction to his long runs of 30 kilos, he did one kilo run in 3:20. It´s wrong to call these interval runs, they were “tempo runs” with long pauses in between. He improved his 5000m Pb from 15.120 to 14:36.

Then came Paavo Nurmi. He ran everyday 10-.20kilos in the woods. And then several times a week he would run 6X400m in 60 seconds.

Q: bus isn´t anaerobic training ?

VA: Yes, anaerobic

Q: So, you aren´t against anaerobic training?

VA: I´m only talking about history ! We haven´t come to my own ideas yet. Most people don´t know the roots of this kind of running. Nurmi success was based on the fact that he ran more kilometres total volume than Kolehmainen, and run harder tempo runs. He ruin only a few seconds faster than Hannes in 5000m but almost 2 minutes in 10000m.

Next in the history – relating big performances – come Emil zatopec. He told me that his main training was to run 60X400m each in 1:36 – (6 ½ mile pace). That´s tempo run of a 20min 5000m run. He never stopped. He just interrupt the runs with 200m of very slow jogging. We shouldn´t call these intervals because people will think they were fast. He would run 60X4000m jogging and 60X200m less than jogging. He did it everyday. It amounted to 36-50 kilos that way, slowly. Occasionally he would run 30X300m in 46 sec. With this training Zatopec did ran 10000m more than 1 minute faster than Nurmi.

Then everybody misunderstood what zatop was doing. Everybody went “Kaput” ! For instance, here in germany, they said “ok, we are going to run 200m very fast with very short pauses. Performances went down. This kind of interval training went like a plague all over the world. Performances went down. People can´t hold that.

Q: When did you realise that something went wrong with interval training ?

VA: In 1947 I wrote that in order to run 1:40 for the 800m a runner must be able toi run 400m in 46 seconds but also must train like a marathon runner. This would give a synthesis od endurance and speed. In 1955 I said thatbone probably doesn´t have to do any tempo runs at all. What counted with zatopec was the number of volume he runs. One should run a higher number of miles in steady state – let´s say that means a pulse in between 130-150.

Q: But when Norport did 2000m in 6 minutes his pulse isn+t going above 150 ?

VA: When I talk about those 2000m tempos runs, that´s the second or third level of training. Most important is the ground of base training where for months and even years you do long training so as to build up your ability to use oxygen. Anyone can do the basic training – man, woman, child, old person – and it can only do them good.

Q: how much training should one do ?

VA: A minimum of 10 kilos a day even for children.

Q: We´re read that you think that a marathon runner should do the equivalent of the marathon distance each day. Is this figure accurate ?

VA: Forty kilos (26 miles) that´s fine, but there are those like Gaston Roelants of belgium (3000m steeple WR and olimpic winner and European marathon champ, 4 times WCC winner) that have trained 80 kilos (50 miles) in some days. But his legs and muscles couldn´t bear this.

Q: But there are other like Jack Foster who never run more than 70 milea a week and sometimes as little as 35. yet at 42, he can run under 2:15 ?

VA: Yes, and Eva Westphal, a 56 year old german 100kilos runner, never has time to train more than 10 kilos a day !

Q: And so what does all of this mean – that runners may not need as much quantity as you suggest ?

VA: When we see what Jack Foster did at his age, then we say if someone with 25 years old, build like Norport, training like Roelants (without injuries) he would run the marathon in 1:55. We are just in the beginning. In 1936 at the Berlin Olympics they tough that 2:29 would be the limit, Now we have several hundred in the world with 2:20 (the interview was done in 1975)

End of Part One.