USA vs Europe - Differences in training views

Ro ned nepa litte grann a wrote:

!

Morsomt navn.

Hvilken trollfabrikk?

Prøver å holde rede på hvem gjør hva.

eurodonkey wrote:

There is a current of optimism and self-belief in Norwegian athletics now. I remember when the Brits felt that way in the 1980s. Be grateful while it lasts!

In Norway this has been so since 1990.

SprintTriathlon wrote:

Ro ned nepa litte grann a wrote:

!

Morsomt navn.

Hvilken trollfabrikk?

Prøver å holde rede på hvem gjør hva.

Trollfabrikk?! Er det virkelig forklaringen du går for når noen sier deg imot? Det kan ikke være at jeg er småirritert over norsk arroganse på ulike internettfora? Nei, det må være en sammensvergelse. Kjøtthue.

Dans le systeme francais wrote:

I train with a French group and none of us do a lot volume, topping out around 70-90 km/week in winter. My coach likes to vary the lengths of the intervals, and we even do longer intervals at times (my coach likes pyramids like 10’ 8’ 6’ 4’ 2’), but the intensity is usually high. I think my teammates and I would do better running more volume and threshold-type workouts while saving the really intense sessions for track racing season. I almost wish I could change training groups, but my coach is super passionate about mid-d and does a lot for stuff for us.

It also seems like Mid-d is really important in France as opposed to the longer stuff ... I've improved over all distances since increasing volume (average of 100km/week) and doing more varied workouts

Ro ned nepa litte grann a wrote:

Trollfabrikk?! Er det virkelig forklaringen du går for når noen sier deg imot? Det kan ikke være at jeg er småirritert over norsk arroganse på ulike internettfora? Nei, det må være en sammensvergelse. Kjøtthue.

Haha. Okei. Norsk nok, men det er så utrolig mye trolling her ( og jeg er ikke overbevist, men heller sånn 90 prosent for at du er et ekte vanlig menneske), men se på statistikken, vi er overlegent best i forhold til folketall, hvilket på engelsk betyr by far the best sporting nation in the world.

Ha ei fin helg!

Åååå.

Æ e så dårlig te å lyg, og hvis æ har gjort det så må æ si fra med det samme.

Æ meinte ikke 90 prosent, æ sa det berre førr at om du va et vanlig menneske så ville æ ikke at du skulle bli sur på mæ, og det kan jo hende at du e det. Men den prosenten meinte æ ikke.

Yeah French system is good for fast twitch peoples and short term improvement, but had you put someone like Jakob on that system, you would never have heard of him. They certainly waste a lot of talents.

And yeah, the other guy is right, Norwegian system doesn't have anything to do with French system, and right now, it's the best system in Europe to develop slow twitch runners.

What about the British system ? Seems like it's been working well recently - 3 guys in the doha 2019 1500m final - can anyone add some info?

I lived in France for 4 years and trained with a club there. First of all, the club system is great there, compared to here in the US, with regards to runners of all levels competing and training at a good level. I agree with what the other posters said about the French system having a high emphasis on interval training, and not long long runs. As a female, I was easily running more mileage that most everyone I knew, when hitting mostly 60-70mpw. I was frequently told by many other runners and coaches that they thought I was doing too much.

Can anyone guess what I would call the most typical French workout??? Trente Trente anyone?

One thing I like about some of the European training systems i.e. how Michel Jazy trained and van Aaken training philosophy was lots of very easy volume while sprinkling in a little bit of speed here and there. Or the Finish and Swedish emphasis(at least back in the day, not sure about now) on fartlek running. From what I understand the Polish are heavily Lydiard influenced. The Germans and Italians had great influence on modern day training techniques especially for elite distance runners. Especially the East Germans took what Lydiard did and studied it from a scientific view, understood why it worked and worked on it from there.

socalrun wrote:

Can anyone guess what I would call the most typical French workout??? Trente Trente anyone?

Bilat 30 / 30

Jeg var kanskje litt vel skarp i tonen. Det er bare det at det allerede er en oppfatning på dette forumet at Ingebrigtsen er cocky og arrogante, da blir da alle nordmenn likeså i amerikanernes øyne. Det er ufattelig mye tull og tøys og deprimerende lesning på det forumet her og det førte nok til den skarpe tonen. Man må på en måte lese det som skrives her med en viss distanse for å ikke bli deppa av tonen på forumet.

I live in Canada now, but I've lived until I was 13 yo in France. Trained in a club from age 9 to 12 yo.

I remember being frustrated because, when it was distance training day, all we were doing were some kind of 30/30 or 200 repeats.

While what I liked the most, and why I went to a track and field club in the first place was to experience what running for 30+ minutes would be like in a club.

The UK is a joke.

The national governing bodies are hopeless, with coaching qualifications that do anything but teach you how to coach.

There’s nothing like the NCAAs.

What training there is is by amateur clubs with NGB qualifications that, as I said, don’t result in coaching. You’ll get a few “led” runs and a random track session a week, maybe 5 x 400m or something. That’s it.

There are a couple of good coached groups with good coaches — Steve Cram and Andy Young. I don’t know what training they prescribe.

UK has very high participation — London Marathon, Great North Run, parkrun. But there is no attempt at achieving anything beyond.

Compare that with British rowing, cycling, and triathlon.

Outside of US and Europe, I'll add in my thoughts coming from Australia (which I think is somewhat similar to the UK??)

Periodisation doesn't seem to be as extreme (See: Wardlaw's Complex Training System, also Mottram was once quoted as something along the lines of "I'm never more than 2 weeks away from a 13 minute 5km")

Workouts are less intense/as long as America, and standard is 3 times per week (usually Tue, Thur, Sat). Long runs are not treated as as much of a workout as what they are in America, and most coaches will have 2 per week - an easier on on Wednesday, and a longer one on Sunday, but pretty relaxed.

On workouts being shorter than America - it's not common to have more than 8km or so of hardwork. Long warm ups, warm downs, and easy doubles are all very common. There is also very little pure speed work. Recoveries are often active and reps rarely shorter than 400.

Relatively high mileage. Most serious middle distance squads would run around 120-140 km per week.

The "staple" sessions in an Australian program are:

- Deek's quarters

- Mona Fartlek

- 8x1km

- 30 minute tempo

In short: Neither speed nor mileage to the extreme. Aerobic running runs, and Vo2 max type sessions

I don't see how science supports this?

socalrun wrote:

I lived in France for 4 years and trained with a club there. First of all, the club system is great there, compared to here in the US, with regards to runners of all levels competing and training at a good level. I agree with what the other posters said about the French system having a high emphasis on interval training, and not long long runs. As a female, I was easily running more mileage that most everyone I knew, when hitting mostly 60-70mpw. I was frequently told by many other runners and coaches that they thought I was doing too much.

Can anyone guess what I would call the most typical French workout??? Trente Trente anyone?

Any variation of this : 30"@100%vma - 30" @ 70% vma, usually totalling around 20 mins total of running.

A lot of French training is directly influenced by the Vitesse Maximal Aérobie (max aerobic speed), and the goal seems to be increase vo2max, which originates from french scientist's Veronique Billat's papers (

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Veronique_Billat

)

The training is based on % of your VMA and the goal is to increase your vo2max, instead of training at race paces and trying to improve race times. Obviously these two approaches are very closely related, but this subtle difference of always attaching training to scientific foundations is very typical in french training,

Iain wrote:

The UK is a joke.

The national governing bodies are hopeless, with coaching qualifications that do anything but teach you how to coach.

There’s nothing like the NCAAs.

What training there is is by amateur clubs with NGB qualifications that, as I said, don’t result in coaching. You’ll get a few “led” runs and a random track session a week, maybe 5 x 400m or something. That’s it.

There are a couple of good coached groups with good coaches — Steve Cram and Andy Young. I don’t know what training they prescribe.

UK has very high participation — London Marathon, Great North Run, parkrun. But there is no attempt at achieving anything beyond.

Compare that with British rowing, cycling, and triathlon.

Something interesting that I've noticed when scrolling through powerof10 (uk athletics rankings) lists is that many top athletes are coached by their fathers - you don't see that as much in the usa as coaching is really done through schools instead of clubs - just thought I'd point that out as we don't see it much here