youre assuming training accounts fpr 100% of results with 100% efficacy. not possible but fact is jacob is the most successful athletes there has ever been at his age group
Salazar's double linear periodisation, Canova's special period —> specific period, ... though they use different means, they all focus on training specificity. The training is specific to the event the athlete is competing in. Early season training is designed to provide the figurative 'base' either side of the goal pace (previously the weekly 20min tempo which is now being pushed up to 8-10 mile of tempo reps above 1/2 pace, and short sprints on the track to maintain speed) to allow for the heavily emphasised block of specific training. We all know what these session are, every high school, college all over the country does them: 5x1k at '5k pace' (athletes often pushing up to far faster than their realistic 5k pace), 5x600 at '1500 pace', 3x400 at '800 pace' often huge rest and an accompanying focus on VO2max work – often hands-on-knees, soul-destroying work. This is what most of the top pro groups (such as BTC, main Ethiopian group) do now (but generally a far more nuanced, often more controlled version).
But Jakob has come out and crushed them (runners who are far more elastic, employ better tactics and, frankly, more talented, than him).
Tuesday AM 5x2km at threshold.
Tuesday PM 10x1k at threshold.
Thursday AM 5x2k at threshold.
Thursday PM 20x400 at threshold.
Saturday AM 2 x 10x200 hills.
Count that up. 38 KILOMETRES of threshold work (+4km of hills). All under 3 minutes per kilometre. No specificity at all, in fact, no hard continuous work longer than 6 minutes. No work in the balls-to-the-walls 'VO2 max' 3k-10k pace. And of just this 'base training', Jakob runs 13 flat at sound running. And as for specific training, all Jakob does is 10x200, 10x300, 10x400, etc... at 1500 pace, just more 'relaxed' pace work, allowing him to feel relaxed at pace but not destroy him.
So what does this show? Training is not about specificity, it is about pushing up the limiting factors to running faster: namely decreasing amount of metabolic byproducts present (how to do this? push up threshold), improving ability to tolerate metabolic byproducts, biomechanical comfortability at pace etc..
And how do we achieve this? Tailor our training towards what we are trying to improve, not to practice more and more the race itself. Is the Norwegian model the only way to do this? Certainly not, but nobody has put together 40km of threshold work most weeks a year for 5+ years, controlling the training enough not to overtrain, and keeping a hold of ability to run at pace.
More talented than Jakob? He’s actually the most talented 1500/5000m runner in the world.
I haven't read much about The Norwegian System. Is this system even practical for anyone that is not a high level athlete? I'm always skeptical when reading the workouts and training of world class athletes because those runners would be great (maybe not as great- but still great), even with "conventional" training. So I'm not sure how transferrable the differences in training for top athletes are for the rest of us.
I'm sure it could apply to college runners, but I don't know if you could pour on a lot of tempo/threshold stuff on HS kids and keep them healthy through the end of the season. I'd like to hear what some HS coaches have to say. I could be completely wrong.
Why wouldn’t it work with HSers? Most HS kids are RACING their workouts.
Because I'm not sure if many HS runners are that controlled or aware of pace, or have the maturity to run the prescribed pace.
I love the concept, but we've spent YEARS trying to get HS coaches to cut back on over racing, and cut back on ball busting workouts every day, and now we're going to tell them to do a lot more threshold work? I could see it going right back to "busting @ss every day."
For those that do it right, there should be a big payoff, but I think it'd take a very careful coach and disciplined HS runners.