Does threshold not work for certain types of runners?

Do this and be amazed…

Sun: 2 Hour Steady State Long Run

Mon: 60 minutes easy + 10 x 20 second light strides

Tue: 20 x 1 minute on 1 minute off (Threshold)

Wed: 90 minutes easy

Thu: 60 minutes easy + 10 x 10 Second Hill Sprints

Fri: 10 x 3 minutes 1 minute off (Threshold)

Sat: 60 minutes easy or off

Add 30 minute shakeout runs when you can

Coming back to this and you were right! This video honestly felt like Steve was talking directly to me when he mentioned analyzing your races and seeing if there's a steady progression going up in distance or a point where you fall off. I guess I figured that with age I'd have some level of adaptation and get more aerobic but, as you say, I was going all in on threshold to the point where I was excluding even the basic maintenance stuff that would give me some of that pop (strides, hills, etc.). There was also some good stuff in there about how for more speed oriented guys these workouts are tougher and it's easier to dig a hole you can't get out of than more slow twitch guys.

One thing I do have to give credit to guys like sirpoc and the rest of the NSM guys is that they do a great job of recognizing the type of runner they are and saying "hey, this looks like something that could work for me." I was drawn in by all the talk and the improvement offered on paper and the hopes of finally "unlocking" this aerobic runner trapped within me all these years but now I can see that I was doing that while neglecting my strengths so I totally lost the balance of my training.

Glad you could relate too! Good catch about digging a hole. In hindsight something that springs to mind is how sirpoc always said he found sessions were never more than 6/10 effort wise. For me they were always 7-8 despite being conservative with paces. Just as hard as traditional sessions and harder than short speed sessions. I suspect not only do longer threshold sessions feel harder to faster twitch runners but the recovery cost is also greater for them. My HRV was chronically in a meh state doing it three times per week. Now it's always nice and high going into sessions twice a week with the extra easy day or two doing a more conventional training week.
I really like the NSM logic and principle however, I'd be interested in seeing if doing slightly lower volume of ST but using Igloi style super short LT intervals with a bit of speed/power maintenance would work for FT runners.

I will say one benefit I definitely got from trying it out (besides just scratching the itch of trying something new) was that broken threshold is definitely way better for me than traditional tempo runs. I think moving forward any threshold will be some sort of broken threshold (or cruise intervals as I used to call them) just to be more dialed in recovering and monitoring feeling.

I highlighted your mention of the Igloi aerobic intervals because that was the other Steve Magness video I watched after the recommended one. While it's also something I've never tried, his description of sets of 10x 100 with "turnaround rest" and a lap jog/walk in between sounded like a good way to get in similar work. It was nice to see it contrasted with the Ingebrigtsen 400s because I'd tried that workout and thought I'd done it well but then found it tougher to recover from than the usual minute workouts.

We need someone like Steve Magness to write up a non periodised training programme for speed oriented distance runners. it may be as simple as easy mileage plus a ton of 100m and 200m strides.

One Swedish coach claimed that u have to do at least 100 km per week for the threshold stuff to work magic. Otherwise u are better off doing a more traditional approach.

In my opinion, i trained in the early 2000s. We did most of our runs "all out" n even our "easy" runs were pretty speedy.

If I could go back n change i would have done sessions as for ex 6 x 1 km, 15-30 sec slower (usually ran them around 3 min or 3 min 10 sec). N the easy runs, easy. Around 5 min. Usually they were ran around 4 min. With the occasional even speedier run. Also the long run should have been run at an easy pace most times...

I can't speak to the effectiveness of the NSA as a FT runner as I've fallen off the wagon each time I've tried before giving it a fair chance (that's on me...I just enjoy doing different things and get distracted easily). I would definitely identify as a faster twitch athlete though (very good triple jumper in my school days). Something I have started doing lately for LT sessions is taking the 3x3k session but adapting it to make it more FT friendly: 3k @HM (90s rest), then 2x 3k of (30s @ 5k pace, 45s easy) (90s rest after each 3k block). When comparing it to normal 3x3k sessions, for me the internal load is higher (as in my HR spends more time in the 10bpm window below LT2) but the perceived effort is lower, the counter is that there is a bit less time spent actually running at speed - I suspect internal load is more important though. I do the first 3k as a constant effort as I think there is probably neuromuscular value to the unbroken effort. I also wouldn't do every single session like this, again because I think there is probably muscular value in constant pace/time under tension. It has also felt much better to do this session in warm weather as well as windy weather versus the standard NSA sessions which I'd struggled with as summer began. I'm not quite sure why the perceived effort is much lower for me despite the higher internal load, but it really is. Other tips: might take a bit of time to dial in exact paces - I usually do the first 30s 5k effort slightly harder (or a 45s effort) to get the HR up a bit quicker. With a bit of practice you can get the HR bouncing nicely in the threshold area, in my case from 160-170 (LT2) for the duration of the 3ks. Another session to try is: again 3k HM, then 2x3k of: 90s @ 10k, ~40s easy running. Whether the recovery cost is higher remains to be seen...it likely is...but...all threshold work seems harder for me than for others on the NSA thread anyway and having an extra easy day between would probably be sensible for me regardless. Doing it in this style whilst having a slightly higher recovery cost may be more beneficial in terms of what you actually get out of it as a FT athlete (better FT fibre recruitment/training) and how much you enjoy it.

I wish I had known it was called “threshold” when I was doing it. Our whole runners club could have benefitted from the knowledge that the stuff we were doing on our Thursday runs was high-powered, sophisticated actual Training Method, not just a different, fun thing to do. Would have boosted our Tahoe Relay time by minutes!

A few questions:

Did you run 6 days a week for 30-60min ?

Did you run decent volumen at 10k-hm race pace with short rest on 1/2 of the days ?

Athletes which are cytokine high-responder have to follow different rules than NSM. More time in z1, less time sub-T, include extensive tempoworks.

This is a great thread!

I had the same experience with trying the NSA training for ~6 months last year and finding my race times sliding backwards (15:50 for 5k in June back to two races at ~16:25 in December in much much better conditions). I've read every page on the NSA thread, and still do. I think it’s a fantastic place to start for people looking to do some structured training, and also a great place for experienced runners who have plateaued to try and find something new to unlock. I also think there is a small group of us who find the long sub-threshold sessions disproportionately difficult and hard to recover from. I scaled the paces back by almost 10s/km from what was recommended but still was finding the sessions mentally challenging and hard to repeat week on week.

I moved to a bit of a hybrid method of training after the disappointing 16:25s where I did a steady 20 minutes on a Monday (marathon pace), a NSA-ish subthreshold interval session, but also included one VO2 max kind of session where I did 6-8k volume of hard running (400m-1k reps usually) off more generous recovery. Within 3 months I ran ~15:50 again. I was still fit post-NSA but there was a staleness or a lack of sharpness that I couldn’t understand. I didn’t have a great hypothesis for what was going on until the Steve Magness video mentioned above. I think the problem was a lack of working on my strengths - the faster efforts off longer recovery.

The Ingebrigtsen's don't do double threshold 3x/wk. Their third workout day is precisely the kind of work you've been missing. If you're going 6x/wk:

SUN long
MON OFF
TUE threshold
WED easy
TH threshold
FRI easy
SAT hills (2x6x30" with jog down btw reps and maybe 5' between sets)

If you are running seven days per week, keep MON easy but add some FAST strides.

Also note that your easy days could be even slower than they are right now, especially in the opening miles. When I was doing double-threshold, my morning run the next day would usually start 9:30p and not get faster than 8:30p. This was around 16:30 fitness.

What do you think is the minimum period to give a method a good trial? 6 months or maybe a bit longer?

Okay I had to get chatgpt to help me with this one -- seems very plausible though. How are you defining 'extensive tempowork', is this aerobic threshold, M, HM, Anaerobic threshold? Everyone uses 'tempo' differently so I never quite know.

This is becoming the unofficial NS method fast twitch support group thread - seriously though it's nice to know I'm not the only one who has experienced this. I'm also a big fan of NS thread and would recommend it to anyone interested in physiology. But I think for a proportion of us our main strengths slowly dwindels away whilst doing it. Saying that it probably could act as a great base block to build upon so definitely not time wasted. I like how you've structured your week - think I might have to steal that - or at least build up to it! Best of both

The NSA is about using a race to replace a ST session. That is, no taper or changing things in the week of the race. The ST sessions then kick back in again after the race.

Those who are more FT cannot race like this. They need to reduce volume in the week of the race, and probably take a couple of days off. They also need recovery after the race.

Just wondering if you tapered before your races?

Sorry but this is not fast switch or no fast switch, this is peaking or endless base.

You have to do triple threshold.

If that's how you feel you're probably doing it incorrectly. Either going to fast, or doing too much that you're not prepared for. Try smaller doses with less rest. Like 400's or 600's with a 100/200 jog, or 30 seconds rest. Some people assume it is supposed to be long hard reps, but it can be smaller doses.