Lydiard or Cerutty

Nobby wrote:

Both these coaches remind me so much of how coaching is in Japan which I really don't see anywhere in the US.

thought about this very thing today while viewing world xc pics. holy crap the japanese lady before the race - on the warmup - her facial expressions - something to be said about "mental approach" there....

I put some detail on a thread somewhere a while ago that mentioned the "Bills" and Halberg at Cerutty's camp.

I forgot where I put it !! can you help HRE. maybe it was on the Lydiard thread !!

Here is a nice interview with Elliot about Cerutty

No question about it. I'd rather be coached by Arthur.

I would argue that Lydiard was the more intellectual of the two and that Cerutty was the more artistic. Derek Clayton siad that after listening to a Cerutty harangue for an hour or more, he, Clayton, wasn't sure what Cerutty's point was.

I gathered that viewed each other as sort of rivals during the late 50's through the 60's. In Gilmour's biography of Lydiard, Arthur seemed to have generally good things to say about Cerutty, particularly his heart. Arthur did bust him for eating an English breakfast with eggs, sausages, bacon, etc. Cerutty was the original health food man.

They both were excellent runners well past middle age if written accounts are accurate.

Halberg visited Portsea while living in "Oz" during his, Bill Ballie and Bill Rodger's training prior to the Melbourne Olympics. In "A Clean Pair of Heels" Murray says that Percey invited the trio to vist, so they did. Halberg says, "Perce's philosophy was one of hard work and he was the type of man who could give an athlete the mental lift that enabled him to carry out hard physical training".

Cerutty tried to get Halberg to let him train him. Halberg returned to Arthur. Even though he was not happy with his performance in the 1500 in Melbourne, he returned to Auckland. He went camping for a couple weeks and "got back into it" with Lydiard.

definetly cerutty. isn't there a book on cerutty? i think i saw it on amazon once. the guy was innovative and full on hardcore.

Kim,

I remembered that message and I think it was on the Lydiard-Daniels thread, everything must be. Maybe I'll browse through it for a few pages.

I do know that I read a comment of Bill Baille's to the effect that he really didn't think what Arthur did and what Percy did were all that different.

We should get Bill an internet connection and get him on here.

Does anyone know if Larry Myers is still around? His book, Training With Cerutty, has training schedules for almost every T&F event. I'm not sure if Larry Myers wrote those schedules and Percy said okay or what.

I read somewhere that Ted Corbitt received some help from Percy for a period.

One thing I gathered that they both liked was horse racing.

Jay Wind.

Cerutty didn't advocate long easy runs to build vo2max. His easy workouts were simply recoveries to allow for more hard work.

Lydiard recognized the benefit of running easy and long to build one's base. Cerutty didn't understand the need to build a base or how to go about it. Maybe that's why he didn't develop any champion runners at distances longer than the mile.

One of Cerutty's "Stotan" requirements was that you be able to lift your bodyweight overhead. I wonder how relevant that was to racing?

Cerutty was one of the first coaches to even suggest weight lifting, I think that is one of the things that makes him "ahead of his time."

Lifting your own weight over your head may not specifically relate to faster racing, but it sure as hell meant that you were stronger than 99% of your competitors, that has never been a bad thing. Most elite distance runners could perform the task, Elliot who was heavy in to Cerutty's weight lifting purchased, from Cerutty, a 125lb set of weights, probably about 10-15 pounds short of his bodyweight, but certainly enough to strengthen one of the greatest 1500m runners of all time.

Cerutty certaining did beleive in building a base. I am rereading "How to Become a Champions" right now and his runners were doing 20 or more miles a day during their 4 days weekends at Portsea.

I think you are lacking some knowledge of Cerutty's basic program.

As for developing champion runners at longer distances:

Dave Stephens ran 27:54 for 6 miles (only other man to do it at the time was some shlub named Zatopek) while training with Cerutty. He went on to better all of Zatopek's times.

On June 8th 1958 Elliott set the mile world record of 3:54.5

The next day her ran 8:37.6 for 2 miles - only an aerobic giant of the era could manage that double.

Running 20 miles at what effort? (Fairly hard as I recall.) And wasn't the 20-mile distance simply the daily total? Wasn't it often broken up into shorter runs?

The long runs were not done as part of a base-building phase, but simply as one of the workouts the athletes did at Portsea.

I read about Cerutty in the early 1970s, didn't like what I read then, and haven't looked into him since. Cerutty had some notion about being a "man," but wasn't into periodization to the extent that Lydiard was. He didn't have his athletes doing easy long runs to build their vo2max. Cerutty had them doing most of their longer runs fairly hard. Probably too hard for optimal results.

Since you're reading Cerutty's book right now, you should know more about his training than I do. And I certainly appreciate your correcting any of my misstatements.

When it comes to training knowledge, Lydiard's proponents say he has it over anyone before or since. I personally am not knowledgable enough to say anything one way or another, except that his principles work very well for me, especially as adapted/explained by Ron Daws plus Nobby and the crew here.

The other issue when selecting a coach is how well you mesh with them. Cerutty strikes me as a perfect coach for a born follower, someone who needs an authority figure in order to be at their best. In contrast, the people who post here who trained with Lydiard are clearly individualists who believe in the basics of the system but respect the millions of permutations possible, and also believe it requires introspection in order to get the best effects.

I intensely dislike authoritarianism. I want an equal to help me, not a boss to order me around. I'd go for the Kiwi and never think twice.

As for Elliott's two-mile performance, are you saying that it was as impressive as his mile performance? His two-mile performance was seven seconds off the world record at the time, which was held by a Lydiard-trained athlete.

(Since you're reading Cerutty's book, I'm surprised that you haven't mentioned Albie Thomas. He was a better two miler than Elliott.)

As for Stephens, the six mile time that you cite is probably equal to a 4:06 mile. You say that he did that while training with Cerutty and that he would go on to run even faster. Are saying that he improved after he quit training with Cerutty?

Correction. I meant Stephens's time was equivalent to a 4:01 mile.

Here's an example of Cerutty's base training, or what he called the "conditioning period." This is an example of what Herb Elliott would do in a week during this phase:

Monday: morning - seven miles, varied pace.

afternoon - circuit running (long cross-country intervals)

evening - easy five miles.

Tuesday: morning - five miles, varied pace.

afternoon - repeat hill training

evening - weight training

Wednesday: morning - seven miles.

afternoon - six miles, varied running and sprinting

Thursday: morning - seven miles, varied pace.

afternoon - fifteen miles.

Friday: rest.

Saturday: morning - five miles, varied pace.

afternoon - weight training

evening - five miles, varied running and sprinting.

Sunday: morning - six miles;

afternoon - intervals, golf course.

http://wls3.com/running/cerutty.php

So there's a lot of interval training and windsprints, which can actually be counterproductive this early in the training cycle. There was also some "varied pace" running, which meant that some of it was probably fairly intense. There is a 15-mile run during this week, but no mention is made of its intensity. From what I've read about Cerutty, he probably would have preferred that his runners go hard rather than easy. Note that the only run actually described as being easy is the five miler on Monday evening.

Nothing that I've seen about Cerutty even contemplated the value of incorporating easy long runs as a way to develop vo2max. There were six runs described as "varied pace." So under Cerutty, the idea of running long and easy wasn't given the emphasis that it was by Lydiard.

Lydiard was very precise in his use of training intensity, as he would use fractions to describe effort. For example, Lydiard described what Daniels would later call a tempo run as being 7/8 effort for four or five miles.

Lydiard knew that a combination of easy, medium, and hard longer runs were essential to base building. Lydiard's base training turned out to be more physiologically sound than Cerutty's "conditioning period."

That is the main reason why I would choose Lydiard over Cerutty. Another reason is Cerutty's theory of becoming a "Stotan," which he equated with manhood. Part of being a Stotan meant having well-rounded athletic ability, which would include some weightlifting prowess. Lydiard didn't care about weightlifting, since he didn't think it mattered.

From "How to Become a Champion" by Percy W. Cerutty:

He (Elliott) trained two or three sessions a day ... This work was mostly:

1. along undulating paths on the cliff-tops and beaches

2. upon the heavy beach sands

3. over the sand-dunes ...

4. along dirt roads, UP TO TWENTY MILES OF RUNNING

5. on one of the golf courses

6. on the grass of our local playing field

7. Hall and/or Stewart circuit-running

#4 would clearly indicate that Elliott was doing 20 mile runs, plenty long enough to develop aerobic strength. Certainly long enough for a 1500m/miler even by current standards. Doing 70 miles over a 3 and a half day weekend is pretty solid work and there is no way, no matter what Cerutty would claim, that all of this work was hard (elliott was never injured and would have been if the intensity was too high for too long). The time a Portsea while Elliot was with Cerutty was Friday night until Monday evening, I am certain that the rest of the weekly running was done at an easy pace.

#7 On occasion, these circuits were run for time (elliott held the record on the 2000m hall curcuit at 5:30 and according the book the circut was difficult - hilly, sand, etc.) MOSTLY these circuits were done at varied paces - e.g. FARTLEK, which if done as Cerutty suggests is VO2max interval training. "run the curcuit at a mix of 3k / easy effort" is a hell of a lot more specific than "run for 30 minutes at 7/8 effort"

Friday - "rest" referred to the evening at Portsea, not Elliott's Friday mornings before going to work when he would regularly run 5-10 miles. Remember also, Elliott was not a professional runner - he had a 9 to 5 job.

Finally, Cerutty began working with Elliott at a young age and Elliott retired young. Elliot arrived as a 18 year-old 4:30 miler and ran 4:06 three months later. Elliot then ran 4:00.4 and 1:49.3 twelve days after his 19th birthday - the training was working ... DID WORK. DOES WORK, the Africans are doing it now, with some longer running (yes Lydiard) for the 5k-marathon athletes.

jsquire's quote below my post.You are wrong:From "How to Become a Champion":"immediately I find that an athlete is a 'conformer', a respecter of authority, who is diligent in doing exactly as he is told, just as soon do I know such an athlete is limited in his capacity and never can become tury great."Cerutty did not want blind followers in his camp, this is clear. It was only to outsiders that were overwhelmed by his antics and distractions, that Cerutty seemed the dictator. His entire training consisted of meetings during which he presented his philosophy and then he pretty much let the "boys" plan their own days. He did not think sticking to a running schedule was the way to become a champion.

jsquire wrote:

Cerutty strikes me as a perfect coach for a born follower, someone who needs an authority figure in order to be at their best. In contrast, the people who post here who trained with Lydiard are clearly individualists who believe in the basics of the system but respect the millions of permutations possible, and also believe it requires introspection in order to get the best effects.

I intensely dislike authoritarianism. I want an equal to help me, not a boss to order me around. I'd go for the Kiwi and never think twice.

Cerutty never articulated the benefit of running long and slow. Lydiard said that there's almost no such thing as running too slow, since he knew that you'd still be developing your aerobic capacity simply by running long, never mind the effort.

This critical insight has been borne out by science. Running long at an easy pace has been shown to be very effective at developing one's capillary density and increasing the number and size of the mitochondria in running-specific muscles. This improves the body's ability to deliver oxygen to those muscles.

Jack Daniels has recently pointed out that vascularization responds to the time of putting muscle cells under stress. He cited a recent study in Spain that "showed that runners who did over 80% of all running at an easy pace improved 10k time much more than did an equal group that did only 70% of the same total mileage at an easy pace."

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=1456933

If Elliott was running easy on the days that he wasn't at Portsea, he would have been doing so mainly for recovery--not because Cerutty said that long, slow distance would develop his aerobic capacity.

The examples you give of Elliott's training under Cerutty would be less than optimal for developing a base. For one thing, there was too much speedwork in the "conditioning phase." Cerutty had Elliott doing the majority of his runs at a varied pace, which is probably overkill.

Fartlek training involves running beyond one's anaerobic threshold and then backing off. This is not an effective way to develop one's vo2max, contrary to what you say. With fartlek, the body is being trained to run at an intense effort without going into oxygen debt. That's very different from vo2max.

There's no question that Elliott thrived under Cerutty. Elliott himself said that he and Cerutty were on the same wavelength. Elliott wanted to bust his ass in training, and Cerutty accommodated him. We don't know what Elliott would have done under Lydiard, but today no one follows Cerutty. Everyone follows Lydiard. That's because science has ratified Lydiard's methods.

That's not to say that everything Cerutty did was wrong. Far from it. A miler or a two miler would have done quite well under Cerutty--witness Herb Elliott and Albie Thomas. But if given a choice, I would definitely choose Lydiard, since his method was more scientifically sound and didn't include any of the manhood issues or other quirks that were so important to Cerutty.