Bill bowerman training

who are some examples of his athletes who were successful off of the hard easy method and what was there mileage?

Kenny Moore, 4th place in '72 Olympic marathon. If my memory serves me right, he did a 9-day training cycle that looked like this:

1. long intervals

2. easy day

3. easy day

4. short intervals

5. easy day

6. easy day

7. long run

8. easy day

9. easy day

The easy days were something like 3mi in the morning and 3mi in the afternoon. The long runs were anywhere from 20-30 miles. Now that's hard-easy!

Kenny talked about this in the introduction to "Bowerman and the Men of Oregon."

thats what makes me go crazy. i did like 70 to 80 miles a week last year and my freshmen year my idiotic coach used the york high school training plan and it didnt work well and im feeling incredibly burnt out and wondering if this maybe a good thing for a burnout runner

1)...I type this way....because i can......and william shatner is my hero.....

2) anyone can say they are lydiard, but taking lydiard ideas and doing lydiard are not one in the same. I might take factes of lydiard, but I wouldn't say I am a 'lydiardite'.

If you have read Bowerman's book on training, talked with any of his former athletes, etc.... you'll see lydiard ideas of 'train, don't strain' and progressive training, but to say Bowerman was following lydiard training is simply not correct. He was an advocate of individual training and more hard/easy than lydiard's marathon style training.....

So I'll use other bowerman quotes to prove the point:

"If someone says, 'Hey, I ran 100 miles this week. How far did you run?' ignore him! What the hell difference does it make?.... The magic is in the man, not the 100 miles."

- Bill Bowerman

"A teacher is never too smart to learn from his pupils. But while runners differ, basic principles never change. So it's a matter of fitting your current practices to fit the event and the individual. See, what's good for you might not be worth a darn for the next guy."

- Bill Bowerman

so bowerman was not a 100 mile a week fanatic

oar wrote:

so he a coach or just explains lydiards methods which i have no understanding of

lydiard expert supposedly and world class coach credentials. he coaches a 34min 10k girl. outstand performance lydiard-bowerman based.

Bowermman and Lydiard respected each other very much but their systems have huge differences.

Lydiard advocated 100+ mpw and only doubles when over 100mpw

Bowerman coached more like 70-90 mpw and always do doubles

Bowerman coached intervals nearly year round

Lydiard periodized his program for distinct periords.

Before Lydiard everyone was doing nothing but interval training. Lydiard would build huge aerobic base followed by interval training. Bowerman COMBINED interval training and aerobic training.

Bowerman training gets quicker results than Lydiard's training but Lydiard's training will result in a higher peak.

Bowerman took a guy to <4 mile on 25mi/week and a marathoner to the Olympics with no 100 mile weeks. Not exactly a Lydiard approach. He also went to spy on some Igloi sessions and incorporated some of those patterns into his own training plans. Bowerman saw much more in common with his approach and that of Peter Coe --moderate mileage/focus on quality/progression and specificity.

Bowerman did learn some things from Lydiard, however, even in his book "Jogging" he advised interval work for beginners. Again, not a Lydiard approach at all. Primary differences: Bowerman was not mileage fixated, felt soft surfaces superior for training, overall more eclectic and dynamic, not overly rigid. One size does not fit all in the Bowerman method. I think closer to the truth is that Bowerman was open to learning from others, willing to be flexible and adjust his system for better results.

Denton,

I beg to differ... a little.

Lydiard used 100 miles per week as a rough amount of mileage - not exactly 100 miles, every week. It's a nice figure. He switched to time based measurement of your weekly quantity after a while. Bowerman said the magic is in the man, not the 100 miles, I would suggest that Lydiard would agree with that. But you need to run roughly around 100 miles per week during the aerobic conditioning phase - and what is 100 miles anyway when many of his athletes did not document the easy supplemental mileage that is now reported in weekly total mileage.

And your second quote of Bowerman's is straight up the way Lydiard thought. No two people are exactly the same - all experiments of one.

William Shatner is brilliant.

im still confused on bowerman lydiard and everything

bowerman is just lydiard with little change. the old trick to vampirize. the lidiard myth goes on.

oar wrote:

who the hell is nobby?

Here we go again-the phantom Nobby Hater/Lydiard Trasher with a foreign accent whose computer doesn't have a "shift" key...

For someone who doesn't know "who the hell Nobby is", he's quite certain he doesn't like him or he's no good.

This is really getting an old news if not comical/entertaining.

chris.....how much have u followed of bowerman vs lydiard prescribed training.....egs..

1) lydiard advocated marathon style running in buildups...bowerman did not ((lydiard was more day to day training while bowerman was more hard easy to the extreme egs kenny moore and his 30mins am and pm runs easy days vs lydiards 60mins...in this regards Moore had been following a strict lydiard style training and bowerman had him throw it out the window in favour of hard-easy with a 30 miler - very lydiard- once every 9 to 10 days)

2) bowerman had intervals of some type all yr round...lydiard no (see argument of strict periodization)

3) Lydiard was not as dogmatic as some claim, but he still advocated more, more more (specifically his sunday waitaks run)...bowerman argued a more 'sweet spot' mentality

I know what u r trying it get at but the spcifics of each guy indicate there as many differences as similarities.....

from the Brit Miler page on Bowerman's death in 99.....

BILL BOWERMAN

1911-1999

In 1964 Bowerman’s system of training was

revealed. He had practised it for 10 years

before at Oregon University with great

success. In 1962 four of his athletes broke the

world record for 4x1 mile with 16:09. His

athletes were to break the American junior

and senior 5k records, the national threequarters

of a mile and 2,000 metres records

and also the 20k record. He coached one sub

4-minute miler every year for 20 years.

His system of training was as follows:

a) A pace was fixed at the start of each month

on the track. For example, 75-seconds per 400

in December.

b) Each month the pace increased by 2-

seconds.

c) The total number of repetitions were twice

the racing distance in the first week, three

times in the second, twice in the third and

three times in the fourth. For example, if the

athlete was training for the mile, he might do

8x400 in the first week and 12 x 400 in the

second.

d) The recovery time (jog) after repetitions

followed a weekly pattern: -1st week – jog

same distance of rep. 2nd week – Jog half

distance of rep. 3rd and 4th weeks – Jog a

quarter distance of rep. If we use rep. 400s as

an example, this would be: - 8x400, jog 400

1st week. 12x400, jog 200 2nd week. 8x400

jog 100 3rd week. 12x400 jog 100 4th week.

e) Track training occurred twice a week allyear-

round.

f) Fartlek was done four times a week of

which two were severe.

g) The rep. distances used ranged through

100m, 200m, 300m and 400m to 600m.

h) If the selected pace on the track could not

be achieved in all sessions for the entire

month, the month had to be repeated before

moving on to a faster month.

i) A deviation from the above plan was given

to advanced athletes where the track session

started at a set pace and each repetition got

faster, for example, 8x400 (75-72-70-68-66-

ok here we go again, i honestly have no problems with lydiard first off and secondly i actually didnt know who nobby was so thanks for jumping on the bandwagon of "im a lydiard" hater. i dont know much on lydiard and if your an expert hb u explain it out here?

1) there is a search function here on letsrun. it can be used to search for information about bill bowerman, university of oregon training, lydiard and nobby. try it.

2) there is a search engine called "goggle". it too can be used for information about those i mentioned above and many other things. try it.

3) when you do the 2 above mentioned things you might expand your knowledge and put an end to some of your questions. or ask some specific, intelligent questions.

I's quite apparent that you are either a complete idiot or your intention is so obviously to deface Nobby. When the intention is this obvious, it's quite commical. Once again, for someone who has no idea who Nobby is, he's so determined and made up his mind that Nobby is an evil guy and he hates his guts. What ever this "who the hell is Nobby" did, we only know of one guy who would not forget or forgive. Grow up and move on.

Interestingly, for someone who "has no idea about Lydiard training", he is also so quick to say that h has no problem with Lydiard. Hummmmm...??? Interesting.

Denton,

I have not read all that much about Bowerman. What I understood and correct me if I am wrong, Bowerman changed his training methods after meeting with Lydiard the second time? But not all that drastically. Did he not phase in and out, of aerobic concentrated periods and an anaerobic phase, but continued with his general original plan?...or something to that effect? Kind of a blend?

I don't even know where I read that.

When it comes to specifics I cannot compare too many coaches or site many coaches except for Lydiard, but with general training perspectives, I think there is a consensus among most top coaches where training can look fairly similar from a macro viewpoint...you tell me...but day-to-day specifics...I have no idea....

Can someone enlighten me on the interest of Bill Bowerman's progressive sessions such as 6x(800m (10km pace --> 1.5km) + 300m (1.5km pace --> 800m)? What physiological interest?