What has Alberto apparently figured out that no other coaches have.

I will say that salazar seems to really consider the training of each individual athlete carefully. And he makes sure every session counts.

For instance he was saying how Ritz was doing 85 mpw this spring and he thinks that's excellent base for NYC Marathon.

Can you imagine hearing something like that at the Hansons? (not to pick on the Hansons, I'm sure other pro groups are like this too). These other groups just figure more training is better training; 120-160 mpw, crazy-long interval sessions, everyone runs as a group and does their best to keep up.

And I mean that Hansons approach 'works' for 1 out of every 10 guys (Sell 2:10, Arcianaga 2:11 although he doesn't train with them any more). But Salazar can't afford low success rates like that. He's got many of our best guys and girls in his hands. He's got to make sure they all achieve their potential.

To this point I don't know what evidence there is that they are doing anything illegal, although there were some really shady activities in Park City a few years ago from what I have heard.

Interesting. Please elaborate...

wellnow wrote:

Exactly coach. They were knocking on the door of World Class, they just needed the right atmosphere and the right races. Confidence is so important. Salazar doesn't use any radical training methods, just common sense stuff.

Wellnow, I posted my opinion in my prior post. You posted your opinion. What part of my post don't you understand? Value in your post? I can strongly debate against that!

salazar figured out what coaches around the world have known for decades now: PEDs are currently necessary to be world class.

He said it himself very clearly before his coaching career blew up, as many have posted here:

http://www.law.duke.edu/sportscenter/salazar.pdf

I think Alberto has found out the African doping methods.

You didn't say anything of substance, you wrote a post full of nothing:

Years of Coaching wrote:

Stolen Bikes -

I'll tell you this. The training definitely isn't the answer. As far as training technique and training methodology, Salazar actually knows less and has less coaching experience than other coaches. Runners training together??? Kara Goucher trains with who? male rabbits maybe? Yoder Begley? She used to have a hard time breaking 34 minute for 10K on the roads. Now she's on the verge of breaking 31 minutes.

Salazar's training isn't that effective.

The Shumacker guys, well, they've trained together in the past. Their improvement? not training technique either.

Thus, let's remove training techniques, solid training plans, methods, or whatever off the equation because that isn't the reason.

What's your point? Have you got one, or are you just another jealous coach?

usain bolt. wrote:

salazar figured out what coaches around the world have known for decades now: PEDs are currently necessary to be world class.

He said it himself very clearly before his coaching career blew up, as many have posted here:

http://www.law.duke.edu/sportscenter/salazar.pdf

That's not what I got from that article, what I got was that you need to push the limits in every legal way and that when you push them you approach a grey area.

To simplify the grey area, that could mean the difference between 2.5 and 3 cups of coffee on competition day.

There are vitamins and supplements that are clearly legal and there are anabolic steroids and synthetic EPO which are clearly not.

In between them are nutrition and supplements which are legal only up to certain levels and training and recovery and injury/illness/health treatment remedies which seem to be arbitrarily legal or illegal.

It's easy for a simple person to just say ohh they are cheaters because they run fast or because they are known to take a lot of supplements etc., but what is considered cheating is a broad and wide spectrum which actually changes all the time.

There is a BIIIIG difference between a doping regimine like what is often discovered in cycling and in Russian and Morrocan athletics and someone who is trying to follow the rules that allow them to maximize training, recovery, health and performance. The difference really comes down to ethics. If you know it's illegal and make the decision to use it that is cheating. If you are following the guidelines of what you believe is legal (again this can be tricky because the rules do change in the grey area) and you do not intend to gain advantage by using a banned substance than that is not cheating. Many people are not capable of complex thought so they like to break it down to black or white, right or wrong, and the problem with that is 90% of the real world is shades of grey. I'd wager that 90% of the top runners in the world are working in shades of grey with maybe one or two percent totally out of the grey (not pushing the limits) and eight or nine percent clearly cheating. For the 90% or so in the middle it depends on their diligence and knowledge and perhaps moral compass to determine which shade of grey they are operating in. Ignorance could cause them to be a very light or dark shade, even while not intentional.

A world class athlete who did not do his or her best to maximise performance in every possible and legal way would be wasting his or her gift. And yes that means the bread and butter training, diet, sleep and recovery/treatment methods as well as injury prevention.

Now in diet, recovery/treatment and injury prevention you will have to walk into the grey area because in order to push the limits you have go to the extent of what is legal.

You have to keep in mind that not everything that is banned is something chemically and synthetically created and injected. Coffee and marijuana can be both grown naturally and organically and yet consumption can result in a ban for an athlete.

Last I checked Alberto had nothing to do with Jerry's man Solinsky. Get your facts straight King Douchebag.

usain bolt. wrote:

salazar figured out what coaches around the world have known for decades now: PEDs are currently necessary to be world class.

That's BS. Salazar believed that back in the 80's, but does he believe it now? Why don't you ask him?

Financial backing to give the runners access to things others simply don't have.

Metric wrote:

Financial backing to give the runners access to things others simply don't have.

This is part of it but it is more than that. They have a great area to train. Trails, track, weights, underwater treadmills, alter-g.

They also have the stuff that makes the head a good runner. They have a lot of great athletes around them. They have a coach obsessed with making them great, leaving no stone unturned to give them the best opportunities from training, treatment, nutrition and knowledge about it all.

They also have access to sports psychologists. If you think this is trivial, talk to any great runner who came out of a slump that was 90% mental.

Part of the benefit of having everything even remotely necessary to be your best, is the the power of KNOWING you have it all, and believing in it.

"Alberto has his athletes run, other coaches have them do cross fit."

woah woah woah. I reject your reality, sir. You have no idea how much CrossFitting helps. I was a 20 minute 5km guy, now I'm ripping 17/18's like it's my job. Think before you post. And CrossFit, before you think

Thanks

-fitnessisamentalstate

master tactician wrote:

To this point I don't know what evidence there is that they are doing anything illegal, although there were some really shady activities in Park City a few years ago from what I have heard.

Interesting. Please elaborate...

Second and third links didn't work, but here is an excerpt from one of the threads:

Salazar has been well aware of the benefits of altitude training for distance runners for many years, but especially likes coming to Park City to work with >>> Dr. Jim Stray-Gundersen, a sports-medicine physician <<<< who specializes in altitude-training research and has worked and traveled with elite runners for many years.

"Jim's the foremost expert on the science and integration of it," Salazar said.

"Confidential AIS and USOC documents obtained by the Orange County Register and a series of interviews with AIS and USOC officials reveal that USOC assistant executive director Jim Page, John Ruger, USOC athlete ombudsman, Pittenger and Kearney, and had a series of meetings and conversations with AIS officials beginning in October 1999 to firm up USOC's participation in and support of the AIS project."

"There are things that (the USOC) is doing that can be only interpreted as deliberately encouraging the doping of athletes," said Exum, declining to go into further detail on the advice of his attorneys."

Exum did, however, explain that instead of catching cheaters the Australian test will actually encourage them. As an indirect test, the AIS procedure would not specifically identify artificial EPO. Athletes would be ruled to being using the banned substance if their blood parameters exceeded a certain level.

"I think it's strange, but I think it's typical when you're dealing with something that could turn out to be more of doping training than doping prevention then it's probably typical to cut out the person who's the doping control expert," Exum said.

"Anyone trying to put a racial angle on our study is absolute nonsense," said Robin Parisotto, a chief researcher at AIS. "We're not doing any genetic studies on these people."

Kearney also was angered by Exum's "mad scientist" characterization during the Jan. 28 meeting.

"And my response to him was that I was concerned about that, and thought it was appropriate to raise that issue given the people involved," Exum said. "The people involved in that thing were around back when doping was done."

Specifically, Exum was referring to Page.

Page, then director of the U.S. Nordic skiing program, approved of an illegal plan involving blood packing for a U.S. skier for the 1987 World championships. Under the plan, a doctor flew to Switzerland and removed red blood sells from skier Kerry Lynch and then later reinjected them before the competition to boost his endurance. The procedure is banned by the IOC. Lynch won a silver medal at the World championships.

Page later received a lifetime ban from the sport's international governing body after he, Lynch and a U.S. coach confessed to doping Lynch. Page was reinstated in 1990 after an appeal by the U.S. Ski Association. He also was disciplined by the USOC. In 1992, Page was promoted to assistant executive director.

Although not implicated in the 1987 scandal, the U.S. team doctor for the 1987 World Championships was Jim Stray-Gundersen.

Confidential AIS documents reveal and AIS officials confirm that Stray-Gunderson is now overseeing a part of the AIS project in Norway; the Norway project includes administering EPO to healthy subjects.

Read more:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?board=1&id=2076098&thread=2076098#ixzz0uLXuLH5J

Buy your shoes from LetsRun and save 20% everday

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Years of Coaching wrote:

Stolen Bikes -

I'll tell you this. The training definitely isn't the answer. As far as training technique and training methodology, Salazar actually knows less and has less coaching experience than other coaches. Runners training together??? Kara Goucher trains with who? male rabbits maybe? Yoder Begley? She used to have a hard time breaking 34 minute for 10K on the roads. Now she's on the verge of breaking 31 minutes.

Salazar's training isn't that effective.

The Shumacker guys, well, they've trained together in the past. Their improvement? not training technique either.

Thus, let's remove training techniques, solid training plans, methods, or whatever off the equation because that isn't the reason.

He knows less than other coaches? How can you quantify this? Years of coaching experience does not always translate to coaching knowledge.

Salazar's training is not the effective? The results speak for themselves. Each athlete of his has talked about how the training is different than prior coaches.

Is he the best coach ever? No. Is he doing great things up in Oregon? I would say yes. The athletes (both Salazar's and Jerry's) have bought into the programs, which is a huge thing. The runners only have to worry about running, that saves a lot of time and energy.

All the runners may not train together on a daily basis, but they are a training group who support each other. They are teammates from what I have heard, read, and seen.

I have already devoted too much time to this obvious troll, but I guess I was bored. Also, if you are going to throw out passive aggressive accusations of drug use, then just accuse them of doping straight out.

AlSal's success:

1) INCREDIBLY talented athletes. This is the biggest one. Right now he is coaching Ritz, the most talented American runner in the last few decades, Webb, the second-most talented, Goucher, who's nothing to scoff at, and Rupp, who's been his golden boy since 7th grade. It's no surprise Salazar can get great runners to run, well, great, when he provides them with...

2) All the legal advantages an athlete can possibly have. Altitude, alter-g, underwater treadmill, psychologists, doctors, biomechanics analysis, nutritionists, physical therapists...great athletes always talk about their "support network," and Salazar's runners have the best money can buy. And this also includes some shady gray-area stuff, as has been mentioned before. Rumors about about how all of Salazar's runners seem to have "asthma" and "thyroid problems." In Salazar's essay on drugs, he mentions that he believes Athletes should be allowed to take hormones if their levels get too low.

3) Group training. The Hansons did it. The Kenyans do it. The Ethiopians do it. The Japanese do it. The Americans did it back in the '70s. The Moroccans did it. All high school and college teams do it. So what surprise is it that group training makes you better?

Really, it's not all that impressive. And here's why:

1) Kenyans still bang out their mileage on dusty roads in Eldoret and kick the asses of AlSal's runners regularly.

2) Salazar is not a very good coach of "normal" runners. The "original" Nike Oregon Project started as more of a Hansons-style endeavor: get a bunch of highly motivated hard workers and have them train under Salazar, given all the above advantages. It pretty much fizzled, except for Dan Browne. The Hansons are probably "better" coaches in terms of relative performance improvements--AlSal just gets better results because he starts with the most talented runners in the country. Desiree Davila: zero-time national champion in college. Goucher: multiple-time NCAA champion. And Davila was right behind her at '09 WCs...and don't forget, she's also been 5th at Chicago.

black cat, all we know is the guy is an expert on altitude training. if you are going to do the live high train low model you better not waste your time doing it.

if you are using altitude tents you better know what altitude is right, and in particular right for you. it's not as simple as setting up a tent and doing your regular training, and if you think it is than that exposes your ignorance on the complexity of it. we are talking about maximizing perfromance here, not going thru the motions. all this shows is that they have gone to an expert. you can certainly speculate that they could go to him for actual doping advice but that is nothing more than speculation. on the other hand, he is an expert on altitude training. one of the most respected experts on the subject. in distance running, where the best runners in the world come from the high elevations of kenya and ethiopia is it that crazy to seek advice from an expert on the subject?

http://usatelitetrack.org/dhac/?page_id=171

http://www.sportsci.org/traintech/altitude/wgh.html

In defense of Stray-Gunderson, Lynch and Page brought in their own doc from the outside. He was paid out of a fund for athlete support. He never entered the village.

At least that is the story from Lynch himself (I met him several years ago when he was briefly a nordic combined coach).

smicing ice wrote:

Hows webb doing under Salazar

i rofled at first

but we can't tell under the bowerman 5k or w/esss