Specific Lydiard hill phase-is it necessary?

Hi Nobby. That's one of your better rants, and I agree with your points. The anti Nobby troll is Antonio Cabral, not me, I think that point has been pretty well established by now.

Keep up the good work, and don't be afraid of him here.

dhdhdhhd wrote:

J.O. wrote:

With regards to the hill bounding, don't do it like the guy I saw on the Lydiard Foundation website, he was doing it completely wrong, you are supposed to be gaining stride length, not bouncing up and down.

J.O.,

There is hill running, bounding, and springing.

http://www.lydiardfoundation.org/training/hilltrainingdvd.aspx

This video seems to match up pretty well with Lydiard's voice description.

The springing you are most certainly supposed to bounce up and down. The bounding, I suppose less so.

Thanks for the link. It the third guy in the video, who is doing it wrong, he is all over the place. The first guy and the woman are much more efficient.

I agree that there is an obvious difference between hill springing as shown in the video and hill bounding, but the movements have to be efficient to be effective.

J.O.:

I guess I didn't quite mean to "rant" but I guess you were convenient target (because your post was right there)??? ;o)

In regards to the guy who was doing the springing; actually I know what you mean. The surface was quite uneven and he was kicking his lower leg all over the place in order to keep the balance. We used that clip because of the still image--that was very good with very much straight back leg extension. That woman, my wife actually, is doing fine and has so much better ankle extension than me so we used her but she doesn't have much leg power and was having a hard time doing, well sorry but, up-and-down body lift as (actually) Arthur would have liked. But we used her clip for the ankle extension (as you can see in the close-up). But in fact Arthur liked it because, even a slower runner (she's "only" a 3:47 marathoner) can do this and benefit from it.

My 2 cents though; one time my daughter was working out in the weight room and this guy cam up to her and told her she was "doing it all wrong"... She said that her dad (me) told her to do it that way and he said; "He doesn't know what he's talking about..." As far as i'm concerned, unless you really want to show off your suprimacy (in my dictionary, as a coach, you want to earn trust and rspect; not suprimacy with fear), this is one of the worst approach to teach anybody anything. Right from the get-go, she (or whoever) will shut the door if you approach it this way. You don't want to start the "relationship" with the negatives ("You don't know what you're doing," "Oh, he thinks I'm no good..."). Just like I'm doing right now--do you want to continue talking to me when I came down and said; "You're doing it all wrong!!"? You'd be better off if you start with positives. Delivery matters just as much as the content.

Nobby,

Thanks for all the work you've done at the Lydiard foundation and for the information you've posted here! It's been very helpful as I've learned about Lydiard and his method over the past year or two.

I've had a thought for quite a while now, and wanted to ask you - regarding the video we're discussing. I remember reading somewhere that you & Arthur had discussed the people you'd chosen to use in the video, and Arthur's first reaction was that they weren't "elite level" or something like that, and that you actually intended it that way to show that ordinary athletes could do the movements.

I see your point, and I think it is a good one. My only question is, would it be possible to ALSO include some elite-level athlete doing the three different movements (hill running, bounding, springing)?? I think it would be a great addition to the video you have.

I personally am a visual learner. It helps be to see the "ideal" movement and then try to copy that. For example, when I'm learning a golf swing, it's much better for me to look at Tiger's swing and try to imitate that, rather than try to copy my Dad's swing with all its flaws. (It's helpful to see my Dad swing too, so I know that an ordinary Joe can also swing a club.) I may still end up looking like my dad when I swing, but it helps a LOT to have that "perfect" image in my head. Word descriptions (Arthur's voice, writing) don't work as well as an image for visual learners like me.

Does that make sense, and would that be possible?

dhdhdhhd:

I just uploaded Toshihiko Seko doing what I call Classic Lydiard hill training (Steep Hill Running) before LA Olympics:

!/group.php?gid=5276414716

He's not quite lifting his knees that high but, the scene where you can see his back, you can see how he's spending just one extra moment on the ground to push off. It is this "push" that is really important. I taled to coach Nakamura about this hill training before he passed away; as well as Takao Nakamura (the one who's doing a hill training behind Seko in yellow shorts) just a few years ago. In fact, he is doing it more like what Lydiard would have recommended--exaggerated knee lift with slow forward momentum. This is the one Glenn is talking about; Lydiard sort of moved on and added more distinct Bounding and Springing later on but this is the original hill training as Ray Puckett showed to me. Nakamura of course was the one who took a group of elite Japanese runners to New Zealand in 1963 to learn Lydiard program and that's where he picked up this hill training.

The way Peter (Snell) did his hill training was a bit different--perhaps because him being a middle distance runner and Ray Puckett a marathon runner. Peter showed how he did it as more of a half way betwen Steep Hill Running and Bounding; he had exaggerated up-and-down action more but not so much the way I'm doing. I had an advantage; Arthur loved the way I did bounding and used me to demonstrate every time he had a chance. One time he wanted to film me and told me to go up and down and up and down and up and down and...never giving me much breather!! But I was a triple jumper in junior high school and the exercise itself was very easy and natural to me. I've noticed that there aren't too many people who are coordinated enough to do this exercise right and well for the first time.

The problem with us is that there aren't too many people who can just do this correctly. The guy whose legs were all over the place is actually a 1:50-800m guy in college. My wife is not as powerful but she used to be a cheerleader so she's very coordinated and shows good ankle extension really well in a close-up. I tell you, the one who does Bounding really well and almost elite here in the US; it's Heather Dorniden (she's now married and can't remember her last name now). We both did the hill training demonstration for Steve Plancensia for U of M summer XC camp and she showed a beautiful and powerful form. We had already talked about, next time we do the filming, I would come ask her.

TJ

Just my 2 cents here from experience over the years.

I have experienced PRs and seen PRs from athletes coming out of the hill phase. Having stated that you need to be very careful, become a body whisperer during this phase because you can get injured quicker during this phase then any other. Using myself as example I have not been able to run for the past eight months due to insertional achilles tenopathy with retrocalcaneal bursitis, I am not new to this approach as I have been using it since 1974 and have coached others successfully using this approach. You can get dramatic improvements with this approach but the key to this or any other "system" is to listen to your body especially as you get older as there is less foregiveness when you get it wrong. Don't get me wrong I am a big believer in the hill phase it is just a matter of how you implement it.

I think to add to this discussion, Vern Gambetta should be included. He does not necessarily include hill bounding. BUT he does emphasize training strength before strength endurance. As Gambetta says, "How does a person develop a quality that he doesn't have?" The point is that the benefits of hill training can be developed without hill training, OR hill training can be extremely beneficial if the strength to accomplish it is developed before doing it.

I'm a huge Lydiard advocate. The point of hill phase is as a transition to anaerobic work (developing strength to accomplish anaerobic work) and to further develop type IIB muscle developed in the short sprint work done in the aerobic phase to maintain speed. Speed comes from strength.

Thanks Nobby. I think hill springing might be a good warm up for hill bounding, which I think is a very effective workout. I focus specifically on stride length. Last week I did 300 meters up a 5% grade in 156 strides. For a fat old man, that is a very long stride. It is potentially dangerous though, so I am extra cautious not to overdo it.

Yes it's wrong to be overly critical and negative, when coaching, I completely agree.

Thanks, Nobby. You're right - it's quite subtle to watch those two do it. I was doing it with a much more exaggerated movement, more similar to the video you have on the Lydiard Foundation website.