Has anyone tried the NOP training method?

Besides the 2 weeks off and the 2 weeks of easy jogging the NOP guys are doing speed work all year. I have tried similar training and I am a huge fan. Basically you are working all the systems year round with a well balanced training plan. Nothing is neglected and there is a reason why the NOP guys kick so much ass.

Canova>God wrote:

Besides the 2 weeks off and the 2 weeks of easy jogging the NOP guys are doing speed work all year. I have tried similar training and I am a huge fan. Basically you are working all the systems year round with a well balanced training plan. Nothing is neglected and there is a reason why the NOP guys kick so much ass.

This is nothing new. Its called multi-pace training and has been around for a while. How you implement it though lies the key.

Canova>God,

But do you think this is wise to do for people underdeveloped aerobically?-i have only been running for about two years.

Also can you tell me how you handed the rest between intervals year round, and how your progressed? In one of the videos Al Sal says that they do a 400 jog between all the distances in about 2.15, increasing the speed of the reps as they progress...but does he not shorten the rest later in the cycle? And is it this longer rest that doesn't allow the lactate to effect aerobic development, what lydiard always said?

You're all over the place man. First you want to try a plan based off videos from Salazar (which sound vaguely familure to every training plan in America), then talk about building an aerobic house that Canova refers to and end up at Lydiard.

So what you are doing would not be based off the NOP training philosophy, nut a mix mash of everyone. Which again, is what the majority of coaches do in America.

You left out some names though. Try to fit in some Vigil, Daniels, etc.

TJ AJ RJ wrote:

Is it possible Salazar doesn't put enough emphasis on long tempos and VO2max intervals, thus resulting in the NOP becoming milers instead of strong 10k runners?

Um...lots of gold and silver medals in the last several major champhionships at 10000m....seems whatever he is doing is working very well

The high school team I work with implements a similar program, but with some tweaks.

I don't really have a 2 week "jogging period". I'll have an easy speed development day early in December, which will be done once every two-week microcycle. I'll include short tempo and long tempo runs, as well as short intervals at 3k/5k pace. With winter track having races just after Christmas, I don't want the kids' first speed session to be the race or the week before. So it is moderate sprinklings of intensity while slowly coming up to full volume by mid-January.

I think you can always include speed at anytime during the cycle; it is really the duration of work vs. rest that has to be paid close attention to so you can focus on aerobic development.

We repeat workouts, somewhat. I tend to go off of Daniels VDOT formula. So the workouts and paces get adjusted when there is an improved race performance. I also prefer manipulating the rest period, with less rest as you get closer to goal races in the spring and fall.

A similar pattern was followed in the summer for x-country and we had our best season ever.

It is pretty much all you can do. There isn't remotely enough info to try and recreate the whole NOP method or pretty much anyone else. Take a guy like Lydiard who gave a zillion seminars and published a bunch of books. People will still debate how much speed work he wanted to you to do during your base phase.

The Animal Within wrote:

You're all over the place man. First you want to try a plan based off videos from Salazar (which sound vaguely familure to every training plan in America), then talk about building an aerobic house that Canova refers to and end up at Lydiard.

So what you are doing would not be based off the NOP training philosophy, nut a mix mash of everyone. Which again, is what the majority of coaches do in America.

You left out some names though. Try to fit in some Vigil, Daniels, etc.

exactly, i guess in the end NOP isn't terribly different from any other program, I've just always thought that the difficult part of multi-pace training was progressing and Salazar's "one step backward, two steps forward" really resonates with me.

Just thought of something, would multi-pace training be primarily beneficial to countries like the U.S.? Running wise, we are at disadvantage because the kenyans and ethiopians have a bigger lifetime base from childhood running, plus they have the benefit of living at altitude. For this reason, it takes most of us years of running to get to the level of frequent LT running.

So we really have to do something different than the Kenyans to get close to that type of fitness. The mulit-pace method allows us to develop speed year round while slowly adding in more stength and mileage as we progress in our career-essentially training ourselves as MID-D runners first and then gradually becoming better at the distances.

This is the opposite of what the kenyans do who work on strength first and then develop speed. Does anybody else concur that this type of training would be ideal for countries similar to the U.S.?

Look at Ciaran O'Lionards log. Very close to the real NOP training. Put in some more miles and larger volume workouts and you should be close to Galen/Mo 5k training.

Debate about speed or endurance first: You need a certain speed as a gift. Refurbish it to get MD success or maintain it and work on endurance for LD progress. In the end the difference is going to be minimal either way. There are many ways to run but the most important part is not to forget running.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1vfZ7tD21qONFdOVDAxNE94LXc/edit?pli=1

here's Ciarian's training log...

Don't know why the guy above didn't include it in his post

This is awesome! Never saw it before. Anyone else have access to any other professional runners logs?