Is HADD style heart rate training rubbish?

There are numerous people who've used Hadd's methods and gotten faster, but you'll need longer than three weeks. You're going to need months before you'll know.

Personna wrote:

Gavin, my paces are slower and I run sub 17:20. You should expect a huge 5K PR.

Hope you're right personna. Truth be told, I was ticked about the 18:38, but 1/2 was into a 20mph wind and I was not fresh, c'est la vie.

Aerobicus wrote:

Yes, I am young (18). I have patience; it is just that I haven't seen one iota of improvement in three weeks!

If you're looking for improvement in 3 weeks you're not patient enough. Give it 6 months to a year.

Lydiard says wrote:

80% of your max heart rate?

That's WAY TOO HARD for easy running. Are you serious? 80% of your max is approaching LT heart rate. No wonder you haven't improved. Even 75% is too high for someone who lacks aerobic fitness.

And no, it isn't rubbish unless you consider all the monster improvement numerous people have made using this program.

LT is somewhere in the neighborhood of 90% of MHR, so 80% doesn't approach LT HR very closely.

Lydiard advocates training at 70-100% of maximum steady state, so if you are training under a Lydiard program, 80% of MHR is fine for the marathon conditioning phase. Provided of course, level of fitness is such that one can run comfortably and sustainably at that pace.

Be patient. Three weeks is not a lot of time. Give it at least 6 weeks and then do another 2400 meter test. You will see improvement. The great thing about the 2400 meter tests is that you have a concrete benchmark to assess your progress.

I've been following HADDs approach for the past 8 months and have been seeing solid results. I'm running more miles than ever and feeling great. I recently ran a 10K 40 seconds faster than the last year (though I only ran high 34s).

The real difference is how I feel during races. Before, races were pure agony. I'd be in O2 debt after a mile. In the most recent 10K I ran, I went out at the same pace as before Hadd (5:30 ish). This time, I felt great when I hit the mile. I know it's lame, but I actually got goose bumps because I have never felt so good after the first mile of a race. I ended up negative splitting the second 5K.

Just to simplify Hadd's message if I may be so bold. It's all about building a huge aerobic base. First you get strong, then you get fast. When questioned in the thread about how long to undergo this 'base' training, Hadd responded with "how long do you have".

I started following Hadd's theory during the original thread (I'd owned an hrm for years, but never really knew what to do with it). Eventually I worked up to 120 mile weeks which I held for several weeks. With this type of training you have less threat of injury and consequently most likely will get faster.

If you were following the Hadd program, what happened to the 200's??? Didn't he advocate "on/off" 200's, where the "on" was DEFINITELY faster than 10k race pace? I think so. Did you do those? If so, all your talk of running "ONE mile faster than 6:00 during this 7 month time span" is kind of silly. Because anyone could run a high-quality program, high speed program (and of couse I am not suggesting Hadd's program is that) and never run a mile under 6:00 pace in training. Hell, Bob Schul ran speed twice a day EVERY day in training, and he could make the same claim as you: He never ran a mile in training under 6:00 pace. That's because he never ran continuous miles.

So either

A) You were not doing the 200's, and thus not really following a key part of Hadd's program (but still had success.......hey, that's great), or

B) you were doing the 200's and some other speed stuff, but are completely downplaying it, and overemphasizing the LSD aspect of this approach.

Which is it?

Here's my improvement in my Hadd Tests. I am not a speedster by any means.

140 150 160 170 180

May 04 9:40 8:30 7:34 6:53 6:02

Sep 04 8:48 7:43 7:13 6:33 5:56

Jan 05 8:02 7:27 6:58 6:20 5:47

Apr 05 7:33 7:02 6:35 6:09 5:39

Those tests were over the course of 9 months. I did a test at roughly regular intervals. I am now working towards a series of June races. My 5k PR prior to starting this was 19:57. In the middle of an 88 mile week I did a 5k in 18:38 just a week ago.

What is your maximum heart rate? My current heart rate pace at 160 beats per minute is comparable to yours at 140 at the beginning of the program, and I am 3 minutes faster in the 5K. However, my pace at 180 correlates pretty closely with yours at 180.

LydiardSays wrote:

LT is somewhere in the neighborhood of 90% of MHR, so 80% doesn't approach LT HR very closely.

If you are not aerobically well-trained, you will not have a lactate threshold anywhere near 90 percent of max heart rate. At first, 20 minutes at 90 percent will have you bathed in lactate and gasping for air. You can do it, yes, but not happily and almost certainly not for an hour in a race. But, in time, your legs become so efficient at mopping up lactate, 90 percent max HR for an hour becomes so comfortable that you feel like you could go another hour no problem. The pace might not be all that much faster since your anaerobic system was providing much of the power in your first go round, but it will be so much more manageable that, in time, you can race a marathon at this level.

He could still run the 200's and not have run ONE mile faster than 6:00. He didn't say he didn't run any faster than 6:00 pace, just he didn't run a full mile under 6:00.

reason wrote:

He could still run the 200's and not have run ONE mile faster than 6:00. He didn't say he didn't run any faster than 6:00 pace, just he didn't run a full mile under 6:00.

Clearly you missed my simple point. It was.....

Yes, one can, as you pointed out, run fast 200's and not run "one mile faster than 6:00 ." My point is: but that is MISLEADING (or could be). By saying I ran "ONLY ONE mile at faster than 6:00 pace" suggests virtually all slow running was the program. But if one ran a fair amount of faster 200 workouts (not saying that this guy did, just IF...), then one is running faster than race-pace stuff, and it is having an effect, should be noted, and should not be ignored. Get it???

Again......I could run speed every day of the week, constantly running 200's, 400's, 800's at 4:00 to 5:00 mile pace, and then supplement that traing with some easy 8:00 miles, and I too could then say: "Hey, I ran a 30:00 10k, and never ran ONE mile faster than 6:00 pace. Amazing, huh??" Would that be misleading if I never really mentioned the speed work?

And again, I am NOT saying that that is what this guy did, only:

A) Hadd did suggest the 200's workouts.....did this guy do them?

B) If yes, then to say you never ran race pace in a workout is misleading.

I just think Hadd himself was underemphasizing the importance that his 200's workout played in his own program. Sure, the backbone/bread and butter of the program was the steadily increasing mileage run at comfortable aerobic paces(not gonna argue with anyone there)......but without the 200's, the resutls might not have been so exciting. The speed work matters even in an "LSD" program.

I see what you were saying, can you please unbunch your panties now?

I agree with you, the 200's, or any basic speed/ fast twitch work is important. I think the point the guy was trying to make is that without those tough longer intervals he is still getting improvement in his racing. In my opinion so many people are interested in the HADD thing because it gives a pass on the long/hard sessions that most people dread and race times still improve.

Couple of tid-bits on training by HR, especially if you are new to it:

1) Use the monitor as a "guide" only. Do not get caught up in the numbers. There are too many variables that alter your HR from one day to the next to use it as the ultimate rule.

2) Be sure you are calculating your percent MaxHR (training zones) using the Karvonen Method (do a google search for this) and not just by multiplying percent by your MaxHR.

3) Remember that aerobic development takes time and patience. Hadd emphasizing building from the ground up, starting out slowly and adding time and intensity slowly. Once you've had a good six weeks, begin to add a threshold run here and some strides there.

I did absolutely no interval training except for two 2400M tests which also means I did not do the 200s that Hadd mentioned.

Hadd struck a chord with me because I had no intentions of running "faster" again when I started. I just wanted to break 3 in the marathon (mission accomplished). So, just running long and slow (and for fun) was all I wanted to do.

Lo and behold, Hadd told me it was the way to go to really see improvements and it has worked for me.

Now, I readily confess that I don't follow Hadd exclusively. I do not run a lot of miles (50 mpw tops). I have no time for more at this point. I do not do the 200s because it would drive me insane to run around a track like that. I do allow my HR to creep at the end of the run while maintaining a particular pace. In fact, I will push it slightly harder at the end of most of my long runs.

That said, I still run painfully slow on many of my runs.

To be fair, though, I have much faster PRs that I ran a decade ago. So part of my progress is just my meager talent pushing through.

Hadd works but keep a few things in mind, frist off you need to have balince in your training. 10k pace twice a week! No top runners just jog around all the time, none!

Second do some training like a 100m runner, short hard sprints of less then 10 sec 2-3 times a week. I know Hadd say's that will do something to your aerobic enzymes. But if your basic speed is low, your not going your form is not going to be good as it could be, and your also going to kick like shit.

Last thing, keep in mind that you need to give Hadd system 12-16 weeks. I have read you should do it for 24 weeks, but I in my experince that is a lot of bull. 12 to 16 weeks and your body will get most of what it is going to get from the training. And your going your going to get moveing into othere cycles of training are going to give you rounded training. Keep in mind Lyidard came to the stated that 10 six mouth cycles of about 12-14 weeks of base work and 10 weeks of speed work repeated for 5 years would get the best results. I know that people say that at the end of that time they are running 5:30 miles at 70% of there max. But in my experince your not going to really see the results of your fat burning training untill you do a full cycle of VO2 work. In a full cycle your going to get 30-45 sec faster. But keep in mind that that is pure fat burning. And so when you race, and you have a mix of systems that 30-45 sec is going to likely end up being 90-120! And then when you do come on, you will run harder and faster then you ever could befor.

I would suggest that you get one of Lyidards books, his system is balinced. And I have never heard of anyone not getting results with it. I know Hadd knows his stuff, but I don't think his system has been quite profected.

Aerobicus wrote:

Is HADD style heart rate training rubbish?

Yes.

Didn't read through the other messages before my previous post. So, I'll be totally clear about my training.

My training is fairly simple. I have little tolerance for track workouts or any other kind of looping course. Doing more than 2 laps around a 3 mile loop also drive me crazy.

Typical week of training (currently):

M-12 miles at MP (6:20-6:30)

T-6 easy

W-6 (over a hilly course)

TH-6 easy

F-15-20miles easy with the last 3-8 miles at MP

I have started incorporating 4-6 X 100 strides twice a week whenever I feel like it just to get a feel for leg turnover.

After I did my 16:34 5K, I got a little sidetracked. I thought, if I could run that fast with no speed workouts, what could I do if I did? I planned a 4 mile tempo hoping to do 6:05/6:00/5:55/5:50. I ran the first mile in 6:05, the second in 6:10 and then I had to stop and walk. My heart was in my throat and I had a searing side ache. I limped home in 8:30/9:00 pace while continuing to nurse my side ache.

Perhaps it was a bad day, but that's the type of thing that burned me out from running in the first place. So, I've learned my lesson. I'm happy running long, slow, continuous, non-looping, on-dirt miles.

I will concede that I perhaps am a special circumstance. Others running my program might not run my times. I have a 15:30 5K PR which I ran in HS. So, I still am well below my potential.

It is still quite remarkable to me that I can avoid track workouts and running really hard yet run times that are quite acceptable to me. I thank Hadd for convincing me that this is possible. That in fact, running slow was not contrary to racing fast. I imagine if I put in 60-70 miles and more I will see even further improvement.

Works excellently for me. Retroactively explained to me why I ran well (relatively for me) in the past. Some of you don't appear to be too bright for thinking that Hadd has posted his whole program on the big thread as if speed never comes into play.

He specifically stated that the aerobic part is what is overlooked, and he's right.

Btw, how long has it been since he's posted? A coupla years? If that's the case, then I think the fact that he still gets brought up every week lends credence to the fact that his stuff is good as has worked for everyone with the patience (& negligible training acumen) to see it through. Thanks, Hadd!