LYDIARD OR DANIELS?

Nothing you say is relevant to the discussion of Lydiard/Daniels. All you do in your various incarnations is take discussions of the sport and trash them by your carrying on towards anyone who has some actual ideas or informations. Got any advice for the 51 year old who's starting back up? got any prefernce for Lydiard, Daniels, Higdon, Bowerman and any explanation for your preference that someone might find useful? What exactly are you "debating" here?

You've wanted to get under the skins of some of the serious posters here. Congratulations. You've succeeded. Keep it up and eventually a lot of us will probably let you "have" the thread expcept for suggesting to people who are asking serious questions or tossing out topics for discussion to go to the Lydiard Founadtions website or maybe to e-mail us privately and you can take satisfaction from thinking that you've "helped" get this Lydiard nonsense out of the running world. But of course Lydiard's place is well established and you're just another example of what arthur used to call the "Tall Poppy" syndrome, i.e. people who haven't accomplished anything and make themselves feel better about it by trashing people who have accomplished something. You might want to respond by saying you respect Lydiard but that's a crock. You don't respect someone by making it next to impossible to have a reasonable discussion about their work and ideas.

Are you talking to me?

HER I was trying to understand Westcoast. Now you have gotten me trying very hard to understand what your rant is all about.

HRE wrote:

What exactly are you "debating" here?

Lydiard or Daniels ?

No one but you.

Questionerer wrote:

HER I was trying to understand Westcoast. Now you have gotten me trying very hard to understand what your rant is all about.

Really sorry about making you think. I know that's hard for you guys with 100 IQs. Just disregard.

Daniels or Lydiard is irrelevant! The guy we should be talking about it Mick Grant, he's the greatest running coach ever.

Questionerer,

Let my try to help you understand. Who is a troll? What is a troll?

A person who disagrees with the Lydiard Foundation, may or may not be a troll, depending on how he (or she) states his disagreement, and what type of response he expects from that statement.

In Internet usage, a troll is someone who posts a controversial message, seemingly with the primary intention of triggering an emotional reaction, or pissing people off. He is willfully obtuse or provocative; he's doing it on purpose to be obnoxious.

The primary meaning is derived from the use of the word related to fishing, as in fishing for emotional reactions. It's popularity is likely due to it's appropriate second meaning, from Scandinavian folklore, as an ugly monster who lives under a bridge.

Determining who is a troll is quite subjective. One must assume an element of bad faith, and whether the posting was willful, and not simply because the poster is just plain stupid, ignorant or wrong. A troll is just acting stupid, but really knows better. A genuinely stupid person is not a troll.

It is generally considered that the best response to trolls is to not give them what they seek, and hope they go away out of boredom. Your suggested method of identifying all the contributing trolls by name will not produce any meaningful on-topic discussion. It can lead us nowhere else but a downward spiral into a lot of flared tempers.

So please do not feed the trolls, if you think you've spotted one.

Perhaps, but in a thread titled "LYDIARD OR DANIELS?", Mick Grant should be discussed somewhere else.Regards,

LinksEElight wrote:

Daniels or Lydiard is irrelevant! The guy we should be talking about it Mick Grant, he's the greatest running coach ever.

I'm not a lawyer, but according to the "Rules" I agreed to when posting on Letsrun, all of these posts become the copyrighted property of "Letsrun.com". You may need permission first, from the lawful copyright owner(s), before you can do that legally.

Wetcoast wrote:

D.,

You can report thread and Wejo may delete it. But first I'd like to save a books worth of useful training information from the real contributors on here like:

Nobby, HRE, Kim Stevenson, JTupper and a few others...:o)

You know what? I think I might actually do that. Pare it down to the size it needs to be and email it to everyone who wants it. Although there is a tonne of useful information on here, I bet I can halve it!

"NO",

Let me take a second, more direct attempt address the debate, regarding essential long runs. I see the point of both sides, and don't believe any debate would end.

Lydiard believed that marathon conditioning was essential for improving in all races from 800m (880yds?) upwards. The "key" to successful conditioning was the high weekly volume. An important part of achieving the high volume, and one of the most important components of the Lydiard system, was the weekly long run.

So my limited, and very short, understanding is that Lydiard did not directly say that long runs were essential for mid-distance runners, except in the sense that the long run was an essential part of the Lydiard system, which he believed benefited all runners from 800m up.

Now, I agree it is debatable that one can still achieve a strong aerobic base, and high weekly volume, without weekly long runs, by replacing them with double sessions of shorter runs. The final goal is the aerobic foundation, and there may be many ways to get there (just like the many ways for doing repetitions to achieve the same goal - some details just don't matter).

I always thought 1 2-hour run was more beneficial than 2 1-hour runs, but for the 800m runner, what is important is maximizing the speed, and carrying as much of that speed as he can to the finish line. A good aerobic base helps both.

It would be hard for me to quantify the effect of replacing all 2-hour runs with 2 1-hour runs in a season, but even if one could show that one approach is superior, I imagine the difference is marginal at best. But then again, medals are lost in the margin.

So although I agree it is debatable, I can't see anyone deciding this particular point conclusively (there are too many variables to control), so I don't see the point of debating something without a foreseeable end.

Your conclusion is very similar to my own.

There is no conclusive study about the need of long runs for middle or long distance events shorter than the marathon.

The experience lesson done by fact that lots of the best 800m up to 10000m top performances were achieved without regular long runs in the training schedule turns every physiologic argument weak.

The cases of 800m and 1500m the fast pace specific is need and that takes the long run out of specificity interest because the long is too distant from the race pace event.

Let me ask you. How do you consider the Lydiardism insistence that the long run is a must ? Does Lydiardism knows anything that we don’t ?

No. A guy whose coaching influence lead to over a dozen athletes winning Olympic medals or setting world records would not know anything that an anonymous poster on a running message board would know. We should all pay attention to someone who persistently claims to be right without providing any supporting material rather than a guy who's had all that coaching success. After all, he did all that more than twenty years ago and the guy on the message board is writing right now.

You are missing the most important points of the lactate shuttle as they relate to athletic performance, and in doing so you continue to promote the old dogma of "aerobic glycolysis" being the primary fuel supply in carbohydrate oxidtion during intensive running.

In the cell to cell lactate shuttle hypothesis, lactate produced by more glycolytic fibers can be taken up and oxidized by more oxidative fibers, i.e. to simplify; the fast twitch fibers produce lactate, which goes into the bloodstream and the slow twitch fibers use it as a fuel supply.

You are wrong to say: "the vast majority takes place in the liver and heart, not in other muscles cells (fibers), as I clearly stated in a previous post I made."

This is true after high intensity excercise, but not during high intesity excercise. Both during and after scenarios are beneficial for different reasons.

Your knowledge of the lactate shuttle simply isn't up to scratch. In a race such as a 10k lactate is the main glycolytic end product, not pyruvate.

Yes, of course it has to be reconverted to pyruvate before it can go through the steps of aerobic respiration in the mitochondria.

And of course high blood lactate levels and fatigue show a correlation but that doesn't mean that lactate is not an extremely imporant fuel source.

You ask why don't coaches inject lactate? but if you really knew what you were talking about, you wouldn't ask such an irrelevant question. Lactate, when injected into the bloodstream has been found to be innocuous.

The problem with your research Tom is that your mind gets muddled trying to put the research into it's hisorical context, and you leap about from one piece of research to another without realizing this and end up contradicting yourself.

I was impressed by many of your posts here in 2003, but suddenly in 2004 you seemd to have turned your back on much of the recent research. That is what is so frustrating about your writing.

Thanks for asking my opinion -- maybe I should remind everyone that I'm more qualified to ask questions, rather than answer them, and I'm clearly not a spokesman for Lydiardism, but I did read a book, and material at the website. So some of this post is just my own speculation rather than asserting any statements of fact. I hope it's clear which is which.Short of scientific studies, a lot of what forms our ideas and beliefs came from the gut-feelings of strong-minded, but eccentric coaches lucky enough to have achieved notable success. Two successful coaches with opposing ideas generates lots of debates based on opposing beliefs.I guess what you want to say with "specificity interest", is that if a run is too slow, it is too far away from his desired race pace to be beneficial. And that the general aerobic resistance training for an 800m specialist must be run at a pace faster than he can maintain for 90 minutes or 2 hours, but this could be managed in double sessions of 2x45 minutes or 2x60 minutes. I can see that point, but I'm not qualified to argue that. Do we need "specifically race pace linked" aerobic conditioning 3 months before racing season? Perhaps elite runners with talent and busy racing schedules do.It's hard for me to say if someone is better off, worse off, or just the same, when replacing the long runs with more frequent, short runs. I guess the answer to that depends on what else the athlete-coach does, and the athlete's raw talent. For example, higher weekly mileage might compensate for the missing the long run.Maybe the case can be made that for some talented runners, they can get away without long runs. But for less talented runners, the long run helps them achieve the aerobic depth they need to get the most out of specific training, and compete with the talented runners. I understand that Snell had slower basic speed than most of his competitors, but was able to maintain it better over the race distance - due to his marathon conditioning. Maybe he would not have responded as well with a "specificity interest" approach to conditioning.I've also seen arguments for long runs that say some things start to happen after 105 minutes that don't happen in less than 90 minute runs, and that 2-hours runs are better than 2 1-hour runs. I haven't ever seen these points refuted, but I haven't looked that hard either.I am in favor of long runs, but I'm mostly interested in 10Ks to marathons, and I will not be coaching any elite athletes, or elite hopefuls (well, maybe my 6 year old son will become an Olympic champion with his father as coach, but time will tell).As far as Lydiardism knowing something we don't, it's not saying much that Lydiard knew a lot about running that I don't.Regards,

IQ100 wrote:

Your conclusion is very similar to my own.

There is no conclusive study about the need of long runs for middle or long distance events shorter than the marathon.

The experience lesson done by fact that lots of the best 800m up to 10000m top performances were achieved without regular long runs in the training schedule turns every physiologic argument weak.

The cases of 800m and 1500m the fast pace specific is need and that takes the long run out of specificity interest because the long is too distant from the race pace event.

Let me ask you. How do you consider the Lydiardism insistence that the long run is a must ? Does Lydiardism knows anything that we don’t ?

HRE,

I am pretty sure this is a losing battle. Part of me wants to respond to 'him' part not. ....well okay not really....

There is no benefit to proving this guy wrong, you have already proven him wrong anyway. It will be nearly impossible for him to become man-enough to admit to being a complete and utter moron. He is doing this for reasons well outside of good old fashioned logic.

I beleive the tally is 17 Olympic Gold medals. Now if that be the case, I wonder how many major event gold medals he coached?

Or how many Olympians he coached, some who didn't place top three, but still made the show and all the other big shows?

17 Oly Gold - I wonder if that projects out to 50 or 150 medals in all major events, directly coached? Or perhaps 400 or 500 appearances in major games? Directly and indirectly coached...or more?

How about athletes he indirectly influenced we never hear about?

Culpepper, Daws, Moller, Dixon, Viren...are obvious.

I know a 2:16 marathoner (aspiring to greater things) who just signed a poster for me who said, "we are all born Lydiard athletes..."

The comment goes further but I think he is suggesting it is simply human physiology in the works, which hasn't changed in thousands upon thousands of years if ever.

I talk to good to excellent athletes all the time who are inspired by Lydiard or others who adapted the method, like one guy who is near Olympic calibre who follows Daws, who followed Lydiard.

Or Jon Brown, European 10, 000 metre record holder, 2 x 4th place marathon Olympics....going to Beijing...I have a podcast of him saying:

"There hasn't been anyone since Lydiard".

and...

"I wouldn't be the runner I am today without Lydiard".

...what about Ryan Hall, his dad attended Lydiard clinic(s) and met the man and was the first coach of his son.

As discussed throughout this thread, African runners happen to build a huge aerobic base through lifestyle. This, just as Lydiard had athletes do. How can this overwhelming proof be debated at all?

Anyone can argue the benefits of Lydiard with logical points, perhaps to improve it or undersand what Lydiard meant, because he was not always perfectly clear and his scientific terminology wasn't perfect, but it takes a real idiot to completely denounce the irrefutable proof from people who knew Lydiard personally and know the system better than anyone else.

The way I see it, every athlete has different needs. For an athlete with incredible natural aerobic capacity, long runs are less important. For an athlete with plenty of footspeed but little endurance, long runs are crucial for middle-distance guys.

So, the necessity of a long run would depend on an athlete's natural talents. However, I don't think the split is near equal. I think most mid-distance guys have plenty of footspeed, and that their problem is endurance.

I would conclude that most mid-distance guys would benefit from doing long runs (90-120 min) in their conditioning phases and keep a weekly maintenance run of 75 minutes during race prep.

Think of how many 4:15 guys you know with 51 quarter speed. A 51 quarter miler should, with enough endurance, be able to go 4:04. But they don't, they're stuck at 4:10-4:15. A 4:12 miler with a 51 or 50 second quarter doesn't lack speed.

I think that the clash between the old science and the new science is detrimental to a runner's confidence.

Does science matter in Lydiardism? Yes, very much because a lot ot runners are worried that others are using science to gain an advantage or an unfair advantage.

So your confidence can be boosted or shaken by knowledge or doubt, just as it always has been.

[quote]The Light wrote:

I understand that Snell had slower basic speed than most of his competitors, but was able to maintain it better over the race distance - due to his marathon conditioning. Maybe he would not have responded as well with a "specificity interest" approach to conditioning.

[quote]

Let´s see if Peter haven´t respond as well with a "specific interest". I don´t think so. When i look to his schedule i see he did more anaerobic training that most of the runners they do in more recent years. More than Seb Coe or more than Kipketer, more than David Wottle, more than Rick Wollutter, more than Ivo van Damme, more than Morcelli, more than Borzakovsky, more than El Guerrouj for example.

The influence of long runs seen as a single training element can’t be measured or evaluated by the runners that did use it with success for middle and short distance events. Why not ? Mostly because we can’t estimate in what percent that was effective inn the whole training package.

Let´s see one example. One that Lydiardism they love and try do publicize to make us trust the influence of the long run for 800m and 1500m . Peter Snell. Before Tokyo 1964 he did 10 weeks build up with marathon training conditioning a total of 1012 miles in 10 weeks (101.2 weekly mile volume). The next 6 weeks he did hill training – 90 miles weekly. Then he entered in the anaerobic block 10 weeks prior to the Olympics.

That´s true that he did that 20miles long run on weekend in most of the weeks and also a second training session on that day. Tremendous really indeed. But if you think deeply and analyse that 10 last weeks prior to the Olympics you will see that he did long runs but also an average of 3-4-5 track specific/repetition workouts on every week in paces that are close or faster than his 800m and/or 1500m race pace and also another some 3 to 5 threshold workouts – that ones of ¼ or ½ pace sand so. Total of 6-8 or more track workouts week average. It´s rarely to have so many workouts by week in so many weeks. If you relate that to Russian Borzakovsky (also an 800m winner or to El Guerrouj they do less anaerobic workouts during that last block period than Peter Snell did it.

Now, What ? Are the longs what makes you best in 800m/1500m and makes you a winner or the big frequency and the amount of anaerobic training ?

I never seen or new no one to be at the top of those 800m-1500m while doing just the long run and some aerobic runs, but I know of runners that did very well indeed without the need of long run – but the reason they did win it was because they did specific workouts in the direction of the training pace specificity need. Not in the 800m neither in any distance event up to 1000m, I never knew no one that just did the long run as his prime specific training, but I know many that didn´t the long run and did perform good in all that 800m to 1000m distances.

Lydiardism they want to say that long runs made the difference. That’s up to you all to see who is right and who is wrong. May be that the long run made some contribute, but that’s a minimum.

I hope that one day the Lydiardism can be as flexible as you are the way you think. Most of them instead of analyse and have logic they turn everything to the trollism excuse and they fell offended. The reason is that most of their dogmas are in dissolution.

That's the whole reason why Lydiard structured his training the way he did.

The reason Snell could do all that hard anaerobic work was BECAUSE of all those long runs he did during buildup.

The point of the long run is that it gives you strength and durability; the durability you NEED to do all the track workouts Snell did.

The way I see it, it was the track workouts Snell did that made him such a great racer. But it was the long runs he did BEFORE those track workouts that made him ABLE to withstand all those hills and all those hard repeats.