Peter Snell Interview and his thoughts on Lydiard training

Thanks. I may re-read this post and have another thought or two. I certainly respect your opinion. But I think a real basic and deep difference between us is that you believe knowing exercise physiology makes some real contribution to successful distance running or coaching. I have seen no evidence of that at all.

Some years back a guy called Tim Hacker won the US cross country championships. He has a master's degree in exercise physiology and after the race someone asked him if he thought that gave him an advantage over his competitors. He said it did not; that runners figured out what worked and physiologists later explained why. If you look at all of the debate here about muscle fibers and the like I'm not even sure physiologists actually explain why something worked as opposed to advancing theoretical explanations as to why it worked. Personally I think the simpler you make something the less likely you are to mess it up.

J.O. wrote:

J.R. You are very immature. Several posters have explained with simple examples why you are wrong.

Hey, you are calling me immature.

The posters have basically said the same thing as you, that slow movement is fast twitch.

So make up your mind. Are you saying slow running up steep hills stimulates fast twitch or slow twitch. First you said fast twitch, then slow twitch, now you're back on the fast twitch again.

You have your mind made up that the wrong way is right, so there's no reason for me to repeat anything or to explain it in any more detail.

0/10

HRE wrote:

Thanks. I may re-read this post and have another thought or two. I certainly respect your opinion. But I think a real basic and deep difference between us is that you believe knowing exercise physiology makes some real contribution to successful distance running or coaching. I have seen no evidence of that at all

HRE

But i agree with you about physiology.

Might be that my english is so poor you don´tt understand. I say the sasme that you, the physiology SHALL NOT BE THE FRONT LINE OF THE TRAINING ANALYSIS, OF THE TRAINING METHOD, THE PHYSIOLOGY IT`S JUST THE BACKGROUND of the training method, what means the physilogy it´s not as important as the training methodology: TRAINING METHODOLOGY IT´S SOMETHING DIFFERENT THAN SCIENCE PHYSIOLOGY. I don´t want to be so radical/fondamentalist as i think that you are when you say "I have seen no evidence of that at all in exercise physiology". How we will know what´s aerobic, anaerobic and many other interesting physiology issues relate to distance running, if we don´t care about physiology ? What i mean, is that i don´t trust in physiology to LEAD the training process. The coach/train lead process shall be based in methodology. In this point we botn agree. MY commented about keith book goes on this my opinion. I reapeat once again. I think that on his boo Keith wants to get the Lydiard training in-date with "rocket" physilogy. However i wanted that he discuss the Lydiard training at the light of modern methodology, what he doesn´t.

One more question. If you think that "in successful distance running or coaching, you don´t have seen no evidence of that at all in Physilogy" why do you say that Peter Snell knows what he says, he is right about what he says, and shall be respected because he is Ph in Physiiology ? With all respect I really don´t understand. Might be i miss something.

Greetings

HRE, your reference to what Tim Hacker said and your comments ar very enlightening. Peter Snell noted that when he was training and competing he didn't know the physiological reasons why things worked, he just knew they worked. Interesting is how similar elements of training work for certain runners because they 'like' doing them or 'believe' in them. One example that comes to mind is 'negative splits' in track sessions based on what runners I have interviewed told me. Sometimes Craig Virgin would do eight or ten repeat 400s and drop his times after every two of them. Keith Brantly liked doing repeat 400s in 65 with 200m splits of 35 and 30 when he was training for 10000m. Bob Schul would do 16 repeat 400s with a rest of 60m walk and 60m jog with all in 60 seconds except every fourth one in 58 and the 16th all out in 54 or 55. Peter Snell said he ran workouts even and didn't do negative splits. Just a few examples - but individuality is important.

Antonio,

I do have to read what you write more carefully than I do when reading someone who's first language is English, not an insult in any way, it's excellent for a second language. I just say this to mention that I may misunderstand you at times and maybe you do the same with me. So let me read both of your posts again when I have more time, probably tonight.

I think the business of what people like is not given enough attention as a rule. One of the things I like about Cerutty was the emphasis on the mental side and less focus on specific workouts.

J.O. wrote:

Are you saying that hill running does help you run fast on the flat?

If so I would of course agree.

Of course you'd agree, because that's your idea, but that's wrong. Running slowly up hills does not make you faster on the flat.

There is a hill near where I live that is just 220 meters long and when I have run it in 58 seconds, it feels like a 58 second 400m. But when I run it in 80 seconds it's still hard because it's so steep. You have to concentrate so much that it makes all other running feel easy by comparison, much like the feeling near the end of races. Therein lies the key, I believe, the ability to concentrate when you are very tired.

Here you're talking about running 8 to 11 minutes a mile up a hill and trying to say that stimulates your fast twitch fibers to help you run faster on the flat, which is totally false. All that running slowly up hills helps you to do is run slowly up hills. If running slowly up hills was all the training that you did, you would keep getting SLOWER on the flat. In fact, J.O., why don't you try what you are suggesting, just eliminate any and all faster running that you do on the flat, keep all your flat running at 7 minute pace or slower for a few months at least, plus plenty of running slowly up that steep hill, and then see how fast you can run. Since you're so confident, then just do this all the way up to your most important races.

Antonio Cabral wrote:

Conclusion: in my opinion, the art of training exists, but as the training tends to be more objective than art, and training methodology it´s a science and not an art. We can´t debate or arguing training based on the art of training, intuition, etc, as we can´t take the norm by singular cases of exception. The training debate it´s only possible and sustainable if we stand on training methodology, not by the appeal of training art whatever kiind of subjective expression.

Greetings

Antonio:

Mark the day if you want--but THIS I totally in agreement with you. In fact, if not, we wouldn't be doing "Lydiard Foundation"! Well, that's not entirely true either. But what we're trying to do is as much passing on who Arthur Lydiard was and, in a way, how he "delivered" his teaching. But also a big part is what it was. I'm trying to put together a DVD with his clinic and he gets so specific and talk about (usual) 10-weeks of conditioning, 4 weeks of hills, 4 weeks of intervals, etc. We are trying to show it with a diagram what exactly he meant. It does get pretty confusing.

I think if we discuss this "art of coaching" or "art of training", someone like Iglio would be even more so. I've heard the story that even his runners have no idea what they would have to do until the day comes and you show up on track and fact him. Sounds totally intuition to me and, it must have worked well too!

More to follow...

I believe that Coach Igloi considered coaching an art. He turned out some masterpieces!

The reason I trained under Coach Fred Foot, Coach Mihaly Igloi and several other top coaches was so that I would not have to do anything other than show up and do the workout. Running was our hobby in the 1960s and 70s and some of us did not have time or want to think about it other than to train and learn to race.

Both Coaches Foot and Igloi had success at the very top levels. I always felt that a coach had to watch the athlete run to know how to structure the rest of the work- out. Each Igloi workout was tailor structured for the athlete doing it. I believe that he felt that each runner was an individual therefore the workout was developed for that individual as it went along. Not only did we not know what we were to do the next day, the workout was given to the runner in sets, one set at a time and was changed as it was run. We often did not know when we were doing the last set. Igloi kept a record of what each runner did. I was never given times of anything I ran including time trials. I did know race times of course. I ran, he coached. At the same time the athlete learned as we have seen with the results achieved by Bob Schul, Laszlo Tabori, Joe Douglas, Merle McGee and others.

My problem with Lydiard or every other method isn´t (and never been)what is Lydiard training on the eyes of physiology. My question is how some Lydiard norms fits on methodology.

The physiology of Lydiard training is one question for young US students, or people that comes out of the University, not for me.

Long ago i took a strong vaccination against "rocket science" and the influence of physilogy on my training method, on my training concept.

Let me insist. Training analysis shall be done by methodology, and training methodology it´s not an art, and methodology it´s not one straight science, it´s based in several sciences, from mathematics, the history of the training, to physics, biology, to physiology. In the specific case of physiology, the training method doesn´t need the total approval of physiology, or based all aspects and decisions on the physiology science.

THE TRAINING METHODOLOGY, DESPITE IT`S NOT PHYSIOLOGY, OR "INDUTIVE" SCIENCE, THE TRAINING METHODOLOGY IS "DEDUTIVE" SCIENCE AND DOES ACCURATE CRITERIA AS THE TOOL OF KNOWLEDGE.

After we debate, we analyse the training at the light of methodology, i can debate the "art of training" as an individual talent, as something personal that one coach (or one self coach runner) can have, or don´t, but at the level of the "artistic talents" each one opinion is subjective.

The art (every art of the seven arts) as the art of training - might be that the art of training is the 8th art - is like ESP (extrasensory perception) also named the 6th sense or intuition - can´t be transmitted, can´t be shared.

If we take for granted that Lydiard did the art of training, that really doesn´t matter to the training debate. If he possesses "training ESP ", the best we can do is to try to understand what is Lydiard training, and not hope that some Lydiard training art can be communicated, because it can´t. This is the reason i refuse to accept that the interest of Lydiard training is about his training art, His training art, is something that did die with him unhappily.

Conclusion. I refuse to analyse and debate the Lydiard training by the art of training (his art of training) as i refuse to analyse and debate Lydiard training by physiology.

That´s why i refue to accept some Wetcoast opinions in teh name of intuition, gestalt, or the art of training, as Keith Livingston it´s deceiving for me, when he try to take the Lydiard training to the physiology debate. I want Lydiard the methodologist, or the Lydiard debate on the name of training methodology.

ps - What i know from you Nobby, i always knew that you are the kind of guy that doesn´t fall on the trap of the physiology, and i admire you for this your intelligent position. I also know that isn´t easy to get you down. Yiou are like a rock. But when you admit that you are not right you are the first one to change your opinion.

I know that you are the strongest defender of Lydiard, eventually the big one to defend Lydiard, but you were the first one to admit on this board that not everything is perfect Lydiard. Do you know crystal glass. Hard to break, but with one chord tune, that one specific sound of voice breks the crystal glass. You are the crystal glass. Some other is just one ordinary glass.

Greetings

Hi Orville:

Do you have any recollection of the kind of workouts that Bill Crothers was doing under Fred Foot? I saw your post about Bruce Kidd's workouts but I'm wondering if Crothers did the same? Or was Crothers less volume, more speed (as I would think a 400-800 guy would be)?

Thanks.

HRE wrote:

Antonio,

I do have to read what you write more carefully than I do when reading someone who's first language is English, not an insult in any way, it's excellent for a second language. I just say this to mention that I may misunderstand you at times and maybe you do the same with me. So let me read both of your posts again when I have more time, probably tonight.

HRE

Excuse me if what i want to say it´s my arrogance, but i thin k i understand you perfect, i guess that i undertand every ideia of everyone of you. Despite my english is not perfect it´s easy for me to read than to talk or write. Second, i know abouit the subject we were beeb discuss, then i undertand everything that you write.

I also think that some part that you don´t understand is my poor english, but some part is because we have different training philosophy and i guess that if i will write in good, quite perfect english you would miss something.

See, about Renato Canova. His english isn´t perfect, some poeple think that don´t understand him because Renato´s english. I´m no good in english as well, but i have the arrogance to understans him quite perfect. We might disagree, i might disagree with what he says, but i understand every of his posts. We share the same methodolgy logic, it´s why i understand everything he writes on this board. What he says is so quite logic.

About what we need to know and what we don´t.

Do you think the runner needs to know about training ? I don´t.

Igloi training is very easy to understand. First we need to know about german-Fribourg interval training and how that training did change from Gersheler to Igloi. Igloi is also very influenced by the Zatopec training and the USSR intreval training (Kuts and Bolotnovick) that as you know both Zatopec training and USSR training are influenced by the German Fribourg-Gersheler interval training.

HRE wrote:

I think the business of what people like is not given enough attention as a rule. One of the things I like about Cerutty was the emphasis on the mental side and less focus on specific workouts.

I agree. Hudson's book appealed to me with so much emphasis on self-coaching to figure out your own individuality.

How I tailor my training today is sooooo much more based on what I like to do than when I was 'over 20' when I focussed on what I thought I should do. I very much feel I get more out of my training today than I accomplished in my over 20 days, even though my goals today are a lot less about my time and place in races. I am not trying to say my personal experience is statistically valid to prove the point (what people like); it's just my personal experience.

Peter's remarks about two hour runs and I thought that some of my conversations with him might help with the translation. I also thought it worthwhile to mention his comments about needing to do at least seven minutes a mile because I thought it would help to illustrate his thinking.

Generally on these threads about Lydiard I try to relate things that Lydiard said or that Peter said or that Barry Magee said. I may or may not agree 100% with those remarks but as no one is asking what I think I don't necessarily toss out my own ideas but rather try to use my relationships with Lydiard and those close to him to clarify things that seem confusing to people. Yes, I think it is a wonderful approach and have no regrets about basing my own training and that of people I advise on Arthur's ideas. But I am well aware that other people have succeeded doing other things. I think of myself more as an interpreter than as a proselytizer. But if I think someone is misunderstanding Arthur and then criticizing him because of that misunderstanding I will try to correct the misunderstanding. I feel like I owe him that. He was always helpful to me.

I think physiology is useful for generating some basic explanations. For example, there was once a time when people who had heart attacks were told that they should NEVER exert themselves because their hearts were too damaged to be stressed. Now we know that doing that is awful and that gentle to moderate exercise is rehabilitative. And we know something of what sorts of stresses different types of running induce. But we've never had a physiologist simply come from the lab and succeed as a coach to any great extent. It's like studying how the brain functions and trying to figure out how to be an effective teacher. It's too reductionist. You need to understand all aspects of your student.

Pardon me for using the entire quote! Once again, believe it or not, I do kinda understand what you mean. A couple of years ago, Dave Martin called me and said that we need to write a book on Lydiard training. He said a friend of his from Germany was staying over the weekend and said that it's a pitty that there's no "good" Lydiard training book in recent years. I told him that there was a guy who had been working on that it's almost ready to go but had been rejected from various publishers including Meyer & Meyer. I asked Dave who he was and he said "Mr. Meyer!" So that's how HIT came about. At the time we had been talking about old Lydiard method explained. So in a way, I wouldn't be surprised if (one of) Keith's objectives being incorporating "science" to explain Lydiard training. At one point at least, the criticism is always; "Lydiard is outdated because he never uses modern terms like AT or LT or v-Dot; instead, he still uses 1/4 effort, etc." Hence, Keith's book. Not that it explained everything but I think a lot of young people love it because he translated "Arthur's terms" into todays terms. Personally, I like to stick more closely to the original.

I'm not 100% sure if your point(s) of criticism is because, with Lydiard program, we don't do lots of fast runs in the first half of the program. You may call it "outdated" or "not modern" but I still think a lot of it is to do with situational issue rather than efficacy issue. Suppose there's no money involved in today's Grand Prix track and you have 6 months to prepare; would so many athletes still stay sharp year-around? I don't know; they may. Lydiard came up with race-week/non-race-week schedule not so much because it's better; he still said that, IF YOU CAN AFFORD TO DO IT THIS WAY, to build up first and don't mix things up so much. Why? Because, in his mind, racing too much, or doing too much race-like training all the time would pull your condition down and you get jaded or stale. I've seen a letsrun thread a while back, someone asking if there's any scientific proof or reserach on too much racing and staleness. I doubt it but, as a coach, you should know. And you KNOW the timing when the athlete had it enough throughout the season. So what do you do? You even said you'd take that runner out from racing and do some regeneration type of training (mostly nice easy run, I'd assume???) for 2 to 6 weeks. I'd assume you wouldn't continue to push that poor runner to do hard(er) track workout and expect him/her to do better the next time around. When you're cooked, you're cooked. Hard race-like training would push him/her further down. With Lydiard, the solution was to take some time off and do some longish easy jog or do some long run. If you don't agree with long runs, fine. It may not be long but still it's not going to be race-pace training.

Deek did the same kind of a pattern all year around and I had a chance to talk with him briefly about that at Boston this last month. His coach, as you may know, is Pat Clohessy who was one of the biggest Lydiard followers. He put together all the ingredients from Lydiard program "in a balanced way" to come up with this "Complex System". Deek told me that, if he didn't do any "speed training" for a while and then put spike shoes on and started running fast, he always faced some aches and pains to overcome for some time. But, instead, if he did some sort of track workout year-round, he didn't. So he stuck with it. However, his belief was such that long runs are the ones that gave him "strength". He actually told me that "far too many people overlook the strength and SPEED you gain from going far..." I have vide-taped this general comment and will eventually post it at Lydiard Foundatioin's website (though I missed that last comment because I was running out of battery!!). I also have comments from Bill Rodgers, Gelindo Bordin, Hanson brothers, Dave Martin (on Coe's training)... Now you may criticize that I only interviewed those who would agree with Lydiard. But here's the thing though. I run LYDIARD Foundation; NOT ANTI-Lydiard Foundation. I would talk about Lydiard training; not UN-Lydiard training. A group of us got together and decided to start Lydiard Foundation to pass on Lydiard training/message. There's a reason why we did that; there's a reason why we believe Lydiard training worked and still works. Some of you may not agree but that's fine. I wouldn't stop anybody to start anti-Lydiard foundation or Canova foundation or Igloi foundation or Cerutty foundation or Stampfl foundation or whatever to pass on THEIR wisdom. I'd be visiting their sites and studying. Again, if you accuse me of always talking to people who believe in Lydiard, I guess I'm guilty as charged. But, really, who wouldn't? I mean, would you take your wife who hates hocky to a hocky game to have fun? If I'm trying to convay Lydiard training that it's a good way to go about, why interview someone who trash Lydiard training? Doesn't make sense. If you want to call that act "being cult", well, so be it. I guess we are ALL cult of some sort.

I met with Coach Canova at Boston last month. A super nice guy and I was very impressed. I introduced him to Toshi Takaoka and Toshi asked him some training questions. Canova gave his time to answer in depth which we really appreciated. Afterwards, Toshi looked at me and repeated some points to make sure. He just said; "If we tried that, we'd get injured!!" Yes, he didn't go beyond 2-hours. So you may point that out that he "didn't do Lydiard." Well, he also DID do 150-miles a week (lots of volume) at 8-minute-mile pace (VERY SLOW for a 2:06 guy). He didn't do hill training; but he probably trained a lot more Lydiard than anything else. He didn't know Lydiard; but it turned out that his coach's coach, Mr. Sadanaga, was one of the original group who joined Lydiard training camp. Also, his coach handed out a copy of "Running with Lydiard" to all the runners who joined his team (including Toshi but he confessed that he just tossed it away and never read it!! ;o)). You mentioned De Costa. I remember hearing something about his coach being a sprinting coach (his agent's partner was ex-Kiwi runner). So he trained hard/fast everyday and ran the world fastest marathon. Great. But I'm sure Lydiard would have said that where did he go after that run? Now I'm sure there were more than just one (training) factor to his career being so short. But in Lydiard's eyes, training hard/fast day after day after day, week after week, is one of the quickest ways to burn out. Scientific proof? I don't know if there's any. One of the reasons TO ME that I don't buy into all those "reseraches" is because, to conduct research, you'd have to ISOLATE one aspect and compare. In real life, EVERYTHING interacts to produce results.

I appreciate you calling me "a crystal glass" (I take it as a comprement, right? ;o)); but do make NO mistake--I wasn't admitting Lydiard being wrong in some of the accounts (not all, right!). I first agreed about "cooking" and mixing ingredients in a different order resulting different outcome. I don't think Arthur would have said mix them in any order you want and you'd get the same result. It was rekrunner who said that. Then I agree with you that it ain't all "art" either. Arthur used a lot of "art" of coaching--no doubt about it. But HE was the one who always said it's got to be science (not all of it). He always said "scientific one always beat non-scientific one." Of course he was referring to East Germans and he was VERY naive and wrong about them being "just" scientific (well, in a way but; you know what I mean!). But his point was that, in his view, "crap-shooting training" never works. You may run ONE good race (even set a world record!) but if you can't come back and duplicate that run ON THE DAY THAT REQUIRES, then it's not the right training. That's a big part of Lydiard training.

In Lydiard's eyes, it is possible to "formulate" this success pattern. At first, he came up with a certain combination AS THE IDEAL CASE SCENARIO. Of course, not everybody can get that ideal case scenario. We may not have 24-weeks but 16. In his eyes, you can still "formulate" the ratior within the context of that same pattern. It's not really; "Well, if you can't do that, do this" or "you don't need to do long run in this situation"... There ARE some important elements that he never gotten away from. Long runs are always important and he just picked the number, 2-hours, that worked best for him and his "boys". It was at first 20+ miles but then he realized, if you're not as fit, 20-mile may take more than 3-hours and he found it's too much. Then he came up with 2+ hours (or total of about 10 hours a week instead of 100 miles a week).

Believe it or not, I had kept all your criticisms over the years while you may or may not have used various names. To me, we'd need to be able to at least have some sort of answers to all those criticisms as long as the criticisms are reasonable (there had been some rediculous ones coming from whomever). To us, to carry on Arthur's legacy means to explain what he tried to convay to everybody. He used to say that his principles can be applied to a 4-minute miler to a 4-hour marathon runner; young and old and men and women. When we came up with our on-line training program, Master Run Coach, we (basically me, Lorraine Moller and Dick Brown along with consulting various people like Peter Snell, Dave Martin, Greg McMillan, etc.) went back over and over and over and ask ourselves a question; "What would Arthur have said to this?" Duration of Aerobic Conditioning Phase, pace for interval training, progression of time trial (we called it Out-and-Back)...and duration ratio of each phase depending on the individual's experience and background... Sure, for you, it's "only" 1500 BASE programs and you criticized that we should have more. Absolutely! Granted, with the "formula", we do have almost infinit number of combinations with the duration and pace according to each user's calculated VO2Max. It's just we have "only" 1500 different BASE programs to branch out. And all these 1500 (actually 1475) programs were constructed with very specific reasons. Is it "perfect"? Absolutely NOT!! Just as we have not been able to make a robot that can RUN on 2 legs or a computer that can duplicate our brain functions; there is NO way we can substitute a live coach with an on-line training program. Moreover, I DO admit that this may NOT be a perfect program for EVERYBODY. Absolutely not!! It is IMPOSSIBLE. BUT (and I would emphasize this BUT), I can confidently say that this IS as close to perfect explanation, or idiot proof formula, of LYDARD TRAINING. I can confidently say, for anybody who is interested in trying out Lydiard training, this IS the easiest way to go with. I would still strongly advise people to try it out several times and try to read their own pattern and readjust it to best suit their own needs though--just as Arthur used to always say to his runners.

There IS a certain pattern to Lydiard training. Whether you want to follow that or not is totally up to you. I happened to believe it works and that's what I'd suggest to ANYBODY. But I would NEVER force anybody, if he or she is totally happy with some other program, to use it because I also believe that, if someone absolutely believes in a "wrong" training program, it would work better than using a "perfect" training program that he or she does NOT believe in. This may be where this "art" of coaching come to play--how to convince your athletes to absolutely believe in it. Some may use science; some may use praising; some may use "prediction"; some may use, well, love?

Lorraine and I had worked on identifying these PRINCIPLES of Lydiard training. You may not like them because some of them are quite vague. But, again, we tried to see if we can apply each and every one of them to training a 4-minute-miler or a 4-hour marathon runner. Lorraine had written an article on that a few years back to Running Times. If you haven't seen it, you may be interested:

So we identified the following as Lydiarad Principles:

* Aerobic development

* Feeling-based

* Response regulated

* Sequential training pattern

* Peaking

Like I said earlier, "timing" or "peaking" is a big part of "Lydiardism". There's nothing wrong with running fast during earlier stage of the program. But, in Arthur's eyes, he didn't see much point of sharpening too much waaaay before the most important race. You ask some enthusiastic young runner why they are doing repeat 200m as fast as they can in February, and ask them when their target race is; and if the answer is, say, July, Arthur would just shake his head. You can still do it; but, to him, spending one day doing that sort of workout when you can actually go for a hard 10-mile run DURING CONDITIONING PHASE is one day lost to raise your oxygen carrying capacity. BUT (again, important BUT), if someone needed to work on their speed, it wouldn't hurt to do some of that; but, again, it's got to be "Response-regulated", meaning, and you should agree with this too, if you do, say fast 200s, you should be ready for that; otherwise, you'll hurt yourself. This means the body's response should regulate the actual workout. If your "response" calls for "Not yet!!" then you shouldn't move on and do that.

I guess I've taken up enough space here but let me say one more thing; you have criticized Lydiard "intervals" being so vague. But (2) and (3) should answer that--and what Gary pointed out about intervals actually explain it perfectly. In Arthur's mind, the actual "form" of intervals didn't matter at all. The "purpose" of intervals is more important. He didn't care if you did 400m or 800m or 513m repeat as long as you did that till you get tired. Actually Frank Shorter was the one who totally agreed with this point. Arthur didn't care too much for ladder intervals. But I personally love it and it works really well for some people. I'm not necessarily diagreeing with Arthur here. I'm still covering the core of what he preached.

Okay, I laid; one more thing. Again, I konw one of the common criticisms to Lydiard is his being wrong with physiology. I'm sure for some people, it seems very important whether a certain exercise stimulates slow twitch or fast twitch--and it's quite evident if you follow this thread. And I know Arthur tried to explain it that way as well and, well, some times it didn't go too well. He basically took whatever is easiest to explain--I do respect and like the way Peter explain on the other hand because, if some things are not quite clear, he would come out and say that he didn't know "for sure". Arthur would try to convince you that the snow is black. Whether that approach is good or bad, I wouldn't try to discuss here. But the only thing I can, and would like to, say here about that is; that he used hill training just the right way in the context of his training program to achieve whatever he had desired. Incidentally, I think he explained it as "to stimulate white muscle fibers and isotonic exercise is the best way to do it" and also said that "the slower you go up the hill, the more resistance will be felt and get the better RESULTS"--and here, results mean preparing your body to do more race-specific training that follows. When Snell and Magee and Baillie were bounding up Whitney Street, I'm not sure if even physiologists knew the difference between fast twitch muscles and slow twitch muscles but that didn't seem to hurt them none.

I wonder how much of this page I covered...

Okay, lied again. A few more things;

One is about Deek. I didn't explain the whole thing--though he did the same weekly pattern year around, that does NOT mean he did the workout at the same intensity year around. In fact, he said that there WAS the time he would increase the volume and lessened the intensity; and the other way around right before the race or once more heavy racing season had arrived. So the same pattern, yes. But it was NOT the same training.

Now, that sort of leads to an interesting question (to me); one of the things coach Canova said is about gradual and steady and continuous increase of intensity. If I hadn't mistakened what he said; the training pattern should not have a let-out. From one season to the next, the effort, or intensity, needs to gradually and continuously increase. Now, even YOU said that, to rekrunner's question, you have a few weeks to almost a month+ of "regeneration" period or "ease-up" period. I have a hard time believing that coach Canova and his runners don't have this ease-up period. Now IF the cricitism to Lydiard training is that we always go back to Long Slow Distance, it IS a misunderstanding. Even though Snell "slowed" down his training speed from sub or near 4-minute mile pace down to somewhere around 7 during the Marathon Condidioning phase, even the pace during the Conditioning Phase would have to IMPROVE gradually from one season to the next. So if someone like Snell might have started his 22-mile loop at, say, 8-minute pace, he would then move on to do it at 7:45 pace the next season; then 7:30... In actuality, his pace quickened a lot faster than that.

And this sort of leads to the next point; in Arthur's opinion, as with Master Run Coach, if you are an experienced runner or someone who's been doing some sort of aerobic type activities and have gotten his/her aerobic base reasonably high to begin with, and if you don't have, in Arthur's eyes, the optimum duration of the entire program, then you don't necessarily need to spend the entire 3-months to "build up". For them , it would be MORE IMPORTANT to spend more time doing race-cpecific training. But someone who's starting up, say like a high school freshman, it would be probably more beneficial to spend more time doing a build-up type of workout; i.e. long continuous aerobic running. Now, even then, some, and you may be one of them, still argue that they should be doing hard intervals because it's more "specific". Now, in Lydiard school phylosophy, it's not necessarily just crap-shooting "case-by-case" guide line. There are a certain pattern he would follow. If you do too much of "anaerobic" type training, it is not recommended especially for young developing runners; if your target race is waaaay out there, why spend too much time sharpening so early; if you have time to do these above, might as well spend it to raise your oxygen carrying capacity in whatever the form you can do.....just to name a few. These are the questions we have asked ourselves when we put together Master Run Coach in order to make it a good representation of Lydiard training program.

Now, I would NOT be surprised at all, after all that we had tried to explain, that some people may still come back and say, BS. It ain't gonna work. Fine. Some people believe in knife and fork; some people believe in chopsticks... Some people believe in chicken, some still love beef. That's what makes our world interesting (incidentally, when I and my wife moved to Minneapolis, her friends took us out for dinner and we went to a Vietname's restaurant. When we got our disches, one of them realized that everybody was using chopsticks except for me who was eaching with a fork. "There's something wrong with this picture," she said! ;o)). Some may recommend 5 days a week of interval training, year around and turn out to become an Olympic champion. Great and happy for you. But we are Lydiard Foundation and our mission is to explain and recommend Lydiard training. Arthur wouldn't approve that and there's a good reason for that and we'd be more than happy to explain that. If we change our training pattern simply because one or a few runners from Kenya whose training we never quite know (except for some coached by Canova thanks to him!!), using hard intervals everyday--and it MAY work for 7 or 8 runners out of 10 (we don't think so), we would NOT jump to warship that and twist around what Arthur would have said. Then we might as well call ouselves "The most up-to-date training today's champions are using" foundation. But we are not. If someone wants to start up that, we wouldn't be the one who's stopping you.

For some reason the first part of this post didn't appear and now I don't remember exactly what I wrote. But it was something along the lines of saying that when I post on these "Lydiard" threads I often try to use the discussions I had with Arthur or some of the people close to him to address things brought up on the particular thread rather than to post my own thoughts for the most part. So I got into some of Peter's remarks about physiology in response to a question and not because I either agree or don't. Honestly, I don't know what goes on in muscle fibers while you run and from the diverse opinions presented here I'm not sure anyone else really does either.

One thing I didn't mention, and this addresses your question about my attitude towards science as it's applied to running, is that I think attempting to be "scientific" about running almost always leads to pseudo-science which is then presented as actual science. I say that because true science isolates for variables and then studies the impact of that one isolated variable. So when someone claims that runners are faster today because their training is better than it was a certain number of years ago, there is no real way to isolate that variable and test it because you'd have to have a significant number of people divided into at least two groups competing under the same circumstances as existed at that previous time. There's no way that can happen. Similarly, I think the idea that you can determine what types of muscle fibers a person has and then decide how they should train based on their fiber type without doing a biopsy but rather by looking at their performances is absolutely not scientific. But it sounds that way because people promoting the idea adopt scientific sounding language.

Nobby. I don't think I ever claimed that mixing ingredients differently would produce the same result. In these discussions, I'm more interested in drawing out the differences, rather than drawing conclusions about results.I think you mean the thread with "Khadaffi out of power" where I tried to make a food analogy. I wish I hadn't, but I did. If I recall, I tried to compare Lydiard and "modern" methods to lasagne, and spaghetti, saying that a lot of the ingredients are the same, but they are ordered differently, and you might put spinach in one, but not the other. I admit now (if I didn't then) that it wasn't a great analogy, or it needs some work, but I do love a good spaghetti or lasagne after a run.Then it was "Khadaffi" who turned it into French "haute cuisine", comparing steamed vegetables to vegetable soup, or something like that.

NobbyH wrote:

I wasn't admitting Lydiard being wrong in some of the accounts (not all, right!). I first agreed about "cooking" and mixing ingredients in a different order resulting different outcome. I don't think Arthur would have said mix them in any order you want and you'd get the same result. It was rekrunner who said that.