Lydiard Imitations

ok, thanks

1. around 2:25 marathon at peak at least 5 years prior

2. sedentary lifestyle recently with 20 easy miles a week

ok?

yep

Ok it's late but worth taking the first step.

Session 1: grass track preferably.

- using HRM find initial breath catch point. Between 120-130 most likely.

- then operating above this specific point set a steady pace. This particular pace is very important.

- continue at this specific steady pace around a marked course, the markers assist in maintaining this particular pace.

- Determine when it became difficult to maintain pace.

- Stop when hr hits 150bpm.

-From this we can determine many things. Lets say the pace was 30 seconds per 100m which is 8min/mile pace; the catch point is 125bpm; first increase in effort was at 26min; 44min HR is 150bpm.

2: trail run (any non-manufactured surface)

- Steady run at 125bpm. Keep HR at this rate and continue for 40 mins.

3: hard trail

-Steady run at 150bpm. Lets say 30 minutes.

4: trail run

- Steady run at 125bpm 50mins.

5: grass track

- Steady run at 150bpm. Determine pace in first 1km and maintain. Cease session when HR reaches 170bpm.

6: trail run

- Steady run at 125bpm 45 mins.

7: trail run

- either run at 125bpm for longer than 1 hour or walk 2 hours.

That would be the end of the first week.

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Week 2:

M: Steady run at 150bpm 40mins

T: Steady run at 125bpm 60mins

W: Steady run at 150bpm fixed pace, cease at 170.

Th: Steady run at 125bpm fixed pace, cease at 150. (Already this session and the Wed session will have undergone improvement, so the run duration will be longer than last week)

F: Steady run at 150bpm 40min.

Sa: Steady run at 125bpm 60min.

Su: Steady run at 125bpm 1hr+ or walk 2 hrs.

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Week 3:

M: SR 125 fixed pace stop at 140.

T: SR 150 50min.

W: SR 125 60min.

Th: SR 150 fixed pace cease at 160.

F: SR 125min 30+

Sa: SR 150-160 20 mins + 10x100/100*

Su: rest

* Leading up to this session is a process i do 3-4 times per week. I mentioned it in a recent post in this thread and its to do with postural development through sprinting. So it is impossible to determine what development has occurred through these first three weeks and Joe might be up to 6x60 or 8x80 in these sessions. However, on this day we want to go the next level up from wherever he has reached. 10x100m should cover it for anyone after 3 weeks.

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That is one macrocycle containing three microcycles. Now we repeat with an eye to increasing volume as Joe's development allows.

One interesting thing which will happen soon enough is that the fixed pace 125bpm runs will reach a point where HR doesn't increase over a 60min period. When this happens we extend out to 90mins once a week, midweek. The other thing that happens is i like to keep about 50% of these recovery runs as fixed pace. Since double sessions begin in this second macro, there are plenty of runs available at this pace to be able to do this. What happens with the 125bpm fixed pace runs is that at some point the HR can't stay above 125 anymore and begins to drop. This occurs for a few months. Eventually it starts to plateau probably in the 90s. Once it has done this you can do two things. Firstly extend at this 90-95bpm and build up to 2.5 hours in total. Secondly, spend a macro at 100bpm, then another at 110bpm and then a third at 120bpm. We are just making sure we have totally filled in the gaps in our deeper aerobic system by this method.

The reason i use this is because by accident it happened to a correspondence athlete i was coaching and it appeared to have a huge effect. I had left her with the 125bpm instruction for these recovery runs and she would do them about 6 times a week. Somehow in the translation she assumed to maintain this pace for all her recovery runs. Months went by before this was discovered when i was asked how low should the HR get on the recovery runs. I laugh at my reaction but once we worked out what had happened we just reverted back to 125bpm as the lower limit. Naturally she was now flying along at this effort level. Certainly did her no hard.

I will extend this forward in time tomorrow.

Did you catch that Joe's HR max was 193? I just mention that because running at 125 bpm seems unusually low, if you mean it for Joe. Maybe you could also clarify what you mean by "initial breath catch point".

That catch point is where the breath first activates above resting levels. Automatic drawing sensation. When it first starts it is like a minute version of catching your breath. This point. From this point onwards the breath is automatically drawing. It has it's own active suction, however slight.

Since this is around 120-130bpm of effort i chose 125bpm as an aribtrary midpoint to the normal range where this is found.

This recovery running idea is a blend of two functions. The breath catch point and lets call 'less is more' for now because i don't have a better name. It follows the line of thinking where increased intensity leads to increased tension and that this is also true in reverse. So the lower the intensity of the exercise the lower the tension involved and therefore the greater its restorative effect. We know that sleep is the most restorative process we have for healing/recovering so we want to access that idea of a minimalising of effort. Yet we are going to sleep regardless, so we look for something extra that we can do to assist and therefore accelerate our recovery?

Combining these two ideas together leads us to come to this level of 120-130bpm. We want to be above the breath catch point to gain the benefit of the increased breathing, so as to flood our system with our breath most effectively. Yet we also want to avoid as much tension as possible, so the lower our intensity the better. The two directions meet in that small zone of 5-10bpm above the breath catchpoint to maximise the effectiveness of this session type - a recovery session. We want the recovery enhanced by the breathing whilst minimising the effects of the intensity related tension.

To some up, it seems slow and it's meant to be. Probably this type of session will be found in the program a minimum of three times a week for the entire year. Early on, this being the first 3 weeks, and probably for the next 9 weeks, this type of session will extend to something like this

m: am 60rec; pm 60easy + gym stuff

t: am 45rec; pm 60steady + sprint stuff

w: am 60rec; pm 90easy + gym stuff

th: am 45rec; pm 60steady + sprint stuff

f: am 60rec; pm 60easy + gym stuff

sa: am 60steady + sprint stuff

su: 120-150easy

4.5 hours of recovery running

3 hours of steady running (anaerobic threshold)

5-6 hours easy running (this ranges from 130-160bpm but is probably 140-150 more often than not.

probably 3 hours of sprint stuff

probably 3 hours of gym stuff.

Add in a weekly massage and thats 20 hours per week, probably not by the end of the first 12 weeks but definitely by the end of 24.

gypsy wrote:

4.5 hours of recovery running

3 hours of steady running (anaerobic threshold)

5-6 hours easy running (this ranges from 130-160bpm but is probably 140-150 more often than not.

probably 3 hours of sprint stuff

probably 3 hours of gym stuff.

Add in a weekly massage and thats 20 hours per week, probably not by the end of the first 12 weeks but definitely by the end of 24.

That's a pretty comprehensive schedule.

I really like the 'gym stuff' or 'sprint stuff' each day. This would produce an athlete much more 'athletic' than one who just did the running and the odd ten minutes of half-arsed stretching. Of course one would expect nothing less from a former decathlete!

Can someone explain to me how the US and UK are undeveloped countries???

Yeah, given the numbers in the links I gave you, 125bpm might be around 9:00 mile pace (extrapolating from his first "test" which showed 7:54 mile pace at 140bpm and 7:22 mile pace at 150 bpm), and over time dropping to somewhere around 8:00-8:15 pace.

Just wanted to give you the numbers, if you really meant it to be that slow. At the time, a few people thought that the "140 bpm" pace was already too slow for them, to be beneficial, but Hadd assured them to be patient, as it would get faster with aerobic fitness.

It's also interesting that your session also includes a broad range of paces (complexity) from the beginning (recovery, easy, steady, sprint stuff), considering your previous emphasis on focusing on "aerobic" in an aerobic only phase. Is the "sprint stuff" more for form?

Antonio was mocking a previous comment from HRE.

someone had to do it wrote:

Can someone explain to me how the US and UK are undeveloped countries???

gypsy,

I found an old (2004) comment from Renato (addressing a question "Did Coe really only run 60 miles per week") which might clear up your expressed concern about modern methods neglecting aerobic development. We shouldn't confuse specific physiological changes, like "capillary density" and "VO2max" related improvements, which max out much more quickly, with the broader concept of improvements that still come from "aerobic" training (by improving LT, economy, efficiency, neuromuscular pathways, etc.).

+-----

Every man needs from 10 to 12 years for building his "aerobic house". If you are Gebre, your house may be a skyscraper 60 floors high ; if you are a non talented amateur, may be a small house of only 2 floors. But, in any case, you need more than 10 years for changing your attitudes, your physiology, your mind. After this period (I repeat, 10-12 years), also if you don't train more with big volume you don't lose your qualities, that are CONSOLIDATED.

When you arrive at that level, the best road is to reduce the volume of general training (that cannot give you any advantage, but can increase the wear and tear of your body and the risk of some injury) having the focus of improving yet a little in the volume of "specific training".

For example, speaking about a marathon runner, if you want to build your base for a big future race, and you are 18y old, you can increase your weekly mileage (connected with "general training") in this way (attention, is only an example) :

18 years : 60 miles (80% general + 20% specific)

19 years : 70 miles (80% + 20%)

20 years : 80 miles (80% + 20%)

21 years : 100 miles (75% + 25%)

22 years : 120 miles (75% + 25%)

23 years : 140 miles (75% + 25%)

24 years : 140 miles (70% + 30%)

25 years : 150 miles (70% + 30%)

26 years : 150 miles (65% + 35%)

27 years : 150 miles (60% + 40%)

28 years : 160 miles (60% + 40%)

29 years : 150 miles (55% + 45%)

30 years : 140 miles (50% + 50%)

32 years : 120 miles (40% + 60%)

35 years : 80 miles (20% + 80%)

After the period used for consolidating the change in your physiology, you can reduce the general volume, using also other type of training (swimming, cross skiing, cycling ecc.) for keeping your basic aerobic condition.

+-----

So it's not a case of "defocusing" on aerobic developments after 2-3 years (when capillary density is dense, and VO2max is maxed), but after 10-12 years, when your qualities are "CONSOLIDATED" (and you won't lose these qualities), that the overall volume starts dropping, and the ratio of increased intensity (specific over general) continues to increase. Note that even after 14 years, in this example, the volume is still 120 miles, and 40% of the mileage is still "general".

I'min Kenya now, and read a lot of posts from different persons. I didn't want to intervene till now, because I wanted to see the arguments everybody wanted to discuss.

After reading all, I think there is a lot of confusion in this thread, for many reasons. I try to clarify my points.

1) To discuss who can be the best coach, comparing somebody able to move an athlete from 5:40 to 4:57 in one mile (or 1500m) with somebody coaching world champions, is like to compare a teacher of nursery with a lecturer of University. It's not that the lecturer is better, but are two different jobs. So, we have to discuss the coaching considering the same level of performances. What you need for coaching a not talented athlete, or a very talented athlete, are different things, and I want to give you some example (in Italy I had 102 athletes in National Team, including 36 juniores, in different events, and the most part of them started their activity directly with me, so I well know what I'm speaking about) :

a) When you coach a "weak" or "young" athlete, you can chose the periodisation you want. You don't have limits in deciding which competition he can run, because everybody can be entered in local competitions, rhe coach is the one deciding. But, when you coach an athlete of international level (for example, number 20-30 in the World), you can only "purpose" the program of competitions, because this doesn't depend on you, only. How many athletes can compete in a top meeting in one event ? 15, 20 . Who has to accept the athletes ? The organiser, looking at the requests of managers and at the PB of the athlete.

I give you an example. In October 1998, I started to coach Christopher Koskei. He was a top talent (2nd in WCh 1995 in steeple), but year after year, like many Kenyans, started to slow down : 8'06"46 in 1995, 8'10" in 1996, 8'15" in 1997, 8'48" in 1998.

He asked me to help him, and I prepared a very different type of training, based on 2 months of big aerobic volume (Lydiartdists can be happy...) till January, after starting to put in his training something specific (so now Lydiardists are no more happy...) because we didn't have time, and Christopher had to start the new season already with some good result, OTHERWISE NEVER COULD GO IN ANY MEETING.

He ran in 8'32"3 in early April during the Army Champs (beated by Wilson Kipketer, also my athlete, 8'32"2), and I asked the manager (Gianni Demadonna) to find for him a competition in Europe for understanding the difference between altitude and sea level for him. Gianni was able to send Christopher in Athens meeting, at the beginning of May, and he won with 8'23".

So, I asked Gianni to go in touch with some organiser, in order to find competitions for Christopher, after Kenyan Trials (half of June). Gianni sent emails to all the organisers, but nobody answered "yes, we accept Koskei".

Everybody answers "may be, we see after Trials".

In Trials, Barmasai (WR holder) won with 8'14", and Christopher was 2nd with 8'19". So, all the "may be" of the organisers became "yes", and the program went to include 14 competitions of steeple during the last 50 days before WCh !

Because Gianni pushed a lot with all the organisers for accepting Christopher, when they did it was not possible to say "not" : there are rules to respect for the managements, and contracts already signed. But of course this was not a technical choice ; however, I had to manage a difficult situation.

So, I discussed with Christopher and we decided to use the most part of meeting as part of training, looking to 2 of them only as really test for his growing shape (Paris and Zurich) because our goal was to win a medalagain in WCh.

In Paris he won with his PB (8'36"36), and after he had a row of races without any top resuls (between 8'13" and 8'18", and positions between 4th and 6th). The problem was not only to use the races as training, BUT TO PUT HARD TRAINING VERY CLOSE TO THE RACES THEMSELVES, so he had to run when tired. For example, 2 days before winning Stockholm in 8'10" (it was the only meeting he won, starting in front from the start, because till the day before he supposed we could cancel, and I did accept the fact he had to run only during the last training of 2 days before, because, cancelling Stockholm, he had to cancel also Monaco and Zurich that were in the next 2 weeks, according to the rule), he had a training with 5 sets of 600/500/400/300/200m, that we stopped after 3 because of the race.

At the end of the story, he bettered his PB in Zurich (8'05"43), had still to go in World Military CH. in Zagreb because the Kenyan Federation forgot to cancel him from the race, and arrived in Seville only the day before the heats. In the final, he was the only GOLD MEDAL for Kenya in all the championships (with Wilson Kipketer 2nd, that was in training together Christopher and me in Saint Moritz, but competed in 3 meetings only).

So, you can see one of the aptitudes of a international coach is to be very flexible in his programs (more than a coach of young athletes or week athletes), because there are different issues involving the full activity at that level.

2) The fact one coach can work with top athletes is not a case, but depends, in any Country, from precise choices of life. For example, I spend about 9 months every year in Kenya, and for that reason I can work with many of the top athletes. This was a hard decision for me, involving my family, for moving from Italy, where I had already a top role in Italian Federation, as Technical Scientific Director. So, instead speaking about "luck" for being here, coaches having the passion for working with the most talented athletes, thinking they can be able to coach them, can be a very simple thing : to leave their Country, and to come here for working on the ground.

3) When I came Kenya, I was already lecturer of IAAF, going around the World for making coaches of the best level in middle and long distance. This means I already had a professional and scientific knowledge about training. However, because I think I can learn every day something new, at the same time I tried to teach Kenyans what I already knew, and to learn (not in scientific way) from them something new, from their behavior.

For example, one day I went to compete in Heusden (Belgium) from St. Moritz with Sergey Lebid (Ukraine), Mark Bett (12'55") and Julius Nyamu (8'07" steeple), and we arrived very late in the night. Mark and Julius went immediately to sleep, and waked next day in the afternoon... Sergey went running in the darkness for 30' at 1:00pm, because for many Western runners this is a "must". This means that for African the full recovery of nervous energies is very much more important than one "warm-down" session after a long trip.

4) This means that, working with the tops, you can create a virtuous circle, because you can teach them what they don't know about the opportunities of scientific methodology, and at the same time you can learn from them how to improve the ability in managing the reality, that is completely different from every theory.

5) This means also that in the training of top runners there is not Lydiard or Igloi or Gerschler or Van Aaken or Soviet Periodisation, but a mixture of every kind of training, depending on their necessities for short periods. If for them running is a profession, and the only way to earn money is to win competitions, they have to run competitions frequently, and never can use long period of basic preparation.

6) If it's true that, for a young athlete and/or a weak athlete, to follow the plan of a Champion is a big mistake, it's also true the opposite. So, when you speak about the training of Joe, at the end able to run 2:27 in Marathon, you speak about something completely useless if referred to top runners. What can work for an amateur, is not enough for reaching a top performace for a champion. He is already stronger, running is his full job, his final goals are very higher (also economical), his mileage is normally higher at the beginning of his career, and after has to be reduced because he goes to cut a part of slow mileage as useless (but in any case damageous for the body, because in any case it's a mechanical load).

So, I see too much ideas connected with an amateur activity, tranferred to the idea of top runners. For example,mileage. For many Lyardists, 100 miles per week is "high mileage", and I'm accused to look at "low mileage". But for me, 100 miles a week is a very LOW mileage. My normal mileage for middle distance runners (speaking for example about the group of 1500m I have in Iten : Silas Kiplagat 3'29", Yusuf Kamel 3'31", Caleb Ndiku 3'32"06, Collins Cheboi 3'32"35, Remmy Limo 3'32"68) can vary from 160 km till 220 km per week, according to the different personal attitudes, including already interval training, long fartlek, different distances uphill, circuit trainings (and we use also gym 2-3 times per week).

In conclusion, we need to learn from the past, in order to build a different future. Lydiard was a miliar stone in the history of methodologies, such as Igloi, Gerschler and other coaches, but the house we build today, starting from their fundation, is made following a different plan.

To continue to give examples of athletes that were the bests many years ago, but now are very far from any international value (think that Zatopek won Olympic Marathon in 1952 in a time that today 10 women can run, having PB of 13'54" and 28'54" : so, how is it possible to think his plan, looking for a marathon, was good ?), is in my opinion an exercise of stupidity that can't contribute to the development of any methodology. It's like to think that cooking using the fire from wood can be better than having a comfortable kitchen with gas we can use at different intensity.

At the end of every thing, people having still the idea of "Lydiardism" can make a very bad service to Lydiard himself, because of sure, if Arthur was still alive and in activity, he was able to develop his methodology according to the needs of the athletic of todays, discovering something new in training, as he did 50 years ago.

When i say that the aerobics is important, can´t be neglect as training some people, namely the Lydiardists misunderstand my statement.

I say that on distance training approach anaerobic it´s important, because it´s the support of the race pace and race pace and that race pace distance event training is higher in anaerobic than just generic aerobic training training.

However the aerobic system is very important but it´s not the important one. If the aerobic system would be the important one, the determinant one to distance events performance, then the marathon runner would run all distance events from 800m-1500m-mile-3000m-5000m mile up to the marathon as fast as the 800m-1500m-mile-3000m-5000m specialist.

Take care when it´s said that aerobics it´s very important. It´s very important, but the important one it´s anaerobics despite that the anaerobics is the lower percent of both systems required to perform every distance event.

The 800m runner with low VO2max up to the marathon runner with low VO2max relate to some others can win over runners with high VO2max, because he does high resistance, and resistance is a combo of both aerobic and anaerobic systems.

The car needs gasoline, or every type of energy. One car without gasoline doesn´t move, doesn´t run, but it´s the engine that makes to move the car really.

Imagine that you build the engine. You can test it, train it, experience it, improve the engine without gas. But you can´t test the gasoline, experience the gasoline, improve the gasoline, without the motor/engine.

The better is the gasoline energy the better the car runs, but also the better is the engine the better the car runs, and both be better the car runs fast.

Therefore, the length of time or the period that you can work on the engine improve, or the length of time that you can work to improve the gasoline is minimum that you can test one each other without both.

For every improve that you think you did in the engine you need to test with gasoline. If the deadline to improve the car it´s one year season, It´s an absurd to work on gasoline first to try to improve the gasoline for a long period of months and work on the engine for the last few weeks just.

Here you have another "engineer" perspective why "aerobic first" it´s a stupidity. The target to combine aerobic and anaerobic shall be daily, weekly, and not monthly or separate both.

To each aerobic progress made by training teh aerobic "house", what´s the result of training a few days or one week, shall be mixed up some anaerobic with the aerobic as an extensive process.

There the long term quite permanent build of "aerobic house" is a question trans-multi-season periodisation that might cover the entire career of the distance runner.

eurodonkey wrote:

I really like the 'gym stuff' or 'sprint stuff' each day. This would produce an athlete much more 'athletic' than one who just did the running and the odd ten minutes of half-arsed stretching. Of course one would expect nothing less from a former decathlete!

I'm glad decathletes have a reputation for something other than being a generalist. here is a tricky question i've been trying to answer for some time.

What if the only thing we were truly training was 'athleticism'? What if these fitness and form developments are not really what we should be focusing on. Possibly changes in performance come about because of 'skill' factors more than we are allowing ourselves to realise?

People might say 'athleticism' is genetically determined and therefore unable to be changed. I say sure, there is a genetic component, but to say it pre-determines what will happen is giving it too much power. It seems better to say genetics pre-disposes what might happen in the future. Our genetic code is a pre-disposition, the science itself verifies this. Epigenetics is looking right into this situation.

We can see through this science of Epigenetics that the expression of our genetic code can change 'during' our lifetime. Previously regressive qualities become dominant when the environment alters past a certain threshold. This is showing something more than pure Darwinism, where the only changes that occur are random. It seems that changes also occur in response to specific environmental conditions. So maybe this a factor in why the zebra has stripes that allow it to blend into the savannah grasses?

So i wonder why can't this process be exposed through training? What latent, regressive qualities related to our aerobic system are just waiting to be expressed, and the right training will bring out this expression. It will be interesting when they do an experiment in sports science that is looking at this issue. My own personal experiment into the process of change continues in earnest in the meantime.

someone had to do it wrote:

Can someone explain to me how the US and UK are undeveloped countries???

rekrunner wrote:

Antonio was mocking a previous comment from HRE.

Was it? I thought it was Antonio getting the two terms reversed. Then on the next page when he was questioned about it, seemed to withdraw on the issue. The underlying situation is still there though and is somewhat explained by this developed/undeveloped dichotomy. Something is there that can explain how the more 'tribally' connected a culture remains, the greater their underlying aerobic condition. but you do need wide open plains to develop fast running ability so the Kenyans and Ethiopians should be thankful for that. The Tamahumara interest me a lot. Lydiard would fit right in with them. he could have even gone for 5 hour runs with them if he wanted to.

Yes, he was doing it on purpose. I can't read it any other way.

I just lost the reply i was making to you damnit so will start again.

What did HRE say that prompted Antonio to way that though?

Sorry, missed those and true 8min/mile pace is probably too fast initially. But this won't be the case for very long.

To be honest the pace is not the main focus, the feeling that is generated and the time spent with this feeling are the main ones. The feeling is that somewhat euphoric feeling you get when you cross over this catch point and then 'settle' there for a while. So we look to establishing that. With the idea of what we are trying to actually do with this feeling all we are left to play with are pace and duration. Duration is connected to volume and to capacity which is what we are trying to do right now, expand capacity. Pace is connected to intensity which isn't the priority right now. So we look at duration and attempt to build that first and so the focus is on time spent running. The pace does take care of itself if general athleticism is also focused on.

I do want it that slow. The recovery running session is required to be that slow so effort levels are that low. The easy running is meant to work the rest of the aerobic zone but the recovery running is designed for the bottom end of it.

The 140bpm being too slow is probably true if it the focus is on the top end of the aerobic range, although Viren does report his aerobic threshold was 140bpm somewhere. Probably for most it is between 140 and 160. So 150bpm is the rough guide for this type of running which i termed 'easy'. I would prefer to give a range to a specific athlete and let them decide where in that range they feel most comfortable on any given day, but 150 is good enough for this generic analysis. I think if the focus is on maintaining certain effort levels then the pace naturally increases.

I guess this is the complexity principle in action but applied in a limited way. Complex in that we want to explore everything we are working on, with as much depth as possible, but limited in that we are only focused on the aerobic zone for now. So everything in the aerobic zone should be experienced and understood. Outside of that is not important yet.

Then we have the anaerobic stuff you see in the program. And you are right the focus is on form. Find better form, then keep that better form. For some running on the spot for 20 seconds fatigues them enough to cause a loss of form.

So i like them to be able to run on the spot for a minute without losing form before we start moving forward, literally. The initial moving forward is pretty much just a high knee drill, however it quickly develops into a gradually accelerating run through. These runthroughs then extend out in distance and increase in overall volume. As long as we get to 10x150 over the first half of the training period i feel the job is done. So 10x150m building from 50-100% (ie the last two may approach 100% but the first two are closer to 50%). The recovery is slow walk back. At least 3 minutes required and towards the end longer is taken. It isn't really going to do much to anaerobic capacity.

Match all of the peripheral training in the gym etc to this idea of only building volume once form can be maintained and suddenly the training is far more mental than physical. It does have the added benefit of keeping us in touch with the racing end of the spectrum. I just don't see the need to develop the fitness qualities in this area yet. Fitness is definitely secondary. Athletes often go home more mentally tired than physically.