New article & scientific paper: How the “Norwegian Method” Is Changing Endurance Training

I don’t know why this is downvoted. Is this wrong in any way shape or form? I think it’s a pretty astute observation.

No one is stopping 800m runners ..? Do high school coaches lump 800m to 3200m runners together? Yes. There are rare 400/800 athletes. Four--hundred/800m gals & guys have to be very good athletes to have the gravitas to walk in head track & field coach's office, light a cigar, place her or his boots on coach's desk and say: Hybrid 400/800 training coach. I think D Brazier tried that at Texas A&M. Didn't go over too well did it. Wasn't D Brazier told to get ready for XC like the rest of the team? Go ahead poster. Copy what you know of J I's training. He gradually built up to it from about age 10. Btw., in international championship 1500m races, J I is a one trick pony. It's psychologically difficult to do a 1974 Filbert Bayi wire to wire on a regular. No one will help J I anymore with pacing. Is your family from Norway? If not, why do care what J I does or doesn't do?

Absolutely SPOT ON!!!!

Finally, an intelligent observation from someone who actually understands the difference between club national class runners and world class runners.

"Too often what people do is that they read the training log of an elite runners, cherry pick a few key workouts, then try to duplicate those while they ignore all the other stuff that lead up to those key workouts".

Bingo!

Doped to the gills

Also if you go to the sub 30 10k your training treat you will see....

- simple repeatable shedule

- intervalls with short rest Relative to lenght of Repetition

- 3 big days always spaced out 48-72 hours

The only thing to note is that these are adult schedules:

- Adult runners don't have more speed to gain, hence fast Reps/sprints with long rest are not so important as they already completed speed development

- Ability to focus and push hard, children are not able to push themself so hard, but in exchange they can train more frequent

- children do not need such intensity/ Volumen to make gains and can also not sustain it.

Hence these type of schedules might not be suitable for younger runners in development.

I was coached by Canova in 2002 (thanks to LRC website for connection) and he does not believe in a "simple weekly repeatable schedule." He does not believe in routine, there was never the US mentality of Tue/Thu/Sat workout, etc. Very fluid and reactive to the athlete in training. Never repeating workouts, but building extensions of previous workouts. Just wanted to share. I also worked with Durden for a year and he does prescribe a set schedule that is repeatable.. most curious were runs like 24 miles in the morning with a 2 mile shake-out in the afternoon. I only did "double thresholds" while training in the Oregon System, where morning would be 4 mile fast (under 20-min), then in the afternoon would come back for some intervals. I also felt I was naturally doing double-thresholds with double 8-10 miles runs where when you get really fit, you're running sub-5:30 pace naturally for both runs.. that's how I knew I was really fit, when the second run felt easier than the first and pace was equal.

It's apparent that a number of those who replied to this post haven't read the entire article. A lot of your questions are covered in the article.

This is a very good article, particularly section 5. If you've been trying to monitor your intensities in and around these 6 zones, by heart rate I'm presuming, which isn't that reliable, you've probably found that the zones are fairly crammed together. It can only be a handful or so of beats from one zone to another and it's easy for runners, particularly highly motivated, young, or novice runners to go too fast on intervals. From section 5.3

"Burnley et al. [90] found that isometric quadriceps contractions conducted at 10% above the critical torque (i.e., just above LT2 intensity in z4) generated a rate of global and peripheral fatigue four to five times greater than that yielded by the same contractions at 10% below of critical torque (i.e., just below LT2 intensity in z3). These findings agree with the existence of a threshold in fatigue development dependent on whether exercise is carried out at, just below, or just above LT2 intensity."

Also, some of the people in the citations are quite accomplished researchers and have worked with exceptional performers.

One criticism of the article is that pre-workout meals and carbohydrate (CHO) content are not discussed. That would affect [BLa], right? So, if one is CHO depleted to a significant amount are they still getting the desired training stimulus at whatever that session's CHO depleted [BLa] is or is that an acceptable variance? Maybe that's why morning sessions on double threshold days are nearer LT1. Those morning sessions would be more dependent on fat than on CHO, making it less likely that the double session later in the afternoon would affect the [BLa] training marker due to carbohydrate depletion.

The paper shoes for me the first time, as they do 6x5minutes, that they start at 2.5mmol heading to end at 3.0 mmol. Same in the afternoon, they start at 3.5mmol and end at 4.5mmol. That is different to keeping the lactate constant, as a lot write here!

Youcanleadahorsetowater, 2.5mmol burns quite an amount of carbohydrates, but does not empty the tank completely for the afternoon session. This emptying is part of the effect, as they start in the afternoon carbohydrate depleted, which recrutes more low twitch fibers on theory. Thats why lactate testing is necessary, because you can easily over/underdo it in the morning, having a different training effect in the afternoon.

WOW.

So they do 400s at 5k pace, 1000s at 5k pace, and 2-3k intervals at HM pace?

WHO HAS EVER DONE SUCH A THING??

LOL there is nothing new here.

You're thick and have understood nothing. The whole point is that they do NOT run by pace, NOR by feel. LACTATE DICTATES PACE. That is the "innovation" here if you want to call it that.

Thanks for sharing

Very interesting.

How did you feel on the Canova program vs the Durden one ?

So...

They use a device to direct them to do something that can easily be done with a watch or by feel.

LOLOL who's the thick one here?

Prove it. Show your work, or go home.

While I agree most did not read the article, I would not say the article is all that good or useful.

The article is simply a review paper that cites a bunch of studies that might explain why the Ingebrigtsen training works. It is not an intervention study or even really an observational study.

Major flaw: lactate is just as easily misused as heart rate. And very much influenced by diet, as you say.

I don't even know that there is truly evidence that the Ingebrigtsen method uses lactate to drive all training intensity. I think they track lactate and they track heart rate. They track miles and they track pace. They track how the feel. They adjust based on all of those things so that they are running a repeatable schedule that gradually overloads them. As Jakob said on a podcast "I run as many miles as I can as fast as I can. And I try to go farther and faster every year."

Lactate isn't magic. Most people use it wrong. It is just another data point.

I think we can learn a lot from how the Ingebrigtsen family trains, but I don't think this article adds much. The Bakken blog post was probably more useful. And watching their TV show and interviews to get a sense of the mindset is probably even better.

This training isn't what 99% of people would refer to as "lactate threshold" training. It's highly aerobic intervals, manipulated in such a way as to avoid very high blood lactate levels. Other than during the 90s, when doing intervals until you vomited was in vogue, that's basically how everyone has trained for a very long time.

The more innovative aspects of this are the regular use of lactate meters as a way of ensuring that the intensity isn't too high, along with the double-days.

As for the former, I think lactate meters can be useful for relatively inexperienced runners, but if you use one regularly for a few months, you get to the point where you always know what it's going to tell you. Sort of similar to heart rate. Of course, if you're the best in the world, then maybe it's worth continuing to prick yourself, just to know for sure, but it's really not necessary.

As for the latter, that's more interesting to me. I have some experience with Canova's "special blocks," which are VERY difficult and not a regular event. And I also used to do workouts in the afternoon after a morning race of 5k or shorter, but that was mostly because the short race wasn't quite enough stimulus to qualify as a real workout day. I've never done moderate, aerobic interval workouts back-to-back, on a recurring basis. Intuitively, this feels like an approach that would work better for middle distance runners than long distance runners, but that's just a guess.

Re the short rest on intervals, is this not a feature of elites having excellent lactate clearance? Lower level runners won’t have this developed to the same extent.

I would say that short rest are the most important thing !

They prevent the runner from running to fast for his ability and keep the intervalls goal specific.

The consequenc for less fit runners is that the work distance shall be shorter.

So instead of 400m with 30 sec rest

Do 300m with 30 sec rest

watching the ingebrigtsen show, i seemed to notice them using the lactate testing, but not necessarily adjusting pace during a workout based on it. my memory might be foggy, but i am recalling henrik being over and just continuing to push pace. Maybe it is something they evaluate after a workout and make adjustments for following workouts?

i think the issue with them is so often coming out of injury and not taking the appropriate time to work back into shape. There always seemed to be something imminent that was so important to get fit for in the near term.

these are just vague recollections.

You don't know much about training if you think the Bakken method has been done before by others.