Magness at it again

Be careful, anything about Magness gets deleted very quickly. I once asked, and not to troll, which elites did he actually coached to better times under his tutelage, and it got deleted immediately. It's a fair question.

Care to share what your credentials are for reviewing Magness’s book!

I take it you didn't read the 20+ pages of endnotes.

If he says that working out at 1 p.m. is equally beneficial as at 5 a.m., he means ceteris paribus, other things being equal. That means if they aren't, e.g. there is very rough weather at 1 p.m., then it does not apply to that situation.

Do Hard Things reads like an oversized compilation of Tweets. It's a pile of motivational statements, incomplete sentences, and other things that just make it feel like a Russell Wilson commercial. "It's about hard work. Trying your best. Doing the work. Practice. Blah, blah, blah."

I'm a certified Magness hater but even I have to admit that this tweet is pretty innocuous. OP had hundreds (thousands?) of better examples to pick from to show how f*cking awful the sh*t that Magness puts out is.

Of course I have to question the actual tweet. There's a lot of research that shows different performance at different times of the day and also individual variations. So maybe running at 5AM is not the same as running at 1PM, in general and also for different individuals.

Yeah. The time-tested answers tend to appear banal. Nevertheless, most people lack understanding of them. Even among those with some understanding, putting them into practice isn't automatic. It follows that a reminder is potentially useful. Magness has found a way to monetize providing that useful reminder. Is it groundbreaking? No. Is if for you? Clearly not. But maybe it gets through to some people and helps them. There are much worse ways of making a buck.

It seems Magness himself has issues putting his own advice into practice, as he's nowhere close to being a high-level performer at anything that he does.

Not a good coach.

Not a good writer.

Not a leader.

I dont know, i would happily launch criticism against Kara too, but not all threads need to devolve into the same Alberto-NOP-doping spirals.

I will say, it is highly enjoyable to hear her commentate on Galen's races. Thge disdain in her voice is palpable, yet she can't stop him from crushing it.

"Hey kids, don't let your abusive coach ell you that you have to run at 5am, because running at 1pm is the same thing. It doesn't make you tougher!!"

University of Arizona kids "Thanks, we tried running at 1pm and we all passed out and now have burn scars on our bodies from the heat."

Why is there even a thread on this? Magness is basically saying 1k repeats @ 5am & 1k repeats @ 1pm are both, you know, 1k repeats. Nothing cutting edge or controversial here. The post reads as feel good. Workout whenever you like. Ok, cool.

But my abusive coach told me to run at 5am.

I listen to their podcast, it takes a lot of listening to get much useful info. funny thing is they did a whole thing on V02Max training/intervals, the whole push was that you dont need much of that at all, and its really taxing, and takes a long time to recover, and if you do too much you will stagnate in your running "career" etc.. This all came off as an indictment of HS coaches that hit these workouts regularly...

Then right at the end, Magnus says "Now if I were charged with having to get someone in shape quickly for a 5k race. I would utilize a lot of quality V02Max workouts." I'm thinking dude! WTF do you think HS coaches are DOING???

it seems clearly true that the world and "grind" culture fetishize early morning workouts and getting an early start as if that's morally superior to doing the exact same thing later in the day

I think his point is just that this is stupid

yeah, look at mark wahlburg and the like... guys waking up at 4am, working out for 1.5 hrs, stuff like that.. Its one thing if that is the only way to get in a workout, it's another to fetishize the suffering of waking up super early.

Zero coaches say it makes them tougher to run early. They only do this for weather or class schedules. Sorry but running early is actually what’s best for the athlete not running in the afternoon solo because you read a Magness tweet.

*sorry but running early is what’s best for the athlete and team- running in the afternoon solo because you read a Magness tweet isn’t making you or the team better.

I gave away scholarships, I'm famous for my knowledgeable, and I still can't produce any results as a coach.

*knowledge