rekrunner wrote:
Yes. Lydiard training is old, but it is not the oldest.
We should also forget Paavo Nuurmi, Mihaly Igloi, Emil Zatopek, Percy Cerutty, Waldemar Gerschler, Hans Reindel, and Gosta Holmer, just to name a few others as old, or older.
Interval training, is older than "aerobic" high mileage, and developing your peak, as is fartlek.
This all leaves me to wonder, what should we be doing today, if so many training concepts are past the sell-by date?
Who can take the place of Lydiard today?
From Paavo Nurmi is nothing left, may be that he got a chrono on his hand to control the pace and I guess we do something similar today. Actually we don´t do the flexibility exercises that Nurmi did and we do more miles tha he did. That´s why we don´t name our training Nurmi training.
From Igloi may be we got the double or triple daily sessions, the short intervals with active recovery. But we don’t do so many intervals as he did prescribe and we do more continuous runs that he did. That´s why we don’t name it Igloi despite we might do something similar to what Igloi did.
From Emil Zatopec “the human locomotive” we got the volume training and he teach us that it’s not necessary to be one super talent – that he wasn’t at all – or his records would be broke in few years after that he did it, therefore is success comes from incorporate volume training done by intervals. But I don’t see no one do 40k a day done in 400m intervals. That´s why we don’t see no one say that he does Emil Zatopec training.
From Percy Cerutty, the will to win and the irreverence of the personality, to add some ethic and philosophy with the training method.
From Gersheler and Reindell we got the systematization and interest of interval training done with accuracy. I see many people say I do interval training, but I don´t see no one say I do Gersheler training.
From Costa Holmer and Costa Hollander we got the intermittent training – the fartlek - as well as the hill training - all done in the nature. But I see people say I do fartlek, I don’t see that they say I do Holmer training.
From all this guys we learn quite a lot. I don´t see no one name his training Nurmi training, Igloi training, Zatopec training, Gersheler training whatever.
The modern training is a mix of several training schools from several individuals, all incorporate in a compact package. Then every modern training doesn’t take the name of his author. The training peculiarity or the training in what is unique, isn’t done in solo, it’s mixed with other aspects take from other training – each training it’s an uniqueness.
Only Lydiard training it’s the one old training authour dead that I know some folks do insist in name Lydiard training. Ther´s no such thing as Lydiard training with new interpretation if it´s changed or interpret by someone else that not Lydiard. Lydiard training was the training that Lydiard did when he was alive and nothing else.