Why isn't Igloi training used more often today?

slopenguinrunner wrote:

Although, I did hear before that Snell never did neglect some form of track work. I don't know if this is true or not. But this is a problem in trying to understand a coach by books vs. his actual application on the athlete.

No. Snell followed Lydiard's program and didn't do any sort of track work during the base phase. He did say that if he were doing things over he would put in a pretty basic session of 300s or 400s during the base phase.

Thanks so much for this.

The lifetime miles of a true Kenyan junior is not that high.

Kenyans accumulate miles because they can and it's already easy for them.

If a busload of Kenyans set out on foot for school at 5 years of age they would all get there on time.

If a bunch of five year old Americans set out on foot for school only one of them would make it and it would be as the last bell rang.

Hahaha, funny. Perhaps true, at least in my understanding of world.

However, isn't it equally so for the reason that Kenyan kids are ingrained with the sense of duty, respect for authorities and fear of physical punishment? Whereas, American kids would look at each other and share with other pupils: "Screw it, so what if we are late...". Thus, it would not be only for genetic ability, but rather socio-economic-raising reasons. Plus, it doesn't help that in western world, half of the bus would be overweight, another 25% unused to any walking/movement at all, and 99% never had reason to exert themselves to their absolute limit at that age.

It doesn't have to be US kids per se. 25 years ago, in my country, 90% of the kids in that magical bus would make it on time. Exhausted, sweaty and pissed off, but too scared to come late to school, because of the consequences (more often than not far extending some physical punishment). Nowadays, kids are fatter and lazier, but not by much, however, they would not give flying fvck about teacher chastising them, and there are not real threats of any long term consequences. We had become westernized. With all good and bad peripherals. How many runners do we have with the ability to run sub 28 10k, or sub 13:30 5k? None, as opposed to several 25-30 years ago.

I'm sure there's something to the notion that the West's sedentary habits aren't good, but I read an interesting study once showing the innate "talent" of Kenyan runners. I believe it compared some semi-elite Danish runners to untrained Kenyan kids. They started with a random group of kids who had never competed before, then gave them the same training as the Danes. By the end of the study, the Kenyan kids were faster than the Danes, and some were running fairly elite times. I'll see if I can find it, it was very interesting.

Why would people be surprised that people from a country where there are about 9 types of animals that could run you down and kill you on the way to the outhouse would have a natural aptitude for fleetness of foot and endurance?C

Compare to those from most other places where there are maybe one or two threats or even none at all.

Natural selection.

Why isn't Igloi training used more often today?

Because unlike Lydiard, didn´t exist such pretentious people that titles his training as being the Igloi one, and there, those who claim to be followers/disciples as the times passed by they disappeared. The same thing happens with Renato actually. Many people actually claims to train by the Canova method, when the first rule of Canova is that ther´s not a single training system that covers all individual training spectrum.

However someone that does short intervals with short active recovery, is as Igloi training, as someone that does Renato specific endurance, or as someone that does the Lydiard long run.

The difference is in the training title and the training referential, if that is still linked and identified with the training source, or if doesn´t, and if doesn´t, the link with the source is lost.

A few questions for the Igloi and Lydiard experts:

Did Igloi ever use intervals longer than 660 yards/600m?

Lydiard talks about "anaerobic intervals" and the "anaerobic interval phase" in his writings. Were there any intervals that he considered aerobic, or did he consider any interval or repetition longer than a "windsprint" or "strideout" to be anaerobic?

Thanks!

I have mostly slow twitch muscles and always needed a long warm-up. By the way I always did a 30-60 minute warm up for a marathon race even before and after Igloi.

Igloi training was individualized. Nothing was typical.

My usual warm up was 30 minutes of easy running although there were times when I ran for as much as 60 minutes. At times the warm up concluded with 10 to 15 shake-ups. (100s back and forth on the football field which could include a few at a different pace)

Cush, I worked in the 6 story whit building on Wilshire Blvd opposite the Big 5 store at the eastern edge of Santa Monica. I would see you running west on Wilshire now and then.

A number of Igloi runners (Douglas, Magee, Tabori, Schul, Higgins) went on to have success with Igloi's methods. All made some adjustments. Joe Douglas was specifically trained by Igloi in his methodology and the reasoning behind it. I find it interesting that several had success with 880 runners.

"Tues July 19-pm-about 40 min warm up with 14 shake ups after--12 x 1,000 with a 440 jog between--hard swing--14 shake-ups"

There were times when I repeated 880s often.

Lydiard really did not trust runners to do interval work without "racing" their training and getting out of breath. As he did not want that in his base phase he did not include interval work though he would have people do "aerobic fartlek." If you talked to him about doing "aerobic intervals" during your base phase it usually set him off on a rant. I don't think he really was against aerobic intervals but he didn't think people could keep themselves aerobic while doing reps and so he eliminated them from the base phase.

Igloi watched every step his athletes ran and altered the pace and workout as he saw fit. That is where sets comes in. He drove along beside the runner for parts of a road race. He once told me to alter the leg style and tempo for ??? yards in a marathon race. It put more life into my racing.

Orville:

I know "good", "fresh", etc. are not defined by the stopwatch. Would you hazard a guess about the pace of the 1000s in the workout you mentioned? Would they be about 10K pace?

Sorry. It would be too much of a guess. Also, it would depend on what had gone before and where I was in my training.

I asked Coach Igloi to coach me. He always knew what his athletes were doing but never told me a time. Once at the end of a workout, he had me do a 440 all out. It could have been my best 440 ever or it may have been a disappointment. I understand he kept logs on everyone.

He has a reputation for being able to predict the times one would run.

Orville Atkins wrote:

Sorry. It would be too much of a guess. Also, it would depend on what had gone before and where I was in my training.

I asked Coach Igloi to coach me. He always knew what his athletes were doing but never told me a time. Once at the end of a workout, he had me do a 440 all out. It could have been my best 440 ever or it may have been a disappointment. I understand he kept logs on everyone.

He has a reputation for being able to predict the times one would run.

That is interesting you didn't know the times you were running, which I think is a great idea, as it allows the runner to focus on the body instead of external and arbitrary cues.

orville, joe douglas definitely maintained igloi's habit of wanting to watch every step his runners took, driving hundreds/thousands of miles up and down san vicente while his runners ran hundreds/thousands of miles up and down that road. your workouts obviously were more marathon oriented, so some big differences from my 1500m workouts. only occasionally worked out with joe nitti, a 9:11-ish 2 miler in h.s. and teammate at ucla, who qualified for the olympic trials in the marathon, i think in '92?

even the 1500m guys did some longer reps--in the fall on san vicente we'd do 1 mile fresh/1mile good/1 mile fresh/1 mile good, or something like that--more of a varied-pace tempo i suppose. longer reps on the track were rare, except for time trial 1200s. i remember doing 1000s (maybe 1-2 times/year), but couldn't tell you how many or how fast. otherwise, if we did 600s or 800s or 1000s, there were only one to three, and very, very fast (i did a 1000 in workout in 2:20, kersh would routinely run 600s in 1:15 with a few of us trailing behind around in 1:18).

and, as orville said, "fresh" and "good" really were relative terms, and with joe, he more often than not did not give you splits. best guess is that "fresh" would be closest to tempo efforts/10k/marathon pace, depending on distance, maybe 75-80% effort? "good" probably took you closer to 90%. "fast" generally meant max effort, but rarely were any time expectations stated in multi-rep workouts...

In the 1960s I never paid the attention to times that runners today do. I ran races to win or place as high as possible which didn't always get runners their best times. You didn't need the talent that is needed today. We were all amateurs and racing was a hobby. I did train the interval way in Canada and we were good at pace judgement but I still ran with the leaders for 10 miles the first time I raced the Boston Marathon.

Training the interval way with a group and racing were all great fun!

There were no liquids, splits, medals for just finishing or t-shirts. Runners worked hard for their trophies and medals. Women were not allowed.

The new era does not seem to be as much fun for the lesser talented runner.

I have ridden with Joe up and down San Vincente a couple of times as he called out to runners to change their pace.

HRE wrote:

Lydiard really did not trust runners to do interval work without "racing" their training and getting out of breath. As he did not want that in his base phase he did not include interval work though he would have people do "aerobic fartlek." If you talked to him about doing "aerobic intervals" during your base phase it usually set him off on a rant. I don't think he really was against aerobic intervals but he didn't think people could keep themselves aerobic while doing reps and so he eliminated them from the base phase.

Lydiard ignorance. Intervals are always aerobic if the recovery is active and/or very short length, and that are the really aerobic intervals. Intervals with active recovery and/or very short length are as aerobic or more aerobic that the aerobic fartlek.

The problem isn´t that Lydiard considers the short distance intervals with active recovery and/or very short length anaerobic training when it´s not really.

If Lydiard wasn´t against aerobic intervals but he didn't think people could keep themselves aerobic while doing reps, then the solution isn´t set them off off a rent, but to teach how to do that correctly, how to do that aerobic.

Igloi kind of intervals, short distance sets with active and/or short recovery length are aerobic intervals always. But Lydiard didn´t knew that.

Orville, were the longer intervals (880s, 1000s) prescribed by Igloi only for long distance and marathon guys? Or did the middle distance guys in his group do them too? Thanks for your valuable contributions to this thread and others.