Renato Canova - Arthur Lydiard Coaches Roundtable

gypsy wrote:

Please Antonio have some respect. I was speaking to Renato not you.

At least when you pots under multiple handles remember to check or uncheck the box. This is two such mistakes in as many days. Perhaps take a deep breath before hitting the send button.

And i don't appreciate your abuse of this discussion with these sorts of comments and fake name supporting you or tearing down your imagined opponents. I thought you were an adult?

Gypsy, in light of how you conduct yourself on this thread, do you see any irony here at all? Pot kettle?

gypsy is one of the most knowledgeable posters on LR (and I am not gypsy.).

Gypsy taught me everything that I know.

Whoops, that must have been Antonio!

Gipsi is an idiote. Whoops, Antonio againe!

Next time i remember to check the box.

Easy. bbc with Antonio box.

gypsy wrote, in part:

If we are to look at 'feelings' as an idea of an entire range of human sensations which we as humans are capable of experiencing and understanding, then it is really pretty simple. There are really only two directions you can go - pain and pleasure

No. 200 pace feels different from 800 pace which feels different from 5000 pace. Dwight Stones (who used to warm up straddling and would even clear early heights in meets with the straddle) got different proprioceptive input doing straddle vs. flop. A swimmer doing the individual medley gets different input doing the different strokes. Swimming in 80 degree (Farenheit) water feels different from swimming in 90 degree water.

Tiger Woods was testing golf clubs that were "identical" except for different surface patterns where the club hit the ball. Tiger started talking about the "heavy" one and was told they all weighed the same. Tiger insisted that one club was heavier. They weighed the clubs and indeed, the one that Tiger said was heavier WAS heavier.

What if one likes or dislikes all these sensations equally? There are many other useful distinctions in the area of "feelings" than just pleasure and pain for athletes and non-athletes alike.

Good points SFM - i guess i was only thinking about training fitness when i said that, but you broaden to everything, which is probably where i should have started. As a technical athlete/coach what you talk about is well within my experience. On the tiger woods anecdote, i have throwing friends who can detect 50mg difference in their implements. The entire field of 'proprioception' or what is also called the mind-body field is well established outside track and field, just not so strongly within it.

However, when talking about fitness development, we are treading a fine line between pleasure and pain aren't we. At least on one scale we can look at it like this can't we?

gypsy,

Sometimes pain and pleasure are not opposites. Let me comment on internal load and external load, and one potential risk with a feeling based approach, that could lead to a kind of complacency.

If we consider Lydiard's examples of aerobic condition, with a collection of 1/4, 1/2, and 3/4 efforts, it is the "effort" we keep constant, which corresponds to going for the same feeling. Initially, our paces will get faster, for the same effort, but at some point we will plateau, because our body has fully adapted to these efforts, and it is no longer providing enough stimulus for new development (just maintenance). This is an example of maintaining the same internal load.

Then it becomes time to move to the next phases, where we introduce more quality, and a new stimulus. In Renato's case, he introduces special and specific paces, targeting to keep the external load constant (or close to the race target). It might initially be in low volumes of interval training, but progresses with longer reps, and an increase of volume to look something more like the actual race conditions. External load is simply the end result -- a target pace or speed that is closely linked to the race goal. It's not measured by input, but by output. (Not to say Lydiard doesn't also stimulate -- Lydiard also introduces quality and stimulus, but it is not guided by keeping a constant external load, until arguably in the last coordination phase).

To put numbers on it, a "feeling based" internal load might have an athlete targeting a 27:30 10K, starting at 3:15 pace, and eventually getting down to a "comfortable" 2:55 pace. Then a switch from "internal load" to "external load" will have this athlete doing intervals with reps of 2:45 pace, whatever it feels like. This breaks him out of any comfort zone and exposes him to new feelings he might not otherwise experience with feeling as his guidance.

Lydiard's guys did time some of their interval sessions, not so much for the purpose of hitting specific times but more as indicators of where they were in terms of fitness. So you'd know if you were in a rut at a "comfortable" pace or not and maybe needed to push more. And it's worth noting that his guys raced much more frequently than modern runners generally do so even if you were plateauing on your interval sessions you'd really be looking at your time trials and races to tell you if you were progressing or not.

On the other hand, it's never been shown that times done in training sessions correlate to racing performances. Bill Baillie tried for years to go under 4:00 for the mile and did sessions of 440s in 58-60 or so and 220s in 27-28. He finally got under 4:00 when he slowed his reps down. He never went under 30 for his 220s. In 1979 or 1980 Shorter said he was trying to make the Olympic Team at 10,000 meters because he was no longer able to hold up under the mileage he needed to run a good marathon. He said he'd be able to run under 28:00 because his interval times were the same as he'd done in 1972 when he ran 27:51. But he never ran under 28:00. He never even ran under 29:00. I used to hold six minute pace for distances up to the marathon but struggled to run 440s in 90 in training.

So the question your last example leads to, when talking about the guy who's looking to move his 1km reps from 2:55 to 2:45 is whether that's really his answer.

But this is counter intuitive is it not?

HRE,

Interesting post ..... especially regards Bill Baillie

A couple of thoughts .....

* Are 200m & 400m repetitions/intervals the best way to prepare for races @ 1 Mile? .... maybe longer reps (as favoured by Canova) is a better option

* Is "faster than race pace" repetitions/intervals ever necessary in training? ... In e-mail discussions I've had with Keith Livingstone, he favours very little in the way of race pace or faster (glycolitic anaerobic) work with youngsters ... a sentiment that I am much in agreement with.

(Note: on the second point I'm NOT talking about short alactic strides for fast-twitch / neuro muscular development ... these are (in my opinion) a necessary component for all runners)

In some states of mind they are indinstinguishable i agree. Do runners achieve those states very often?

Ok so basically internal load is the subjectively described perceived effort whilst external load is the objectively described time relative to distance.

And there is the acceptance that the process from general to specific can involve moving from a subjective to an objective approach. I agree in general this is the ideal way to do. But there is something else which HRE is alluding to which is reflected in my own approach.

during the first phase - general preparation we generally roll the three weekly macrocycle without testing during each third week. I like to do testing in the final week of this phase. This is where the athlete first comes in contact with the stop watch and tape measure. From then on throughout the specific preparation phase every three weeks the tests are repeated. So here we see an interplay of the subjective and the objective - back and forth.

As Eintein said 'Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind'. So we equate the religious with the subjective and discover that it has in fact become blind to what is going on outside of itself, and so we have creationists, a flat earth society and suicide bombers. If we equate the objective with science (and with the external load concept) we find it is lame exemplified by the phsyiologists who spend so much time and energy and have so much knowledge, yet remain impotent in creating the super athlete outside of a coaches handiwork.

But seriously if it all comes down to complacency and this is negated by external load measurements, then the athlete really trying to change himself is not being honest with himself. Self honesty is the key to this complacency problem you talk about, not more rigorous external measurements.

Is it not the journey that is more important than the destination?

I swore not to provide input on this thread but alas.

I swore not to provide input on this thread but alas. Renato Canova is a big proponent of faster than race pace training (105-110%), as it builds mechanical support for race pace training. That's the big difference between Lydiard and Canova: what is the relative importance of race-specific training? Lydiard says very little; just get a huge aerobic base and you'll be ready for anything. Canova says everything hinges on preparing your body for the specific demands of the race.

gypsy wrote:

But this is counter intuitive is it not?

I don't know how to characterize it. I'm pretty sure we'd all agree that faster training will translate to faster racing up to a point. And we'd probably also agree that at some point the faster training becomes too stressful and becomes counterproductive. I suppose there's an element of counterintuitiveness to the idea of racing faster by training slower but that's countered by the idea that it's possible to overdo.

Jackonry,

I'm pretty sure that 200s and 400s were not the only reps Baillie did. Kim Stevenson sent me a sample of what Bill was doing when he was in his 50s and getting ready for the 800/1500 at the WAVA Games and there were some longer things too. In fact, there were no 400s at all and one session of 200s as I recall. I know that longer reps were part of what Lydiard's guys did in their primes.

gypsy wrote:

But this is counter intuitive is it not?

I don't know how to characterize it. I'm pretty sure we'd all agree that faster training will translate to faster racing up to a point. And we'd probably also agree that at some point the faster training becomes too stressful and becomes counterproductive. I suppose there's an element of counterintuitiveness to the idea of racing faster by training slower but that's countered by the idea that it's possible to overdo.

Jackonry,

I'm pretty sure that 200s and 400s were not the only reps Baillie did. Kim Stevenson sent me a sample of what Bill was doing when he was in his 50s and getting ready for the 800/1500 at the WAVA Games and there were some longer things too. In fact, there were no 400s at all and one session of 200s as I recall. I know that longer reps were part of what Lydiard's guys did in their primes.

asfsdaf wrote:

I swore not to provide input on this thread but alas. Renato Canova is a big proponent of faster than race pace training (105-110%), as it builds mechanical support for race pace training. That's the big difference between Lydiard and Canova: what is the relative importance of race-specific training? Lydiard says very little; just get a huge aerobic base and you'll be ready for anything. Canova says everything hinges on preparing your body for the specific demands of the race.

And your point is?

Alas, you didn't notice the ? after my comment.

For some athletes (as possibly in the case of Bill Baillie) faster than race pace ANAEROBIC intervals may not have a positive effect ... as might be the case with developing youngsters.

It's called "individualization" ... treating each athlete differently, something else Canova is a "big proponent" of.

Besides, short alactic sprints or hill sprints are better at providing "mechanical support"

I wish people would actually read what is written rather than jumping in feet first and making an ass of themselves.

[quote]HRE wrote:

On the other hand, it's never been shown that times done in training sessions correlate to racing performances. Bill Baillie tried for years to go under 4:00 for the mile and did sessions of 440s in 58-60 or so and 220s in 27-28. He finally got under 4:00 when he slowed his reps down. He never went under 30 for his 220s. In 1979 or 1980 Shorter said he was trying to make the Olympic Team at 10,000 meters because he was no longer able to hold up under the mileage he needed to run a good marathon. He said he'd be able to run under 28:00 because his interval times were the same as he'd done in 1972 when he ran 27:51. But he never ran under 28:00. He never even ran under 29:00. I used to hold six minute pace for distances up to the marathon but struggled to run 440s in 90 in training.

So the question your last example leads to, when talking about the guy who's Short reps is so distant to the simulation and the stimulus of 1500m-5000m-10000m run, therefore so out of training specificity that you are right with your examples. It happens that it got not major relate from short type paces to estimate or preview the runner performance, as well as faster performers of short intervals type might be slower distant runners.

We got Carlos Lopes example that hardly did less than 29-30secs 200m intervals and he did 27:17 and 2:07:12. And we got the example of Fernando mamede that is able to run 20X200m in about 25-26secs and did also 27:13 as pb. We got the example of Antonio Leitão - that died last weekend with 51 years old - that did 13:08 and was able to run 25-25secs 200s and Antonio Pinto that hartdly did 27s-28secs and did 13:02.

Conclusion ? It´s not that intervals by control just don´t mean no major thing about runner potential.It means SHORT INTERVALS don´t mean BECAUSE AREN`T SPECIFIC TRAINING due to the nature of that stimulus, many stimukus repetitions with short distance runs, and not LONG DISTANCE INTERVALS that are the ones of REAL SPECIFICITY - Long intervals with a minimum of repetitions

However i bet with you that if under normal conditions both runners run the TRUE specific intervals, the long ones, the faster runner will be the faster performer in long distance

For instance. 2 runners one runs 3X1000m to perform 1500m, the faster performer would be the faster in 1500m

2X2000m+1X1000m or 3000m+2000m+1000m. Real specific workout for the 5k runs. the faster performer would be the faster of both in 5k.

3X3000m + 1000m or 5X2000m. The faster performer is the faster in 10000m.

One 10k runner might just do 200s intervals in 32secs or 400s intervals in 68secs and other runner might run the same 200s interval workout in

28-30secs and however the faster one is a worst 5k or 10 k performer.

But i bet with with that of both do the same kind of long truly specific workout 3000m+2000m+1000m with exactly the same recovery the faster one will win. The reason it´s 200s is far away from specific intervals - it´s just what Lydiard means by anaerobic intrevals, but the long intervals related to the distance events are the SPECIFIC INTERVALS REALLY INDEED.

What you say In the case of Bill Baillie, and knowing his ST fiber type, he should had been advised to run quite different kind of intervals and not insist on poor shirt interval training that is not tailed for him, didn´t fit on him. For the mile preparation he should have been advised to run 1000m+800m+600m+400m+200m or 2X1000m+1X800m+1X600 or 3X800m+4X600m+5X400m or 3X1000m at the late season. If the golal events is 5000m Baillie should been advised to run this kind of workouts 7-7-10X1000m at the early season and the progress to the kind of 5Xmile and to 3-4X2000m and late season 2X2000m+1X1000m or 3000m+2000m+1000m. This are the kind of intervals that he should have done, CONTROLED WORKOUTS, not poor feeling base training.

With the information you post, once again i see that:

- Lydiard intervals aren´t effective

- Lydiard intervals aren´t specific training indeded

- Lydiard training does implement training individuality, since training by feeling-base it´s the opposite of training individualization. Training individualization is to recognize the runner ability (strong points) and runner weakness (weak points) and from that observation prescribe a individual training application, based on each runner idiosyncrasy. Training by feeling-base is the opposite, it´s to concede to the runner or coach, in blindly analysis, because got no pace control, what each one might do individual. Different training be feeling it´s not training individuality. It´s individual training based in the feeeling of the runner and conclusion of the coach (if exists). It´s training subjectivity, since the feeling of an individual might be diffrent to the other individual.

TRAINING INDIVIDUALIZATION it´s DONE BY CONTROL and is based in rationale and methodology approach, done by the science application and by the objectivity of the time-distance and pace.

Finally. It´s a pity what Bill Baillie did. Tried for years poor training. 200s and 400s for the mile and 5000m events and imagine that short intervals are the ones that might transfer the runner talent to mile and 5k runs. Poor Bill.