Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

Many thanks John. I've read a number of your articles over the years.

Your point about HS kids responding better to intensity is what I was wondering. But why is this? Because HS kids can recover better? Or because they are new(er) to running?

Like most seniors on the team, my kid is not a newbie with 3 yrs of XC + plus track. He's getting frustrated because he sees a number of other kids making big PB jumps while he progresses much more slowly. Its tough to isolate the problem at that age because kids mature at different rates. However, there are a bunch of other kids like him who have also seemed to stagnate. I've heard my share of complaints about legs being shot before race day.

Perhaps part of the problem is that a 17y yr old kid lacks the discipline to take the easy days easy since they always get in pissing matches with teammates. Trying to dial back the intensity would definitely require a change in hammerfest mentality.

Maybe its not possible or even advisable for HS kids, but it would be fun to see the coach implement the approach with the kids who have flatlined. Nothing to lose at this point.

I have an example of this in my own coaching of a then aged 18 USA guy who as you described it was coached in his team hammering the workouts and often running too fast easy runs. After 2 summmermonths with me as coach he went from high 18 min XC 5 k to run his first fall XC 5 k low 17 min. Then after back in the team training he stagnated again .......

So, my advice : ask coach if possible your son can stay in the team but have a private coach. ( well, I guess coach will not like it, but then you have asked anyway 😂😎🖐)

Might be mistaking me for someone else because I haven't written any articles.

HS kids respond better to intensity mostly just because they recover faster. Being newer to running also does improves response relative to dose to any type of stimulus but that's probably a more minor factor.

Some kids are simply more talented than others and will improve more while others inevitably stagnate. That's not saying there's no optimizations that could be done to help your kid, certainly different runners will have different types of training they respond best to, but the improvement of other runners is a stupid thing to be frustrated about.

The hammerfests and pissing matches are entirely a culture issue. The Sirpoc Sweetspot method will not do anything to solve that, rather it will create an even worse effect because if you throw this weekly structure at kids with anything less than impeccable intensity control they will completely cook themselves in short order. An inextricable part of this method is having machine-like discipline to hit the exact prescription every single day ad infinitum.

Honestly I would not recommend implementing this approach (or making changes in general) until the day-to-day practice culture is substantially improved and some clear training plan problems problems are actually identified. You have not provide enough context to support well-informed changes. What's to say that the current training plan itself isn't already good but simply being executed poorly? Maybe the coach doesn't need someone suggesting a new training scheme but rather that they need to establish enough respect and understanding from the kids for the training to actually get done correctly. These are very different problems.

You say there's nothing to lose but there absolutely is -random changes are just as likely to make someone slower than faster.

Are there ego or experience issues with the coach? Whats a typical week of training look like (both summer and in-season)? What does the coach say about why some athletes are not improving?

Based off what you've written so far it seems you've jumped to this solution without a good understanding of the actual problems. Myself I want a deeper understanding of the problems before I recommend any specific solutions.

Appreciate the thoughtful response. It is certainly more complicated to switch training plans when part of a HS team than it is for a 40 yr old lone wolf.

However, repeating the same routine for yet another year and expecting different results is foolish. What if Bakken or Sirpoc decided to follow the status quo training methodology to the bitter end? We would never have this glorious, meandering 270 page thread with its many success stories. How will we know if it works with HS kids unless someone gives it a shot?

Yeah, it got deleted, and I received a 3 day ban (for spam, apparently).

Someone must really love VO2 Max training, and won't stand to see a word said against it.

The moderators obviously don't look into "reports" either, nor do they respond to appeals, so there's no means of recourse.

I'm probably about to get banned again, as I'm about to repost the discussion.

Anyway, thanks for following along.

I guess not even 5% have a lactate meter or access to it. You need a lot of experience to estimate your lactate levels, based on time trials/race times. At the end of the day you have to confirm your estimations with a real (lactate) measurement. So this is nothing for the mass.

A stopwatch is available to everyone. Time and distance is known, people have 100% access. Based on such data, CV or a logarithmic estimation can be used.

Such a nonsense, fascinating.

I think I'm not making some points clear enough.

We already know this works well with HS kids (given proper execution) because the most successful teams are already running summer programs that are fairly similar. That's not in question. The question is if this is a good option to solve the specific problems your kid's program is dealing with. Based on the context you have provided thus far the major problems in the program have nothing to do with the training plan itself, but rather the culture at practice. If kids do not have the discipline to properly follow a plan you can't solve the problems by changing the training plan. A plan that revolves around increasing workout frequency and volume will only worsen the effects of poor practice discipline. Even the most elegant tools are useless when used on the wrong job.

The Sirpoc Sweetspot Method is a new formalization of training, but the end result is not something that appears foreign to anyone with a decent understanding of physiology and running history. It seems like a big deviation from the "status quo" largely because the popular defaults for hobbyjogger training come from the same small family of training ideas and have similar limitations. Both Sirpoc and Bakken had clear ideas of what seemed to work for them and what didn't, then carefully adapted well-established training philosophies to suit their specific situation. It's not some fight against the "status quo", just a smarter usage of whats already out there. The innovation is in the process of creating the training plan more than just the plan itself -thankfully these guys are nice enough to provide well-written explanations of their process. If you understand their process you will instantly recognize that most training interventions are useless until the team's practice discipline is substantially improved and clear targets for optimization identified. There's a hierarchy of training needs and you aren't high enough on it for much to matter.

I agree that repeating the the same thing after long term stagnation is foolish, but randomly switching things up without addressing the real problems is even stupider -you still have all the previous problems and potentially introduce new ones.

Just stating readily verifiable facts.

Well,

I did this training for about 7 weeks. I got up to pretty decently mileage for me. 30-35 miles vs my usual 15-20.

I ran a 5 mile race at 6:10 pace yesterday! This is compared to a 5K at 6:20 pace last summer.

Volume is king, and this system lets you get some good volume in.

Pretty low effort post, but this stuff works.

Maybe H2F is sirpoc's alter ego, the Richard Bachman to sirpoc's Stephen King.

This is me. 5k PB 22:34 last year. Thanks to the boom and bust and injury cycles of traditional approaches, I struggle to string together more than 1 block of training. Started “NSA” this week with cycling as well because I love it (still trawling to find where others talk about how they structure this). Will report back.

p.s. if sirpoc reads - also a writer/editor and can help.

At this point, he could run easier on the easy days and perhaps a little harder on interval/tempo days. I would run with slower people when I was in a sophomore, like with the 6-12 guys, but when I would race I would smoke the 3,4,5 guys and was #2 on the team.

Keep up the great articles, I've been enjoying them.

Out of curiosity, is there actually good evidence that perceived exertion is better than pace?

I think this is where I went wrong with Daniels. Although he doesn't specifically say so, the general approach made me feel that I had to hit certain paces (on threshold and Vo2 work) to get the benefit. Running under these paces on multiple reps would make me think I had failed rather than think that I had got most of the benefit without the additional fatigue.

this article is semi relevant i think:

outsideonline.com

Wearable Tech is Good. But Listening to Your Body Is Still Better.

Corey Buhay

Your watch or wearable isn't actually the most accurate way to determine how hard your last workout was. This completely analog method is.

Link:www.outsideonline.com/health/training-...

If the goal were to dictate (initial) physiological responses to exercise (e.g., as in an acute research study), I'd put power (or speed/pace, for running or swimming) at the top of the list. However, when it comes to training I don't believe that "intensity discipline" is as critical as people like, e.g., Seiler make it out to be. Furthermore, despite being a less precise approach perceived exertion takes into consideration variations in the individual's physiological and psychological state at the time. Hence the reason I said what I said.

Great but most people are terrible at this RPE, just as we are with estimates of portion size, or weight or speed. We human are intrinsically bad at feel as we are goal oriented creatures as with ignore this to achieve the goal