An inside look at Karsten Warholm's mind-blowing training

Combined Events Tiger wrote:

You have to remember that an 8-hour workout for a sprinter or Decathlete/Heptathlete looks very different than a distance runner's workout. You should watch some of the training day videos that Kevin Mayer and Ashton Eaton have put out over the years.

For example - I am a masters decathlete, and on the days that I have a 3 hour pole vault workout, I probably run less than a half mile total. There is a lot of active downtime, sure it is moving around, not just sitting down, but the real serious work portion is maybe 5% of the total time.

I have another workout day comprised of only Uphill Sprints at about 92% effort, of 90m, 70m, and 50m. The rests are still about 2:00 between reps, and 3:00 or more between sets. (This is not my 98% effort Uphill Sprint workout, which are shorter reps of 40m and less total volume.) It takes 2 hours to complete this workout, total distance is less than 1100m.

My distance friends who run solid half marathons or 10ks are impressed that I did a 2-hour workout, but then disgusted when they learn my total distance was "only" between 300m and 1100m. But I guarandamntee that I put in way more effort than they did on their 2-hour run.

With sprinter workouts vs. distance workouts, it's not apples vs oranges; it's apples vs beef jerky. Not even close to the same thing.

rojo wrote:

Warholm and his coach Leif Olav Alnes were recently gracious enough to sit down with our intern Alex Geula at Warholm's training base, the IK Tjalve club in Oslo, right outside the famous Bislett Stadium, and give him great insight into their training which seems to be a) super intense b) super planned out to try to minimize the reisk of injury.

Link:www.letsrun.com/news/2023/07/an-inside...

On the hard days, Karsten arrives at the facility at approximately 10 a.m. and does not leave until 7 p.m. He does not double like a distance runner, where there is a long break in the middle of two runs. Rather, he shows up and trains for the entirety of the day at the facility (with a break for lunch). There's obviously a balance in the hard and easy days in the training schedule. This long training day is completed so that Karsten only has to warm up once in the beginning of the day. If he were to complete two different sessions, he would need to warm up twice, and the warmup takes a very long time and is integral to injury prevention.

The hard days are described as "red" days, and Karsten often rips off his shirt in practice, which he did in Tokyo after his 45.94 WR in the Olympic final. While the world was shocked at the sight of the WR and of him ripping his shirt, Leif has seen it many times before and thought it was commonplace after such an unbelievably hard run.

sadsadsad wrote:

rojo wrote:

Warholm and his coach Leif Olav Alnes were recently gracious enough to sit down with our intern Alex Geula at Warholm's training base, the IK Tjalve club in Oslo, right outside the famous Bislett Stadium, and give him great insight into their training which seems to be a) super intense b) super planned out to try to minimize the reisk of injury.

Link:www.letsrun.com/news/2023/07/an-inside...

On the hard days, Karsten arrives at the facility at approximately 10 a.m. and does not leave until 7 p.m. He does not double like a distance runner, where there is a long break in the middle of two runs. Rather, he shows up and trains for the entirety of the day at the facility (with a break for lunch). There's obviously a balance in the hard and easy days in the training schedule. This long training day is completed so that Karsten only has to warm up once in the beginning of the day. If he were to complete two different sessions, he would need to warm up twice, and the warmup takes a very long time and is integral to injury prevention.

The hard days are described as "red" days, and Karsten often rips off his shirt in practice, which he did in Tokyo after his 45.94 WR in the Olympic final. While the world was shocked at the sight of the WR and of him ripping his shirt, Leif has seen it many times before and thought it was commonplace after such an unbelievably hard run.

I don't really care what his training is - the main thing is that he must have very good genetics for 400m hurdles...

High hopes wrote:

Here Is Why wrote:

Because most pros steer clear of Let's Run. When a site allows angry old men and middle school kids to run amok with made up stories about you, your agent and your sponsors direct you to not speak to the Johnsons or Gault outside of the mixed zone at a meet. Give them a canned quote and then get as far away as possible.

I don't buy that. I just think they aren't trying. They even said on the most recent podcast that they've never even asked Jakob for an interview. Seems like intern Alex just had to ask and he got an interview with one of the most exciting athletes on the circuit.

Track and field is not a big sport. The athletes get very little coverage so they tend to do any podcasts they're asked to do. I remember Josh Kerr saying on a podcast earlier this year that he hasn't been asked to do many interviews since Tokyo. LRC aren't interested in an Olympic 1500m medallist?

The Coffee Club managed to get Devon Allen and that podcast is a mess of half-informed takes and idiotic bro-speak. I'm sure LRC could get decent guests if they tried

Combined Events Tiger wrote:

You have to remember that an 8-hour workout for a sprinter or Decathlete/Heptathlete looks very different than a distance runner's workout. You should watch some of the training day videos that Kevin Mayer and Ashton Eaton have put out over the years.

For example - I am a masters decathlete, and on the days that I have a 3 hour pole vault workout, I probably run less than a half mile total. There is a lot of active downtime, sure it is moving around, not just sitting down, but the real serious work portion is maybe 5% of the total time.

I have another workout day comprised of only Uphill Sprints at about 92% effort, of 90m, 70m, and 50m. The rests are still about 2:00 between reps, and 3:00 or more between sets. (This is not my 98% effort Uphill Sprint workout, which are shorter reps of 40m and less total volume.) It takes 2 hours to complete this workout, total distance is less than 1100m.

My distance friends who run solid half marathons or 10ks are impressed that I did a 2-hour workout, but then disgusted when they learn my total distance was "only" between 300m and 1100m. But I guarandamntee that I put in way more effort than they did on their 2-hour run.

With sprinter workouts vs. distance workouts, it's not apples vs oranges; it's apples vs beef jerky. Not even close to the same thing.