Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

xel wrote:

sjm1368 wrote:

I think a lot of the confusion comes around this:

I made a video to answer a simple question asked by viewers: how would I evaluate the training program as a whole. So I did that. It's positives, what it does well, what it lacks, what to watch out for. And overall I said: It's a great way to build aerobically. It's drawbacks are it's one dimensional and neglects speed.

Yeah I think the disappointment for me here is that this thread has had dozens of critics come to point out the apparent weaknesses in this approach. While there is some value in having an authority figure do the same thing, at this point there's so much evidence of success that it feels like we're beyond that stage. What's more interesting now is seeing the surprising results of this approach and seeing what lessons there are to be learned. And maybe it's not so much a lesson on physiology, but on what's lacking in the training books and other resources that are out there for adult runners. Like what it is about that stuff that is failing people that this method fixes.

I'm going to sound like a broken record, but I think a lot of the issues in this group (and amateurs) in general is you suck at running workouts. Everything becomes an X factor workout. A test. A proving ground. So you associate speed work with risk.

This personally upsets me because the oft-repeated advice which you yourself endorse is to "leave one rep in the tank" or to consider a workout to have been the proper volume and pace if we can run it evenly while finishing smooth and strong, with no breakdown in form or desperate effort. You advise this in this video:

Video:www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQeM35mmCvE

But also in that video, you give some much more useful advice that is very relevant to the success of this method and does NOT coexist with the "one rep in the tank, evenly paced, strong and smooth finish" method of designing a workout. Specifically, you say that more frequent small to moderate efforts (so 2-3 workouts a week) is more effective than less frequent, bigger efforts. That making sure you're actually comfortably recovering from workouts is essential and the whole point of training. But if we ran these subt interval workouts so fast or with so much volume that we left only one rep in the tank, then we'd be overtraining. The "one rep in the tank" was the final point you re-emphasized in the concluding remarks, too! It's absolute sabotage.

You are right to criticize people on social media and Strava doing race efforts in workouts. But this "one rep in the tank" is hardly any better for an amateur attempting to do 2-3 workouts a week, or 2 workouts and a long run. It's causing many people to overtrain. We also hear from coaches and pros (not just pretenders on social media) that our legs are supposed to be tired during our training blocks. That some workouts will be run on tired legs. Which, again, we manage to complete on pace and without "going to the well". And yet it is overtraining.

For me to do 2-3 workouts a week, I'm leaving countless reps in the tank. I can't even use "reps in reserve" as a metric because I'm so far from failure that I have no idea.

You always reference that training is to "embarrass our body into adapting" but you don't adequately explain what the minimum effective dose to do so is. Of course it varies based on your physiology, what you're training for, your training history, etc. But with the one rep in the tank advice, I'm understanding that as "Don't run at 100% effort - make sure to do no more than 90-95% effort" when the evidence of this thread is that for aerobic development, which is 99% of what matters for these events, a workout shouldn't end any higher than 6/10 difficulty.

Why risk leaving just one rep in the tank when there's abundant evidence that's not necessary for aerobic adaptations?

Honestly the one rep in the tank thing just pisses me off. Consider something like 40mins continuous at the pace I can hold for 60mins. That'd take me so long to recover from but by definition I could have gone 50% farther!! I'd call that leaving a lot more than one rep in the tank and yet that stimulus is massive overkill.

If you look at this video:

Video:www.youtube.com/watch?v=LavSOslCEU8

Parts 1-3 (putting aside the sprint work from the first part) totally align with this method. Parts 4 and 5 either don't apply because this method is not for mid distance, OR, what you should consider, is that the results of this method (and this goes back to the sprint work) show how surprisingly little anything else matters for 5k-Marathon to get to the sub-elite level.

My own expertise is in eSports. I was a progamer in multiple games of the same genre, but also played at a pro level in other genres of games (scrimmaged with pros, but didn't compete in tournaments). So I've learned a lot of games to a very high level. I did some coaching of amateurs, admittedly poorly at first, because I didn't understand this. Coaching amateurs with a holistic and nuanced approach can be extremely unproductive.

When you're teaching amateurs, it's all about knowing the most effective heuristics and teaching them to them. They are not trying to become pros. They have no such delusions that's possible. They just want to enjoy their hobby a little more.

You are SUPPOSED TO give advice to amateurs that you'd never give a pro. For a pro, you're chasing perfection and relying on their talent and execution to make it work (there are limits to "perfection" of course - you don't take on a massive risk for a miniscule gain). For an amateur, the most important thing is minimizing risk.

If there's something that all pros master and never fail, you don't assume that your job as a coach is to teach the amateur to master it too when there's an alternative that is 95% as effective and impossible to fail. You tell them to do the 95% effective thing, period. Someday if or when they stop improving, they can go down the rabbit hole if they want to, chasing that last 5%. But frankly that can be a very difficult path that transforms an enjoyable hobby into a frustrating drain on your life that many come to regret.

If there were a set of twins and one came to this thread for advice and one came to you for ongoing 1-on-1 coaching, I'd bet my life savings on the one who came to you for ongoing 1-on-1 coaching winning a race in a year. But if you had one day to teach someone how to train and someone else had one day to teach someone this method, I'm betting on this method.

LTHRFrieeling wrote:

50M. For a few months now, I’ve been pacing my (standard) 3x/week subT intervals to peak at <167bpm on the last rep, which is 88% of what I thought was my maxHR (based on a blip into the 190s during a mile trial). However, a first 5k result (first in a lonnnng time) was nowhere near as fast as the subT paces implied by a 167bpm LTHR. Two 6% hills and starting too fast didn’t help the 5k result, but there’s still a discrepancy.

So, I tried the Friel LTHR field test for the first time today (on a treadmill) and only got 161. I ended up increasing the pace bit by bit from my initial pace guess (20 seconds start to finish), so will try again next week. Is it valid to repeat the test several times over a few weeks and push the pace up each time until one is pretty toasty at the end & can’t run further? I suppose that brings perfect 30 minute pacing to the test?

Slowing down is probably the right thing (reps at 167 vs 161 are quite different) but want to ensure I nail the Friel test hard enough to get a solid LTHR cap.

sjm1368 wrote:

THank you. This is such a good point. I want to highlight and reinforce.

NS folks already run "faster" than threshold with the 400s at 10k pace with short rest...

Guess what, you can take the same principle, run a touch faster, and still have lactate at very low levels! How do I know? I've measured it many times You can keep it at 3-4mmol, or 4-6mmol range depending on how you are manipulating the rep length, rest, sets. A touch slower, a touch shorter, easing into it keeps you in the low end of the range.

Do 200s, 150s, 100s at a controlled pace with short rest, often broken into sets to make sure you don't go over the edge, ease into the pace bringing it down from 10k to 5k pace. And guess what....you just created a 5k pace version of the 20-25x400 at 10k pace. Only you get some nice benefits of running faster we've covered.

This is why one of my staple high end aerobic workouts for FT 800 runners is 150s with a 50 walk at !3k-1mile pace. It's aerobic training, but at a more specific pace.

Anyways, thanks for pointing that out. If nothing else, I hope the NS folks see hard workouts through a much broader lens than simply "this is speed work!" Look at your own variation of LT work, from 400s to 1ks to longer reps....All attacking a similar stimulus, even though the pace varies considerably... It's the same for faster workouts.

xel wrote:

Yeah I think the disappointment for me here is that this thread has had dozens of critics come to point out the apparent weaknesses in this approach. While there is some value in having an authority figure do the same thing, at this point there's so much evidence of success that it feels like we're beyond that stage. What's more interesting now is seeing the surprising results of this approach and seeing what lessons there are to be learned. And maybe it's not so much a lesson on physiology, but on what's lacking in the training books and other resources that are out there for adult runners. Like what it is about that stuff that is failing people that this method fixes.

This personally upsets me because the oft-repeated advice which you yourself endorse is to "leave one rep in the tank" or to consider a workout to have been the proper volume and pace if we can run it evenly while finishing smooth and strong, with no breakdown in form or desperate effort. You advise this in this video:

Video:www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQeM35mmCvE

But also in that video, you give some much more useful advice that is very relevant to the success of this method and does NOT coexist with the "one rep in the tank, evenly paced, strong and smooth finish" method of designing a workout. Specifically, you say that more frequent small to moderate efforts (so 2-3 workouts a week) is more effective than less frequent, bigger efforts. That making sure you're actually comfortably recovering from workouts is essential and the whole point of training. But if we ran these subt interval workouts so fast or with so much volume that we left only one rep in the tank, then we'd be overtraining. The "one rep in the tank" was the final point you re-emphasized in the concluding remarks, too! It's absolute sabotage.

You are right to criticize people on social media and Strava doing race efforts in workouts. But this "one rep in the tank" is hardly any better for an amateur attempting to do 2-3 workouts a week, or 2 workouts and a long run. It's causing many people to overtrain. We also hear from coaches and pros (not just pretenders on social media) that our legs are supposed to be tired during our training blocks. That some workouts will be run on tired legs. Which, again, we manage to complete on pace and without "going to the well". And yet it is overtraining.

For me to do 2-3 workouts a week, I'm leaving countless reps in the tank. I can't even use "reps in reserve" as a metric because I'm so far from failure that I have no idea.

You always reference that training is to "embarrass our body into adapting" but you don't adequately explain what the minimum effective dose to do so is. Of course it varies based on your physiology, what you're training for, your training history, etc. But with the one rep in the tank advice, I'm understanding that as "Don't run at 100% effort - make sure to do no more than 90-95% effort" when the evidence of this thread is that for aerobic development, which is 99% of what matters for these events, a workout shouldn't end any higher than 6/10 difficulty.

Why risk leaving just one rep in the tank when there's abundant evidence that's not necessary for aerobic adaptations?

Honestly the one rep in the tank thing just pisses me off. Consider something like 40mins continuous at the pace I can hold for 60mins. That'd take me so long to recover from but by definition I could have gone 50% farther!! I'd call that leaving a lot more than one rep in the tank and yet that stimulus is massive overkill.

If you look at this video:

Video:www.youtube.com/watch?v=LavSOslCEU8

Parts 1-3 (putting aside the sprint work from the first part) totally align with this method. Parts 4 and 5 either don't apply because this method is not for mid distance, OR, what you should consider, is that the results of this method (and this goes back to the sprint work) show how surprisingly little anything else matters for 5k-Marathon to get to the sub-elite level.

My own expertise is in eSports. I was a progamer in multiple games of the same genre, but also played at a pro level in other genres of games (scrimmaged with pros, but didn't compete in tournaments). So I've learned a lot of games to a very high level. I did some coaching of amateurs, admittedly poorly at first, because I didn't understand this. Coaching amateurs with a holistic and nuanced approach can be extremely unproductive.

When you're teaching amateurs, it's all about knowing the most effective heuristics and teaching them to them. They are not trying to become pros. They have no such delusions that's possible. They just want to enjoy their hobby a little more.

You are SUPPOSED TO give advice to amateurs that you'd never give a pro. For a pro, you're chasing perfection and relying on their talent and execution to make it work (there are limits to "perfection" of course - you don't take on a massive risk for a miniscule gain). For an amateur, the most important thing is minimizing risk.

If there's something that all pros master and never fail, you don't assume that your job as a coach is to teach the amateur to master it too when there's an alternative that is 95% as effective and impossible to fail. You tell them to do the 95% effective thing, period. Someday if or when they stop improving, they can go down the rabbit hole if they want to, chasing that last 5%. But frankly that can be a very difficult path that transforms an enjoyable hobby into a frustrating drain on your life that many come to regret.

If there were a set of twins and one came to this thread for advice and one came to you for ongoing 1-on-1 coaching, I'd bet my life savings on the one who came to you for ongoing 1-on-1 coaching winning a race in a year. But if you had one day to teach someone how to train and someone else had one day to teach someone this method, I'm betting on this method.

Alfie wrote:

Maybe a diversion, but this reminds me of when I was learning to play golf many moons ago. I was only ever going to play golf maybe 15 times each year during the Summer. I wanted to be able to get around the course without hitting every ball into the tough, losing balls etc. I had a lot of mates who played golf, to a reasonable handicap, and none of them had perfect swings.

i went to a golf pro for lessons. He was trying to get me to swing the perfect way, club horizontal at top of swing, take a divot etc. These lessons made me worse. I asked if we could work on a three quarter swing. My mates were easily breaking 90 with 3/4 swings.

I wasn’t a kid, I was 30 years old and had never swung a club when younger, and he was trying to teach something that was beyond me. His response to me was a condescending, “I am a pro golfer, I can only teach you the correct way to swing, I cannot teach you the incorrect way”

against cult behavioUR 2 wrote:

I pointed out earlier in the thread, the cult like response the followers of the NSA gospel give to anyone who they perceive to diverge from the right path. Many of the responses Steve Magness has gotten are sadly proof of this.

I for my part train pretty much like the NSA. Large emphasis on aerobic work always trying to keep a safe distance to LT2. But the cult behaviour of the people in this thread really makes me not use the term "norwegian singles".

Something I like is doing the aerobic type of intervals like 20x400m /40s or 30x200m /20m at fast controlled paces maybe once every other week. Im a long distancer so aerobic development is the most important part of training for me but these short aerobic intervals allows me to also develop some speed, running economy, tendon stiffness, etc, which isnt as easy to do while running at below HM pace. Magness and many others have brought these kind of intervals up in the thread. The response from the majority of the NSA church has been more or less to call them idiots for diverging from the path of only HM-M paced running (even if the physiological state is the same). It is really sad and, I think, indicative of a lack of knowledge and ultimately a closed mindset. The dogmatic adherence is probably good for beginner runners in the short term, but it is not inducive for learning and I think learning and experimentation to learn to know ones own body is probably the most important in the long run (this is also why I dont like the useage of CTL and such, it teaches runners to blindly look at a figure instead of listening to their bodis signals).

To Magness:

I really appreciate your videos, particularly the ones on the "history of training". Really knowledgeable videos, thank you!

bringing mroe gaslighting wrote:

against cult behavioUR 2 wrote:

I pointed out earlier in the thread, the cult like response the followers of the NSA gospel give to anyone who they perceive to diverge from the right path. Many of the responses Steve Magness has gotten are sadly proof of this.

I for my part train pretty much like the NSA. Large emphasis on aerobic work always trying to keep a safe distance to LT2. But the cult behaviour of the people in this thread really makes me not use the term "norwegian singles".

Something I like is doing the aerobic type of intervals like 20x400m /40s or 30x200m /20m at fast controlled paces maybe once every other week. Im a long distancer so aerobic development is the most important part of training for me but these short aerobic intervals allows me to also develop some speed, running economy, tendon stiffness, etc, which isnt as easy to do while running at below HM pace. Magness and many others have brought these kind of intervals up in the thread. The response from the majority of the NSA church has been more or less to call them idiots for diverging from the path of only HM-M paced running (even if the physiological state is the same). It is really sad and, I think, indicative of a lack of knowledge and ultimately a closed mindset. The dogmatic adherence is probably good for beginner runners in the short term, but it is not inducive for learning and I think learning and experimentation to learn to know ones own body is probably the most important in the long run (this is also why I dont like the useage of CTL and such, it teaches runners to blindly look at a figure instead of listening to their bodis signals).

To Magness:

I really appreciate your videos, particularly the ones on the "history of training". Really knowledgeable videos, thank you!

Nope. I'm not having this. That's gaslighting or trying to.

Steve made a video, people had their thoughts, good and bad and Steve had some perfectly reasonable challenges. That's called debate. I probably sit somewhere between both camps and think sirpoc is probably the best thing to happen to amateurs in decades but that Magness is absolutely great as well.

You are confusing what you think is a cult with just thousands of runners enthusiasm for finding this thread and changing how they train for the better. The best part about the thread is so many people have tried it, that is better than any scientific case study or intervention program you will ever find. Most people's issue I think is people come along with "something new" to the thread. When, it's really not. Steve definitely falls into this trap. Of course, who can blame him? No reasonable person at this point is going to have even skim read it. It's too big.

against cult behavioUR 2 wrote:

Its not gaslighting to point out the closed mindedness of many people in this thread. When runner A bring up a modification to their NSA version, people start saying that they shouldn't, without providing any arguments other then "other runners have made modifications and failed". That means in essence, that the people discouraging from experimentation believe that the vanilla (or "pure" to speak in more cult like words) version of NSA is the only viable path to running gains. That is more or less definitional of a cult.

Maybe I have too high hopes of the average runner when I think that they should always keep asking the questions "why, how, when and to whom" in regard to training philosophies. It may be that the average runner always has wanted a package deal that they can strictly adhere to (and vigorously defend against heresy) because they dont want to think for themselves. In that case NSA isnt more of a cult then the previous fads. But it is still sad that this closed mentality is so prevalent.

against cult behavioUR 2 wrote:

bringing mroe gaslighting wrote:

Nope. I'm not having this. That's gaslighting or trying to.

Steve made a video, people had their thoughts, good and bad and Steve had some perfectly reasonable challenges. That's called debate. I probably sit somewhere between both camps and think sirpoc is probably the best thing to happen to amateurs in decades but that Magness is absolutely great as well.

You are confusing what you think is a cult with just thousands of runners enthusiasm for finding this thread and changing how they train for the better. The best part about the thread is so many people have tried it, that is better than any scientific case study or intervention program you will ever find. Most people's issue I think is people come along with "something new" to the thread. When, it's really not. Steve definitely falls into this trap. Of course, who can blame him? No reasonable person at this point is going to have even skim read it. It's too big.

Its not gaslighting to point out the closed mindedness of many people in this thread. When runner A bring up a modification to their NSA version, people start saying that they shouldn't, without providing any arguments other then "other runners have made modifications and failed". That means in essence, that the people discouraging from experimentation believe that the vanilla (or "pure" to speak in more cult like words) version of NSA is the only viable path to running gains. That is more or less definitional of a cult.

Maybe I have too high hopes of the average runner when I think that they should always keep asking the questions "why, how, when and to whom" in regard to training philosophies. It may be that the average runner always has wanted a package deal that they can strictly adhere to (and vigorously defend against heresy) because they dont want to think for themselves. In that case NSA isnt more of a cult then the previous fads. But it is still sad that this closed mentality is so prevalent.