colder and wiser wrote:
So, I'm going to point out something that people may not want to hear.
Marius Bakken was a highly successful runner (an Olympian and Norwegian national champion) and is now one of the most influential scientific voices on how to train for distance running. He looked at NSA, liked a lot of what he saw, and added: "From there, there will always be ways to optimize further, including 45/15 type sessions, clearer periodization, periods of 4-6 weeks of loading up volume, and of course the occasional double threshold session."
Steve Magness was a highly successful HS runner (he ran in the pro race at Pre), has an encyclopedic knowledge of training, and has worked with HS, college and pro athletes for something like 2 decades. No disrespect, but Palladino isn't anywhere close to Steve's league as a coach. Magness looked at NSA, liked a lot of what he saw...and mentioned a lot of the same things Bakken did: periodization, 6-8 week blocks of focused training before a race, and touching on faster paces.
It won't do to dismiss Steve Magness as some out-of-touch influencer in search of cheap content, especially when he and Bakken are responding in similar ways. You don't have to agree with them, but they're making points worth thinking about. They're not the typical drive-by commenter who wants to do NSA, except with 3 days of cross training and one CV/vO2max workout a week.
I think Magness actually offered more cogent suggestions than Bakken did. I'm still persuaded by the NSA argument against periodization, and a full 45/15 session or double threshold workout would wipe me out. But adding in minor amounts of 5K-specifc pace in a NSA workout when I have an important 5K race coming up seems like something worth trying - instead of 5 x 1 mile at 15K pace with 90 seconds rest, 4 x 1 mile with 90 seconds rest followed by 4 x 400 at 5K pace with 30 seconds rest seems doable, and might still fit the NSA parameters for lactate and fatigue.
I really like the NSA minimalist approach. There are all these things we were told were essential to race preparation, but it turns out that a lot of us hobby joggers really don't need them, or not all that much of them. But it also leaves some areas worth exploring by adding small amounts of specificity back in. (I'll try it myself, if the weather holds until the local Turkey Trot. Otherwise my next chance to race is in 6 months.)
THIS is what I keep coming back to as more of a FT guy who feels energized by interval work and the like.
I think that someone well versed in NSA and underlying theory can look at all of that and say, you know, I have a 3,000m race coming up that I would like to perform well in. I think I can add these 200s, 300s, 400s, in modest doses to my existing NSA backbone, without throwing the balance of this program out of wack.
Using finance as a parallel, it is like tilting from market beta to a desired factor (value, etc.) to get the desired exposure. You do it in a highly controlled way, much in the same way that you approach your threshold work in a highly controlled way. You aren't doing 300m reps and lying on the ground after you finish. You are doing them at an appropriate pace, appropriate amount, and so on.
Indeed it seems to me that one great virtue of NSA is the understand it provides in how to build things in a sustainable way. This is coming from someone who doesn't have any intention to throw away NSA, but, again, to tilt when needed to get desired exposures.