Lydiard Imitations

The subject of drugs is of course relevant to the discussion of training.

From direct experience, blood doping alone, assuming your crit is normal, improve your 1500 time by 3-4 sec if already aerobically strong, more if not. That is immediatly after loading, without any change in training. Then there is other drugs improving the effect of training and recovery, allowing harder training. Their effect is small and subtle (for endurance sports), but add over time to important contributions.

In the 90s and early 2000 everyone in the top used EPO, so when discussing training, it is relevant to add 3-4 sec in the 1500 for the moroccans, spanish, portuguese, french, russian, and many more individuals. Now it require more sophistication, but is still very much possible.

This is of course a point in the favor of Lydiard, van Aaken, Igloi... as they got results that we can be sure was not due to drugs.

Then it is the discussion about the present kenyans (which i dont have knowledge about).

To me it is plausible that their genetic advantage (biomechanical having very thin legs, especially calves) and metabolic, living at altitude their whole life, can account for those 3-4 seconds (and much more in longer distances), allowing them to compete and even surpass top athletes using drugs from other parts of the world.

This i dont know, and is only speculation.

Alberto Contadoro wrote:

Then there is other drugs improving the effect of training and recovery, allowing harder training.

What are ?

J.R., of course you are entitled to your own opinion. But the example of your dad, combined with your own opinions, is simply not enough to show that drugs do not enable athletes to perform better. This single anecdote of your dad's health is simply too far removed from the situation of athletics. You are taking too many leaps of logic and faith to make the connection and to draw your extreme conclusions (in spite of some scientific evidence that exists to the contrary).

The claim behind the effectiveness of performance enhancing drugs is that they enable a level of training (increased intensity, faster recovery, increased frequency) that is not possible without drugs, and beyond any placebo effect. Why did EPO shots prevent your dad from improving his diet, exercise and other personal habits? They should have enabled him to do more, rather than constraining him to do less.

Why do you think your dad's experience is "the same in athletics"? Shall we take that on faith?

But the subject of drugs has little to do with a discussion about the pros and cons of linear and non-linear periodization.

Alberto Contadoro wrote:

The subject of drugs is of course relevant to the discussion of training.

gypsy,

Renato gets a lot of flak, because he claims that blood-doping would not help his top-athletes they way that it helps sub-elite athletes, or the way it has been shown in the few studies that exist.

I think the best way to look at that question is to speculate that poorly trained less-talented athletes have more to gain than well trained talented athletes, but an important point is that no one has yet measured and quantified the effect of blood doping on top athletes react when well trained. I think we can not also ignore the East African's high altitude environment might make them uncomparable to subjects in existing blood doping studies.

rekrunner wrote:

gypsy,

Renato gets a lot of flak, because he claims that blood-doping would not help his top-athletes they way that it helps sub-elite athletes, or the way it has been shown in the few studies that exist.

I think the best way to look at that question is to speculate that poorly trained less-talented athletes have more to gain than well trained talented athletes, but an important point is that no one has yet measured and quantified the effect of blood doping on top athletes react when well trained. I think we can not also ignore the East African's high altitude environment might make them uncomparable to subjects in existing blood doping studies.

I have no idea really. Especially EPO. Just one story relating to cyclists. Someone i know who toured Europe a bit with the AIS cycling team saw quite a few eye opening experiences. One of the stories involved a situation he came across at 3am when he went to the toilet. An Italian cyclist was pacing up and down the hallway with a blanket around his shoulders. A few questions in the morning shed some light on it. The Italian team (and many teams) all had HRMs glued to their chests prior to major races. All were linked to the team doctors laptop. If anyone HR dropped below 35 i think it was they had to wake him up and get him to pace around to bring the HR back up. The chance of death is too high not to take this precaution. I think one year 47 Dutch cyclists died from EPO usage, simply because their blood became so viscous the heart couldn't pump it around anymore. It seems to be a requirement for success in cycling, but again i have no idea. I believe the aerobic potential, that North Africans display, and even beyond this, is all possible, and would negate the need for such things.

But once again PEDs were designed by the greedy and are used by the greedy. The patient can achieve the same, it just takes more time. But the good thing to remember is that a quick rise will mean little time spent at the top, whereas a long and steady rise will allow a lot of time to be spent at the top.

rekrunner wrote:

I think the best way to look at that question is to speculate that poorly trained less-talented athletes have more to gain than well trained talented athletes, but an important point is that no one has yet measured and quantified the effect of blood doping on top athletes react when well trained.

Unfortunately, this will be difficult answer. However, Lombard was already running 100 miles per week and training at altitude for several years before he started taking EPO with a consequent improvement of performance. I would imagine that the same could apply to athletes such as Ramzi, Boulami, or Mourhit, and only they would know how much EPO improved their performances. I guess we will never hear this information from them, at least in public.

That is a simplification.

1. The pros and cons of different periodization is different in a regime using drugs compared to a clean regime.

2. When discussing training or any other scientific subject, we have to use as a base the knowledge of the past.

In our discussion it is the training of past athletes and coaches.

Then it is relevant which groups used drugs, when we compare the success of different regimes.

As an example, since the thread is concerning Lydiard, we can (if anything at all) use as a principal fact that Snell and Halberg achieved their medals and times cleanly using Lydiard periodization teaching us that the Lydiard aerobic first method can result in 1.44 in the 800 (for a big guy, running on a grass track with a part time (full time?) job). The same we can say about Elliot training with Cerutty, or Ron Clarke and i assume mr. Hodgie-san posting in this thread.

However, with regards to the training advocated by many modern coaches there is a large degree of uncertainty. We can see the results, but we dont know if they were assumed cleanly. We can go to a seminar listening to James Li or Abdelkader Kada and learn about their training, but can we use as facts that this training resulted in 3.26.00 without some assistance? Of course, world records and international medals are big achevements with or without drugs. But it is still hard to compare different trainings without knowing what medications was used for aid.

Lombard did not improve 4 minutes in the 10000 from the physical effects of EPO alone, that is for sure.

Maximum the improvement was 2 minutes and even that is unlikely. The rest he got from training.

J.R. wrote:

Only if you presume that drugs make a difference, but they don't.

So carry on as if they didn't exist.

There is too much wrong with this post to even know where to begin. The above is either written by a complete and utter moron or somebody who ostensibly has reasons to be deceptive, so he is either lacking in brains or character, or both.

I think there is a big difference between cycling in a grand tour over 21 days and running a single event. In a grand tour, your performance on following days and final days highly depends on how well you have recovered from all the previous days. This element doesn't exist in athletics to the same degree, even if there are preliminary qualifying rounds in bigger championships. Maybe for multi-day ultra-marathons you can start to draw comparisons, but I think there is not much money in these events, so the incentive is not there.

I'm not sure I can agree with your point 1., nor that regarding today's results, that "there is a large degree of uncertainty" that "they were assumed cleanly". Maybe we have different ideas of what "large degree" means.

My point 1 is simple, and is a fact.

With test, you can do a higher milage without muscular degradation favoring high milage at some point in periodization. With GH and insulin you can recover more quickly from workouts, allowing more and harder workouts in the same timeframe. With blood doping you can do more speed (also during base), without degradation of the aerobic system.

Such that a period of pure aerobic running is somewhat less relevant. You can also maintain a top shape for a much longer period, when previously you had to go back to general training.

The second point of course we can discuss to what degree.

This is a mix of knowledge and opinions of me and you, based on our experience.

But when you see the program of Rui Silva posted here (I use him just as an example because the era he belong to, nothing particular about him). Are you convinced that this training with this runner cleanly resulted in 3.30 (from what i saw of him during championships i even think he could run faster)?

Are you convinced in the same way as with regards to Halberg or Hodgie-san training.

I thought the capitalisation would make it seem more alike Renato ;) To be honest though, apart from the usage of the word RESISTANCE to denote the increase of volume at intensity everything else seem to be concepts already in usage, at least in the Soviet line of things, which like Lydiard, has spread pretty much everywhere in some shape or form. The INTENSIVE>EXTENSIVE process is used far more aggressively in race-pace methodology. And the quite subtle elimination of the development of aerobic capacity after a short period of time is another difference for me. And the attention paid to general training is another aspect that differs.

I just don't like parts of it. Most of it is right in line with how i see correctness.

This is wonderful thanks very much. Rarely do i read something so pragmatic and grounded. I think it takes experiential knowledge to speak like Tom does. I guess that is why i like reading Cerutty and Lydiard. I don't mind reading the pure thinkers either, just not so much. The depth is usually lacking.

Tom Osler goes into permanent storage. So many little tidbits in there as well. Be pretty cool to have him on here for a bit.

Strange isn't it. i just did some quick research following mesomorph as a somatotype. You would think it means middle and would sit between ecto and endo, but it is it's own distinct quality. Then wiki says this:

But this Sheldon guy connects this to mental states which makes this suddenly becomes really interesting.

and then this kind of seals the deal for me because if Plato, Gurdijeff and Ayurveda are all in agreement on anything we may as well carve it into stone.

Ok enough digression, i generally use Phase instead of mesocycle so i guess i'm mixing cultures, but mesocycle appears often enough in the literature instead of Phase. Although on occasion i do see mesocycle placed in between micro and macro, and maybe that is just someone doing what you did and making what he thinks is a correction.

rekrunner wrote:I think the best way to look at that question is to speculate that poorly trained less-talented athletes have more to gain than well trained talented athletes, but an important point is that no one has yet measured and quantified the effect of blood doping on top athletes react when well trained. I think we can not also ignore the East African's high altitude environment might make them uncomparable to subjects in existing blood doping studies.

I think this is a contention. I don't know if EPO is any different, but all of the PEDs i was aware of from anabolics to HGH to IGF1 seemed to require training for them to work. In fact i would contend that without sufficient quality training they are useless. There was a squad of sprinters all juicing at one track i trained on. 10.40s to 10.80s. Pointless stupidity that is. And these were't crappy sprinters to begin with. All would have been sub 11 regardless.

Lombard was running at the level of around 30 mins for 10k although he may have been at around 29-30 for 10k in an ideal race, under good conditions etc. He then made a big jump in performance level to around 13-20 for 5k over the space of 18 months. About a year after this jump, he ran around 27-30 for 10k. It is hard to evaluate to what extent the physical effects of EPO alone contributed to this improvement. We do not know for how long he was taking EPO before he tested positive. If he was taking it for some time, one could speculate that the EPO could have helped him train harder and recover faster. As a result, his training would have jumped up to a level that he was unable to do previously, and his race results subsequently improved.

I think we agree fully in the case of Lombard, im just stating that the full 4 minutes can not be attributed to the drug. I am 100% sure he also become more professional and systematic with regards to training, recovery and life situation and that those factors contribute to a significant (at least half of the absolute improvement). Of course getting from 28.30 to 27.30 is much harder than from 30 to 29.

Gypsy does also speak the truth, the juice is pointless (and can of course also be conterproductive if not used with the right timing in the right doses in conjunction with the right training). Epo (and blood doping) is however different in this regard since you get immediate improvement (after roghly 10 days when the red cells starts maturing).

So you don't need to spend as much time on aerobic capacity work and as a result can work a higher level of speed during preparation. Sounds familiar. I'm wondering how long can one keep taking EPO before having to stop?