What are your PRs, current mileage, how long have you been training, goals, etc?
Any formula or schedule from a book is appealing to the largest group of people possible. If you tailor a training plan specifically for you and your realistic goals you’ll find a lot of cross over between whoever’s “method” you want to use.
His schedules don't encourage caution in pace judgement because he is too focused on time @ VO2max when he should be advocating his own vVO2max cautiously to improve basic running skills.
Daniels ignores the skill aspect. Most coaches do because they never learned the basic physiological principles of what 'running economy' actually is.
The "formula" in the title of the book(s) refers to the method of conversion of lab-determined values into real-world training paces, based on race-proven fitness levels. This is the core value of the book and of Daniels's contribution to distance training (a not insignificant one!). What other coach beside Lydiard can say he/she has produced anything of comparable universal usefulness?
But to create an entire book around this basic innovation entailed including many of Daniels' thoughts about distance training in general, including his various training plans. Without this material, no publisher would have been interested. (When pitching any manuscript for publication, the first question you get is "who is the target readership?" As you can tell from the training plans that were eventually included in the book, Daniels' answer to this question must have been "high school and college coaches and runners").
Is the book itself "dated"? All books eventually sound like the period in which they were written, so yes. But is the "Formula" dated? Of course not. The idea of regulating our various training efforts by pace is now universally accepted, just as is Lydiard's basic insight that general aerobic conditioning is the basis of training for all distances, from 800 to marathon. Most specific contemporary training systems are like footnotes on these basic insights.
But just as not everything in Lydiard's book ( e.g. all the "bounding") is immediately useful to all runners, not everything in Daniels' book works for everyone. It never did; it has nothing to do with Daniels being "dated" or not.
*As an aside, I think a lot of the particulars in both Lydiard and Daniels reflect the specificities of the sport in their respective historical and geographical contexts. For instance, NZL has tons of hills and is geographically isolated (much more so in the 1960s, when travel to and from the island would have been pretty pricey and time consuming). It therefore would have made practical sense for Lydiard to emphasize a lot of hill work and very long periods of "base" training with no racing. We often make virtues out of necessities in this way. In the US, on the other hand, where the sport is predominantly school-based, with year-round competition widely available, it made (and makes) sense for someone like Daniels to recommend training plans that include ways to integrate weekly racing. There is no strict, universal physiological rationale for, in the case of Lydiard, doing so much hill work, or for having such long periods without racing. There is equally nothing physiologically optimal about, in the case of Daniels, trying to find ways to squeeze workouts in around races. This is not to say these things are not useful for some people. It's just to say that, as guides to training, they don't have the same universal and somewhat timeless value of the big innovations that inform them
Thanks for an intelligent post. More of these are needed.
What are your PRs, current mileage, how long have you been training, goals, etc?
Any formula or schedule from a book is appealing to the largest group of people possible. If you tailor a training plan specifically for you and your realistic goals you’ll find a lot of cross over between whoever’s “method” you want to use.
This is correct! I know a girl who trained the Daniels method for most of her life. Had great success with it. New coach had her switch to Lydiard, and her results were worse. Other runners had great success with Lydiard.
I have always been one of Jack Daniels' biggest supporters. Unlike those who came before him and built their reputations on one or two superstars, he constructed a relatively-easy-to-follow "system" that could be widely adapted to a huge range of runners--good ones, and not so good. This was a big boon, particularly, to under-experienced high school coaches who now had a way to develop distance runners rather than burning them out with overly intense interval workouts.
He's not coaching any elite runners now, as far as I know, so we don't hear much about him. (Coaches almost always ride on the coattails of their best athletes.) But it's a virtual certainty that the top runners are following programs from coaches who learned much of what they know from Daniels.
More than claiming the wonders of any secret workouts, Daniels taught coaches and runners how to mix slow, medium, and fast running at appropriate paces. He was the first to do this, using physiological principles to devise paces for 5 minute runs, 20-minute runs, 90-minute runs, etc.
Human physiology is not going away any time soon, and Daniels' contributions are forever.
I have always been one of Jack Daniels' biggest supporters.
But have you studied his Scientific research papers Amby?
How many of you self professed Daniels followers have actually studied his work?
I have. It's very good, but very incomplete. He ignores basic neuroscience.
Am I talking to the wind? Perhaps. But someone has to say this.
Is there a coaching system you would recommend instead? Genuinely curious to see if anyone has improved the JD system and matched it with tangible plans.
What does neuroscience and skill learning mean ? Can someone explain please?
My take away from this treat is that Daniels is actually still up to date for anyone but Elite runners.
Hudson/Canova/Bakken/Coe are all aimed at elite athletes.
No system is exactly perfect for anyone. Things need to be adjusted to the actual person by finding out what works. Coaches get experience and find out what works for their individuals, teams and/or their style. I use a blend of everything I have learned over many years, including some JD.
I have always been one of Jack Daniels' biggest supporters. Unlike those who came before him and built their reputations on one or two superstars, he constructed a relatively-easy-to-follow "system" that could be widely adapted to a huge range of runners--good ones, and not so good. This was a big boon, particularly, to under-experienced high school coaches who now had a way to develop distance runners rather than burning them out with overly intense interval workouts.
He's not coaching any elite runners now, as far as I know, so we don't hear much about him. (Coaches almost always ride on the coattails of their best athletes.) But it's a virtual certainty that the top runners are following programs from coaches who learned much of what they know from Daniels.
More than claiming the wonders of any secret workouts, Daniels taught coaches and runners how to mix slow, medium, and fast running at appropriate paces. He was the first to do this, using physiological principles to devise paces for 5 minute runs, 20-minute runs, 90-minute runs, etc.
Human physiology is not going away any time soon, and Daniels' contributions are forever.
Thanks, Amby. My defense of Daniels is based on my own reading and application of the books and underlying insights themselves, but you've been one of the better explicators of the man and his work that I've come across (I can't recall the the actual source here, but I distinctly recall the content!) Daniels' contribution is both much simpler and more profound than most people realize. It's the same with Lydiard. Their basic insights are so "baked into" the way we all think about training for distance running that it's possible for the newly initiated to miss them entirely. The mark of genius, after all, is to have discovered a thing that it subsequently deemed to be "obvious".
As an aside, many of those who claim Daniels is "outdated" or mistaken in some fundamental way could learn a thing or two from the simple clarity and economy of his presentation. It is not at all difficult to discern what he is and is not claiming for his approach (and this is a big part of the reason his books have sold so many copies and have helped so many coaches and runners). For all his attempts at technical precision, he remains the heart and soul of Yankee simplicity in the delivery of his knowledge and wisdom about running. Sadly, this cannot be said for many of today's ostensible coaching gurus. If you can't present what you claim to know systematically, clearly, and as simply as possible, its value to others will be limited. In some instances, I think this lack of clarity is not a mere failure of delivery. I think the lack of clarity is sometimes as much at the level of conception as it is at the level of execution. You can be inscrutable and still be an effective coach (i.e. of the individual athletes who understand what you're on about), but you'll never have a general influence even close to that of a Daniels or a Lydiard unless you're as good as they are at explaining to new coaches how and why you do what you do.
Google is your friend. Try searching The Five Principles of Arthur Lydiard Training.
There are some articles that are inaccurate so, to be sure this is solid gold, I am telling you it was vetted and approved and is often shared by the Arthur Lydiard Foundation.
A few things about Lydiard:
1) I never heard him talk about aerobic intervals, only anaerobic intervals. Is there such a thing as "aerobic intervals" in Lydiard-speak?
2) He wanted people to do 10 weeks of 100 miles a week with no intervals to set up their aerobic system. Yet every halfway decent program in the world is doing repeat 1000s and such from the 3rd week of practice.
3) Maybe if you do those 1000s like Moorcroft did (2:28 or so, 5-6 minute rests) they are "anaerobic" in terms of blood lactate, even though most of the energy is coming from the aerobic system. But if you do them like Kipchoge (2:50 or so, 200 jog) they are aerobic.
4) I believe that modern training with long intervals like 1000s and longer, with relatively short rests, is the main reason why 13:40 is not a world-class time for the 5000 any more.
5) For the purists who say "the interval is the rest period", fine. Long workbouts with short interval rest is what I'm talking about.
Any schedule in a book is rigid. There is art to customizing it to fit your needs.
Double thresholds are pretty overrated. The subset of people that can justify doubles and the like aren't enough to do a printing run.
Things have definitely advanced but the thing is the difference between systems get smaller and smaller as time progress. Lydiard and anything before or after is huge. Have some dude go from 30mpw of hard intervals to 90mpw and you might be talking 60s over a 5k. Daniels versus Lydiard? Much smaller. Daniels versus your favorite? Even smaller.
So we're back to Lydiard v Daniels on this page of this here letsrun thread are we?
They are both great philosophers, both had a grasp of science, both wrong about some of the fundamentals.
For example, Daniels ignores the neuroscience, like most famous "exercise physiologists" do. And Lydiard got aerobic capacity and aerobic endurance muddled up.
A simple graph would demonstrate the difference.
Any of you statisticians care to plot that graph for us?
Feel free to tell us how your understanding of neuroscience has resulted in much better training. Or how the difference between aerobic capacity and endurance matters to the training program...
He muddled up his practical knowledge with science when the scientists sat him down and explained to him why his method works so well.
He didn’t muddle up anyone’s training. Although as a communicator he was both motivating and sound like he contradicted himself.
still the best at the end of the day.
Yes Lydiard attended some bad science lectures and some good ones. I want to explain both.
I agree with most of your points, but we can't increase 'aerobic capacity' beyond our normal healthy level, either with training or artificially. We 'extend' aerobic endurance and efficiency. Net result being faster races using less total calories.
This should be common knowledge, but it's been buried all these years. JD was researching running economy 60 years ago. AV Hill was researching this 100 years ago. It has to be explained using neuroscience, i.e. running economy/efficiency and endurance are neuromotor skills.
"There are no magic bullets"
Weldon Johnson said that in a recent podcast. So why is there so much preaching here about 'sporting ethics'? It's silly political posturing and unscientific nonsense.
His schedules don't encourage caution in pace judgement because he is too focused on time @ VO2max when he should be advocating his own vVO2max cautiously to improve basic running skills.
Daniels ignores the skill aspect. Most coaches do because they never learned the basic physiological principles of what 'running economy' actually is.
What are these "basic running skills?" What are the "basic physiological principles" that we should know? And what does a workout look like that address these in a way that is out-of-date in Daniels or any classic plan?
I don't mean to be too negative, but a lot of the discussions of training plans and criticisms of published ones tend to venture into very abstract analysis.
too bad furman never followed the jack Daniels' formula. maybe if they did and actually knew how to taper their athletes at the right time, they wouldn't complete bust to dead last at nationals each year.
You know what? I am not going to disagree, but I am going to shift the conversation a little.
Let's say we replace words that exist now in the athletics lexicon with different words. Science-based or otherwise it could all sound different.
But if the basis of a training method results in high performance, then who cares really if we call it areobic capacity or not? We can call it that and it can mean one's ability to run at a high pace at a given effort and here is how to do it: ___________.
So, as long as we all (or a coach and athlete) agree that the intention for this period of time is to develop X, and here is how we go about it, then it's all good.
Some people don't even want to know that much.
There is the art and the practical application (later described by science) of coaching, Arthur was amazing at both.
I have Stefano Baldini's entire training schedule in fancy graphs, leading up to his Olympic gold medal marathon performance. It is simple and it is a lot like Lydiard. Rod Dixon ran a 2:08:59 marathon in NY pre super shoes, with leg cramps. His training was simple and it was Lydiard.
I suppose on a fast course, on a better day (was raining) an with supershoes he would have run 2:03-2:04...conjecture.
How do we explain Peter Snell's 1:44.10 on a grass track? No drugs, no super shoes, basically marathon training until the business end of the quality phase. Given that a rubber track is good for at least one second per lap, he would have in theory run 1:42.10. And...what about super spikes?? 1:41? Maybe? Let's talk about John Walker with the most sub-4 and sub-3:50 miles, very similar training.....there are literally thousands of other examples.
The language doesn't matter so much as long as you agree on any given day, a session was a session for stated purpose/outcome.
I do however think it would be good to get the science more commonly known as you say and settle on the language better (for accuracy) but what I do know is great performances stem from very similar training plans where 1. the athlete was injury free the whole time, 2. the aerobic foundation was set first, 3. the athlete got to train through an entire quality phase.
Answering another person's question:
Lydiard didn't have an athlete do 1000m repetitions during the base phase because it was all too common to go too fast, anaerobic (cannibalizing the mitochondria that were developed during that phase). He didn't have athletes do easier 1000s because they would be at 5000 or 10,000-like pace or perhaps even slower, so it is more effective to actually run that far or nearly that far at that effort rather than taking recovery or rest intervals. You get better aerobic development by steady state running done longer (during the base phase) than breaking up the efforts into 3 or 4 minute repetitions. The heart gets better stimulus from staying inflated for a longer period of time.
BTW, should anyone quote that Lydiard demanded X for Y length of time or else, is and isn't true.
I know many of the Lydiard trained athletes and the foundation of the plan was to get in approx., 100 miles per week, but he later changed that to X number of hours when an elderly lady told him that she was running 18 hours per week, to get in the 100 miles - ha ha.
But he applied what was most practical to the person at the time, considering the circumstances. I am coaching a former 31 minute guy who was trained by Arthur personally. Being a massive Lydiard fan, it is really cool when the athlete asks me a question, I answer and then he shows me old hand written notes from the man himself saying the exact same thing.
Understand the principles of his training and how it applies to physiology and you don't need to debate the language and until the business end of the training, the nuances are few. But you can take what looks like a Lydiard plan and f*ck it up. Good and bad training can look the same on paper.
Right here on the Let's Run boards, we are debating something that is 70 years old and there is a thread Lydiard vs Daniels that had someting like 500 pages to it.
At the end of the day he coached directly 17 Olympic gold medals before transitioning to coaching coaches. He was the national coach in five countries and was responsible for Finland's ressuragence. Knighted in two countries....I think time has faded his luster a little.
Now, if you want to quote igloi or something then that is fine, but we fully need context.
Peter Snell was to start another of his training cycles for international competition. He told Lydiard that he would instead start with the aerobic base building phase, he would do a two week speed phase, then get into the arduous base phase (they called it marathon training). Sound sacralige, but it wasn't. Snell being off for a while, wanted his form to come around, so that when he put in the near 100 miles, he ran well. It worked.
I have to laugh because I remember when Coe said that he ran 60 miles per week after winning in the Olympics, the whole western world went nuts and dropped the volume and upped the quality and performance went to hell.
About eight years ago, he came out and said that he had run 100 mile weeks in a base phase and done so in East Africa partly. It was during the racing season he was running 60 miles per week. Ha. CONTEXT.
What was a recent quote I just saw, 85% of Kipchoge's training is done in zone 1. So, we also know he rans 130 - 140 miles per week. Say what you want about his repetitions, but they cannot be fully anaerobic while running 130 to 140 miles per week.
Last comment: when concerned about repetitions or "staying in touch with speed" doing the Lydiard base triaining, athletes have a fartlek session done weekly. Additionally, strides that are alactic and over hilly environments if possible for some of the training. You can't tell me that that doesn't include some quality....(without straining).
