Wow, Lydiard training seems ridiculously hard

To paraphrase Newton, if they have seen further, it's because they are standing on the shoulders of giants.

Khadaffi on power wrote:

Your training knowledge finishes on Lydiard. Just a few coach names.

James Li

WoldeMeskel Kostre

Jeronimo Bravo

Alan Storey

Claudio Berardelli

Brother O´Colm

Luís Aberto Oliveira

Hussein Shebo

Renato Canova

Dieter Hogan

Carlos Cavaleiro

Lindsay Dunn

Huber Mann

Adauto Domingues

Mike Kosgei

Kassu Alemayehu

Go back to school, and do your distance training study. Get one diploma, some long distance sport credentials. Might be you learn something out of the Lydiard paradigm.

Tell me, outside of a stoke of luck to have one athlete drop in his lap, who has Li coached?

Years of Coaching wrote:

J.O :

There's something in your post that you're CHOOSING not to write and that is that those same old ideas or training elements ( hills, long runs blah, blah........) existed before Lydiard too.

Some of you might want to learn more about Coach Kostre. He's alive, still coaching and very personable. He's produce far more olympic champions than lydiard...

Well it's a Lydiard thread ain't it?

Of course I'm interested in learning about Kostre, I don't know anything about him.

So please tell me about Kostre.

Rekrunner

Trust me, I´m serious actually. Every training method is the refinement of past ones. From 1960 to 2011 is more than half a centuary. During this period the training refinement is done by thousand of coaches all over the world that did improve what were Lydiard take as granted. How can be other than this ? No way. The consequence of this last half century training advance is that certain Lydaird premises should be give up as indate. The fixation on Lydiard as the ultimate training should be get out. No way for those who want to save Lydiard from be outdate. It´s an inevitability. Or you aren´t done in intellectual honesty.

The simplistic HRE ask what´s Kostre different from Lydiard shows misunderstand of the problem. Ther´s no training opposed to other. What does is different training aspects, that results in different training methods, nothing is opposed. The distance training approach deals with the 2 variants and it´s all. Volume and intensity. Longer and fast, and nothing else. Nothing is opposed. Or you do more different volume, or you do different intensity or both.

What you suggest, when you ask me about books, training definitions, or what to it´s something very hard and impossible to let you know in few posts. How do you want that training data from every coach different than Lydiard be done in posts ? This is something like to write the world history of the XX century in one A4 page. No way. Besides the training methods, each one of them, the difference from one each other is a kind of soft and gentle nuance, might be something so subjective but so real and effective and discriminate that is hard to let one rough coach to understand. The discipline, or the study of comparative training methodology demands years of study, hundreds of books to read, lots of other sources of information, can´t be resume to what are on the books, or what is write in Forums or what is said in the Lydiard Foundation. The comprehension of training methodology requires the knowledge of several disciplines that supports the training methodology. How can someone that declares he doesn´t discuss about physiology when he analyzes about training understand the difference from Lydiard to Jeronimo Bravo someone he don´t know who he is, or how does he coaches ? I did read most of Lydiard training, I did read most of the information I can get from Lydiard. It took me decades, and i+m still in the process of more training knowledge acquisition. The Lydiardiste is the guy that the maibn profile he g**** a sh*** for what are the other training methods. He is made in stone.

How can HRE have a quite good understand of modern training methodology, if he refuses to discuss at the physiology debate ? He can´t. The rich support of the methodological research it the scientific method of analysis of training contain, not the gestalt perception as Wetcoast says.

The Lydiard philosophy is what is most attractive in my opinion. He believed that you were only as good as your training, and that most runners who trained right could reach the top.

We don't need special physical attributes, just good health and the right mentality.

Many other coaches don't understand this.

This is just a lot of words. The guy was asking you a question, and you obviously couldn´t answer it so now you start to act like a politician: You talk and talk and talk but there is absolutely no substance in your babble. We all know you by now. Every time there is a Lydiard thread you show up and start to talk a lot of shit.

Khadaffi on power wrote:

Your training knowledge finishes on Lydiard. Just a few coach names.

James Li

WoldeMeskel Kostre

Jeronimo Bravo

Alan Storey

Claudio Berardelli

Brother O´Colm

Luís Aberto Oliveira

Hussein Shebo

Renato Canova

Dieter Hogan

Carlos Cavaleiro

Lindsay Dunn

Huber Mann

Adauto Domingues

Mike Kosgei

Kassu Alemayehu

Go back to school, and do your distance training study. Get one diploma, some long distance sport credentials. Might be you learn something out of the Lydiard paradigm.

Sorry, dude, it's quite impressive how you can list a bunch of those names, particularly some European coaches, some of which I've never heard of and that's great. Rekrunner and HRE, you two are someone I actually respect on this respectless message board and I know you guys think this crazy guy is not Antonio because "Antonio is a student of the sport". Actually posts like this convince me more and more that this is Antonio and he just loves to show off his halfass knowledge that nobody seems to know or care about.

Antonio, grow up. Did the academy where you learnt all these training wisdom never teach English? Maybe you completely misunderstood Lydiard because you can't read English (if you read like you write).

So basically what you're saying is that actual training method doesn't exist, that all there is a great coach who can give you a day to day workout out of their brain and there is no random pattern that they can put together to tell people "this is the right way to put your training together"? I see, so one coach and one athlete and the secret will die once they are gone. Those great coaches just one day come out from nowhere, never studied progression of training because that will surely include Lydiard big time, and come up with their one unique training method that cannot be quantified or written down in words (because it is just not zen-like), and create very unique and "modern" training that can be applied to a handful of runners that cannot be transfered to ordinary runners.

Funny though you didn't mention any of great Japanese coaches. Kiyoshi Nakamura who coached Toshiko Seko in the 1980s. Olympic marathon champions 2000 and 2004 were both Japanese, the first woman to go sub 2:20 was a Japanese. Of course you don't want to talk about Japanese coaches because they are all Lydiard coaches. You also forgot to mention Abdelkader Khada who had insinuated his basic training is very much Lydiardesque.

Khadaffi on power wrote:

Do you know who was the coach of the Finn Paavo Nurmi ? Their Finn runners did more olympic medals, world records that moves Lydiard to a poor coach in your consideration. However it´s not by that huge success that he is one good coach or one poor coach whatever. As long as you willn´t be able to move to a different and higer level of training interpretation method your training interpretation will be a poor one.

Funny also, what's up with you mentioning all these Finns? Nurmi? Lydiard runners all kicked his butts even some regional level runners. All those Finns were antient history and, according to your logic, once the record is broken and the time has passed, EVERYTHING has turned into useless--just like Lydiard.

Khadaffi on power wrote:

Trust me,

Don't worry. Trust me, you are the last person I would trust.

Troll-police wrote:

Khadaffi on power wrote:

Trust me,

Don't worry. Trust me, you are the last person I would trust.

And you're one to talk about command of the English language? Your previous post was completely unintelligible.

AC has a point here. So many people get far too caught up in the minutae of Lydiard "philosophy" and the numbers (1/2, 3/4, etc.) associated with it, like the OP who started this thread - as if the only way to get in the mileage required is to follow the pattern as Lydiard proscribed and also to those specific intensities. If Barbara Ann is to be believed, then AL was about coaching people and his program needed to be adapted to those specific people. The problem I see is that the disciples of Lydiardism want to continue his legacy except that none of them are Arthur. Arthur is dead, and while his methodolgies are sound, so was Igloi's for a time, yet the sport and the needs of the athletes, especially the elite ones have changed, as has the understanding of the physiological requirements of individual athletes. Some of AL's methodologies will fit some runners but not others - i.e. an athlete who doesn't do the Hill phase isn't doing a Lydiard program if the standard periodized structure is supposed to be followed to the letter, as too many believe - in fact there is likely more misinterpretation now of Lydiard than perhaps even 40 years ago. My first coach was a Lydiard guy (Graham Ward from New Zealand) and so I derived a basic understanding of the methodology, but I have also come to understand the methodologies of others who, while perhaps having some influence from AL, also developed their own methods at coaching, trying to develop athletes and not just follow a program because some guy from 50 years ago had some success with it. This doesn't mean that the basic tenets of Lydiardism aren't sound, they are, but please let the man RIP, stop idolizing him (like others do of Prefontaine and what he supposedly stood for), and go and coach people on your own terms. God knows there are few enough non-african runners running fast these days, maybe coaches would do better not relying on anachronistic programs and instead find new ways to get things done. The same could be said for Daniels and his program in the "Formula" as well - good information contained within but ultimately you and athlete need to interpret from this AND other sources what is the best program for you. Seb Coe developed to a WR holder in part because his father (who had never previously coached anyone) was willing to throw out conventional wisdom and find what would work for Seb. That is what coaching should be about - relying on your own knowledge and wisdom to find answers to the problems of training (like Canova does), not relying on the wisdom of a dead man.

As to Coach Li, does it really matter who else he coaches? He has/is doing a great job with Lagat. Can he coach everyone or even anyone else? Who knows and if you are so interested go to him and find out yourself. I think there are any number of good coaches who don't happen to coach elite athletes, perhaps they haven't been given the opportunity, but they should be respected more because they try and find their own methodologies (I think that is really the point of AC's rants) rather than simply regurgitating something from Lydiard, when he isn't (due to his now permanent condition) able to coach athletes himself anymore.

Rekrunner,Yeah right?, J.O., well., Troll-police, ShadowFaxx, Cannery Row, and some more

You ask me books. I know dozen of books that fits in my category of modern training. You ask me coaches. I know hundred of coaches from modern training. You ask me runners of that coaches.

It´s an infinite request, every my answer builds another your another question.

I willn´t answer your questions, i don ´t satisfy your eager of know what i know. I willn´t do that exercise.

Once again i go to repeat my early post that focus the original issue of this thread. Wow, Lydiard training seems ridiculously hard.

Yes. The kind of training that prescribes the 100miles aerobic block of training as essential to the runner that wants to follow the Lydiard method, but that Peter Snell the runner more representative of that method needed 5 season to get into it, it´s ridiculously hard training.

For instance the training from the coach Li seems seriously hard. Lydiard training seems ridiculously hard.Lydiard training seems ridiculously hard.

I will not get back to this thread. What i said it´s enough to understand my conclusion.

Read this text and if you are honest you will get my own conclusion.

Peter Snell. He needed 6 seasons, 6 years of training to be able to run the Lydiard classic 100miles block. In the process he struggled with stress fracture injury.

Exert from FAST SCIENCE: A HISTORY OF TRAINING THEORY AND METHODS FOR ELITE RUNNERS THROUGH 1975 by Nicholas David Bourne – 2008

Lydiard reaped significant success with his methods, forged out of many years of

trial and error. However, caution should be applied to the use of such high mileages,

particularly in the marathon stage of training. While a number athletes may be able to

reach the ideal one hundred miles per week many athletes may fall by the way side and

suffer set backs if they are not biomechanically predisposed to handle such mileage. (*)

Indeed, even Peter Snell, Lydiard’s most successful athlete, struggled at times with injury

and the inability to consistently achieve the desired one hundred miles (*). This is clearly

chronicled by Cordner Nelson, inaugural editor of Track and Field News, who noted that

in the fall of 1959, a year after beginning full scale training with Lydiard, Snell suffered a

stress fracture, a clear indication of excessive forces and the inability of the body to adapt

to stress. Nelson further notes that 1964 was the first time that Snell had been able to

endure Lydiard’s one-hundred mile schedule for a full ten weeks. Previously, the best

Snell could manage was a meager three weeks. (*)

(*) - Nelson, Track's Greatest Champions

If you knew Arthur at all you'd know that he'd never RIP if people are misrepresenting his ideas. Some of us who knew him are doing exactly as you're recommending, i.e. trying to get past the minutae of the method and get people to understand the principles. And as other people have noted, the principles are not just Lydiard's.

Of course everyone should look for their own answers. But you're going to need a starting point when you do that. The Coes did not just wake up one morning with dozens of ideas about how to train someone to win multiple Olympic medals. They needed to understand how others had succeeded and no one had succeeded like Lydiard. If anyone knew what the Coes had done it was likely Lydiard, who they visited and consulted with and who said what they did was not all that different from his own approach, and David Martin who co-wrote a book on training with Peter Coe and who also will say that the Coes had followed Lydiard's ideas.

I don't think that any of us who knew Arthur care if someone uses his approach or not. But when some moron gets on this board and rants on about how outdated Lydiard is it's reasonable to ask that moron to specify what about the method he thinks is outdated. If that moron wants some credibility he really should demonstrate an accurate knowledge of Lydiard, otherwise how would he know if the method is outdated or not, and then explain what's come along lately that's better. If all that moron wants to say is that people should think for themselves, and they should, that's fine. But such a statement applies across the board and not just to "outdated" methods.

When someone starts a thread saying Lydiard's approach is really hard what would you recommend that people who know the method do in response to that thread? Arthur understood that the schedules he put into "Run to the Top" were too demanding for many, many runners and made adaptions. Should we simply not mention the adaptions and let the OP think the method is too hard for anyone who is not a Snell or a Halberg or should we explain for the God knows how manyeth time that the schedules are samples of what his guys did but not required and that there are other ways he had people run?

Never knew Lydiard personally only read his book "Running the Lydiard Way" but anywhooo...

Some "non-Lydiard concepts" (modern or otherwise):

*"Daniels Intervals"-repeat 4-5 minute runs at max heart rate pace. So this means even an 800 specialist was doing 6xmile, obviously not for developing pacing or speed or lactic acid tolerance, but purely for VO2max development.

*Along the same lines-VO2max versus repetition intervals.

*Use of "sets" (popularized by Igloi). John Davies (Lydiard disciple) is quoted as saying sets only serve to introduce speed in interval sessions where the purpose should be to develop anaerobic tolerance. Meaning interval sets weren't used in "pure Lydiard" training.

*Renato Canova's "long distance intervals" for marathon training and other "marathon specific" training ("hitting the wall" tolerance training).

*Acceptance that training for the 800 varies greatly depending on the individual athlete and that a classic Lydiard training program may actually hinder certain 800 specialists.

*Along those lines-100 mile weeks may not be "ideal" for a particular athlete's base phase and may be significantly less especially for the mile and 800.

Lastly I would like to add that the classic "phases" typically credited to Lydiard was already present in most European systems though "subliminally". For example Bannister had his "base (with hills) phase" via his cross country season, his interval phase and his tapering/sharpening phase. Even Rudy Harbig in the 1930's ran cross country as a "base" to get in shape for interval training for the track season. In fact most sports in general have a high volume phase (training camp), specific phase (mid season practice), championship phase (light practices, walk throughs).

Lydiard was more definitive in describing the phases and explaining in detail and definitiveness the purpose of each phase.

This is just observations from an amateur keyboard coach. I'm sure the true professional coaches know more "modernizations" of mid and long distance training.

Well at least this reponse was civil. One of your better responses. I’m disappointed so many people attacked you in my absence, chasing you away before I could get a name of one book.If you look back, I originally only asked you to recommend a good book. You gave me 3 books about Lydiard you didn’t like. You said you don’t read books. You told me not to read books, citing Li/Lagat. Now you say you know of dozens of books with your version of modern training. Do you see my frustration? One 12 line response would have kept me away for years.You keep insisting Lydiard is out of date. I took that for granted, and asked you for direction. Which parts can I ignore? What shall I replace it with? I didn’t ask for a 50 year synopsis. I asked for the top 10 improvements. Then the top 5. Then the top 3. This can be answered in one post, in a few short paragraphs, picking a Lydiard method, a modern method, the pros and cons, and who is implementing the new method with success.So far all I got is “intervals” and “periods”. Is that it? Is that what this is all about?You lament that the question/answer process is infinite, but acknowledge yourself that learning is a never ending process that is not finished after decades. If you don’t want to play that game, why are you here in the first place?Let's take a pause and step back for a second. Put yourself in a Lydiardist's laced shoes. If it's so difficult for you to explain the top 5 significant refinements since the 1960's, how can you reasonably expect anyone else, who hasn't spent decades studying training methodology with top athletes, to understand it. If it takes you decades to understand Lydiard, it will take HRE decades to understand all that has happened since Lydiard, if he is so inclined.It looks like the fault of Lydiard training is that it is accessible to the whole public, while modern training is not. This is not my fault.Renato's written a few things lately which come closest to the kinds of things I'm asking from you. Hey, I haven't read his book yet -- maybe I'll read that in the meantime. Was it the James Kwambai thread where Claudio Berradelli was succeeding with a new "lower mileage", but high volume intensity approach? In another thread, "Kenyan Trials", Renato just said something about 3 recent eras of training: 1) High mileage in the 1970's; 2) Bad intervals in the 90's, while Ethiopians were doing high volumes of fast training; 3) The modern era where everyone is trying to copy the Ethiopians. That looks like an interesting thing to follow up. How can I find out more? Do I have to go to a seminar in Rome? And then a conference in Iten? And then a workshop in Addis Abiba? Will I have to videotape these sessions, because no one is writing it down?Why do you care what HRE thinks? I sure don't. (Just kidding HRE). For some people, the goal is enjoying running, not researching the latest methodology. That game is for top coaches and top athletes. The Lydiard guys are there to explain Lydiard, to those who ask, because they think it's the best. Even if it's not the best, it's still a great approach, and everyone is entitled to their opinion. Dick Quax ran a 2:08 marathon. Nick Arcianiga just ran a 2:11 (was it 2:10?) marathon. Mottram is in the sub-13 club. Why do they need to change at all? Why do you need to change them?If you are not prepared to identify aspects of modern training, why do you keep coming to Lydiard threads? It looks like your only goal is to call a group of people cultists, and call an old method outdated. If you wanted to be productive, you could find a better way to explain why modern training is better.

Khadaffi on power wrote:

Rekrunner

Trust me, I´m serious actually. Every training method is the refinement of past ones. From 1960 to 2011 is more than half a centuary. During this period the training refinement is done by thousand of coaches all over the world that did improve what were Lydiard take as granted. How can be other than this ? No way. The consequence of this last half century training advance is that certain Lydaird premises should be give up as indate. The fixation on Lydiard as the ultimate training should be get out. No way for those who want to save Lydiard from be outdate. It´s an inevitability. Or you aren´t done in intellectual honesty.

…

Thanks for your vote of confidence.About Mr. Hyde:- I'm sure it's not Antonio. My observation is that Antonio always writes with substance. Mr. Hyde says it's too hard to produce substance, preferring to give his professional conclusions without showing the work. There is certainly more than one non-native English speaker in this world.- It doesn't matter if he is or isn't. I'm looking at what's written in the message box, not the name box.- I don't want to play this kind of guessing game, and I'm confused why anyone would take the risk to make themselves look ridiculous by getting it wrong.

Troll-police wrote:

... Rekrunner and HRE, you two are someone I actually respect on this respectless message board and I know you guys think this crazy guy is not Antonio because "Antonio is a student of the sport".

It took Snell 5 years to run 100mpw, and he suffered stress fractures? Wow.

Is 5 years too long, or too short? I always thought it typically takes about 7 to 10 years of dedicated training to become elite.

Stress fractures are a sign of doing too much too soon. This is a trap of all training methods, when athletes/coaches ignore warning signs. Are they now a thing of the past, with modern training methodologies?

I missed Troll-police's comment. I also want to say thanks.

Cannery Row wrote:

If Barbara Ann is to be believed, then AL was about coaching people and his program needed to be adapted to those specific people. The problem I see is that the disciples of Lydiardism want to continue his legacy except that none of them are Arthur

You got one interesting point.

The Lydiard fondamentalist that tries to follow Lydiard strictly is anti-Lydiard realy indeed.

Since Lydiard was a pragmatic coach and a man that based his main training knowledge by experience, he did refine aND progress his own training method as far as he get more data, more information, more experience, more trial and error.

Thats why the 90s Lydiard training it´s not 60s or 70s "fact simile". He did learn from other training methods and adopt or refuses.

Actually the Lydiard adept likes to quote Lydiard as an ultimate, quite finish, almost perfect training method.

that´s why the Lydiard disciple is anti-Lydiard some how. They don´t act as Lydiard did act. Lydaird changed some his training nuances and wasw noot affraid to adpot from other training methods what he taugh could enrich and enhance his own method.