Ramp rate being high is the problem of most running training plans. You do too much, too soon. Keeping it lower like this method is specifically why it works longer term, you still get the build but eliminate most of the associated risks. By keeping it low, but over a longer period, this breaks the book and bust cycle.
Looks like Magness latest YouTube video is a direct result of the discussion here over the last few days. This was quite good discussion on aerobic development.
Presumably you are referring to his video on easy running?
I thought it could have been better. He didn’t really define easy running as anything other than “conversational”. This definition, while not incorrect, is far too opaque for the average recreational runner. It is still largely, the Jack Daniel’s, anything up to about 80% of max heart rate. He didn’t try to define how easy, easy recovery should feel. Everyone has a hrm nowadays, and HR wasn’t mentioned at all. The average recreational has a very poor sense of RPE, which he has previously acknowledged, so easy effort needs a bit more detail.
He acknowledges that recreational runners, are always going to be time crunched in some way, but uses this as an excuse, to suggest that they can therefore push the pace a bit on their easy.
He has come at it from the opposite direction of Paul Lutterall.
The average recreational runner, running their easy days too fast, are unlikely to change anything after this video.
This post was edited 8 minutes after it was posted.
Reason provided:
Additional sentence.
So this is probably one of the few areas where I disagree with what sirpoc has written as I understand it (I might just be misunderstand things) but I do not think CTL/Fitness works like this AT ALL. I know sirpoc had a really nice graph that matched his improvement in his 5k times, but I think that is more incidental of how he did his training (ie. extremely intelligently).
I used intervals before doing subthreshold training, and my highest ever Fitness/CTL was during a traditional marathon build just because of the relative volume I was running at (and the amount of hours I put into it). But I was still slow AF. I still am slow AF, but faster than I was then at the higher Fitness/CTL. Like, 30mins in a marathon faster. That is just because I have been running longer while maintaining a relatively high CTL.
My personal opinion is that CTL/Fitness score is ONLY useful as a measure of the volume of work you have done recently, which CAN be useful as a measure of RATE of improvement.
To borrow other exercise science terminology that I know better, assume you have the following values (which are very individualistic): - MV (Maintenance Volume): Minimum volume required to prevent regression - MEV (Minimum Effective Volume): Starting point for improvement, varies by training experience - MAV (Maximum Adaptive Volume): Sweet spot range between MEV and MRV for optimal gains - MRV (Maximum Recoverable Volume): Upper limit before recovery fails and gains stop
Fitness/CTL is useful for measuring the volume of aerobic work done, and can apply to the above definitions. You need a certain CTL to maintain your fitness, a certain CTL to improve, and there is a maximum CTL that you can handle without injuring yourself. Importantly, as you get more fit, all these values increase (especially when you are really pushing near your genetic limits, where basically all these values converge - the amount you need to improve is more than you are able to recover from, and you basically get stuck with MV being your MRV). So you need more to maintain, and more to keep improving.
I just think Sirpoc was able to increase his CTL at basically the exact rate that he was improving, so that he had near linear growth. He kept his CTL in the MAV area for 2 years (which is insanely impressive) because this training is so well designed to do exactly that, whereas most training you do 2-3 weeks where you end up above your MRV and need to deload or risk burnout or injury.
But when he was an 17:30 5k runner, if he had suddenly taken a week or 2 vacation to do a training camp and push his CTL up to where it was pre-London (which I think is pretty doable), I don't think he would have suddenly been able to run a 15:01 5k. It is the load you maintain OVER TIME that leads to an individual rate of improvement.
So there MIGHT be a way to calculate what someone's rate of improvement from a history of CTL and project a different rate of improvement if they can maintain a slightly higher CTL, but I don't know if that would be very useful as, like I said, you need more load to keep improving anyways.
Also, I think people generally vastly overestimate what MV and MEV are. It is why so-called "Weekend Warriors" can actually get surprisingly fast on surprisingly little volume. It is consistency over time (i.e. maintaining a load for an extended period of time) that is important more so than just hitting a high load/CTL once.
End rant.
Yeah some good points here, although I think it is mentioned he doesn't expect everyone's progression to look like that based on increase in fitness. For him, it's probably because of ramp rate. That's the thing that surprised me the most, how crazy low it is compared to traditional methods. The patience and precision required to plan and carry that out over such long term, with such focus is almost mind blowing and genius to me.
I just finished the book, it really is great. So far beyond my expectations. Linked to the interesting discussion above, I really enjoyed the thought process about how he solved the marathon staying true to NSM with basically just the "sirpoc" special block.
It's interesting to note how hard a marathon really is to deliver. Someone who clearly has as much of a grasp on what works and doesn't as sirpoc, even he seemed intimidated by it and wasn't actually sure if the "theory" would work out, having planned it all months before. You can tell from reading it, whilst he doesn't give too much away or much credit to himself, he was really pleased with that. I mean who wouldn't be, with a 2:24 marathon when you are already into your 40s on debut on around 100km a week average. Thankfully he did it, as I have recently ran a lifetime marathon pb, off a very similar build that I would never have thought to even dream of trying had he not, but in my 10th attempt!
There are a number of reasons why people are unsuccessful with this method. Beyond the too fast workouts and too fast easy days, I think ramp rate gets completely overlooked. Three workouts a week still takes an adjustment. I’ve seen a bunch of people jump right into this method. Although they are able to stay healthy (some do get injured), I’ve seen posts about people following the method to a tee for months and not improving. I suspect ramp rate has something to do with it. I also wonder if more people will stagnate earlier on because they ramped up too quickly. I’ve missed a significant amount of time from running for a variety of reasons. I don’t see myself doing three workout a week anytime soon but a year or two down the line, I could see it fitting into a progression of a long, slow return to running.
I have one question about pacing the workouts. What are good watch settings for this? Sirpoc mentions in the book that for races he uses avg. lap pace to help him pace. Is it safe to assume he uses avg. interval pace for intervals? Or is it some shorter average like 3s or 10s?
Looks like Magness latest YouTube video is a direct result of the discussion here over the last few days. This was quite good discussion on aerobic development.
Presumably you are referring to his video on easy running?
I thought it could have been better. He didn’t really define easy running as anything other than “conversational”. This definition, while not incorrect, is far too opaque for the average recreational runner. It is still largely, the Jack Daniel’s, anything up to about 80% of max heart rate. He didn’t try to define how easy, easy recovery should feel. Everyone has a hrm nowadays, and HR wasn’t mentioned at all. The average recreational has a very poor sense of RPE, which he has previously acknowledged, so easy effort needs a bit more detail.
He acknowledges that recreational runners, are always going to be time crunched in some way, but uses this as an excuse, to suggest that they can therefore push the pace a bit on their easy.
He has come at it from the opposite direction of Paul Lutterall.
The average recreational runner, running their easy days too fast, are unlikely to change anything after this video.
That fair, he did ramble through and why I thought it was a response and not planned out fully.
Just use current lap pace? I use lap time, lap pace, and heart rate for workouts.
For racing, I swap lap time for average pace. I just tried this for the first time in a recent race and it worked well. It seems weird not having duration or distance, but I'm running more to a pace than a time, and distance is pretty easy to tell with autolap and course markers.
Just use current lap pace? I use lap time, lap pace, and heart rate for workouts.
For racing, I swap lap time for average pace. I just tried this for the first time in a recent race and it worked well. It seems weird not having duration or distance, but I'm running more to a pace than a time, and distance is pretty easy to tell with autolap and course markers.
I like Pace next to Lap Pace. Not knocking anyone else’s preferences, but for me, only having Lap Pace does not tell me if I am letting the pace drift (although it does hide how awful my pacing actually is). Caveat, Pace can look wild at the beginning of a lap, presumably while the algorithm sorts itself out. I try to avoid looking at Pace for the first 30 seconds.
If you go on Strava quite a number of people have made a mess of it. Mainly because they don't see the long term value, haven't improved over 10-12 weeks and rush into bad decisions. Then blame the lack of the traditional elements.
Yep. On Strava, on Reddit, here, wherever: You can find bunches of people who are missing any number of things — the basics — and are always directing their blame elsewhere or looking for answers elsewhere. That’s true for just about any type of training, so those are the people more likely to struggle with NSM as well. Even those who have read enough to be able to recite the basics pretty well are among those who have lapses in applying them. It’s never hard to find someone who knows in the abstract that volume, consistency, gradual building, pacing (however this applies to an easy day, a particular kind of training, or a race), and recovery are enormously important. And you can look at their training (sometimes even in their own descriptions of their training) and find several areas in need of improvement: The solution is staring them in the face, and it’s about the basics. But their “solution” for their problem: I need a new training plan!
That said, I think this if they’re at least pretty careful (not least because it more easily steers them into attending to some of the basics).
Good to see some debate. Again, I've said this many times and I will continue: this is not the only way to train and to double re-iterate, for an elite, this would obviously be stupid and naive to "just" train this way. For the rest of us? Well I will still continue to train this way and I think it's still the best way for me to improve on a personal level.
Hopefully I've put enough out there now to let everyone make their own decisions. I was hoping, that's what the book would do and in general I think that's the case with the initial feedback.
On that note, I have submitted a reflowable epub to Amazon. It works great even on my phone, so it's going to be a much better option. I think overall, the paperback is still nicer to have, but I think this is going to be way better than the replica. So thanks for all the feedback for that, hopefully people are happier now. Oh, because I tried to change the format for it, Amazon have banned me from doing pre-orders ha ha. So, it'll just drop I guess when they feel like it.
Even if pre-order is a few weeks from now I can wait...I just hope it goes through at all. Worst case, I'll buy the paperback. TY again!
Halfway through. Wow this is really a fantastic book. I've slowly been coming round to NSM. There's enough people I trust that have said "this is it" when it comes to hobby jogging training. So many so in fact, that it's becoming hard to ignore.
This might have sold me fully. I probably now regret waiting so long, despite reading the first 50 pages or so in real time. The book was highly recommended in running book of 2025 on Reddit, so I thought why not. This is a proper book about training and what's important. I do appreciate how it's not telling you how you "must" train or promising any miracles
This is a proper book about training and what's important. I do appreciate how it's not telling you how you "must" train or promising any miracles
Yeah .. In today's market it's refreshing to read (or watch) something that isn't preachy or patronizing.
Just a personal story. This is what I did. I did it for these reasons (links to articles and books) and it seemed to work out just fine (Lists experience, challenges along the way and results)
A few warnings, a bit of detail on other options and a wee bit of discussion of how we are different.
Done .. Take it or leave it!
-
Unfortunately something like that is rare these days. It ought to be the norm.
Halfway through. Wow this is really a fantastic book. I've slowly been coming round to NSM. There's enough people I trust that have said "this is it" when it comes to hobby jogging training. So many so in fact, that it's becoming hard to ignore.
This might have sold me fully. I probably now regret waiting so long, despite reading the first 50 pages or so in real time. The book was highly recommended in running book of 2025 on Reddit, so I thought why not. This is a proper book about training and what's important. I do appreciate how it's not telling you how you "must" train or promising any miracles
Yeah, I had a similar experience and it makes more sense, the more I read it. It's training stripped back to what we actually need to know (and some more, this isn't just basic stuff, there are levels to it, depending on the readers entry point).
What I find interesting, is sirpoc himself is probably the least sold on NSM. I think on one of the podcasts he said if someone laid out a better way to train with supporting evidence, he would just jump on that. By actually being one of the least NSM 'only' disciples, he actually inadvertently makes it's strongest argument.
I assume it's sold a significant amount of copies already. It can only be a good thing for hobby joggers to find it, outside of this threads reach. I'm buying 3 copies for Christmas; for my sister who runs, my cousin and running friend of mine. It's almost exactly what they need to sit down and read, to get away from the reams of useless information they consume on places like Instagram. In strange way I almost feel duty bound to help promote it, especially as his idea of marketing is to probably sit with a much earned pint on a Friday night!
I commend Sirpoc on the book and think it should’ve had the following byline: “A cyclist’s perspective on running” or: “What cycling can teach runners about running.”
I commend Sirpoc on the book and think it should’ve had the following byline: “A cyclist’s perspective on running” or: “What cycling can teach runners about running.”
Tinman used to say “keep the ball rolling”. NSM is “keep the wheels turning”.
Just use current lap pace? I use lap time, lap pace, and heart rate for workouts.
For racing, I swap lap time for average pace. I just tried this for the first time in a recent race and it worked well. It seems weird not having duration or distance, but I'm running more to a pace than a time, and distance is pretty easy to tell with autolap and course markers.
I dunno how important is to not go over the target pace. With lap average on 10 min intervals, it feels like you could easily speed up at the end and not notice it much on the average. Or go out too slow at the beginning and then to increase the average go over the target.
Just use current lap pace? I use lap time, lap pace, and heart rate for workouts.
For racing, I swap lap time for average pace. I just tried this for the first time in a recent race and it worked well. It seems weird not having duration or distance, but I'm running more to a pace than a time, and distance is pretty easy to tell with autolap and course markers.
I dunno how important is to not go over the target pace. With lap average on 10 min intervals, it feels like you could easily speed up at the end and not notice it much on the average. Or go out too slow at the beginning and then to increase the average go over the target.
I never have auto-lap on. Easy runs are just a single lap and workout laps are triggered by the watch.
For a race, I would either manual lap for short distances according to the course markers or for longer races like the marathon I would manual lap larger blocks of time that descrease as the race goes on and it takes more focus. For example, starting with a few 30 minute laps, then 20, 15, etc. Towards the very end, it may take 5 minute laps to get the job done.
I think longer laps also helps prevent overreactions if the last lap was slightly slow.
Help us build the best running shoe review site for a chance to win a LetsRun t-shirt.Help us build the best running shoe review site for a chance to win one of 10 LetsRun t-shirts.