Well, I'm not sure if I fully understood your comment? But he was coached and adviced by Canova and Moen and did alot of volume and got severe injured ( heel spur) . Some years after I coached him we chat now and then and he wrote " Jan , I should have listen to you. " . Canova is of course a legend coach. ( even if I don't agree with him always) and I agree with him as he say there must be faster paces than thresholds to reach highest capacity to the runner. But in my own career and running experience now over 56 years I'm of course convinced it can be done on half or even less volume of what Canova advocates.
K ulricksen, he was just coached by canova
Yes, coached mainly by Canova but hang around alot with Moen who also was coached by Canova at the time.
Yes, coached mainly by Canova but hang around alot with Moen who also was coached by Canova at the time.
and the most important part, seems to have gotten worse despite a block of crazy good workouts
more evidence that Canova style training for a non elite is pretty much curtains for your long term goals
Canova himself has said to not even think about his training unless you've had at least 10 years of consistent high level aerobic development and doesn't take on any athletes otherwise.
Stuff like special blocks and massive amounts of race specificity starts to make sense in that context, and when you see some of the workouts, it makes even your run of the mill workout warriors question how it's humanly possible to complete them.
So, yeah, Canova training in its purest form - definitely not applicable to any of us posting in the thread.
The other reason why we don’t copy pro training is we’re not running championship races. Jakob is running a 52 final lap to win championships.
I think his hill workout is more specific to preparing for this kick and to a lesser extent the 1500 in general. When it’s racing season and he’s running faster workouts on the track, that weekly touch on power must come in handy.
I really don’t think it’s applicable to the hobby jogger looking to even split a 5k or longer race. Especially the aerobically underdeveloped hobby jogger who would be better off avoiding anaerobic work completely.
Which is my cue to endorse hill sprints of 8-10s max, with at least 2mins rest, so you use the phosphocreatine system to develop power, not anaerobic glycolysis. I think this can be done more harmoniously with aerobic development. The anaerobic intervals are more “speed endurance” and interfere more with aerobic development.
You are putting Daniels in the bin to follow Jakob's slow older brother and some random British dude who used to ride a bike. Seriously, everyone just breathe and think about that for a minute. You guys are nuts.
I'll follow Joe Biden's running routine if it gets me a PB. This stuff is working, I couldn't care less who came up with it.
Catching up on the last couple dozen pages or so, all the continued skepticism and other hypothetical bs brings me back to this exchange
That's seems to be the question: how much faster than your regular training paces can you run before biomechanics becomes a limiting factor?
Here's my theory: no matter how fast/fit you are, there comes a point at which the neuromuscular demands of running faster than your training pace is an issue. It therefore follows that to run as fast as your fitness might allow, you must occasionally run faster than that.
Okay, how much? My answer would be that although weekly strides may not be needed, to maximize performance over 800-5000 metres, you need to at least tickle those paces for 3-6 weeks beforehand.
Rationale: 1) running economy matters, and 2) neuromuscular adaptations are rapid.
This is the way to look upon it.
As mr Leif-Inge Tjelta told there is a need of frequently be atleast on 5 k "load" / pace to improve the energy efficiency and biomechanics at that level to its utmost. This is what e.g J.I does year around with maxVo2 in the form of 20 x 200m hillreps during building season and in the form of track reps in other parts of the year, and of course even faster paces. Then most of you thinks " He is a world top elite runner with all day to train and recover and it doesn't fit to my ' ordinary Joe life ' . Well, according to me and my longtime experience in practise it's very doable if you don't forget you need sometimes to squeeze in the faster work Tjelta, Canova and I'm talking about. You need to do all the main factors contributing to reach your very best possible results at distances from 1500m and up to the marathon. Infact the very first guy I coached ( Norwegian K. Ulriksen) 10 years ago lowered all his then pb:s from 1500 to marathon in just 2 and a half month ( !) with this approach and then I didn't even gave him special 1500m training.
Actually, Ulriksen wrote on your Facebook page:
"It goes without saying that no one, no matter who, gets 12 minutes better in 2 months.
Jan is good but he is not a wizard.
He gave me a lot of advice but as I said before, I trained 140km on average over a 12 week period before Berlin 2015."
And if you continue to spam this great thread with your useless "I know better" posts, I will do the same to your threads. It's only fair.
I'll follow Joe Biden's running routine if it gets me a PB. This stuff is working, I couldn't care less who came up with it.
Catching up on the last couple dozen pages or so, all the continued skepticism and other hypothetical bs brings me back to this exchange
This is the thing. Same dicussions, same arguments, same bs.
But the bottemline for me...its just working. Im 70s fatster on a 5k than 15 years ago training traditional at a running club. While im now 10kg heavier, married, with a kid and having my own business.
Biggest difference isnt that I feel fitter and have better results. Things is....I just know that if I keep training like this, it will give me the results I dreamed of 15 years ago. But without the fatigue of heavy training.
The people telling me I need to train at LT and do Vo2max because some study says so should really read the big amount of succes stories and start analyzing were the difference between theory and practise is comming from. Maby you can learn something? Why is this methode working so well for me and others?
But dont bother trying to convince me that I need to train more traditional. I tried it and it didint work as good, its that simpel.
This is the thing. Same dicussions, same arguments, same bs.
But the bottemline for me...its just working. Im 70s fatster on a 5k than 15 years ago training traditional at a running club. While im now 10kg heavier, married, with a kid and having my own business.
Biggest difference isnt that I feel fitter and have better results. Things is....I just know that if I keep training like this, it will give me the results I dreamed of 15 years ago. But without the fatigue of heavy training.
The people telling me I need to train at LT and do Vo2max because some study says so should really read the big amount of succes stories and start analyzing were the difference between theory and practise is comming from. Maby you can learn something? Why is this methode working so well for me and others?
But dont bother trying to convince me that I need to train more traditional. I tried it and it didint work as good, its that simpel.
There was a post sirpoc made on Strava, many moons ago, that made me think.
He was talking about cycling and some Tri guy about aerodynamics. He said in theory you can run lab tests and wind tunnels to find optimal set ups, but most of the time people got slower in time trials. Because, in the real world, things react differently outside of the lab. By solving a real world problem, one at a time, he kept getting faster. Rather than changing everything at once and having no idea how that impacts other things, outside of controlled conditions.
I see this training like that. There's a lot of theory, or older science rooted in guys minds about "this cannot just keep working". Yet it does. Until it stops working in the real world and there becomes another problem to solve, I'm just going to keep going. It would be stupid not to. I'm improving far beyond what I ever expected.
If it was one guy, sure, that's hardly a case study. But we have hundreds, if not thousands of people all reporting the same kind of consistent, long term and in some cases almost ridiculous progress. That, whatever your beliefs, is hard to ignore.
Running lore is hard to shake and I think that is what is also as tied up in people's brains, despite the stark evidence that is confronting them.
As mr Leif-Inge Tjelta told there is a need of frequently be atleast on 5 k "load" / pace to improve the energy efficiency and biomechanics at that level to its utmost. This is what e.g J.I does year around with maxVo2 in the form of 20 x 200m hillreps during building season and in the form of track reps in other parts of the year, and of course even faster paces. Then most of you thinks " He is a world top elite runner with all day to train and recover and it doesn't fit to my ' ordinary Joe life ' . Well, according to me and my longtime experience in practise it's very doable if you don't forget you need sometimes to squeeze in the faster work Tjelta, Canova and I'm talking about. You need to do all the main factors contributing to reach your very best possible results at distances from 1500m and up to the marathon. Infact the very first guy I coached ( Norwegian K. Ulriksen) 10 years ago lowered all his then pb:s from 1500 to marathon in just 2 and a half month ( !) with this approach and then I didn't even gave him special 1500m training.
You make out like 5k pace is some kind of biomechanical stress that's like from the moon, if you are running Subthreshold only.
I'm running pretty fast, on my 3 min reps. This isn't jogging. It's probably a lot closer in biomechanical load than people realise, without the non-linear increases recovery costs.
It's wild to think some people think you suddenly can't run a good 5k. In fact, that's probably still my best distance. Far outrun any 5k of the past, with, wait for it, no 5k specificity. Sure, maybe I'm lacking that 1% edge Jakob needs, (look at Jakob when he didn't have that going into the worlds), but, who cares? I'm a hobby jogger. Firstly I'm faster than before anyway so I'm delighted and secondly, I'm actually now really consistent (and healthy more) at just about any distance, at any point , from the mile to maybe even the marathon.
I almost see regular 5k pace now as someone who doesn't have the patience to wait out the fitness that will come to you. Ok and sure, if you just care about a 5k, it's probably a good way to train short term. But even long term, I think NSM probably out performs a few cycles of boom and bust 5k builds, just will take a little longer to unlock.
The beauty is as hobby joggers. We have time! We aren't in a rush to periodize for the euros, or the worlds, or the Olympics. We may be strapped for time daily, but we have lots of time to think much longer term about running sustainably and focusing on long term development.
Let's say you're a 17:00 hobbyjogger experiencing success with NSM and you have two options:
Option A: start optimising for the 5K by including more intensity for 6 weeks, there's a 90% chance you make it to the start line without getting injured or burned out, but if you do you run a 16:30.
Option B: continue with vanilla NSA, there's a 99% chance you make it to the start line without getting injured or burned out, if you do you run a 16:45. In another 8 weeks you run 16:30.
Both options are fine, option A gets you there quicker, with more risk and work, option B gets you there on "autopilot" but takes longer.
great summation
if youre willing to detonate, make the trade off; if not, way smarter to stay the course
It's so silly many of you guys think VO2 intervals = injury.They are just at a mile speed 25-30 sec faster than threshold. And you need to avoid longer reps of them.You can stay with reps of 200m and longest 500m . It works great and give another dimension to your running and you will see fast sustained inprovement and don't have to wait 6+ months to see it clearly. Just be shore you do a very good warmup to prevent and reduce the injury risk that always is there , even at sub threshold paces when running faster paces than easy runs.You can call it option C in this exampel and you still hang on with your NSM reps twice in your weeks.
It's so silly many of you guys think VO2 intervals = injury.They are just at a mile speed 25-30 sec faster than threshold. And you need to avoid longer reps of them.You can stay with reps of 200m and longest 500m . It works great and give another dimension to your running and you will see fast sustained inprovement and don't have to wait 6+ months to see it clearly. Just be shore you do a very good warmup to prevent and reduce the injury risk that always is there , even at sub threshold paces when running faster paces than easy runs.You can call it option C in this exampel and you still hang on with your NSM reps twice in your weeks.
Sounds like magic intervals, bro.
Get to 43 years old, life, responsibilities, an hour a day and then come back and try telling me how I feel when I run vo2 max intervals. Obviously they can have their place. But they just aren't valuable to me, compared to ensuring 3 sub t sessions a week. It's that simple. I will and have progressed more, without them. That's what is happening to a lot of us, in the real world.
Also, if I wanna rip my calves again, 200 repeats are the perfect tonic. It's shocking really how little physical cost there is to sub t, versus stuff like regular 200s.
It's so silly many of you guys think VO2 intervals = injury.They are just at a mile speed 25-30 sec faster than threshold. And you need to avoid longer reps of them.You can stay with reps of 200m and longest 500m . It works great and give another dimension to your running and you will see fast sustained inprovement and don't have to wait 6+ months to see it clearly. Just be shore you do a very good warmup to prevent and reduce the injury risk that always is there , even at sub threshold paces when running faster paces than easy runs.You can call it option C in this exampel and you still hang on with your NSM reps twice in your weeks.
You have to make a trade off and compromise somewhere with NSM and fitting in 3 sessions a week. Vo2 is the sacrifice. It's probably just not compatible long term, to the whole idea of increasing load rather than focusing on specificity. Which is fine, tons of people have improved more than on traditional running methods.
I really feel like you are gonna turn into Jan. Combine two different philosophies and end up in a tangle.
if youre willing to detonate, make the trade off; if not, way smarter to stay the course
It's so silly many of you guys think VO2 intervals = injury.They are just at a mile speed 25-30 sec faster than threshold. And you need to avoid longer reps of them.You can stay with reps of 200m and longest 500m . It works great and give another dimension to your running and you will see fast sustained inprovement and don't have to wait 6+ months to see it clearly. Just be shore you do a very good warmup to prevent and reduce the injury risk that always is there , even at sub threshold paces when running faster paces than easy runs.You can call it option C in this exampel and you still hang on with your NSM reps twice in your weeks.
Maby makes sence theoratical but please read the full tread because has been discussed before and has been tried. Thing is....didnt work as good. Thats just the way it seems to be. Also probably doesnt make sence from a load prespective which is what the method is about. Maximizing load over a week.
Intresting to see if you can come up with a tweak that makes sence considering load and which hasnt been uped before. Genuine mean that since so far people only repeat tweaks which have been said before but didnt seem to work or make sence.
So there is a challenge for you. Come with a tweak that fits the methode and hasnt been tried and/or discussed before.
If you can improve the methode I will change my training for you.
if youre willing to detonate, make the trade off; if not, way smarter to stay the course
It's so silly many of you guys think VO2 intervals = injury.They are just at a mile speed 25-30 sec faster than threshold. And you need to avoid longer reps of them.You can stay with reps of 200m and longest 500m . It works great and give another dimension to your running and you will see fast sustained inprovement and don't have to wait 6+ months to see it clearly. Just be shore you do a very good warmup to prevent and reduce the injury risk that always is there , even at sub threshold paces when running faster paces than easy runs.You can call it option C in this exampel and you still hang on with your NSM reps twice in your weeks.
Maby makes sence theoratical but please read the full tread because has been discussed before and has been tried. Thing is....didnt work as good. Thats just the way it seems to be. Also probably doesnt make sence from a load prespective which is what the method is about. Maximizing load over a week.
Intresting to see if you can come up with a tweak that makes sence considering load and which hasnt been uped before. Genuine mean that since so far people only repeat tweaks which have been said before but didnt seem to work or make sence.
So there is a challenge for you. Come with a tweak that fits the methode and hasnt been tried and/or discussed before.
If you can improve the methode I will change my training for you.
Yes. A lot of this has been done to death. The vast majority of people come back to NSM vanilla.
With any tweaks, they are often very individual.
What would improve the method is this: something that you can also roll out and will improve a large and broad percentage of the population, just like NSM vanilla does. But ultimately, this is where you will run into problems.
Something that will work and can be applied to the broadest audience of hobby joggers, who just want to stop worrying about their training yet improve, then vanilla is likely unparalleled (yet).
A coach might even be a worse option. A lot of people have reported being coached, not really improved and then a 6-12 month dose of this got them huge gains.
Anyone is welcome to have new ideas. But the onus is on them to bring it to a level of evidence we have in the real world now, stemmkng from one guys original postings. So it shows anyone, that if they have ideas that genuinely work , people will listen. There's a reason so many people are training like this and it's not just the bonus of he fact sirpoc seems like a legit top dude.
Oh just F**k right off. Never posted before but this is just gaslighting. You haven't discussed any training. You spent 2 pages saying how stupid this training was and you can get magical results, whilst claiming you put the final nail in NSM coffin.
You are a sad, pathetic old man attention seeking. Id never heard of you before, but was scared me is you aren't a troll, seemingly a real person on Facebook, with some of the worst haircuts I've ever seen. First time I wasn't jealous of people with hair, as an old balding man.
A coach might even be a worse option. A lot of people have reported being coached, not really improved and then a 6-12 month dose of this got them huge gains.
This is true. Most coaches I know, and Jan is the perfect example, are unwilling to change, to evolve, to accept that there is something better than what they offer.
I have been a coach for decades and I am always learning. I started testing NSM on myself last year and had incredible results - after I accepted that my easy runs had to be easy or else...
This year I used NSM on all of my runners, who run 5km to the marathon. I coach 12 runners. All but one ran PRs in 2025 (that one underwent surgery in March).
Examples, 3:52 to 3:28 in the marathon. 1:29 to 1:24 half marathon. 43:22 to 40:21, 46:58 to 42:01, 38:57 to 36:27 in the 10km. 18:50 to 17:49 in the 5km.
I include one VO2max/hill session every two or three weeks because they ask me to have a faster session once in a while. That's the only change I make to NSM.
It's so silly many of you guys think VO2 intervals = injury.They are just at a mile speed 25-30 sec faster than threshold. And you need to avoid longer reps of them.You can stay with reps of 200m and longest 500m . It works great and give another dimension to your running and you will see fast sustained inprovement and don't have to wait 6+ months to see it clearly. Just be shore you do a very good warmup to prevent and reduce the injury risk that always is there , even at sub threshold paces when running faster paces than easy runs.You can call it option C in this exampel and you still hang on with your NSM reps twice in your weeks.
You have to make a trade off and compromise somewhere with NSM and fitting in 3 sessions a week. Vo2 is the sacrifice. It's probably just not compatible long term, to the whole idea of increasing load rather than focusing on specificity. Which is fine, tons of people have improved more than on traditional running methods.
I really feel like you are gonna turn into Jan. Combine two different philosophies and end up in a tangle.
I think you make a mistake thinking VO2 training to be just specificity.If you do it regularly in right portions it's increasing load too.
You have to make a trade off and compromise somewhere with NSM and fitting in 3 sessions a week. Vo2 is the sacrifice. It's probably just not compatible long term, to the whole idea of increasing load rather than focusing on specificity. Which is fine, tons of people have improved more than on traditional running methods.
I really feel like you are gonna turn into Jan. Combine two different philosophies and end up in a tangle.
I think you make a mistake thinking VO2 training to be just specificity.If you do it regularly in right portions it's increasing load too.
Can you explain this further? How do you specify a VO2 max training like in a duration of a rep, amount of reps, rest, etc. And how does this compair load wise to for exampel a 10x3 subt training.