Why should the third workout in the 7-days cycle be "key"? It's just a way to get to x training load. If two identical twins runners with same baseline fitness train with roughly the same weekly load, but one does 3 sub-threshold (3x30' at pace) sessions per week while the other does only 2 (2x40' at pace) but runs 20' longer in the weekly long run, why should the 3x subT guy improve more? The advantage for the 3x schedule is that you can scale it up more easily without having to hit very demanding sessions, but I think the core of the method here is sustainable long term load increase
Take this to the extreme: why not do it all in a 1x90' session? Because supercompensation is a thing and doing too much in one session introduces too much fatigue. The body can only absorb so much from one session. For most people in the hobbyjogger category, that seems to be around the 30 minute mark for subthreshold, but for some even that is too much and starting off with 24 minutes is better.
I completely agree on everything and the fact that 3 subT/week smartly optimizes the equation is pretty clear: you get a good signal:adaptation ratio and you have room to play with the sessions. I would not consider myself outside NSM though, I think this all thing has great great value but that's not because of the magic formula. I have the feeling "NSM people" are mistaking the finger for the moon. 99% of runners should train NSM 99% of the time, but the NSM gospel is not the be all and end all of training for hobby running.
Why should the third workout in the 7-days cycle be "key"? It's just a way to get to x training load. If two identical twins runners with same baseline fitness train with roughly the same weekly load, but one does 3 sub-threshold (3x30' at pace) sessions per week while the other does only 2 (2x40' at pace) but runs 20' longer in the weekly long run, why should the 3x subT guy improve more? The advantage for the 3x schedule is that you can scale it up more easily without having to hit very demanding sessions, but I think the core of the method here is sustainable long term load increase
Take this to the extreme: why not do it all in a 1x90' session? Because supercompensation is a thing and doing too much in one session introduces too much fatigue. The body can only absorb so much from one session. For most people in the hobbyjogger category, that seems to be around the 30 minute mark for subthreshold, but for some even that is too much and starting off with 24 minutes is better.
The load system is not perfect and does not treads easy and subt correctly. So while the load is the same, 3x30 will be the better option. Also, as I understand, there are disminishing returns after about 30m of subt. Add this with the comment from Eliud Bekele, its also about recovery and absobing the load, and the 3x30 option will like have better results.
This post was edited 22 seconds after it was posted.
In page 7 of his book, Sirpoc states "the overall training load is the dominant driver of fitness gains, far outweighing the specific composition of the workouts".
By the same reasoning you are providing, but taking it to the other extreme, why don't you then do the same training every day of the week yielding an even training load, which adds up to the same training load achieved with vanilla NSM? To be more specific:
Let us say that your vanilla NSM is the following 7 hour week as outlined in Sirpoc's book: 55' | 3x11' | 55' | 5x6' | 50' | 10x3' | 85' yielding a total training load of X. In our example this training load is not evenly distributed, the training load varies day to day.
Why not fill this 7 hours so that our training evens outs with an equal training load every day? For example, we could just run the same every day, a 60' continuous run at an even pace, which we would have to find out to get the desired load of X/7 every day. Why isn't this better, since we are providing an even distribution of the stress, witch equal overall training load? I guess you could argue physiology and that you need to mix it up with different paces, well in that case you could still even things out with different workouts every day, but with the constraints of the training load being X/7 every day and 1h/day of training, instead of NSM which unevenly distributes the training load.
Any thoughts on that?
I think this has been spoken about a lot, or the idea of doing LT1 everyday. That ultimately, the recovery costs probably make it tricky. Something like the intensity needed for 7 even days, doesn't look that bad, but I think once you stack it, gets hard quite quickly.
I probably do subscribe to that in general, load (or volume depending on how you use the language) is the prominent driver of gains. But how you balance out the fatigue management and recovery aspect is a delicate balance to keep driving on. That's where probably the 4x easy and 3x Subthreshold provides that balance, this is outside the argument of whether or not phisiologically there also might be some special adaptations.
A few people have said they are going to try this. The less hours you do, the more likely it is to succeed. But you have to remember, you are looking for the balance in that you could handle this, for years. I look forward to seeing people's feedback though, if they do try it.
It does seem whatever way you try to skin the cat, everyone keeps coming back to the tried and tested. Sure, there are slight adaptations. No long runs, a day off with cross training. But the vast majority come back to 3x Subthreshold runs as week, around 30 minutes, give or take. With maybe a longer one if you are training for a marathon, or building up to the marathon special block.
In page 7 of his book, Sirpoc states "the overall training load is the dominant driver of fitness gains, far outweighing the specific composition of the workouts".
By the same reasoning you are providing, but taking it to the other extreme, why don't you then do the same training every day of the week yielding an even training load, which adds up to the same training load achieved with vanilla NSM? To be more specific:
Let us say that your vanilla NSM is the following 7 hour week as outlined in Sirpoc's book: 55' | 3x11' | 55' | 5x6' | 50' | 10x3' | 85' yielding a total training load of X. In our example this training load is not evenly distributed, the training load varies day to day.
Why not fill this 7 hours so that our training evens outs with an equal training load every day? For example, we could just run the same every day, a 60' continuous run at an even pace, which we would have to find out to get the desired load of X/7 every day. Why isn't this better, since we are providing an even distribution of the stress, witch equal overall training load? I guess you could argue physiology and that you need to mix it up with different paces, well in that case you could still even things out with different workouts every day, but with the constraints of the training load being X/7 every day and 1h/day of training, instead of NSM which unevenly distributes the training load.
Any thoughts on that?
It's because of the signal-adaptation pattern that works best. A flat load has a mild level of stress spread throughout, which I think shifts the balance to the side of "stress" indeed. With a fluctuating load you get to mimic the signal-adaptation pattern on a two-days cycle and even out the balance. It also acts as an insurance: if you push too much on a subT day and get a minimal micro tear in your hamstring that you can barely feel, you have the time to recover the next day by running easy. If your load is flat, and you run somewhat fast everyday, a mistake today will affect tomorrow and you will end up amplifying everything
Great coach will answer any question in public and is able to deal with any questions his answer will bring.
Come on now Jan, show us what you got. At this point your either scared or not able to answer the question.
Your not realy that great of coach than are you?
You are welcomed to my thread the " Comeback journey to a sub 20 min at age 66 " where I in basics have explained and explain how my successful the Dancan system is built and how it works. You don't seem to be one of my longtime stalkers so I gave you this answer here.Wish you a happy new year. 🖐🧙♂️
Just answer. I gave have you a chance to prove yourself by explaining your own statement in more detail. So you either prove yourself or show everyone they were right all along and your just another idiot with a keyboard.
I think this has been spoken about a lot, or the idea of doing LT1 everyday. That ultimately, the recovery costs probably make it tricky. Something like the intensity needed for 7 even days, doesn't look that bad, but I think once you stack it, gets hard quite quickly.
I probably do subscribe to that in general, load (or volume depending on how you use the language) is the prominent driver of gains. But how you balance out the fatigue management and recovery aspect is a delicate balance to keep driving on. That's where probably the 4x easy and 3x Subthreshold provides that balance, this is outside the argument of whether or not phisiologically there also might be some special adaptations.
A few people have said they are going to try this. The less hours you do, the more likely it is to succeed. But you have to remember, you are looking for the balance in that you could handle this, for years. I look forward to seeing people's feedback though, if they do try it.
It does seem whatever way you try to skin the cat, everyone keeps coming back to the tried and tested. Sure, there are slight adaptations. No long runs, a day off with cross training. But the vast majority come back to 3x Subthreshold runs as week, around 30 minutes, give or take. With maybe a longer one if you are training for a marathon, or building up to the marathon special block.
Yeah, it usually comes back to this. 3x 30 mins of broken up work, just below LT2 a week.
The rest is simply supplemented by easy running, over 3 or 4 days, with some cross training.
The next jump, clearly appears to be doubling one or two of the workout days, with cross training. You will be getting some, although not all the stimulus towards your running, but you are pretty adapted to running so I've seen sirpoc describe it, it's a "free hit", in there is a good proportion of it counting towards running load (probably not all) and making you faster, but the recovery cost for a hobby jogger is absolutely minimal, on the bike or elliptical, provided you know where to pitch the intensity.
So even when you "complete" NSM like sirpoc, or cheetodust now seemingly, you just do more, but via a medium that still keeps it sustainable, for a long, long time.
I'm willing to bet he keeps this pattern up for another couple of years, with slowly increasing load before he worries about much again.
It's as plug and play as you can get for the generic runner, and as likely to succeed as just about anything, probably #1 starting point. That's incredibly hard to argue, when all the real world evidence is there, no matter what side of the fence you sit on.
Why should the third workout in the 7-days cycle be "key"? It's just a way to get to x training load. If two identical twins runners with same baseline fitness train with roughly the same weekly load, but one does 3 sub-threshold (3x30' at pace) sessions per week while the other does only 2 (2x40' at pace) but runs 20' longer in the weekly long run, why should the 3x subT guy improve more? The advantage for the 3x schedule is that you can scale it up more easily without having to hit very demanding sessions, but I think the core of the method here is sustainable long term load increase
Take this to the extreme: why not do it all in a 1x90' session? Because supercompensation is a thing and doing too much in one session introduces too much fatigue. The body can only absorb so much from one session. For most people in the hobbyjogger category, that seems to be around the 30 minute mark for subthreshold, but for some even that is too much and starting off with 24 minutes is better.
Not true, I call it out. I've seen several examples of runners doing subthresholds or thresholds 90' sessions and run great times on it. We are not talking about sessions giving too much fatigue. And as a hobbyjogger you have around 24 hours for the supercompensation to operate.
Take this to the extreme: why not do it all in a 1x90' session? Because supercompensation is a thing and doing too much in one session introduces too much fatigue. The body can only absorb so much from one session. For most people in the hobbyjogger category, that seems to be around the 30 minute mark for subthreshold, but for some even that is too much and starting off with 24 minutes is better.
Not true, I call it out. I've seen several examples of runners doing subthresholds or thresholds 90' sessions and run great times on it. We are not talking about sessions giving too much fatigue. And as a hobbyjogger you have around 24 hours for the supercompensation to operate.
Really? You’ve seen SEVERAL examples of runners doing a 90 minute sub threshold session and running great times? I call BS on this unless you have proof. There’s absolutely no way.
Obviously most of us hobby-joggers are stuck to some kind of 7 day week with work, family, etc., but if you're running every day anyway and not training with a group, why not go to a 14 day cycle and run ST every second day? Is the long run important enough to lose half a day of ST per week?
Not true, I call it out. I've seen several examples of runners doing subthresholds or thresholds 90' sessions and run great times on it. We are not talking about sessions giving too much fatigue. And as a hobbyjogger you have around 24 hours for the supercompensation to operate.
Press "X" to doubt. 90 minutes of continuous subthreshold would have to be slower than half marathon race pace (~92-95% LT2) for most hobby joggers. If an athlete is doing a 90 minutes subthreshold tempo, it could be around marathon race pace (~89-92% LT2), but even then, recovery is probably going to require extra downtime.
To safely prescribe a 90 minute tempo so the athlete can bounce back into training with minimal fatigue, it'll probably need to be a steady state run, perhaps 85% LT2 (50K race pace?). At this point, the athlete is closer to LT1 than LT2, and while that might technically be subthreshold, it's not really in the spirit of Norwegian subthreshold training.
I think this has been spoken about a lot, or the idea of doing LT1 everyday. That ultimately, the recovery costs probably make it tricky. Something like the intensity needed for 7 even days, doesn't look that bad, but I think once you stack it, gets hard quite quickly.
I probably do subscribe to that in general, load (or volume depending on how you use the language) is the prominent driver of gains. But how you balance out the fatigue management and recovery aspect is a delicate balance to keep driving on. That's where probably the 4x easy and 3x Subthreshold provides that balance, this is outside the argument of whether or not phisiologically there also might be some special adaptations.
A few people have said they are going to try this. The less hours you do, the more likely it is to succeed. But you have to remember, you are looking for the balance in that you could handle this, for years. I look forward to seeing people's feedback though, if they do try it.
It does seem whatever way you try to skin the cat, everyone keeps coming back to the tried and tested. Sure, there are slight adaptations. No long runs, a day off with cross training. But the vast majority come back to 3x Subthreshold runs as week, around 30 minutes, give or take. With maybe a longer one if you are training for a marathon, or building up to the marathon special block.
Yeah, it usually comes back to this. 3x 30 mins of broken up work, just below LT2 a week.
The rest is simply supplemented by easy running, over 3 or 4 days, with some cross training.
The next jump, clearly appears to be doubling one or two of the workout days, with cross training. You will be getting some, although not all the stimulus towards your running, but you are pretty adapted to running so I've seen sirpoc describe it, it's a "free hit", in there is a good proportion of it counting towards running load (probably not all) and making you faster, but the recovery cost for a hobby jogger is absolutely minimal, on the bike or elliptical, provided you know where to pitch the intensity.
So even when you "complete" NSM like sirpoc, or cheetodust now seemingly, you just do more, but via a medium that still keeps it sustainable, for a long, long time.
I'm willing to bet he keeps this pattern up for another couple of years, with slowly increasing load before he worries about much again.
It's as plug and play as you can get for the generic runner, and as likely to succeed as just about anything, probably #1 starting point. That's incredibly hard to argue, when all the real world evidence is there, no matter what side of the fence you sit on.
i think we've kicked around this idea a lot internally, but have never pulled the trigger on a straight running schedule just from the mechanical load being too high
however
this might be able to be accomplished with cross training being swapped in.
Say 3-4x Z2/LT1 on the bike, with 3x LT1 sessions running
That even might be a stretch, and you'd probably have to swap 1 LT running for an easy run instead
ive thought about testing this out myself for a few months just to see the impact on stress/hrv/etc
Not true, I call it out. I've seen several examples of runners doing subthresholds or thresholds 90' sessions and run great times on it. We are not talking about sessions giving too much fatigue. And as a hobbyjogger you have around 24 hours for the supercompensation to operate.
Press "X" to doubt. 90 minutes of continuous subthreshold would have to be slower than half marathon race pace (~92-95% LT2) for most hobby joggers. If an athlete is doing a 90 minutes subthreshold tempo, it could be around marathon race pace (~89-92% LT2), but even then, recovery is probably going to require extra downtime.
To safely prescribe a 90 minute tempo so the athlete can bounce back into training with minimal fatigue, it'll probably need to be a steady state run, perhaps 85% LT2 (50K race pace?). At this point, the athlete is closer to LT1 than LT2, and while that might technically be subthreshold, it's not really in the spirit of Norwegian subthreshold training.
Who mentioned a continuous 90' min session? I talk about doing it in intervals.
i think we've kicked around this idea a lot internally, but have never pulled the trigger on a straight running schedule just from the mechanical load being too high
however
this might be able to be accomplished with cross training being swapped in.
Say 3-4x Z2/LT1 on the bike, with 3x LT1 sessions running
That even might be a stretch, and you'd probably have to swap 1 LT running for an easy run instead
ive thought about testing this out myself for a few months just to see the impact on stress/hrv/etc
If you were to do this for the science, that would be a much appreciated risk. But a risk nevertheless. I would not try to play too much with catecholamines and cortisol: one can withstand a certain amount of stress before it comes crashing down. Truly easy comes in handy in this precise sense: minimal stress signal that still elicits some adaptation. An example may be cycling 3-weeks grand tour races in which most domestiques ride "somewhat hard" for 21 days straight with a couple of rest days. They end up all messed up and need rest afterwards, and they don't always make jumps in fitness (although some do).
I also think that if you're at the point where you're having to add cross training to beat NSM then for a time crunched hobbyjogger you've already lost, as you need to train longer on the bike to get the equivalent running load.
Daily LT1 spamming may generate more weekly load than NSM, but I think we've all seen that most metrics used to track load overrate longer low-intensity runs. So this may not actually beat NSM in practice, at least not at the 800m - half marathon distances since you're not doing enough to push the lactate curve to the right. Again, no evidence to support this, someone should try it out, but throw in the additional fatigue and I suspect daily efforts would burn out most masters runners and even younger guns not on EPO lol.
I also think that if you're at the point where you're having to add cross training to beat NSM then for a time crunched hobbyjogger you've already lost, as you need to train longer on the bike to get the equivalent running load.
Daily LT1 spamming may generate more weekly load than NSM, but I think we've all seen that most metrics used to track load overrate longer low-intensity runs. So this may not actually beat NSM in practice, at least not at the 800m - half marathon distances since you're not doing enough to push the lactate curve to the right. Again, no evidence to support this, someone should try it out, but throw in the additional fatigue and I suspect daily efforts would burn out most masters runners and even younger guns not on EPO lol.
I actually would mostly agree, I think the bike is the best way into doubles for maybe 2 hours a week, but sirpoc himself uses an example of a lot of steady riding he did before, over 18+ hours a week to get super fit, but this is time intrusive. So it can top up running with using it for intensity, but you are going to have to do an awful lot of steady or easy cycling to make the load worth it.
I am seriously considering now though after 20 months of nsm, good success, but also coming to the apex of what i can recover from running wise, that I might follow sirpoc and throw in a couple of rides on the Tuesday and Thursday and gamble on him knowing what he's doing and being ahead of the curve again.
I also think that if you're at the point where you're having to add cross training to beat NSM then for a time crunched hobbyjogger you've already lost, as you need to train longer on the bike to get the equivalent running load.
Daily LT1 spamming may generate more weekly load than NSM, but I think we've all seen that most metrics used to track load overrate longer low-intensity runs. So this may not actually beat NSM in practice, at least not at the 800m - half marathon distances since you're not doing enough to push the lactate curve to the right. Again, no evidence to support this, someone should try it out, but throw in the additional fatigue and I suspect daily efforts would burn out most masters runners and even younger guns not on EPO lol.
I actually did do this, and I recommend against trying it. In 2019 I followed up a Pfitzinger marathon cycle with 18-weeks of 10-14 hours per week of almost entirely Z2 running, with incidental pushes into Z3 on climbs, in preparation for a mountain ultra. There's no question my CTL by a TP/intervals.icu model (square of relative intensity) was much higher then than on NSM. It worked poorly and I consider it a major training mistake. I certainly built durability and a good base to add intensity on afterwards, but I did not get any faster until I added intensity in my next training cycle.
It's funny how cryptic he is but I suppose he has to be if he doesn't want 500 of us weirdos turning up at the same race in Chinese shoes and vintage football tops, scarfing down Snickers bars while asking him if the 2K reps or the 1600's would work better to PB at a local 8.4K trail race.
It's hard to keep up with all the messages. I always reply when I can. I've had tons of emails lately I still need to reply to, including such gems as can i translate the book into Danish or how would i adapt this to cycling (seriously). I don't try to be cryptic. I don't even know why anyone cares what I get up to, that still baffles me ha ha
I wasted hours this week when I could have been doing more useful things, but speaking to Hard2find about Christmas and music and showing him what Britain at Christmas is all about and #66 on 25/12/2010 in the UK singles chart.
As for running, I'm caught between a rock and a hard place. I think I'm in great shape, but longer runs are a slight problem. Whatever injury I had wasn't anything major, I took longer than I needed to come back deliberately (almost didn't bother) but it still niggles on longer runs past 90 mins. Working on a few things to finally get to the bottom of it. So I've held back a bit, but behind where I want to be if I did run a marathon.
Whereas Wigglewaffle is where he needs to be. Doesn't mean I won't run a marathon, doesn't mean I will , just a bit snookered at the moment with the longer workouts. Might just roll the dice and see what happens.
Maybe I'll satisfy the crowd, if i run a spring marathon like Seville, run it in Chinese shoes and a Cameroon early 2000s sleeveless football shirt/vest. If the guys at classic football shirts want, sort me out. That's the only sponsorship I'll take for my own benefit ha ha
P.s Mars over Snickers. Whoever made the d1ck vein texture snickers post pages back, incredibly funny, but you've ruined Snickers now.
I actually would mostly agree, I think the bike is the best way into doubles for maybe 2 hours a week, but sirpoc himself uses an example of a lot of steady riding he did before, over 18+ hours a week to get super fit, but this is time intrusive. So it can top up running with using it for intensity, but you are going to have to do an awful lot of steady or easy cycling to make the load worth it.
I am seriously considering now though after 20 months of nsm, good success, but also coming to the apex of what i can recover from running wise, that I might follow sirpoc and throw in a couple of rides on the Tuesday and Thursday and gamble on him knowing what he's doing and being ahead of the curve again.
This is probably it for now. It's doubles lite. A decent amount of the load probably translates to topping up what is already a good amount of running 7-8 hours a week. I posted a while back. I just don't think my lifestyle can handle doubles running. You have to remember it has taken me all the time (even before I ever posted here) up until late last summer, to really get to this point.
I'll run this experiment for a while and report back. I *think* I might have an idea of a rough equation we can use to put a value on cross training, and luckily guys like cheetodust are also trying it on top up a long time on just running and Wigglewaffle hopefully next as well. So it will give us an idea of it's use outside of just me, or if there is even a pattern, or if it even holds value for others. But im going to probably wait until mid next year to really draw any conclusions. But at worse, yes, I've said it's a free hit even if it doesn't do anything. There's no real measurable extra fatigue, the downside is finding the time to do it, especially when the spirit of what I initially intended, was an hour a day plus 90 minutes on a Sunday.
Takes me up to about 10 total. Which is a lot. I can't really imagine dedicating more of that to a hobby I don't love, especially when I already play other sports (depending on your view if they are sports!) for a good amount of time a week. It's more a curiosity if I can get a little bit better, for not a huge amount of extra time, but in all honesty, it's probably a fraction more than I would like to dedicate to training.
I also think that if you're at the point where you're having to add cross training to beat NSM then for a time crunched hobbyjogger you've already lost, as you need to train longer on the bike to get the equivalent running load.
Daily LT1 spamming may generate more weekly load than NSM, but I think we've all seen that most metrics used to track load overrate longer low-intensity runs. So this may not actually beat NSM in practice, at least not at the 800m - half marathon distances since you're not doing enough to push the lactate curve to the right. Again, no evidence to support this, someone should try it out, but throw in the additional fatigue and I suspect daily efforts would burn out most masters runners and even younger guns not on EPO lol.
I actually did do this, and I recommend against trying it. In 2019 I followed up a Pfitzinger marathon cycle with 18-weeks of 10-14 hours per week of almost entirely Z2 running, with incidental pushes into Z3 on climbs, in preparation for a mountain ultra. There's no question my CTL by a TP/intervals.icu model (square of relative intensity) was much higher then than on NSM. It worked poorly and I consider it a major training mistake. I certainly built durability and a good base to add intensity on afterwards, but I did not get any faster until I added intensity in my next training cycle.
Totally agree. I made a comeback to running in 2024 after ten years away. Got caught up in the hype train of zone 2 and did that for everything. Guess what? I was still slow as hell after six months, although I had built some endurance.