Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

Wolfe wrote:

The post from the easy road and George213 go together, in my mind. I get that George is mostly receiving downvotes because of the comment about having modest talent to run 16-17 mins for a 5k off of 35 mpw. But the overall sentiment rings true. Do the bare minimum to achieve the stimulus. Take the long approach. The really long approach. When you plateau, increase load. Beginners don’t need three workouts a week. Context, what you’ve previously done, where you’re at now, all that matters. It drives me nuts to see all these “NSA didn’t work for me” posts. The vast majority of these posts have no details on the training execution, what they were doing before, etc. if you went from 4 hours a week with one workout immediately to 6+ hours a wee and three workouts, you’ll have issues. If you go from 10+ hours a week to 7.5 hours a week, you’ll also likely struggle.

newbie gains wrote:

The easy road wrote:

Exactly - all about building sensibly. The Luis method is doing the minimum you can to improve each week whilst NSM vanilla is doing the most you can to improve each week . Eventually, the former would look like vanilla, but I think both me and George are saying is that this is probably much further down the line than a lot of people would think. I actually think NSM is great but I also think it's more advanced than people give it credit for and similar gains for many of the less well trained runners would still be made through reasonable aerobic stimulus with consistency and injury avoidance.

It's just newbie gains. Everyone will progress in the first year no matter how they train if they stay injury free.

Where NSM has caught people's attention is what it has done to seasoned hobby joggers. That, to me, is still unexplained. We have thousands of people feeding back with what is seemingly unbelievable progress for many, but they have been running 5, 10 sometimes 15+ years.

Did everyone really train so badly before? Possibly. But it's so many people I find it hard to believe everyone's previous training sucked, those those who have made massive breakthroughs.

hobby jogging elites wrote:

newbie gains wrote:

It's just newbie gains. Everyone will progress in the first year no matter how they train if they stay injury free.

Where NSM has caught people's attention is what it has done to seasoned hobby joggers. That, to me, is still unexplained. We have thousands of people feeding back with what is seemingly unbelievable progress for many, but they have been running 5, 10 sometimes 15+ years.

Did everyone really train so badly before? Possibly. But it's so many people I find it hard to believe everyone's previous training sucked, those those who have made massive breakthroughs.

Don't overthink it. It's just likely as optimal training as we have seen laid out for hobby joggers. There's a lot of noise going on around often here, but it's as simple as that. No matter how long you have been training, the chances are the vast majority of hobby joggers have been using structures of philosophies than are less optimal than this.

That's it. I don't even really care about why, when there's a mass of real people in the real world to back it up with evidence at this point.

Enjoy the fact that it's that simple and go enjoy doing other things rather than worrying about things that don't really matter, especially if this training is making you faster.

one year report wrote:

I have run since 2014. I'm 44 now and on new years eve last year, I ran a 5k and a friend I usually beat crushed me. He had been doing NSM for 7 months previously and had finally started to see some serious improvement.

Fast forward to a hangover on New Year's Day last year and on the 2nd I decided this was it, I was going to jump into NSM.

I was averaging around 50-80km a week, already a red flag in retrospect of my boom and bust training, or lack of consistency. I loved intensity and the days I rarely missed were days like 12x400 at the track, 10x300 all out, hills, 7-8x800 with full rests. I usually mixed this with easy days, actually quite easy ,75% max HR and usually a threshold run or some quality work in the long run. I still always felt I needed every 3rd or 4th week as a down week and considered this "normal".

Anyway, my PBs sat at 17:56/37:20/1:24. I would guess anyone of my friends who didn't understand running, I may as well have been Kipchoge. To runners, I felt average and would get my ass kicked even in masters track races, regularly lapped.

I decided if I was going to do this, I was going to go the long haul. I had a bit of an argument with the track coach at my club, who called this idea 'idiotic' and I would definitely, without question, get worse. That, threw me off a bit as he is a good guy, respected and I was putting faith in my friend who had got faster, but also in this thread.

Anyway, fast forward to the 2nd of January, 2025 and I started. I stuck to everything, no strides, nothing outside what is framed as getting best bang for buck. 3x sub t and 4x easy (capped at 70% mhr no matter how slow and it was slow at first, usually 65% max, this helped enormously being able to run 7 days) with the long run included in that. I did this, virtually all year. I went from sporadic consistency to being able to manage at first 70km weeks consistently for the first few months, then 75km weeks. Now the later part of the year 85km weeks are the norm, with a few touching on 90km. This has meant I had evenly spread the load with some small progression in volume but the end result is a crazy yearly mileage PB.

The results? Jan - March. Nothing. Not a sign of a thing. In fact, I would say I might have gotten worse. That's up for debate, as I only raced once and it was about the same on a local 5k as the year before, but conditions were far superior to the year before and I ran around 18:15 which was one second slower than 12 months previously.

March- April. Workouts suddenly felt easier and I would guess this is where sirpoc suggests in the book, I've shifted my lactate curve right or starting to and I can run faster, for a lower metabolic cost - clear signs you are getting fitter.

April - June. Some more good signs, I ran 17:59 on a very hot day and not far off my PB which was a surprise, as this was significantly faster than the previous year in much worse conditions. The same with a 10k, I ran 37:40 on a hot day.

July- August. Didn't do much. Holidays, hot. Just kept training. Times seemed to be coming down, even with the hotter weather.

September - October. This is where stuff got crazy. Big half, out of nowhere I ran 1:19. I knew after km 2 I was going to pb, just by how much. Two weeks later I ran 17:12 for a huge 5k pb.

November - December. Went to Battersea and ran 16:44, then again and ran 16:23. Also in between these, ran a 34:01 10k and a 1:15:13 Half. Had a very race heavy end of the year, cashing in on what for me and having plugged away for so long with no real progress in years, are quite frankly mind blowing gains.

Conclusions really are consistency is key. There's a graph in the book that I think explains it well. I reached the point where the consistency outran any intensity or specificity hard efforts gained, which have their downsides in that as time goes on, these become a drain that means you have to sacrifice some consistency. For us hobby joggers, consistency wins almost every time, it seems and this framework provides that alongside low hanging easy gains.

What next? Well the coach at our track thinks I'm lying first and foremost, hilariously like the early days of this thread which I went back and read, in which claims of secret speedwork were rife! He also thinks now is the time to add intensity.

Personally, I think he's mad. The trajectory of progress seems to be continuing and I think it would be stupid, in fact downright crazy to not just let this whole thing play out and see where I end up. I think the issue with speedwork is this: you can add it in, have results you might have had anyway and convince yourself that you then need more of it, because you become tunnel visioned on that the intensity was the key. Then you end up back at square one before you started all this.

Anyway I know this is a long one. But I hope it helps some people as other testimonials did to me. So felt the need to post up my own year , to the day! I've never felt fitter, I've never felt less burned out and I've never had such good results that I finally might not even be lapped in the masters race this year! Lol.

Happy new year guys and girls.

one year report wrote:

I have run since 2014. I'm 44 now and on new years eve last year, I ran a 5k and a friend I usually beat crushed me. He had been doing NSM for 7 months previously and had finally started to see some serious improvement.

Fast forward to a hangover on New Year's Day last year and on the 2nd I decided this was it, I was going to jump into NSM.

I was averaging around 50-80km a week, already a red flag in retrospect of my boom and bust training, or lack of consistency. I loved intensity and the days I rarely missed were days like 12x400 at the track, 10x300 all out, hills, 7-8x800 with full rests. I usually mixed this with easy days, actually quite easy ,75% max HR and usually a threshold run or some quality work in the long run. I still always felt I needed every 3rd or 4th week as a down week and considered this "normal".

Anyway, my PBs sat at 17:56/37:20/1:24. I would guess anyone of my friends who didn't understand running, I may as well have been Kipchoge. To runners, I felt average and would get my ass kicked even in masters track races, regularly lapped.

I decided if I was going to do this, I was going to go the long haul. I had a bit of an argument with the track coach at my club, who called this idea 'idiotic' and I would definitely, without question, get worse. That, threw me off a bit as he is a good guy, respected and I was putting faith in my friend who had got faster, but also in this thread.

Anyway, fast forward to the 2nd of January, 2025 and I started. I stuck to everything, no strides, nothing outside what is framed as getting best bang for buck. 3x sub t and 4x easy (capped at 70% mhr no matter how slow and it was slow at first, usually 65% max, this helped enormously being able to run 7 days) with the long run included in that. I did this, virtually all year. I went from sporadic consistency to being able to manage at first 70km weeks consistently for the first few months, then 75km weeks. Now the later part of the year 85km weeks are the norm, with a few touching on 90km. This has meant I had evenly spread the load with some small progression in volume but the end result is a crazy yearly mileage PB.

The results? Jan - March. Nothing. Not a sign of a thing. In fact, I would say I might have gotten worse. That's up for debate, as I only raced once and it was about the same on a local 5k as the year before, but conditions were far superior to the year before and I ran around 18:15 which was one second slower than 12 months previously.

March- April. Workouts suddenly felt easier and I would guess this is where sirpoc suggests in the book, I've shifted my lactate curve right or starting to and I can run faster, for a lower metabolic cost - clear signs you are getting fitter.

April - June. Some more good signs, I ran 17:59 on a very hot day and not far off my PB which was a surprise, as this was significantly faster than the previous year in much worse conditions. The same with a 10k, I ran 37:40 on a hot day.

July- August. Didn't do much. Holidays, hot. Just kept training. Times seemed to be coming down, even with the hotter weather.

September - October. This is where stuff got crazy. Big half, out of nowhere I ran 1:19. I knew after km 2 I was going to pb, just by how much. Two weeks later I ran 17:12 for a huge 5k pb.

November - December. Went to Battersea and ran 16:44, then again and ran 16:23. Also in between these, ran a 34:01 10k and a 1:15:13 Half. Had a very race heavy end of the year, cashing in on what for me and having plugged away for so long with no real progress in years, are quite frankly mind blowing gains.

Conclusions really are consistency is key. There's a graph in the book that I think explains it well. I reached the point where the consistency outran any intensity or specificity hard efforts gained, which have their downsides in that as time goes on, these become a drain that means you have to sacrifice some consistency. For us hobby joggers, consistency wins almost every time, it seems and this framework provides that alongside low hanging easy gains.

What next? Well the coach at our track thinks I'm lying first and foremost, hilariously like the early days of this thread which I went back and read, in which claims of secret speedwork were rife! He also thinks now is the time to add intensity.

Personally, I think he's mad. The trajectory of progress seems to be continuing and I think it would be stupid, in fact downright crazy to not just let this whole thing play out and see where I end up. I think the issue with speedwork is this: you can add it in, have results you might have had anyway and convince yourself that you then need more of it, because you become tunnel visioned on that the intensity was the key. Then you end up back at square one before you started all this.

Anyway I know this is a long one. But I hope it helps some people as other testimonials did to me. So felt the need to post up my own year , to the day! I've never felt fitter, I've never felt less burned out and I've never had such good results that I finally might not even be lapped in the masters race this year! Lol.

Happy new year guys and girls.

i call out 4 wrote:

one year report wrote:

I have run since 2014. I'm 44 now and on new years eve last year, I ran a 5k and a friend I usually beat crushed me. He had been doing NSM for 7 months previously and had finally started to see some serious improvement.

Fast forward to a hangover on New Year's Day last year and on the 2nd I decided this was it, I was going to jump into NSM.

I was averaging around 50-80km a week, already a red flag in retrospect of my boom and bust training, or lack of consistency. I loved intensity and the days I rarely missed were days like 12x400 at the track, 10x300 all out, hills, 7-8x800 with full rests. I usually mixed this with easy days, actually quite easy ,75% max HR and usually a threshold run or some quality work in the long run. I still always felt I needed every 3rd or 4th week as a down week and considered this "normal".

Anyway, my PBs sat at 17:56/37:20/1:24. I would guess anyone of my friends who didn't understand running, I may as well have been Kipchoge. To runners, I felt average and would get my ass kicked even in masters track races, regularly lapped.

I decided if I was going to do this, I was going to go the long haul. I had a bit of an argument with the track coach at my club, who called this idea 'idiotic' and I would definitely, without question, get worse. That, threw me off a bit as he is a good guy, respected and I was putting faith in my friend who had got faster, but also in this thread.

Anyway, fast forward to the 2nd of January, 2025 and I started. I stuck to everything, no strides, nothing outside what is framed as getting best bang for buck. 3x sub t and 4x easy (capped at 70% mhr no matter how slow and it was slow at first, usually 65% max, this helped enormously being able to run 7 days) with the long run included in that. I did this, virtually all year. I went from sporadic consistency to being able to manage at first 70km weeks consistently for the first few months, then 75km weeks. Now the later part of the year 85km weeks are the norm, with a few touching on 90km. This has meant I had evenly spread the load with some small progression in volume but the end result is a crazy yearly mileage PB.

The results? Jan - March. Nothing. Not a sign of a thing. In fact, I would say I might have gotten worse. That's up for debate, as I only raced once and it was about the same on a local 5k as the year before, but conditions were far superior to the year before and I ran around 18:15 which was one second slower than 12 months previously.

March- April. Workouts suddenly felt easier and I would guess this is where sirpoc suggests in the book, I've shifted my lactate curve right or starting to and I can run faster, for a lower metabolic cost - clear signs you are getting fitter.

April - June. Some more good signs, I ran 17:59 on a very hot day and not far off my PB which was a surprise, as this was significantly faster than the previous year in much worse conditions. The same with a 10k, I ran 37:40 on a hot day.

July- August. Didn't do much. Holidays, hot. Just kept training. Times seemed to be coming down, even with the hotter weather.

September - October. This is where stuff got crazy. Big half, out of nowhere I ran 1:19. I knew after km 2 I was going to pb, just by how much. Two weeks later I ran 17:12 for a huge 5k pb.

November - December. Went to Battersea and ran 16:44, then again and ran 16:23. Also in between these, ran a 34:01 10k and a 1:15:13 Half. Had a very race heavy end of the year, cashing in on what for me and having plugged away for so long with no real progress in years, are quite frankly mind blowing gains.

Conclusions really are consistency is key. There's a graph in the book that I think explains it well. I reached the point where the consistency outran any intensity or specificity hard efforts gained, which have their downsides in that as time goes on, these become a drain that means you have to sacrifice some consistency. For us hobby joggers, consistency wins almost every time, it seems and this framework provides that alongside low hanging easy gains.

What next? Well the coach at our track thinks I'm lying first and foremost, hilariously like the early days of this thread which I went back and read, in which claims of secret speedwork were rife! He also thinks now is the time to add intensity.

Personally, I think he's mad. The trajectory of progress seems to be continuing and I think it would be stupid, in fact downright crazy to not just let this whole thing play out and see where I end up. I think the issue with speedwork is this: you can add it in, have results you might have had anyway and convince yourself that you then need more of it, because you become tunnel visioned on that the intensity was the key. Then you end up back at square one before you started all this.

Anyway I know this is a long one. But I hope it helps some people as other testimonials did to me. So felt the need to post up my own year , to the day! I've never felt fitter, I've never felt less burned out and I've never had such good results that I finally might not even be lapped in the masters race this year! Lol.

Happy new year guys and girls.

My friend, you likely just need to understand how to run vo2 max workouts properly,so that you can really develop as an athlete.this method is of course holding you back,no harm in a little intensity and reduce some mileage, even rest days,to bring your pbs down some more ;-)