i think a good approach is to follow Pyramidal for most of your base/buildup, while transitioning into more of a polarized model in racing/peaking phase.
if you look at most programs thats happening already whether explicitly stated or not.
even in the Norwegian model the racing phase is seeing threshold work decrease in favor of more track work at 5k pace or faster and 5k pace hill work being replaced by faster than 5k work speed sessions where lactate is now approaching 10 mmol.
Yes good comment, i was thinking of the base/built up phase.
Have the Norwegians ever discussed use, or reasons for lack thereof, of Heart Rate Variability data in their training, whether it be in running, triathlon, skiing?
tempus fugit wrote:
reader, wrote:
Inability to raise your hr to normal levels in a workout is an indication of being overly tired. It is way more common in triathlon and skiing where you can put in a lot more volume. An athlete improves when they recover from a training stimulus. If that stimulus is too much to recover from you eventually become over trained or injured.
Since he was doing so much threshold, this was likely used to monitor crossing the line in to too much work.
With increasing endurance, the heart rate can go down for the same pace.
Using heart rate or lactate testing is not really the cutting edge science that some people think it is.
There is a difference between being faster at a heart rate and not being able to achieve a heart rate at all. No, this isn’t cutting edge it has been used since at least the 90s.
let's think harder wrote:
LarsL9 wrote:
most seem to bastardize it with their own biases of what makes a good system. This can make it worse than either two systems.
I agree, I think this is one of the important takeaways. This seems like a system that needs to be either adopted completely or not at all--very easy easy days, high volume of intervals that are at a relatively low effort for speedwork, and a small dose of top end speed. I wouldn't like to think what happens if you adopt this only in part and end up with, say, high volume intervals and "easy" days that aren't really that easy, or, on the other end of the spectrum, plenty of super easy running and only a low volume of relatively easy intervals.
It sort of depends on what you consider the system. Would doing 1 day of double thresholds 1 day of cv and 1 day of fast stuff work? Probably. What about replacing the double threshold with a hard 1 hour run? Seemed to work for lydiard... There are definitely combos that don't work but let's also not pretend we know the exact best levels of intensity/volume.
I will say the trend of pretty much everyone is more volume at slightly less intensity especially during the base. Do 5x1 at 10 instead of 3x1 a 5k. Do 40mins at mp instead of 25 at hm...
peekay wrote:
Alfie wrote:
Could this be of benefit to the recreational runner? Not double threshold sessions, but two threshold sessions each week, dropping the faster work? Only introduce the faster stuff later.
I’m a broken record on this, but if you want to apply this to a recreational runner the best place to look is at the Ingebrigtsen older brother Kristoffer. All his training is on Strava
He does the same weekly schedule but only 1 run per day
Tues- threshold fartlek
Thurs - threshold intervals
Sat - longer threshold intervals
Sun - “long” run
You can look at what he’s doing now and be like hold sh*t that’s a lot. But if you go back a year, he has gone from 1:29 to 1:15 in the HM and probably will drop a couple minutes again whenever he runs another one. The progression has been very gradual and most weeks he does the same thing for several weeks in a row before bumping the pace or volume. You see almost no progression over a month or 2, but after a year he is doing WAY more and WAY faster.
My guess, the faster work is considered unnecessary for older or less developed runner as it is higher injury risk. There is so much aerobic development an adult recreational runner can have before speed is the limiting factor.
Thanks, found him on Strava.
Had a quick look at his training. Interestingly his "threshold intervals" appear to be done at a max of around 85% of max hr. His easy runs at around 70% of max HR. Running around 65 mpw.
Alfie wrote:
Thanks, found him on Strava.
Had a quick look at his training. Interestingly his "threshold intervals" appear to be done at a max of around 85% of max hr. His easy runs at around 70% of max HR. Running around 65 mpw.
How do you know his max heart rate?
Alfie wrote:
peekay wrote:
I’m a broken record on this, but if you want to apply this to a recreational runner the best place to look is at the Ingebrigtsen older brother Kristoffer. All his training is on Strava
He does the same weekly schedule but only 1 run per day
Tues- threshold fartlek
Thurs - threshold intervals
Sat - longer threshold intervals
Sun - “long” run
You can look at what he’s doing now and be like hold sh*t that’s a lot. But if you go back a year, he has gone from 1:29 to 1:15 in the HM and probably will drop a couple minutes again whenever he runs another one. The progression has been very gradual and most weeks he does the same thing for several weeks in a row before bumping the pace or volume. You see almost no progression over a month or 2, but after a year he is doing WAY more and WAY faster.
My guess, the faster work is considered unnecessary for older or less developed runner as it is higher injury risk. There is so much aerobic development an adult recreational runner can have before speed is the limiting factor.
Thanks, found him on Strava.
Had a quick look at his training. Interestingly his "threshold intervals" appear to be done at a max of around 85% of max hr. His easy runs at around 70% of max HR. Running around 65 mpw.
Threshold at 20min can be not informative by heart rate.
When I do 20min tempo, my avg heart is always 10 beats less than 1h threshold run...
Alfie wrote:
peekay wrote:
I’m a broken record on this, but if you want to apply this to a recreational runner the best place to look is at the Ingebrigtsen older brother Kristoffer. All his training is on Strava
He does the same weekly schedule but only 1 run per day
Tues- threshold fartlek
Thurs - threshold intervals
Sat - longer threshold intervals
Sun - “long” run
You can look at what he’s doing now and be like hold sh*t that’s a lot. But if you go back a year, he has gone from 1:29 to 1:15 in the HM and probably will drop a couple minutes again whenever he runs another one. The progression has been very gradual and most weeks he does the same thing for several weeks in a row before bumping the pace or volume. You see almost no progression over a month or 2, but after a year he is doing WAY more and WAY faster.
My guess, the faster work is considered unnecessary for older or less developed runner as it is higher injury risk. There is so much aerobic development an adult recreational runner can have before speed is the limiting factor.
Thanks, found him on Strava.
Had a quick look at his training. Interestingly his "threshold intervals" appear to be done at a max of around 85% of max hr. His easy runs at around 70% of max HR. Running around 65 mpw.
At intervals picture is more funny... at 5k pace intervals 600-800 I can only reach threshold level of heart rate at the last 100-250 m...
For this reason JS made a lot of mistake, trained me way too fast....
I think KB and Gustavs Iden coach has discussed it, so you can try to look to anything he's mentioned or podcasts he's been on. They track everything and i know HRV is a data point for them.
"What about replacing the double threshold with a hard 1 hour run? Seemed to work for lydiard... There are definitely combos that don't work but let's also not pretend we know the exact best levels of intensity/volume."
You really didn't digest the article by Bakken. There are many reasons to have the double threshold vs the many other things you could be doing to get max duration and yet cap intensity with a realistic time frame for recovery and repeatability. You would certainly not want to be doing a 'hard 1 hour run' for a 5k by bakkens analysis, especially considering the recovery needed, the speed implications, and the physiological costs vs the benefits
No one is pretending to "know" anything here -- this is the exploration of a system that has worked wildly for a certain country that through borrowing and trial and error has produced a general framework for sustainable aerobic growth with amazing results, most of them in the face of convention
Do they know the 'exact' anything? Of course not, that's not the point. The point is 'what's good enough, erring on the side of caution to promote year over year growth'
shirtboy2021 wrote:
"What about replacing the double threshold with a hard 1 hour run? Seemed to work for lydiard... There are definitely combos that don't work but let's also not pretend we know the exact best levels of intensity/volume."
You really didn't digest the article by Bakken. There are many reasons to have the double threshold vs the many other things you could be doing to get max duration and yet cap intensity with a realistic time frame for recovery and repeatability. You would certainly not want to be doing a 'hard 1 hour run' for a 5k by bakkens analysis, especially considering the recovery needed, the speed implications, and the physiological costs vs the benefits
No one is pretending to "know" anything here -- this is the exploration of a system that has worked wildly for a certain country that through borrowing and trial and error has produced a general framework for sustainable aerobic growth with amazing results, most of them in the face of convention
Do they know the 'exact' anything? Of course not, that's not the point. The point is 'what's good enough, erring on the side of caution to promote year over year growth'
Not exactly the same but NAU does 8 mile “sub-T” runs and ten mile “sub sub-t” runs and that seems to work out pretty well for them. The intensities are likely slower than marathon pace.
shirtboy2021 wrote:
"What about replacing the double threshold with a hard 1 hour run? Seemed to work for lydiard... There are definitely combos that don't work but let's also not pretend we know the exact best levels of intensity/volume."
You really didn't digest the article by Bakken. There are many reasons to have the double threshold vs the many other things you could be doing to get max duration and yet cap intensity with a realistic time frame for recovery and repeatability. You would certainly not want to be doing a 'hard 1 hour run' for a 5k by bakkens analysis, especially considering the recovery needed, the speed implications, and the physiological costs vs the benefits
No one is pretending to "know" anything here -- this is the exploration of a system that has worked wildly for a certain country that through borrowing and trial and error has produced a general framework for sustainable aerobic growth with amazing results, most of them in the face of convention
Do they know the 'exact' anything? Of course not, that's not the point. The point is 'what's good enough, erring on the side of caution to promote year over year growth'
And you missed the point. This program works. But so did lydiard. And a billion others. You focus on double threshold instead of the idea(high volume of hard but not so super hard) aerobic work. There are plenty of people getting similiar results with either approach.
hrehjfjd wrote:
Not exactly the same but NAU does 8 mile “sub-T” runs and ten mile “sub sub-t” runs and that seems to work out pretty well for them. The intensities are likely slower than marathon pace.
And in Norway the break that up into repetitions. :)
The NAU athletes, in your example train for what distance?
BTC does a workout as well where its high volume threshold work where they start with a 4mi tempo and then mile repeats with 90sec rest if I recall correctly. Instead of doing a longer tempo creating more stress on the body. Seen other programs do similar approached so could be one way to approach getting in higher volume of threshold work with overall less stress on the body. Obviously if your doing the repeats after two fast than not so much.
Interesting podcast reflecting on polarised Vs pyramidal training, and mixing the two (an 8 week block of pyramidal training followed by 8 weeks of polarised produced the best results over 5k in the study they're talking about. No big surprise but interesting nonetheless) https://open.spotify.com/episode/5TkEUVjqjwXRyN8fbEYgeT?si=NZY5s729RF2IyWdsX_1a_w&utm_source=copy-link
lexel wrote:
hrehjfjd wrote:
Not exactly the same but NAU does 8 mile “sub-T” runs and ten mile “sub sub-t” runs and that seems to work out pretty well for them. The intensities are likely slower than marathon pace.
And in Norway the break that up into repetitions. :)
The NAU athletes, in your example train for what distance?
1500m to 10’000m. It emphasizes a point that a previous poster on this page said: the goal is to increase the volume of threshold training. You can do some repetitions close to threshold or more religions a bit slower or a continuous run a bit slower than that. It’s achieving a similar goal. Why not do it all? Some weeks do 8 miles continuous at Sub-T, some weeks do double threshold, some weeks do 8-10xMile. It’s all a slightly different stimulus that achieves a similar result.
And if you can assure people use the proper guardrails for all the intensity control, then sure. But you know that's exactly the problem. People are people and are disciplined enough to do the work, but not disciplined enough to do the work correctly, thus you have the Norwegian model, with it's obsession with intensity control, recovery, and sustainable development.
it MAY accomplish the same or similar goal. Big IF though, because if you overdue that workout you wont know til the damage is done, and you did 8-10 over where you needed to be.
Now if you did 10 min segments, you could control the intensity throughout, and not risk blowing 50-60 minutes at the wrong intensity for no reason. One day that 8-10 sub T could be in the right spot, the next one, same pace, could be totally wrong for you. The point is dialing in your perceived effort and HR data and linking it to the day to day variations physiologically through lactate testing, that way on any given day, on any given interval, in any given session, you are operating at the purpose and intensity for that days goal, and not just blindly relying on your perception for a given day or time of day.