Renato Canova - Arthur Lydiard Coaches Roundtable

J.R. wrote:

Actually I am highly educated, quite intelligent, and know how to spell my own name.

I know that L did not invent Gershler, did not show Hans Kolehmainen how to run

You can´t spell the names of other people, though. It´s Hannes Kolehmainen, and his best time at 5k is only 14.36,6. If Lydiard would have shown him how to train he would have been faster. He took a 3 MONTHS rest before he started his training, and did a massive part of his training by walks. Lydiard would have suggested longer base phase and replace the walks by running. This would have helped his running. But as you can see there´s some similarity to Lydiard´s periodization in his training:

Here´s how Hannes trained in the winter before Stockholm olympics A HUNDRED YEARS AGO:

"Hannes Kolehmainen training in Stockholm Olympics 1912

Training began in early February. This was preceded by a 3-month rest period.

From February to June

In the morning:

Gymnastic 5 min

Walking 10 - 25 km rate of 7 min / km, 48 km sundays the pace of 8 min / km

Gymnastic 10 min

massage

During the day:

Running at least 5 km usually 10 - 20 km to the average rate of 3.30 / km

massage

In the evening:

strolling around the town

From April onwards, after the addition of walking:

Running 80 - 400 m betting a total of 3 500 - 4 000 m in full swing for

In May and June, from time to time in addition to other daily training:

Time course experiments for example, three-mile journey."

The times have changed...

Huckleberry Finn wrote:

his best time at 5k is only 14.36,6. If Lydiard would have shown him how to train he would have been faster.

I disagree. Kolehmainen ran on terrible tracks. He probably would have run 13:40 at Rome. What did L's champion Halberg run, 13:43? The world record is now 12:37.35. Someone should have shown Lydiard how to train runners hehe.

Halberg didn't even come close to the WR at the time, which was 13:35.0 from 1956 by constantly interval trained Vladamir Kuts! Hey, Kuts should have shown L how to train runners!

Here´s how Hannes trained in the winter before Stockholm olympics A HUNDRED YEARS AGO

His name was Kolehmainen, not HANNES!

In the evening: strolling around the town

Maybe Halberg should have trained that way, and he would have gotten some better results.

Huckleberry Finn wrote:

The times have changed...

Kolehmainen was closer to Halberg, than Halberg was to the 5000m record today.

However Kuts was closer to Kenenisa Bekele's current record.

Interestingly Kuts (1956) was even farther ahead of Halberg (1960) in the 10000m.

J.R. wrote:

Huckleberry Finn wrote:

his best time at 5k is only 14.36,6. If Lydiard would have shown him how to train he would have been faster.

I disagree. Kolehmainen ran on terrible tracks. He probably would have run 13:40 at Rome. What did L's champion Halberg run, 13:43? The world record is now 12:37.35. Someone should have shown Lydiard how to train runners hehe.

Halberg didn't even come close to the WR at the time, which was 13:35.0 from 1956 by constantly interval trained Vladamir Kuts! Hey, Kuts should have shown L how to train runners!

Here´s how Hannes trained in the winter before Stockholm olympics A HUNDRED YEARS AGO

His name was Kolehmainen, not HANNES!

In the evening: strolling around the town

Maybe Halberg should have trained that way, and he would have gotten some better results.

Congratulations for the most ridiculous post ever which I´ve read on Letsrun. Hannes wouldn´t have been able to get even close to 14min even on a modern track. Besides, your claims doesn´t still relate to the things I´ve wrote.

Kuts could´ve been able to run much faster with better training (Lydiard type long runs would´ve done it). 13.35 is almost A MINUTE slower than the WR now is.

A person has the first name, possible middle name/names and the last name/names. I can call a person by his first name too (you seem to be very bitter about your mistake on spelling his name).

Huckleberry Finn wrote:

Hannes wouldn´t have been able to get even close to 14min even on a modern track.

Who the heck is Hannes????? Are you Ventolin?

Kuts could´ve been able to run much faster with better training (Lydiard type long runs would´ve done it). 13.35 is almost A MINUTE slower than the WR now is.

Vladimir Kuts was double Olympic Champion, many times world record holder, ran significantly faster than Halberg, under more trying conditions, plus ran away with both the 5000m and 10000m events.

Halberg barely won the 5k by 3 meters, and was too worn out to run the 10k, was slower than Kuts in both events even though he ran them 4 years later, and never had a WR. By the way he finished last in his heat in 1956. So you're saying Halberg had better conditioning? hehehe

Halberg should have been training like Kuts.

It's funny that you keep promoting L's method of jogging for endurance, and yet Kuts who was interval trained was the much stronger runner.

Kuts' teammate Bolotnikov, also interval trained, was also faster than Halberg in both events.

If only L had trained them, then Halberg would have been faster, is that what you're saying?

Yeah maybe, as Halberg had more talent.

However, Kuts and Bolotnikov had the far superior training methods.

With you getting into Halberg in the latest posts. I see the price of that book dropping fast.

Canada Coach wrote:

I think the US champion for the past 4 years trains in a very block style L influenced wy.

I agree, I´ve noticed the same. He´s in shape when it matters.

J.R. wrote:

Yeah maybe, as Halberg had more talent.

However, Kuts and Bolotnikov had the far superior training methods.

Probably the other way around, but since all three followed the same type of periodisation i guess they all had that advantage.

Maybe i'm going into left field here, sarcasm intended, but i just don't see how it matters who invented, founded, adapted, modified etc. What matters is what works. We can easily see what works by looking at performances relative to the time they were created in. Following this line of thinking we come across all of the era breaking performances. You could say the 4 min mile was one such. Elliot's win in 1960 was such a performance. Snell's performances also. This can't be argued against. Both athletes were ahead of their time, by many years if not all the way to present day. This in itself is reason enough to highlight these athletes and their coaches and coaching systems out of the morass of gold medals and world records before and since. What is remamkable is that these two athletes both followed a very similar approach to training. What is interesting on top of this fact is that both coaches spoke out against the overuse of interval training and they spoke out against it very loudly.

So we jump forward 50 years and find what? We find that they weren't listened to very well at all. We find most coaches adhering to heavy use of intervals. We find the same coaches reliant on their stopwatches. We find their athletes are dead and buried within 3-4 years.

Then we find the exact same statistic present with Mr Canova. No athlete has improved into their fourth year with him in their initial event.

So if he cannot develop any single athlete (out of hundreds) beyond their third year of training by following the type of approach that the coaches of Snell and Elliot spoke vehemently against half a century ago, and he is recognised as what? The best there is? Then what hope does any other coach have following this approach, which is categorised by two main qualities, it improves athletes rapidly for three years, and it destroys athletes before their fourth year.

I would question how deeply you're looking into this. Is it actually true that he destroys athletes in their fourth year?

And even if he does, does it matter? I'd much rather be a 2:04 marathoner for 3 years than 2:18 for ten.

Azaleas wrote:

I would question how deeply you're looking into this. Is it actually true that he destroys athletes in their fourth year?

And even if he does, does it matter? I'd much rather be a 2:04 marathoner for 3 years than 2:18 for ten.

Well your second sentence is personal choice. I personally want to keep improving at something i am doing and not have an artificial ceiling put on it by someone else who is pretending to know better but doesn't, ie a coach ... someone you trust.

I guess the word destroy is pretty strong, but how else to describe the 100% of cases where his athletes don't improve beyond their third season? If you can find one case then you will have found one more than Canova himself found, when last pressed on this issue in letsrun.

Azaleas wrote:

I'd much rather be a 2:04 marathoner for 3 years than 2:18 for ten.

There´s not that much difference between Canova training vs other methods.

Round the World wrote:

With you getting into Halberg in the latest posts. I see the price of that book dropping fast.

Since it's a religious book, and rare, the price keeps going up higher.

Really, from the guy who can't spell is own name, and doesn't know the difference between interval and repetition training? Let's get rid of the unfounded hysteria and take a look at reality.

Murray Halberg 1500m best time - 3:38.3

5000m - 13:35.2 - 1960 Olympic Champion (13:43 barely won)

10000m- 28:48 (but withdrew from 1960 final cause tired)

Pyotr Grigorievich Bolotnikov - 3:47.4

5000m - 13:38.1

10000m- 28:18.8 WR - 1960 Olympic Champion

Vladimir Kuts - 3:52

5000m - 13:35.0 - WR many times - 1956 Olympic Champion

10000m- 28:30.4 - WR's

Therefore Kuts and Bolotnikov had very little talent compared to the much faster Halberg (1500m times), but they had the talent for picking a much superior training program, worked hard, and had great successes in the history of distance running.

Also this shows in their races, Halberg was not able to even compete at 10,000m on top competitions, because he was lacking in speed stamina from good training. Had the Soviet runners been training with L they'd have likely been running 32 minutes if that.

Their training was totally different.

That matter is what works. That's what it matters that you're promoting an all time guru who taught everyone everything, which is totally false. The REASON is that by doing so you're trying to indoctrinate future runners to failure. Instead of that, let go of the idiocy and rigid mindedness of the past, stop trying to carry it into the future and give it credit for everything that happens to eternity, and give credit to where credit is due in the PRESENT.

What you have been doing with L is NOT a good thing.

I fear this has gotten a little more argumentative, so I just wanted to post again to let Wetcoast know I appreciate the contribution to running discussion and that so many people were brought into it, regardless of any bias or not.

What matters is what works. That's why it matters... etc

Huckleberry Finn wrote:

It´s Hannes Kolehmainen

Actually his full name was Johan Pietari Kolehmainen.

Hans is a variant of Johan.

Hannes is a variant of Johannes.

I don't want to go now in a discussion regarding the differences between what I do and what Lydiard did. The only thing I'll go to explain in future, when I have time (at the moment I'm in Netherland for today only before going back Italy tomorrow, after in Switzerland, again in Italy on Friday, in Paris on Saturday for the HM, in Rotterdam monday and finally in Kenya again from next Tuesday... so I don't have much time for commenting the Roundtable), is that may be I don't understand Lydiard, but of course the participants at the Roundtable don't know very much about how I train athletes, and want to speak about something they don't know (for example, I laughed when they say what I did with Paul Tergat, because NEVER I HAD ANY TRAINING RELATION WITH PAUL).

What I want to do now, is to ask Gypsy to give a list of ALL THE ATHLETES I DESTROYED IN THE FIRST 3 YEARS, because something not true is not an opinion, is a false information, that can disqualify who gives it to other people. Everybody can accept or not my system, everybody can discuss about technical reasons, BUT NOBODY CAN CHEAT PEOPLE NOT KNOWING THE HISTORY OF ATHLETICS GIVING WRONG INFORMATIONS IN ORDER TO SUPPORT THEIR OPINION.

This is not fair and not correct, and is exactly what Gypsy continues to do about the duration at the top of my athletes. Apart the stupidity of the idea that nobody able to improve after 3 years has wrong training : for example, ROD DIXON (born in 1950) reached his best in 1500m in 1974, after was no more able to improve, but in 1983 ran the Marathon in 2:08. Was because og his wrong training ? Gypsy, look at after many years of competitions John Walker, Dick Quax or other athletes ran their PB in their first event, look at how long was their career, and tell me if the prosecution of their career was something wrong. And sometimes there are reason different from something technical because athletes (especially African) are not able to improve : the fact Herb Elliot retired after winning OG beating the WR when was 22 is because his training was wrong, or because he had to look at some solution for his life, not being T&F in 1960 something professional ?

J.R. wrote:

Actually his full name was Johan Pietari Kolehmainen.

Hans is a variant of Johan.

Hannes is a variant of Johannes.

Congratulations J.R., you can use google!

You did offer nothing new to me though, the name Hannes Kolehmainen was his name in the race results. Hans is not a finnish name (or a variant of Johan in Finland).

But some news to you, he was known as "Johannes Petteri Kolehmainen" also, so what to choose?

That´s why I chose Hannes Kolehmainen.

Get over your mistake, finally :)