Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

I think we have seen that for 5km+ speed development will not be a huge deal.

On the shorter distances, the situation is probably less clear. I'm not sure people who aren't (or don't feel) naturally fast, would venture into 800/1500. So there might be a sort of "survivor bias" in play.

I sometimes run my easy pace between 10:30-10:45 if I feel like I need a bit more recovery. I run 7 days a week. Currently 17:50 5K and 1:22 half fitness. I run in a very public place, get passed by hordes, and IDGAF what other runners think. I don’t have a Strava feed. Sirpoc said on here and in the book guys who are several minutes behind him in the 5K whizz by him.

It's a "If my grandmother had wheels she'd be a bicycle" situation.

At least 99.9% of the people that look into NSM are not running anything shorter than 5k, yet stuff like this shows up.

Before you it was Steve Magness .. His main argument vs. NSM was "If you don't do hills it's going to hurt your 400-800m races" .. Oh Noes .. Not my 400-800m races :D

Now this is letsrun, so maybe it's not 99.9%, but only 99.7%, but again .. Inventing problems that simply are not there .. :)

Posts that are so devoid of effort and common sense that the poster should put on a helmet to go out and run.

A common refrain on this thread is if that if you need this method made any simpler you need to run with a helmet.

It's not just theory, tons of college kids are running sub 14 with relatively mediocre speed and little concern or effort to improving it.

I was one of them -8:01 and 13:59 with the wheels of JV HS sprinter. Granted I did do strides and strength work, but never any true speed development work. My top speed did not change from HS yet my 5k improved by well over a minute.

Max speed development is a good option when we need it, but there is a common overestimation of when it is genuinely needed and underestimation of what submax work can do for us. We are training for economy at significantly sub-maximal speeds. If there is a neuromuscular challenge with a particular goal race speed the next step it just working on speeds/forces slightly faster than that, not jumping straight to max work. Most people can probably get a lot out of some fairly chill acceleration strides and some light plyo work.

We don't know what events the reddit poster ran. If they ran the 800 or 1500 top end speed would become a limiting factor in performance not that long into aerobic development. Max speed probably helps a little bit with 5k performance. Definitely not much, but neither does 20 minutes of easy running. If I were planning on just running the 5k I wouldn't do speed development. My point was that max sprint work is definitely helpful for mid distance, which might've been what the reddit post refers to, and even if not, it still helps and isn't actually a brain dead response.

I don't tolerate Steve Magness slander. The point of him making the video was to mention the pros and cons of a popular training method. 4/8 performance is definitely important for 15 runners which are a significant portion of his audience, and his experience being an elite runner. I'm not saying people shouldn't do NSA, I do NSA, and I think it's the best training system for almost all runners. Steve Magness mentioned how successful he was gaining aerobic strength training with a system very similar to NSA. Why do people on here interpret people mentioning how training outside of vanilla NSA can be beneficial as them saying NSA sucks? NSA isn't a secret, magical, solution to training, of course it can slightly improved by making slight changes.

You guys suck.

It more that he didn’t really read what NSM was before commenting, then said you need to do speed so you would develop as he does not believe the theory of “load”. This is why he got the feedback he did.

The body only know effort and time and had very mechanisms to help you get there, but this lens if general veteran/master runners than run 5k and above and his default is kids and middle distance - I old argue the reason my they can only run 50miles per week is due to the intensity of run stop then recovering to run more. It would be better to have them do their strength and threshold for multiple seasons rather than a “short” base and then speed so they develop more. Let then develop their 200m track kick later when their base is soo much more developed

Right .. You're also a Christian that thinks we should find Jesus .. Maybe vote Trump as well?

I'm not commenting on Magness' qualifications or knowledge, but his presentation.

That he is so focused on College and Elite running that he forgets to consider for one moment, who the target audience is and so just babbles aimed at .. errm .. You maybe?

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Maybe I'm just too European?

Here in my country our 3 biggest races are a marathon, a half marathon and 13k.

20.000 people run each of those.

Further more we have a yearly coorporate 5x5k relay race. 120.000 people participate in that.

All major cities have a weekly 5k parkrun and as I live in the capital there are 4 of them to choose from. All of them draw a decent crowd from guys running 15:00 to mothers having their 4 year olds riding their bikes besides them.

Compare that to the number of people running a 400-800m race :D

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And sure .. Most people don't have the time to do MSN, but it is absolutely dreadful that Magness can't make himself go:

Listen guys .. If you have a job and a family but still want to run most days then sure ... This is indeed amazing bang for your buck because these are the pros of this method (narrator: He didn't go into the pros).

He could then elaborate what to do, if you don't have 6-7 days available, or what to do once you've been running 6-7 days a week and are starting to stagnate on NSM or whatever .. Be positive and contribute

And wrap it up by talking about the cons (oh noes, your 400-800m) and so on.

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Instead he does "Brrrbb ... I tell you I lactate tested myself and have talked to Bakken .. Brrrr what about your 400-800m races??? ... Fast Twich/Slow Twich .. Brrrrbbbb" for 20 minutes.

All of it only interesting to at best 1% of the people watching the video ... At best .. I suspect it might be 0.1%

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That being said, It was much better version of Magness that visited this thread after the video was posted. Have you read the discussion here?

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TLDR;

Magness knows things and I have the utmost respect for him as such .. But my God that video .. All over the place and targeted at no one.

Of course, if we accept your assumptions then the counter position is inarguable. But is there any evidence that your assumptions are correct? I don't know that improving your top end speed would really increase the pace you could maintain for 5k. My intuition is that improving your top end speed by 2% would just mean that now you run your 5k at a lower percentage of top end speed. Also would 4 x 20m flys per week really be enough to improve your top end speed 2%?

I rewatched the Magness video and it was worse than I remember. Especially, in the comments. What I remembered was something like "lots of aerobic work really good for getting in really good aerobic shape, but need to be able to produce enough lactate for shorter races", but it was more like "this is really good for aerobic base but you needanaerobic work even for longer events to reach potential". I don't agree with the second statement.

Again, I do NSA. I own the book and think it is the second best book about running behind Once A Runner. I was also pretty initially disappointed about Magness not talking about load or sirpoc. I'm noticing now some of the stuff he says is just wrong, like he says that 8/15 types shouldn't do too much sub T, and mentions Josh Hoey, but in fact Hoey did tons of sub threshold. I still don't think he was saying the method sucks. I think you can pretty much reach your potential in the 10k just off sub T. I thought he was just talking about 8/15.

I think this thread is really harsh to ideas slightly outside of base NSA and has a lot of confirmation bias. I also find it really concerning that NSA's main message is that there are no secrets in training and all that matters is load, consistency, and repeatability, and when someone suggests a very slight tweak to NSA everyone gets super upset like someone is attacking a part of their identity or denying the existence of their religion. If NSA is a secret to training it being a "secret" would contradict it's principles. And once when a tweak was suggested Sirpoc, who again I've given money and would give more money if given the opportunity, said he didn't think it mattered much, but said he didn't care if people trained differently. Because why would he.

Can't we just talk about training? I'm aware me insulting the people on here was out of line and I'm sorry I got frustrated. I just think you guys want this method to be one big secret to training and get upset when someone makes a tiny suggestion. If I go on another thread and ask how I can improve my basic speed while only training my aerobic system as a 8/15 runner everyone's going to tell me I "need to do race specific work". I've had way too many people tell me I NEEDED to run race specific work to run anywhere okay in the 1500, only for specific work to make me slower, which they would then blame on me running too much mileage and not doing enough specific work, or just say I'm not tough enough or I'm not trying. It was the most frustrating experiences of my life (I've had a very easy life). I'm a 1500 runner, I really like this method, and I don't have a lot of leg speed and I need to work on it. And for what it's worth I think improving top speed by 2% will help in the 5k by maybe 2-5 seconds. If I just ran the 5k I wouldn't do it. Speed development is really annoying and boring.

Accusing me of voting for trump is low, even for letsrun, though I am sorry I insulted you guys that was wrong.

I think it could improve 5k time by 2-5 seconds in a couple months. Maybe more in a longer time frame. So maybe not worth it for most people, but worth thinking about and definitely not something to immediately dismiss. Why would improving top speed make it so you run a 5k at a lower percentage of your top end speed? Wouldn't that mean that your endurance got worse. It would be strange ceteris paribus if when your 400 improved your 800 didn't, or if when your 800 improved your 1500 didn't, or if you when your 1500 improved your 3k, didn't, or if when your 3k did your 5k didn't. Also, 2% improvement in top end speed is like half a second in a 400. Not exactly a dramatic improvement. I challenge you to make a concrete argument against speed development that doesn't involve any idea related to specificity. Jogging is very far away in pace from a 5k, but jogging still helps with the 5k. You can't say that top speed is too far away from the 5k in pace to help.

There's a study I saw about this but I can't find it. I'm not making it up, but I did see it on instagram reels. Most reliable source I have is Hobbs Kessler's training. His coach, Pat Henner has spoken about it on podcasts. Kessler notably ran within 2 seconds of his 800m pr without specific 800 work and just off threshold and top speed.

Top speed sprinting workouts are always low volume. The point is to run at maximal speed, which is what limits the volume. You can't run very far at top speed. It's a similar concept to lifting for strength vs power; when lifting for power you don't train to failure because you want your muscles to be working at maximum capacity, because that's what power is.

Now that I've read the book, there are a couple things I wish I had understood better 18 months ago.

I was aiming for too high of a workout volume. I thought 6 miles/10K was the goal, but that put me at 38-40 minutes for each workout. I was doing more like 4/6/13-minute reps instead of 3/6/10. I ramped up the workout volume way too fast.

Unsurprisingly, I got into great shape, raced, and then got injured and had to back off, multiple times. Or all the things that defeat the purpose of NSM, basically.

Now I'm finally rebuilding after a long injury cycle and trying to be less dumb. I know other people can handle slightly longer reps, but I'm back to 3/6/10 minutes. I'm taking walking breaks in between reps for now. And I'm trying to be less dumb about the ramp rate from week to week.

For any old guys looking at NSM: Read the book!

Contrarian, I think you’re missing the point. The argument against speed development is that it isn’t worth the risk for such a small reward. The vast majority of people using this method are hobby joggers and usually older hobby joggers. Telling anybody over the age of 30, hell even in your later 20s, to implement maximum velocity sprinting, something they likely haven’t done for years, in a method that is already maximizing training load for a given number of hours per week, is just crazy. If you told everybody using this method to start doing speed development next week, a ton of people would get injured. As much as people like to say sprinting isn’t risky, it’s about the riskiest thing I can think of a hobby jogger doing for such a small amount of potential gain. Speed development purists will say you shouldn’t do speed development after an easy run. It should be done fresh. Not faster an hour easy run and you probably shouldn’t go run for an hour after speed development either. It really doesn’t make any sense to include it in this framework.

I agree that improving your 400 might improve your 800 and such, but I think that relationship starts to fall apart the further the events get from each other. Like I really doubt your 20m fly time matters for your marathon performance in a significant way. Maybe it does matter more than I’m giving it credit. But I just haven’t seen any evidence.

Personally I’ve dropped all strides or anything faster than ~12k pace outside of racing and I’ve continued to improve over the last 9 months of NSM. Would I have improved more if I did 4 x 20m and ran 2 fewer easy miles each week? Maybe.

You’re more than welcome to post other ideas here of how to improve it. In fact, if you came and said you’d first done basic NSM for some time period and then you tried adding in 4 x 20m once a week and you improved by 2%, that would be a welcome contribution.

But I don’t think you should get annoyed that you get pushback when you post an idea that contradicts the principles discussed in this thread without any evidence or even an anecdote. It’s not really different than the people that say you have to do race specific work to peak properly.

After giving it some thought, I'm a bit lost on where I should take the next step. I'm currently sidlined with illness and am planning on returning to running in the next week. I am targeting a Fall Marathon, and previously thought perhaps a large easy aerobic base would be beneficial, as I'm rehabbing an injury that flares with intensity work.

Timeline is probably 1-2 months for injury to be good. Would it make sense to give myself 8-10 weeks of easy running and then slowly start to include sub-T again? At what rate shoudl I start to include it? I was doing 3x30 min previously, which seemed to be fine load-wise, as the injury wasn't an overuse issue but rather one I didn't address. I made progress with 10 weeks of it but ignored the injury because of said progress. It sidlined me when I crashed my bike riding (sigh).

Point being, logically would the progression be the next 8-10 weeks easy, 3-4ish months of progressive sub-T and then a marathon specific block as outlined in the book? Open to any and all suggestions as I previously threw myself into the full 3x30, 7.5h volume. Could I get away with less?

This is me exactly. Swear to god, I thought I was reading a comment that I forgot I had written.

Started out straight away with Tuesday 8×1K, Thursday 4×2K or 5×1600, and Saturday 3×3K. For me that was 4/9/7/13-minute reps, for 32-39mins of subthreshold per session. My race attempts after a few months quickly battered me with reality. Scraped a 6 second 5K PB which was down to a faster course more than anything, 10K regression, and a HM 20sec improvement again probably down to less wind compared to previous PB. Injury in September, disastrous autumn marathon as a result.

Full reset, 6 weeks on 3/6/10min reps, and I'm already getting faster for the same effort/HR in the workouts.

If I could have a word with myself back in May, I'd say just check it all at the door. Run easy days truly easy and switch to time-based reps.

You can change anything. It's just training. I kept the two sub threshold sessions a week and then third was usually something pure speed or race pace for shorter stuff related. Sure, I hit a 1500 pb by 2 seconds over NSM vanilla, but then you have to give up some consistency, recover, there's a cost down the line. I then lost over 80 seconds due to decreased load in a 10k. I'm not saying my 1500 wasn't worth it. Was a pb. But at this level, was it? It's hard to really say. Most people would say probably not.

You only have so much time to train, unless you are a pro. This is criminally misunderstood or under appreciated in this training or any other, for hobby joggers. It keeps coming back to you have to give something up and speed development or any kind of above LT2 work is the most sensible, in that it'll probably fill in the least of the puzzle compared to just spamming sub threshold for at least a couple years. Some people can't get their heads around this. It flies in the face of everything you hear elsewhere. It took me a long, long time to accept this. Going back towards the timeframe of the start of sirpocs appearance in the thread until now.

I will again expose myself and say I was one of the ones posting that said a book about this, is stupid. But I was wrong with that. It's probably the best running book I have.

There's a lot of other people, misinterpreting this method or various websites with their take on what they think sirpoc meant, a lot of what will lead to people over cooking.

The book is and will always be the most valuable resource on this. I'm firmly of the belief you need to read it to really understand why you are doing what you are doing. Blindly just following a pace calculation is going to likely, go wrong.

It's a holistic approach, because you realise how it all pieces together and why rather than just doing it for the sake of it.

The problem is that al nuance is lost in today's internet.

The focus and scope of NSM has been discussed over and over here, nothing to add.

Of course you can add speed development or lifting or anything that floats your boat. Some people will benefit more, some will benefit less. Some will like it, some won't.

BUT just don't make it sound you improved the method itself. Being so simple is what sets it apart over all the other crazy complicated training approaches.