Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

Hello, Nick!

You can get an intervention study to conclude whatever you want, for the most part.

What better evidence really is there, than thousands of amateur runners dropping all vo2 max work, focusing on controlled intensity and increasing volume and getting faster?

Don't ignore what is going on in the real world.

I think 5 is the only point that this thread gets wrong and even then regular 5k or 10k racing probably provides enough stimulus. 1 is dumb semantics and 3,4,6 are very dubious.

I think this is it.

Guys like Magness, Dr Will, this new guy, are missing the forest through the trees. OK, so we started the thread with one guy - one guy who got to a very good level in two sports. That's certainly not enough evidence. But when you have the sheer volume of people trying this, who also themselves have trained consistently previously and often trained exactly like these people suggest but with less success, it really does make them look a little silly.

But despite what these influencers, experts etc. say, all the evidence points against what a lot of their core beliefs as important or certainly not as important as they make out.

It keeps coming back to the fact, it is, of course very, very difficult to change anyone's core beliefs on anything and running is no different.

All this prove there is a huge mass of hobbyjoggers out there who didn't know how to perfectly train on low volume with maxvo2 intervals included.

As someone that has tried to get into running on several occasions I suspect that this isn't even right.

NSM is never really taxing ... even the subt days are fairly chill

But it's greatest value is that it becomes habit ... You just go out and do the same thing every day.

The value of something like this is greatly underrated for your average hobby jogger with a work/family life and often to some extent lacking a bit of sleep during the week.

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Especially for someone like me that has an excel sheet and meetings type job the last thing I want is periodized plan with always something different and sometimes grueling after job. I want as little mental energy used as possible. Just get the job done and move on.

MSN is brilliant in that regard.

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It's as if all those internet personalities have no idea about demographics and think that we're all high school kids :D

The science behind endurance training is vast. Another small n study isn't needed to know that NSM adheres to established training principles like specificity and overload.

So I looked at some training logs:
Kipchoge - 1 light VO2max session every 2 weeks which could reasonably be still classified as high threshold.

Paula Radcliffe - her logs show almost no VO2max work. Mile repeats were run at threshold speed, 400s and 800s were run above threshold but those were very short and the rest periods were quite long - in effect threshold work - not typical VO2max workout at all.

Lydiard's base - no above threshold work at all.

Canova - noticed that when athletes do VO2max work during winter their FTP actually decreases.

Ingebrigstens do very little VO2max work either. Their hill session has very short repeats (like 35 seconds) and quite long breaks (like 60 seconds). Not typical VO2max work at all.

There are similar observations from cycling coaches as well (not modern influencers). Just yesterday Jonas Abrahamsen posted stats from his 4 weeks training camp: 2.5hr of sweet spot per week, 8 minutes of VO2max per week and that work was 1min on/1min off intervals - not really a typical VO2max work either.

All those guys get very very fit, beyond what any amateur could dream of on basically 0 VO2max work. Why do various influencers try to convince amateurs to do the most risky, injury prone, fatigue inducing work when their aerobic development is lacking is a question that should be asked more often.

Yeah that's what a lot of these coaches are having a hard time wrapping their heads around. 6-8 hours a week, how can you optimize that time period. Probably not with hours of lifting, strides, drills, etc.

But also imagine listening to a middle aged construction worker, with no background in sport, over a highly intelligent and informed guy like Jason Fitzgerald. You guys have no idea how silly you are.

And who is faster? Fitzgerald or the construction worker?

Magness latest podcast (On Coaching) is about how important speedwork is, and how Ingebretson suffers from a lack of this. Maybe true at elite level, but not so important at recreational level.

I've browsed his site and I'm sure he's a decent coach (some fine advice here:

strengthrunning.com

Sub 3 Hour Marathon Training: How to Join the Elite Sub 3 Club - Strength Running

Jason Fitzgerald

Running a sub 3 hour marathon takes the right combination of strength, endurance, and patience. If you have sub 3 marathon aspirations, see what it takes.

Open link

) but nothing earthshattering here. He's levels below Magness.

Plenty of great coaches with a working class background btw, weird thing to say

This is the issue isn't it?

All these butt hurt coaches, influencers, etc all hating themselves for not taking the cycling approach to running and coming up with it first and grift it for eternity.

I know Sirpoc shy's away from this, but he should take flip it on its head and embrace it for his next edition of his book; How a cyclist beat running pro's at their own game (or something along those lines). Just own it Sirpoc, it's too late for the imposter syndrome excuse!

Work in VO2 max whatexactly? Work in improving the number? Work on running at or near 100% VO2 max rate/paces? I’d love for you clarify what you mean, and why.

Raising the ceiling through vo2max work is probably less important when you're a former sub-elite TT cyclist pretending to be a 28 min 5k runner or your last name is Ingebrigtsen.

I like how he said you should be doing sub threshold and not right at LT2 as if that's not exactly what people are doing already lol

I agree with the big picture of what you're saying, that developing ones lactate threshold is much more important than developing ones VO2 max. But there are a few points here which aren't quite accurate or require a bit more nuance.

Kipchoge - where are you getting his training logs? I've never seen these anywhere before, bar something sweatelite have purported to be his training, but they are not a reliable source. Also, even if we have his training logs, do we have them for when he was a 5k-10k athlete? Because I would be virtually certain that, at the appropriate times of the season he did plenty of VO2 max work.

Radcliffe - again, I'm assuming this is for Radcliffe the marathoner, not Radcliffe the track athlete. Radcliffe the track athlete did plenty of V02 work.

Canova - he does plenty of V02 max work for his track athletes as competition gets near:

runningwritings.com

Preparing for championship races with Renato Canova: training for the 1500, 5k, and 10k

John Davis

Open link

Ingebrigtsen's - they absolutely do hard, V02 max and lactic tolerance work in the competition pre-competition phase of their training. We don't know much about what specifically they do, but they absolutely 100% do these workouts (confirmed by Bakken on his blog). This is one of the main misunderstandings people have about the Norweigian system. To paraphrase Almgren, threshold alone does not make a great 5k/10k runner. Threshold and high mileage gives one the capacity to do the (hard race specific) training needed to be a great 5k-10k runner.

Again though, I agree with your general point that the average runner will likely make far better progress if they focus on their threshold. But we mustn't overreach and claim that VO2 max workouts are not an essential part of training for elite athletes, especially when they are looking to peak for a major competition.

Seriously?

Is Magness really out there saying that double olympic gold winner and multiple world champion/diamond league winner Ingebrechsen would do better with him as a coach?

Just Wow .. :D

But ok, if he wants to put himself in the same category as Jan then who am I to judge?

Magic Coach Magness! :)