If you want to do Hadd, go do Hadd. If you want to do NSM, do NSM. There's no need to build up to 50 mpw first.
Hadd, bless his soul, was wrong about how endurance is built. His theory is at least a couple decades out of date at this point.
C&W, please elaborate on your criticisms of Hadd’s method! I’ve always been drawn to trying to “complete” Hadd phase 1 and always abandon it midway. I’m in the middle of trying again. Would love to hear your thoughts in more detail.
If you want to do Hadd, go do Hadd. If you want to do NSM, do NSM. There's no need to build up to 50 mpw first.
Hadd, bless his soul, was wrong about how endurance is built. His theory is at least a couple decades out of date at this point.
C&W, please elaborate on your criticisms of Hadd’s method! I’ve always been drawn to trying to “complete” Hadd phase 1 and always abandon it midway. I’m in the middle of trying again. Would love to hear your thoughts in more detail.
Yeah I'm a bit confused by this also. I think Hadd did the same thing that NSM does well, progressive overload. He had the "squeeze the toothpaste out of the tube" method so there was a lot more work at, say, marathon pace, but the intensity control was there via gating by heart rate.
How often do some of these people figure in what they have done in the previous ten years? If you have done nothing but mileage for 5 years and suddenly add speedwork, strides, and interval training you might quickly get faster (If you do not get hurt). It could even work the other way. I went from a coach who wanted only interval training, that was great but very limited, when I added long runs I immediately improved a great deal.
I think most people have been pretty honest about what they have been doing before, provided we can remember. For myself, I've done it all. I've had coaches try me on all sorts of concoctions. I've also followed Daniels', PItfz, Hanson etc. Nothing has felt more manageable for me or provided a greater stimulus as a hobby guy than sirpoc method. I don't think I'm massively alone in this.
Others have touched on it, but it's probably really the only thing on pretty limited hours that has been specifically taken back down to nothing and built back up from the ground up, in small increments. Rather than "wow this works for pros, let's scale this down for a guy in his 40s whose lifestyle has no relevance whatsoever to a pro athlete in their 20s with unlimited time on their hands".
At the end of the day, we can all debate X versus Y, but the thread and method of sirpoc growing and gaining wider popularity, is based on one simple fact: For a large proportion of people, even those who have been running a good amount of time, this seems to really work. We wouldn't be nearly 300 pages in with hundreds of testimonials if this was just another thread.
There's no secret sauce, no gimmicks, no YouTube videos declaring "this is where the magic lies".
The thing I find most amusing, is sirpoc said on Strava a while back in the group there, if someone could come along and show him a better way to spend his training hours and provide similar results, he would happily ditch all of this and jump on it. Yet here we still all are.
If you want to do Hadd, go do Hadd. If you want to do NSM, do NSM. There's no need to build up to 50 mpw first.
Hadd, bless his soul, was wrong about how endurance is built. His theory is at least a couple decades out of date at this point.
C&W, please elaborate on your criticisms of Hadd’s method! I’ve always been drawn to trying to “complete” Hadd phase 1 and always abandon it midway. I’m in the middle of trying again. Would love to hear your thoughts in more detail.
Good luck and I hope you enjoy it. It's been a decade since I had my own serious look at Hadd, not long after I started running and discovered this fine website. The good thing about Hadd training is that it involves a lot of running, and running is fun and healthy. It probably won't injure you and you'll probably gain fitness.
The problem with Hadd is that its training model is wrong. We do not squeeze toothpaste from the tube when we get fitter. It is not necessary to maximize fitness at 130 bpm before working on fitness at 140 bpm.
One thing I like a lot about NSM is that it's agnostic about the physiology of training. It's not trying to target any particular energy system. All you have to do is aim for various percentages of race paces, and let your body work out how it wants to accomplish that, while the physiologists fight among themselves.
Good luck and I hope you enjoy it. It's been a decade since I had my own serious look at Hadd, not long after I started running and discovered this fine website. The good thing about Hadd training is that it involves a lot of running, and running is fun and healthy. It probably won't injure you and you'll probably gain fitness.
The problem with Hadd is that its training model is wrong. We do not squeeze toothpaste from the tube when we get fitter. It is not necessary to maximize fitness at 130 bpm before working on fitness at 140 bpm.
One thing I like a lot about NSM is that it's agnostic about the physiology of training. It's not trying to target any particular energy system. All you have to do is aim for various percentages of race paces, and let your body work out how it wants to accomplish that, while the physiologists fight among themselves.
I agree with this, having used Hadd in the past. I'm much faster now, 10+ years on and I'm much older. I really enjoyed running back then, but to me that says it was more fun and when stuff is fun, it's probably not performance orientated. If I didn't care about competing with other old gits, I might even go back to it just to have structure and enjoy running. But I don't think it's optimal in the slightest if you want to be at your best. Plus you do need to commit a lot of time.
The other thing about NSM is that it introduced me the way of managing load. In terms of at hobby level, just about every training system will work, but you may as well just ride the curve of improvement doing whatever it is you can recover from day to day, week to week , month to month etc and just keep doing it. Having said that, when I read the book I was surprised how in depth it was in terms of some of the science or reasoning.
That's the other good thing about NSM, there's different entry points, be that time crunched on very few hours or just how much you follow it to the letter. You could probably just follow page 2 or whatever it is of this thread and still get 90% of all the benefits. Or you could use all the little extras and scrape the barrel a bit more.
It's incredibly efficient and user friendly. That's as much a success of how sirpoc has communicated the ideas as much as anything else. I think even he would say, there's nothing special going on here really. Just smart, structured training that gets you as close to your potential as time allowed I don't think Hadd does that.
One thing I like a lot about NSM is that it's agnostic about the physiology of training. It's not trying to target any particular energy system. All you have to do is aim for various percentages of race paces, and let your body work out how it wants to accomplish that, while the physiologists fight among themselves.
NSM is the complete opposite about what you describe. NSM is based on 3 precise physiological regions. And NSM will most probably not work for the runners that don't hit these regions with at least some precision: 1. The sub-T sessions (substantially below LT2) 2. The very easy sessions, including the long run (way below LT1) 3. The anaerobic races or time trials
And implying that NSM is just a mix of various percentages of race pace also misses the point. The speed percentage is connected to a duration of rep work, total number of reps and a rest period. You can't do 3x15 minutes reps at 12K race speed with 30s rests and call that NSM.
What does Sirpoc do for a living? someone said he injured himself at work doing something strenuous. judging by his aptitude for numbers I pictured him more as a computer programmer. reason I ask is because I’m up and down doing a ton of walking at my job and doing a lot of standing in one place which leaves me quite tired at the end of the day.
What does Sirpoc do for a living? someone said he injured himself at work doing something strenuous. judging by his aptitude for numbers I pictured him more as a computer programmer. reason I ask is because I’m up and down doing a ton of walking at my job and doing a lot of standing in one place which leaves me quite tired at the end of the day.
Coded for 6 hours straight and got a hand cramp that eventually led to carpal tunnel. Started coding more with his shoulder and that led to rotator cuff issues. Because shoulder was bothering him, his posture while coding started to get all jacked up so started having back flare ups. These flares led to hip impingement and now that’s why he’s riding a bicycle (again). Wrist bone connected to the hip bone as they say
What does Sirpoc do for a living? someone said he injured himself at work doing something strenuous. judging by his aptitude for numbers I pictured him more as a computer programmer. reason I ask is because I’m up and down doing a ton of walking at my job and doing a lot of standing in one place which leaves me quite tired at the end of the day.
Coded for 6 hours straight and got a hand cramp that eventually led to carpal tunnel. Started coding more with his shoulder and that led to rotator cuff issues. Because shoulder was bothering him, his posture while coding started to get all jacked up so started having back flare ups. These flares led to hip impingement and now that’s why he’s riding a bicycle (again). Wrist bone connected to the hip bone as they say
Letsrun nerd who looks like and sounds like Steve Magness trying to be funny.
Anyone have any experience with running at 60% of max heart rate for easy runs versus 70%?
Intervals.icu has 60% as 23 tss/hour and 70% as 40 tss/hour. Is it actually that much of a difference? I currently run at 60% and I'd like to know if I am leaving half of the potential fitness gains on the table. Also when I enter what my 60% heart rate pace (11:00) is I get 40 tss/hour, and when I put my 70% pace (8:45) I get 64 tss/hour.
Even more weirdly when I put in the upper end of jack daniels easy pace 4 days a week with with a 90 minute long run and a tempo and vo2 max session, I get a training load (535 tss) that is only 50 tss lower than when I input Jakob Ingebrigsten's training. Very confused about this.
What does Sirpoc do for a living? someone said he injured himself at work doing something strenuous. judging by his aptitude for numbers I pictured him more as a computer programmer. reason I ask is because I’m up and down doing a ton of walking at my job and doing a lot of standing in one place which leaves me quite tired at the end of the day.
I have the same issue, and I'm not a laborer. Sitting in my office chair all day (even with some breaks during the day to move around), just turns my legs to lead. Biggest and best thing I've done for my training recently is to move the runs to the morning. I hate morning runs, but I feel so much better. And then I'm not worrying about the run for the whole rest of the day. But if you do this, you just need to learn how to fuel lightly before you get out (especially on a workout day); I live by a little espresso shot with half a banana, and a gel stashed in my shorts for the run, just in case.
Yeah l, I think he mainly works and teaches young apprentices now - still on feet all day, labour intensive but smart enough not to be on the tools 24/7. It's a young man's game.
In a weird thread come real life, his brother plastered my living room and bathroom last year and did a splendid job. Small world.
Yeah l, I think he mainly works and teaches young apprentices now - still on feet all day, labour intensive but smart enough not to be on the tools 24/7. It's a young man's game.
In a weird thread come real life, his brother plastered my living room and bathroom last year and did a splendid job. Small world.
I the extra strength conditioning work he gets from doing his job are probably what is missing and should be added for those which are office/computer based, nothing revolutionary probably just some standard body weight would do wonders for most to help their core.
Anyone have any experience with running at 60% of max heart rate for easy runs versus 70%?
Intervals.icu has 60% as 23 tss/hour and 70% as 40 tss/hour. Is it actually that much of a difference? I currently run at 60% and I'd like to know if I am leaving half of the potential fitness gains on the table. Also when I enter what my 60% heart rate pace (11:00) is I get 40 tss/hour, and when I put my 70% pace (8:45) I get 64 tss/hour.
Even more weirdly when I put in the upper end of jack daniels easy pace 4 days a week with with a 90 minute long run and a tempo and vo2 max session, I get a training load (535 tss) that is only 50 tss lower than when I input Jakob Ingebrigsten's training. Very confused about this.
Probably not much a difference. 70% of max is the upper limit not the goal
Coded for 6 hours straight and got a hand cramp that eventually led to carpal tunnel. Started coding more with his shoulder and that led to rotator cuff issues. Because shoulder was bothering him, his posture while coding started to get all jacked up so started having back flare ups. These flares led to hip impingement and now that’s why he’s riding a bicycle (again). Wrist bone connected to the hip bone as they say
Letsrun nerd who looks like and sounds like Steve Magness trying to be funny.
NSM is the complete opposite about what you describe. NSM is based on 3 precise physiological regions. And NSM will most probably not work for the runners that don't hit these regions with at least some precision: 1. The sub-T sessions (substantially below LT2) 2. The very easy sessions, including the long run (way below LT1) 3. The anaerobic races or time trials
And implying that NSM is just a mix of various percentages of race pace also misses the point. The speed percentage is connected to a duration of rep work, total number of reps and a rest period. You can't do 3x15 minutes reps at 12K race speed with 30s rests and call that NSM.
Sorry, no. NSM is based on the goal of maximizing load per week. The premise is that load can be maximized with workouts in a sub-threshold state, which require shorter recoveries. NSM isn't built around energy systems. Take a close look at Daniels if you want to see the difference. With Daniels, the theory is that particular workouts target specific energy systems. NSM just completely ignores all that, leaving the physiologists to argue about what's going on behind the curtain. The various heart rates are guardrails, not targets.
It's ridiculous to talk about hitting the sub-T, easy, or anaerobic regions with "precision." There are multiple definitions of lactic threshold/L2, and readings differ from person to person, testing modality, and from day to day, and NSM doesn't have us all measuring blood lactate anyway. The workout guidelines are based on race pace percentages as a guide to fatigue and recovery, not whatever voodoo is going on with our mitochondria. Maybe one in three of us knows our HRmax with any accuracy - I certainly don't - so fixating on heart rates is just false confidence. I will pretend that you didn't just call a 5K race/time trial an "anaerobic session" to spare myself the intense second-hand shame I would feel otherwise.
NSM is in fact just a mix of various percentages of race pace (paired with a simple weekly schedule). See Table 1.4, p. 51, in the book Norwegian Singles Method (p. 182 if you are more comfortable with Freedom Units). Alternatively, see page 2 of this thread.
No strides. He doesn’t even do k reps. He just does 2 miles, 2k and mile reps. 4:05 at 5,000 feet. Wow.
Cheetodust is how I found out about NSM. He was on it early.
He made me re think a lot, especially the need for speed, as he's been doing stuff as low as 800. He's posted some good information in the thread, but I do wish he would post more.
Especially as he goes back a long, long time in running and I'm sure has trained a number of ways.
Yet he's clearly decided this gives him the best bang for his buck, even right down to the really short stuff.
Maybe the cycling has helped. It will be interesting, because sirpoc seemingly has him doing some stuff on there from what he has said.
Anyway, what a fantastic run, that is really no joke at altitude. Looking at the results, beating kids less than half his age.