Lydiard Imitations

HRE - I asked Barry for an idea of the paces the efforts equated to because I was constantly being told by others that Lydiard was all about long slow distance during conditioning, despite me pointing out that all the literature said otherwise, so when I started being coached by Barry it was helpful to have a direct example to refute that.

gypsy - oops, yes, I misread 'imitations'. My apologies. My comment regarding the schedules was essentially saying the same thing as I was saying about not having the coach there to guide you through it. You give most runners a schedule and say 'this is what so and so done to reach such and such a level' and then put in the disclaimer that you must not follow it rigidly and listen to your body, what's going to happen? Yep, most runners will become a slave to the schedule, whereas with the coach there he can say if what he had planned is too much/too little/not quite the right thing, etc.

Essentially, the concepts are correct as long as you have the intelligence to be able to read your body and adapt it to your strengths and circumstances.

"You bring up 'enhanced by upper aerobic efforts' " - I was referring to the 10m @ 1/2, @ 3/4 and long fartlek, but yes, the hill during the long run would also count as well I guess.

In the original 'Run to the Top' there was a marathon schedule that bore very little similarity to what was presented in later issues (hence my comments about being watered down). This marathon schedule followed the other phases in the same way as the anaerobic phase followed the other phases for shorter distances.

The following are weeks 6 and 7 and are probably the toughest in my opinion:

Week 6:

Mon: 3m TT

Tues: 15m @ 3/4

Wed: 6m TT

Thurs: 18m @ 1/2

Fri: 6 x 220s @ 1/2

Sat: 22-28m @ 1/4

Sun: 15m @ 1/4

and week 7 is the same except for 3 x 220s @ full effort replacing the 6 x 220s @ 1/2 on Friday. So this was basically a specific phase that, to my knowledge, never appears in the more modern books. You can look at the marathon schedule and see straight up how it would have brought impressive results, but could equally have brought injury in the aforementioned situation where an athlete slavishly follows it without guidance.

Re: "So this 3 and 6 mile TT stuff for Lydiard is found in the his first phase, whereas for Antonio is is found in say the third phase/precomp phase/the one i call racing prep. Or do i have that wrong?" - no, the 3m and 6m TT were in the final, specific phase, post conditioning and post hills.

And yes, time trials were not flat out. Barry used to refer to them as 95%, so essentially a good hard effort, but knowing you had a bit more in the tank if required, and no sprint finish.

As another point of reference, a 3m/5km TT (or 2 x 3km TT) for me typically indicated 10k pace, a 6m/10k TT indicated HM condition.

As for other coaches and schedules, yes, exactly, some of them are more simplified. Daniels conditioning period is straightforward easy running with some strides for 6 weeks? Then more easy running to recover from two very clearly defined quality sessions per week. It's a lot easier to understand than 1/2's, 3/4's, etc, if you don't have a frame of reference.

Renato - some interesting ideas there, which I tend to agree with from my own (limited) experiences. Especially capillarisation. After essentially the best part of 2.5 years of limited training (primarily illness and injury) I ran only 4mins slower than my (admittedly soft) marathon pb off of an average of over 50mpw less with no significant background running (and no specific training). My thinking is that some of the background developments I'd made previously (had only been running 2.5 years at the time of my pb) still remained intact, despite my relative lack of training in the interim.

As an aside, the following quote "because they lack of the most important quality : the ability to be aggressive in training, developing their top qualities." resonates quite loudly with me. I think too many are prepared to play a 'numbers game' and accept a smaller, more sure, outcome than to push the boat a bit more and look to maximise their potential.

And regarding: "I wrote the official book for IAAF about Marathon, that was distributed to all the Federations in 2000. If I had to write the same book today, I had to write 50% of something different, since the methodology changed." - do I take it you feel that the contents of your book are outdated, and therefore primarily of use as a historical look of training metholdogies in 2000 (in which case I shall save my money and not order it :-) )? Joking aside, do you have any plans to release a more up to date version?

I know that Italians were very good at marathons but whenever someone talks about the successes of Lydiard or Squires someone here eventually says, "They didn't have to race Africans." So it only seems fair to say the same thing about the Italians. Again, we get back to the fact that "modern" training does not seem to work for everyone.

Your comment about the advanced aerobic fitness of Africans relative to Europeans, we'll count Americans as Europeans here, is EXACTLY what Lydiard was saying in the 70s about why Africans were eventually going to dominate distance running. So maybe you can do things with Africans and succeed that you can't do with Europeans or at least that you can't do right away. That was essentially what Arthur meant when he said that anyone can coach a Kenyan. Squires once said a very similar thing.

So if you have an aerobically underdeveloped westerner and his coach falls in love with "modern" training there's a good chance the time spent on intensity is going to be time taken away from doing the aerobic work that the athlete needs. Once that aerobic work is done then yes, you add intensity. That was also exactly what Lydiard said. The distance training got faster, hills and intervals came along. My typical training pace dropped by about two minutes per mile in a span of two years but that was only possible because I did loads of miles and became much fitter aerobically. Most westerners simply need to run more and develop aerobically and this is especially true for high school and university age runners.

As I said before, in my opinion, both Bill Squires and the Japanese did better at marathon coaching than Arthur did but both of them used his work as a starting point, as did the later Kiwis, Moller, Dixon, Quax, who were more successful at the marathon than most of Arthur's marathon runners. That's not surprising as the marathon was a much more popular event then than it was in Arthur's prime and therefore was more of a focus.

gypsy,

I'm not sure where to answer you. You ask my opinion, but my strongest opinion is that many conclusions I read are not yet fully supported by science. Science usually supports limited findings in tightly controlled settings, sometimes in a lab with artificial constraints or goals. For example, I don't know how applicable cycling on stationary bicycles in front of a fan is to running. I feel it is premature to come to any conclusions, so try to stay neutral when I think it's appropriate. But we often complement the narrow pieces of knowledge that science gives us, with our gut feelings, and some anecdotal evidence (like better results), and good old-fashion "trial and error", which gives us plenty of margin for debate.

In spite of that, since you asked so persistently, I will offer some opinions, but in fact, I always find it easier to ask questions. In general (but not always) I believe that we tend to make forward progress. I have no doubt that we have learned a few things since 1960, about both training and physiology. I do think the approach is a refinement of earlier "historical" methods. Maybe the one drawback is it's too narrow, specializing on 1 or 2 events. Makes me wonder what the modern approach is for decathletes. I also wonder how early do you start "modern training"? Should kids (younger than 15) do it? I still think a couple years of foundation, with some mileage buildup is necessary before serious training.

I don't see "modern training", making the mistakes of the 90's, or forgetting the lessons of the 20th century. What do you mean by big mistake? What is the danger you see? Early burnout? Short careers? Lack of reaching potential?

I see a practical issue of a Lydiard type periodization is to try to fit it to the athlete, and his racing expectations. If you are racing in the spring and fall, with the most important races at the end of the season (like in high school) I think you can take some time off in the winter and summer, doing "base-building", without too much negative physical consequence, and perhaps a very positive mental consequence. Especially in the high school situation, where you compete often (e.g. I competed twice a week), it may be important to take some extended time off. Two 6-month cycles of "classic linear Lydiard phased training each year seem to fit quite well for me. But if you are a professional runner, long aerobic phases seem less important, and it simply may be impossible to manage an off-period long enough to squeeze in a phase of marathon training, and hill-training, before returning to the track to get back your speed. At best you could manage a 1 year cycle, and enjoy 8-9 months of racing.

With "modern training" I see this "non-linear" complex approach to periodization as a way of optimizing, or minimizing, the time it takes for the athlete to get back on the track, and get back up to speed. If you don't spend too much time away from racing speeds, you don't need to work that hard to get it back, and continue to improve where you left off. But then I think it's important to manage your training and racing to avoid overtraining and burnout, requiring a longer period of recovery.

I also wonder if a "general" approach was more appropriate in the old days, and a "specific" approach is more appropriate today, because athletes today tend to specialize in one or two events.

Regarding physiology, I started investigating some things in this area, but at some point, I lost interest, as it started seeming less important to me. As an athlete and a coach, you need to know what works, and not necessarily why it works. At least I decided that the why wasn't important to me. In fact, historically, we were usually wrong about the whys, and we still seemed to improve in spite of our ignorance. But what made sense to me, is a chart by Stephen Seiler which takes about the time course of training adaptations:

- most of the benefits of VO2max changes happen fairly quickly (e.g. 1-2 years)

- then the main source of benefits come from threshold changes (e.g. 4-5 years)

- thereafter, the main benefits come from improvements in efficiency and economy

I don't know how right it is, but one consequence that seems to come from this is the importance of aerobic development, and things like capillary density, or mitochondrial density diminishes quickly. Once you have dense capillaries, they don't get significantly denser. It also makes Renato's comments about the long run, first being a stimulus, then becoming regenerative runs, and the need for increasing intensity, fit into place.

I would like to see a long term epidemiological study in large samples of athletes, with control groups, comparing many methods head to head, but I can't see that realistically ever happening.

In the absence of that, I wonder:

- How competitive would Lydiard trained Kenyans and Ethiopians be? How much (or how little) would the approach have to be changed, to be competitive. Or is it impossible?

- How competitive are modern trained "Western" runners, say to high mileage "Western" runners of the 1970's?

- Could Americans, Europeans, or Oceanians handle the same training loads as Kenyans? If not, is it mental or physical?

- Why don't Kenyans have long careers? Is it money (once they get it, they lose motivation)? Is the training too intense?

- And why are Kenyans so deep?

Renato, thanks for replying again.

Ok so you cannot prove your theory and maybe i cannot prove mine. I assert that nothing has a limit. Nothing at all. Sure there is the rapid early development as we come up to our capacity and after this the development slows dramatically, but i have never seen it said we have limits to human capacity. Well maybe by thinkers of the past but isn't it well enough understood now that everything exists on a continuum and the continuum, by definition has no ends ie infinite.

So if you want to argue there are ceilings to human capacity please go ahead. I would like to see some justification that we do have finite limits and that specifically there is such a limit for aerobic capacity.

OK adaption is actually our greatest friend right? It just appears to become an enemy because of a totally different function - habituation. Simply solved by periodisation. You stop pushing qualities 'all year round' and have an 'off period' to stop the habituation effect process. Now one might say something like 'sure this will stop the habituation effect but it will also cause detraining, through the principle of reversability.' And so the argument will continue as i assert a reasoning why reversability in this form is actually the positive side of reversability and you will argue against it. I think it would be a good argument.

In my opinion to eliminate the long run from the equation is to stifle long term growth. It has it's function to continue the development or at the very least maintenance of the most core of fitness qualities, the base aerobic. So you keep in mind LOAD and take care not to reduce overall load as the training process peaks to a competition point. I wonder how you replace the longer steady stuff to keep this loading maintained?

I think he had better success at MD because that is where his real focus was. His real interest. However, you could also be right as no doubt there is more than one reason.

Excellent, you don't deny the existence of the general training effect like someone else. I too like the concept of support. One thing supports another. General supports Specific as the broadest example. Aerobic supports anaerobic is also true. Aerobic capacity supports aerobic power. etc. Is this how you see it?

Apparently Snell ran 2:41 as a best result. Perhaps there was a marathon he ran and stopped early whilst on for a time of 2:17 if he maintained pace. There is some memory of this, perhaps someone with more knowledge can remember.

His 2:41 wouldn't rank him anywhere as a female would it. On this next fact apparently Snell never ran 30x400m. He did run 20x400 in 60 according to the source. But these are simply facts and don't prove anything either way really and just distract from the discussion.

So back to the two main points in question and one question about your methodology.

1. This concept of human capacity and whether it is infinite or finite and how this relates back to this base level of endurance we are talking about.

2. Taking into mind this concept of support, how eliminating the long slow run, the base level of support for everything else, is helpful?

3. How do you specifically replace the loading as you reduce the steady aerobic component?

cheers

well said

Ok there you go microcycling as it was intended. It is almost identical to Soviet microcyling but still follows the same rules. Dead by thursday, recover to sunday. Only one difference but first i need to ask a question about this program of Lydiards.

I always had this belief that Lydiard didn't get the cycling nature of training other than mesocycle or phase, ie marathon conditioning phase etc. Here is direct evidence he does. So all the principles of training that i am aware of are being followed in this simple week. With precision and no mistakes.

He starts with the easiest session in the freshest state, basically as close to a race as you get in the program. Then he puts fatigue into the upper aerobic system, before he alternates back to a faster session following the recovery rule, before fatiguing aerobic capacity on the fourth day. Now this is where the system has been overloaded as generally as possible, in all the aerobic senses. Friday begins the recovery/regeneration phase of this microcycle. The speed element acts as recovery because it is the reverse of the type of overload that has been placed on the system. If it was an anaerobic overload then aerobic will aid in recovery. By doing the opposite you help return the whole system back to its balanced state. Saturday long run acts to stress the aerobic system out but in a subtle way, so it seems to me this acts to strengthen what it is stressing whilst acting as a regenerative tool to receive from the recent overloading effects. Sunday settles the system down even more with its easier long run.

So within this cycle of 7 days he observes the peak loading and the trough of recovery. He observes the principle of recovery which is in essence the smallest of the cycles, covering only two days. He has the two day cycle and the seven day cycle sorted. So i wondered if he found the macrocycle. What you say next might indicate he did.

Can you post these 7 consecutive weeks or more if they are relevant. I would like to see how he did the macrocycles.

I'm wondering how these would relate to tempo runs.

People find hard statistics better these days. They tend to shy away from subjective ones because they require more work, you have to think about it for starters. :)

thanks (please post the weeks)

"Ok so you cannot prove your theory and maybe i cannot prove mine. I assert that nothing has a limit. Nothing at all. Sure there is the rapid early development as we come up to our capacity and after this the development slows dramatically, but i have never seen it said we have limits to human capacity. Well maybe by thinkers of the past but isn't it well enough understood now that everything exists on a continuum and the continuum, by definition has no ends ie infinite.

So if you want to argue there are ceilings to human capacity please go ahead. I would like to see some justification that we do have finite limits and that specifically there is such a limit for aerobic capacity."

You are right about the continuum, but it doesnt mean capabilities can extend to infinity.

If the musculature already have a well developed capillarization, such that all the fibers have good access to oxygen, it doesnt help to add more capillaries.

There exist some optimum distribution of vessels and fibers, and beyond this point you can only loose.

It doesnt help to add more mitocondria in each cell beyond the point where the cell have all the oxygen it can use.

Doesnt help to develop the heart beyond the point where the

electrical signal is no longer stable, developing irregular heart rythm and eventual failure.

Nature certainly have ceilings. The body need a optimal distribution of vessels, cells, slow twitches, fast twitches, aerobic enzymes, anaerobic enzymes, nerves elastic tendons, and so on. Doesnt help to think that one quality can be developed to infinity, when the result (in the race) is depending on many variables in a very complex way.

This doesnt mean i have something against with Lydiard. But he was a smart guy and I do not think he would agree with you.

thanks and well outlined

I'm sure we have learned some things about refinement of the training process and have added a lot of complementary aspects to it like with sports med and recovery activities, i'm not sure what else there is that has been actually developed. I think some things may have been lost. To be honest i don't understand this modern complex training. Is it a system that allows you to indulge in interval style training all year round?

As for decathletes since you ask. Think marathon in terms of frequency of main competition. Not quite as low as marathon but 3-4 decathlons a year is solid work. They are either grouped together over 2-3 months or split into two groups of 2 or even 3 (some people do a lot more but i believe at a certain point, which is around 4, any more takes away from preparation time, which is very important in such a complex event and one which requires such a high level of skill training.

So by its very nature there is a focus on preparation. I've done some double periodised years but they are not the majority. more like 2 single then 1-2 double, but i never did get into my peak years which may have reversed that trend. Daley Thompson took 1981 and 1985 off international competition after each Olympics. Full periodised year that you could say had only a minor peak at the end effectively extending this to an 18 months preparation period. So that might give you some idea of my feelings towards over competing and rushing the training process.

I guess in general preparation we are doing long hills and in specific preparation we are doing then with longer recovery and in precomp we will do half the sessions over a short hill and the other half over a medium hill. Short = 15 seconds, medium = 30 and long = 50 for example. In comp phase any resistance effect like this is gained through use of a sled or chute arrangement instead of the hill. All the different training elements will follow this process.

So your natural feeling with children would be to ensure the foundation is developed first. But then for serious training there would need to be a shift over to serious training or modern training. I guess i still don't know what modern training really is. Hoping for a definition.

This next paragraph i need to dissect.

Speaking to nobby, which i am doing at the moment via email exchange, it seems there is a lot of misinterpretations still with the Lydiard Approach. It seems we have so many different versions of what he advocated and what he set as plans, that from the surface it looks like he changed his mind a lot. Personally i just think it was a different version for a different situation. So when nobby shows me Lydiards raceweek/non-raceweek program, which is for periods of competition in the midst of training, we see this complex approach appear. So the modification to account for temporary or unexpected competition is to change to this raceweek programming which appears to follow what the complex approach follows. However, this is a modification program not the main program.

I agree with the latter but i am confused about the former. The mental benefits seem quite clear to me. I'm not only talking about the psychological benefits either, i'm also referring to the motor neuron, skill side of things.

The second point relates to your phrase 'without too much negative physical consequence'. If you are talking about negative in the sense of losing racing condition then i don't see a problem. We have to let that go as we move forward. If it is referring to anything else like form then i don't see that as happening. Not if it is looked after through this period with regular training. If these don't cover it what did you mean by that phrase?

See for me a 4 month competition period with the last two as being the serious ones is plenty. If you double periodised then two by 2 months is enough. I can't imagine 8-9 months of competition. but this isn't my main concern here. Even using the word 'squeezing' indicates that this preparation stuff is not being given its rightful status. To be squeezed in, around the more race related stuff? This is what worries me.

I see what you are saying. The idea is to never be too far from 'race shape' so to speak. I think again we have a misconception. In my soviet inspired version of periodisation you never get too far from race condition at any stage. The explosive element of the program ensures that. In Lydiard terms i will refer to a quote from nobby, from yesterday.

So this is not exactly slow running. This is high effort threshold training. And looking at the marathon program above the time trials pretty much ensure you dont stray too far from peak condition.

The reason i don't like to suppress the system away from peak condition for any length of time is because i believe i am dealing with athleticism as a priority. And since i want to increase athleticism alongside the fitness components we cannot be suppressed for too long. Simply because you cannot develop athleticism when the system is too suppressed. When i say athleticism i mean in the sense of say Snell, Juantorena and Coe exhibiting a higher than normal level of it in the MD world.

I prefer to have a systemic response to overtraining so it is reduced as much as possible by the very content and nature of the system. I only see overtraining occurring when an athlete does too much of the one thing for too long. If change occurs regularly then much of the overtraining is eliminated. I don't think i even suffered from it in my entire career.

On the first point you make, - ok so you don't have to do as much to get back to prime shape if you don't go very far away from it, if you don't go very deep. Agreed. This is a result. I don't know if it is a benefit. Daley Thompson, who followed a similar approach to my own coach. Daley who was around when Coe, Ovett, Cram were around and remarkably a similar influence seems to roll through all. Daley said 'never go more than three weeks from speedwork'. This is a counter to the tendency to go too deep and not keep contact with normality. Lydiard had these counters. It is just too many people are taking only part of his system and overemphasising it. And yes this is a criticism of some, possibly many Lydiardists.

And i agree with you regards physiology. but this does beg a question.

I would like to see more. This provokes thought if it rings true. I wonder what others think?

Is this true? I wonder if there are any comparisons of density with animals, like monkeys or racehorses. How different in density are our fittest from them, if at all.

I agree with this process of first being a stimulant and second being a regenerative element. But i also see it coming back to being a stimulus periodically. I guess i see it as regenerative all year round.

Here is the thing. We have this training quality that is first developed by long running as a stimulus. So it is a trainable quality, obviously. But then gains drop away so it shifts to being a regenerative activity.

And is that it? A few years and enough is enough? Really?

We are talking about elite track and field, Things are measured in fractions of percentages. Aside from any other benefit the long running may have, how can we ignore this?

See where i am coming from?

Me too. how about letsrun runs a multi-year study on a group of current 18 year old runners. We get them or their coach to talk about the training approach. And then we watch what happens over a number of years?

Interesting and would like to throw some ideas about each one in another post. And to wrap this up with something from earlier in your post.

The mistake exists because a study like the one your proposed has never been done. It would show what i believe to be true and yes shortening of careers, failure to reach potential, exactly those.

One mistake is that Modern training is mis-applying and selectively applying the principles of training.

If it wants to apply specificity to the event, then it has to also apply specificity to the training qualities required by that event. If it wants to utilise specificity at all it has to acknowledge the requirement for generality, in its correct proportion and not just an add on.

The other mistake it is making is believing the aerobic and anaerobic are equals. They are not equal. They don't stand side by side. One precedes the other, is prior to the other. It existed before the other was even developed. Every time we are injured we return from the high ground of anaerobic training to the safe ground of anaerobic training. Whenever we are sick we live in the aerobic zone and we find it far more difficult than normal to do anything anaerobic. All of this is true because the aerobic system is closer to our center, to our core. It is where we can retreat to when the going gets tough. I can't see how anyone can give it equal status to the anaerobic system. You take away the anaerobic system and you will complete the 100m albeit slowly. You take out the aerobic system and you will be unconscious before very long. It is more important.

So when modern training de-empahasises it in any way it and relegates it to secondary status, i am concerned. The problem is we don't have your study so we can't show the physiologists in their own terms of this gradual degradement of the base aerobic capacity over time that ultimately leads to a situation that has become so imbalanced, that injury, sickness or psychological burnout occurs.

Just to finish. If modern training wants to 'play it safe' and never get too far away from money making capacity, then fine no problem. If it wants to do this year after year then i do have a problem. The athlete is being duped and his career is being shortened. I feel this as fundamentally unfair. Not only are high peaks not being allowed by this approach, short careers are becoming the order of the day.

I will say that it took me three years to work up to really high mileage and then for a bit under three years I improved consistently while doing that high mileage, typically 100-150 a week, miles, not kilometers. I also improved noticeably in the three years that I spent building up the mileage.

But after about three years, maybe a bit less, I got no more PBs for a couple of years at which time I cut back the volume, became more "recreational" about it all, and had another brief run of small PBs. I have on occasion told young guys pondering big miles that I think you need to do about 2-3 years of it and then you've likely milked it for most of what it's worth and I suspect could run well on fewer miles. But that's just theory as well. But I don't think Renato is completely off base here.

I do disagree with him that Lydiard's guys did not run well at longer distances unless he's comparing them to what they did at middle distance. If we're talking about the marathon specifically it's very difficult to compare his era with what came shortly after. His guys could not win races like New York, Berlin, etc. because no such races existed. Boston and Fukuoka came closest and Boston diod not pay for athletes to come to the race. None of his guys ever ran Boston but Dave MacKenzie did and won in 1967. MacKenzie was not coached by Lydiard but got Arthur's books and used them as the model for his training. Magee and Paul Ballinger each won Fukuoka and both Lorraine Moller and Mike Ryan had coaches who used the Lydiard method, so he was connected to three Olympic Bronze medals. It's a pretty decent record and as you point out, the marathon was not a high profile event then. Who knows what would have happened if it had been.

This is excellent thanks.

Ok you have introduced the competing factor, that there is a range along this continuum with which any one thing can fit. I contend the range we are using as physical beings is so far short of its potential that from the perspective of our present position, is effectively somewhere in the infinite. Not objectively of course but from the subjective perspective. I back this up with the fact that as phsycial specimens, we are by far away the worst species on the planet. We have lost much of our physical capacity since the dawn of civilisation. I see that this can be addressed virtually ad infinitum. Cetainly it an be addressed/redeveloped long beyond the possibility of a competitive career.

The infinity thing is to open up an understanding of where our potential actually is. Apart from that disgreement i agree with you. In fact the body seems to be so effective at maintaining its stasis that it resists quite strongly our efforts to change it. I say 'seems' to be the body because our resistance to change exists in the mind prior to the body and that is where the real resistance to change exists, in the ideas, the pre-conceived notions we all hold.

Back to the idea of optimal balance in all of the cellular level structures. It can only be this way yes? It must retain balance. So we go down the road of only training aerobic capacity. It develops nicely with this focused attention but soon we find it isn't developing nicely anymore and if we continue eventually the gains cease altogether. This could be blamed on the habituation process and for sure it partially is. The rest of the blame must go to 'balance' as a principle and in this case 'imbalance'. The further one aspect of a system is taken out of balance with the other aspects of the system then becomes unsupported by the other elements it is somewhat reliant on. And because it is becoming unsupported it is finding it hard to climb any higher and eventually stops climbing at all. Yet if we go and develop another quality and return to this aerobic one we suddenly find we have some more room for growth. Clearly, this shows to go in any one direction for too long loses any reason. Yet if we go back and forth from one quality to another with the right empahsis, then we can raise each one a degree at a time and continuously create new levels. As long as the balance is retained between all the qualities, how do we know how dense things can actually become? Can we compare to animals?

I don't agree with Lydiard because he is Lydiard. I give him respect but not that much. I agree with the things i agree with and it just so happens i agree with most of what he says and with most of what he found. In fact, his findings have helped me grow in my own understanding of how this all works.

So i agree with him definitely. Would he agree with me? Probably call me an upstart or something. However in this case he did say aerobic development is unlimited. And since he seemed to go further than anyone else i'm aware of in testing this out in a practical sense, with 250 mile weeks and 50 mile weekly runs at one point, and even in the midst of that level of long running, he decided he couldn't see the end of aerobic development and so said it's unlimited. This is what i'm saying. It may not be objectively infinite, but from our subjective viewpoint we can't see the end.

According to Keith Livingstone in his book, Healthy Intelligent Training, The Proven Principles of Arthur Lydiard:

"Don't take carbohydrate supplements (gels, etc) during long runs unless it's in a long race. You'll lose the training effect on the fatty acid system and the glycogen-sparing effect."

Agree or disagree?

Generally agree. But if you're going to do something in a race you should do it once or twice beforehand to see how it affects you.

Thanks!

It's not incorrect to make this assumption. You will always receive a time lag. Once something has been developed to stability, it can be maintained for quite a while. And i think it is easy to maintain the aerobic. The easiest of them all. But the problem comes in when the maintenance training is not maintaining all levels of the aerobic system. The second problem comes in a few years when the maintenance is not enough anymore but no change in the training plan to accommodate for that is made.

gel user wrote:

According to Keith Livingstone in his book, Healthy Intelligent Training, The Proven Principles of Arthur Lydiard:

"Don't take carbohydrate supplements (gels, etc) during long runs unless it's in a long race. You'll lose the training effect on the fatty acid system and the glycogen-sparing effect."

Agree or disagree?

yep to what HRE said too

But to add a possible reason why: If the long run is to deplete your energy reserves to generate a training adaption then taking in energy is counteracting this process isn't it?

No one improves forever. I've noticed that you can usually count on improving for something in the neighborhood of five to seven years. I've known other fairly astute observers of the sport who've noticed the same thing.

From there it seems that you can maintain that level or something just below it for a good while but you're likely done improving.

On the bright side, it doesn't seem that maintaining yourself requires as much work as it took to get to that level. But you have to deal with the mental issue of whether you want to keep on working seriously if you aren't getting better. If you're a professional that's maybe an easy answer.

And then, as you note, there's the question of adjusting your training. I've always been interested in what people who have long careers with minimal deterioration do but there aren't that many examples to look at.

HRE wrote:I've always been interested in what people who have long careers with minimal deterioration do but there aren't that many examples to look at.

I think they are the ones who get it right. They maintain the correct balance of the elements and they constantly adjust proportions to keep moving past the blocks we hit along the road. They keep finding out why the block is there and addressing the problem. But as you say this is the rarer situation. Pity that.

In a first-person example, I can tell you that I ran weekly three hour runs and up to three-thirty on nothing more than a breakfast of sugary tea and milk. I did this to the point that when I did try a breakfast of a normal selection, I felt, gassy and had to relieve myself part-way through (like my gel-eating friends always do) which is irritating. I had no problem with this whatsoever for a few years. However I did have a problem with this when we ran long and it was a strong progression long run or time trial. Because I didn't do this that often it could very well have been because I was not conditioned for that level...so that remains to be seen. The long runs were steady.

You mention Lydiard and slow running in the same sentence. He said and made it clear many times that LSD was not slow. It is slow relative to doing anaerobic work on the track for middle-distance runners. For middle-distance runners going long and steady was relatively slow to them. As his method was a paradigm shift for many, at that time, THAT particuular language applies to what he said. You cannot say that his marathon time trial 4-weeks before the athlete's marathon race is easy running. And Lydiard would not have his athletes run a marathon time trial if they were not prepared for that sort of stimuli. Clearly they would have had to do much more steady and strong running to get there. So I think you are taking that language on in the same way people who are not familiar with coaching do. For that I am shocked, especially at the level of coach you are.

Also:

You mention capillarisation as only needing to go two years to maximise. Ok I will bite, but there is plenty of research out there to indicate that children who are highly active typically have better results as they mature. Perhaps this is not limited to just capillary development. I understand there are two key windows of opportunity to get life-long health/fitness benefits 12-13 years of age and I think the other was 8-9...or something similar. AND there are outlier examples in every situation, like Paul Tergat who is one Kenyan who said he did not grow up running to school etc like many other Kenyans.

When you compare results to today of 50 years ago, you have to remember that outside of Snell's 1:44 on grass, all times were slower compared to today, just as your examples of Italian athletes from 10 and 20 years ago are now dated. If the example you give of 90% or more of an athlete's maximum is now needed, then that is it??? Just more intensity? Doesn't sound all that difficult to learn.

When you say that Lydiard training is dated are you openly insulting excellent coaches like Joe Vigil, Jerry Schumacher and others who use the Lydiard method as the foundation of their programs? We could name many more.

In terms of ANYONE coaching Kenyans being a stupid statement. I get it, that not everyone can coach a Kenyan to beat all the other Kenyans, but give a decent coach 50 Kenyans and another decent coach 50 from all over the world and who is likely to have more success?

Here is a question for you and I am genuinely curious to know the answer to. Why is it that most or all world greats from the recent last decade can only run one, two or three great marathons, then they struggle to repeat? Why can't a marathon runner achieve 10 or 20 world-leading or world-class times?