Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

vinyl 45s wrote:

Bakken talks a little about lactate in the science part of the chapter indicating lactate will be higher. "Lactate production increases, but not to the point of progressive accumulation. 15 sec rest allows partial clearance & rapid ATP replenishment so the next rep will be under control."

He does recommend the 45/15 session 1-2x a week during base phase to build pure aerobic capacity with minimal stress. Then 1x week during preparation period. 2-3x a week after a break or illness since he sees the workout as very potent, yet injury risk is low & post session fatigue is far less severe compared to other workouts.

I wonder if the people whose legs are more fatigued or sore are doing this on the road? I've been doing them on a track or gravel & I'd imaging decelerating from higher speeds 20-25x would cause some eccentric stress on muscles that'd make you sore the first time or 2 whereas a soft surface would negate this some.

Also wonder if this workout is more of an individual thing. In the application chapter he writes how pure threshold training isn't for everyone especially type 2 (fast twitch fibers). Magnus said the same in his video about NSM & how too much subthreshold kills them. Bakken wrote he recommends progressive threshold workouts for FT & going right over threshold & doing more explosive finishing workouts & also more 30:30 & 45/15s.

ft guy returns wrote:

vinyl 45s wrote:

Bakken talks a little about lactate in the science part of the chapter indicating lactate will be higher. "Lactate production increases, but not to the point of progressive accumulation. 15 sec rest allows partial clearance & rapid ATP replenishment so the next rep will be under control."

He does recommend the 45/15 session 1-2x a week during base phase to build pure aerobic capacity with minimal stress. Then 1x week during preparation period. 2-3x a week after a break or illness since he sees the workout as very potent, yet injury risk is low & post session fatigue is far less severe compared to other workouts.

I wonder if the people whose legs are more fatigued or sore are doing this on the road? I've been doing them on a track or gravel & I'd imaging decelerating from higher speeds 20-25x would cause some eccentric stress on muscles that'd make you sore the first time or 2 whereas a soft surface would negate this some.

Also wonder if this workout is more of an individual thing. In the application chapter he writes how pure threshold training isn't for everyone especially type 2 (fast twitch fibers). Magnus said the same in his video about NSM & how too much subthreshold kills them. Bakken wrote he recommends progressive threshold workouts for FT & going right over threshold & doing more explosive finishing workouts & also more 30:30 & 45/15s.

I find 45/15 very hard and I'm as fast twitch as you can get. In fact, I'm one of the many who posted in the middle of the thread when fibre type came up.

Personally, having spent years thinking I am FT let's do stuff in that bracket, I realised muscle type for hobby runners is a load of nonsense. After a while, you just train what you are already good at.

Best thing I did and never looked back was following the advice of a few other posters, who struggled with 10 min reps, but stuck with it and then became good across the board.

The advantage of being FT, is it hangs around. You can train the aerobic engine and even without training ft muscles you can dig into them every once in a why naturally.

xel wrote:

ft guy returns wrote:

I find 45/15 very hard and I'm as fast twitch as you can get. In fact, I'm one of the many who posted in the middle of the thread when fibre type came up.

Personally, having spent years thinking I am FT let's do stuff in that bracket, I realised muscle type for hobby runners is a load of nonsense. After a while, you just train what you are already good at.

Best thing I did and never looked back was following the advice of a few other posters, who struggled with 10 min reps, but stuck with it and then became good across the board.

The advantage of being FT, is it hangs around. You can train the aerobic engine and even without training ft muscles you can dig into them every once in a why naturally.

I think Bakken has it wrong on what's good for FT. [edit: That's too strong of a strong statement. I haven't read his newest book so I don't know his entire position on FT]. Maybe it's good for elite runners who started out FT and now they've become somewhat more ST and/or built capacity to train more like ST. But a beginner or hobbyjogger FT runner ought to run slower than ST runners, not faster.

FT runners recruit more FT fibers than ST runners at the same effort. This makes FT runners take longer to recover between sessions. And I think it makes subt intervals somewhat inefficient rather than efficient. If you're ST, you can get a great metabolic stimulus with 30min of work by running 10x3min at 15k-10k pace. If you're FT, then 10k pace is recruiting a lot more FT fibers than your ST friend. The 60s rests, while effective for controlling lactate levels and therefore making the session less stressful, don't change the fact that you're fatiguing a lot of FT fibers by running 30mins at 10k pace.

But then the question becomes what is the best adjustment?

1. Slow down however much you need to, no matter how ridiculous it looks relative to your race performances, and stick to 3 sessions a week + a long run.

2. Keep the intensity up but do 2 sessions a week + a long run.

3. Keep both the intensity and the 3 sessions + a long run but reduce volume however much you need to in order to survive.

I like a combo of 1 and 2. Slowing down is absolutely necessary. Reducing to two sessions could temporarily be a good adjustment too. This gives the long run some room to breathe (an easy session both before and after it) which helps FT runners.

Reducing volume so that you can still do 3 sessions at "proper" intensity is the worst route. It can give short term results but it's not the proper way to go about a multi-year journey of aerobic development.

So imo FT runners should do the longest intervals, doing them as slow as necessary so that they always have "pop" going into each session, and consider doing only 2 sessions a week before eventually transitioning to 3.

Another idea for FT runners is to use the first 30-60s of each rep to gradually speed up from a slow jog to the proper pace. It's much easier for FT runners to start reps too fast but it's especially counterproductive for them. And maybe I'm paranoid about "activating" FT fibers and over-revving the metabolic system, but strides as part of the warmup could actually be counterproductive.

Any other FT runners find themselves running unusually fast during cooldowns after a moderate workout? We're "revved up" from the workout but not exhausted, so easy pace is naturally faster. I think a more intense warmup and/or strides has the same effect on the workout itself. RPE of the workout is lower and paces are quick from the first rep. Except that's bad for us -- harder to recover from the session in the following days. So not only should each rep be a progression, but the entire workout should be a progression. We should be trying to complete these sessions in the most relaxed manner possible. We're cheating the system if we activate our higher gears prior to the workout or go too hard in the first few reps. I think it shifts the stimulus away from where we want it and it takes longer to recover from the session.

Alfie wrote:

xel wrote:

I think Bakken has it wrong on what's good for FT. [edit: That's too strong of a strong statement. I haven't read his newest book so I don't know his entire position on FT]. Maybe it's good for elite runners who started out FT and now they've become somewhat more ST and/or built capacity to train more like ST. But a beginner or hobbyjogger FT runner ought to run slower than ST runners, not faster.

FT runners recruit more FT fibers than ST runners at the same effort. This makes FT runners take longer to recover between sessions. And I think it makes subt intervals somewhat inefficient rather than efficient. If you're ST, you can get a great metabolic stimulus with 30min of work by running 10x3min at 15k-10k pace. If you're FT, then 10k pace is recruiting a lot more FT fibers than your ST friend. The 60s rests, while effective for controlling lactate levels and therefore making the session less stressful, don't change the fact that you're fatiguing a lot of FT fibers by running 30mins at 10k pace.

But then the question becomes what is the best adjustment?

1. Slow down however much you need to, no matter how ridiculous it looks relative to your race performances, and stick to 3 sessions a week + a long run.

2. Keep the intensity up but do 2 sessions a week + a long run.

3. Keep both the intensity and the 3 sessions + a long run but reduce volume however much you need to in order to survive.

I like a combo of 1 and 2. Slowing down is absolutely necessary. Reducing to two sessions could temporarily be a good adjustment too. This gives the long run some room to breathe (an easy session both before and after it) which helps FT runners.

Reducing volume so that you can still do 3 sessions at "proper" intensity is the worst route. It can give short term results but it's not the proper way to go about a multi-year journey of aerobic development.

So imo FT runners should do the longest intervals, doing them as slow as necessary so that they always have "pop" going into each session, and consider doing only 2 sessions a week before eventually transitioning to 3.

Another idea for FT runners is to use the first 30-60s of each rep to gradually speed up from a slow jog to the proper pace. It's much easier for FT runners to start reps too fast but it's especially counterproductive for them. And maybe I'm paranoid about "activating" FT fibers and over-revving the metabolic system, but strides as part of the warmup could actually be counterproductive.

Any other FT runners find themselves running unusually fast during cooldowns after a moderate workout? We're "revved up" from the workout but not exhausted, so easy pace is naturally faster. I think a more intense warmup and/or strides has the same effect on the workout itself. RPE of the workout is lower and paces are quick from the first rep. Except that's bad for us -- harder to recover from the session in the following days. So not only should each rep be a progression, but the entire workout should be a progression. We should be trying to complete these sessions in the most relaxed manner possible. We're cheating the system if we activate our higher gears prior to the workout or go too hard in the first few reps. I think it shifts the stimulus away from where we want it and it takes longer to recover from the session.

This makes a lot of sense to me.

Having listened to many podcasts on threshold training, it has been said a few times that, if more than 60 secs rest is needed, pace is probably too fast.

What is the view on slowing down the 10 min reps to accommodate a shorter rest period of just 1 min?