Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

Nothing can beat Dr. Will.

The thing is about NSM is it's not really even a latest craze. It's just modern, smart training laid out for a hobby joggers without all the bells and whistles of double threshold. It's nothing massively new (sirpoc own words) but the way sirpoc has displayed, laid and communicated it has opened it up to the masses. I really don't think that's appreciated enough.

Enough people have tried it now that even if someone hates it and picks it apart, there are probably thousands and more of people who have had anything from small to dramatic improvement.

I think a huge problem some of these guys have is that sirpoc is an outsider or sorts, and has come in and made a lot of people who overcomplicate training, or over inflate their own importance, make look quite silly.

That's not what I said at all. I mentioned that my lactate meter (model is THE EDGE) was "cumbersome" to use and easy to trip errors on imo. In my experience it reads all over the place and when you're dripping with sweat between intervals it's very easy to cross contaminate while drawing blood yourself (even when wiping with alcohol wipes). And that's why I don't recommend it for most runners (and instead to go by RPE, Pace and % of max HR).

The "Lactate Plus meter" looks like a much better design...but I don't have experience with it yet. Lactate strips are expensive.

Anyway, apparently some people were quite upset with my linked above Youtube video. I was very impressed reading Bakken's blogs over 20-25 years ago when i found it on Lactate Training (as well as the Canova "Threshold Threads" on here years ago) and learning about the applications of the whole "Threshold Realm" for 1500m up to Marathon race focus. Even under Rojo and JK in college there was a lot of "Uptempo" and "feel good pace running" workouts where the whole idea was to build stamina and strength to extend Speed Endurance. We trained our 800m guys like Marathoners.

I also didn't think I "compared myself" to Bakken and/or Magness? I obviously have basically no scientific credentials (not even an MS!) and usually coach/consult and design training plans for "mid packers" and "normal busy runners" and certainly not elites or sub-elites. Marathon and ultra event focus also. I'll give myself credit for coaching myself to 16th at Boston though.

What I'm interested in is the nuance: I want to see how Bakken's work has been "transformed" exactly into Copeland's NSM and what elements are adapted (or left behind). I want to try to view it with the historical context of other training methods over the decades and influences like Jack Daniels, Hansons, Canova, Pfitzinger, Lydiard etc. I'm interested in the Periodization and Running Economy influence in the program and what it means for different types of runners (ST, FT) doing different events (be that a 5km park run, a sub 1:40 half, a sub 3-hour marathon or an ultra?). Obviously this thread caught my eye as well as mentions of "NSM" across social media. So I purchased the book. And yes creating video content where I talk about training concepts and analyze methods (and even speculate!) is something I've always done on Youtube for the last 15+ years.

Hi Sage! Love that you are exploring things and willing to engage, but I think you are going to find people here are quite defensive about the critiques, and IMO for pretty good reasons.

I think the reddit wiki might have the best rundown of what the method is and isn't, who it is for and who it is not for, and how it compares to Bakken and others:
https://www.reddit.com/r/NorwegianSinglesRun/wiki

Personally, I think the biggest issue many reviews have is reviewing it in the context of the target audience. You are obviously not the target and I think you are maybe so knowledgeable and experienced that you can forget how little some other people know as well as just how bad some coaches are (and how horribly they train their athletes), as well as how bad some people's training is.

But yeah, I think if you actually take the time to digest the wiki and the book, I think you will find that most of the claims aren't that outlandish, it is just a very straight-forward guide to doing lots of lots of low and moderate intensity work to build an effective aerobic base with limited time commitment per-week and low(er) injury risk.

This is the trap of not knowing your audience. Or not knowing that probably a large percentage of runners that watch YouTube content, are exactly the ones who are 1. The target for NSM or 2. One of the thousands already using it to set pbs.

I think someone else hit the nail on the head, sirpoc as an outsider as unsettled some people perhaps. But this is a man who plays it down but has a vast, really vast knowledge of training, practicality and solving the issue of time crunched athletes in two sports. It's not just a book or a method but some random guy who doesn't know anything.

Problem tends to be this. Someone discovers NSM and thinks it's a stupid fad and explains why it's doing all the wrong things, or how you must do this or that instead. This is not particularly picking on sage.

But here's the problem.

This is likely, the biggest case study in a long time of taking failing hobby joggers and making them better. The sheer vast number of teesitomals are positive.

So I really never understand people's angle. We literally know NSM works and works incredibly well. Tbh I would love someone to properly unpick and talk about why. I know the book does that to an extent, but it deliberately doesn't go so deep that you lose the basic message. It's why it's also such a fantastic book.

Spoiler alert - the secret sauce is that this program removes all that nuance (your word)so us who are slower than a 14:59 5K can just get out the door and train.

Nailing 90% of training that's inside the margins (so, basically hitting a sustainable training load week over a prolonged period) is good enough for the 99% of us population that are hobby joggers to see improvement.

How dare people make snide marks to a guy like Sage for all he's done with stuff he's shared.

NSM doesn't work. It's that simple.

I'll bite.

This is where you can make yourself look silly. Or also where people can actually expose themselves with their own lack of knowledge of training. A few people fall into this category and you think "hmmm, I don't think they understand this, that's worrying given their profile".

NSM works. We know this. You don't get as many people posting up so many positive experiences, especially on a toxic place like Letsrun. It's unheard of. The thread is beyond parody at times, but it's 700+ pages because people keep having success and sharing their stories. I've no doubt it'll go well beyond 1000.

If it didn't work, we would have a thread like EIM where feedback is hit and miss. Whereas here we have a broad range of the running population often saying the same thing "wow this really is working". Not for all. That needs to be said. But 9/10 posts are positive and I would guess that is a conservative estimate.

As I said, for anyone saying "this training is dumb, it doesn't work" vibe really is just making themselves look silly when not only is that clearly wrong, what's been laid out has incredibly strong foundations and evidence, albeit if that comes from cycling. The difference is it's just been adapted and obviously is working with how it's been adapted to running.

FWIW, you have Bakken's own words on what NSM is on page 99 (in Bakken's book). But if you want the nuance of NSM, you also have to get the historical context of time trials on cycling as well (for example, tracking ramp rate and training load is pretty important to many NSM adopters). And the cycling history of it is excellently described in James' book.

Are you scared your Boston qualifying time is under threat? #NoDaysOff

Dude, you missed most of the point anyway. You are not currently gonna run 14:30 these days so it's a weird flex to say you aren't on the charts. This is half the problem , people have no reality of their current fitness so have no idea how to train.

oops

Sage couldn't even break 15 right now. Would be close to certain of that. So indeed a weird flex.

The thread has to realise YouTubers make content. They need to. They need to talk about stuff, shill stuff, that's the game. A lot of them have repeated most of their content many times now and most of it has become dreadful and insufferable.

The issue is most have been duped by assuming NSM is just some sort of buzz that'll go away, or something they can tell their followers is 'silly' or 'this is what it lacks!'. This is certainly not the case, because it's actually incredibly well thought out, laid out training that makes what is already good training (a hybrid of double threshold/sweetspot in cycling), applicable to the rest of us. As others have pointed out, the results are overwhelming in showing it works and is hard to argue that it is the most logical starting point for any hobby jogger when they start to want structured training. Or a runner who is totally stagnated for years, always seems like the ideal candidate for this training.

There have been a few who actually have seen the forest through the trees. Someone like FOD, seems like a good guy as YouTubers go. But the key is no ego, willing to learn or even for those who know training confidently, accept that it doesn't need to be rocket science for the average person. But again, doesn't make great content.

Instead FOD done the opposite, made content around it and commited to showing it'll slowly get you faster, but in the end the PBs will come- which his followers have loved and also the huge benefit for him is he has been running for a while now and is in the shape of his life. I assume will crush his marathon PB thanks to this thread ever existing.

You've bought the books but haven't bothered to read them. How exactly is that "analyzing methods"?

You strike me as the kind of guy who would be better served joining Nick Bester's running club than trying to wrap your head around NSM or Bakken. No offense.

I hope Sage actually looks into this properly. I used to watch his videos, in fact he was one of the best back in the early days. But I haven't really learned anything new in a while on there and being a grumpy old man myself, I've always felt that's where his attitude has gone down the years.

Why nsm is so appealing to so many people, is it appears so catch all as a training program as you can get. This isn't EIM or 80/20, this seems to work across a much broader spectrum of people. Hence, as pointed out, 700 pages and counting.

Nothing will be worse than that Doctor Will video, so as long as you don't get a white board and crayons out, you'll be good. But I was a little disappointed in Magness, who seemed despite what people were telling him as all the real world feedback, he really was insistent on he must have his own spin on it. Which is fine. But, it didn't make a lot of sense as a lot of what he said had already been covered hundreds of pages previously. Such as intensity caps on speed, or the fact no periodization is deliberately by design. Clearly he hadn't looked into it and tbh he ended up looking a bit silly, which is disappointing, as you know, it was Magness. I think that was an eye opener for a lot of people.

Sage probably has forgotten more about training than anyone in this thread or sirpoc knew to begin with.

To think otherwise is just stupid.

lol a hobbyjogger telling canaday what he is capable of

He's a great runner and seems a nice fella, but when I used to watch his videos my god they were verbose. Guaranteed they would include [intro to training topic of the day, VO2max, hills, tempos, whatever] "...so if you're running a marathon, or an ultra, like a 50K, 100K or even longer, possibly even a 24 hour, or a shorter race, a half marathon, 10K, 5K, maybe that's a full 5K race or even just a parkrun, you can use [training topic of the day] to [long list of benefits including mitochondria, capillary beds, etc,], etc., etc., etc., etc., etc. It was tortuous listening to a simple message being spun out to 10,000 words of verbiage. Ruined it for me eventually and I gave up.