A lot of people in this thread are getting so hung up on the threshold work and lactate levels of the Ingebrigstens but forgetting the fact that he is absolutely flooding his legs with lactate during his weekly hill session, albeit for very short bouts.
Is this perhaps where the true magic lies? Is having one day per week during the base phase with very high lactate levels and muscular stress (from the hills), and the rest of the week with highly controlled lactate levels, achieve something that threshold training on its own does not?
Of far more importance is their HR on recovery runs <125. and this includes walking up steep hills. Sub 330 1500 / sub 13 5k types here and they are absolutely jogging their recovery. Same with Daniel Do Nascimento - 206 guy, runs recovery runs at 815-9 min per mile pace.
A guy like Ingebrightsen can run 4 min/km at 125 BPM HR.
A lot of people in this thread are getting so hung up on the threshold work and lactate levels of the Ingebrigstens but forgetting the fact that he is absolutely flooding his legs with lactate during his weekly hill session, albeit for very short bouts.
Is this perhaps where the true magic lies? Is having one day per week during the base phase with very high lactate levels and muscular stress (from the hills), and the rest of the week with highly controlled lactate levels, achieve something that threshold training on its own does not?
Doubt he's going over 8.0 mmol in those sessions. Probably staying in the 4-6.0 range.
To your point, i think we've seen a lot of different programs out there from different disciplines showing a lot more attention to building VO2 in the base phase to give your self some 'space' to grow into for your threshold. The higher that ceiling the higher you can raise the floors of your thresholds underneath it to be able to increase your effective threshold speed.
So having a day a week or so where you are carefully building your engine while limiting your injury potential is well worth your time and is not going to encroach on your races. It would make sense too, many times trying to boost your VO2 around or in your race season usually leaves you with better workouts that dont translate to the start line.
This makes a lot of sense to me. Anecdotally, I have had by far my best results when running one vo2 session and one threshold session each week, plus a long run and the rest easy running. The vo2 + threshold work seems to complement each other quite nicely.
Doubt he's going over 8.0 mmol in those sessions. Probably staying in the 4-6.0 range.
To your point, i think we've seen a lot of different programs out there from different disciplines showing a lot more attention to building VO2 in the base phase to give your self some 'space' to grow into for your threshold. The higher that ceiling the higher you can raise the floors of your thresholds underneath it to be able to increase your effective threshold speed.
So having a day a week or so where you are carefully building your engine while limiting your injury potential is well worth your time and is not going to encroach on your races. It would make sense too, many times trying to boost your VO2 around or in your race season usually leaves you with better workouts that dont translate to the start line.
This makes a lot of sense to me. Anecdotally, I have had by far my best results when running one vo2 session and one threshold session each week, plus a long run and the rest easy running. The vo2 + threshold work seems to complement each other quite nicely.
You have found it! This is the very best way to go. Trains all systems parallell perfect. It`s very simple and works extremely effective. No need for periodizing, and no need for special blocks of building mainly one of the important factors for the best results.
I even had some chat with Ingebrigtsens` Ph mr Leif-Inge Tjelta about this why repeating maxVO2 intervals almost every week at 5k race pace . He told me the maxVO2 reps were not mainly to raise maxO2, but to make the legs and body used to the 5 k race pace and more and more energy-efficient at that speed.
This makes a lot of sense to me. Anecdotally, I have had by far my best results when running one vo2 session and one threshold session each week, plus a long run and the rest easy running. The vo2 + threshold work seems to complement each other quite nicely.
You have found it! This is the very best way to go. Trains all systems parallell perfect. It`s very simple and works extremely effective. No need for periodizing, and no need for special blocks of building mainly one of the important factors for the best results.
I even had some chat with Ingebrigtsens` Ph mr Leif-Inge Tjelta about this why repeating maxVO2 intervals almost every week at 5k race pace . He told me the maxVO2 reps were not mainly to raise maxO2, but to make the legs and body used to the 5 k race pace and more and more energy-efficient at that speed.
Right because they are going uphill. Plus they are only :30 long
You have found it! This is the very best way to go. Trains all systems parallell perfect. It`s very simple and works extremely effective. No need for periodizing, and no need for special blocks of building mainly one of the important factors for the best results.
I even had some chat with Ingebrigtsens` Ph mr Leif-Inge Tjelta about this why repeating maxVO2 intervals almost every week at 5k race pace . He told me the maxVO2 reps were not mainly to raise maxO2, but to make the legs and body used to the 5 k race pace and more and more energy-efficient at that speed.
Right because they are going uphill. Plus they are only :30 long
But JS is against hill workouts. He didn't even prescribe hills to an athlete running in mountain running championships! xD
Doubt he's going over 8.0 mmol in those sessions. Probably staying in the 4-6.0 range.
To your point, i think we've seen a lot of different programs out there from different disciplines showing a lot more attention to building VO2 in the base phase to give your self some 'space' to grow into for your threshold. The higher that ceiling the higher you can raise the floors of your thresholds underneath it to be able to increase your effective threshold speed.
So having a day a week or so where you are carefully building your engine while limiting your injury potential is well worth your time and is not going to encroach on your races. It would make sense too, many times trying to boost your VO2 around or in your race season usually leaves you with better workouts that dont translate to the start line.
This makes a lot of sense to me. Anecdotally, I have had by far my best results when running one vo2 session and one threshold session each week, plus a long run and the rest easy running. The vo2 + threshold work seems to complement each other quite nicely.
Are they really vo2 sessions? 30s up a hill and a jog down feels a lot more like a Jack Daniels rep type workout than a vo2 session.
This makes a lot of sense to me. Anecdotally, I have had by far my best results when running one vo2 session and one threshold session each week, plus a long run and the rest easy running. The vo2 + threshold work seems to complement each other quite nicely.
Are they really vo2 sessions? 30s up a hill and a jog down feels a lot more like a Jack Daniels rep type workout than a vo2 session.
Yes small ones. Daniels R workouts are full recovery affairs. Jogging down a hill after :30-:40 up it at 5k pace wont be full recovery.
Not saying it's a ton of VO2 stimulus but its very controlled and managed. Plus you're getting muscle tension/pace/economy benefits all in one
Are they really vo2 sessions? 30s up a hill and a jog down feels a lot more like a Jack Daniels rep type workout than a vo2 session.
Yes small ones. Daniels R workouts are full recovery affairs. Jogging down a hill after :30-:40 up it at 5k pace wont be full recovery.
Not saying it's a ton of VO2 stimulus but its very controlled and managed. Plus you're getting muscle tension/pace/economy benefits all in one
I would argue that pace/mechanical benefits are the reason they are doing the session. They might pick up a couple mins of time at Vo2max but that isn't much of a stimulus for an elite athlete. Try to do any actual Vo2max session where you are getting 10+ mins of stimulus and your going to overstress.
5k effort to the previous post. And the point is your HR is never really coming down with the jog, it's not like jogging after flat intervals.
The same premise behind the 30/30 intervals. Your power is much higher during the interval itself, and during the rest your HR is not getting very low despite a higher work to rest ratio.
Cyclists do these for VO2 all the time, very effective. Main reason for doing these over longer VO2 or traditional is the power you can sustain across the workout
No, it's not possible.Your lactate threshold is about 4.00 mmol/ l even if you are an elite runner.The difference is more like the elite runner can hold a significant high speed even at 2.5 - 3.5 mmol/ l.And the main thing out of this that training the lactate threshold is most effective in the range of 2.5- 4.0 mmol/ l.What many forget when it comes to training and physiology is that the basics are the same even if you are a hobby jogger or a world top runner.Some tend to think that the world's best runners bodies must function in a different way, but they don't . 🧙♂️
This idea of a 'fixed' physiology just shows your lack of understanding on the topic.
So top level athlete do metabolic profiling why? So they can support the cost of lab equipment for high end sports scientists?
Your physiology is constantly changing and responding to stimulus you give it. Again, why would people periodize your training if you at the end you're going to be just like joe hobbyjogger at the line when it matters?
Jakob is raising his profile or ceiling during his "base" phase with all the double threshold and hill work (which is just VO2 work in disguise) until the competition phase where he starts to work on economization at shorter distances as he tries to 'push up' all the speeds at which his thresholds and critical speeds are occurring. LT and VO2 are put into 'maintenance' in this final period as racing and glycolytic power are becoming more and more important for race fitness.
When you see the schedules, his race period you start seeing a double threshold here and there, some single thresholds, some 400's @ 5k/vo2 pace and a lot more 300's/400's likely with full rests trying to stay under 10.0 mmol.
This is why he keeps saying again and again 'im a better 5k runner than 1500, always have been' because that is exactly the system they run and the profile he now has metabolically
5k effort to the previous post. And the point is your HR is never really coming down with the jog, it's not like jogging after flat intervals.
The same premise behind the 30/30 intervals. Your power is much higher during the interval itself, and during the rest your HR is not getting very low despite a higher work to rest ratio.
Cyclists do these for VO2 all the time, very effective. Main reason for doing these over longer VO2 or traditional is the power you can sustain across the workout
I’m not sure. A poster “former sub 14” or something like that had a friend who worked out with them for a stint in flagstaff. He said they pretty much rand the same speed for all intervals. I think they do longer in the AM and shorter in the PM due to fatigue.
My sense is they are working on improving LT2/CS with all these workouts.
As the other poster said, the hills are VO2 work. So they have 2 days dedicated to large volume pushing up LT and 1 pushing VO2 (and also ensuring they don’t completely lose ability to produce lactate…they are 1500 runners).
Interestingly the Schumacher base period is a large volume threshold workout and a VO2 workout (200s with short rest are essentially Billat 30/30s). Obviously the specifics are different but there is some similarity
I haven’t posted in awhile here. But yes, I had a friend train with the brothers, but it was in Dullstroom, South Africa and not Flagstaff. I don’t even know if they go there anymore. It seems like it’s always Flagstaff now?
Anyways, this was when Filip was more in his prime and Jakob was still young. He claimed they all ran at the same pace on everything, and the typical threshold split looked different. It was more longer intervals and it had no 400s @ threshold or anything like that. The hills were present, and yes they hauled ass up them (to his perspective). They were super early in their training phase and he was unable to last. His fatal mistake is he still kept a really long, long run in the mix. He couldn’t shake that way of thinking. He blew up under that training because he was going too hard on threshold days too.
Now since then, we definitely know more of what they do because it’s been published frequently online. The 400s @ threshold are commonplace. The velocity/pace that elicits a threshold effect really changes depending on the rep distance. Obviously you have to run “faster” on shorter reps to increase lactate to the desired point. Some kind of speed you wouldn’t be able to necessarily hold for, say, a 6 minute rep and still have the same lactate profile you need. However, back when he was training with them it looked more like what Marius did in his training. He focused a bit more on longer reps. Their program has clearly evolved.
For people interested in learning more, type in “Simen Halle Haugen Podcast” on google. The podcast from Conversations About Running features him where he talks about the Norwegian system extensively. What they do sounds much more like the current model and what Jakob has been known to do. It helps understanding how they structure things overall and how they interpret lactate measurements. For being so young, he is very well spoken and detailed.
Bonus: one of the podcast hosts actually did a stint with that particular Norwegian group and had similar experiences to my friend (running threshold too hard, not recovering, etc.). Do NOT do these with your team unless they are well disciplined.
This idea of a 'fixed' physiology just shows your lack of understanding on the topic.
So top level athlete do metabolic profiling why? So they can support the cost of lab equipment for high end sports scientists?
Your physiology is constantly changing and responding to stimulus you give it. Again, why would people periodize your training if you at the end you're going to be just like joe hobbyjogger at the line when it matters?
Jakob is raising his profile or ceiling during his "base" phase with all the double threshold and hill work (which is just VO2 work in disguise) until the competition phase where he starts to work on economization at shorter distances as he tries to 'push up' all the speeds at which his thresholds and critical speeds are occurring. LT and VO2 are put into 'maintenance' in this final period as racing and glycolytic power are becoming more and more important for race fitness.
When you see the schedules, his race period you start seeing a double threshold here and there, some single thresholds, some 400's @ 5k/vo2 pace and a lot more 300's/400's likely with full rests trying to stay under 10.0 mmol.
This is why he keeps saying again and again 'im a better 5k runner than 1500, always have been' because that is exactly the system they run and the profile he now has metabolically
What happens around 10.0 mmol or higher?
That's their cap. For their metabolic profile and training that is extremely high. Probalby like 15.0 for 1500m types.
Concentration and muscle ph is likely a concern. Also, im sure they are trying to keep progress at certain speeds compared to that 10,0 cutoff
I’m not sure. A poster “former sub 14” or something like that had a friend who worked out with them for a stint in flagstaff. He said they pretty much rand the same speed for all intervals. I think they do longer in the AM and shorter in the PM due to fatigue.
My sense is they are working on improving LT2/CS with all these workouts.
As the other poster said, the hills are VO2 work. So they have 2 days dedicated to large volume pushing up LT and 1 pushing VO2 (and also ensuring they don’t completely lose ability to produce lactate…they are 1500 runners).
Interestingly the Schumacher base period is a large volume threshold workout and a VO2 workout (200s with short rest are essentially Billat 30/30s). Obviously the specifics are different but there is some similarity
I haven’t posted in awhile here. But yes, I had a friend train with the brothers, but it was in Dullstroom, South Africa and not Flagstaff. I don’t even know if they go there anymore. It seems like it’s always Flagstaff now?
Anyways, this was when Filip was more in his prime and Jakob was still young. He claimed they all ran at the same pace on everything, and the typical threshold split looked different. It was more longer intervals and it had no 400s @ threshold or anything like that. The hills were present, and yes they hauled ass up them (to his perspective). They were super early in their training phase and he was unable to last. His fatal mistake is he still kept a really long, long run in the mix. He couldn’t shake that way of thinking. He blew up under that training because he was going too hard on threshold days too.
Now since then, we definitely know more of what they do because it’s been published frequently online. The 400s @ threshold are commonplace. The velocity/pace that elicits a threshold effect really changes depending on the rep distance. Obviously you have to run “faster” on shorter reps to increase lactate to the desired point. Some kind of speed you wouldn’t be able to necessarily hold for, say, a 6 minute rep and still have the same lactate profile you need. However, back when he was training with them it looked more like what Marius did in his training. He focused a bit more on longer reps. Their program has clearly evolved.
For people interested in learning more, type in “Simen Halle Haugen Podcast” on google. The podcast from Conversations About Running features him where he talks about the Norwegian system extensively. What they do sounds much more like the current model and what Jakob has been known to do. It helps understanding how they structure things overall and how they interpret lactate measurements. For being so young, he is very well spoken and detailed.
Bonus: one of the podcast hosts actually did a stint with that particular Norwegian group and had similar experiences to my friend (running threshold too hard, not recovering, etc.). Do NOT do these with your team unless they are well disciplined.
Training methodologies aside, not making these mistakes is something that is key, IMO.
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