Tempo Runs-Useless?

John H. wrote:

The Cancan Wizard wrote:

Jan Stensson, the lying coach!

Check up his facebook! Not a lying coach. lol

Oh yes you are Jan:

I'm thinking this 'Wizard' handle is the real JS. There was some question in my mind for a while. After all, he uses the 'Jan Stensson' name as well as of course the original SUPERIOR one. The bizarre spacing around the punctuation and the obviously non-native English is consistent with the genuine Spamming Swede.

All that said, yes this clown is a joke and it seems certain this claim of 'international wins' is complete fiction. Then he posts as someone random, as if there are JS fans out there in the general public!

CovidBored wrote:

https://www.podiumrunner.com/training/what-makes-norways-ingebrigtsen-brothers-such-exceptional-runners/

Article about the ingerbrighten's and studies that have found a stronger correlation with tempos and performance vs longer intervals.

Excerpt from article

Arturo Casado results indicated otherwise.

In fact, total volume of training had the highest correlation with top performance at .75. This was followed by easy runs (with a correlation of .68), tempo runs (.58), and short intervals (.56). Long intervals had a very low correlation with performance (.22). And time trials and races had essentially no correlation, perhaps because top runners aim to win their big races rather than shooting for fast times.

Incase people don't know this, the term "tempo runs" in this article includes both the continuous and broken tempos being discussed here. The "long intervals" refers to work at 90-95%HR so the 10k and faster type long intervals. There was a discussion about this on here a while back where this study basically shows that elites don't train in the way Tinman trains his athletes with a focus on 10k and 8k race pace.

Imagine the stimulus the Ingebrigstens are getting with close to 40km a week of Threshold work. Obviously meticulously calculated to not overcook them and allow recovery.

I'd be fascinated to know how their training would/will change if Jakob moves up to the Half. As it stands currently, he doesn't run any long hard efforts ever. Would he get by without it I wonder? What would they replace?

I could find some links if you really want but it is quite simple.

Base phase: Tuesday and Thursday double threshold workouts, Intervals are typically 3 min, 6 min, or 10 min (occasionally 400?) This translates to just about 1k, 2k or 3k reps since his threshold is right around 3min/k. AM workout is typically longer reps while pm is shorter reps. I believe most sessions accumulate around 30min of time total at threshold and ~3:1 work to rest ratio.

Ex:

10x3min(1k) @ LT w/ 1 min recov

5x6min(2k) @ LT w/ 2 min recov

3x10min @ LT w/ 3 min recov

There is a lot of info out there if you want to learn more about their training

coleiolio wrote:

Do you plan on doing double threshold days?

Probably not at this point. I believe being relatively untrained myself at least in the grand scheme of things it is not worth doing double workout of any sort yet when that would be very high training stress and I could easily improve a lot with single threshold sessions but maybe one day :).

Have not read the whole article but seems vague and I am wondering how they determined that accurately? Long intervals meaning the Ingebrigtsen LT intervals or VO2 max type stuff? Also idk if that quoted study was based on the Ingebrigtsens training but as far as I know they don't do tempo runs.

It seems like most pros nowadays still focus a lot on threshold but it is just combined with higher mileage. You see a lot of them doing threshold workouts with faster stuff like short hills, 200s, etc (think tinman, ingebrigtsen, ON, Mike Smith, etc.) so maybe he was right with that workout focus but not enough mileage.

This makes more sense. So the article does not really answer whether LT intervals or straight tempos are better. People seem to have been moving away from VO2 max work for a while now except before big competitions and doing a lot more at LT. I imagine the Jakob would change his training if he moves up to the half down the line. A long run of 12-14 miles will not cut it for the half even with a lot of volume at threshold. For now I think he needs to focus solely on the 1500 and securing an olympic medal there.

xcvt wrote:

This makes more sense. So the article does not really answer whether LT intervals or straight tempos are better. People seem to have been moving away from VO2 max work for a while now except before big competitions and doing a lot more at LT. I imagine the Jakob would change his training if he moves up to the half down the line. A long run of 12-14 miles will not cut it for the half even with a lot of volume at threshold. For now I think he needs to focus solely on the 1500 and securing an olympic medal there.

No. I've not seen studies on the straight tempo vs tempo intervals. From what I have read though, the tempo intervals can be run faster (the shorter the interval, the faster the pace can be) or more total volume can be accumulated. There is a Tjelta study showing that the Ingebrigtsens consider all those sessions as "Threshold" but the long reps are half marathon type pace but the 1ks are quicker and the 400s are more like 5k pace.

I imagine this is difficult for athletes to do without the proper discipline. Seiler talks a lot about intensity discipline in the Norwegian model of training. They walk up hills on easy days and long days for example to not spike the HR. I can't see most runners being that diligent. The LT measurements help as well I'm sure.

Uhhh wrote:

Looking real world, remember how Coe came along after Lydiard and said he was low-mileage and put all the focus on Threshold runs and speedwork.

Everybody was impressed by his world records and Threshold training became the thing through the 80s/90s.

The effects of that fed through wiith only about 100 US men breaking four mins in the mile between 1990-2005.

Since people went back to higher mileage there's been almost 300 from 2006-2020

Maybe there's other reasons like better tracks, shoes, more competitions but there's a view that Coe got it wrong with the focus on Threshold

I disagree with the idea that coe focused on threshold running. Low mileage sure. Threshold? Not from anything I have seen. Lydiard was much closer to threshold training (those 2 runs/week at 3/4 speed) than pretty much anything Coe did. I bet if you compare the schedules of the last 15 years to the previous 15 year, you will find that the 2005+ athletes are spending much more time training at threshold (call it 10k->MP pace) than the earlier athletes did. In the 90s it was all about those 5k intervals in my experience.

See Ingebrigtsen's training for what threshold training is like. Moderate mileage. Moderate intensity. Great results. Seems to be the sweat spot between low intensity, high mileage and low mileage, high intensity.

Legolas wrote:

I'd be fascinated to know how their training would/will change if Jakob moves up to the Half. As it stands currently, he doesn't run any long hard efforts ever. Would he get by without it I wonder? What would they replace?

What are. you hoping to get from those long hard efforts? Seriously what can be better HM training that 2 hours/week at 10k->HM pace and those hill workouts? If he was doing a marathon you could start worrying about the need for long runs and mileage to help the legs stand up to the pounding of running for 2hours. For a HM? Not sure I would change much. I would argue that they do need like 4 week periods where they do those harder intervals but my impression is that they do actually do them in race specific phase that just doesn't get as much press as the 2 double workouts/week.

That being said, right now there is zero evidence that any of them get better as the distance goes up. They all look to be 1500m guys who run decent 800m and 5ks but who are best at 1500m.

The ingebrigtsens never do tempo runs. They do it all in intervals

dointervals wrote:

The ingebrigtsens never do tempo runs. They do it all in intervals

That's interesting. What is the long end in terms of duration or distance of their interval work?

xcvt wrote:

Is there any need for tempo runs if training for anything 2 miles and under? It seems that LT workouts of 1k-2k-even 3k reps are more useful than straight tempo runs because you can get more volume at a faster pace while still staying under the LT. The Ingebrigtsens and other coaches seem to be using these more and more and less tempo runs. I have done a combination of both but should I lean more toward LT intervals in base and move away from or completely eliminate straight tempo runs? I was going to do a combo of both this winter starting with more tempo and moving toward LT but now I might do at least ~75% LT intervals and 25% tempo.

I think even for 2 miles it provides some benefit through strength and mental fortitude. Definitely anything 5K and up it is essential. For me in marathon training, it is an essentail weekly workout.

JO Coach wrote:

dointervals wrote:

The ingebrigtsens never do tempo runs. They do it all in intervals

That's interesting. What is the long end in terms of duration or distance of their interval work?

During the base phase quoted sessions are things like

am: 5 x 6minutes

pm: 25x400m

Other days they do 10x30. It basically works out to 2 sessions with 30 mins of tempo running. It is obviously effective but what we don't know is if replacing one of those sessions with a 30 min continous run would give better results. Or replacing 1 of those days with 4x4min of vo2 max every other week would give even better results. Or any of a zillion variations. There is a lot of evidence that doing a. lot of quality aerobic work (5k->MP running) works well, but the exact details are still up in the air.

The longest LT- interval rep Ingebrigtsen do is 10 min ( so little more than 3 k ). Same with Kipchoge.So obviously there is no doubt this is the best way when it comes to tempo.

I've thought it was better the other way around. If you're debating between 6x5 mins or straight 20 mins tempo, for 800/1500 training it made more sense to keep the overall volume lower with a straight tempo but for 1500/5000 guys can handle more total volume with the intervals.

I do agree about the continuous efforts being great for mental strength. However I prefer longer, slower tempos e.g. 50 mins at around LT + 15s/mile.

John H. wrote:

The longest LT- interval rep Ingebrigtsen do is 10 min ( so little more than 3 k ). Same with Kipchoge.So obviously there is no doubt this is the best way when it comes to tempo.

I think that is misleading. Kipchoge and the NN group is known to do many 30 and 40km tempo runs, basically every week.

And if you phrase it in the mind set of this is how the Ingebrigtsens train, I should do the same. Then why not look at the other 7 faster than Jakob in the 1500 list? Henrik is also constantly struggling with injury and Filip can never put it together when it counts

slingin wrote:

John H. wrote:

The longest LT- interval rep Ingebrigtsen do is 10 min ( so little more than 3 k ). Same with Kipchoge.So obviously there is no doubt this is the best way when it comes to tempo.

I think that is misleading. Kipchoge and the NN group is known to do many 30 and 40km tempo runs, basically every week.

And if you phrase it in the mind set of this is how the Ingebrigtsens train, I should do the same. Then why not look at the other 7 faster than Jakob in the 1500 list? Henrik is also constantly struggling with injury and Filip can never put it together when it counts

Everyone responds to training differently. There's no "best" way to train. The optimal training for any individual athlete is going to be different than for someone else depending on the individual's genetics and those genetics influence they respond to training.

Some super slow-twitch athletes could probably reach all or most of their potential just doing easy runs and races and an occasional LT workout (Bill Rodgers), some need a ton of speed work (Jim Ryun), some need a lot of races, some need very few races, etc.

The key is to find out what works best for you as an individual. Jakob clearly does what works best for him, and so do many of the other top athletes.