5-2 training program? Extreme or a possibility for runners?

speed skating, biking, and skiing all are low impact. you can't do this with running or you'll be hurt

Great interview:

This extreme 5+2 training is also based on the supercompensation principle. You overload your system for 5 days and then you rest 2 days and get better. Like you do in a training camp. It works basically.

However, if you do that for a longer time period (weeks/months) can the body handle that ? Running is, as mentioned, a high impact sport. The injury risk would be very high. Better would be to have the 2 rest days seperated from each other, something like: T, T, R, T, T, T, R (T=training, R=rest). This concept is quite good for hobby athletes.

Some world class coaches recommend at least one rest day per week. Here in this forum i have the feeling most performance-oriented runners do run even 7days/week. I clearly prefer 6 days/week max, especially if you get older.

I don't think Warholm follows the 5-2 method.

However, he has been known to have 7 hours of training per day. That is a lot of cross-training, strength, and flexibility exercises in addition to running of course.

I run 5 days, and take two days off. Don't really go hard on any of the 5 running days, but doing my own 5-2 thing.

This is the simple answer.

agree with other posters

+ consider most top athletes are doping (which allows them to recover quicker).

If you are not planning on doping, probably not going to work as well for you.

When it comes to running, rest 2 days per week functions infact very well if you know how to perform it in a very smart way, but I don't recommend rest for 2 days in a row. And there is absolutely no need for more than one run per day on the 5 running days.

I think the people writing about running are missing an important point here - this guy is a Speed Skater but when he's doing his 5-2 training it's all cycling and cross country skiing, no skating at all. His results are phenomenal. The implication of his results is that perhaps as runners we would also benefit greatly from vast amounts of cross training on a bike or skiing, followed by shorter periods of running-specific training (as Nils did with Skating).

On a personal note, I find that when I run 5 days and then take two consecutive days off, I feel phenomenal afterwards when I do my first run of the week. I don't ever feel quite as good during training blocks with two non-consecutive rest days.

I'd definitely be interested to see research into 5-2.

And what does the speed skating training look like? Are we looking at something important or noise? And we are talking about some low participation sport. I wouldn't be shocked to see outliers show up.

Doing 30+ hours of even low intensity aerobic exercise is a heck of a lot. It would be interesting to see the adaptations that causes. We do have some triathletes putting in a lot of volume and lower mileage and running well. Maybe 60 mpw and biking/elpitical/pool running/ another 15 is the way to go but I am suspect.

And drinking beer is just something people want to be true. It isn't making him faster. I know all the alcoholics will not believe it but not get sloshed isn't some big sacrifice... Granted it probably isn't slowing him down by a noticeable amount either.

My freshman/sophomore years of HS I basically did this lol. Monday-Friday I'd be running all out, then on weekends I wouldn't run. I pretty much constantly had shin splints, and my aerobic system was horrendously underdeveloped. I think it can get you in shape pretty quickly, but you're really playing with fire because of how intense it is.

I'd be interested in maybe implementing some of the ideas though. Imagine this: A big base-building period, 12-16 weeks, then starting to put in some workouts, and add in more workouts and dropping mileage as you approach your races. Eventually get to doing 4 or 5 hard workouts/week for 2-4 weeks. Maybe 2 long interval sessions, 1-2 speed development sessions, and a long run. Not sure how the taper would work. Hopefully the big base phase helps prevent injury/let you keep your mileage a bit lower when you are hitting 5 workouts a week.

Cross training might be really useful too. If you were doing 4 hard workouts/week, you could do a lot of easy training on a bike to lower impact stress.

You could also try to structure it in a 10 day cycle. 5-2 has 29% of your days being rest days, so in a 10 day cycle you could have 3 days off.

If anyone tries this, please make a thread here so we can see how it goes.

I agree. European ultra/trail/mountain runners have been doing this (ski mountaineering or XC skiing in the winter and running in the summer) for awhile now with positive results. Many American athletes are following suit.

Come back with a study with data from high impact sports like running. It's possible to train longer and harder with these sports plus swimming because they are low impact sports.

Two things worth noting:

1: He didn't have to care about national trials before the Olympics, the Swedes don't do it that way with their stand-out stars, they're just sent to champs (like Mondo Duplantis) so Nils could have an almost two year long consistent build-up before the Olympics.

2: Before that he took more than a year off from elite skating to voluntarily serve/train in one of their military force elite squads, the "mountain hunters" (I don't know what US equvivalent that most resembles - the rangers?), these are the guys suppose to attack behind enemy lines if Russia invades Sweden, in the winter, no matter how cold it gets. It's not stated, but he might have gotten the idea there, training in the field 24 hours for 5 days then having 2 days off before at it again. 5-6-7 hours on a bike probably doesn't feel that "much" if you've been doing hard military stuff 24 hours a day for 5 days.

tuesday

am-2k repeats

pm 20x400

thursday

am 1k repeats

pm 20x400

saturday

20x150m

sunday long run

other days easy running,

Definitely. I've had my own anecdotal experience of this recently.

Firstly, I'll say I've been running for 12 years.

After developing an achilles injury after my last marathon block, wherein I reached a peak mileage of 70 miles/wk, I started cycling 12-14 hours a week while rehabbing the injury.

I've continued to cycle while building my running mileage back up. So far I'm at 35-40 miles/wk of running, but I'm also doing 7 hours of cycling a week (with quite a bit of intensity), and I'm fitter than I've ever been.

Not sure how I'll fair over the longer stuff, but my performances on XC courses between 3-6ks have been 20-40 seconds faster than previous years.

I'd like to see a longterm study that measures the outcomes of supplemented training against standard training in runners, but can't find any. I guess it would be a difficult thing to conduct - as it would take quite a commitment from the participants.

Idid cross training much like Crosstrainer says while injured and coming back from that injury. I never took it out of my routine when I returned to running which resulted in better performances without having to go to super high mileages. Mostly bike but some pool as well were my main cross activities as well as (running appropriate) weight training. I didn’t like complete days off with no activity, but do think easy recovery days were essential. I agree research into 5+2 - for runners- would be interesting.

-A elite distance runner can't reach the top on a 5-2 schedule. They just can't fully develop their aerobic engine with that little volume. No elite runner can handle more than around 15 hours a week of running before their body breaks down. Trying to run 5-6 hours a day or 25+ hours a week is just a recipe for injury.

also: cycling and speed skating are complimentary sports. cycling helps running a bit but running is a eccentric loading sport and cycling just isn't. I do think most runners could benefit from cycling more but more than say 4-5 hours a week has diminishing returns. Especially with a injury prone runner, i'd replace the 2nd shakeout of the day with a 2 hours cycle...worth the trade off.

-For me the most amazing thing about Nils training approach is how he pays attention to his body and uses his feeling to abandon bad workouts. This is the #1 thing to take away from his training. He starts every workout with the same warmup and tracks the workout with power, lactate and feeling. This mind-numbing consistently allows him to gauge how his body is responding to training with an accuracy that the rest of the world just doesn't. He knows his body so well that he is confident enough to quit at bad intensity workout. As I get older, I think the key to training well is knowing when to push and not to push. He MASTERED this and that is the key to elite training.

Using this approach, he said he quit more intensity workouts than ever before. He knew he has a incredible ability to tolerate pain but gutting out bad workouts doesn't make him stronger. Runners love to suffer through hard workouts, but suffering in workouts week after week won't make you faster. Trust me. Dialing in your body so you have the energy and confidence to nail good workouts will.

You hit the nail on the head. The real revelation here is not the 5-2 approach but the fact that he did almost all of his training for speed skating on the bike. Would this work for running?

What does everyone think? Do you think there’s any sense to applying this approach? Before citing the fact that cycling is not specific, think about point that this athlete makes… He took the specificity principle to the absolute extreme and only did his speed skating at world record pace. Anything slower was not SPECIFIC to the goal event, and so he eschewed longer, slower skating sessions favoring cycling instead. The idea being that cycling is easier on the body and you can rack up a much greater training load to develop the aerobic base.

could you not make the same case with running?