Norwegian Training Approach - Threshold Focused

Here is the article for the Norwegian model from Marius Bakken for reference:

http://www.mariusbakken.com/the-norwegian-model.html

The advantage to training at 2.5-3.5 mmol is that it trains your ability to clear lactate almost as well as higher intensities without accumulating as much lactate in the blood and muscles, so one can do more volume of work. Tinman’s CV workouts are closer to 5 mmol. So as a stimulus of just the aerobic system Bakken argues it can’t be beat. Bakken does stimulate vo2max, he goes straight to 8-12 mmol once a week for 20-40 minutes with a hill workout of 2x10x200m.

Here’s is the research paper from Stephen seiler for reference:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/46403553_What_is_Best_Practice_for_Training_Intensity_and_Duration_Distribution_in_Endurance_Athletes

Is that also the weekly hill workout the Ingebritsens do most the year? I had assumed it was more of a hill sprint but watch videos of it the workout looks more like 200m.

Thanks for the response and makes sense. So they are not necessarily trying to improve aerobic capacity with this threshold approach, just lactate clearance? If this is the case, would you advise for newer endurance athletes to first try to develop their aerobic capacity as much as possible and move into this threshold focused approach once one has multiple years of training under their belt?

I’ve always thought of threshold training to develop a better fractional utilization, and this can eventually come at the expense of your upper end and aerobic capacity (similar to the concept of “aerobic power” that Jan Olbrecht talks about). So it’s not necessarily the best approach to Focus one’s training around for long term development.

As for the hill workout you mentioned, I knew that was a staple but didn’t think of it as stimulating the vo2max, more so just keeping speed in the mix to touch on the upper end. Will shorter intervals with longer recoveries like this also develop the aerobic capacity and vo2 max? Thanks

Its correct that the Ingebrigtsens run for 200m.

I believe the hills are an Ingebrigtsen thing, and not Bakken. Though Bakken suggests doing short reps at 8-12 mmol once a week.

OP, could you be more specific on what you’re looking for? What physiological piece is Bakken article missing?

Hello, physiologist here. An important thing to understand is the definition of a threshold.

Any physical work above resting will produce some amount of lactate that will raise blood lactate levels. An easy run, for example, will indeed raise blood lactate a little bit. But as long as the athlete holds that pace, the lactate level should be stable.

As the workload increases, the lactate level will increase. And as long as the workload is below lactate threshold, the lactate should remain stable at a stable workload (running pace in this case). Once the workload is higher than the threshold, then even though the athlete may be able to sustain that workload for a while - including multiple longer intervals - the blood lactate will keep rising at that workload.

This threshold has often been assumed to be around 4 mmol/l blood lactate for pretty much everyone. Clearly, that is not the case, according to Bakken's writing. It seems that training effects on the CV, pulmonary, and muscular systems as well as training effects on the liver to clear lactate causes that threshold to occur in elite athletes at a blood lactate level that is lower than 4.0 mmol/l. It looks to be closer to ~3 mmol/l.

So, my take on this is that perhaps what many athletes call or think of as threshold pace may be actually too fast - leading to overtraining and injury. The Norwegian approach seems to be that respecting this lower blood lactate level as the true just-sub-threshold level allows one to train more at a high aerobic level without overtraining. And the results seem to be showing.

The LT work improves your LT pace which is the single most important factor in distance races 3km and up. The 2x10x200m hills are at 8-12 mmol which is about the same intensity as being in the middle of a 5k race. This keeps them in touch with the lactic system in a way that is specific to their race distances of 1500m-5000m. They (Ingebrigtsens) work on speed via a session of 80m strides after their weights session on the days before the threshold days

And it looks like some good responses came in while I was typing mine out...

To the OP, all endurance workouts increase aerobic capacity to some degree - easy runs, threshold, VO2 max, etc. No type of endurance workout does one thing only (the example you gave was "just lactate clearance"). Yes, threshold workouts are good for challenging the system that clears lactate, as it provides a physiological stress that can be met, stimulating a greater capacity to do that the next time the physiological stress is encountered. But threshold workouts also increase aerobic capacity. There's a ton of overlap.

In addition to the replies above, a couple things:

1. There are a variety of ways to categorize the maximal speed at which you can be at steady state. MLSS (maximum lactate steady state) is one. Critical speed or critical power is another (critical velocity is I guess critical speed, but it doesn't make sense to use the term velocity). Some of these terms are mathematical (critical speed) or from field tests. Some are based on lactate testing (MLSS). In the end, "lactate threshold"/"anaerobic threshold"/MLSS/CS are all approximations of essentially the same thing. Which one you use depends on what how you are testing it.

The important thing is that this value, whichever you use, is very highly correlated with performance in distance running (or cycling, triathlon, etc.). So what the Norwegians are trying to do is elevate this "threshold" as high as possible.

2. People say "4.0 mmol" as if this is the "threshold". Critical speed doesn't happen at a specific lactate value (because that is not how it is tested). Maximum lactate steady state happens at a lactate value. It turns out that in trained runners this value is significantly lower than 4.0. That makes sense -- it is silly to train at a lactate value that is a population median/mean. The point of lactate testing would be to individualize your effort. Of course you should individualize your lactate values you are targeting.

My take on what the Ingebrigtsens are doing -- they are maximizing volume near this MLSS/CS in order to raise it as high as possible. In order to do this and not break down, it is critical they don't go "over the threshold" because the stress on the body would then outweigh the benefit. At least, that is the theory.

Clearly whatever system Jakob et al are using is highly effective. And I think there is a lot to learn from their mindset and approach to training. People who think it just depends on "double threshold" are missing the point.

My reading of Bakken and the Ingebrigtsens, is that the basis for their system comes from Marius' observation of successful runners in Kenya, and a little experimentation to try to adapt that from running on dirt roads at elevation in Kenya, to conditions in Norway. Not from theory.

You also can't look at things in a vacuum. Let's say 4x5 at Vo2max is the best possible workout for boosting vo2, economy and threshold. Great. But what if you can only do it once/week for 8 weeks til you get stale? Maybe you get better results doing 8x5min at a slower pace 2x/week.... Each workout might be worse but the totality is better. .You see this effect a lot in research papers were they only look at 6-10 weeks of training.

Recent trends during base phases is to go slower and longer. Instead of doing 20mins at HM pace, you do 40 at mp. And doing things like 400s instead of miles let's you up the pace while keeping the lactic levels in check.

Great question, I'm very curious to see what others have to say.

What types of workouts would someone do with this sort of approach if unable to run twice a day? Do they do fartlek at LT on Tuesdays and tempo on Fridays for instance? What types of fartleks (number and length of reps and recovery) and how do they progress throughout the season?

Going to chime in here.

We have seen this type of training before in many successful runners. I think the Norwegians have made it the main focus of their training and refine in to near perfection.

We’ve seen this type of running benefit a to. Of runners. Ron Clarke, Steve Cram, Carlos Lopes, Bernard Lagat, EL G, Geb…. And many many more.

difference is a lot of those runners were getting this type of running just from daily continuous runs in between their other workouts.

After reading what Marius has written it seems the success is really down to the “blocking” or “double days” and the total volume of the workouts. They are able to get to that volume and make it repeatable week in and week out because it’s done in intervals vs continuous format and the pace is exactly under those threshold levels

Why would you do fartlek which is basically the opposite of this highly disciplined approach? Why wouldn't you just do slightly harder threshold workouts. Say 30-40 mins of work instead of doing 2x 25-30 mins of work?

Feels like reasonable approach for a HS/serious nonelite runner would be along the lines of 2 weekly aerobic sessions along the lines of

Session 1: 5-6x1 mi at MP

Session 2: 16-25x 400 @ 10k pace. The rest should keep the blood lactate down

Obviously you can use HR/lactate or whatever you have to monitor intensity. Or any of a dozen different workout variations

some strides/hills 2x week if you can't handle a 3rd workout. Get a bunch of easy 45-75 min runs and you are going to be in decent shape for a 6-12 week event specific block from 1500-hm..

I appreciate the responses in this thread; not only this quoted one but all of them. Makes for great discussion.

I am going to ask a pragmatic question here: I know much of this is paced on actual, real-time blood testing to dial in the pace/effort. I get pacing-to-lactate levels will vary across not only athletes, but also within an individual athlete across various sessions/efforts/conditions (heat, accumulated fatigue). But let's try to best match a pace as an analogue to these lactate mmol levels, and let's pick a 15:00 5km athlete as an example. His or her Daniel's T pace is 5:14. The Tinman Threshold and CV pace ranges are 5:23 - 5:15 and 5:08 - 5:01. I *think* Pfitzinger would also have around a 5:15 LT pace (but I don't have his books in front of me).

Roughly what would we think the Norwegian training pace would be for this athlete compared to those training paces from other author's training plan. I'm having a hard time thinking of what effort and pace that may roughly equate to compared to other training efforts.