Zatopek's Training

well it's too hardcore for highschool

haha please elaborate.

Not useful, period. He ran lots of tight intervals, 40 X 400 m as an example, running each 400 AS FAST AS HE COULD, with a minimum recovery, sometimes only 100 or 200 m fast jog. Obviously the curve eventually fell off....He also ran some winter workouts in army boots, in snow. From what I've read, he did little steady running or road mileage, although his "time trials" would equate to tempo runs.

This really isn't a workout pattern for high school runners, even if you own a pair of army boots. You'd beat yourself to death and probably wind up injured; Emil was a very tough guy, and lucky not to break down himself.

That is pretty tough. I might borrow his 40X400 workout.

Zatopek trained pretty well exclusively for 5K/!0K distances though he raced well up to marathon distance.

His best 1500m time was about 3m51s I think,about 4m10s mile pace.His training mode might help you get a good base for specific work later.He did not run his 400's all out as suggested.Many of his volume sessions were like 40x400 in about 80s with 200m jog between.Good stamina work,high aerobic range for him.

You think that would be got for a 2 miler? Or should I do something more speed based?

He ran 400s hard. Of course he would start out fast, then slow, then pick it up. The actual speed at which he ran his 400s was all over the board. Thus when you see 40 x 400m I would guess maybe a half or a third were really fast. Go try it instead of asking questions. My guess is that by reps 20-25 you would be slowing down then you'd have to "take off" a few reps and run pretty damn slow, once recovered you may be able to rip off a few fast ones again. His rest between each I'm also guessing likely was all across the board. If you finish a rep barely being able to stand, my guess is that you'd need a little more rest, go get a drink of water, then jog, so the actual time spent resting will be much greater.

Alan

he ran 4x400 per mile

in army boots

Zatopek's intense, interval-based training was an advancement for its time. But his innovations had their limitations, and so his methods were absorbed but improved upon by later innovators like Lydiard and Bowerman, and that process of improvement in training methods and science has since continued. So why would you ignore the subsequent knowledge developed by looking back to what Zatopek ran? Pick up a good current book by people like Daniels, Pfitzinger, etc. They instill what has gone before them.

he upped it to 50x400 in, i think, 1949.

some in 65, others much slower. he said initially, I know how to run slow; I need to know how to run fast. So he started out by running 100s and gradually upped it. This from lore of running. If he had been doing tempos and long runs, the world records would have been a lot faster. But he was essentially doing fartleks for 18 miles or more a day at a certain point.

he would run 40x400 with no rest but never 10 milers.

He would run up to 40x400 twice a day for several days.

His training was mind boggling.

There are some very good threads about Igloi that give you a more in depth view of this sort of intervals-based training. We don't really know that much about Zatopek's workouts, other than the very high volume of intervals, so it's hard to know how to replicate it. If done properly, I think that this training could be very good, although I've never tried anything like it.

Zatopek famously (though who knows how reliably) ran ten straight days of 60 x 400 with 200 jogs. The pace for the 400s was roughly 80, with the 200s maybe at 45.

In other words: if the reports are correct, he was running 36km/day at 6:00/mi pace or better, at a time when the world best for 42.195km was about 2:20 (= ~80/400).

He ran somewhat higher quality than most of his competition, at a vastly higher volume than almost everyone else. He won a lot, too.

But note that he didn't just run 400s. Sometimes, when he felt he needed to work on speed, he'd do 200s as well.

o.k., straight from noakes, citing doherty, wilt, benyo:

until 1947, alternating daily:

1. 5x150m, 150m jog in between; 20x400m, 150m jog in between; 5x100-150m. 400s in 67-77, shorter sprints slightly faster.

2. 5x150m, 20x400m, 5x200m.

by 1948:

5x200m, 20x400m, 5x200m, with a 200m jog lasting 1 minute.

200s in 34. 400s in 56-75 or slower, starting faster and gradually slowing. 18km total per day.

October 1949: now 28 km per day.

Beginning 1954, needed to train twice per day. In April, started doing 10x200m total and 50x400m, for more than 30km per day. Doherty says that the speed varied from 65 to nearly walking.

18 world records. 5k,10k,marathon golds in 1952; gold at 10k and silver at 5k in 1948.

Emil Zatopek wrote:

I just wanted to know what most of his training methods were and if its useful for someone in high school track training for the two mile.

"Simple," he said. "I run, and run and run."

Printed from

The TIMES of INDIA

He ran and ran and ran

8 Aug 2004, 2312 hrs IST

With the Athens Games barely four days away it's time for Olympic gup-shup . The other day SS Narayanan, one of our 1956 Melbourne Olympic football stars, recalled what an experience it was for him to see the Emil Zatopek, the Czech long distance champion of the 1952 Helsinki Games, train in the flesh.

Delhi's track and field fans of that generation will remember the visit of Zatopek, with sobriquets of "Human Locomotive" or the "Czech Express". It was in the 1950s when the cinder track of the National (now Dhyan Chand) Stadium was the centre of athletic activities in the Capital, a much smaller and more compact and manageable place in those days.

Visiting Delhi University for a session with runners there, Zatopek was asked about the secret of his training. "Simple," he said. "I run, and run and run."

No less a fanatic for training was Zatopek's wife Dana Zatopkova, the javelin champion of those years. She revealed how when she was forced off the javelin runway with a broken leg, she took to chopping wood to keep her throwing arm strong.

Emil Zatopek wrote:

I just wanted to know what most of his training methods were and if its useful for someone in high school track training for the two mile.

"Simple," he said. "I run, and run and run."

Printed from

The TIMES of INDIA

He ran and ran and ran

8 Aug 2004, 2312 hrs IST

With the Athens Games barely four days away it's time for Olympic gup-shup . The other day SS Narayanan, one of our 1956 Melbourne Olympic football stars, recalled what an experience it was for him to see the Emil Zatopek, the Czech long distance champion of the 1952 Helsinki Games, train in the flesh.

Delhi's track and field fans of that generation will remember the visit of Zatopek, with sobriquets of "Human Locomotive" or the "Czech Express". It was in the 1950s when the cinder track of the National (now Dhyan Chand) Stadium was the centre of athletic activities in the Capital, a much smaller and more compact and manageable place in those days.

Visiting Delhi University for a session with runners there, Zatopek was asked about the secret of his training. "Simple," he said. "I run, and run and run."

No less a fanatic for training was Zatopek's wife Dana Zatopkova, the javelin champion of those years. She revealed how when she was forced off the javelin runway with a broken leg, she took to chopping wood to keep her throwing arm strong.

There have been so many reports over the decades about what Zatopek did specifically. That he did huge numbers of 400s has never been the question but there have been lots of variations about how fast.

I'd heard that the 400s were around 60. But Ernst van Aaken, who corresponded with Zatopek at times, asid that some of the 400s were fast but that many of them were done in around 96 seconds. His comment about Zatopek's 400s were that he (Zatopek) did "20 x 400 meters jogging and 200 meters (the recoveries) less than jogging." Van Aaken thought that it was the high volume that Zatopek did that made him as good as he was.

Lydiard, as I recall, thought so too. He said something to me once about what impressed him about Zatopek's training was that he ran so much. This actually was some of Arthur's inspiration early in his running career as he pushed himself to bigger and bigger volumes.

Zatopek was quite the hero for Lydiard and his runners and one or two of them did get to know Zatopek and did talk with him about this. I can't think now if it was Barry Magee or if I got the story secondhand and it involved Bill Baillie. Whoever it was thoght that what happened was that Zatopek would start the sessions running pretty quickly for the 400s and then slow as the session wore along and fatigue took its toll.

60x400 @:80 /200 @:45 rest ..would equal 5:35/mi for a total of 36k/22mi, if run continuously.

lease wrote:

Zatopek famously (though who knows how reliably) ran ten straight days of 60 x 400 with 200 jogs. The pace for the 400s was roughly 80, with the 200s maybe at 45.

In other words: if the reports are correct, he was running 36km/day at 6:00/mi pace or better, at a time when the world best for 42.195km was about 2:20 (= ~80/400).

He ran somewhat higher quality than most of his competition, at a vastly higher volume than almost everyone else. He won a lot, too.

But note that he didn't just run 400s. Sometimes, when he felt he needed to work on speed, he'd do 200s as well.