Specific Lydiard hill phase-is it necessary?

TJ wrote:

Would it not be possible to develop and maintain these qualities with a weekly hill bounding/springing workout (e.g; 6-8 x <10secs with long recovery) during the base phase combined with a hilly ~2hr long run on Sunday?

Just to clarify one point of your question... you are wondering if 60-80 TOTAL seconds per week of hill bounding/springing is enough to develop these qualities? (6-8 x <10secs). Plus, of course the hilly long run.

TJ, I have been coaching runners for over 35 years, using the Lydiard approach to training. I honestly do not think you can get the same benefit from 10-12 weekly sessions that you would obtain from the concentrated 12 sessions in one month approach. What I have seen in most runners is about a 1 minute 10 km time improvement at the end of the month the first time they go through the sessions. In subsequent years, the return diminishes, but it still significant. I would recommend you plan to include a hill springing "month" whether you are training for the 5 km or the marathon.

Glenn

TJ

Good Question....I don't have a direct answer but just finished reading this on a different forum:

"What I believe Lydiard hit on that has stood the test of time is not so much that training has to be strictly periodized, but that certain types of adaptations last longer than others, which creates a rational way to structure training. He may not have been looking at it this way but since it seems he developed his method through experience I think the two things converged. An enlarged left ventricle and cardiac muscle, muscles, and muscle capillary density take a long time to build but also degrade slowly once training them has stopped. Some things, like mitochondrial density, are more intermediate in duration. Finally others, like enzyme levels, are relatively short in duration. Lists not all-inclusive

However, there is overlap in what type of running activity trains what, so you can't come remotely close to isolating one thing.

A good base builds cardiac conditioning and output, muscular strength, musculoskeletal resilience, and capillary density. These things are not going to suddenly go away when you switch emphasis to something else because a) they are relatively long-lasting, and b) whatever else you are doing is likely still training them to some degree. Then hills build muscular strength and tempo/aerobic work builds mitochondrial density. Finally, hard intervals put the cherry on top by priming enzyme levels, something that you can acheive quickly (hence the quick payback in fitness from intervals) but will go away about as quickly once you stop working them. Obviously this picture is greatly simplified but I think it really helps illustrate how a periodized program is supposed to work....and why a lot of us don't think strict periodization is necessary."

Back to me. I believe there is a big difference in a Hilly Run and doing Hill Wind Sprints and a 2hr hilly run does not = those 10sec bursts. But yes, once that system is built, you can back of on what you were doing in the phase specific and still maintain what you gained.

dhdhdhhdh,

Yes I can confirm that 60-80 secs of hill bounding/springing per week is what I had in mind. My thinking behind this was that by keeping the work bouts to less than 10secs I could optimally train the type IIb fibres without triggering the lactic acid system.

Glenn,

Thanks for your reply, I have been reading these massage boards for sometime and I value your opinion as a knowledgable coach with first hand experience of Lydiard's training methods.

The improvements that you have witnessed in your runners is proof enough for me include a specific month of hill exercises, however I understand these can be quite tough on the body and I am slightly apprehensive about jumping into the springing/bounding without having introduced it gradually in stages towards the end of the base phase. Would this be a good idea? and if so do you have any suggestions how I could begin to introduce these exercises in anticipation of the hill phase?

iruneveryday

Thanks, some good points there which have certainly helped me understand things better.

TJ, I would include a 200-400 meter climb in a weekly run, 3 to 4 weeks before you want to start your month of hill springing. Go into the drill form 1 time that week, then each week add one more climb using the drill. That will allow you to adapt to the stress gradually. Yes, the drills can be tough. I've had runners stop after 1 or 2 weeks the first year they did them. Basically, we do not use good knee lift, ankle drive and quad force in doing base work. These workouts redevelop those. Of course you will be sore, as with doing any activity you have not done in a while. Arthur would tell his guys that they would not plan on racing during the hill phase. They would be sore from the work. So yes, a gradual incorporation of some of the techniques you will use would be a good idea. As with most of Lydiard's phases, you should do a little of the next phase's activities toward the end of the current phase. Thanks for the positive comments.

Good running,

Glenn

TJ,

Just to add a little to Glenn's excellent suggestions... I believe it was in my Running with Lydiard book (though it might have been the Ron Daws book on the Lydiard method) that he suggests during the base phase (prior to the hill phase) to 1.) push a bit on the uphill portions of your steady runs, still keeping them aerobic but pumping the arms faster, lifting the knees higher, and intentionally pushing off harder with your trail leg. He mentions the strengthening benefit of doing this, and that obviously you would only do such a thing in training.

I personally, have only gone through the Lydiard cycle once so far. In the weeks leading up to the Hill Phase, I would occasionally do some light springing on a few uphill portions in the middle of a general training run. Sometimes once a week, sometimes a few times a week. Whenever I thought about it and felt like it. I figured this way it would not be such a shock to my body... especially my achilles, which I was particularly worried about.

In my anecdotal experience of 1 cycle, I was able to make it through the 4-week hill phase without aggravating my achilles. The light prep work I did might have helped, and might be worth a try.

Good luck.

lydiards hill phase is a poorly designed predecessor to peter coe's phase 2. its like applying keynesian economics when the austrian school prevailed through the financial collapse. stupid americans.

moneyoverjustice wrote:

lydiards hill phase is a poorly designed predecessor to peter coe's phase 2. its like applying keynesian economics when the austrian school prevailed through the financial collapse. stupid americans.

Moneyoverjustice,

Can you summarize the key points of why you say that? I'm looking to learn, and have read a few lydiard books and tried one lydiard cycle so far. I have just started Peter coe's Better Training for Distance Runners, but haven't gotten to the phase 2 part.

I guess I'm a stupid american by your standards, but you've got to start somewhere, and I'm trying to become less-stupider. :)

(I've also read a fair bit about Austrian economics, so clearly I'm moving in the right direction! haha)

Glenn and dhdhdhhdh

Thanks for the suggestions, they are much appreciated and I will incorporate these ideas in the last month of my base phase as recommended.

If I may, I would also like to ask a question about the 4 week anaerobic phase.

Whilst I understand that Lydiard wasn't especially concerned with the distances or speeds during this phase as long as the aim of creating a big oxygen debt was met, from reading 'healthy intelligent training' and other threads on this forum, the general consensus is that in modern terminology this is VO2max training. My question is, could I jump straight from the hill phase into taxing 3-5k pace interval sessions or would it be advisable to first spend 4 weeks building up from half marathon/10k pace sessions (as laid out below) so as to ensure a smoother transition to the faster training paces?

Week 1: 3 x 2 miles @ HM pace w/ 2-3 mins jog

2 x 3 miles @ HM pace w/ 2-3 mins jog

2hr long run / 90mins inc 60mins @ MP

Week 2: 2 x 3 miles @ HM pace w/ 2-3 mins jog

6 x 1 mile @ 10k pace w/ 2-3 mins jog

2hr long run / 90 mins inc 60mins @ MP

Week 3: 6 x 1 mile @ 10k pace w/2-3 mins jog

5 x 2k @ 10k pace w/ 2-3 mins jog

2hr long run / 90mins inc 60mins @ MP

Week 4: 5 x 2k @ 10k pace w/2-3 mins jog

6 x 1k @ 5k pace w/3-4 mins jog

2hr long run / 90mins inc 60mins @ MP

My concern is that in doing this I would be lengthening the training cycle to 30-31 weeks (12wks base, 4wks hills, 4ks 1st anaerobic phase/transition, 4wks 2nd anaerobic, 4wks coordination and sharpening, 2-3wks freshening/taper) and I would run the risk of peaking too soon and/or including to much anaerobic training.

Apologies for such a long winded post, all thoughts appreciated.

I'm having similar conversations with a coach at the moment and would like to pose a slightly different question:

If you are doing normal base work AND 60-80m hill sprints AND heavy weight lifting (3-6 reps, cleans, squats etc as Livingston and many others advocate) all through base, do you still benefit from the full Lydiard hill phase?

In my best seasons in my youth, I did a Lydiard-style hill phase - although it was more like 12 sessions in 6 weeks, as it happened in the tail end of the UK XC season. And I got exactly what Glenn McCarthy saw - a one minute speedup over a 5 mile XC race, moving up from 15th-20th place in the local XC league up to 4th place despite being very worried that I hadn't done any long reps and feeling tired. But back then I wasn't doing leg strength work in base phase.

I ask this because this winter (20 years on) I have been doing heavy weights and some 60-80m hill sprints as part of my base work, under the guidance of a coach with a 200-400m background. And I sure as hell have more leg speed than I normally would at New Year, correcting for age. My hill phase kicks off next week.

My own feeling is that the Lydiard phase wasn't so much about pure strength as about strength-endurance: being able to maintain good form for longer and longer. Lydiard's sessions built up to a total of many minutes of sustained work.

So, too, does one of Peter Coe's sessions: start with 10x100m uphill, build to 30-40x100m, adding 5 reps each week. (I should note that they did this session because the Coes had a good 100m hill behind their house, and another good one in Richmond later on, not because 100m is necessarily a magic physiological distance).

I also read recently that Jeremy Wariner does drills pretty seriously, building up progressively to 200m+ of high-knees drills. Sounds like the same kind of thing to me: develop the specific muscle endurance before starting the hard intervals.

TJ wrote:

My concern is that in doing this I would be lengthening the training cycle to 30-31 weeks (12wks base, 4wks hills, 4ks 1st anaerobic phase/transition, 4wks 2nd anaerobic, 4wks coordination and sharpening, 2-3wks freshening/taper) and I would run the risk of peaking too soon and/or including to much anaerobic training.

Apologies for such a long winded post, all thoughts appreciated.

If you are concerned about peaking too soon or too much anaerobic training, why are you doing 8 weeks of anaerobic training?

Lydiard included the hill phase the way he did at where he did it because his runners did a block of aerobic conditioning before they moved on and did faster running. If you include some faster running during conditioning, you may not even need it though really that's not the point here. Something like short hill sprints, popularized lately, can bring you to the peak fairly quickly and I believe that's a part of intention given the fact that many of Canova's runners race quite frequently year-round. If you want to do more of a periodization, and do something like these short hill sprints, you probably don't have to worry about "bring back power and flexibility in your legs."

On the other hand, if you are worried about moving too quickly to faster running, that's what hill training is for. I would even do hill phase longer (6 weeks maybe) instead of doing "anaerobic" phase for 8 weeks.

Is hill training phase necessary? It's not necessary particularly if you're racing pretty frequently and including some faster running during conditioning (though then it's not really conditioning any more). You can probably do some longer slower repetitions instead of hills though some of the benefits will be lost that way but you can certainly alter it that way. Is it better to include it? I would think so.

People switch things around way too much now. If you do some short hill sprints or some pace runs or something like that during conditioning, there's no need to "transition" to faster running phase because your body is already prepared to do so. Then is hill training phase necessary? No. But that's not really a Lydiard cycle any more is it? So it boils down to; do you want to try out a Lydiard cycle or something else? If you want to do Peter Coe's cycle, go ahead and do it. Then what's the obligation to stick with "Lydiard"? Nobody is twisting your arms to do Lydiard. You can certainly mix things around but it's probably, in my opinion, not going to be as effective because then the elements of "crap shooting" goes up much higher. Just my opnion.

TJ, Arthur's comments about anaerobic work were "it is all eye wash". If you understand what your goal of doing the work is, then you do the work that will achieve the goal. One runner would do 10 x 400 at mile race pace with 2 minute2 recovery, the next 5 x 1 km at 10 km pace with 2 minute recovery. If they achieve thier goal impact, then both were successful. Arthur truely believed there were no magic workouts, just objectives to be achieved. Systems to be trained. His famous quotes about taking Richard Tayler to a field to run repeats when questioned by a reporter: Reporter:What are you going to have him run? AL -"1 km repeats" Reporter: "How many?" AL-"As many as he needs to do" Reporter: "How fast?" AL-"As fast as he needs to go" Reporter: "How much rest?" AL-"As much as he needs".

To me this is the where coaching migrates from science to art. Arthur could see changes in form and style and would change a workout accordingly. If you read about Bill Bowerman, he had that same sense and eye. He could tell when a runner had achieved the workout's goal. Accomplishing the objective is much more important than doing the prescribed number of repetitions.

I agree with Nobby. Lots of people claim to follow a Lydiard program. But if you change the approach to fit your desires, than you are really not following a Lydiard approach. Though it has been over 50 years since Arthur recruited and trained his "boys". The system still works when followed diligently.

Glenn,

Please allow me to ask you a quick question about your experience with the hill phase.

For a 4 week phase, how many times per week do your runners do hill springing/bounding circuits? 3? or 2?

My original understanding was that it was 3x per week (from a Lydiard presentation, Ron Daw's Self-Made Olympian, etc..). However, I just read "Running with Lydiard" and both the "Experienced Marathon" plan and the "Distance Track - men, senior" plans only have you do hill circuits 2x per week for 4 weeks.

The marathon program has hill circuits 2 days, a 5,000m time trial 1 day, easy fartlek 1 day, 10x100m leg speed 1 day, and long aerobic running 2 days. The distance track program drops the time trial and adds another leg speed day.

Anyway, this surprised me when I saw this. Having a bit more variety is appealing to me, so do you see anything wrong with following the hill phases I've described? Again, it's Lydiard's book, and it has 4 weeks of 2x per week.

Thanks.

dhdhdhhdh, I was Arthur's translator during one of his visits to Venezuela. At that time he was in favor of 3 times per week with leg speed work three times per week and the ubequitous long run the last day. That was 1973. He also did the hill circuit that was described in his original book. Runners who could handle it did 4 complete circuits each workout. In discussions I have had with Nobby, Arthur added different drills in the years that followed, and shifted around the work load to be more accomodating to the variety of athletes he was working with.

An example of how effective these workouts can be was Luis Romero. He was the Venezuelan record holder in the marathon at the time (2:36). His nickname was "Sloth", because he could run forever, just not very fast. Arthur had him do stadium stair repeats 3 afternoons a week. After 4 weeks when the national team began running trials, he ran a 1:51 800 and a 22.7 200. The 800 was a 12 second improvement, the 200 over 5 seconds. In the trials for the Central American Championships he ran a 3:48 1500, which was only seconds from the National record and a 20 second improvement for him.

Do not know what else to say than Arthur would likely indicate that fkexibility in your approach to training is important and that your program should be established to develop your weaknesses while maintaining your strengths. He was likely to say different answers to the same question, based on how he felt at that moment. It is part of what makes trying to apply his programs from books so difficult.

Glenn and Nobby,

Thanks for your thoughts.

Nobby,

Fair point. To be clear though, isn't the coordination/sharpening phase also mainly anaerobic in nature? in which case my plan actually includes 12 weeks of anaerobic training. My reasoning for this is twofold. Firstly I believe Lydiard said that 'anaerobic development takes 10-12 weeks to achieve maximum levels' and secondly because the longer period would allow me to transition smoothly to the faster race pace workouts. Having said that Glenn and yourself have helped me realise that if the hill phase has been successful then these concerns are unfounded

Glenn,

Whilst I understand what you're saying, for me it's difficult to know at any one time what the exact purpose of the workout is. Is there not more to it than 'developing the ability to incur a big oxygen debt'? Surely the two workouts you gave as examples would achieve very different things? Is there not some general guidelines on the periodization of these anaerobic sessions? I would be very interested in your thoughts about this (specifically with regards to 5k and marathon training)

TJ, you are absolutely correct about the impact of a workout with regard to specificity for the event you are training to complete. When I layout a plan for a runner, I start with workouts that should be a more gradual progression from the base work they are doing, say repeat miles. Then based on how those go, I decide what is next. If I am taking a runner toward a more anaerobic distance, I do try to incorporate more anaerobic stimulating workouts rather than say VO2 Max workouts. The goal is to improve on what shows as weaknesses in races or workouts while maintaining, if not improving the strengths that are evident in the workouts as well.

Also Arthur did allow for 12 weeks to reach maximum performance, but part of that was accomplished by honing in on racing performances, time trials and workouts aimed at specific objectives to help improve racing, while tappering and cutting back on real work.

The faster paced stuff is mostly aerobic not anaerobic.

And you are right to question this idea of 'developing the ability to incur a big oxygen debt'? Which is a completely false concept and the wrong way to train, because the so called oxygen debt is mostly due to increasing acidosis, which should be avoided more than accumulated. Notice how many of the World's top runners are not gasping for breath at the end of races despite the very fast pace.

With regards to the hill bounding, don't do it like the guy I saw on the Lydiard Foundation website, he was doing it completely wrong, you are supposed to be gaining stride length, not bouncing up and down.

This is letsrun at its best. Someone asks a specific questioin about Lydiard hill training and someone else who thinks he knows it all and knows it better comes on and drives us all off the side of the road...

Glenn actually worked WITH Lydiard in Venezuela. Nobby ran some clinic with Lydiard and that hill training video is something he put together for Lydiard's last tour in 2004 and Lydiard himself showed it during the clinic and made sure the audience saw it. Besides, I think somewhere in his book, Lydaird said something about it is important to get your center of gravity up and down to get the best effect of hill training.

If someone wants to do hill training the J.O.Way, we'll come to you and specifically ask your opinion. But meanwhile, if I want to do hill training Lydiard Way, I'd much more inclined to go to Glenn or Nobby.

J.O. wrote:

With regards to the hill bounding, don't do it like the guy I saw on the Lydiard Foundation website, he was doing it completely wrong, you are supposed to be gaining stride length, not bouncing up and down.

J.O.,

There is hill running, bounding, and springing.

This video seems to match up pretty well with Lydiard's voice description.

The springing you are most certainly supposed to bounce up and down. The bounding, I suppose less so.