Renato Canova - Arthur Lydiard Coaches Roundtable

I'd rather just get the response straight from Canova, but you were comprehensive with covering it from at least one side of the fence.

Nobby's 5 points are the crux of it (page 4 in the PDF). I think Canova and Lydiard would actually be on the same page about items 1-3 when coaching their specific athletes. Items 4 and 5 are the tricky ones. And while this may be where they start to diverge, ultimately their theories aren't too different. It's just that in running a 2% difference between athlete A and athlete B is the difference between running in the Olympics or not. Both have the right idea, but Canova is much more specific.

Wetcoast, I was somewhat disappointed after I read this. You said it was a Lydiard and a Canova discussion, not a 1 vs 2 thing. I found the discussion very one-sided and dismissive of Canova.

Here are some off-the-cuff thoughts I had, feel free to dismiss them:

Nobby mentioned that if someone did Canova's hill sprints without being elite, they would have "no control" over when they ran well. Canova has written extensively that the point of these sprints aren't to go to the well at all, that they're more like uphill strides to develop power/strength. You're supposed to take full recovery between each so you're completely alactic.

It struck me that the panelists were trying to paint Canova in the same light as Antonio Cabral, who remains almost willfully ignorant of Lydiard training and goes to great lengths to distance himself from anything Lydiard did. Canova, on the other hand, has written that Lydiard got a ton of stuff right, but in the last 40 years, the sport has evolved and training has had to evolve with it. That isn't a knock on Lydiard at all, just an acknowledgement that a big-money, year round sport might have different physical requirements than in Lydiard's day. An amateur athlete without the benefit of a Kenyan-sized base could probably get by just fine on reading Running to the Top and letting that be the end of it, but for a 2:07 marathoner looking to get an Olympic medal, the 1-2% variation in Canova's icing recipe (to borrow Lydiard's cake analogy) might be the difference between some hardware and being left off the Kenyan Olympic team.

Just because Canova might have taken the cake recipe and added some vanilla and maybe tweaked how the icing is made doesn't mean he's claiming to have invented cake. On the other hand, just because the icing is a little different doesn't mean it's the same cake Lydiard made. Of course the basic ingredients are the same, and broad principles Lydiard described remain as true today as they were in 1960, but that doesn't mean other coaches don't have meaningful input to add.

They didn't stop giving out the Nobel Prize in physics after Einstein published his theory of relativity, right? Physics still owes lots to Einstein, and certainly, in their respective fields, Einstein and Lydiard were giants who advanced the knowledge of mankind through incredible genius. However, physicists like Hawking have since been able to stand on Einstein's shoulders and figure out stuff Einstein didn't. I think it's ditto for Canova and Lydiard.

Lydiard gave us an awesome base of knowledge and principles to work from, but there's no reason for that to be the end of it. I'm all for giving Lydiard his proper due (and, many times, he doesn't). I'm very glad you guys make your stuff available to people who either don't know what Lydiard principles are or are mistaken about implementing them. At the same time, though, coaches like Canova should be embraced as the "next logical step" of Lydiard principles instead of being dismissed because Lydiard did something similar.

This is a very good post. It amazes me how people hang onto Lydiard like he had all the knowledge and nothing can be added to it. The Einstein analogy is apropos. Lydiard had a lot of things right and gave many people a base to work with, but distance running will never advance if we don't open our minds a bit and question his methods, just as many aspects of Einsteins Theory of Relativity have been questioned, and at times, improved upon.

Does aerobic really have to be first?

Can we refine AT pace and recovery pace more precisely?

How much anaerobic lactic is too much early in the year and how much is not enough?

A lot of these questions can be answered more precisely with more study and I think all of us coaches realize that there is no recipe for all athletes. The best coaches can see the differences in how different athletes adapt. That is what made Lydiard and maybe Canova effective.

This was a pretty rough read. "Discussing Canova" and not one mention of modulation, supercompensation, etc. And again bringing up Japanese long runs of 50km without mentioning that Canova agreed that these are effective, but they need sufficient recovery afterwards.

It takes time to understand Canova. It's a complex system. The man himself would probably agree that his fundamental phase is very similar to Lydiard... Actually, I'm stopping here. This is like talking to a wall.

Agreed that Craig's post was well written.

Agreed that we should have open minds. No one is "hanging on".

If you read Trevor Vincent's contribution, he made it clear that after knowing most of the top coaches, he feels no one gets it exactly right, THAT is a balanced post.

Nobby's first post speaks exactly right. Canova's hills are for the top-level Kenyans. I am pretty sure that is exactly who Canova coaches. That is pretty clear.

I think the only serious "knock" on Canova is not on his method, because he is clearly a world-class coach, but that he has knocked Lydiard. He also, should have an open mind, just as you propose.

Anyway, the original post makes it very clear that this is from a Lydiard direction. So where is the surprise? And what is stopping anyone including Champions Everywhere from doing the exact same thing from a Canova perspective? Nothing!

I like the fact that you can read an entire discussion without it turning into an insult fest and losing focus.

Believe me Wetcoast, I'm not a big fan of Canova himself although I agree with a lot of what he does. I'm also not sure if he is the best coach around. There is a big difference between being the best coach and having the best runners. most of us coaches know that he we don't have talented runners, nobody cares what our system is.

Here is a contribution from somewhere else by a very good coach and runner I wont name. I am copy/pasting his message. If he wants to say who he is, then fine:

It's pure gold. Livingstone is one of the sharpest guys I've ever come across in running circles.

On the Canova/Lydiard comparison: As a longtime student of social and political thought and intellectual history in general, this reminds me of discussions that often happen around comparisons between major figures from earlier historical periods and popular/influential figures of today. Here as there, there are a couple of things that are frequently misunderstood by those intent on cutting major figures "down to size", or suggesting that some contemporary figure has surpassed in basic understanding the major figure. One is that, to have been a major innovator does not mean to have developed something wholly new, and out of one's own completely independent research. Major innovators start out like anyone else, simply trying to solve a an existing problem/issue, or set of problems/issues. What gives them lasting important is the distance they manage to travel in addressing this problem/issue, and the directions for new thinking and research they manage to indicate. (And, of course, a few manage to move the masses and create large scale historical change). It's not a valid criticism, therefore, to list the number of lesser known contemporaries on whom the master relied for insight. Major figures become important because they are usually great synthesizers, managing to make more out of a basic insight than those around them. The second thing is that major innovators form earlier periods can't be faulted for not solving every problem. Even major figures are products of their time; they can't be evaluated in terms of their ability to solve problems that could not reasonably have occurred to them in their day. Nor can contemporary figures be credited for having things to say about these same problems.

Running is just running, of course, and Lydiard is not Karl Marx or Sigmund Freud; but, Lydiard is the closest thing distance running has to an innovator of that stature. It takes a bit of an effort of historical imagination to understand the context within which he was operating, and thus the full scale and importance of his innovation (or, you could just listen to some of the people who are either old enough to remember his impact or interested enough to do the research!); but, no one before or since has had even close to his impact on the sport. In fact, so important and basic has his contribution been that its origins have all but disappeared, such that many think it's simply "common sense" that's been around since time immemorial; or, that perhaps someone else, maybe even they themselves, came up with the ideas that are its basis (like J.M. Keynes "practical men" who are really "the slaves of some long defunct economist")!

Something like this is going on with a guy like Canova, who doesn't seem to appreciate his debt to Lydiard, or who seems to confuse method with practical application. The result is that he imagines he has "improved" on or "corrected" Lydiard without really understanding the nature of his basic insight, or owing anything to it. At best, a guy like Canova is a talented under-labourer to Lydiard, destined to be remembered alongside of a dozen other lesser figures in the history of the sport. Worse, I think Canova is a triumph of image over substance-- an opportunist and a colourful expositor of an ultimately minor and derivative version of what Lydiard and many of those he influenced were doing decades before him. As a European who has managed gain a special access to Kenyan athletes (and, let's face it, how many European or North American coaches would be willing or able to spend as much time in Kenya as he has?), he is in a very unique position to self-promote (which he's not shy about doing). He is clearly a knowledgeable and generally competent coach; but, how can we really compare his record to that of coaches without his special access to the largest single pool of athletic talent the world has ever known? Furthermore, it is widely (and quite reasonably) suspected that many of the top Italians from the era in which he did his coaching there were blood-boosting, casting still further doubt on his status as a top coaching mind. A nice and generous guy he may be, but he has no business whatsoever criticizing someone of Lydiard's stature.

That was gold Chris.

great post except the stuff about blood boosting.

EPO doesn't help Kenyans according to Canova. Apparently, they respond differently (i.e. not at all) to this drug than other humans.

I would think he didn't mean the Kenyans are boosting. Just that back in the era when Canova was working in Italy it was rampant in Athletics. Lets not go down that route anyway.

Very interesting article, well done.

I continue to be baffled by how people are so willing to tear down Canova as being "unappreciative" of Lydiard's work.

Let's get a few things straight:

1) Renato Canova has repeatedly spoken at length (right here on LRC in fact) about the great advances that Arthur Lydiard made in training. He understands that he owes a great deal to him, but he also pains to point out that he ALSO owes a great deal to some of the other "greats" in running history, some of whom are not given their proper due because they didn't write or speak English, or worked with more obscure athletes. Mihaly Igoli, some of the Russians, and other eastern Europeans fall into this category. I myself am guilty of not giving them their proper due!

2) Renato Canova is also honest: things have changed a lot since Peter Snell thundered to victory in 1960. It's silly to look at Canova's training and say "well it looks a lot like Lydiard, so clearly he hasn't really innovated." That's hogwash. Most training programs are comprised of the same pieces, and on paper they look fairly similar—easy running, intervals, fast running, etc. But what matters is the PRINCIPLES WHICH DICTATE the workouts. And while Canova incorporates some of Lydiard's principles, others are completely different. Indeed, those who criticize Canova as not having innovated anything are really just ignorant to his methods.

To that end, I suggest you educate yourself a bit. I've done some writing on his methods myself:

http://tinyurl.com/4x6obmj

http://runningwritings.blogspot.com/2011/09/peaking-with-renato-canova_28.html

Just because Canova's runners do fast intervals sometimes and long runs sometimes and Lydiard had people doing the same thing does NOT mean they are basically the same training recycled again.

3) Canova's athletes regularly do training sessions unlike anything Lydiard ever prescribed. While "Run to the Top" prescribes a 10-miler at "3/4 effort" (which I always interpreted as something close to marathon pace) once a week, Canova prescribes a much broader variety of long and fast running. Furthermore, his long-fast runs (whether they are at 70%, 85%, 90%, or 95% of 5k pace) are intended to accomplish very different things than what Lydiard was attempting to accomplish with his 5k and 10k time trials. The periodization is also completely different. Lydiard never prescribes any structured interval workouts for several months at a time (conditioning and hill phases), while Canova dedicates several months' worth of time to race-specific training (special and specific phases).

4) Canova and Lydiard had completely different attitudes towards race specific workouts. Lydiard believed "anaerobic" workouts (i.e. track intervals) were "icing on the cake" and only served to enable you to put your aerobic fitness to work. Renato Canova believes (and correct me if I'm wrong, if you are reading this!) that THE MOST IMPORTANT WORK YOU DO is your race-specific training. All other training (including the aerobic development) exists ONLY to support this training. Canova has said that "80% of training is TRAINING to TRAIN" while the other 20% is actually training to race. Lydiard was quite carefree about interval workouts—as long as they were reasonably challenging, he did not worry so much about how far or how fast each one was. Canova, in contrast, is VERY specific about the speed and distance of various repetitions in interval workouts and what purpose they serve

For example, according to Canova, 500-1000m intervals at 105% of 5k pace (~3k pace) serve a completely different purpose than 400-600m intervals at 110% of 5k pace (~1500m pace).

Don't get me wrong: I love Lydiard's training ideas. I've written a booklet on them. But I'm also a realist. It's laughable to think that Canova is just imitating Lydiard without realizing it, and if only Lydiard's boys had been racing marathons today they'd be busting 2:05s. Canova is a true innovator, as anyone who has even a partial understanding of his ideas can attest.

Craig's got it right: The Einstein:Hawking analogy is very applicable.

I am not going to answer for those who you are responding to, as your points cover a few different contributor's comments.

I will say though, you suggest educating one's self with your links (which I will go to). Yet you quote a published program in one of Lydiard's books. If you truly new Lydiard well, you would know for sure that he hated publishing programmes for this exact reason as you have quoted from them. He only published them because he was asked to, as they "sell more books" and "buyers want them".

So for your education it would be best to quote his principles and not specific written programmes from his books. Each athlete is an experiment of one.

In regards to the "ignorance comment". I will suggest that many of the people who do put down Lydiard turn out to be ignorant of the program. I have no idea if Canova is ignorant of the program, but I wrote that he could be (like for all we know he could be sort-of-speak). Whether it is laughable or not is a matter of opinion. I know of coaches for example the anonymous one above, who have a broad knowledge base and are familiar with all the latest coaching methods and stick to their point that we are standing on the shoulders of who came before us. To that, I have heard that Canova has pointed to Lydiard to say he was a great innovator/coach and all that and there are people that provide examples of where he has changed his opinion and has put him down.

Regardless the purpose of the roundtable was to be able to discuss and publish a talk from a Lydiard perspective by people who are very knowledgable about the method without it turning into a gong show. Not that what you wrote is part of a gong show - I am referring to some of the garbage that you see in other Lydiard threads....checking out your links....

Some observations:

Seems strange that Renato, while still alive, is not in the roundtable.

Did Renato really coach Tergat? In the long version of the roudtable, it seems to indicate that he did.

In Renato's notes from Charlotte 2011, for the 800 or 1500 athlete in the fundamental period, Renato lists a long run up to 60 minutes for the 800 and up to 80 minutes for the 1500. He also has (for a 3:50 1500 guy) 3 x 2000 in 6:30 recover 2 minutes once/wk. He also has 5 x 1600 in 4:45 recover 3 minutes once/wk after the first 3 or 4 weeks. He also has 15 x 400 in 62 recover 2.5 minutes once every ten days. Is there any version of Lydiard that would have those workouts so early, or cap the long run at the durations given by Renato?

Just to be clear, those intervals are all listed in the fundamental period.

The more I see about Lydiard these days, the more I think runners everywhere would be much better off if the garbage he spewed about running had never existed. I did go through the original run to the top in detail, went through the Lydiard programs several times, have most if not all of his books, and increasingly over time found his ideas to be blatantly deficient. I ran my best times prior to and after discarding the experiments with his programs, with my own training devised by myself.In addition I met Lydiard and talked with him on several occasions, and he appeared to me to be clueless. He was a not very intelligent man, who copied programs from others, tossed them together as his originals, and had no use for anyone else but himself, his own runners and his fame. If that sounds harsh, then get off the bloody soap boxes and stop spewing the nonsense. I will say that my best friend and training partner is a staunch believer in Lydiard. Here is an example, from the front page of OP's link.

Nobby Hashizume: As far as I’m concerned, it’s almost silly and useless to talk about the DIFFERENCE between Canova and Lydiard because they are pretty much identical. Of course, they LOOK different when you ONLY look at Canova’s marathon program and Lydiard’s marathon program.

Yeah, so they are pretty much identical, and only LOOK different, uh, when you look at them.

In fact they are totally different, and have no more relationship to each other than do others, especially Gershler, Cerutty, and Igloi, in relation to Canova.

Yeah and I wonder, if you really want to know about Canova and what he thinks about training, why not just ask him.

Put a resume together and go apply for a contributor's position for The Onion.

Your post wasn't harsh, it was bsolutely asinine.

Northern Star wrote:

4) Canova and Lydiard had completely different attitudes towards race specific workouts. Lydiard believed "anaerobic" workouts (i.e. track intervals) were "icing on the cake" and only served to enable you to put your aerobic fitness to work. Renato Canova believes (and correct me if I'm wrong, if you are reading this!) that THE MOST IMPORTANT WORK YOU DO is your race-specific training. All other training (including the aerobic development) exists ONLY to support this training. Canova has said that "80% of training is TRAINING to TRAIN" while the other 20% is actually training to race. Lydiard was quite carefree about interval workouts—as long as they were reasonably challenging, he did not worry so much about how far or how fast each one was. Canova, in contrast, is VERY specific about the speed and distance of various repetitions in interval workouts and what purpose they serve

I agree with Lydiard here: I wouldn´t say that THE MOST IMPORTANT WORK YOU DO is your race-specific training. Why? Let´s compare a runner A who´s an "aerobically" trained athlete completely without race specific work, and runner B, who does only race specific training. Let´s say they are 800m runners. Runner A does ONLY slow aerobic running, with some pure short sprinting to prevent loosing speed. Runner B does interval training at race pace, short reps, short rest and longer ones with longer rest. He must have superior economics/efficiency at race pace, you think. He does some easy running in the warm ups+cool downs and maybe between intervals. Then you start racing 800m. Runner A is rusty in the first race, and thinks that why I didn´t get anything out of me. Runner B ran with good technique, started fast and looked great, although the last 200m was a bit worse. But it will get better as the season progresses, he/she thinks. The following will happen during the rest of the season: runner A will improve drastically race after race, looking strong, recovering quickly. Runner B´s races get worse and worse; he goes out fast, looking great, until the pace slows down even more quickly than it did in the start of the season.

You see, runner A did great even COMPLETELY neglected the race pace work. I don´t say that was the optimal way to train but if I have to say what is the most important training even for an 800m runner, there´s no question what it is. It´s the slow aerobic running, by slow I mean that you stay under or at the aerobic threshold. Of course you can and should do some "aerobic training" at higher intensities also in the base phase. But should be done just enough, not too much and not too intense. And of course you can and should do the race pace strides in the base phase, but the point was what is the most important training of a distance runner.

What Lydiard and Canova thinks about interval training, when "Lydiard was quite carefree about interval workouts—as long as they were reasonably challenging, he did not worry so much about how far or how fast each one was", this is also a golden attitude in my opinion in the pre competition period. Then your goal is to get your heart rate close to it´s maximum, and that could be done by just running hard, there´s million of ways to do this. Of course you can do this running at your race pace, when speaking about middle and long track distance running, so you get the race pace work also in the same session. But the ultimate goal is to get the aerobic/anaerobic power in shape AFTER the base work you´ve done in the base phase.

Conclusion, the race specific work is often overemphasised at the expence of basic endurance training.

Wetcoast wrote:

Put a resume together and go apply for a contributor's position for The Onion.

Your post wasn't harsh, it was bsolutely asinine.

That's the type of response I would expect from a closed minded Lydiard proponent, for whom the truth is foolish or stupid.

Not at all closed minded. In fact I prefer Gabriel Rosa's marathon programme to Lydiard's. I have also made it clear many times that he, Lydiard was not great with him terminology - I mean the scientific terms were new back then for everyone. You and I have the luxury of having him and others do a tonne of work, so we can casually throw around training information like it is common knowledge.

You are hiding behind a psuedonym, bash away.