Great canova article

Thanks. I saw that link, but I don't see a "Time to Super-Compensation" page there.

You're right it was the wrong pdf and like yourself i cannot find the correct one. However, i have it on my computer but i am an IT noob and don't know how to upload the entire thing somewhere for people to access. I'm not completely noob though so i uploaded the individual page and it is at this link. ps is there anyway to upload images to LR?

http://i773.photobucket.com/albums/yy17/squid1111/olbrecht-supercomp.png

ari viderci wrote:

At the end, coaching is not a science : is an art. And artists need to know science, but scientists don't need to know art.

Coaching is a scientific art. Painting is more down the line of pure art and the physiologists are more to the scientific. But coaching is split down the middle nicely. Of course it takes some experience to be able to step outside the rigid boundaries of an early scientific knowledge base. Of course doing a Lydiard or a Cerutty, where science was not required in order to advance their own understanding, is not a very common path for a coach.

Art filed is absolutely inappropriate to define training or coach running. To say that training or coach got to do with art is what is bullshit.

By the way, In the debate of what is the correct length of recovery, if it´s 48hours how much percent of art is put in from different opinions ? What is the party of art appreciation o the 48hours length of recovery. When Ari Viderci or Renato Canova or anyone else what is art “out of methodology” or science or other rational analysis ?

ART deals with emotions, feelings, sensations and it´s IRRATIONAL. No one can say with rationale why loves that painting or other object of art more than other, only can run a few arguments, but that arguments are not rational. As no one can be right or logic because loves more one color that other, the yellow to the green or vice versa, no one can be right what´s his reason to love one music more than other. Art is subjective always. At the limit everyone might agree or disagree with the other about art appreciation, and no one can have a superior argument of reason superior the other in the logic rational field about art choice.

SCIENCE it´s opposed to art, because is RATIONAL and logic, deals with logic mind operations, be experimental or deductive. Science is objective wher´s art is subjective.

Training is a number of organized physical stimulus/efforts that lead to physical progress and performance improve and depending on the talent and physical ability tries to maximize that talent. Rich training from one method choice to a coach decision that might be built from rational and logic argument, despite some might disagree or would do different.

What can we dispute if another person prefers Picasso to Savador Dali ? At the end ther´s no rational argument, no science, no logic, no objectivity why one prefers one or other. As ther´s no irrational in the choice and decisions to one kind of training, Well some ignorant might done training choices by a reason of art, or a reason of heart ! like some choose the numbers of the lottery, but rich training it´s not supposed to be by some reason out of knowledge.

With training and coach we shall have logical metal operations to postulate why each decision, why follow one method, why build that one And not that one training schedule why elaborate that one precise training workout. Don´t tell me that the individual that follows Lydiard is by art, it´s not be what he supposed to be a reason of method, a scientific reason.

The training organization is a ACT OF EXECUTION that deals with choices and options that be by science background or experience background, or just trial-and-error, got to be rational. The decision of what training variables will be done in each training plan, shall come comes from knowledge be acquired by any form of knowledge gain. Therefore might be rational and to be rich coach and rich method must shoot out any Irrational consideration, or of is based just in emotions irrational as the art is , isn´t training or coach at all, is just a recreational alienation activity but not organized efforts.

Ther´s no kind art that think about periodisation, cycles, science, physiology etc to built an artistic material.

Performance deakls with time and space, with pace over distance, a objective reality. On this objectivities ther´s no room to artistic considerations, in the decisions of one coach should niot exist decisions out of objectivity.

Training deals with methodology, that in any case it´s experimental, or by experience as the science it´s either. The systematization of training is what is called training system.

What we might use for coach activity, seem as the executive decisions of one method or just the application of the coach individual talent is SKILL, a number of mental operations that are the mix of several sources of knowledge: logic, science physiology, training methodology, training history knowledge, experimentation, trial-and-error, investigation, every source of knowledge but all did belong to the RATIONAL field and add to that the emotional, motivation, the physiologic side of things, but all this is inappropriate to relate wit art, it´s relate with SKILL, the skill based on training knowledge, the SKILL OF TRAIN AND COACH and not the art of coaching.

ari viderci wrote:

We are different but not in the way you mention. My knowledge comes from a myriad of miniature scientific experiments and yours from other peoples experiments. However well crafted your method is (and it is very well crafted), the foundations of your thinking are others people ideas. Most people operate like this and you obviously do it better than most, however, i want original thinking and this you cannot provide, even though it appears to most on here that you are an original thinker. Cerutty, Lydiard, Matveyev, Igloi are all originals.

.

I don´t understand your appreciation about Igloi. Igloi was a good coach, and built up one training method that got nothing of original or new. Basically Igloi training is a revisionism of what Gershler-Reindell Freiburg school did build. It´s was not innovator because doesn´t contain nothing knew. Only did different interval workouts, but the source is Greshler interval training absolutely. Without want underestimate Igloi I would say that Igloi training is a copy from the Gersheler interval training with some adjustments and some refinement and that Gershler did define early on. Most methods coaches from the past, Sweden Volodalen fartlek (late version – you shall know this from your soil !),Be Michael Igloi, be British school from the 50s-60s, be French Raymond Channon, René Frassinelli, , the Polish method, Russian and Hungarian systems, Percy Cerutti, and also Lydiard got something from the main source of the Gersheler interval training, adjusted to their own training idiosyncrasies, What´s Lydiard training intervals from the late season did a notorious base of influence on the Gershler interval training. Even Ernst van Aaken that was very critic to the classic Gershler method did some interval influence from Gershler method ! Everyone that uses any kind of interval training, might realize that who first systematize that kind of training was the Freiburg scholl. Even Renato Canova that doesn´t follow the Freiburg type of training, be because doesn´t the same workout formats, be because he doesn´t follow the Freiburg regime micro-cycle sewquence, be because got more interval training type of diversity, but to few extend he uses the interval knowledge which the authorship and early systematization created by Gersheler. Of course, if we don´t live in the 50´s and 60s of the past century to follow Lydiard blindly we also shouldn´t copy the Gersheler formula precisely, what was made long ago and the reason it´s because everything progresses in knowledge and science and methodology and we shall take the fruits of experience from many training methods that did advance and not be confined to a fix training structure.

About Woldemar Gershler. I suspect that your training considerations tends to be scientific based. Why ? Because you refer Gershler as a man of science when if you research Woldemar Gershler role in athletics he was a practical coach, a coach of the field, that spent days, months, years monitoring directly the training of their runners on the track. Besides he started to got interest in training methodology the moment he was invited to coach one club team in Germany, before he got a science degree. But you classified him as a scientist. Might be I guess more interest to the science side of running than the methodological one ?

Woldemar Gersheler was a scientist as well as a coach – you can´t break the 2 and miss the other - that you can´t miss the coach to just name the scientist. What starts first or be primordial in Gersheler its like the “egg and the chicken” who comes first.

Gersheler did build training programs that he applied and followed the runners on the track with clockwatch. For example some portuguese runners in come to Freiburg in the late 50s and stay there for months to be coached by Gersheler directly on a daily basis. Who was just a scientist more than coach was Carl Reindell, a cardiologist.

I accept that he was an innovator the way he built one kind of training that he did formulate and systematize that is named interval training. However the kind of empiric interval training was been used long ago by others runners before Gersheler did formulate it.

Gersheler that´s only after to know how some pioneers of the interval training did train, it´s when he begins to put in science perspective the kind of training method, not the opposite.

It was not the kind of thing that by daily study he wakes up and in his laboratory taught “…and if instead of run continuous, I will try to run fast and slow”. No, It was not like that, It was while seen the empiric training of a few runners of that period and named the huge success that some that do that kind of training that Gersheler got the idea to investigate and try to put in science what later was named interval training.

There it´s nothing new or original, it was been done and essayed before Gersheler did it, simply before Gershler and Reindell it was not made as scientific method method that´s what Gershler did, with the help of Reindell.

The Interval training was a new innovator method, but was not Gershler the authourship and more important, was put in science after was been experimented and done by empirics, what is the case of most, if not all sports science methods.

We should try to be brief, but other people should continue their conversations anyway.

I guess i see it differently and our differences probably lie in our own definitions of art. To me art is another language. Science is a language and so is art. They are two different ways of describing the same thing. I personally find it useful to be able to look at things from both perspectives, even though my natural tendency is to be more scientific than artistic. In some ways i would like to learn one of the romantic languages just to be able to get a feel for an artistic version. English is very rational. Have you heard of Sri Chinmoy? He once said that Italian was the most spiritual language of all.

Following what you have quite eloquently expressed i would like to add the problem with science is that it is objective in nature, so individual differences often are lost in the generalised trends. And the problem with art is that it is subjective, and general trends often get lost in the individualisation. I call coaching a scientific art because i believe it bridges the two. It can find the balance between the objective and subjective. After all is it not the primary line of thinking we have been using in our discussion up to this point? Our talking about the generalised, objective figure of 2 days/48 hours and the subjective need to alter this depending on individual differences?

Is philosophy considered pure science? No. It exists outside of the scientific method because its hypotheses cannot be tested outside of the mind. Is philosophy considered art. I don't know the answer to that :) But what i do know is that philosophy exists in between art and science. In fact i think in one way it is science attempting to become more artistic. Regardless, a coach is also a philosopher because the principles of training are rooted in philosophical thought. Therein lies a connection to art. The next level down sees methodology being created as a bridge between the philosophical principles and the actual requirements of the individual athlete. So you take the principles in one hand and the athlete in the other and you connect them together with the methodology. Would you agree with this description? And do you agree that a coach should be able to thinking artistically about what he is observing?

ari viderci wrote:

Prior to that i would like to propose a situation to you, to see your opinion. An athlete trains a solid session that would normally be repeated in 48 hours. Say the first session was on Monday at 5pm. What differences do you see between doing the repeat session at 10am on Wednesday versus 6pm on Wednesday. I propose this because i believe that sleeping twice between such sessions is more important than the 48 hours.

I try my best from my personal experience but don´t wait one straight “black or white” straight answer from me. Just let me inform you my point of view.

When we say recovery we need to know recovery to what ? I don´t need to know just what was the runner profile that did it, i don´t need to know what was been that last/past solid workout (in your words).

For example we got Domingos Castro and Dionisio Castro twin portuguese brothers, train with the same coach. While Domingos was able to resist to 4 solid interval workouts in 7 days/one week, Dionisio do the first workout of the week – the same workout that his brother did- but he needed much more length recovery from one workout to the other. While Domingos got a quickly recovery and could resist to 4 solid workouts per week Dionisio only resists to 2 solid workouts per week maximum. This were 2 twin brothers, that are both professionals, that train together on daily basis, they run for the same team and compete in the same competitions. There the lesson I took it´s that recovery it´s very individual., and by the way the generalized rule of 48hours doesn´t work with them.

Now, while dealing with my runners I got to this conclusion.

Different systems need different length of recovery and if the runner is one, for a rich recovery understand from hard/solid workout we need to discriminate each one

1/the cardio-vascular system. It requires minutes to hours and normally no more than 1 day of recovery.

2/the muscular system. This one requires longer recovery than the cardio-vascular

4/the biomechanics system. It´s linked with the muscular system

3/the neuro-muscular system. This needs from very shorter period to very longer. For example I did learn that the stress of a real competition tires this neurologic system to the need fo long recovery that if you just run one time-trial workout equal to the competition, because of the tension and the stress that is put on the real competition.

4/ the glandular system. This kind of systems are very relevant and different glands got different need of recovery

5/mental (“system”). The runner got different length recovery to the same stimulus workout, depending of his motivation, his late success or unsuccess on late competitions and a large number physiologic factors that interfere might interfere in the length need of the recovery.

Another example about the mental influenced the recovery. The Spanish runner Mariano Haro needed to try a solid workout at race pace in the morning of the day that he will run on that evening. It´s well known that Mariano did 3X1000m at sub 2:40/kilo just few hours before 1972 olympics that he run a 27:50, 4th on that final. Do you really think that if he felt tired he would done that 3X1000m a few hours right before the Olympics ?

Then, you demand for simplicity ! ? ! ? For such a complex issue?

Finally, it´s take for grant that rest (sleep for example) influences the length of the recovery, sleep does it, quickly the recovery. the in your example 2 sleeps might quickly the recovery as one doesn´t.

From the perspective of fibers the fiber type the FT runner needs longer recovery than the ST, Because the FT for the same effort runs with high anaerobic demand from both system.

My actual conclusion about the length of recovery is this one. To prevent the overtraining, that in my opinion the overtraining subject is one issue of high concern, as important as the training stimulus, be a professional runner or an amateur, my early concept about the need of recovery it´s not to exceed 2 solid workouts per week or 3 workouts in 10 days, therefore I don´t disagree with the 48hours norm. This said, I repeat, training is an individual matter, therefore to built fix patterns it´s very dangerous and may prove to be a mistake. Each runner is a different animal, and in my opinion ther´s no rule, no principle, ther´s no rocket science knowledge that exceeds or replace coach experience and observation, what I named coach skill, not art.

About intervals and all that stuff, I dedicate many posts to the subject ion this board. If you want my opinion it´s just to do the search on this board.

For one long thread about interval training and other training stuff related with my training approach you might read my posts on mine and John Hadd thread

ari viderci wrote:

Following what you have quite eloquently expressed i would like to add the problem with science is that it is objective in nature, so individual differences often are lost in the generalised trends. And the problem with art is that it is subjective, and general trends often get lost in the individualisation

Let´s forget what we name it , “art”, “subjectivity” or simply name "the thing", it really doesn´t matter for what i want to express at this moment about your comment.

I guess that individual needs comes first, or say it differently, individualization is the main issue of training, or say it a different one sentence again, the individual matter in the training context is more relevant than the generalization, because in reality the coach normally deals with one different runner at each time, and the exaltation tends to be in the side of the individualization, not the generalization.

Only if the coach deals with collective schedules what I guess is not the case it´s where and when the principles of generalization are in the front line of interest otherwise if it´s a single schedule for one individual the focus is on the individualization. Just imagine that i built one and only one schedule for 30 runners from the same team - i got to be concern with generalization and the individualization would just take the background. How I need to do about recovery. I will follow the 48 hour rule eventually.

But in fact, the coach that might design one schedule for each of his 30 runners, he need to care about individualization in the front line and in each one single/individual schedule for each runner, l the principle of generalization it´s just the background, something to remember but before to take a decision based on the each different runner profile. Here, the front line is the individualization, or in your lexicon "the art" or the “subjective” or “the thing”. Here we go back again to analyze your answer and Renato Canova answer about the recovery. If we consider that the target is build individual schedules and decide about training recovery need, there Renato was right about to say that the 48hours rule is a bullshit, that is think is a way to say deficient. Only if we are thinking about one collective schedule that fits in several runner profiles is where and when the rule of 48hours that you did exalt might be in the front line. Otherwise to affirm the individual need it´s what is important.

As it´s supposed that we got some training master, it´s more adjust that we express the ned of training individualization. I think so.

Antonio Cabral wrote:

I don´t understand your appreciation about Igloi.

Just quickly, i shouldn't have written all of that so quickly with little consideration. A better way to say it is that those people are all explorers. Self-regulating experimenters. Constantly testing and re-testing, observing as much as possible, and drawing intuitive conclusions. I agree with you that Igloi wasn't necessarily the same type of originator as a Lydiard or Cerutty or even a Holmer, but he was still an experimental explorer. I think the difference as you point out, between an original thinker and a masterful re-arranger of other people thinking, is simply that. One is coming up with a new way of explaining something and the other is piecing together a range of other peoples great ideas. For me the explorer is more interesting, but the manager is also to be admired. Just to be able to decide what was important and what was not is a very powerful ability. I think Peter Coe may be the paragon of this type of coach.

Antonio Cabral wrote:

Let´s forget what we name it , “art”, “subjectivity” or simply name "the thing", it really doesn´t matter for what i want to express at this moment about your comment.

I'd like to get back to this briefly at the end.

I guess that individual needs comes first, or say it differently, individualization is the main issue of training, or say it a different one sentence again, the individual matter in the training context is more relevant than the generalization, because in reality the coach normally deals with one different runner at each time, and the exaltation tends to be in the side of the individualization, not the generalization.

Most definitely, the more we know about someone the more we personalise/individualise with them. But to be honest i cannot say which comes before which. They both seem interconnected to me. If i had no knowledge and therefore no understanding of the normal ranges of what i was looking at, how could i individualise the athlete in front of me at all. I wouldn't know what to look for. So some understanding of the generalised trends is essential in being able to individualise. I will try and explain how i see it.

I simply go through the process of comparing the qualities of the athlete in front of me, with what they would be like if the qualities we in an ideal balanced state. So i compare each quality with where it should be if the athlete was already balanced and optimised. Then i spend the days months and years bridging that gap. A simple and common example is - your upper body is not strong enough to enable active use, so it is basically only serving to act to counterbalance the weight shift in the lower body. Whilst learning to counterbalance more and more efficiently is a performance enhancing activity, being able to actively drive with the upper body to enhance the leg drive is another thing entirely. Furthermore, learning to drive in a way that directly connects to the lower body is even more beneficial. The test whether to add some focus to readdressing this imbalance can be seen in a sprint (without fatigue) and a hard race (with fatigue). I find the ability to do 3x10 full chinups and 3x6 on bodyweight in benchpress to cover the basics of it. To get to these levels is an individual path, but the end result is standardised ie 3x10 or 3x6. But it isn't just standardised it is also individualised, because both exercises are determined by bodyweight. It is really a mix of individualism and generalism, as i think is always happening. We just need to be wary as coaches to tread the midline between the two, not swaying too far into one or the other, for too long.

is simply whether they can feel the additional power in their lower body when they upper is activated. Since this only tests outside of fatigue it's inconclusive and we need a second test. Usually the memory of their races is enough to know if they can gain upper body drive under heavy fatigue.

Only if the coach deals with collective schedules what I guess is not the case it´s where and when the principles of generalization are in the front line of interest otherwise if it´s a single schedule for one individual the focus is on the individualization. Just imagine that i built one and only one schedule for 30 runners from the same team - i got to be concern with generalization and the individualization would just take the background. How I need to do about recovery. I will follow the 48 hour rule eventually.

But in fact, the coach that might design one schedule for each of his 30 runners, he need to care about individualization in the front line and in each one single/individual schedule for each runner, l the principle of generalization it´s just the background, something to remember but before to take a decision based on the each different runner profile. Here, the front line is the individualization, or in your lexicon "the art" or the “subjective” or “the thing”. Here we go back again to analyze your answer and Renato Canova answer about the recovery. If we consider that the target is build individual schedules and decide about training recovery need, there Renato was right about to say that the 48hours rule is a bullshit, that is think is a way to say deficient. Only if we are thinking about one collective schedule that fits in several runner profiles is where and when the rule of 48hours that you did exalt might be in the front line. Otherwise to affirm the individual need it´s what is important.

As it´s supposed that we got some training master, it´s more adjust that we express the ned of training individualization. I think so.[/quote]

^apologies - only the first two paragraphs were meant to be there. I so often forget to check down in this testbox before i post.

Antonio Cabral wrote:

The training organization is a ACT OF EXECUTION that deals with choices and options that be by science background or experience background, or just trial-and-error, got to be rational.

My working definition of "intuition" is "judgment based on experience". And in the moment of training execution, the coach may not even know concretely which facts and truths he/she is weighing up. Should there be a list of all the factors, with some rational decision-tree? Too many runners, too many variables, too little time.

So when a coach uses intuition, the act of coaching becomes almost irrational, "arational" perhaps, and I think one correct term for coaching by intuition is ART.

Arational is good. I like it. I agree that irrational doesn't work. Mostly because what was intially the intuitive becomes the rational later on as we come to explain it more thoroughly.

I was talking to a friend of mine about this not long ago and i said to her something like 'the intuitive mind is the one that that makes connections between things that were previously disconnected'. She replied with 'that's only the starting point, lateral thinking. Thinking outside the 'box'.'

Then last week i was talking to another friend on this topic (he is an artist) and he said the intuitive and rational minds are just different levels of the same thing, our intelligence. Intuitive just appears to be different because it is reaching into new territory, it hasn't become a well worn track yet.

They both seem good points on the issue.

Time to tackle this one, admittedly it a little daunting.

perfect.

It would be interesting to know more detail into this situation, to actually find out why there was a difference, and such a big one, between two people who are in a more identical situation to each other than just about anyone in the sport.

[/quote]Now, while dealing with my runners I got to this conclusion.

Different systems need different length of recovery and if the runner is one, for a rich recovery understand from hard/solid workout we need to discriminate each one

1/the cardio-vascular system. It requires minutes to hours and normally no more than 1 day of recovery.

2/the muscular system. This one requires longer recovery than the cardio-vascular

4/the biomechanics system. It´s linked with the muscular system

3/the neuro-muscular system. This needs from very shorter period to very longer. For example I did learn that the stress of a real competition tires this neurologic system to the need fo long recovery that if you just run one time-trial workout equal to the competition, because of the tension and the stress that is put on the real competition.

4/ the glandular system. This kind of systems are very relevant and different glands got different need of recovery

5/mental (“system”). The runner got different length recovery to the same stimulus workout, depending of his motivation, his late success or unsuccess on late competitions and a large number physiologic factors that interfere might interfere in the length need of the recovery.[/quote]Ok interesting. I do think recovery from solid cardio training can be done with a 24 hour frequency but i'm obviously far from the first. Even so, a maximal session targetting this quality would still need more than that to allow for supercompensation. It still appears to need two sleeps to achieve this. I just found that on the second morning the athlete is fully recovered whereas with more intensive sessions its required that day as well to enable the same level of recovery. The muscles seem to need 48 hours to repair themselves sufficiently. The neuro-muscular is strongly tied into the biomechanics for sure. As the neuro-muscular fatigues the motor control abilities diminish and so fine skill is lost and even total loss occurs like the Russian Walker recently experienced. This factor is heavily dependent upon how much latent fatigue is in the system, ie fatigue running over a number of days. The greater the fatigue the harder it is to train the neuro-muscular. I guess for this reason skill training often occurs at the beginning of sessions.

This is a good area and one not well understood yet. Hopefully more research will be done in it. Personally, on the day of competition, i had to test myself out as well, for peace of mind. So between waking and eating i would move around and gradually increase my effort until i i could get the feeling of 'on'. This would involve running on the spot, some situps, squats and eventually squat jumps. As soon as i felt 'on' i would go and eat. His test sounds a little extreme for my tastes but then again the 10k seems a little extreme so possibly i just can't appreciate how easy that session might have been for him. What was the recovery by the way? Also, perhaps this factor is a big one when looking into your twins example above.

I guess this was my real interest. I'm wondering how much more effective sleep is when compared to going through an easy day versus going through a strenuous day.

See i don't know. I am a FT type and 48 hours was the global rule for me. Once in the rhythm of training it gets pretty standard, especially as one irons out the lifestyle so transition from one session to the next becomes smoother and smoother.

Is what you are saying that 2/week is what you use early on with an athlete before it becomes 3/week? If so then this is the same for me. First once a week, then twice a week, then 3 times a week. If the athlete can dominate 3 sessions/week then we can add a fourth. The twice a week gives 72 and 96 hours recovery, which quickly becomes too little, hence the move to 3/week. It is hard to do 2.5 so the jump fropm 2-3 is very common. At 3/week we have 48, 48 and 72 hours recovery. I've always felt that the third interval of 72 hours was essential as repeating 48 hours soon becomes impossible.

And thanks for the link, i will check it out.

Renato:

Thank you so much for information on Job Kinyor and Leonard Kosencha. Could you give examples of Lactic Resistance and Aerobic Power training for these two guys? Thanks. PS I have ordered your book and I am looking forward to reading it when it arrives.

Alan Bennet wrote:

Antonio Cabral wrote:

The training organization is a ACT OF EXECUTION that deals with choices and options that be by science background or experience background, or just trial-and-error, got to be rational.

My working definition of "intuition" is "judgment based on experience". And in the moment of training execution, the coach may not even know concretely which facts and truths he/she is weighing up. Should there be a list of all the factors, with some rational decision-tree? Too many runners, too many variables, too little time.

So when a coach uses intuition, the act of coaching becomes almost irrational, "arational" perhaps, and I think one correct term for coaching by intuition is ART.

Sorry but i don´t agree.

Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without the use of reason. There if it´s without the use of reason, it´s irrational.

Intuition covers all extra/out knowledge of perception or everything might be known by one individual out of the rational knowledge.

Or if you got no past experience at all about the issue of coaching and training, you got no knowledge at all about the training issue, ther´s not intuition knowledge that might guide you to build one rich workout, one training schedule, any rich advice about training methodology.

A skill is the learned capacity to carry out pre-determined results often with the minimum outlay of time, energy, or both. In other words the abilities that one possesses. I continue to think that skill, training skill it´s what you use

However “arational” it´s an interesting word.

ari viderci wrote:

It would be interesting to know more detail into this situation, to actually find out why there was a difference, and such a big one, between two people who are in a more identical situation to each other than just about anyone in the sport.

Your answers tend to push to the scientific side of things. You want to determine the cause that produce such effect, the rational justification, you want measures, percents, to quantify.

Let me tell you one story, that might able to understand that everything that might fulfill got a reason, but doesn´t need to be done with by highly scientific operation.

One day I was invited to dinner with my wife and son. The man that invited me was a cook as well as a nutritionist. “Very scientific” you see. The man, the nutritionist did prepare the meal with what supposed to be the nutritionist rocket science. He weights and measure all the food, knowing how much proteins, lipids, carbos, water, minerals and vitamins and how much calories each meal component did to what supposed to a wealthy good balanced meal.

I didn´t like the taste of the meal and my son got stomach sickness caused by the “scientific food”.

By change, the very next week we got another meal invitation but to a almost analphabet old woman that was the cook, without scientific knowledge and consequently no idea what is a mineral, a vitamin, a carbo or calories, but just what are the name of the food, what´s fish, carots, bread, water, etc.

After this meal, and related to the other from the nutritionist, we all did like a lot of this woman meal at the level of taste, and after this lunch we felt that was a fantastic meal, no one got sick consequence from that meal.

As you might understand, be food or training, both empiric and scientific ways can be effective or ineffective, depending not from the kind of knowledge, but from the skill of the individual that faces the problem.

The ultimate answer about one training method or just one training issue, the kind of answer that covers the total spectrum of the training needs, that satisfies as absolute, ultimate, finished answer doesn´t exist.

If we knew all, ther´s no need to investigate, no need to study, no need of science or skill, all were written in the manuals. If we knew all there would be no need to try new paths that is the “use your imagination” from Renato Canova. But the solution it´s not also to follow one teacher, one master, one coach blindly, or to accept what one coach or one training manual once told as the undeniable ultimate answer to the training question we look for.

Apologies for my last post, it was a mess.

I understand your analogy and concur with it. In fact i've tried to make a similar point in the past with certain examples. What i found is what i guess i'm saying generally, the path to udnerstanding is not one way or another, it is both. As Einstein famously said "science without religion is lame and religion without science is blind." So we subsititute the subjective for religion and the objective for science. One without the other doesn't work out, so both are needed. This is why we need a Lydiard or a Cerutty, to insulate us from the proto-science lobby, who think they can work out how to coach people from laboratories. Ans this is wht we need science, to filter out the more ridiculous subjective beliefs.

In your final paragraph you state that it is important to have a broad range of teachers. I agree with you but not from the start. It is a decidedly post-modern tendency of our world to overdo the information input. Thanks to technology, we can now access the opinions of the entire world in a lazy Sunday afternoon. From what i see this just leads to confusion generally, for the simple reason most people aren't grounded in their own experiential knowledge before they begin. In my opinion it is important to have a single input at the beginning, and once this is established, and only then, undertake testing this knowledge out against the spread of opinions. In the past this was systemised. A blacksmith for example would enter an apprenticeship, to a single master, for some years. Once this period was over, as determined by the master, the apprentice moves into stage two of the process, and becomes a journeyman. This stage can only occur after the knowledge base was solid. Now the journeyman goes out into the world with his knowledge and skills and checks out what everyone else is doing, it is the period of cross-comparison. He wouldn't be able to do this if he didn't have the solid fundamentals already in place.

Renato, your posts on middle distance training are fascinating. If the long/fast continuous runs at 85-95% of race pace and long intervals like 5x2km are the "staple workouts" or main focus during the general or fundamental phase for an aerobic-type middle distance runner (Snell or Coe), could you give some examples of speed-oriented workouts that a David Rudisha-type "speed-oriented" middle distance runner might do as his staple training sessions?

So in other words, if you are setting up a training program for an athlete with aerobic fitness as his goal, the main workouts are the long/fast continuous runs and long intervals. What are the main workouts for an athlete whose strength is his speed and speed-endurance and who is relatively weak aerobically?

Consistently sought out by some of the most talented athletes, Canova currently overseas the training of 12 of the top 20 marathoners in the world, as well as his new charge, Kenesia Bekele.

http://www.americandistanceproject.com/Index/coaches.html

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When did coach Canova take over the training of KB??!!