Reviving the Van Aaken Method

Run today went smooth, nearly no pain. Same pace as yesterday, about 9 minute pace i guess.

I know that Van Aaken/Norpoth Training is not only about LSD, but at the moment it is what works best for recovering from the shin splints and to just do something rather than nothing.

When my shin allows me, I'll incorporate some fartleks at roughly 7min/mile pace. Norpoth did his famous 5x2000, but thats a little too much for me compared to overall mileage so I'll replace that by some 8x3min/1min off or 4-6-8-10-6 pyramid stuff. Anyhow, pace remains.

Also 3-4 strides will be included in the easy runs (at the end of them).

Van Aaken's son told me that he and his dad ran 10km after work each evening in an hour. But they didn't run at a steady 6:00/km pace. They ran at a bit of faster pace and had walking breaks. Assuming that he missed a day or so each week, something that seems likely because someone who once trained with him posted here and said that van Aaken's own running was often erratic because of the time demands of his coaching, you're probably running about as much as he was. He wrote an article suggesting 4-15 km a day for most people.

As you probably know, EVA was a proponent of "flooding the system with oxygen" and believed that gentle running was the way to do that. He once wrote an article speculating that running could prevent cancer. But he was adamantly against the sort of hard running that induces breathlessness believing that such running could cause heart problems and also negate the anti-cancer benefits of running.

If you saw the threads here with some samples of Norpoth's training you see that Norpoth did do some race pace running, I think there were sessions of 3-5 x 500 in 75 or so. I also recall a 45 minute session of one minute fast and one minute recovery. But that was the highest level of training and represented only a small per cent of the running. But Norpoth did do a fair amount of interval work, it was just done at slower than race pace.

Other van Aaken athletes, his earlier track runner like Roland Waschke, also did quite a bit of interval work but it was also done at slower than race pace, for the most part. Waschke, a sub thirty 10,000 runner from the early 60s, would do a session like 25 x 400 at 75, slower than race pace along with easy, steady runs of 10-20 km.

From what I've been able to gather, not all of EVA's workouts were that structured. A lot of it was just easy running done on roads or in forests. He emphasized running "playfully," so you're working along his lines on those runs with no stopwatch. At some point on those runs, if you're shins are OK, you might change the pace a bit, go a bit faster than you've been,though not "hard," walk if you feel the need as recovery, etc.

Easy running was the basis of his system but in the US in the 70s when he became quite popular, a lot of people came to think that there was nothing but slow running in his system and that is not correct. In your case right now, I'd emphasize easy runs and do a session like the 350s with the 50 meter walk, maybe working the 350s into a "run" rather than a "jog" when your shins can handle it.

If you're lucky, a poster called "vladmir," who trained with van aaken for a while will see this thread and chime in.

Really appreciate your answer, HRE!

Youre right, from the threads availiable here I get the impression that his target group consisted of non-runners which he tried to engage into running and 'hobbyjoggers', not highly competitive athletes.

Nevertheless there were some pretty fast guys like Norpoth and Steffny.

I might have to modify this to some extent since I want to continue competing and improving but I like the general idea which stays in contrast to the models most clubs and programms nowaday use, maybe I would just join them but my body doenst seem to like it, at least he tells me so the hard way...

The 500's: I'll use strides instead of them at first mainly because of intensity and to not hurt the ratio of Slow/Fast. Plan is to slowly progress. Strides -> 200's ->...->500's

Another thing I'll 'modify' is the strength component. He does not pay any attention to it, but this is because of several reasons (at least I think so):

- before, during and after WW2 people in Germany used to do a lot more physical labor than nowadays. There were lot of farms, craftsmen and everyday needs like chopping wood. So people were naturally stronger, especially in the core.

- weight and resistance training barely existed/was farely new

Im a student, so I'll 'simulate' physical labor through compound lifting like deadlifts/squats/rows and some core work. Cant think of a reason to not do it, the muscle gain shouldn't make a huge effect on my weight, just add a little bit of strength.

Do a search on Van Aaken in this forum. You'll find plenty including input from 1-2 runners who trained under EVA.

If alive today, Dr. Van Aaken would tell you to get healthy before getting fit. One way to do that, besides eating a healthy diet, is to consume a lot of oxygen through easy running (or other forms of aerobic exercise).

Secondly, it's clear to me that Dr. Van Aaken though hard interval training was not a good idea; partly because it wasn't "healthy' for humans and partly because he believed that it really didn't take much very hard running to reach one's personal performance limits. That is, a little high-intensity goes a long way. He talked about a 20:1 ratio of easy aerobic running to faster, high-intensity running, as being ideal.

Thirdly, I think the method of Dr. Van Aaken has been mislabeled as just slow running, as HRE stated too. It's my belief, based on what I've read from his book, articles from athletes he coached, like Manfred Steffny, and review of training logs, such as the one Norport had and one by the gal who was an elite marathon runner under Van Aaken's guidance, many years ago, that after the initial "getting healthy" stage of training the method the good Dr. promoted as a blended program. That is, you would include some quality in your weekly schedule on a regular basis, though the percentage of very intense training was quite low.

Fourthly, it's clear to me that some of the intervals that runners performed under Van Aaken's care were not hard; rather the long intervals, in particular, were at what we might call threshold pace today.

As I consider Dr. Van Aaken's method, I find it makes a lot of sense and confirms what I've learned as a runner and coach. Van Aaken, Lydiard, and a few others like them had it right; aerobic conditioning is the ideal foundation for harder, more specific quality training.

Regards,

Tinman

Most runs using van Aaken's approach would be easy, steady runs, probably in the 4:00-6:00 per km range for most people. If you're running purely for fitness that's about all you'd need to do. But people wanting to race reasonably well would do some faster runs. Let's look at some of that faster running using guys like Norpoth and Washcke.

By far, most of Norpoth's faster running might be called "slow fast running" or maybe "fast slow running." He did a session of 2 km repeats in 7:30 each with a 400 meter jog. That's six minute miling, not really fast at all for someone who could run 13:20 for 5,000 meters and 3:35 or so for 1500. Waschke's 75 second 400s would give him about 31:00 for 10,000 meters, also noticeably slower than he could race over that distance.

Norpoth had another session he did of 10 x 350 in a minute followed by a 50 meter walk in a minute and then 2 km in 6:00, followed by 5 x 350 as above followed by another six minute 2 km, etc. That's 72 seconds per 400 for a guy who could manage almost 60 seconds per lap for 2 km. So it's quicker running but not terribly hard. even the fastest runs, the 500s, were done just a bit more slowly than his best 1500 meter pace and were, as van Aaken once said, the final stage of training.

So you would want to follow Tinman's advice about getting healthy first and then adding the various stages. You probably would do better with strides, short ones, at this stage, than with hard 400-500 meter reps. But you probably could benefit from "slow fast running," maybe some reps of 1-2 km done at a pace you could hold for 15-20 km a couple times a week.

Tinman,

Good to see you're still around. How've you been?

More about EvA.

Just finished my MBA, which was quite hard to do while working. I've been consumed by the process, so now I feel relieved.

Pete Magill, Melissa Avery, and I are just starting to write a running book. A New York publisher (The Experiment Publisher) sent us a contract for the proposed book. We had two publishers offer to contract with us, but we chose The Experiment publisher).

The book will be called "Building Your Running Body." We have until August to complete it. The book will be edited next fall and winter and printed in the spring of 2014. We'll be busy!

I'm the physiology and technical author; Melissa is the nutritionist author (she has some darn good recipes!), and Pete's the lead who will coordinate our efforts, add his insights and experience, and he will keep us focused on the project's checklist of many details. The project will consume a lot of time and energy, but I am happy about the thought of our team making a book that expands the breadth of running information.

As an aside, I like Pete and Melissa, who are both top-notch people, not just good writers, so that makes the time we'll spend in concert enjoyable and rewarding. I am sure we'll learn a lot on the journey ahead, too.

I've been coaching many runners, some of whom are on a Club team; others are from around the world (2 in Sweden, 2 in Norway, 1 in England, 1 in Australia, 1 in Canada, 1 in Israel, soon 1 in Moravia, and several others in the States). About 65% of the runners are Masters, 35% are under age 35. I write workouts for a couple of collegiate coaches, but that's something I've been doing for over 20 years. I enjoy talking with college and high school coaches; they are motivated to succeed, to help their athletes improve, and they just love the sport.

I coach Kevin Miller, whom you may know as a 33:00 (10km) runner at age 50. He won the USA Trials age-graded title last winter, and he won the 3000, 1-mile, and 800m titles. He had a sore Achilles tendon this fall and missed 3.5 weeks of training (no activity at all) but rebounded to place 3rd at Club Nationals behind a couple of former elite runners (in their prime). The funny thing is Kevin, just like Andrew Duncan, was never fast in his teens or 20s or 30s. Kevin ran 15:32 in his prime, but he runs that fast now as a 50+ year old.

I coached Andrew Duncan, who won several Nationals masters titles, for several years too. He's on his own now because he is so busy as a Federal Attorney, but he still uses my training methods: after 7 years working with me, he knows how to use my methods to coach himself and he understand the principles involved. That's how it goes - coaches teach people how to train themselves over time, on the athlete's road to personal discovery. Some runners go their own way after awhile, but others remain with the coach because it's just nice to not have to think about all those details; what to run today, tomorrow; did I run that workout too fast; when should I do my next workout and what should it be?; when should I or should I not race again and what distance? John Walker said, when asked why he still had Arch Jelly coaching him; John could coach himself, after several years of training and racing at the world class level, but he would rather not think about the training; he'd rather just do what Arch told him and not have to analyze everything.

Anyway, life has been busy but productive. I can be found daily at

www.therunzone.com

answering training questions, so feel free to join us when you have a chance. I stop here, at letsrun.com, a couple of times per week for a few minutes to see what's going on. By the way, at my website (wwww.runningprs.com) you can find my online running calculator, which may be of interest to you, or you can catch up on running news too.

Shoot me an email anytime, HRE!

runfastcoach@gmail.com

Always glad to know what's going on in your world!

Take care,

Tinman

(Tom)

So many answers, I am really thankful for them. Didn't know this thread you linked existed. I'll just post my spontaneous thoughts right now.

"I remember he felt that the "perfect athlete" should take his weight and divide it by his height and the number should be between 28 and 30."

Not even Kiprops number is 30 or below. (take metric unis)

But interesting to see that he thought no muscular mass at all is needed for distance running.

What keeps me thinking is the amount of miles his athletes ran while staying relatively injury free. Neither vladimir nor other guys reported about a high quote of injuries. Unthinkable for a 50km/week and often injured guy that such high amounts of running including runs near threshhold are bearable. Remember, no strength work reported so there seemed to be no issue. Is intensity/sub-threshhold running the real killer?

The mileages he wrote about were sort of theoretical, e.g., he suggests that marathoners do 80 km a day. None of the marathoners he worked with did anything of the kind on any sort of regular basis. The highest total I've seen was for Nagele who would get to 50-70 km on an occasional day but not at all regularly. Norpoth was nowhere near doing the 25-30 km a day that van Aaken suggests for a 5,000 runner.

I've found that it's a combination of volume and intensity that breaks you down. If you run easily you can run a lot if you adapt to it over time. But he also makes a lot of references to doing 10-20 km a day.

Yeah, the low mileage of Norpoth is striking, compared to nowaday caucasian runners. Being rested and less tired from the training grind actually SEEMS to play a role.

I took a closer look at his logs:

Week 1+2 in Summer '62 (1500m racing period)

MON – warmup+5X2000m/7:30 pace Rec=400m jog + 3X500m in 76sec to 71 sec.

TUE – Travel to Hamburg. 10 kilos easy in Hamburg

WED – 1500m RACE. – 1st in 3:42.8; last 500m in 69.8, last 400 in 54.6

THU – Travel back. Rest day

FRI – warmup + 5X2000m/7:30 pace Rec=400m jog + 4X500m/76sec,74sec,73sec,71sec

SAT - warmup+5X2000m/7: :30 pace Rec=400m jog + 3X500m in 73sec/72sec/71 sec.

SUN - 15 kilos easy run in Wald

Week 2

MON – rest day

TUE – warmup + 15kilos run in Waldniel. 5X3kilos outdoor circuit laps in negative split.

WED – 15kilos easy in Waldniel circuit

THU – 10 kilos easy

FRI – 10kilos easy in Wald.

SAT – warmup + 3X10X200m (first set group average 36.5; second 34.5; third 33.5

fourth 31.7 Rec=200m jog. Last set in 25seconds.

SUN – 20kilos easy in Wald.

_________________________________________

3 times his 5x2000 session in 7:30 + 500's

1 time 3x10x200 negative each set in 34s average

2 times rest day

1 1500m race

6 times easy day (80km total)

1 time 5x3k in forest negative splits, guessing at around 4min/km

average seems to be at around 90km at best

Now the 5000m Tokyo pre-Race period (followed by 2 weeks with some faster stuff):

14.09 - 50min easy run

15.09 - 50min easy run

16.09 – rest day

17.09 - 50min easy run

18.09 - 50min easy run

19.09 – rest day

20.09 - 50min easy run

21.09 – rest day

22.09 - 50min easy run

23.09 - 50min easy run

24.09 - 50min easy run

25.09 – 7200m easy run (6 laps in 30min) + 2X500m/75sec Rec=5minutes pause

26.09 – rest day

27.09 – warmup + 1500m tempo run in 3:52

28.09 – rest day

29.09 – 18 kilos easy run

30.09 15kilos=That´s 12 circuit laps in crescendum (negative split) from easy run to tempo pace in 55:48 total duration (1st - slower lap in 4:55; last – faster one in 3:58)

_______________________________________________________

This was after a 5k race, 4 weeks prior to his silver medal in Tokyo. So many easy runs (maybe injured?) while most other runners would use this time to hammer some last big miles in. Only 3 days of real sharpening and something you can call interval training:

10.10 – In Toquio stadium – warmup + 5X2000m/7:06/7:20/7:00/6:23/6:05 – with 62 sec last lap set. Rec=400m walking + 2000m cooldown

11.10 – 4X2000m warmup up with 400m walk + 10X400m/63.5 Rec=400m walk+2000m cooldown

12.10 – 2000m easy run + 3X1000m/2:41 – 2:41 – 2:39 Rec=several minutes

HRE wrote:

The mileages he wrote about were sort of theoretical, e.g., he suggests that marathoners do 80 km a day.

That is not correct, by a factor of 2. He prescribed 40km a day for marathoners. A table of his recommended mileage for various distances can be found in a review of his training at this site,

.

There are also interviews where he mentions doing 80 km. it's in "The van Aaken Method."

Today: 45min easy with 4 short walking breaks when soleus felt a little 'loaded'.

This time without any aspirine (took 400mg the other days). Maybe I can go longer the next days, depending on how the shin feels in a few hours/tomorrow.

Surprisingly, choosing firmer shoes with lower drop feels easier on the shin/achilles. (Saucony Mirage today vs. Nike Zoom Elite previously)

The EB Shoe (Brütting Marathon) Lydiard and Dr.EVA were using are being reported as rather lightweight and minimal.

I'll take this into consideration when working into this programm. Maybe some of the wiser guys can tell me which nowaday shoe can be compared to a training/racing (did you have more than 1 pair, dont think so atleast in post-WW2 Germany) shoe of the 60's?

What happened over the years is that heels got built up and all sorts of "features" were added to running shoes. The "minimalist" movement has put shoes on the market that are more like models from the 70s but a lot of the new models can't seem to be just a simple piece of rubber with an upper attached.

A lot of racing shoes now are as close to models from the 70s as anything you'll find. I don't follow this as closely as I used to, but models like the Asics Hyperspeed and Pirannha, the Saucony A5 Grid, Nike Lunar Racer, Puma Faas 250 and 300, are along those lines. Find something low heeled or that has little drop from heel to toe, is flexible (both forefoot and mid-foot) and reasonably light and you're as close to a 70s shoe as you can get.

Luckily I own a pair of A5's. This is not a minimalist thread, however i want to emulate this as closely as possible. Lets see it this way: 'train on forest trails' is an information which is told generation by generation but no one mentioned the rapid changes in shoes. Older generations trained in minimalist, firm shoes because it was all that existed, there was no other choice. And it worked.

Apart from that, another thing I especially enjoy about Dr.EVA/Norpoth training is the mental ease they had. 'I train once a day, because i have to work.' Simple reason, huge effect. No mental breakdown because a meaningless 1percenter like food or not enough sleep didnt work for 1 or 2 days as intended. A lot of younger, ambitioned runners get caught with that and totally lose confidence and forget to loosen up.

Another example: 'My pace on that easy run was 10 sec slower than yesterday, OMG im in soooo bad shape!'

This thread seems like it's coming down to just the two of us so before it dies I want to ask you about van Aaken's legacy in Germany. It's interesting that you're in Germany asking about a German coach on a US website.

Do you know if any of his athletes are coaching and using his method? I know Manfred Steffney did some coaching but I don't know if he did much coaching beyond Christa Vahlensieck. Do you ever hear or read anything about him?

As you can imagine, Dr.Van Aaken is not that popular anmymore in Germany and you cant find much information about his training. The best source actually was this board.

Whereas the Steffny brothers (I always confuse them)do a lot of coaching for the entry-level runners and people who are just starting with training after shedules. I actually own Herbert Steffnys book. (My first piece of lecture on running ever) It features the very basic definitions like threshold,anaerobic, aerobic etc. and multiple 5k,10k and HM plans for every goal time from like 30 minute 5k to sub 70 half. There is also an extract from Steffnys own training.

He also wrote another book only for the marathon.

Emphasis not only on slow running (but for easy miles, he says 'easy without hard breath') but intervals aswell to reach your goals. More like a classic training approach.

I would say they are amnong the most popular running authors in Germany.

So he (they) kinda continues with the Dr.Van Aaken style in the way of helping the casual runner and the broad bandwith of population to run healthy and a little bit competitive but not overdoing it.

But there is no real reference to good ol' Ernst, as you can see I didnt even know him before reading about Norpoth.

Maybe it is interesting for you, here the 10k training exert from Herbert Steffny he gives us:

Week 1

M: AM 12k 4min/km pace PM 10k 3:20/km pace

T: AM hilly 6k PM 14k 3:50/km pace

W: AM easy 7k 4:30/km pace PM 22k 3:45pace

T: AM 8x400m 66sec PM 7k recovery 4:40/km pace

F: AM very hilly 17k PM 10k 4:20/km pace

S: rest

S: easy 8k 4:15 pace

128k total

Week 2

M: AM 13k 4min/km PM 8k 3:00/km Tempo run

T: long jog 32k 3:55/km pace

W: rest

T: 18k 4:10/km

F: 18k 4:40/km

S: 5k race 14:28 sprint finish

S: AM LSD 26k 5:10/km PM 10k very easy 6:00/km pace

143k total

Week 3 is 179k total including the national 10k win in 28:53.

I would call this more traditional training than what he seemed to do under the Doctor.

About this thread: From time to time I'll post updates on my journey, daily would be too much and uninformative but just from time to time reporting my progress and maybe reaching of the eventual goal of sub 16 5k.

Manfred is the older Steffney. He ran in the 1968 and 1972 Olympic marathons. Herbert was the faster one, 2:11 to 2:16 I believe and I think had the better master's career. I don't know if he ever ran in the Olympics and I sort of think his brother coached him rather than van Aaken.

In "Marathoning," Manfred has a pretty thorough sample of Christa Vahlensieck's training and nothing about looks that unusual as is the same with what you've put here. Liane Winter's training, and she was coached by van Aaken, not Steffney, was a bit different than what you normally saw and Norpoth's samples don't look much like anything I've seen from world class 1500/5000 guys. "Vladmir" gave some samples of what he did when working with EvA and it looked sort of distinctive. I wish I could find more samples of what he did with non-marathoners.