Training Plan based on Fast Sprinting and Slow Jogging

Interesting!

I'm a big fan of Igloi (though my best training follows a Kenny Moore pattern) and have often wondered about the efficacy of his training methods (obviously they work but there is debate as to there place in modern systems) or variations of them.

Do you plan on undertaking this experiment yourself or are you just throwing it out there? If you do it would be interesting if you tracked your progress here. What would be your goal race? I think Gray, Solomon, and Robinson have shown us that interval based training is still viable for the middle distances (800m at least) but it would be interesting to see how it stacks up against Lydiard for a 5k

just some thoughts

You're not very bright are you? Do you think all your body's muscles simultaneously either work concentrically or eccentrically?

You're not very bright are you? Do you think all your body's muscles simultaneously either work concentrically or eccentrically?[/quote]

I am not an idiot. Of course I understand that. The idea behind "concentric-only" or "eccentric-only" training is that the stress predominately occurs in that phase.

I would like to note that this would NOT be an interval based program. It would be mostly LSD at its most basic form, with the accompaniment of maximal anaerobic repetitions.

I could also see someone mixing the anaerobic work into fartleks, and having great disparity between recovery pace and pickups, or doing the fartlek on very difficult hilly trails.

I feel such a program could be modified for virtual any race distance, but a generalized, adaptable, schedule could be as follows:

Day 1: AM LSD

PM Jog wu, 4X100m HARD on slight uphill, Jog cd

Day 2: AM LSD

PM Jog wu, 2X400m overspeed on slight downhill; Jog cd

Day 3: AM LSD

PM Jog wu, 10X50m steep uphill; bounding and high knees uphill; Jog cd

Day 4: AM LSD

PM: Jog wu, 800m very fast/overspeed slightly downhill practicing increasing turn over, jog cd

Day 5: VERY long run @ LSD pace w/fartlek on uphills

etc. etc.

would you include a couple of steady to hard hour runs in there

The premise for the whole idea is not to go into extended periods of oxygen debt. If this plan were employed, I feel that the concept of periodically doing time trials and tune -up races held by Lydiard and van Aaken would suffice for prepping a runner for periods of prolonged stress race day.

how long would these trials and tune up races go for (in weeks) to prepare for a race.

This, you need work at intermediate paces, can't be all fast and slow.Coming off some downtime I screwed around with a plan similar to what you lay out for 3 months trying to improve my 400 time...got better for 1.5 months then plateaued. Resumed more traditional training with tempos and cruise intervals and my 400 dropped another 3 seconds (and ran a 5k Pr). You gotta be aerobically fit, LSD + sprints won't get you there.

weqweqwe wrote:

would you include a couple of steady to hard hour runs in there

[quote]NO MORE FREE RANDY wrote:

LSD + sprints won't get you there. [quote]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harald_Norpoth

Not exactly the same training, but quite similar.

do you have any examples of his training weeks? genuinely curious, would like to know how much volume, pace of the LSD runs, etc....maybe things didn't work for me b/c my volume was pretty low (only 40-50mpw coming off injury). or i just respond really well to threshold work.

1deutschphenom wrote:

[quote]NO MORE FREE RANDY wrote:

LSD + sprints won't get you there. [quote]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harald_Norpoth

Not exactly the same training, but quite similar.

DO MORE RESEARCH.

Just because LSD and Alactic sprints / Anaerobic work are the polar extremes on either side of a race distance, doesn't mean you can get away with just doing them and race well. You will get good at both things, but not at your race distance. These extreme points are the start, not the goal. The goal is to get as much work, as it is possible for you to recover from, at race pace.

Canova says it.

Magness says it.

Salazar says it.

Even Igoli says it, despite that other guy's misinterpretation of Igoli.

Igoli just did it with a lot of shorter reps done over a long period, but they were, intensity wise, in the 800-5k range with lots of jogging between.

You want a better way? Then, *gasp* , do it the way that isn't flashy and unique but that has been working for years. The formula is something like:

base miles + various tempo length + some short sprints and drills for a while

then get into shorter tempos, longer intervals, and some middle length intervals (think 200s-600s on the middle, 800s-1600s on the longer ones)

and eventually more time spent on the intervals at race pace with a little work just below and just above that pace mixed in.

Boom, done, easy.

Post Blue wrote:

Boom, done, easy.

Just as simple as that huh? I understand that not every plan is a one-size-fits-all, and that's why I'm hust throwing out another option. I personally have no talent, and traditional training (with lots of high-end aerobic work) hasn't seemed to do much for me, other than contribute to some thyroid and other hormonal disturbances that I am prone to in the first place. I have just tried to do a good bit of research that would help me troubleshoot and sketch out a training method that would help me without overly stressing my body and optimizing recovery.

With my ability, my only hope at being somewhat competitive at ANY level is to run big miles. I also need to really improve my turnover and explosiveness. I just feel that for me, this approach is a viable option and have nothing to lose. I am posting this to share my thoughts with others who my be in similar positions.

wncmtnrnr wrote:

You're not very bright are you? Do you think all your body's muscles simultaneously either work concentrically or eccentrically?

I am not an idiot. Of course I understand that. The idea behind "concentric-only" or "eccentric-only" training is that the stress predominately occurs in that phase.[/quote]

You obviously don't have a clue. Muscles like post tib and anterior tib work mostly eccentric whichever inclination you run on. And the muscle interaction of the thigh and butt is so complex that it cannot even be understood by looking at PET scans or similar.

Don't try to become a smartass by reading papers. Instead, follow a successful training program and experiment with one minor modification at the time.

If continuous high end aerobic running doesn't give you anything, try short intervals with active breaks. Read Cabral's posts in the 2 kind of runners thread.

wncmtnrnr wrote, in part:

I also have read a good deal of research that suggests that recovery can occur very rapidly from anaerobic exercise IF the work is SOLELY concentric OR SORELY eccentric... even if done on alternating days.

Would you mind citing some of this research? Also, I'm not sure why you called the downhill days concentric. Did you mean eccentric?

Interesting ideas, though.

I must have misspoken. Downhill running is predominately a stress of extension (eccentric) and uphill predominately a stress on the contraction phase (concentric).

When we recover from most bouts of exercise, we are repairing tissue that has undergone two very different stresses, and the time to recover is increased. Concentric training requires a much shorter time to recover, with similar ratings of perceived effort and short-term catabolism as eccentric activity. By alternating which activity predominates, less recovery time is reqired, so more training can be done in a cycle. There is quite a bit of literature on the subject, but at the moment I'll just pull up a couple abstracts that go into the matter very briefly.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21755358

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8585450

For info on the effectiveness of each type alone, check out the work of Weir and Housh at the University of Osteopathic Medicine and Health Sciences.

Interesting abstracts. Most of the stuff I've seen says that concentric-only does not do that much for you.

Unless you have spotters in the weight room or an isokinetic machine, I'm not sure how you could do concentric-focused exercises. And even the uphill sprints and bounding have plenty of eccentric aspects.

Best of luck with your training.

SlowFatMaster wrote:

Unless you have spotters in the weight room or an isokinetic machine, I'm not sure how you could do concentric-focused exercises. And even the uphill sprints and bounding have plenty of eccentric aspects.

Correct. Any physical activity will have aspects of both. One good way to do concentric-focused exercises is to extend with two limbs and return with one very slowly. Leg presses or squats are good examples: raise the weight with two legs, then slowly come down with the weight on one.

Well, I call that eccentric!

Let's say you are leg pressing 200 lbs with 2 legs, so about 100 lbs per leg if you raise with even pressure on both legs. Now, if you lower the weight with just your left leg, the left leg is working eccentrically with the full 200 lbs. that's harder on the left leg compared to lowering the weight with both legs at the same time, which would be 100 lbs for each leg.

Am I missing something here?

And this is why people think I'm stupid haha! I am sorry that I keep misspeaking, but all that I am saying is that alternating the focus in training between the two different phases allows one to increase workload by lessening the required time for recovery.