David Torrence joins Jama Aden Group

david torrence (DTrunsthis) on reddit:

" And now the big question: I am a big believer of heavy lifting for distance runners. And up until a recent coaching change, had planned in about 3 days a week where I could hit it hard. However, with a new training regimen, I'm having a tough time figuring out when/where I can put in some time at the gym. Here's a typical week for me:

Mon - AM 40-60min, PM Hard Intense Track Workout

Tues - AM 60min, PM 30-50min

Wed - AM 30-50min, PM Long Hard Fartlek

Thurs - AM 60min, PM 30-50min

Frid - AM 40-60min, PM Hard Intense Track Work

Sat - AM 60min, PM 30-50min

Sun - AM 90min, PM rest

Under my old coach, I could do my hard workouts in the AM, and then come back in the PM with an easy jog and weights. But with my new coach, the track workouts are so intense/fast, that I feel like I HAVE to go in the PM, when I'm a bit warmer/looser. And then after those workouts, its already late, and I'm trying to eat dinner and sleep and get ready for the next day. I feel nervous trying to put some stuff in on my easy days, because I'm supposed to be recovering, and I also don't feel comfortable lifting mornings of the workout day, since I'm trying to make sure I'm resting/saving up for these crazy intense workouts. Now, I know the one day I could lift is Wednesday afternoon, but other than that....what do you think would be the next best option to fit in one to two other lifting sessions?"

Uh....shouldn't DT be talking about the weights with HIS COACH??

I'm sure the neckbeards on reddit will guide him well.

Sounds like he has himself a great setup.

yeah my thoughts exactly. i saw that yesterday via the steve magness ama, and i was wondering who DT's new coach was. and why he was asking someone on reddit lifting advice.

He also asked Magness about easy run pace in his AMA. Sounds like he just likes asking people questions.

He also asked another coach, Dan Jon, some questions about lifting as well, in a separate reddit AMA.

Torrence just seems confused about lifting maybe?

he's not confused about lifting, he asking advice for how to fit it in to his new schedule.

if i were him i'd just do maintenance work in the gym, do enough to maintain any strength gains you've made on your lift maxes, but not enough to take away from your primary focus (nailing the workouts). plenty of time to make strength gains in the offseason IMO...

He wasn't asking "the neckbeards on reddit," he was asking Alex Vida who's apparently a fitness expert of some sort.

This is great, I thought this topic would be a joke but I'm glad it's not.

i hope the coaching change benefits him and he can pr in the mile or 1500 this year and have a shot at a WC team next year or even the Olympics in '16.

glad to hear he is an advocate of heavy lifting for middle distance runners... not many are.

If you're from charliefrancis.com, you've seen this kind of discussion many times.

Charlie would say to lift after the speed sessions, which maximizes time for recovery. You also know how tired you are from the track session and when you need to cut back the weights.

Interesting to get some insight, even if it is vague, on how one of our elites views the kind of work that Aden's fantastic group does. Frankly, I would think that in mid-May, it is time to be cutting down drastically on the lifting anyway. The hard lifting for a distance runner is for the break between seasons and the first period of training in the fall.

I'm surprised he's talking about the intensity of his sessions because that is already way more mileage than he normally does. Usually he was like 70-80 miles a week and a lot lower during racing season. What he described there was at least 110 possibly more...

but under the CFTS paradigm these HI intensity days for Torrence would fit under intensive tempo so depending on what DT really is doing in the GYM the gym efforts could be closer to maximal than the track sessions. idk.

there are many ways to skin a cat but i'm worried that switching coaches to a guy who has had an Olympic champion and Dibaba and Souleiman is going to be a bad move for DT because he really is worlds behind Souleiman so if they train together he's going to have to hammer every workout just to keep up and he'll end up overtraining or hurt.

Another point of Charlies was that after year 8 of high level training the volume of high intensity stuff needs to drop, it's all just speculation with David Torrence at this point but he's getting towards 30 years old and i would guess that the volume is going to go up on the hard days, hopefully it works out but if he has to cut the lifting he could regress badly or break through to a new level.

David, listen your coach and only your coach.

There is a description of Jama Aden training in the British Milers Club Journal, Spring 2009, and it mentions weights 2X a week but the distance volume is less than listed here (80mpw in winter for Kaki). I read this as that Torrence is really struggling with his training schedule under Jama Aden, and that's why he was looking for other ideas instead of talking to Aden. How long until:

(a) He ends his season injured;

(b) He changes coaches again?

It also depends on what he calls heavy weights and what kind of weights Aden uses. I know that Salazar talks about Farah and Rupp lifting heavy, but Mike Young was disappointed in what he saw as their weights. My impression is that Salazar's gym program is actually set to minimize the loss of strength and explosiveness due to high mileage, rather than actually gaining strength/speed from weights. With his present load, I'd advise Torrence to consider that kind of approach.

But reading between the lines between what I see in the BMC Journal from 5 years ago and the performances now, it appears that Aden has significantly increased the training load by significantly increasing the mileage with the same workouts. Now, you can only do that without "pharmacology support" so much without overtraining setting in. With Makh Daddy leaving and Torrence apparently having problems, is it really that Makh is clean and the rest of them other than Terrence are dirty?

300's in 37 might be intensive tempo to Asafa Powell, but 105% of max to Terrence and Rupp. This is NOT intensive tempo to Torrence. But another one of Charlie's truisms was that when one thing goes up, something else has to go down to compensate. It appears that Torrence running volume has gone up significantly, so either:

(a) The intensity and/or volume of weights has to go down; or

(b) The speed of the recovery runs has to go down.

Who does Aman train with? I remember seeing it was in the U.S..

Do you call all men daddy?

joel przybilla wrote:

there are many ways to skin a cat but i'm worried that switching coaches to a guy who has had an Olympic champion and Dibaba and Souleiman is going to be a bad move for DT because he really is worlds behind Souleiman so if they train together he's going to have to hammer every workout just to keep up and he'll end up overtraining or hurt.

Doubtful. They train in Africa, I'm pretty sure DT will stay in the US other than maybe short training stints.