How did elites back in the past train?

back then they thought just "run more". same with cycling

getreal wrote:

back then they thought just "run more". same with cycling

And how is that different than the stuff I read on here today? this board has a serious high mileage bias if you haven't noticed.

they didn't do as many performance enhancing drugs. back then there might have been some steroids, or some amphetamines, but that was about all.

This can still be a good thread but first I need some information. What is FB and BB training? I did not learn what is now considered a tempo run until ten years ago. Under Coach Mihaly Igloi all running, including warming up, was at a tempo. With Igloi I often did at least 30 intervals and on one occasion as many as 60 times a combination of 150s and 260s.

I never saw a sign of steroids among the coaches and athletes I trained with. In the 1970s we started taking caffeine.

Roger Bannister trained short and fast. I believe USA runner Buddy Edelen, who ran a world best marathon of 2:14:28.0 in June of 1963 ran big mileage.

I had mostly slow twitch muscles and no speed. I found that I could race better marathons off 50 to 70 miles a week than off of workouts of 100 miles a week of intervals.

The Fins did big mileage. Peter Snell ran big mileage but Bill Crothers who won silver behind Snell in the 1964 Olympic 800 ran interval workouts of 35 or 40 miles a week. He only ran as far as 10 miles once but he did run a 440 in 46.2.

Coach Igloi said he did not need strong runners. He needed fast runners. He could make them strong.

Do many of the hobby racers of today do hard training or run much mileage?

In 1955, Hungarian Coach Mihilay Igloi's runners held every world record from the 1500 to 10,000. Hungarian Laszlo

Was the third athlete to run a mile under 4 minutes. He and Coach igloi left Hungary just after Russian tanks had entered their country for the 1956 Olympics and then the US. Even with the war raging in Hungary Tabori placed 4th (1500) and 6th (5,000) in those Olympics.

Coach Igloi's workouts are always a mixture of two leg actions: speed and swing. In swing the runner lifted the femur higher than normal. Igloi also said that he did not need strong runners but he did need fast runners.

Walter George did 100-ups and ran 4:12.

Nurmi's claim to fame was being the first to run as fast as Walter George.

Yes, Paavo Nurmi was fast for his day but he was also very strong. He did anything that he felt would help him. His Wikipedia page is worth the read. Paavo Nurmi won nine gold medals plus three silver medals over a period of three Olympics. Like Zatopek he was ahead of his time.

Who Can tell us exactly what each of them did?

Check out the excellent "Lore of Running" by Tim Noakes. It has a section on the training methods of historic greats. One major constant --- many of the early titans (pre-Nurmi, pre-Arthur Newton) ran little by modern standards. Walking was a major component of training, and speed work was handled with the utmost care.

" how they train" book series were excellent for perspective, but doubt you can find them any longer. Bannister did a gradual buildup with 3 months of running 30 minutes to an hour over in Hyde Park. He even ran some XC races during this period. Moving into track training, 3-4x880, 10x440, and even an odd 1320 were not unheard of. Trials over 1320 were a staple. Landy moved it into another realm with both the quantity and quality of his training. 3 months of 8 miles fairly hard everyday (5.20 pace) followed by a segment of training consisting only of 660 repeats. Nearing the season, he transitioned to repeat 440's, 660's, and even some fast 220's. Even more interesting was zatopek. His track workout volumes were legendary, as was his personal demeanor.

Nurmi started the trend of carrying a watch. You can see pics of him checking his pace during races on his hand held stopwatch.

How elites train does not provide any information about the value if the methods they use.

Up to the late 1920s, long walks were a major component of marathon training.