Anyone know how I can get a copy of the Salazar article that was supposedly in the September issue of Mens Journal? I have contacted them and they do not sell reprints of back issues.
Anyone know how I can get a copy of the Salazar article that was supposedly in the September issue of Mens Journal? I have contacted them and they do not sell reprints of back issues.
Local library?
Even if the library does not have it, they might be able to order a copy of the article from another library.
It is online.
That is not the complete article as it states at the bottom of the page that you supplied.
gc,
if you want the whole article, send me your name and address and i will either copy it in full, or send you my copy of the magazine.
i believe it is better on line.
Thank you very much for the copy. I wasn't expecting a full color copy, a black and white would have been fine! It is much appreciated!!!!
The Ultimate Runner's Workout
Nike's running guru, Alberto Salazar, has a plan to save American running -- starting with you. The secret: You'll speed up by slowing down.
It's just weeks before the Olympics, and all over the world athletes are punishing their bodies, straining and groaning through the most intense workouts of their young lives. Here at Nike world headquarters, in Beaverton, Oregon, though, 29-year-old Dan Browne isn't even breathing hard. As he glides along the trails at a 6:45-per-mile pace that is a full minute and a half slower than his usual race clip, the only sound he makes is the steady thwick, thwick, thwick of his feet landing in the soft carpet of woodchips. Eventually he emerges from the stands of cherry, poplar, and pine that envelope the 175-acre campus and cruises to a stop on the meticulous lawn outside the Lance Armstrong Building. In a few moments he will break a sweat for the first time this afternoon -- in a hot tub. Browne smiles a bit sheepishly: "Alberto really feels that the most important thing for me in Athens is to go in feeling rested."
Alberto, of course, is Alberto Salazar, the legendary American distance runner who is now the apostle of a radical new training philosophy that goes by the motto Train slower to race faster. If Salazar's approach is right, Browne -- who just eight years ago failed even to medal at the NCAA championships -- won't be the only amazing turnaround story. The other one will involve a slightly bigger entity. Over the past three decades the U.S. has been to distance running what Jamaica has been to bobsledding; the last time an American man brought home Olympic gold in a race longer than 400 meters, Richard Nixon was president. Since then, Kenya, Ethiopia, Morocco, and seemingly the entire United Nations General Assembly have routinely chewed up and spit out the boys wearing red, white, and blue.
Three years ago Nike -- a company founded by distance runners -- decided that enough was enough. It identified promising young runners and gave them a home at its ridiculously lush corporate headquarters, complete with generous stipends, biomechanics gurus, physiologists, physical therapists, masseuses, and a house that simulates living at altitude. To lead this "Oregon Project," Nike tapped Salazar, the last great American distance hope.
Salazar burst onto the stage in the early '80s with three consecutive New York City Marathon victories, and one Boston. When he stepped to the line at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984 he was the odds-on marathon favorite; he finished 15th. Although only 26 at the time, he never returned to form, and he retired from competition 10 years later. With the Oregon Project, Salazar saw the chance to add a new ending to his story. As an athlete he was renowned for his grueling training regimen, yet he believes his work ethic ultimately proved to be his undoing. "I was so pumped for the Olympics that I overtrained myself right out of it," he says now. To coach the Oregon Project, he tore up his old training log and, instead, took a page from Lance Armstrong's cycling book.
Like Salazar, Armstrong initially lived on a steady diet of full-throttle workouts. But after a life-threatening bout with testicular cancer, he could no longer handle the intensity, so his coach, Chris Carmichael, crafted a gentler approach that emphasized hours spent riding at slower -- but still challenging -- levels. Armstrong cruised hundreds of miles right around his body's "lactic acid threshold," the pace at which the system is flush with -- but not overwhelmed by -- the natural juice that causes your muscles to shut down. Over time these slower, sustained workouts taught his body to work harder without hitting the wall.
To adapt Armstrong's cycling regimen to running, Salazar broke his program into three parts. His Nike runners use long slow runs to build their aerobic systems, training their bodies to run on plentiful low-grade fuels like oxygen and glycogen. With speed work they boost their muscle strength and running efficiency. But their key workouts are the lactate-threshold sessions: "tempo" runs and slightly faster long intervals done around the pace at which lactic acid begins to flood the system. Training near that magical point, says Salazar, "keeps nudging that threshold down."
Just because the slots for this year's Olympic squad are filled doesn't mean Salazar's training program, which he modified here for the readers of Men's Journal, can't be a boon to your own running career. Using this 12-week schedule, you'll teach your body to use lactic acid more efficiently. Which means you'll get fitter faster -- and have more fun while you're logging the miles. At the end of the plan, put your training to a test in a 10K (6.2-mile) race. Salazar is confident you'll be happy with your finish time.
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THE PROGRAM
7 Steps to Speed
One of the biggest obstacles to becoming a serious runner (well, aside from all those guys zipping by you in the park) is the lingo. But Alberto Salazar and Men's Journal have boiled down the secrets of a fast 10K into seven simple steps. After learning each, pick up the September issue of MJ to see how they fit together into one neat 12-week plan. Then go catch those guys.
1 Get Your Time
To go faster, you need to know how fast you're going now.
T o figure out the proper pace for each of the workouts in this program you need a good idea of your current 10K pace. If you've run a 10K in the past couple of months you can use your pace per mile from that effort. If not, or if you're new to the 10K game, you'll need to run a time trial: Using a track or treadmill, do a hard but manageable timed four-mile run. After you're done, calculate your average pace per mile; this should give you a rough idea of the kind of clip you could sustain for a 10K under race conditions.
2 Go Slow
To speed up, first you have to slow down.
It's the most counterintuitive thing about Salazar's program, but going slow over a long distance is what your body needs to shore up its aerobic base and learn how to use low-octane fuels like oxygen and glycogen more efficiently. Once a week you will head out for a long slow run. The stress here comes from the length of the run, so you'll be doing this considerably slower than your time trial pace. How do you know you're going slow enough? If you can hold a conversation -- and we don't mean a (gasp) conversation like (gasp) this -- as you run, you're slow enough. You'll build the distance gradually; starting at five miles, you'll add about a mile a week until you hit 10 miles.
3 Go Medium
To avoid the burn, you've got to play with fire.
At the center of the program are two workouts done at a pace that's still not what your body would consider "fast." Instead, you'll do them right around your "lactate threshold," or the pace at which your body just begins to feel it's about to switch into sprint mode. By working repeatedly at this speed you'll gradually teach your body to go faster, even as you're tricking it into feeling it's still goingÉslow. The first of these workouts, called a tempo run, is a hard, extended effort done about 20 seconds per mile slower than your time trial pace. You'll start with a 20-minute tempo run and build to a half-hour. The other, long intervals are done in reps of 800, 1,200, and 1,800 meters (it's best to use a track or treadmill) right at your time trial pace or, if you're feeling it, a smidge quicker. Between intervals, recover by jogging half the distance of the interval.
4 Go Fast
Your legs will move only as quickly as you train them to go.
It's simple physics: The faster your legs move, the quicker you get down the course. Once a week you'll crank up the pace for a series of short sprints to aggressively develop the fast-twitch muscle that will enable your legs to pump more quickly. You'll do these 200Ð 600 meter intervals at a speed a good bit faster than your time trial pace. After each interval, recover with a jog about half the distance of the interval. Those who'll be racing on hills should also swap in an occasional hill workout. Run reps up slopes of roughly the same length as the intervals, then jog down to recover, picking up the pace on gentler hills and throttling back on steeper ones.
5 Strengthen
A long stride and strong core will save valuable ground.
Running isn't all about running. It's also about plyometrics, like the bounding drill at left, core strength exercises, and 50 push-ups daily. These will help perfect your running form, open up your stride, and improve the flow of energy from your upper body to your increasingly fleet feet. For your other plyometrics, you'll do rocket jumps (feet spread, knees bent, explode off the ground with your arms above your head) and skipping (like a little girl). For your core exercises, you'll briefly hit the weight room for a few sets of captain's chair raises and back hyperextensions.
6 Stretch
A good runner doesn't break -- he bends.
Although some studies have questioned the value of stretching, Salazar is still a firm believer. He wants you stretching for five minutes before your runs, and, more important, for 15 minutes after, when your muscles are most pliable. Also, "there's no need to hold a stretch for more than 20 seconds," he says, "and virtually no benefit from repeating it." Here are five of his favorites; do them gently, no bouncing. 1) Calves: Pushing against a fixed object, extend one leg behind the other, bending the front knee and keeping both feet flat on the ground. Stretch first with rear leg straight, then bend slightly at the knee. 2) Hamstrings: See photo. 3) Quads: Stand on one foot and hold your other ankle under your butt. Using your free hand for balance, extend the held foot backward. 4) Groin: Sit with knees spread and soles touching. Holding your ankles, press knees down with elbows. 5) Gluteus: Lie on your back; pull one knee toward your nose.
7 Recover
And several days a week, let there be rest.
Rest is a key activity in this training program, to be neglected at peril of death, or at least burnout. It comes in several flavors: There is the short, easy run that you'll do two days each week (at the same conversational pace as your long runs) to stretch out your legs some more and give your body a chance to recover from your harder days. There is the tapering you'll do in the last couple of weeks before race day, in which you'll cut back your workload to ensure that you're fresh at the starting gun. And finally there are the simple, blessed days off Salazar has given you. Two, in fact, each week.
For the complete training program, pick up the September 2004 issue.
By: Adam Buckley Cohen
Photograph by: Marc Joseph
(September 2004)
Copyright ©2004 by Men's Journal LLC
WENNER MEDIA: RollingStone.com | Us Online
That training is earthshattering? The problem with the first part is that Joe avg will go out and run 90 miles a week at a 12 minute pace and hope to get faster because he didn't read the rest of the article that just says train at different paces and recover properly.
Who said it was earth shattering? Interesting that Alberto is going this route given his propensity to run himself into the ground when he competed. Maybe old dogs can learn new tricks.
Tinman is actually Alberto Salazar!! Obviously Alberto was listening to Tinman as well.
Is Salazar still following this program or has he tweeked it. Or does anyone know for sure how he is now training? Have heard several possibilities.
2004 is a long time ago.
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