Why isn't Igloi training used more often today?

There are some very good points made on this thread.

I feel that without coach Mihaly Igloi's presence there is no Igloi system. I also saw that he worked on that system continually and would have modified his system as needed.

There are numerous coaches still drawing on Coach Igloi's methods but, like Bob Schul's "Shul-Igloi System" they should be referred to by a hyphenated name. I found Igloi's workout extremely hard and long. I was not patient enough and many of the athletes we do not hear of had injuries. It is too bad his Hungarian 1955/56 Hungarian runners were not give a chance to show what they could do in an Olympic year because the Russian tanks had swarmed into Hungary.

My legs were always dead.

The Fred Foot and Mihaly Igloi interval systems got me to a certain point and built up a certain strength and speed in me but just plain running and racing in the years after gave me as much success and a lot more fun.

Coach Igloi wanted fast runners! He could always build strength in his runners. In fact that is what it did.

Incorrect, sir!

Times may change, like fashion or music or popular food, but human physiology hasn't changed - some would argue that evolution doesn't exist at all.

Not sure about that, but I do know that the same stimuli that made Snell create mitochondria in the working muscles and the same formula for what makes up our atmosphere exists today, so the transport of oxygen remains.

There may be tweaks to individuals who DNA are not matched by another runner exactly or perhaps new discoveries are made in science, the basic template is as effective today, as it was in the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, 2000's and now 10's.

Cheers.

Igloi style training is used quite often today, but mostly by swimmers.

As has been said, it is a lot of volume to do it right, which means a lot of time invested. Additionally, most athletes are out of touch with their bodies and will need a coach present, which means one must be near some sort of circuit. The most common circuit is, of course, a track, which is something few runners have the mental fortitude to be running around for several hours per day.

Incorporating Igloi style workouts once a week or so to an athlete that has plateaued in their current system would likely give the needed stimulus to have a slightly breakthrough, if for no other reason than the mental freshness of something new.

'4) At their peak in the 1950s Igloi's athletes set multiple WRs but did not win many medals. Apart from Schul how many Igloi trained runners have won Olympic or World titles? most people would argue that a Lydiard type approach makes it easier to peak on a particular day or week every four years or so!'

I seem to remember reading that there was a boycott and his athletes did not attend the Olympics, Checked and they did attend but the revolution/Russian invasion affected their training

It's really not fair to evaluate Igloi by counting Olympic medals won by his athletes for the reason you mention; the Hungarian Revolution really destroyed their chances. On the other hand, you could argue that Igloi did more to raise US distance running to international respectability than anyone. Once he got here we not only got Schul but Jim Beatty, Max Truex and a few others who really were our first successful internationalists since maybe Ralph Hill in the Thirties.

Athletics Illustrated wrote:

Incorrect, sir!

Times may change, like fashion or music or popular food, but human physiology hasn't changed - some would argue that evolution doesn't exist at all.

Not sure about that, but I do know that the same stimuli that made Snell create mitochondria in the working muscles and the same formula for what makes up our atmosphere exists today, so the transport of oxygen remains.

There may be tweaks to individuals who DNA are not matched by another runner exactly or perhaps new discoveries are made in science, the basic template is as effective today, as it was in the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, 2000's and now 10's.

Cheers.

But other systems are better than the old system. You could build a 1958 Corvette today and it'd work just as it did when it was designed, but modern cars are faster.

Athletics Illustrated wrote:

Incorrect, sir!

Times may change, like fashion or music or popular food, but human physiology hasn't changed - some would argue that evolution doesn't exist at all.

Not sure about that, but I do know that the same stimuli that made Snell create mitochondria in the working muscles and the same formula for what makes up our atmosphere exists today, so the transport of oxygen remains.

There may be tweaks to individuals who DNA are not matched by another runner exactly or perhaps new discoveries are made in science, the basic template is as effective today, as it was in the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, 2000's and now 10's.

Cheers.

However, human understanding of physiology changes with experience and research. At the time of Lydiard, you didn't have much development or understanding of the Central Governor hypothesis put forth by Noakes. More research has allowed us to understand the role of the brain in training and racing. Now you can understand why deception workouts may work.

To ignore the east. Africa and Kenyan addiction to EPO does a great dis-service to clean runners and former greats sho did it without peds

lease wrote:

Sorry, here's that thread (hope the link works):

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=440141&page=0

Damn, that thread makes me realize how good LR was back then.

Orville Atkins wrote:

many of the athletes we do not hear of had injuries.

...

My legs were always dead.

I believe this is the major reason Igloi's methods wouldn't work for the masses even if they had been well documented.

Running fast every day, even if it's not "hard", puts you closer to the limits. You need close supervision as well as great mental restraint to not go over board. It reminds me of Salazar's runners who are often dead tired but still improve. In contrast to the average runner they're monitored by all kinds of specialized therapists and coaches. If something is about to go wrong, they'll catch it early.

The non pros today will not work hard. They all get medals and t-shirts for finishing. The runner today does not have the "Big Goals" that Coach Igloi said one must have.

In the 1960s and before no one ran a marathon in more than 4 hours.

I agree that is why I added the almost coherent third paragraph.

As for the post before yours, the car is a lot less complex and a lot more "known" than the human body/brain etc. You could transport Peter Snell to 2014 as a 22 or 28 year old and I am sure he would still run about 1:44 on dirt or 1:43/42 on the modern rubber tracks on Lydiard training. Would you suggest that Canova would coach him to 1:40/41? So he would be as good as Rudisha??

Canova, who coaches many of the top athletes uses the Lydiard method with his very own tweaks and adjustments, I stand by my comment that the template - or more accurately the principles are still adhered to. So back in the day a 28:00 10,000 was world-class as was a 2:12 marathon etc etc. We know Canova can coach a 2:03/4 marathon and a 26-high/27-low 10,000m, but we cannot say that if Lydiard was alive today he couldn't take a top-end African and do the same or better.

Mind you anyone with some common sense and general understanding could take a supreme talent and get success out of them....

One thing to remember Lydiard and Igloi pioneered their methods. We have that luxury now.

This might look like a rather inane question, but what was a typical Igloi warmup/cooldown? Thanks.

santa monica track club has/had an igloi-douglas hybrid and an igloi-magee hybrid--can't honestly say how true it was to igloi's original principles, but undoubtedly influenced by them.

what has occurred to me over time is the similarities to other methods, not just the differences--i was doing 8-16 mile runs almost every saturday at what was supposed to be a "fresh" pace (i'd see johnny gray and others out there doing 8-12 with coach merle magee)--no different than an AT run. we were on the track from late november through the summer twice a week, so periodization was different maybe, but i'll bet our track workouts physiologically weren't too different from fartlek and longer repeats and threshold runs that other methods promote.

when i see some of salazar's athletes running workouts after races, that reminds me of some igloi workouts--even though i don't think igloi athletes ever did this with races--but we did do max-effort time trials and then followed up with multiple fast shorter reps.

i've used some elements of that training sparingly with h.s. athletes--i've found it's harder to do with large groups of really disparate abilities. i also don't think my athletes would enjoy, even occasionally, a 10x(10x100m) workout on the track...

Skuj wrote:

This might look like a rather inane question, but what was a typical Igloi warmup/cooldown? Thanks.

someone else alludes to extensive warmups and cooldowns--maybe igloi himself employed these, but joe douglas and merle magee never did, and i'm pretty sure laszlo didn't either.

our warmup was 7 laps + 10x100, every 3rd one hard. that's it. no drills, no stretching, nothing else. there were, at times, another set of reps (6x150s, 1 medium, 1 hard) that seemed more like a warmup than the workout, but we seldom did this, so i wouldn't count it as warmup. also, this was essentially the same warmup we'd do for a race (sometimes i'd do more strides; on warmer days i was sometimes instructed to do fewer laps; on cooler days i was instructed to do more).

our cooldown was 10x100 strides, easy. that's it. i always wondered about the longer cooldowns employed by others, but interestingly enough, there are studies that've shown that for recovery purposes, anything over 5 minutes is unnecessary. so, long recovery runs post-race/intervals appear to cross the line from recovery to becoming another workout, which may serve another purpose, but not recovery...

It is hard to say about Snell. In the words of his own coach, he was the slowest in terms of speed in those Olympic finals. If the guy is slow twitch enough, he probably needed Lydiard to do well.

But, I wonder if speed is a weakness, why neglect it? That is my only catch with Lydiard. Or even Wetmore after reading Running With The Buffaloes (granted, Wetmore has the ability to worry only about the 8k/10k distance for that period). I think a modern system would never had Snell that far removed from working on his speed and race pace, even when at the highest mileage. Whether that would have been a 1:42 on cinders, I don't know. I still think Snell's 1:44 on grass is probably the greatest performance in a middle distance event of all time. On grass. I don't think he had stud competition. And it was done at a time when the competition did not have EPO.

But Canova uses multi paced blend or alternation intervals; in a way that is similar to Igloi's workouts from a physiological perspective (honestly, i don't think that is much different from Lydiard fartleks; they all tend to work the same). From what I read, I think Canova eschews a long base buildup with his Kenyans. He views it as unnecessary when you factor the lifetime aerobic development that most Kenyans have. I think his training is more of a funnel periodization. Work the extremes of speed and endurance early, then more specific as you get closer to the peak event.

Although, I did hear before that Snell never did neglect some form of track work. I don't know if this is true or not. But this is a problem in trying to understand a coach by books vs. his actual application on the athlete.

It's not lifetime aerobic development for Kenyans, it's inherent aerobic ability.

Captain Oblivious wrote:

It's not lifetime aerobic development for Kenyans, it's inherent aerobic ability.

It's both. They have superior genetics for aerobic ability. However, I believe that ability is developed over a significant period of time due to frequent physical activity from running and walking. It's probably a similar reason why good soccer players can transition into the middle distance events and have success pretty quickly.

Don't get me wrong, I know that there examples of those runners being able to run fast and never had a high level of activity. But I don't think such examples disprove the relevance of prior high activity.