Anyone with experience on Igloi style training

be careful wrote:

I'd love to do more short interval training, but it's way to hard on the calves. Especially now that I'm even older than OP.

Resting between 100 reps used to make my calves very tight over several sessions, for example running 20x 100 with 45s rests.

However jogging between them was much better. A typical session of 12x 100/j300 didn't make my calves sore at all. The fastest that I did them was a 12.6 average, but usually in the 13s, and completing the 400s in 2:00 or close to that. This session came from Roger Moens, a great runner of his time and still would be now.

Another session was 3 to 6x 200m close to flat out with long (5 to 20:00) rests of slow walking 'round the track. I ran 52.5 or faster 25 times off similar training, during a long period of no distance running at all, with a best of 51.7 showing my lack of top speed. Later I was hardly able to break 60s when training for distances.

When I was training with Coach Igloi he had his runners use two leg actions--Speed and Swing. Swing consisted of raising the femur much higher. As I said earlier he put the workout together as the runner did it. We ran each set and parts of sets easy, fresh, good, very good, hard, very hard, etc. with one of these leg actions. He once had me do a very hard 100 yards good speed in the middle of a marathon race. A long run, say 20 big laps of 660 yards on grass could be a steady run with one 220 good speed and one 220 good swing every 3rd lap. I never knew how fast I ran and still don't although he kept records of everything we all ran.

Excellent times. Around 15 minutes off the world record time. Very impressive.

That's the plan. I'm aiming for my first serious competition in February 2016 in Open company. But later next year is the world masters in Perth. I'll do some 400m, but most likely 800/1500m there.

In January/Feb I'll do a couple of 200's, 400's and 800s.

I'm 38 now, so 39 by then.

O Atkins wrote:

When I was training with Coach Igloi he had his runners use two leg actions--Speed and Swing. Swing consisted of raising the femur much higher. As I said earlier he put the workout together as the runner did it. We ran each set and parts of sets easy, fresh, good, very good, hard, very hard, etc. with one of these leg actions. He once had me do a very hard 100 yards good speed in the middle of a marathon race. A long run, say 20 big laps of 660 yards on grass could be a steady run with one 220 good speed and one 220 good swing every 3rd lap. I never knew how fast I ran and still don't although he kept records of everything we all ran.

Over the next couple of months I want to get my head around the 6 swings. My mind wants to convert the swings types to 100m speed. Does that sound like it could work? What would the slowest swing pace be for a 100m if we assume 11.0 is 100%.

thanks.

I was lucky. The world record was lower and so few ran. I ran to win or place as high as I could. In my first Boston I went with the other three leaders for as long as I could. I should have been elated after the race but wasn't .

I do not know times and anyway they are different for everyone. To Igloi it was all effort although he did use a watch. Your foot should not go ahead of your knee. Let the speed develop with the developing strength. Patience is important too.

Thanks. Did you find that changes style/swing mid race extended your endurance or performance? Or was the benefit to altering swing mainly using it in training?

thanks

Convert,

I wrote an article "Mihaly Igloi Revisited" for Track and Field Quarterly Review in the late 1980s. I believe the article was posted to the earlier Igloi Thread on Let's Run. In the article I discussed the use of Easy, Swing and Speed tempos. I also trained with Orville (a good man) under Igloi protege Joe Douglas. There was a recent article "Out of Hungary" in Running Times that discussed Igloi's influence on American distance running. I reached out to Coach Igloi's son Tomas when the article appeared. Tomas had already purchased as many copies as he could for friends and family here and in Hungary.

Good luck with your Igloi training.

Igy AKA The Ghost of Igloi

Thanks Ghost.

I always felt that the two leg actions strengthened additional sets of muscles. We did not run hills. In a race it may clear out some of the lactic acid and break one out of a rut?

Orville,

Hope you are doing well. I am actually headed your way to see my mother and brother with a business conference in the downtow. Still running about two or three times a week. I also feel the repeated track loops may have contributed to some hip arthritis on the right side.

In regards to cadence, you see many of the top current middle distance/distance coaches pay quite a bit of attention to it. I know I suffered when it was not a focus of the training.

Take care friend,

Reid

Thank you very much Ghost, I'll go hunting for the articles.

thanks

Thank you Reid. I still remember Boston 1974.

I sent you an email but you are on vacation. There are a couple of running pictures on my facebook page.

Enjoy your time off.

Orville

Yeah, from my limited experience with it, I do feel it does something productive. I'm not really doing it right yet, but I changed to a Michael Johnson style movement after about 20 x 100's and didn't feel as tired for the remainder.

I'd love to hear more detailed explanation of the two different leg actions and the benefits.

Good thread.

I just looked at some of the thread I mentioned on page one.

15 pages--Started june 5, 2004 by dc449----Bob Schul has posted on page 2.

It could interest some of you.

I reach it by putting----Mihaly Igloi + Orville Atkins---- into Google.

It was so long ago I do not think I can post much more.

As I said before the Igloi method was Coach Mihaly Igloi and he watched every step his athletes ran.

Coach considered himself a scientist who knew the body and the results of training it his way.

After reading this thread and a couple others on the great Igloi, I decided to try a week of (how I so far understand) Igloi. I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised.

I don't know that I fully understand his paces, but I have thought of them in terms of sub threshold, aerobic threshold pace, race pace (I'm training for the mile), over-race pace, and all-out. I have heard a little about Peter Coe's 5 paces, but I should read more about it.

The thing I thought about, as I ran the workout, was "redlining." The great thing about running sets is that, if you feel that one more rep would put you over the redline, you can cruise it in at a lower pace, take the rest between reps, and see how you feel on the next rep.

On one workout, I ran these sets, in a sense, as a progression run. Running 200's for the bulk of the workout, I switched to 100 reps, w/shorter rests and went like this: float, float, hammer-down. To me, this workout functioned like some progressive workouts where I have tried to close hard the last kilometer, ending at near-top speed.

I am thinking that I will definitely incorporate this style of training in the future, even if I am misunderstanding true Igloi-ism. If nothing else, I believe these sort of workouts will be excellent support for other training.

Also, I really don't understand the "swing" I wish there was a video. I have thought of gear changing. I heard Canova say that Bekele had a different form for XC vs. the track, and I have noticed how Yifter the Shifter, Bekele, etc. had their form change dramatically in the drive to the finish. Makes me wonder if the swing change could help to train this. Just some thoughts. Great thread.

I only did all-out a couple of times while I was there. Once was a 440 after a hard workout and after many months of training. He never told me how fast or slow it was. I think that for swing you bring the femur and knee high but the knee does not go out farther than the foot. Hard work gets results but be careful. Actually steady training is a key too. Train, don't strain and listen to your body since you do not have Coach Igloi there to do it for you.

Like you, I really think there is something to it. I just haven't figured it all out for pace. Thinking in terms of threshold could be a good way to do it.

Either changing swing mid session or even mid works in the mind or it really is doing something by changing over to other more rested muscles.

I have some friends that are pretty savvy with technology and accelorometers. I'm going to see if we can really quantify this over the coming months and report back.