balance wrote:
Antonio,
Your mentioning of the term interval to describe the recovery period peaked my interest in your discussion about incomplete rest periods in between repetitions. It is my understanding that Greshler did not necessarily desire very short recovery periods, nor did he necessarily desire the recovery intervals to be jogged. Many are aware that Gresheler and Reidell had their athletes lie down in between each fast run so that they could get the heart rate down as fast as possible.
Balance. I think you are wrong. Thisis one more historical mistake, as many in our sport, that turn on to a wrong interpretation of the interval training from the Freiburg school.
Since long ago that i discuss your this arguments, the use of the intervals in the called "interval training". I know that most of the literature says exactly what you says, But they are wrong.
I think that to give you a satisfactory and complete answer to your question i would need a new thread or at least a couple of long posts. That´s impossible for me to justify that in some sentences – and we will need to read and discuss Gresheler and Reindell original articles. We need to go back to Gresheler articles, and see the reasons why those after Gresheler they misunderstood and they did transform what´s interval training – that´s with no doubt based in uncompleted pauses to reps training (merely repetitions, not dealing with the incomplete pause effect).
You see, most of the people, simply reads once or twice – they have no time or interst to investigate every issue, they copy from one each other what they read in the books and they take for granted wrong ideas – but they claim to have a scientific method . if ther´s a wrong idea out there in what they read, this passes from one to another and from generation to generation, and in the final this changes to be the “true” and “factual” but that´s “untrue” and “not factual”. But in the case of Gresheler that´s not true that he did uses quite complete interval pauses and that´s not true that he did uses passive pauses. Not at all. Ther´s a portuguese runner named Manuel Faria that did win Zatopec in a few occasions. He tooks teaching and coaching directly from Gresheler in Germany.
One thing that you need to understand is that in my opinion - for the sake of the true - what´s actually people thinks (most of the people) that´s Greshler interval training method need to be revised and re-write. Definitively, the interval training from the Freiburg school did worked only with incomplete pauses in his origin - shorter as possible and also with active intervals.
The fact that all over the world this system is known as to have complete pauses and passive intervals have to do with a misunderstanding of that facts and of the articles of the Freiburg school.:
1/Imagine that ther´s a group of runner´s that do an interval training session in a track under the supervision of a coach. the start the first repetition all in the same time - that´s what usually happens in this kind of situation.
When that´s the case that they did interval workouts - in a group - most of the times that´s in a group - in the 50´s or 60´s - usually ther´s no one chrono for everybody. And you see if you have 5 athletes doing intervals you would need 10 chrono watches, Remember that they are living in the 40s-50s. Ther´s no pulse chronos watches as today, ther´s also not too much split chronos as actually we do. This is a 80s-90s invention, if not invented at least spread by commercial bland as a product that everybody can buy today ! A chrono cost in the 40s/50s it´s almost a half-month salary.
Example. Then the runners they start all together for the first rep - they do so, because they need to use 3-4 chronos maximum (sometimes 1 coach have just 1 chrono, those who have 2 or more that´s a luxury) and also because if you are a coach that have to train 10 athletes and you want to do that workout in that determined day - then they would have - 1 chrono for the interval of each one runner (different paces), another for the intervals (different recover) of each one runner. But if you essay 1 runner each time running the workout as a single runner, not in a group - you would need all evening to that the 10 runners they complete the 10 workouts.. Then, imagine in that same day, ther´s another group of sprinters in that same track - 10 sprinters. they would need more another more than 10 chronos. Yes, sometimes we forget how it was in the past. In the 50´s people use to train workouts in groups also because the coach did just 2 or 3 chronos.
2/Then to solve that solution, they wrongly decide - the coaches, not Gresheler - that the pace intensity that´s what is most relevant in the interval training - the faster the better - and not the shorter recover as Gresheler did prescribes - then they start to use a method that´s a quite long pause duration - and that in reality isn´t no more interval training as it was it´s origin or essence permiss as Gresheler and Reindell did define that- the interval training took his name “interval” because that´s mainly based in the incomplete intervals system.
They decide to use such a long interval as a solution - that almost everybody in a group may be able to recover in that standard period - let´s say 1:30. But i will show you some quotes from Gresheler articles and he says that clear - you may use the shorter interval as possible, the way you have a quite incomplete recover, and with that so - each new rep/set, that´s harder than the past one in terms of cardio-vascular effort and also in terms of lactic acid concentration.
Just a simple example:
Ex: 1st rep – 3mmol/168pulse; (35sec interval-145HRb); 2rd rep/3.1mmol/172pulse; (35sec interval-145HRb) 3rd rep – 3.4mmol/172pulse; (35sec interval-145HRb); 4rd rep – 3.8mmol/175pulse; (35sec interval-145HRb); …(etc)…10th rep – 6,8mmol/182HRb
The pause that´s defined by the time to get down to 2/3 of the max. HRb – then that runner max is 190HRb, and the pace it depends, but to give you an idea that´s in percents of the PB for that rep distance.
The idea of use a pause to get back to 120pulse beats that´s wrong. Tomorrow, i will show you the Gresheler&Reindell ideas. I also have copies original letters and the training book from Gresheler to this portuguese runner. Ex: Gresheler precribes for Manuel Faria 14:09 PB, 15X400m/66sec rec=40sec, or 8X600m/88sec rec=45sec.
3/By the spread (mis)use of the long pauses than what should be, the coaches they were able to take and control the "interval training workout" but that´s no more interval training based - as that would be with short and incomplete recover and with individualized recover durationfor each single athlete, since each one runner covers the rep distance for different time results, and eventually each one needs also different interval pauses duration.
4/Now thinks that they want to use, as Gresheler prescribes really - active pauses. What a mess with that limited chronos. The coach can´t control all ten runners. Then soon they give up to use active pauses. But Gresheler, that in his genuine idea improvement get a decisive influence from the Zatopec success – and we know that Zatec did use active pauses.
5/Now thinks that you need individualized interval pauses based on the heart pulse beats. Ther´s no need to remember you that at that time the HRM that didn´t exists ! Why with limited chronos if you go ahead on the track ? Then they decide that the solution is to recover standing in the track instead of jogging !
I agree with Richard, that we have no more data and info from the past, we lost the understanding how and why they did.
If ther´s anything that characterizes the Freiburg method from others methods - the tempos from the early English training - or the Sweed fartlek or any other training method- we use to mention Paavo Nurmi - that´s the use of the incomplete intervals as the main goal of the Gresheler interval training method.
Now, you open a book and what you read ? That Gresheler did use quite complete interval recover. What can i say, simply that´s wrong !
Tomorrow i will quote you some Gresheler articles with scientific arguments and also some workout examples why he uses incomplete pauses and you will see that i´m right, may be you will end with a different concept what´s the Gresheler interval training.
I also will comment the lasy part of this your post further up.
I will reply