What are Jerry Schumacher's training principles? Obviously they WORK

The X Factor is that Jerry is very approachable and likeable, especially compared to Alberto (though obviously dishes out some heavy training).

The NOP guys seem a bit more uptight compared to Jerry's Kids.

Also no one mentioned how little they seem to race, and don't seem to take indoors as serious as NOP.

Mott's wrote:

NietzschesDelight wrote:

Craig Mottram famously said once I am never more then 6 weeks away from sub 13.

.

Mottram wishes that was true.

I agree. But I believe the underlying premise of what he was saying was true.

So this isn't a example of a Schumacher athlete. This is a example log from Genevieve LaCazes schedule from last year during which she set someting like 20+ PRs (An athlete under Nic bideau ) typical base and competition week which illustrates this "Fit all year concept"

Can you describe a typical base week versus a week closer to a big event?

GL: Base season or when we are at altitude would look something like this:

Monday: am: 50min run, pm: 20min run, drills, 4x100m strides

Tuesday: am: 6x1km reps on a trail or grass track (1min recovery)

Wednesday: 60mins

Thursday: 30min threshold using heart rate monitor, pm: 30min jog

Friday: rest

Saturday: 6x800m hills jog back down recovery

Sunday: 80min long run

Approaching competition:

Monday: am: 50min run, pm: 20min run, drills, 4x100m strides (spikes on track)

Tuesday: am: Track session

Wednesday: 60min run

Thursday: 30min threshold, maybe strides after, pm: 30min run

Friday: rest

Saturday: Hill reps of some kind

Sunday: 80min long run

Gen training looks accurate, I was following her on that Sweat app for a little bit. I was surprised by how it was relatively all quality work.

6 days of running per week:

3 workouts, 1 long, 2 easy days. Relatively same workouts every week.

Basically its easier to Maintain Quality then it is to build it.

So for Schumachers Group if they are at 85%-90% fitness all year. Which if probably the intensity/"Difficulty" they talk about. It doesn't become hard for them to get into whatever "Specific endurance" they need for there given event.

Its the reason someone like Shelby houlihan can drop fast 4:20 something Mile indoors in February and then be prepared to drop a fast 5k in August. She's not peaking twice shes just never that far away from being close to her highest fitness level.

that's why under this concept when you can look at Genevieve's Base and Pre Comp they are virtually identical.

Only Difference being she has one track session during her comp. During which she is most like working on the "Specific endurance" of whatever event she is prepairing to run.

But she is prepared to run well at any of her distances because all year she is constantly ticking off all the boxes of fitness that she needs.

I know people have their feelings about NAZ Elite on here, but I think they do an excellent of this exact thing.

They have people training for 2-3 different marathons all doing the same workouts at this point, and likely won't get super specific until about 8 weeks ago.

Same goes for their shorter races as well. Lots of times people are doing the same workouts together with a different racing schedule because they are working all systems and developing a well rounded runner from a strength perspective. When it comes to peak for shorter races, that's when you see a few weeks of specific stuff from them.

They may not have the athletes that some of the top programs do, but I do think their training has a lot of positive attributes that a runner trying to stay fit year round can benefit from. You can learn a lot about modern, non-linear training studying the logs they post online.

It's no secret. They run more mileage. Their intensity is higher.

Group setting and relationship with coach allows them to bear the burden of the volume and intensity. Running hard most every day is much harder on your own.

Massive budget, huge roster, minus 1-2 athletes they are all NCAA champions, any hard training plan should work.

Hasting was an NCAA champ, US Trials champ. She ran 2:27 with Terrance years ago, yesterday just happened to be at Worlds.

And their training does not always work and that's where the high numbers help: Derrick, Bayer (I know he ran solid steeple at BAC but never got close to his 3:34 ability and has PR'd in the steeple year 1 on his own in Indiana), Heath, Silva, Huling, Bumbi, any other group has those athletes under perform and that coach would be burned at the stake.

Or you have outliers like Infield and Quigley who get seriously hurt every year and it does not seem to matter. The cream rises even at the pro level.

I think we are also overlooking that BTC runs more mileage than almost any other US group. This is why they have come up with the term "Badger Miles." So when they are asked, they can say they run around 100-110 miles a week, but that is really more like 140-150.

Just look at Webb who ran 140 miles a week at times in his brief stint with Jerry, and he was never known as a "mileage guy."

Obviously not everyone in that group can handle it -- guys like Derrick are a bit more injury prone and stay lower.

But it has been said that Solinsky, Jager, Bairu, Mo Ahmed have all run 140+ consistently at times.

Schumacher training sure didn't work for Bairu.

The fact Jerry couldn't coach Bairu to a decent marathon is pretty unimpressive.

The Secret wrote:

Massive budget, huge roster, minus 1-2 athletes they are all NCAA champions, any hard training plan should work.

Hasting was an NCAA champ, US Trials champ. She ran 2:27 with Terrance years ago, yesterday just happened to be at Worlds.

And their training does not always work and that's where the high numbers help: Derrick, Bayer (I know he ran solid steeple at BAC but never got close to his 3:34 ability and has PR'd in the steeple year 1 on his own in Indiana), Heath, Silva, Huling, Bumbi, any other group has those athletes under perform and that coach would be burned at the stake.

Or you have outliers like Infield and Quigley who get seriously hurt every year and it does not seem to matter. The cream rises even at the pro level.

Yesterday's 2:27 was a whole 'nother level than Chicago '14

They are no stranger to injury, though.

tooth.in.revolt wrote:

After all these posts, I still feel like I don't know what Jerry's training is all about.

That said, I'm not sure what Alberto's is about either...

There are many paths to success. A workout plan will not make you faster. Heart, desire and natural ability are all more important than one man's workout plan.

Colleen Quiglry posted a week of training from an altitude stint in Flagstaff earlier in the year. I think it was two sessions around 5k of work at 3k-mile pace and a long run.

"Can someone explain how this works over the course of a year? "

It`s all about not stepping over "the breakdown limit" and doing workouts that in fact not are "hard". The paces they run are perfect controlled and not too much for the individual runner. Even Nic Bideau don`t have his runners to do all out workouts. For example at maxVO2-pace intervals they run about 93-95 % of maxVO2- pace. This way they can be race prepared year around and never very far from "The Peak". My system DANCAN functions in basic the same way but is very more exact structured and the very important recovery have more priority then in those guys systems.

tooth.in.revolt wrote:

After all these posts, I still feel like I don't know what Jerry's training is all about.

That said, I'm not sure what Alberto's is about either...

Flotrack's NOP documentary is up for non pro users.

David a Rudish wrote:

There are many paths to success. A workout plan will not make you faster. Heart, desire and natural ability are all more important than one man's workout plan.

True with a modification. No one can get away from the facts that the main factors for success in middle-longdistance are about maxVO2, threshold and aerob capacity.

.......... wrote:

She said they run a lot of miles with an emphasis on hard long runs (Canova-esque).

What pacing is a "hard" long run? Marathon-pace? A little faster? A little slower? Progressing down to marathon pace?

Check out some of the NAZ Elite stuff. During marathon blocks especially, they do tons of hard long runs. Fast finish, long progressions, surges, alterations, tempo/moderate/tempo.

Rosario's training is solid. Any anyone can learn from it. And he's showing there is no magic in the sauce by publishing it all online for free. I cannot applaud the move enough.

Most of his athletes are not near the level of NOP, OTC, etc., but I do believe they are punching way above their weight class accordingly.

Perhaps

Family environment

Culture of hard work

Communal meals

These are sometimes seen in successful organizations