Jakob Ingebrigtsen Training

I don't think it's ironic that Tinman's CV derives somewhat from Seiler. Tinman himself would either see it as vindication of Seiler or, perhaps, Seiler as vindication of his own concepts.

My understanding of polarized training is a little limited, but Ingebrigsten training certainly sounds similar to it. Seiler gave the example of the rower who did 10x6 minutes (or something along those lines) every single week until he won the Olympic gold medal. It's hard to imagine the effort level for that being anything other than LT (maybe a tiny bit faster, but if this was a workout repeated every 7 days, it couldn't have been that much faster). The "threshold" training heralded as inferior sounds more like the hobbyjogger running every run at marathon pace, which is certainly not what the Ingebrigstens do.

The Ingebrigstens are obviously incredibly talented athletes, so if they did almost any sort of training, they'd be exceptional runners. But their training seems interestingly grounded in other sports' training methods rather than the conventional wisdom for running training, probably because of their proximity to nordic skiing.

Thanks man will do.

To be honest, there probably are no middle-long distance athletes in the world whose training could not be called polarized or at least polarized-ish. Unless athlete is very much speed based, mileage will be high and most of it will be of relatively lower intensity. Seller is more of do 80% of work in Zone 1 and 20% in Zone 3 (for 3 zones model divided by ventilatory thresholds), so it's quite different from Ingebrigtsen's who do around 65-70% in zone 1, 25-30% in zone 2/3 with 5% or less in zone 3 (based on Leif Inge Tjelta, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257303297_A_Longitudinal_Case_Study_of_the_Training_of_the_2012_European_1500_m_Track_Champion).

The way I see it comes down to the fact that any elite athlete will have his/her VO2max maximized already and any improvement in results will come in way of improving running economy, i.e. running faster at the same given VO2max. Study done on moderately trained individuals shows that threshold training improves economy more than VO2max type intervals or LSD. My speculation would be that threshold intensity is high enough to stimulate improvement and at the same time you can accumulate much higher volume of such intensity compared to 5k or faster type work. As discussed in previous posts, Ingebrigtsen's do a total of around 17k worth of reps at threshold during their threshold days. Can you imagine doing the same amount of reps at 5K or 3K pace? Anyone would be a toast after few days or weeks.

Former Sub 14:00 wrote:

Apologies for the double post, but you should really look into the literature and research surrounding their training. Gert wasn't a runner himself and therefore had to dig into a lot of info to develop his training program. He has stated that he is influenced a lot by Stephen Seiler's training.

Look into Stephen Seiler's polarized model of training. Most of the brothers' training does fit that as well. A lot of training at zone 1 ("low" intensity LT based) and some amount of zone 3 (high intensity). What is absent is V02 max work and anything working the aerobic power to a high degree. Very, very inline with their training.

When I read Seiler's 2010 review of training, he seems to make the case that success is commonly had with 80-90% of volume "easy" and a lower amount "very hard" such as intervals.

Doesn't this OPPOSE the Ingebrigsten model of TONS of threshold, i.e. "moderate" intensity??

Don't the Inges do TONS of threshold work between 2 and 3.5 mmol lactate, whereas Seiler proposes TONS of easy (under 2mmol) and some sprinkling of high intensity (above 4 mmol)???

From a cycling article:

Polarized Training

"This and other observations led Seiler to start systematically analyzing the training distribution of elite Norwegian athletes. What he found was that, across sports such as Nordic skiing, rowing, and other endurance sports, >80% of training volume was spent at endurance efforts, at a relatively easy workload that had lactate levels of 2 mmol or below (Seiler 2010). While not a recovery coffee ride pace, this is what we might associate with the classic "Long Steady Endurance" training effort. This is much more volume at a much lower effort than what most of us recreational cyclists do.

The remaining ~20% of training volume was spent largely above threshold effort, at workloads of 95% HRmax or 90% VO2max. Almost no training volume was spent at threshold or even sweet spot levels."

Perhaps you are right. I know Marius Bakken also influenced a lot of the training done by the group as well. His threshold sessions were done around 15k pace I believe. Perhaps Gert has made an amalgamamation of his own design based on general info circulating amongst Norwegian elites/researchers where the general consensus is a lot of “kinda hard” and a lot of “hard” but hardly any “medium-hard.”

Either way, he has cited he is definitely influenced by him and it is worth considering as a potential way to train athletes.

FS14/anyone else who may know how to answer this question.

I know they change their saturday sessions from 20x200m hills to 5x2x300m come april, but how often do they do track sessions before april for indoor? Do they alternate from week to week?

Great discussion guys.

Here is a lecture from Seiler summarizing his views on training for anyone interested.

https://lecturecapture.brookes.ac.uk/Mediasite/Play/3b951db65dd44082a876060aab67f5c51d

sub 14, you have been huge on this thread, thanks for your insights.

I think the bottom line is whether we lean more toward Seiler "polarized" or Inge "threshold heavy" plans, they are far superior to what SO MANY USA highschool and college programs do:

1.relatively low mileage, but run TOO FAST

2. gut busting Vo2 max and race pace intervals.

Personally, the Inge plan makes so much sense to me, and I am excited to use it on myself and my athletes. "Train what is trainable"--

pure speed--not that trainable

Vo2 max--trainable for a novice, but not very trainable for a conditioned athlete.

threshold--YES, TRAINABLE!! this is the zone for making massive aerobic and running economy gains.

I am sure my college running experience was similar to many others:

M- -"easy," but run way too hard

T--gut busting Vo2 max intervals

W--"easy," but run way too hard

Th-- gut busting race pace intervals

F--"easy," but run way too hard

S-- "tempo" run way too hard that turned into a race with teammates, or actual race where we underperformed.

Su--long

The concept of getting massively aerobically fit through high volumes of easy running and threshold work, and then icing the cake with speedy hills and speed work/technique on the track, while CUTTING OUT all the gut busting VO2 max and race pace repeats (except for the final weeks leading to key races) makes HUGE SENSE.

I actually coach at the D1 level and we follow a similar plan. I guess I still do race specific intervals but most of that stimulus can be gained from a 5000m or 3k steeple. My team on/off makes NCAAs in XC but we have been a little bit on the bubble recently. This stuff really does work even for middle distance. A couple seasons back I had a girl who ran 2:04 in the 800m off of literally 10k pace work/threshold + fast hill repeats. She was truthfully a strength based runner but was able to almost perfectly even split a 2:04 alone (she was a 10:58 3200m girl in HS). I have other examples but that is very applicable to the Ingebrigtsen’s results....you can get a lot out of middle distance performance in runners who are strength based if you do it right.

We focus a lot on the threshold training with these guys but really don’t overlook the hill sessions, the sprint work they do, and also what they do in the weight room. The threshold is a big part of the running economy, but it is only one side of the equation. Don’t think threshold alone will get you fast. You need frequent neuromuscular stimulation as well.

This is a good discussion and lacks trolls which is nice. I’ll try to keep chiming in but it will be a little hard with the Bryan Clay/Mt Sac circus weekend. Hope this training revelation works well for your team.

That´s very interesting. I think you all know how INGEBRIGTSEN train, but have problems in incorporating in your runners schedules.

This is what I know about INGEBRIGTSEN training:

October-Mid January----Threshold training is always below 4mmol and Hills above, once a week. During pre-competition period, they do fast intervals on track, something like 2x5x300m, with 100m walk/jog. This is only for 4-5 weeks.

Threshold can be: 20-25x400m (30sec rec) / 10-12x1000m(1min rec) / 4-5x2000m (2min rec) / 3x3000m (3min rec). Always very low lactate levels.

I think they do in that way (intervals) because is very difficult to do 25-30 minutes at 2:55/km continuously. Kipchoge is another example......They could do continuosly, but mechanically is more difficult.

With lower athletic level, is better to do 25-30 minutes continuously and with heart rate monitor, is easier to control. I have improve 2 minutes in 10k using this method. Give it a try!

Is very simple and effective, the only requirements are PATIENCE and TRUST in the work. And of course.....one LACTATE METER. Some are saying that they don´t meassure lactate levels when they are in South Africa or Flagstaff, but that´s not true.....see Jakob Ingebrigtsen´s Instagram, yesterday they where doing hill reps and taking blood samples frome their fingers.

Good luck!

Its so true, American high-schools and colleges literally think that is the way to the top. Here are some flaws.

1. Vo2 Max pace sessions (way too often)

2. So called 'recovery runs' where they have their NCAA cross country champions, running with your average 5:30miler??

3. Burning their developing athletes out by continuously hammering them down with races over 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 4x400 in the space of a 2-3 days??

4. Overall just having an uncontrolled view on training and maybe getting some short term results like "state champs" but that doesn't cut it in the longrun when you have these guys (Filip, Henrik, Jakob) improving at a rapid rate while keeping their training at a controlled effort.

Thanks man.

Do you have any opinion on using the hills/speed work as a stand alone session vs the Tinman style combination workouts with CV or Threshold and hills at the end?

Might be getting in the weeds here, but since we are actually having a training discussion I thought I'd bring it up.

I know there is a lot of contention on these boards about whether workouts should be combined or in isolation. I personally like to combine the two. Logistically it works well in a schedule, but also it is more race specific. Having a lot of turn over and “speed” does not matter if you can’t call upon it during a race. Doing threshold work and then some sort of speed is good for race simulation.

In early season we will do short 80m hill strides at 800m effort or faster following threshold work. We also do a 200m hill too at 1500m effort. I fortunately have a track, 500m rec field, and 200m asphalt hill all within the same proximity of each other. Some schools aren’t so lucky and maybe can’t do the hill stuff combo as easily.

Another thing to note is that the threshold work warms them up even further. It really helps with injury prevention. Tinman is big on the warming up effects of his CV work as well. That being said, the Ingebrigtsens certainly have success training with isolation of intensities.

Tinman also has his athletes include 3 or so minutes of uptempo running as part of the warm-up before a few 20s strides.

Something like 15 mins jog, 3 mins pick-up, 2 mins jog, 6x20s strides with 20s recovery

Either is a good approach. What matters is having a general plan and being consistent with it. Then you can adjust based on race performance.

Really a great thread.

OldFish. wrote:

The way I see it comes down to the fact that any elite athlete will have his/her VO2max maximized already and any improvement in results will come in way of improving running economy, i.e. running faster at the same given VO2max. Study done on moderately trained individuals shows that threshold training improves economy more than VO2max type intervals or LSD. My speculation would be that threshold intensity is high enough to stimulate improvement and at the same time you can accumulate much higher volume of such intensity compared to 5k or faster type work. As discussed in previous posts, Ingebrigtsen's do a total of around 17k worth of reps at threshold during their threshold days. Can you imagine doing the same amount of reps at 5K or 3K pace? Anyone would be a toast after few days or weeks.

In fact VO2max intervals improves the running economy at 5 k race pace and the thresholds improves running economy at roughly half marathon pace. And then you have the LSD stuff that improves the running economy at that pace. It's three different 'systems' that mixed in a perfect balance gives the very best final 'product'.