Evidence that two runs per day is better than one?

I did them, and I'm faster than you. Your pal Mr. Letsrun Poster

Babuska wrote:

lease wrote:

I remember that in grad school we studied research that had found two exercise sessions per day was superior to one. (A third session was not found to offer a statistically-significant benefit.)

I'm sorry, but grad school was 30+ years ago and I no longer have those materials or a memory of their title. But the research and conclusions were pretty definitive.

Different things work for different people and some people have had considerable success with singles, but it seems that most are better served by doubles.

A Russian research many years ago found one session per day was superior to two.

I find that hard to believe, since especially the Russian research shows why high volume high frequency is the way to go. This training philosophy is also why the Russians are way better at the Olympics in wrestling than Americans. GSP main coach explains it here:

Bill Bloggers wrote:

Running twice per day is only good for the elite runners that have all day to rest up and no other work to do.

They run daily amount of 30-40 k and therefore have to split up to two runs. But is it proven that the elite really have to run that much to reach optimal results? No.

In the days when elite runners had to have jobs and did not have all day to rest between runs they were running twice a day. Barry Magee once tole me that running 100 miles a week in one session got him to national class running. Adding a second session most days and getting to 120-130 miles a week got him to world class running. The obvious question is whether he'd have gotten the same result simply by going to 120-130 on one run a day. My answer, from having done that, is that doing 100-105 miles a week in one run is pretty manageable but getting to 115 or so in one run becomes a real bear if you do it for any significant stretch of time and seemed like it was getting counter productive. Doing it in two runs was much more manageable and runs could be done at faster paces with less effort.

high volume high frequency wrote:

Babuska wrote:

A Russian research many years ago found one session per day was superior to two.

I find that hard to believe, since especially the Russian research shows why high volume high frequency is the way to go. This training philosophy is also why the Russians are way better at the Olympics in wrestling than Americans. GSP main coach explains it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fbCcWyYthQ

..........and they are very good at doping I have heard, lol.

Just that wrote:

high volume high frequency wrote:

I find that hard to believe, since especially the Russian research shows why high volume high frequency is the way to go. This training philosophy is also why the Russians are way better at the Olympics in wrestling than Americans. GSP main coach explains it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fbCcWyYthQ

..........and they are very good at doping I have heard, lol.

Russia is doping no more than any other country. The crack down on Russia was purely political. If it was truly about make sport clean, they would've banned Kenya and Ethiopia too.

Train twice/day + microdose EPO twice/day = success.

I always thought that also.

It seems that if a guy was going to run 14 miles for the day then doing it in one session as opposed to two would be preferable.

Nevertherless, Meb states in Meb for Mortals that he believes that splitting the mileage and running twice a day is the way to go.

uhhh wrote:

You'll find it difficult to find any decent evidence because researchers like short-term studies lasting about 6-8 weeks that result in boosts to vO2max and lactate threshold.

Add to this that much of the research has extremely poor controls on confounding variables, and such small sample sizes that one outlier super-responder or non-responder in the intervention or control group would throw out results of the entire study. Evidence value? Zero.

My job is assessing the evidence value of research so I know a bit about method and rigour, and from what I've seen to date, the entire feild of running physiology research gets a FAIL.

I believe strongly in scientific evidence based decision making, but in the case of running, just ask more experienced what's faster runners what they're doing.

YMMV wrote:

Hobby Dobby wrote:

I have tried to find evidence that two runs per day is better than one but there are actually no such evidence.

The only thing that really indicates that this is the case is of course the many great elite runners who have done so for decades.

But is it really proven?

You sound vegan. "Show me the studies!"

You sound hysterical. "I have no interest in the truth, get me a gun".

Probably vote for Trump.

SprintTriathlon wrote:

YMMV wrote:

You sound vegan. "Show me the studies!"

You sound hysterical. "I have no interest in the truth, get me a gun".

Probably vote for Trump.

You sound gay, "where's my soy latte?".

I figure whatever gets you the most mileage while staying healthy is the way to go... For most that is doubles.

Just that wrote:

they are very good at doping I have heard, lol.

I doubt that you know much about anything.

EPO-pian wrote:

Train twice/day + microdose EPO twice/day = success.

Whoops, I forgot to put my real name.

I feel like most people on the forum tend to participate in the longer distances i.e. half/full marathon. To those who aren't an invited elite(defined as: pro/sucky pro/masters/etc) and "believe" in doubling you're misunderstanding running and you're running to slow.

In proof of this I ask the question of how some of the sub-elites who run tons of mileage, a lot of it through doubles, but don't work out super fast can get smacked in the half marathon by 5kers and below who run basically half the mileage. Its because you can develop an aerobic engine AND better efficiency from faster work without the need for as much mileage, you just have to run HARD on your workouts.

Think of the marathon greats, they have or have had heaps of track speed. They are helped by running more mileage through doubles when they move up but only because they already had speed and never truly step away from it. Farah still ran workouts that would make US milers cry when he was running the marathon.

IMO if you aren't an elite, run singles and run your workouts harder, then spend the time you would have doubled weight training, recovering for sessions that build speed/efficiency, or being amazing at your job, family, life so you are happier and more motivated when you show up to run the next morning.

SOURCE: I build all my mileage through run-on sentences

NeverAnyGoodStudies wrote:

Needs to be more studies on this sort of stuff. If only I had access to all the Strava data, I'd code that stuff up.

There are way too many studies already.

Try using your brain for a change, and your personal experience.

Too many factors to definitively say one way or the other.

Find what works best for you.

Ask any elite runner from now and past, doubles work. That you are lazy and want to become elite without putting in the hard work and ask these stupid inquiries, that’s another story.

Bill Bloggers wrote:

Running twice per day is only good for the elite runners that have all day to rest up and no other work to do.

They run daily amount of 30-40 k and therefore have to split up to two runs. But is it proven that the elite really have to run that much to reach optimal results? No.

Elite runners in the past going back to the 1960's dud doubles and most had full time jobs.

Anything you do twice a day you'll get better at than doing it just once a day. If you get two groups to study the same amount of time, but one group brakes it up into doing it in doubles. Guess which group will do better on their test? Every other sport I can think of, the best train more than once a day. My dad played high school football, and they did what he called two a days. Where they practiced twice a day.