Glenn,
Really interesting post. Thanks.
Nobby,
Same to you, but that's just routine procedure.
Kim,
Glad to have you back. The workload's been piling up.
Glenn,
Really interesting post. Thanks.
Nobby,
Same to you, but that's just routine procedure.
Kim,
Glad to have you back. The workload's been piling up.
Skuj:
I got side-tracked. I was reading your previous message and here's what you said: "...how does one develop all systems harmoniously? What else do we need for 800 success?"
What else do we need (besides loong slow distance)? Here's what Arthur Lydiard ALWAYS relpied to such question: "EVERYTHING!"
You need to develop everything; and you need to consider everything; from your shoe lacing to sunglasses to wearing socks or not to placing bandaid on your nipples. In essense, running 100MPW is only a tip of the iceburg (I said "half" because it takes up 10 to 12 weeks of 6-month program).
How do you develop them all "harmoniously"? Now you're really getting the right track. Everything has to be developed in a systematic manner. Developing your aerobic capacity takes longest but it lasts longest too so you take a big chunk at first and develop that first. Forget hill training; there's no hill on track! But you don't want to jump to fast intervals from long slow jogging so you probably want something in between to "transit". Hill training will give you muscle toning, stretching, a bit of aprinkles of lactic acid, etc. all at once so let's place that after conditioning. Then you pile in some heavy dose of anaerobic interval type training. East German exercise physiologists said it takes about 4 to 5 weeks to develop your anaerobic capacity to maximum, so let's place that toward the end of the program. All this time, make sure you maintain your aerobic base by jogging as much as you can and keep at least one long run on weekend. Now comes "coordination". This is all about "harmony". Coordinate all these elements in a balanced way--now you've got the Lydiard program.
Nobby please outline a week in the coordination phase as well as the hill and anerobic phases. It would mainly for a 5k/10k runner. Thanks again
Oasis:
I was getting to it. I told ya I got side-tracked. Without knowing any specifics, here's general outline of hill training week and anaerobic training week:
Hill Resistance Training (4 weeks)
Monday: Leg-speed 100 meters 6 to 10 times.
Tuesday: Hill exercise 1/2 to 1 hour.
Wednesday: Fast relaxed running 100 meters 6 to 10 times.
Thursday: A Hill exercise (or jog) 1/2 to 1 hour.
Friday: Leg-speed 100 meters 6 to 10 times.
Saturday: Hill exercise 1/2 to 1 hour.
Sunday: Aerobic running 1 to 2 hours.
Anaerobic Training (4 weeks)
Monday: Sprint training.
Tuesday: Repetitions.
Wednesday: Easy fartlek 1/2 to 1 hour (jogging and striding or sprint training).
Thursday: Repetitions.
Friday: Relaxed striding (fast and easy).
Saturday: Repetitions.
Sunday: Aerobic running 1 to 2 hours.
A word of caution: don't follow this schedule, or any schedule for that matter, blindly. Use what you've got between your ears.
Ah, sorry, and coordination phase (toughest one to generalize):
Co-ordination Training (4 weeks).
Monday: Wind-sprints (total of 2000 to 4000 meters) either 50 meters every 100 meters or 100 meters every 200 meters; 10 to 20 times.
Tuesday: For Middle Distance; Fast relaxed striding or Sprint training.
For Distance; Time trial 3000 or 5000 meters.
For Either; Easy fartlek or Aerobic running up to an hour.
Wednesday: Development races or Time trial ; a sprint and middle distance.
Thursday: Fast relaxed striding or Pace judgement or Easy Fartlek or Fast runs in repetition over 300 meters by 3 or 500 meters by 2.
Friday: Jog 1/2 hour.
Saturday: Development races; over or under race distance.
Sunday: Aerobic running 1 hours to 11/2 hours.
Remember, you need to structure your day-to-day workouts based on your reaction to (development) races and time trials. Be sure you have clear understanding of what you're trying to do and what you need to achieve that. Just following anybody's schedule blindly is not worth the paper that schedule is written on.
For those of you who have not quite seen what the heck this Lydiard training program is all about, check out the following sites:
http://www.geocities.com/gprrc/lydiard.html
http://www.fitnesssports.com/lyd_clinic_guide/lydpg1.html
Both quite legit (cuz I wrote both of them!). We are eventually going to move both of them, with more detailed explanation and some photos, to our website,
(self-promotion alert!) but I've been lazy...or busy replying to this thread!
Nobby, yer the man! :) (Please tell me more about yourself. I'm from Mars.)
"Systematic manner". You've re-iterated the "blocks" or phases of Lydiard training that I'm familiar with....and this concept is the one I have the hardest time with. You see, I am a Coe / Martin fan, and they state why they don't agree with these big blocks.....
General levels of intensity and volume should both rise from the beginning of the macro. Volume should peak several weeks before the biggest race of the year, then gradually decline, while intensity continues to climb. Squiggly lines on a graph. Both gently rising together. No big blocks. No sudden switches to a new phase (thereby risking injury?).
The comment about 4-5 weeks to develop max anaerobic capacity....hmmmm. Many would argue that. I'm no scientist. Surely the capacity systems can (and should?) be developed in tandem with development of general endurance and stamina? Before I attempt a 4min mile, I want to do 4x600m in 1:28 with 3min recovery. I would like to take many many steps towards this session, maybe 12x200m with short recovery in over 30sec as a first step, very early in the macro. 4-5 weeks means I'll be jumping into the deep end from the high platform, instead of carefully wading there.
Sorry, I'm rambling: Multipace training throughout the whole year: November capacity sessions differ from March capacity sessions which differ from July capacity sessions. All the different kinds of running developed interdependantly makes so much sense to me, rather than leaving certain things dormant for weeks / months on end....
Discuss! :)
Glen:
Excellent post!
A team mate of mine in college had a simple training plan. He ran 1 hour per day, every day at a moderate to somewhat strong effort. He improved from 4:40s as high shcool miler to low 24s in cross-country for 8k doing this. He prefered to do no intervals and just run his 6:00 to 5:20 paced 1- hour runs. He always raced very strongly when doing it his way. His pace steadily dropped over a 2 years time when he adopted 1 hour runs. He started at about 6:30 per mile as his average pace per mile and within 18 months he was running 5:30 per mile comfortably and feeling very fit. Had he not been interrupted by the establishment and forced to run intervals, I think he could have run 23:40 or better.
Another example:
One time a gal and her father approached me at a xcountry meet to ask questions about training. The gal was a sophomore in high school. She wanted to know how many miles to train, how fast to run them, and what workouts to do. I asked one simple question: "Can you run 1 hour per day, every day of the week, now, and continue doing it for several weeks?
She said, "No sir, I only can go about 40 minutes at at time, but I run shorter the next day." I looked at her and with sincerity said, "All the fancy workouts in the world are of less value than if you just gradually work your distance runs to 1 hour per day, every day. When you can do that for 3 weeks straight, then you or your dad can call me and we can tale about what workouts to do. Good luck."
I ran into her father at a gas station, by chance, two years later and he waved me over to his car. We said our greetings and he proceeded to rave about how my simple advise had made his daughter into a star runner. She had won the state title in xcountry her senior year. I replied simply, "Thanks a lot, but it was your daughter who did the work. I was just the messenger."
Nobby,
How extensive is the typical Lydiard warm-up and cool-down on a day when you do "leg speed - 100 meters 6-10 times?"
Hyena
Skuj:
I’d be honest with you, Coe & Martin’s book has been in my bookshelf for quite some time and I have used it as reference many times but I actually haven’t read the whole thing from front to back yet (I’m a Jap, and am a slow reader…what do you expect!?). Now my understanding of what you just described of Coe’s training approach (increase both volume and intensity) is in reference with volume and intensity of “race specific training”. For example, in Lydiard’s original track schedule (from Run to the Top), he prescribes, say, starting with 15X200 at ¼ effort to 12X400 at ¼ effort to 20X200 at ½ effort to 15X400 at ½ effort (not specifically these numbers but just showing the pattern) and that’s why I like the original track schedule best. It does follow that Coe pattern. Now whether Coe actually did a block of “aerobic conditioning” or not, I’m not sure. He may have but then again, he may not have. Either way, he was, as far as I’m concerned, close to physical freak. He had very very high aerobic capacity to begin with that he may not have needed to build it up…I would not know. What I do know is that if I take someone who’s 18-years-old and beginning to compete, I would NOT have him follow such Coe approach. Here I’m talking very general term.
Four weeks to develop maximum anaerobic cap: yes, when I was writing that, I thought someone might come back and bite me. I have not seen the actual study; I don’t know if there’s any. The point, however, is that doing too much anaerobic type training, i.e.; intervals or repetitions, can have a deteriorating effect on your overall fitness level. It pulls pH level of your blood, affects central nervous system (with lowering of blood pH level). Assuming all those scary bedtime stories are true, why continue with such training year-around? I will ask some of my friends who are exercise physiologists and see if such research actually exists or if such theory is actually correct.
I guess you could say that I’ve been busy studying the Lydiard method (with my slow English reading skills), that I have not had time to expand other methods. I need to revisit (or visit for the first time?) Coe and Martin book. But I could take a short cut and actually talk to him??? As a matter of fact, I just spoke with Dr. Martin and he gave me some very interesting information: Get this, guys; 200m splits of Yuri Borzakowski’s 800m gold medal performance at Athens Olympic Games:
25.5—26.7—26.2—26.0 (200m splits)
52.2—52.3 (400m splits)
“It couldn’t have been more even than this,” Dr. Martin said. “The key to running successful 800m is to stay aerobic as long as possible; that means ‘How can we NOT get into too much anaerobic in the first lap’…and up to 600m mark and slow down least.” As Dick Brown always says, “It’s not who is the fastest in the last 200m of middle distance race; but who is the LEAST anaerobic?” He’s in the middle of a move to a new office and said his info on Dave Wottle’s splits from 72 Olympics in a box somewhere. When he gets to it and sends it to me, I’ll share it with you.
Now I’m happy that I made my point from someone you would think more reliable than a stinkin’ Jap who runs in that racing flat crap! I love it when I'm right! Of course this is when my wife would have this sudden gush of air through her nose with a smirk on her face...(I’m just kidding here)
Oh, one more thing; you do need to prepare for the next phase each time. So run hilly courses during conditioning (as they did); you do do some short windsprints during hill circuit (as they did). There should NEVER be any “sudden” switch to the new next phase and they never had. If he never mentioned in his book (the man was a confusing SOB, wasn’t he?), they never practiced “sudden switch.”
BeamonStreet:
Well, at least Dr. Daniels himself has tapped into this thread! Of course, Arthur can’t if he wanted to… (but he probably never would have because he sucked at computer!)
All due respect, it was as much as the system as the man himself that made those champions. It is the principle and the concept that made physiological and mechanical sense. That is why he has, along with other disciples, coached people successfully by correspondence or advised successfully athletes of other sports that he knew nothing about.
Also, it has been applied to high school and college situations just as successfully. I have been doing some corresponding with some high school and college coaches (including Glenn McCarthy). Lydiard himself has given examples of how to apply his program to the US school situation (including indoor competitions). It CAN be applied if you don’t get caught up with the numbers (10 weeks of conditioning, etc.) and understand what you need to accomplish at each phase and each workout.
This is what I meant by Lydiard being UNDERfocused in this country. Far too many people disregard his program because his numbers don’t fit into school year. Coaches who have applied the Lydiard program (including tactics of, say, how to run an 800m race) to their high school and/or college system in this country id definitely minority.
Dr. Daniels definitely made training accessible to mass with his charts and formulas (formulae?). Lydiard gave one pattern of training and made people confused.
Okay, I’ll attempt to list similarities and differences:
D: Extensive use of repetitions for both VO2Max development (run hard) and race specifics (run fast)
L: Use repetitions sparingly for anaerobic capacity development (run one fast, jog one)
D: Use of long repetition at steady state pace
L: Long continuous running for steady state development
D: Some hill training used throughout the program
L: Specific hill training during the specific period
D: Explicit pace description (clear-cut)
L: More of go-by-how-you-feel approach (confusing)
D: Systematic approach for peaking
L: Sequential block approach for peaking (same stuff, different wording)
D: Straight out of the book, suited well for school program
L: Straight out of the book, suited for post-collegiate situation
D: Need to develop aerobic base followed by extensive race specific training
L: Extensive aerobic base building followed by sparing repeats followed by very race specific training (time trial, etc.)
D: Great with computer (I’m assuming here, doc!)
L: Suck at computer (using hand-typewriter with two fingers!)
D&L: Both very personable and approachable
How close am I, Danielite folks?
daniels
Nobby;
Tremendous "short" analysis, and entertaining. The problem with many American coaches is that they follow no system at all .... wandering around a forest without a compass, so to speak. Obviously Wetmore has had great success using Lydiard at U of Col, but the injury problems there seem to speak to too intense a training environment. I think the issue here are those Lydiard steady state runs that are turned into near time trials on a daily basis. The wear and tear on the body is just nuts. And I say this not because I am any expert on Colorado, but because in reading about their program I feel as if I'm going back to my own college experience, and it's a bad flashback. But, as we meander through this thread we are seeing a situation where we have many more similarities than differences.
Nobby wrote:
Hill Resistance Training (4 weeks)
Monday: Leg-speed 100 meters 6 to 10 times.
Wednesday: Fast relaxed running 100 meters 6 to 10 times.
Friday: Leg-speed 100 meters 6 to 10 times.
Nobby,
Just curious what other running Arthur would prescribe on the "6-10 100 meters" days such as those mentioned above. Obviously a healthy warm-up and cool-down, but do you have any good approximate figures on what Arhur himself would suggest?
Arthur and I actually got into this question once. I said something to him like, "So I should maybe do 20-30 minutes for a warmup and the same for a cooldown and he said. 'Yes.'"
Thanks HRE. Just want to express yet again that this might be one of the all-time best training threads ever on letsrun. I know it's helping me fill in many of the gaps that I have had even in reading several of Arthur's books as well as various online sites.
Nobby, HRE, Kim, Glenn, Tinman, jtupper, Hotlanta, et al. Please keep sharing your wealth of knowledge with us.
I had my first exposure to Lydiard in 1965 when I was in High School and had a New Zealand kid as my pen pal who happened to be a runner and sent me his Lydiard training. I copied him since my high school coach was either the football or basketball coach interested only in getting those players in shape. After a few years of course I appeared to be an amazing talent. But really I was the only kid in shape. In my senior year I won everything with astounding ease. (Remember this was against kids who were untrained) But years and years later I did not follow the "system" but did everything at once in the same run. For long periods I ran for 2 hours a day on mostly trails but some roads to get to them and on the trails I sometimes bounded from rock to rock because there were rocks, sometime sprinted because I felt like it, or ran up a long hill or jogged and looked at the foliage. So "everything" was in one run from the equivalent of 100 meters to repeat miles doled out according to the geography.
Eventually the Lydiard system vanishes, like the state was supposed to under Communism, and the runner just feels it. It is the way muscians do it. Music and running are really the same thing–performance and emotion.
Tom
Drunkenhyena:
Not that I ignored your question... To give you a very specific number; in his book, Running with Lydiard, he stated that they "would run 4 miles to the track at New Lynn rather than use the local one because it gave us an extra 8 miles of easy training running each day to supplement the scheduled workload." This applys to all almost all the track workouts.
For leg-speed or striding type of workouts, we used to jog for, say, an hour and about 40 minutes into the run, when we came around to a park or school ground, we did strideouts or leg-speed. Jog anouther 20 minutes or so to finish it up.
I would have to go along with Nobby here regarding Warmups.
I would say we would run anything from 20 to 30 minutes before doing any stride work and possibly another 20 to 30 afterwards.
I can remember workouts at the Lynndale Track at New Lynn. Yes ! it is grass, where we would run "around the block" afterwards (4 miles) or even just run around the track, talking (Baillie was great at that!). Anything from 20 to 40 minutes. I can remember one time taking an hour because Bill was holding forth on how he and Halberg had an awesome race over 3 miles one time and it took him 40 minutes to tell us about it !!!.
In later years when I lived in Hamilton I would run the 3 miles to the track, Train and then run home.
Even now in my 50's I will run to the local track (2 miles) do some of the athletes warmups and strides, supervise their workouts and then run home.
This morning we will run 2 to 3 miles before we do our "effort" (Tempo) run and then same to wind down. This is with 17 year old kids.
My standard run before any workout now would not be less than 20 to 25 minutes.
I am not sure I could say I learned this aspect from Arthur, it was just a pattern we picked up from running with various guys who ran with Arthur.
Basically you should be fit enought that jogging nice easy pace for a half an hour or so is not taxing at all by the time you start thinking about throwing some strides or leg-speed work. We do what we call "build-up" quite a bit in Japan. It is basically "progression run" where you start out at leisurely pace and as you warm up and start to feel good, start to pick up the pace gradually. Eventually when your body is well-tuned, you reach that point. That length would be a good indication of when you should start some fast stuff. In other words, if you're struggling to complete daily 20-minute jog (the stage at which I'm sure most of the readers have well passed years ago), it may be a bit premature to think about sprinkling some fast leg-speed work.
Quite often people (coaches as well as runners) change their program way too prematurely. It takes months and years to get a glimps of "effect" yet they just can't wait. With the flood of information, the trend of new training this month is "speed endurance (whatever the hell that really means)", it's LT repeats next month, and then something else... I sometimes wonder if it's better to stick with incorrect system than "system-hopping"...???
I can't really speak for UC... Coach Wetmore is a great guy but this injury reputation... I would say shoes (from what I've seen in some articles and a book) and young studs fighting their position in every workout... But then again, there's another angle to look at it; what if coach(s) are holding them back whenever they felt any tiny twinge? That is quite often a case in Japan (aka; worst frienf for agents and race directors!). Any small twinge, they'll pull back the athlete "due to injury". Now that's a smart move. Whether that's the case with UC I don't know...
I've had this chat with this college coach recently. He liked to prescribe steady state repetitions. For young developing athletes, I personally feel it's much better to give them lots of easy jogging and short, sharp exercise stuff (hills, drills, 200s, etc.) to get them come right for the race. For high school and college, I think more important to look at their long-term achievement (and their potential) than giving them "watered-down" workouts of the champions. They would perform very well--but then what happens?