Double "Threshold" workouts, in Depth

Bump, because this is a detailed, running-related post and it sounds very adaptable to my own training some time.

Yep, very good post. Mike Smith from NAZ Elite has been using these workouts for ages. Wouldn't be surprised if Gjert was inspired by Smith.

Here is it in action by one of his coached athletes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2vdCjJZ1uQ

AM Workout:

6xMile w/ 90 sec rest

Splits: 5:18/5:18/5:19/5:19/5:18/5:16

PM Workout: (Not Filmed)

4xMile w/ 90 sec rest

Splits: 5:19/5:18/5:18/5:15

Workout done by 4:20 miler and 15:06 5k'er Rachel Schneider. Pace was faster than the Tinman range for threshold since it was on altitude on a warm day, it was between threshold (4 mmol) and CV (5.5 mmol), the effort was probably around 4.0-4.5 mmol during both sessions. So she gets 10 miles at threshold in a single day, no wonder she was able to transform from a 800/1500 specialist to a successful 5k runner. Mike Smith is a coaching genius, even Tinman himself could learn a thing or two from him.

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

Yep, very good post. Mike Smith from NAZ Elite has been using these workouts for ages. Wouldn't be surprised if Gjert was inspired by Smith.

Here is it in action by one of his coached athletes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2vdCjJZ1uQ

AM Workout:

6xMile w/ 90 sec rest

Splits: 5:18/5:18/5:19/5:19/5:18/5:16

PM Workout: (Not Filmed)

4xMile w/ 90 sec rest

Splits: 5:19/5:18/5:18/5:15

Workout done by 4:20 miler and 15:06 5k'er Rachel Schneider. Pace was faster than the Tinman range for threshold since it was on altitude on a warm day, it was between threshold (4 mmol) and CV (5.5 mmol), the effort was probably around 4.0-4.5 mmol during both sessions. So she gets 10 miles at threshold in a single day, no wonder she was able to transform from a 800/1500 specialist to a successful 5k runner. Mike Smith is a coaching genius, even Tinman himself could learn a thing or two from him.

You started by agreeing with me and then made a different point. I’m saying they average at most 3 mmol if lactate (2.5 in the morning and 3.5 in the afternoon). What you’re saying is averaging 4+. I think the mike smith workout would maybe make sense with a few rest days afterwards, but I’m saying with the ingebrigtsen type stuff, you really only need one super slow day.

MMOL are different for each runner. Not everyone has exactly 4.0 mmol at 1-hour race pace. Depends on the % of slow-twitch vs fast-twitch fibers. Key is that threshold is quite a bit easier than 10k effort, which for most runners falls in the 3.0-5.0 mmol range. MP would be around 2.0-2.5 mmol, that's the first workout you have shown (Tinman refers to it as Tinman Tempo), it's a decent pace but the leg turnover and knee drive isn't as specific as running at threshold or faster.

If you look at the woman doing Smith's workout, you see that it is quite relaxed, even at altitude and that's exactly how it should be. Of course, 1-2 easy days should follow a workout, but that's standard not just for Ingebrigtsen's but also NAZ and most other teams.

I know not everyone has 4.0 mmol at 1 hour race pace, but for a population average, it's pretty close. There will always be exceptions, I'm not saying this is specific to everyone, that's what a coach is for, the fine tuning.

I just listened to a podcast with Tinman recently and he talks about what you're referring to, it makes sense that the slower paces don't necessarily have the same knee drive/form of faster running, but that doesn't mean it doesn't help. I think as long as you do strides and that hard hill workout each week, you're going to be basically just as well off, because you're still becoming aerobically way fitter.

With the workout, I think it's hard to actually tell if someone is relaxed, unless they're racing. When my friends and I do workouts, we could say we were dying and going too hard, but to each other, we look relaxed. The first example that comes to mind is Nico Young, he always looks like he's dying, but he's probably pretty relaxed most of the time. I was trying to say with the Ingebrigtsens' training, you only need 1 day tops between workouts, which allows them to do a lot of that aerobic work, but with the workout in the video, she probably needed 1 day before an easy workout or 2 - 3 days easy before the next similarly intense workout, so she might've missed out on getting more work in because she had to recover. Maybe that was on purpose, she's obviously doing well though and this is just me thinking, not knowing anything for sure.

It was the last big workout before a race, so she naturally had more rest days scheduled anyway. Makes sense, but it still wasn't a killer workout, just high volume threshold at the very high end of threshold pace, getting close to 10k effort.

The Ingebrigtsen are also known to do 25x400 at a relaxed pace, although I'm not exactly sure if it's threshold, CV/10k or a progression from threshold to CV during the reps. But that's another strong aerobic workout.

Also, Ingebrigtsen got smoked by Lewandowski indoor EC last year when he wanted to do the double. So his training might have a weakness, he was not able to front run a fast time and obviously in a slow race Lewandowski outkicks him easily since he has so much more FT fibers and speed. The weakness in the training might be lactate tolerance, since without a pacer he was not able to run a strong pace or anything close to his PR, and in the slow 3:43 race Lewandowski easily outkicked him on the last lap with a 26.2 not even being challenged.

For reference -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE_XSusQDPc&vl=en

(Ingebrigtsen 1500 PR was 3-4s faster than Lewandowski's at that time, now Lewandowski is also a 3:31 guy).

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

Yep, very good post. Mike Smith from NAZ Elite has been using these workouts for ages. Wouldn't be surprised if Gjert was inspired by Smith.

Gjert was inspired by Marius Bakken, who started utilizing this type of training program back in the late 90s, early 2000s. I followed his progress religiously for a while.

Perhaps this protocol was around even before Marius started using it, but he's the first person I'm aware of.

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

Yep, very good post. Mike Smith from NAZ Elite has been using these workouts for ages. Wouldn't be surprised if Gjert was inspired by Smith.

Gjert was inspired by Marius Bakken, who started utilizing this type of training program back in the late 90s, early 2000s. I followed his progress religiously for a while.

Perhaps this protocol was around even before Marius started using it, but he's the first person I'm aware of.

By the way, calling the two workouts "threshold" is a misnomer. Marius was always very specific that his sessions were always below OBLA (he used the 4 mmol/liter standard for OBLA).

So a weekly schedule would look like?

M - Easy?

T - Double Threshold

W - Easy

Th - Easy

Fri - hills

Sat - easy

Sunday - Long?

Shameless bump of my own post with a presentation Kalle Berglund's coach gave at some point.

https://pajulahti.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Jan-Bengtsson-Pajulahti.pdf

So are they doing this same double workout twice a week for aerobic work? or is it this workout then another tempo/threshold later in the week. (Not including their speed workout)

Horizon wrote:

So a weekly schedule would look like?

M - Easy?

T - Double Threshold

W - Easy

Th - Easy

Fri - hills

Sat - easy

Sunday - Long?

No, I believe Thursday is also Double Threshold and Saturday is hills.

Horizon wrote:

Shameless bump of my own post with a presentation Kalle Berglund's coach gave at some point.

PPT Link

But careful here - it states specifically he has not done any double threshold training prior to March 2018.

So he already was running 3:36 1500m based on single threshold sessions. Most LR users have problems even getting there.

I've said it many times and will say it again - there is no magic in training. Double threshold sessions won't make a 4:00 1500m guy or a 4:20 1500m guy into a 3:40 1500m guy.

In this runners case, you can see his 1500m did not improve after the double threshold sessions, what improved a lot was his 5k from 14:45 down to the 13s. This makes sense, since the best predictor for performance in a 1500m is VO2MAX, whereas threshold becomes increasingly important the longer the distance goes, already surpassing the performance prediction of VO2MAX in a 10k (in a 5k it's around 50/50 I think).

But for recreational runners, they might not be able to handle the double threshold workouts multiple times a week, you can't give a slow 4:20 1500m with VO2MAX of 62 the same workouts as an elite runner with a 3:36 1500m best and multiple years of professional training experience with a top coach.

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

Yep, very good post. Mike Smith from NAZ Elite has been using these workouts for ages. Wouldn't be surprised if Gjert was inspired by Smith.

Here is it in action by one of his coached athletes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2vdCjJZ1uQ

AM Workout:

6xMile w/ 90 sec rest

Splits: 5:18/5:18/5:19/5:19/5:18/5:16

PM Workout: (Not Filmed)

4xMile w/ 90 sec rest

Splits: 5:19/5:18/5:18/5:15

Workout done by 4:20 miler and 15:06 5k'er Rachel Schneider. Pace was faster than the Tinman range for threshold since it was on altitude on a warm day, it was between threshold (4 mmol) and CV (5.5 mmol), the effort was probably around 4.0-4.5 mmol during both sessions. So she gets 10 miles at threshold in a single day, no wonder she was able to transform from a 800/1500 specialist to a successful 5k runner. Mike Smith is a coaching genius, even Tinman himself could learn a thing or two from him.

Since when Mike Smith is with NAZ Elite?

That aside, you need to drop your obsession over this coach invented that or that invented this. Pretty much everything has been done in the past in one way or another. Gjert certainly did not copy anything from Mike Smith, his training most likely was somewhat inspired by winter sports athletes do as well as reasearch. If there were any runners that had impact of his training philosophy that would be Marius Bakken.

And here we have Jakob smoking Lewandowski when Jakob thought he had an extra lap. One race proves nothing.

Context is important, he went from a 3:36 guy, to a guy who ran 3:36 2 days in a row for his prelims, then 3:33 in the world final. It's clear he could have run 3:30 if he ran only one 1500 instead of the prelims and final. The threshold work also helped immensely in getting him through those rounds to make the final. In 2017 he made it to the semi's then failed to make the final, placing 11th in his heat

For those of you that have implemented this in your own training, what part of your training did you implement it in? During the peak phase? Late base phase? I'm asking because I would like to implement this into my training in the fall for a half marathon.

Building off this, does anyone know what the Ingebrigtsen base phase Looks like?

Fugu wrote:

Building off this, does anyone know what the Ingebrigtsen base phase Looks like?

The post made by Horizon with the presentation of the Swedish runner's training is a carbon copy of what we know about the Ingebrigtsen base training phase:

M - AM: 10K, PM: 10K + Strides

T - AM: LT Workout, PM: LT Workout

W - AM: 10K, PM: 10K

Th - AM: LT Workout, PM: LT Workout

F - AM: 10K, PM: 10K

S - AM: 20 x 200m Hills

Su - AM: 20K