| OLD SCHOOL |
| The Great Debate Since the beginning of competitive distance running there has been a debate raging on how one should condition endurance athletes. For years no two people have been able to completely agree upon how distance runners should train day to day, week to week, month to month, and finally year to year. Many times coaches and athletes rely heavily upon the current trends to base the foundation of their philosophy. The 1950's were dominated by daily interval training with very little incorporation of easier aerobic runs. The 1960's saw Authur Lydiard come along to revolutionize how athletes condition themselves for distance races. Lydiard broke his year into three distinct phases: the marathon phase, the hill running phase, and the speed phase. His most unique contribution was his ideas on how all distances runners, ranging from 800 meters to the marathon, need to spend a lengthy portion of their year running high amounts of mileage. He claimed that this marathon training will allow all of his athletes to build an enormous foundation on which they will later train for power, strength, and speed. Lydiard's influence carried heavily into the 1970's where runners now incoroporated huge amounts of mileage stacked on top of endless sets of quarter mile repeats. Many runners now tested their toughness on a regular basis... In the mid to late 1980's distance runners began looking for an easier way to reach great performances on the track, roads, and cross country courses. This lead to a major shift to low mileage and an major emphasis on speed work. As a result U.S. distance running saw a slowly and steady decline in performances in every distance from 1500 meters to the marathon. It was no longer popular for high school, college, and post-collegiate americans to build the aerobic foundations that Lydiard felt was so vital. Many people ... There had to be a different (and easier) way to reach the mountain top. The 1990's saw a majority of coaches going for the quick fix As a new century approach, so too did a new trend of training surface. The new trend was based on science�Not that science was ignored in the past, but it now seemed that every aspect of training could be controlled by a formula or a set of numbers. Scientific terms were thrown around coaches offices, tracks, internet message boards. Terms like LT, critical velocity, Max Velocity VO2, etc. Also included in the new trend was an emphasis on more non-running activities. Activities that are geared toward not just supplementing your running but more or less replacing your running. If you take nothing � I am here to tell you that there is a simpler approach to training. A tried and true method. An approach that focuses on building a well rounded � One thing that has always existed throughout the years is the pension for the quick fix. 1970's was filled with enthusiastic high school kids running extremely high volumes of mileage in an attempt to reach greatness quickly. The result was many high school superstars suffering from burn out, injury, ...what they did not realize was that even though mileage is important to the overall development of the distance runner, it must be approached from the proper angle. Energy and time are limited A vast majority of competitive distance runners are only part time athletes. They have school and/or work to take up much of the rest of their day. So that leaves the runner with a limited amount of both time and energy in which to effectively train/condition for competition. As a coach my goal is to get in, do the necessary work, and then get out. There is no sense in spending hours upon hours at practice when in reality athletes can get in, do the important work, and be on their way. A key to achieving this goal is to avoid unnecessary activities that will take away from the focused activity. Why spend 30 minutes doing hurdle walk-overs and med-ball situps when you could be out running. We will address the need for aerobic conditioning later and why hurdle work, med ball exercises, and lifting weights do very little to elevate (performance) aerobic fitness. I will make the claim that these activities will actually reduce aerobic fitness by placing undue stress upon the body, leading to excessive fatigue and thus reducing the overall amount of running that can be performed. First and foremost you are a distance runners and if you are healthy most of your time should be spent running and/or running specific activities. The most effective and efficient activity to help you become a better running is running. |
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