Old School Approach to Running/Training....good article

Apr 5, 18 8:37

Post #1 of 18 (2750 views)

http://www.scienceofrunning.com/...runningtraining.html

"Old School approach to run training". Quite interesting to me as we've gotten crazy making things so difficult. While I know this article mostly addresses sprinting, I feel we've made most sports this way. I know athletes who do more multi plane activation strength training that actually sports. Same with running, biking and swimming, is the best advice to actually simple do the sport while concentrating on form WHILE training? Drills, drills, drills, and few get much faster. Old school simply works.

Re: Old School Approach to Running/Training....good article [ggeiger] [ In reply to ]

Apr 5, 18 10:11

Post #2 of 18 (2686 views)

Quote:

multi plane activation strength training

WTF is that?

Re: Old School Approach to Running/Training....good article [logella] [ In reply to ]

Apr 5, 18 10:17

Post #3 of 18 (2673 views)

logella wrote:

Quote:

multi plane activation strength training

WTF is that?

My point exactly....

Re: Old School Approach to Running/Training....good article [ggeiger] [ In reply to ]

Apr 5, 18 10:33

Post #4 of 18 (2636 views)

I dig it. I read a while back that Dave Scott just ran hard when he ran. He would do his loop and try to beat his time each and every time. Maybe I remember what I read incorrect? I know I’m guilty of trying to get overly complicated long before I’ve just done a pile of solid WORK.
I’m curious if the exact opposite is true, though, in swimming. There, I got sucked into just swimming, non-stop for 45 min and skipped the drills entirely. Mostly that was because I had no coach, and no swimming background. So why do a random drill with no guidance? But assuming this wasn’t true, would the author of the article advise that we simply swim under a watchful eye and receive suggestions from the deck? He says that the individual pieces of the running stride aren’t best isolated. If that’s true, and I’m in no position to dispute, then could we say the same in the pool? Does a few sets of one-arm drills in isolation benefit the athlete? Could it be we dump all that and just go hard and fast to learn to go hard and fast? In water, on wheels or on foot, perhaps I’m looking for science to give me an excuse not to WORK?
“Gee, I completed all these highly technical workouts that looked amazing on paper. They weren’t even that difficult. Too bad I DNF’d on the run. Guess I need a different training plan”
(I’d put that in Pink if I knew how)

Last edited by: mpderksen: Apr 5, 18 10:35

Re: Old School Approach to Running/Training....good article [mpderksen] [ In reply to ]

Apr 5, 18 10:45

Post #5 of 18 (2607 views)

Or just do the solid work in the pool but break your 45mins up. Do some 100s, 50,s 200s (with only short rest periods) etc to make the 45mins.
This will help you hold technique rather than chugging away with it getting worse as you get tired (assuming you are not a strong swimmer)

Re: Old School Approach to Running/Training....good article [mpderksen] [ In reply to ]

Apr 5, 18 10:46

Post #6 of 18 (2604 views)

mpderksen wrote:

I dig it. I read a while back that Dave Scott just ran hard when he ran. He would do his loop and try to beat his time each and every time. Maybe I remember what I read incorrect? I know I’m guilty of trying to get overly complicated long before I’ve just done a pile of solid WORK.
I’m curious if the exact opposite is true, though, in swimming. There, I got sucked into just swimming, non-stop for 45 min and skipped the drills entirely. Mostly that was because I had no coach, and no swimming background. So why do a random drill with no guidance? But assuming this wasn’t true, would the author of the article advise that we simply swim under a watchful eye and receive suggestions from the deck? He says that the individual pieces of the running stride aren’t best isolated. If that’s true, and I’m in no position to dispute, then could we say the same in the pool? Does a few sets of one-arm drills in isolation benefit the athlete? Could it be we dump all that and just go hard and fast to learn to go hard and fast? In water, on wheels or on foot, perhaps I’m looking for science to give me an excuse not to WORK?
“Gee, I completed all these highly technical workouts that looked amazing on paper. They weren’t even that difficult. Too bad I DNF’d on the run. Guess I need a different training plan”
(I’d put that in Pink if I knew how)

Generally in swimming team practices, the coaches give little to no guidance on stroke technique unless you're doing something patently illegal, such as you have a scissor in your breast kick, or you're pulling below your waist on breast. The general philosophy is that, once you know how swim well enough to swim a few 50s, then you're best served by just swimming lots. Swimmers do lots of intervals due to the need for speed in all swimming events; even in the 10K swim, the fastest guys/girls are all pretty quick in the 200 free.

"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Re: Old School Approach to Running/Training....good article [ericmulk] [ In reply to ]

Apr 5, 18 11:11

Post #7 of 18 (2568 views)

ericmulk wrote:

mpderksen wrote:

I dig it. I read a while back that Dave Scott just ran hard when he ran. He would do his loop and try to beat his time each and every time. Maybe I remember what I read incorrect? I know I’m guilty of trying to get overly complicated long before I’ve just done a pile of solid WORK.
I’m curious if the exact opposite is true, though, in swimming. There, I got sucked into just swimming, non-stop for 45 min and skipped the drills entirely. Mostly that was because I had no coach, and no swimming background. So why do a random drill with no guidance? But assuming this wasn’t true, would the author of the article advise that we simply swim under a watchful eye and receive suggestions from the deck? He says that the individual pieces of the running stride aren’t best isolated. If that’s true, and I’m in no position to dispute, then could we say the same in the pool? Does a few sets of one-arm drills in isolation benefit the athlete? Could it be we dump all that and just go hard and fast to learn to go hard and fast? In water, on wheels or on foot, perhaps I’m looking for science to give me an excuse not to WORK?
“Gee, I completed all these highly technical workouts that looked amazing on paper. They weren’t even that difficult. Too bad I DNF’d on the run. Guess I need a different training plan”
(I’d put that in Pink if I knew how)

Generally in swimming team practices, the coaches give little to no guidance on stroke technique unless you're doing something patently illegal, such as you have a scissor in your breast kick, or you're pulling below your waist on breast. The general philosophy is that, once you know how swim well enough to swim a few 50s, then you're best served by just swimming lots. Swimmers do lots of intervals due to the need for speed in all swimming events; even in the 10K swim, the fastest guys/girls are all pretty quick in the 200 free.

I actually thought of triathlete swimmers first when I read this. I see them with their paperwork and then the drills "coach" has given them, which they usually don't have the skills to do correctly, so they are virtually practicing taking on water in a bad position. It reminds me during a talk about "trainers" and their penchant for weight training alone. The other person says that no-one would pay them to tell clients to go run a few miles. I think many triathlon coaches make things way too difficult in order to justify their fees. Every day I see people flailing away with endless laps in the pool, "functional training" and other nonsense when they'd be best served by simple doing workouts.

Re: Old School Approach to Running/Training....good article [ggeiger] [ In reply to ]

Apr 5, 18 12:48

Post #8 of 18 (2479 views)

The biggest misconception I think that persists with regards to training is the idea that what I guess I'd call "ancillary" activities will make you faster. The only thing that makes you faster is doing the actual activity. Now, ancillary activities can support that process, but it's because they allow you to do more of the primary activity. Specificity is king.

I saw this most eloquently described by (IIRC) Renato Canova talking about marathon training. He said, roughly, that the only thing that makes marathon runners faster is the long run, because that is the training that is totally specific to the marathon. All of the other training - and he wasn't talking about weights or plyos here; he was talking about all of the other running that his athletes were doing - was simply there to make the long run better.

This is why the best drills are "in situ" type drills - big gear cycling or hill running for example. Because you are basically doing the primary activity in a specific manner. That's relevant. Most "drills" are not. Drills may be useful for hyper-specific skill sports - thinking of, for example, pitching as the prime example - where it's a single action that gets executed once with a relative long recovery. But that's totally irrelevant for highly repetitious endurance activities.

"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

Re: Old School Approach to Running/Training....good article [Rappstar] [ In reply to ]

Apr 5, 18 13:07

Post #9 of 18 (2435 views)

Rappstar wrote:

The biggest misconception I think that persists with regards to training is the idea that what I guess I'd call "ancillary" activities will make you faster. The only thing that makes you faster is doing the actual activity. Now, ancillary activities can support that process, but it's because they allow you to do more of the primary activity. Specificity is king.

I saw this most eloquently described by (IIRC) Renato Canova talking about marathon training. He said, roughly, that the only thing that makes marathon runners faster is the long run, because that is the training that is totally specific to the marathon. All of the other training - and he wasn't talking about weights or plyos here; he was talking about all of the other running that his athletes were doing - was simply there to make the long run better.

This is why the best drills are "in situ" type drills - big gear cycling or hill running for example. Because you are basically doing the primary activity in a specific manner. That's relevant. Most "drills" are not. Drills may be useful for hyper-specific skill sports - thinking of, for example, pitching as the prime example - where it's a single action that gets executed once with a relative long recovery. But that's totally irrelevant for highly repetitious endurance activities.

Thanks for chiming in JR! I appreciate your insight and completely agree. Too many spend so much time with the extraneous activities that cut the actual training time so severely. I agree that your mentioned drills such a big gear and hill runs are the most effective way to get the bang for the buck. Oddly it seems that this philosophy is coming back as the pendulum swings back from the over analyzed and "too many metric" training thoughts. This article, recent posts by Sutto, and a few others have indicated that doing the sport makes on better....

Re: Old School Approach to Running/Training....good article [ggeiger] [ In reply to ]

Apr 5, 18 13:29

Post #10 of 18 (2401 views)

As they say on Letsrun: Just run baby.

Re: Old School Approach to Running/Training....good article [logella] [ In reply to ]

Apr 5, 18 14:00

Post #11 of 18 (2343 views)

logella wrote:

Quote:

multi plane activation strength training

WTF is that?

Crossfit?

"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

Re: Old School Approach to Running/Training....good article [ggeiger] [ In reply to ]

Apr 5, 18 18:03

Post #12 of 18 (2222 views)

ggeiger wrote:

ericmulk wrote:

mpderksen wrote:

I dig it. I read a while back that Dave Scott just ran hard when he ran. He would do his loop and try to beat his time each and every time. Maybe I remember what I read incorrect? I know I’m guilty of trying to get overly complicated long before I’ve just done a pile of solid WORK.
I’m curious if the exact opposite is true, though, in swimming. There, I got sucked into just swimming, non-stop for 45 min and skipped the drills entirely. Mostly that was because I had no coach, and no swimming background. So why do a random drill with no guidance? But assuming this wasn’t true, would the author of the article advise that we simply swim under a watchful eye and receive suggestions from the deck? He says that the individual pieces of the running stride aren’t best isolated. If that’s true, and I’m in no position to dispute, then could we say the same in the pool? Does a few sets of one-arm drills in isolation benefit the athlete? Could it be we dump all that and just go hard and fast to learn to go hard and fast? In water, on wheels or on foot, perhaps I’m looking for science to give me an excuse not to WORK?
“Gee, I completed all these highly technical workouts that looked amazing on paper. They weren’t even that difficult. Too bad I DNF’d on the run. Guess I need a different training plan”
(I’d put that in Pink if I knew how)

Generally in swimming team practices, the coaches give little to no guidance on stroke technique unless you're doing something patently illegal, such as you have a scissor in your breast kick, or you're pulling below your waist on breast. The general philosophy is that, once you know how swim well enough to swim a few 50s, then you're best served by just swimming lots. Swimmers do lots of intervals due to the need for speed in all swimming events; even in the 10K swim, the fastest guys/girls are all pretty quick in the 200 free.

I actually thought of triathlete swimmers first when I read this. I see them with their paperwork and then the drills "coach" has given them, which they usually don't have the skills to do correctly, so they are virtually practicing taking on water in a bad position. It reminds me during a talk about "trainers" and their penchant for weight training alone. The other person says that no-one would pay them to tell clients to go run a few miles. I think many triathlon coaches make things way too difficult in order to justify their fees. Every day I see people flailing away with endless laps in the pool, "functional training" and other nonsense when they'd be best served by simple doing workouts.

I forgot to say anything about drills b/c, ummm, in my HS and college swimming we never did any drills, period, nothing, nada, zilch. We swam, we kicked, we pulled, we practiced starts and turns, etc, but no drills at all. The first time i ever heard of drills was in my Masters swim group. :)

"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Re: Old School Approach to Running/Training....good article [ericmulk] [ In reply to ]

Apr 5, 18 18:16

Post #13 of 18 (2200 views)

In contrast, We did lots of drills during recovery between efforts. Rather than mindless goofing off, coach would rather have us work on "something" that was tangible.

I was thinking about this earlier today, and one thing that coach didn't do (and I'm talking about multiple coaches here) was to try and tailor drills to specific swimmers and they stroke flaws. Everyone dud the same drill, coach would give us the drill and what (s)he wanted us to focus on during the drill, then everyone would it. I like that approach, since it is really an approach to reinforce fundamentals, unlike what I see here sometimes (and I've been guilty of this too) which is "what drill should I do to fix flaw X". Everyone can always improve pretty much any aspect of their fundamentals when it comes to swimming.

Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Re: Old School Approach to Running/Training....good article [RandMart] [ In reply to ]

Apr 5, 18 18:54

Post #14 of 18 (2145 views)

RandMart wrote:

logella wrote:

Quote:

multi plane activation strength training

WTF is that?

Crossfit?

Actually just frontal, saggital, and transverse.

Or for the simple minded, forward/backward, side-to-side, rotational.

Old school works, other methods do. I don't disagree with what's stated, but there are many ways to skin the cat. Key is to find out how you or the athlete you are coaching best responds and what they need most to succeed.

Re: Old School Approach to Running/Training....good article [marklemcd] [ In reply to ]

Apr 5, 18 20:22

Post #15 of 18 (2069 views)

marklemcd wrote:

As they say on Letsrun: Just run baby.

They also say weights help and have helped some elites have breakthroughs

Re: Old School Approach to Running/Training....good article [CU427] [ In reply to ]

Apr 6, 18 5:48

Post #16 of 18 (1883 views)

CU427 wrote:

RandMart wrote:

logella wrote:

Quote:

multi plane activation strength training

WTF is that?

Crossfit?

Actually just frontal, saggital, and transverse.

Or for the simple minded, forward/backward, side-to-side, rotational.

Was that really necessary?

"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

Re: Old School Approach to Running/Training....good article [CU427] [ In reply to ]

Apr 6, 18 13:51

Post #17 of 18 (1696 views)

CU427 wrote:

RandMart wrote:

logella wrote:

Quote:

multi plane activation strength training

WTF is that?

Crossfit?

Actually just frontal, saggital, and transverse.

Or for the simple minded, forward/backward, side-to-side, rotational.

Old school works, other methods do. I don't disagree with what's stated, but there are many ways to skin the cat. Key is to find out how you or the athlete you are coaching best responds and what they need most to succeed.

It's spelled "sagittal"... if you're gonna refer to folks as "simple minded" ya at least gotta spell the fancy terms correctly. ;-)

CB
Physical Therapist/Endurance Coach
http://www.cadencept.net

Re: Old School Approach to Running/Training....good article [PTinAZ] [ In reply to ]

Apr 6, 18 18:44

Post #18 of 18 (1552 views)

PTinAZ wrote:

CU427 wrote:

RandMart wrote:

logella wrote:

Quote:

multi plane activation strength training

WTF is that?

Crossfit?

Actually just frontal, saggital, and transverse.

Or for the simple minded, forward/backward, side-to-side, rotational.

Old school works, other methods do. I don't disagree with what's stated, but there are many ways to skin the cat. Key is to find out how you or the athlete you are coaching best responds and what they need most to succeed.

It's spelled "sagittal"... if you're gonna refer to folks as "simple minded" ya at least gotta spell the fancy terms correctly. ;-)

Also left out vertical movements like box jumps -- for the jargon-lovers I'll throw out "erectile activation."

Last edited by: trail: Apr 6, 18 18:45

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