On my resume, I state that my coaching philosophy is based on 4 main things: 1) My personal coaching and running experience, 2) My scientific background (working on a PhD in Exercise Physiology at Auburn, formerly with the "FIRST"- the best kept secret in Greenville), and the influences of 2 people: 3) Jack Daniels, and 4) Arthur Lydiard.
This fall, working as an assistant with Coach Chris Fox and the Auburn Cross Country teams, I was able to meet the first of these two great men. I met Dr. Jack Daniels when we flew up to the Paul Short Invitational in Pennsylvania. Coach Fox used to train at Athletics West under him, and initiated a meeting between us. Dr. Daniels was more knowledgeable and even more gracious with his time than even I had hoped. But that is another column; today we must today turn our attention to my second and final encounter, this time with the 5'2" 86 year-old Kiwi, Arthur Lydiard.
My visit to Charlotte for the annual Foot Locker South Regional was much more than the usual rainy weather and cold toes. Instead, I saw Andrew Bumbalough blaze 14:32 on a perfect day, smashing Webb's record, I met Coach Mark Wetmore of Colorado out on the course, and I met Arthur Lydiard, hearing him espouse his theories the same night.
Having read with much enthusiasm every published word that Lydiard has written (and given many of his books as gifts), I was eager to see this eccentric iconoclast speak in person. The night began with Lydiard slowly sauntering into the room, and sitting down to sign autographs. I racked my brain- who else would appreciate a Lydiard autograph? If I had the chance to meet him, surely I could get an autograph for someone who couldn't be there. I instantly thought of my high school coach, Rick Zeller, and of the exchanges we have had over Lydiard's materials and methods. So I shook hands, told him thank you for coming, and got two autographs.
We then enjoyed a quick power point overview of his principles, full of solid physiology mixed in with a nice dose of 'Lydiardisms' (i.e. "…your HR in the morning depends on who you slept with the night before…keep stretching that much each day- if you wanna keep having that pain..."). Now, as many have returned enlightened and more than a bit intrigued, I feel it is worth it for those who were there, and certainly for those that weren't, to briefly touch on some of the points Lydiard may have left a bit hazy. And hopefully each point will have a useful application. Enjoy.
HIGH MILEAGE
The crux of the Lydiard myth is of course, high mileage. And this myth, of course, is scientifically true and proven. You run more, you build more aerobic enzymes, bud more capillaries, etc. But how high is enough? There seems to be a big threshold around 70 miles per week, with Lydiard advocating 100-150 per week. But, this is aerobic running! This is running that is slower than one hour race pace (see section on 'EASY RUNNING').
I saw Coach Dave Rinker of James Madison there, and had a discussion with him about Lydiard. He heard Lydiard speak about 20 years ago with World Record Holder Sebastian Coe. Lydiard came out and spoke first. Someone asked Lydiard, "Mr. Lydiard, Coe says that he only trains 55 miles a week, but you say he needs 110?" To which Lydiard replied, "Impossible, there's no way. If he says he does 55 miles a week, he's lying to you!" Later that night, Seb came out and spoke, was told of the comment, and then replied that he did indeed run about 55-60 miles a week. Always thinking, Rinker raised his hand, "Sebastian, do you count warm-ups, cool-downs, jogging between repeats, etc.?" Seb's reply? "No, I only count the actual workout part of the running." Rinker: "So how many miles per week do you run if you counted all of the actual running, warm-up and cool-down and jogs between?"….Sebastian: "I guess about double that."
Application: Most runners are going to benefit most from increasing their mileage. This is easy and methodical applied physiology. Adding morning runs of an easy 30- 60 minutes will benefit almost all runners. Any distance runner running less than 70 miles per week would benefit greatly from increasing it over that 70 miles per week threshold- as long as they don't run it too hard!!! Mileage is not the scary monster most coaches think it is- but running too hard is. Unfortunately for America, most coaches will never understand that harder isn't always better; in this case longer is much better, and harder is much worse. Which brings us to our next point.
'EASY' RUNNING
Perhaps the most asked question that night in Charlotte, and what I thought most people seemed confused about was: What does he mean by easy running? I will answer this question based on my reading what he has written and what I believe him to mean. There should be two types of easy running
Supplemental Easy Running. This is the easy 30-60 minutes you may run every morning before your afternoon training run. This would be of a very easy pace, and at a pace at which you are comfortable. The major benefits here are increasing blood flow to muscles and building the various aerobic components. These could also be days where you just do your training run as slow as you like. Better to undertrain than to overtrain. Training runs at the highest aerobic pace possible. This is where Lydiard will say that his system is not all LSD (long slow distance), but at a pace close to maximum of aerobic running. This would correlate well with your MLSS (maximum lactate steady state), or the highest pace you can run without accumulating lactate. This is typically one to three hour race pace at the fastest. The reason this is recommended for training runs is because running close to this pace returns good bang for the buck physiologically (in the same manner that you get more benefit jogging than walking). The tricky part here is getting close to this pace, but not exceeding it, which most competitive runners do too often.
Having the chance to work with Coach Fox here at Auburn, I have been presented with the opportunity to work with a coach whose running experience (5 Olympic trials, 3:59 mile, 13:21 5k, 27:53 10k, 2:13 marathon) and whose motivational techniques, flexibility, positive attitude, understanding of science, and ability to think on his feet makes him one of only a handful of collegiate coaches in American who rarely if ever has an athlete go 'backwards' (get slower or stagnate due to injury or anything else). On talking of his own running (under Dr. Daniels), Fox would run as slow as 8 min pace or slower on his easy days to fully recover. And this is when he ran 13:21! How many 16:00 5k kids do we see thinking (or being told) that everything needs to be at 6 minute mile pace? It's ridiculous. But then again, what does Fox know? His top girl just went from 40th last year at cross country nationals to 9th this year; and his 7th man on his men's team ran 27:59 a year ago at conference, compared to 24:45 for his 7th man this season.
Application: Easy runs should be easy runs. Recovery is just as important as hard training. Without proper recovery, harder training cannot take place. Many American runners shortchange themselves by thinking they must run everything at 6 minute pace, or if they can go faster they should. Nothing screams 'I'm insecure with my ability' louder. Take a page out of Fox's book- slow down to get faster.
INJURY AND STRETCHING
One reason Lydiard's high mileage system is so hard for coaches in America to understand is that they have it ingrained in their heads that high mileage will lead to injury. And rightfully so. Many times, a coach has a runner running 40 miles a week at certain paces and increases that to 50, only to see their athlete get hurt. When the athlete is ready and healed, they try again only for injury to crop up again. Thus, the coach deduces that he must keep this athlete under 50 miles a week to keep him healthy. But what the coach has missed here is that the pace of the running is usually the culprit of hurting the athlete, not the mileage. If the runner were to slow down, they could easily run upwards of 50 miles a week.
In the most extreme examples, we can think of walking versus sprinting. How many times have you seen someone get injured because they walked too much? They just plain old did too much slow, aerobic moving around. Never. How many times have you seen someone get injured when they were doing some sort of quick movement or hard sprint. Many times.
The other part of this for Lydiard is his non-belief in stretching. He does not do any, nor does he recommend any. Believe it or not, there is a small scientific movement toward the perils of stretching, in that in certain instances it may reduce force and increase the risk of injury. Lydiard, however, did emphasize stretching, just not in a traditional sense. His hill sessions and drills are totally focused on stretching out the running muscles and bringing them through a full range of motion. And he advocates at the least a 30 minute warm up (hmm….more aerobic activity?).
Application: While there may be some evidence against stretching, there is currently much more in favor of it. The best bet here is to do some light stretching after being adequately warmed up. But, stretching does not improve performance, and thus if there are time constraints to one's running, they should not be spending 45 minutes stretching only to run for 30 minutes. Lydiard's drills are also very applicable, and directly relate to Daniels and his intentions with 'Repetition' running.
SHOES
Perhaps no one there cringed more when Lydiard, sitting amongst a wall of shoes ranging from motion control to trail, said that one should race and train in the same shoe, and it should be as light and minimal as possible, then the host 'Charlotte Running Company' employees. Yes, the concept is good and actually more than a bit scientific, but it has little application today. In an ideal world, we would have grown up barefoot our whole lives, and we would now run barefoot as well. This is said to be the most efficient (economical) way to run. However, because we grew up with shoes and protection, running with no shoes or without much of a shoe under our foot presents a load on our total body that we our not accustomed to dealing with, and thus warmly invites injury. Also, with such a slim majority of people having biomechanics and body type that allow for a totally economical run in a neutral shoe, many people can benefit from the various types of support and protection that shoes today may offer. This is possibly where I felt Lydiard was most shaky, although his thought process and concept are correct.
Application: Wear the shoe you need, and nothing more. If you are 250 lbs, chances are good that you need a bit more padding. If you have wide hips and pronate severely, chances are good that some sort of stability feature could decrease your risk of injury and improve your economy. I would not recommend training in what you race in. Train in a light shoe that provides what you need. But when the big race arrives, pull out the spikes and let it fly.
YOUTH RUNNING
This is perhaps where his talk could make the biggest impact. Children should be encouraged to run as far as possible, not as fast as possible. The Kenyans spend their childhood running to and from school, not racing, but just taking their time, trotting along (children will run what is comfortable). Then, when they are 17 or 18 they have created a huge aerobic base upon which to build. Their aerobic abilities are phenomenal. So when a coach puts them through a few weeks of anaerobic training (which is needed for a brief period in most training as you are gearing up toward competition), these young Kenyans become unbeatable. Not to say that a base can't be built in as little as a summer; it can. But many coaches misunderstand the importance of the base. This is when the intuitive coach realizes that for years these Kenyans were building that aerobic base that allowed them to run at that level, while the amateur coach thinks that the secret was the hard anaerobic training that they underwent for the last 6 weeks of their training. America abounds with amateur, short-sighted, immediate gratification-seeking coaches.
Application: Children should run around and play outside. What a strange concept that is. They should be encouraged to run far, not fast. If they are running fast, it should be less than 200 meters. No child should be running gut busting 800s. They should race rarely. How can we apply this? We can have awards for middle and high school kids for "most mileage in the summer." We can take younger runners on trips with the older kids who are racing, so that by the time they are juniors in high school, they are bursting with enthusiasm to race.
Arthur Lydiard was a man who transformed the sport by gaining physiological knowledge by empirical experimentation over an initial 12 year period, and then sought to discover the mechanisms to explain it. Coach Wetmore recently told me that he believed the next generation of great coaches will not be just on either the science side or just on the coaching side; but rather the next great coaches will reside somewhere in between, well versed in exercise physiology, with an ability to apply it to and relate to their runners. Lydiard, for as cocksure and eccentric as he is and was, was a man who understood this, and always sought the science to explain the mechanisms behind what he did.
As we embark on training our own athletes, either as collegiate coaches, high school coaches, or club coaches, we would be wise to adhere to some of Lydiard's 'old school, new science' methods. Running with Lydiard is a good place to start. Aerobic development is a better place to start. Maybe those of you as coaches who read this will help move this country closer to where it can be with its running. And maybe one day we can force Lydiard to take back another one of his favorite sayings…"You Americans got it all wrong…"
About Goodwin: Goodwin is a graduate assistant coach at Auburn University for cross country and track and field. Goodwin has an assistantship to teach courses at Auburn while studying for a PhD in Exercise Physiology. He is a part of the Health and Human Performance Department at Auburn.
The views in these articles on not necessarily the views of scrunners.com or the Milesplit Network.
This fall, working as an assistant with Coach Chris Fox and the Auburn Cross Country teams, I was able to meet the first of these two great men. I met Dr. Jack Daniels when we flew up to the Paul Short Invitational in Pennsylvania. Coach Fox used to train at Athletics West under him, and initiated a meeting between us. Dr. Daniels was more knowledgeable and even more gracious with his time than even I had hoped. But that is another column; today we must today turn our attention to my second and final encounter, this time with the 5'2" 86 year-old Kiwi, Arthur Lydiard.
My visit to Charlotte for the annual Foot Locker South Regional was much more than the usual rainy weather and cold toes. Instead, I saw Andrew Bumbalough blaze 14:32 on a perfect day, smashing Webb's record, I met Coach Mark Wetmore of Colorado out on the course, and I met Arthur Lydiard, hearing him espouse his theories the same night.
Having read with much enthusiasm every published word that Lydiard has written (and given many of his books as gifts), I was eager to see this eccentric iconoclast speak in person. The night began with Lydiard slowly sauntering into the room, and sitting down to sign autographs. I racked my brain- who else would appreciate a Lydiard autograph? If I had the chance to meet him, surely I could get an autograph for someone who couldn't be there. I instantly thought of my high school coach, Rick Zeller, and of the exchanges we have had over Lydiard's materials and methods. So I shook hands, told him thank you for coming, and got two autographs.
We then enjoyed a quick power point overview of his principles, full of solid physiology mixed in with a nice dose of 'Lydiardisms' (i.e. "…your HR in the morning depends on who you slept with the night before…keep stretching that much each day- if you wanna keep having that pain..."). Now, as many have returned enlightened and more than a bit intrigued, I feel it is worth it for those who were there, and certainly for those that weren't, to briefly touch on some of the points Lydiard may have left a bit hazy. And hopefully each point will have a useful application. Enjoy.
HIGH MILEAGE
The crux of the Lydiard myth is of course, high mileage. And this myth, of course, is scientifically true and proven. You run more, you build more aerobic enzymes, bud more capillaries, etc. But how high is enough? There seems to be a big threshold around 70 miles per week, with Lydiard advocating 100-150 per week. But, this is aerobic running! This is running that is slower than one hour race pace (see section on 'EASY RUNNING').
I saw Coach Dave Rinker of James Madison there, and had a discussion with him about Lydiard. He heard Lydiard speak about 20 years ago with World Record Holder Sebastian Coe. Lydiard came out and spoke first. Someone asked Lydiard, "Mr. Lydiard, Coe says that he only trains 55 miles a week, but you say he needs 110?" To which Lydiard replied, "Impossible, there's no way. If he says he does 55 miles a week, he's lying to you!" Later that night, Seb came out and spoke, was told of the comment, and then replied that he did indeed run about 55-60 miles a week. Always thinking, Rinker raised his hand, "Sebastian, do you count warm-ups, cool-downs, jogging between repeats, etc.?" Seb's reply? "No, I only count the actual workout part of the running." Rinker: "So how many miles per week do you run if you counted all of the actual running, warm-up and cool-down and jogs between?"….Sebastian: "I guess about double that."
Application: Most runners are going to benefit most from increasing their mileage. This is easy and methodical applied physiology. Adding morning runs of an easy 30- 60 minutes will benefit almost all runners. Any distance runner running less than 70 miles per week would benefit greatly from increasing it over that 70 miles per week threshold- as long as they don't run it too hard!!! Mileage is not the scary monster most coaches think it is- but running too hard is. Unfortunately for America, most coaches will never understand that harder isn't always better; in this case longer is much better, and harder is much worse. Which brings us to our next point.
'EASY' RUNNING
Perhaps the most asked question that night in Charlotte, and what I thought most people seemed confused about was: What does he mean by easy running? I will answer this question based on my reading what he has written and what I believe him to mean. There should be two types of easy running
Supplemental Easy Running. This is the easy 30-60 minutes you may run every morning before your afternoon training run. This would be of a very easy pace, and at a pace at which you are comfortable. The major benefits here are increasing blood flow to muscles and building the various aerobic components. These could also be days where you just do your training run as slow as you like. Better to undertrain than to overtrain. Training runs at the highest aerobic pace possible. This is where Lydiard will say that his system is not all LSD (long slow distance), but at a pace close to maximum of aerobic running. This would correlate well with your MLSS (maximum lactate steady state), or the highest pace you can run without accumulating lactate. This is typically one to three hour race pace at the fastest. The reason this is recommended for training runs is because running close to this pace returns good bang for the buck physiologically (in the same manner that you get more benefit jogging than walking). The tricky part here is getting close to this pace, but not exceeding it, which most competitive runners do too often.
Having the chance to work with Coach Fox here at Auburn, I have been presented with the opportunity to work with a coach whose running experience (5 Olympic trials, 3:59 mile, 13:21 5k, 27:53 10k, 2:13 marathon) and whose motivational techniques, flexibility, positive attitude, understanding of science, and ability to think on his feet makes him one of only a handful of collegiate coaches in American who rarely if ever has an athlete go 'backwards' (get slower or stagnate due to injury or anything else). On talking of his own running (under Dr. Daniels), Fox would run as slow as 8 min pace or slower on his easy days to fully recover. And this is when he ran 13:21! How many 16:00 5k kids do we see thinking (or being told) that everything needs to be at 6 minute mile pace? It's ridiculous. But then again, what does Fox know? His top girl just went from 40th last year at cross country nationals to 9th this year; and his 7th man on his men's team ran 27:59 a year ago at conference, compared to 24:45 for his 7th man this season.
Application: Easy runs should be easy runs. Recovery is just as important as hard training. Without proper recovery, harder training cannot take place. Many American runners shortchange themselves by thinking they must run everything at 6 minute pace, or if they can go faster they should. Nothing screams 'I'm insecure with my ability' louder. Take a page out of Fox's book- slow down to get faster.
INJURY AND STRETCHING
One reason Lydiard's high mileage system is so hard for coaches in America to understand is that they have it ingrained in their heads that high mileage will lead to injury. And rightfully so. Many times, a coach has a runner running 40 miles a week at certain paces and increases that to 50, only to see their athlete get hurt. When the athlete is ready and healed, they try again only for injury to crop up again. Thus, the coach deduces that he must keep this athlete under 50 miles a week to keep him healthy. But what the coach has missed here is that the pace of the running is usually the culprit of hurting the athlete, not the mileage. If the runner were to slow down, they could easily run upwards of 50 miles a week.
In the most extreme examples, we can think of walking versus sprinting. How many times have you seen someone get injured because they walked too much? They just plain old did too much slow, aerobic moving around. Never. How many times have you seen someone get injured when they were doing some sort of quick movement or hard sprint. Many times.
The other part of this for Lydiard is his non-belief in stretching. He does not do any, nor does he recommend any. Believe it or not, there is a small scientific movement toward the perils of stretching, in that in certain instances it may reduce force and increase the risk of injury. Lydiard, however, did emphasize stretching, just not in a traditional sense. His hill sessions and drills are totally focused on stretching out the running muscles and bringing them through a full range of motion. And he advocates at the least a 30 minute warm up (hmm….more aerobic activity?).
Application: While there may be some evidence against stretching, there is currently much more in favor of it. The best bet here is to do some light stretching after being adequately warmed up. But, stretching does not improve performance, and thus if there are time constraints to one's running, they should not be spending 45 minutes stretching only to run for 30 minutes. Lydiard's drills are also very applicable, and directly relate to Daniels and his intentions with 'Repetition' running.
SHOES
Perhaps no one there cringed more when Lydiard, sitting amongst a wall of shoes ranging from motion control to trail, said that one should race and train in the same shoe, and it should be as light and minimal as possible, then the host 'Charlotte Running Company' employees. Yes, the concept is good and actually more than a bit scientific, but it has little application today. In an ideal world, we would have grown up barefoot our whole lives, and we would now run barefoot as well. This is said to be the most efficient (economical) way to run. However, because we grew up with shoes and protection, running with no shoes or without much of a shoe under our foot presents a load on our total body that we our not accustomed to dealing with, and thus warmly invites injury. Also, with such a slim majority of people having biomechanics and body type that allow for a totally economical run in a neutral shoe, many people can benefit from the various types of support and protection that shoes today may offer. This is possibly where I felt Lydiard was most shaky, although his thought process and concept are correct.
Application: Wear the shoe you need, and nothing more. If you are 250 lbs, chances are good that you need a bit more padding. If you have wide hips and pronate severely, chances are good that some sort of stability feature could decrease your risk of injury and improve your economy. I would not recommend training in what you race in. Train in a light shoe that provides what you need. But when the big race arrives, pull out the spikes and let it fly.
YOUTH RUNNING
This is perhaps where his talk could make the biggest impact. Children should be encouraged to run as far as possible, not as fast as possible. The Kenyans spend their childhood running to and from school, not racing, but just taking their time, trotting along (children will run what is comfortable). Then, when they are 17 or 18 they have created a huge aerobic base upon which to build. Their aerobic abilities are phenomenal. So when a coach puts them through a few weeks of anaerobic training (which is needed for a brief period in most training as you are gearing up toward competition), these young Kenyans become unbeatable. Not to say that a base can't be built in as little as a summer; it can. But many coaches misunderstand the importance of the base. This is when the intuitive coach realizes that for years these Kenyans were building that aerobic base that allowed them to run at that level, while the amateur coach thinks that the secret was the hard anaerobic training that they underwent for the last 6 weeks of their training. America abounds with amateur, short-sighted, immediate gratification-seeking coaches.
Application: Children should run around and play outside. What a strange concept that is. They should be encouraged to run far, not fast. If they are running fast, it should be less than 200 meters. No child should be running gut busting 800s. They should race rarely. How can we apply this? We can have awards for middle and high school kids for "most mileage in the summer." We can take younger runners on trips with the older kids who are racing, so that by the time they are juniors in high school, they are bursting with enthusiasm to race.
Arthur Lydiard was a man who transformed the sport by gaining physiological knowledge by empirical experimentation over an initial 12 year period, and then sought to discover the mechanisms to explain it. Coach Wetmore recently told me that he believed the next generation of great coaches will not be just on either the science side or just on the coaching side; but rather the next great coaches will reside somewhere in between, well versed in exercise physiology, with an ability to apply it to and relate to their runners. Lydiard, for as cocksure and eccentric as he is and was, was a man who understood this, and always sought the science to explain the mechanisms behind what he did.
As we embark on training our own athletes, either as collegiate coaches, high school coaches, or club coaches, we would be wise to adhere to some of Lydiard's 'old school, new science' methods. Running with Lydiard is a good place to start. Aerobic development is a better place to start. Maybe those of you as coaches who read this will help move this country closer to where it can be with its running. And maybe one day we can force Lydiard to take back another one of his favorite sayings…"You Americans got it all wrong…"
About Goodwin: Goodwin is a graduate assistant coach at Auburn University for cross country and track and field. Goodwin has an assistantship to teach courses at Auburn while studying for a PhD in Exercise Physiology. He is a part of the Health and Human Performance Department at Auburn.
The views in these articles on not necessarily the views of scrunners.com or the Milesplit Network.