Part 1

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Arthur Lydiard's LectureTranscribed. edited and footnotes added by

Nobuya "Nobby" Hashizume, who wrote:

Many people feel that Arthur Lydiard

was a man who knew everything there is to

know about running. He could help anyone,

in any part of the world, run faster and far­

ther becauseof his understanding of the "hows"

and "whys" of training. His athletes'success in

the 1960 Rome Olympics, where Peter Snell

and Murray Halberg won gold medals and

Barry Magee won a bronze, focused his atten­

tion on their coach, a shoe-maker ftom Auck­

land. New Zealand. Many countries offered

him a role coaching not only their athletes but

also their training staff, wanting him to over­

see afull athletics program. During a spell as

Finnish national coach, his influence pro­

duced three gold medals (Lasse Viren, Pekka

Vasala, Tapio Kantanen) and a bronze at the

1972 Olympics in Munich, with a set of next

generation athletes coming to .fruition in the

70s and 80s. lyidiard was awarded the White

Crossfor his effirts - the Finnish equivalent

of a knighthood - and is the only non-Finnto have received this award. Meanwhile, his

training methods were adopted all over the

world. In 1990, Lydiard conducted clinics in

TOkyoand Osaka. What follows is an edited

transcript of the Lydiard seminar in Osaka in

April 1990.

I'mone of those people who realize

that there are great championseverywhere - every village, everytown, every country.

I always say to young athletes:"When you look back over your perform­ances last year, you ate likely to see that onthe day you went out and ran your besttime, everything went right. The trick isto know why. If you know WHY you ranso well, you can structure your training sothat on the day of the Japanese Champi­onships, or the Olympics, or the big raceyou are training for, you can produce yourtop form.

"If you can do this, then you know

. something about training. Until you cando it, you don't know anything abouttraining; you're just a good athlete who oneday could run a good race."

There's a need for a better evaluation

of each day's training, leading to a betterstructuring oElong-term training programs.

There are three basic ptactices wehave to consider: (1) aerobic development,(2) anaerobic development and (3) thedevelopment of sprinting speed. Onedevelopment period follows another, andthe training has to be systematic.

You must always adhere to the phys­iological and mechanical fundamentals.Getting away from these fundamentalsleads to an imbalance in training. A goodcontrol and understanding of anaerobictraining is absolutely crucial. You mustknow when to incorporate it into the pro­gram and when to leave it out. Athleteswho understand how to control anaerobic

training can control their ultimate form,allowing them to peak on the day.

In Japan, you've done very well inconditioning athletes with marathon-typetraining but in many ways this is over­accentuated. It doesn't matter what exer­

cise you get involved in - whether it'scycling, lifting weights, swimming or run­ning - you can do too much [of it] or toolittle. We can train too fast, or not fast

enough. You can train at the right time, oryou can train at the wrong time. Coach­ing is about deciding what is best.

Mr. Hirose [the host] is right whenhe says that Japanese runners have becomeobsessed with marathon training andhaven't considered other aspects deeplyenough. I watched the young women in arace - a half-marathon - a couple of daysago and I hardly saw one that has beentaught to run properly! All of them wererunning tight around the shoulders,throwing their arms around. This type ofbad technique will lead to wasted effortand loss of forward momentum. You must

learn to relax. Relaxation is the key to goodrunnmg.

If we are going to produce good run­ners we have to understand that, in doingall this marathon training, we can overdo it!We can develop too much muscular viscos­ity. Usually,when I go to a country, I haveto encouragepeople to do more of this train­ing. In Japan, I think maybe you shouldhave another look at the amount you aredoing, and learn to compromise a little.

We should all know that the aim in

training is to develop sufficient enduranceto maintain necessary speed over the dis­tance. In other words, to run a 3'43" 1500

meters, you must set a pace of 400 metersper minute. Now, most athletes can'tmaintain the pace of 60 seconds a lap inorder to run that time.

We should also understand that our

performance level is governed by our aer­obic threshold and our anaerobic devel­

opment is limited by the optimum levelachievable for a human being.

As I said, I think in many cases,basedon my time here observing Japanese run­ners, you do a little too much of themarathon conditioning. You are wronglyevaluating anaerobic repetition (interval­type training), probably doing too muchof it, and in so doing, canceling out someof the good conditioning that you've devel­oped. In the long run, this means that youare losing control of your top peak form.Also, speed is not being developed suffi­ciently. There has to be concentrationthroughout the whole year on the devel­opment of speed. I'm not talking aboutanaerobic speed here; I'm talking aboutsprinting speed. (1)

Aerobic CapacityIf we look at the development of our oxy­gen uptake level, we can understand that,in some cases, there are people who are ableto run 140 kilometers (90 miles) today, do

Continued on page 20

1 S • Winter 2007 • American Track & Field

vated and produce better results.Let me further explain my thinking

in regards to the factors which govern per­formance level. I stress the importance ofhaving a high oxygen uptake level and thelimitations of anaerobic development. The

·following chart should be of use. This ishow I clearly explain to my athletes theapproach they should take in training:

The vertical axis is the oxygen in litersper minute (milliliters per kilogram perminute). In a great endurance athlete, theability to assimilate, transport and use oxy­gen occurs at a rate in excessof? liters perminute (85 milliliters per kilogram perminute). Now, if! find a high school ath­lete with an oxygen uptake level of, say, 3liters per minute, I'll try to explain to themthat this is not a permanent, limiting fac­tor and that it can be improved. There isa great deal of potential for the develop­ment of the cardiac system in an individ­ual. Yearsago, they used to say it was lim­ited; today we know that it is unlimited.We don't know its full potential.

What can be ascertained for definite,

however, is that as a human being, ourability to incur oxygen debt is limited to15-20 liters. If! give this athlete with a 3)1liter uptake level sessions of anaerobictraining to perform - which takes about 4weeks to develop to its maximum - andwe develop an aerobic capacity of, say, 18liters, we now have developed this athlete's

anaerobic capacity. This is now the per­formance level of the athlete. It's physio­logically impossible to increase this anaer­obic capacity any further.

I explain to the athlete that when hecarries out work that requires 4 liters ofoxygen per minute, he is incurring an oxy­gen debt of 1 liter per minute (4 liters/min.required; 3 liters/min. capacity). He canonly keep going for 18 minutes at thatspeed (18 liters total oxygen debt; 1 literdebt each minute). Ifwe increasethe work­load to 5 liters per minute, he is incurringan oxygen debt of 2 liters per minute (5liters/min. required 3 liters/min. capacity)and can only keep going for 9 minutes (18liters debt; 2 liters debt each minute). (3) We

can see that the oxygen debts not only dou­ble, but square and cube. So as weget faster,with a small increase in speed, the oxygendebt increases exponentially, eventuallycausing neuromuscular breakdown.

Now in the case of the athlete with an

oxygen uptake level of 3 liters, once this 4­week period of training has been carriedout, our performance level has beenreached. The athlete can do all the anaero­

bic training he likes but, once maximum isachieved, it's physiologically impossible toimprove performance further by trying toelevate his anaerobic capacity to exercise.The only way we are going to get this per­formance level up is to get the base aerobiccapacity up. So if I can bring that base up

Continued from page 18

the same tomorrow, the same the next dayand even the next day after that. They con­tinue doing this. Through conditioning oftheir blood vascular system and capillaries,they have developed the ability to benefitfrom a quick recovery time. There is a manin New Zealand called Max Telford who

can run 240 miles (384 km) without stop­ping, yet he can't run a marathon anyquicker than 2:30. He can't go any fasterbut he can turn around and go back in thesame time. He's sacrificed his speed to alarge extent. This is why years ago, when Iran 250 miles (400 km) a week testing outtheories, I found that it was too much. I dis­

covered that we got the best results whenwe ran about 160 kilometers (100 miles) aweek in our main training sessions andjogged in the morning, six mornings aweek, for no more than an hour.(2)Ifwe did

more than that, we started to tighten up.Even my middle-distance runners like

Peter Snell and John Davies did the samemileage.What do the middle-distance run­ner and distance runner have in common?

They both require a high oxygen uptakelevel,- the governing factor of performance- they need speed and they need anaerobicdevelopment. This is why I adopted a uni­form training schedule up until the last 10weeks, at which point we decided whichevent each athlete was best suited for and

adjusted our training plan in accordance. Inthis way,I conditioned runners like Snell tohave superb stamina. I coached him so hecould easily run over far greater distancesthan he might normally without tirednesssetting in. When he reached the last 200meters of an 800 or 1500 meter race, he

wasn't in the least fatigued. He could alwaysuse his powerful sprint finish.

I try to explain to young athletes whattheir approach should be. It's crucial thatthey achieve balance. It's simply notenough to train athletes only telling themwhat to do and how to do it. You must also

teach them why they are doing it. Everyday's training schedule should be explainedin terms of the physiological and mechan­ical reactions that the athlete is trying toachieve in each exercise. Runners who

lmow not only what to do and how to doit but why they are doing it are better moti-

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o1st Year

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• Aerobic

2nd Year

• Anaerobic

3rd Year 4th Year

20 • Winter 2007 • American Track & Field

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from, say,40ml/kg/ min. in the first year to50ml/kg/min. in the second year, I canimprove the performance level with thesame anaerobic development. It is the aer­obic threshold that governs it; not anaero­bic development. It is the aerobic thresh­old that can be improved year by year withcarefully planned marathon training.

So I try to explain to my athletes,"You don't make yourself great doinganaerobic training, you make yourselfgreat doing aerobic training." Remembertoo that you have to understand when toback away from the anaerobic training.You can do too much of it and affect yourphysiological condition adversely.

Talking about aerobic development,I've found that if you work on a time,rather than mileage basis, you get betterresults. This is particularly true in young,developing people. For instance, if we saywe are all going for a 25-kilometer (15­mile) run, some people might finish a halfhour before others who aren't quite as fitand haven't done as much backgroundtraining. Commonly, these people start todo too much training on a time basis. Inother words, some people would only takean hour and a half to run 25-kilometers in

training, others might take 2 hours. Theimportant aspect is that they run an hourand a half in relation to the fitness level

and background training.When you are working with young

people, it is also important, before they gothrough the fast growth fpurt, to under­stand that their ability to use oxygen incomparison to their body weight is greaterthan adults. They are, therefore, betterequipped to run long distances. If we lookat the Mricans - Kenyans, Tanzanians, andEthiopians - who are now beating mostpeople in the world, we'll see that it's notbecause they have scientific laboratories totrain and test athletes but simply becausethey do a lot of running - they run toschool and they run home again. We haveto encourage our young people to do a lotof aerobic running and not to race toomuch. At that age they have highly sensi­tive nervous systems and can't stand a lotof anaerobic training or pressure.

We must also look at natural ability

and basicspeed. In your country; Japan, likemy country, we are not very fast ... We'retoo slowfor the 100 and 200 meters in most

cases.Even our fastest runners, though theyare nationallOO-meter champions, in theworld listings they are way back in the hun­dreds. Success at the national level often

clouds the scope of the international scene.A runner may prefer to run the 100 metersto be national champion, instead of look­ing at himself as a potential800-meter run­ner, which owing to his basic speed, wouldprobably allow him to have more successatthe international level. We've got to makeour good athletes think internationally, notnationally.

I put my athletes through years oftraining to find out how they can maxi­mize their speed potential. You can't makea slow person fast but you can improvetheir speed. I use times over 200 meters toascertain which event a particular runneris best suited for. I use 200 meters because

at the 100 meter distance a sprint start canhave a big influence and at 400 metersendurance plays too big a part. In 200meters we can get a good indication of theathlete's basic speed.

For instance, if you have an athletewho can meet 22 seconds or better for 200

meters, he is fast enough today to be agreat 800-meter runner at internationallevel. If he is slower than that, however,

there is little prospect that he will have suc­cess at that distance and it may be to hisadvantage to look for longer races. If youlack speed, you lose the economy of run­ning action while trying to maintain pace.

Anaerobic CapacityLet's talk about anaerobic developmentand our understanding of it. Anaerobicdevelopment determines the ability tocarry out a workload that requires moreoxygen than our body can assimilate,transport and use. The net result of thisactivity is the buildup of pyruvic and lac­tic acids. After a heavy workload of anaer­obic training, the body can require 48hours or more to recover. If we carry outthe anaerobic training properly, we canensure that the pH level of an athlete'sblood hits a low during exercise. In such

training, it pays to pull the level as low aspossible, allowing it to return to normalbefore repeating the activity. Carrying outhigh levels of anaerobic developmentinterspersed by 2 days complete restachieves this.

An athlete that trains poorly, eitherwith people who are too fast for him, orunder a program that covers too muchanaerobic work, will maintain a lower­

than-normal blood pH level for long peri­ods of time. If you examine the blood testsof such people, you'll find that theirplatelets will be very low. Recovery timesare slowed and because of the effects on

enzyme functions, the immune system canbe adverselyaffected. Usually, athletes whocontinually get breakdowns, muscle pullsand other injuries and are continuallydeveloping coughs and colds will beundergoing an excessiveamount of anaer­obic workouts.(4)

Too much anaerobic training can alsolead to 'staleness.' Symptoms include nerv­ousness, loss of appetite and insomnia.These are psychological products of thephysiological reactions brought about bymaintaining a lower-than-normal bloodpH level for a sustained period of time. Iwant to stress again: when we use anaero­bic training, we must be very, very careful.An understanding of the processesinvolved is essential. It's better to under­

do such training than over do it. Most peo­ple massively over do it.

Remember too that once you startdoing anaerobic training, you've got tomaintain the program. If you start doingit too early in the season, you'll create animbalance in training by trying to devel­op the ability beyond the level at which thehuman body is comfortable. Also note thatthe day you start doing anaerobic trainingand stop your aerobic conditioning is theday your performance levelhas been deter­mined for that season. IS)

Now, it's important to realize thatthere is no one in the world that can deter­

mine the precise amount of anaerobictraining an athlete will need. You can'ttrain to hypothetical figures. Too often Isee coaches take their athletes down to the

Continued onpage 22

American Track & Field· Winter 2007 • 2 1

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Continued from page 21

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track and say something like, "I want youto run 15 laps at the rate of 65 seconds alap," without the athletes having any sayin it. Coaches usually set their athletes around figure like 10_or 15 or 20 repeti­tions. Now if the athletes went to the

coach and said, "Coach, why do I have todo fifteen 400-meter reps?Why not 12 or13 or 17?" the coach wouldn't be able to

tell him. He decided upon 15 simplybecause it was aesthetically pleasing. Theathlete might very well get tired on his12th repand decide he's had enough.However, he is going to have to do 3 morecircuits simply because the coach wrotedown a round figure.

One of the reasons why Americansdon't-produce velYmany good middle-dis­tance and distance runners, with millions

of people there running, is simply becausecoaches determine with hypothetical fig­ures exactly what athletes should do inanaerobic training. Yes, as a coach, youmay be able to determine pretty closelywhat your athlete can do. You may even

be right in saying he can do fifteen 400meters in 65 seconds with such-and-such

interval. The main thing, however, is toexplain to the athlete not only how to trainand what to do, but why he is doing it. Itis important to convey the physiologicalreactions the runner is aiming to bringabout with his training.

Once achieved, these reactions serve

as a valid indicator of when to stop. It isthe athlete that should determine when hehas hit the wall and needs to finish, not the

coach. The key to training is to train toyour individual reactions to the training.

It's important to realize that, in termsof volume, a good deal of training will needto be done. In say to an athlete out on thetrack, "I want you to complete 5 circuitsand every 100 meters sprint 50 meters ashard as you can," the athlete will probablybe out there for about 8 or 9 minutes. (6)

After this time his legs will be extremelytired, starting to suffer neuromuscularbreakdown, in which his muscles no longercontract. Now if we take standard blood

samples from the leg muscles of this ath­lete and an arterial sample from his earlobe, there will be two very different pHreadings: low in the leg muscles; not as lowin the arterial blood. As an analogy, if! wereto get down and do 50 push-ups, my armswould get tired. I myself am not tired butmy arm muscles no longer contract. If weare going to get an effective reaction, wetrain for longer periods. (7)

Now suppose I say to the same ath­lete, "I want you to go out and run 800meters 6 times, alternately running andthen jogging laps." Doing this he will berunning with lower anaerobic effort butincurring an oxygen debt, which in turnwill create lactic acid and start to lower the

pH level of his blood. His legs, however,won't become fatigued so rapidly and hismuscles won't get so tired generallybecause he will be getting more recoverytime. If that athlete runs six 800 meter rep­etitions, alternating the pace in the waydescribed, he'll be out there for a half hour

or more. If we then take blood samples

22 • IVinter 2001 • American Track & Field

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again, we will find that the pH of bloodtaken from the ear lobe will be much clos­er to the low:,:rlevelswe wish to achieve.

If we are going to do anaerobic train­ing then, we must ensure we do a largevol­ume of it to be effective and realize that we

shouldn't train at full tempo. (8)

Through trial and error, I have foundthat if athletes do hard anaerobic training 3days a week for a period of 3)2' to 4 weeks,they develop they anaerobic capacityto nearmaximum. Note that the coordination train­

ing which follows brings in developmentraces,which are another short, sharp anaer­obic workout. If it hadn't been developed inthe preceding time, these will ensure themaximum anaerobicpotentiality is fulfilled.

As we approach the end of our 4weeks of hard anaerobic training, we arefaced with something of a dilemma: if wecontinue at such a rate, we'll pull our con­dition down. If we under-do it or stopdoing it, we'll lose the development thatwe have. To solve this problem we can dowhat are called "sharpeners."

These are circuits in which we sprint100 in every 200 meters or 50 in every100. Becausethey are short and sharp, theyhelp to maintain anaerobic development.If athletes stop when they have hadenough, this can be done without adverse­ly affecting conditioning.

Every athlete is different. In thes.::;i-ledctle~I write I include hypotheticalfigures, of course, but these are only forguidance, and I explain to the athletes thatthey are not compelled to strictly followthem. I think too many coaches are toodogmatic and they are determined to maketheir athletes do things as they've written,instead of taking into consideration whatin my opinion is more important: the reac­tions of the athletes themselves.

Now let's move on to the coordina­

tion of training; the last 6 weeks in a 10­week program.

CoordinationWhen we compete, we have to accustomour body to what we expect it to do on theday of the event. That is, run a certain dis­tance in a certain time. (9)

At 6 weeks prior to competition I usu­ally get an athlete to run the distance at

near racing speed, on his own, with nowatch and without calling out the laptimes. By noting them down myself andlooking at the overall time, I'll get an indi­cation of where we are exactly with thatathlete at that stage of training. One thingI've learned is that it's very easy to sharpena well-conditioned body to racing pitch. (10)

Once sharpeners and faster workouthave been introduced, we see these times

come down very rapidly. In wake of this,try to gradually increase the tempo of workin the last 6 weeks. Go out and seehow fast

you can run in those first few weeks andthen gradually increase the pressure sessionby session.(I I) Say,for instance, that we havea 5-kilometer runner and he runs his firsttrial in 15 minutes, without the watch and

with no competition. We know where weare exactly with that athlete at that stage.Now about 3 days later, we'll send him outfor another 5,000 and this time we'll givehim lap times and we'll have him run a lit­tle more quickly than when he ran 15 min­utes. Progressively, each week, we'll havehim increase the tempo, gradually gettingthe athlete to run faster.(12)

Depending upon the reactions of theathlete, we can determine what training touse in conjunction with these time trials.Under-distance or over-distance fast runs

can be prescribed after communicationbetween athlete and coach. For instance,

if we have a young runner who comes inafter his 5,000-meter run and says, "I don'tknow, coach. I'm not tired but I couldn't

go any faster," we'd know he's not sharpenough yet and that he would likely ben­efit from some under-distance races and

fast trials. If an athlete runs powerfully overthe initial stretch but begins to tire at theend, it will be beneficial for him to carryout some over-distance fast runs. Now allathletes are different in their reactions, so

you'd have to be a little experimental in thelater stages of training to determine exact­ly how to coordinate things but in gener­al the trials serve as a good rubric.

Just to explain this coordinationwhen I trained 5,000-meter runner Mur­

ray Halberg in 1960, he ran strongly andevenly over 5,000 meters at near-racingspeed. Now in those days, all the athleteshe ra~ against were interval trained. They

went out and ran fast, had a rest, ran fast,and had a rest. When it came to the actu­

al race, they were still looking for their restperiods! Halberg, however, was able to runstrongly all the way. I told him that whenthere were about three laps to go the pacewould slacken while the other athletes

attempted to have a rest. During this timehe could put in a 60-second 400-metersand blow them away! He got an 80-meterlead on the field in one lap simply becausethey'd been trai"ed to have a rest and hehadn't. That won him the gold medal. Peo­ple said to me afterward that they could­n't understand h,JW in the Olympic final,in front of 80,000 people, the rest of thefield just watched Halberg run away andwere unable to do anything about it. Theanswer is simply because they'd beentrained incorrectly. AT&F

(1) For Lydiard, sprinting ,peed, or pure speed, is different from anaer-

obic speed devewped by doing intervals or repetitions.

(2) These morning runs ate rerollery jogs at easier effort.

(OJ LydiaI'd used these figures to simplifj the nature of oxygen tkbt.

Recent studies suggest, however, that the limit of oxygen debt in

humans is closer to 4-5litcr.(. Dr. Peter Snell, who trained under

Lydiard and is one of the ka:li"g experts in exercisephysiology, hilt

proposed a new and more :'atid formula. Please refer to fOotnoie

(3) in chapter 2 in Arthur L)'ciiard's Athletic Training.

(4) Most metabolic actions and reactions, if not all, are performed in

the alkaline condition. With lxcess lowering of blood pH level,

enzyme activities will bl! afficted adversely.

(5) This does not mean that you arm't going to improve your times for

the season anymore. In fict, w'th all the sharpening and coordi­

nation training, this is where your times would start to come down.

However, because your performance !evel is governed by your aer­

obic, not anaerobic capacifJ~ once you stop working on its devel­

opment, you will have tktermined your performance ftr the sea­son,

(61 These circuits are known as "sharpeners" and play an important

role during the coordination phase in maintaining anaerobic

capacity without affecting good conditioning,

('I Lydiard is refireing to the muscle groups that are involved in that

partieuhr activity - in this eilte. kgs. Because of short, sharp sprints

with littk recovery hetic acid will build up very quickly in the

working muscle groups. With a better understanding of interval

times and repetitions, hetie acid build-up in the kgs can be sup­

pressed, alwwing it to build up through general fttigue, bringing

down bwod pH throughout the body.

!') If the intervals/repetitions are performed too filtt. or without suf

ficient recovery you may have to finish the workout prematurely.

fiiling to achieve an overall lowering of pH throughout the body.

19i Its important to accustom your body to continuous effort. Lydiard

introduced the time trial because he realized that if you sharpen

with repetitions alone, your body will expect a ''recoveryperiod"

during the actual competition as well,

If you have ftlwwed the LydiaI'd program and done wts of bilte­

building aerobic training with strict control over speed and anaer­

obic tkvelopment, your body will react well, becoming sharpened

quickly.1f, however, you hck a good aerobic base, all these stren­

uous time trials will soon ruin your conditioning.

(lJ) With all the quicker workouts, times should come down natural­

ly. not be ftrced to get filtter. You should not try to squeeze the time

out too quickly by trying to run these trials filtter.

(2) This is a cldssie exampk of the ''Date Pace/Goal Pace" concept. You

can draw a graph line from the first trial toJour target goal time

and tktermine exactly how much filtter you should be running

each session you train.

American Track & Field· Win'" 2007 • 23

Part 2

art iard

Arthur Lydiard's LectureTranscribed. edited and footnotes added by

Nobuya ''Nobby'' Hashizume, who wrote:

Many peoplefiel thatArthur Lydiard was

a man who knew everything there was to know

about running. He could help anyone, in any

part of the world, runfaster and ftrther because

of his understanding of the "hows" and ''whys''

of training. His athletes'success in the 1960

Rome Olympics, where Peter Snell and Murray

Halberg won gold medals and Barry Magee

won a bronze, focused his attention on their

coach, a shoe-maker from Auckland, New

Zealand. Many countries offered him a role

coaching not only their athletes but also their

training staff, wanting him to overseeafull ath­

leticsprogram. During a spellasFinnish nation­

al coach, his influence produced three gold

medals (Lasse Viren, Pekka Vasala, TapioKim­tanen) and a bronze at the 1972 Olympics in

Munich, with a set of next generation athletes

coming tofruition in the 70s and 80s. Lydiard

was awarded the White Crossfor his efforts ­

the Finnish equivalent of a knighthood - and

is the only non-Finn to have receivedthis award.

Meanwhile, his training methom were adopted

allover the world. In 1990, Lydiard conducted

clinics in Tokyo and Osaka. What follows is an

edited transcript of the Lydiard seminar in

Osaka in April 1990. Thefirst part of this arti­

cle appeared in VoL 14, No.7 ofAT&F

Racing BeginsIt's important to realize that the time tri­als at the six-week period are purely todevelop the athlete for the coming races.Athletes should never race seriously untilthey are properly prepared for it and whenthey start, the hard training should be fin­ished.! All their effort should now go intohoning their race times. Remember twowords: you've got to keep FRESH andSHARP. If you do aerobic or anaerobicexercises at this point, you should ensurethat they are moderate in intensity andduration. They should aim to be short andsharp.

Doing this when I coached Snell inTokyo in 1964, we jogged an hour in the

morning very easily. He raced 6 races in 7days and won two gold medals. On the lastday, when he won the 1500 meters, it wasvery easyfor him. It was like a training run!He won by 40 meters. He said afterwardshe didn't feel that he had run hard. When

we used to go to the track during the day­time we'd see other athletes still traininghard. Providing you make sure that youallow sufficient recovery time followinghard races and providing you have goodbase conditioning, you can hold your formfor a long time once you are fit.

Speed DevelopmentNow we are going to talk about speed: anarea that is crucially important and, fromwhat I've observed in the last few days, onethat's not emphasized enough byJapaneserunners. Most middle-distance and dis­

tance runners do a lot of conditioning.They think anaerobic repetition work, likerunning 200 meters or 400 meters, devel­ops speed.2 In actuality, it counteracts it!When you see people doing a lot of repe­titions, invariably they start to tightentheir shoulders and neck muscles. This is

because their quadriceps are getting tired.Once this fatigue sets in, athletes quicklyfind themselves unable to lift their legs andstarting to tense up.

It's essential to understand that relax­

ation is the key to good running. If youlook at the video ofFlo Jo winning the 100and 200 meters at the Seoul Olympics,you will see her running in a completelyrelaxed fashion, even at her top speed. Inher upper body she was actually smiling;her jaw was loose! If you watch footage ofCarlos Lopes winning the marathon in LosAngeles or Carl Lewis winning the 100meters, you will see that they have exactlythe same running actions. The only dif­ference is that Lewis brings up his kneeshigher and his arm action is much moreexaggerated. They are both upright, withtheir arms coming through inside theirshoulders in a loose and relaxed manner.

Their hips are firmly under the torso. Ifyou set your hips back, you can't get yourknees up and you lose your stride lengthand stride speed.

Striding technique is essential to mas­ter. Fundamental speed is produced in twoways: longer strides and faster strides. Theoptimum stride is achieved when theupper leg is horizontal to the ground. Ifmy knee goes down, my stride shortens.Of course, ifI bring my knees up, my footcomes up higher. When Carl Lewissprints, his heel is right up on his butt.From mechanics we know that a short

lever moves faster than a long lever. Forexample, if I were to give any of you a 3­meter rod to move, you wouldn't be ableto move it very fast. If I gave you a shortstick, you would have more success. Astride following through like kicking afootball, with your knee almost straight, isa slow stride; a stride following throughwith high foot elevation (right underneathyour buttock) is a fast stride. Of course youwouldn't run a whole marathon with highknees but by exaggerating the movementin practice drills the body will learn thecorrect running action.

When you run, you should run likeyou walk. When you walk, your posture isupright and your arms swing loosely,com­ing through inside your shoulders withoutthe elbows sticking out laterally. Now, ifyou clench your fists and tighten yourshoulders, or bring your arms up andtighten your shoulders, something has togo back. Either your hands or your shoul­ders will go back. A few days ago I sawallthe Japanese girls running in this fashion,needlesslywasting effort. When you throwyour shoulders, you are throwing kilosover there and kilos over there. It's veryuneconomical. Your body is moving in azigzag pattern instead of straight. Whenwe do sprint drills such as high knee, strid­ing and bounding exercises, anyone whothrows their arms around will fall over.

The first thing I teach athletes I am

l36 . Global Merit 2008 • American Track & Field

American Track & Field· Global Merit 2008 • 37

weights alone. The reason we use hill train­ing for muscular and speed conditioningis because in New Zealand we all have to

work day jobs; no one pays us to train. It'seconomical. If we start lifting weights, westill have to do our running and we stillhave to do our stretching. By working onhills, we are able to use our body weight asresistance. which issufficient natural resist­

ance. Working on hills also has the bene­fit of helping to increase stride length.Consequently we are able to combine thewhole thing at once. There is no morerewarding way than training on hills. I canguarantee very good results from it.

Three areas are important for hilltraining. First: knee lift. There are very fewrunners in the world who can maintain

their knee lift right throughout a race.Their knees start to tire towards the end.

A level of knee lift is necessary to ensure agood stride is maintained. Not only do wehave to have capillary development formuscular endurance, we also have to have

muscle fiber development. This is knownas power. By running up steep hills orstairs, we strengthen and develop both.There is no need to sprint up the hills;we're not trying for a hard anaerobic work­out. We only need to climb at the speedsufficient to maintain our forward

momentum, putting effort or stresson thelegs. In fact, the slower we go up the hills,the more resistance we'll get on the mus­cles. When you go up a hill, remember toget your knees up! You must assume thecorrect posture, with your knees up, driv­ing off the back leg.

Secondly, there is hill bounding. I sawa lot of runners here with their knees bent,

never straightening their legs. Mifuyu (arunner/writer who escorted Lydiard inJapan) tried hill bounding yesterday andalready has sore legs because she's beenrunning with her knees bent. Straighten­ing the leg provides power. If your legs arebent all the time, you get no power. Bybounding up a hill, taking long powerfulstrides, bringing the knees up and driving,hard off the back leg on a gentle slope,you'll start to notice you gain a lot morepower and develop a better runningaction. Pekka Vasala, whom I helped inFinland and who won the 1500 meters in

Munich Olympics, did lots of hill bound-

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coaching is to run in a relaxed manner.When I take them for long runs, I showthem how to run with relaxed posture.Always relax. I can't stress this enough. Theathlete'sarms should come through straight,just brushing the side of their runningshorts. The reason why cross country ski­ing is better than 'running for cardiac devel­opment is because you are using a lot ofenergy in the upper body with the sticks.The lessyou bring the upper body into run­ning, the better. Use your arms as little aspossible and you won't use as much energy.

I see runners lifting weights, trying todevelop muscles in their upper body. I'veasked them why they do it and they tellme that they have to be strong and movetheir arms faster. It makes no sense. When

I train athletes, I try to make their legs gofaster, not their arms. Nobody can movetheir legs as fast as they can move theirarms. Your arms always coordinate withyour leg action. If you gain muscle masson the upper body, you are only going torun slower.

For everykilogram you have in fat-freebody weight, it requires 0.17 milliliters ofoxygen to run one meter. If you are a roadrunner trying to climb a hill, musculararms will not help. You'llsimply have morekilos to carry on your knees, resulting inyou scaling the hill at a slower rate, expend­ing more energy. If you are a steeplechaserand you have to lift extra weight over thosefences, you are going to run slower.You arewasting energy with those extra kilos, evenif they are muscle. Lasse Viren, whom Iworked with in Finland, had very littlemuscle matter in his upper body at all.When he took his shirt off, he looked like

a plucked chicken!There is no muscle thereat all, just ribs sticking out. He won fourOlympic gold medals.

Hill TrainingIn some of my writings you'll see photosof people lifting weights. The reason theyare included is because I've lived in coun­tries where it is dead flat and there are nohills whatsoever. There are no sand dunes

and there is no stadium. When you are liv"ing in a flat area and you don't have anypossibility to work on hills, then it's wiseto use weights.3 Apart from that, if thereare hills, it's much better to leave the

Photo: Photo Credit Here

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ing. He had much success doing 200­meter hill circuits.

It showed very graphically in the finalof the 1,500 meters when he came down

on the straight. There is a picture of him- you could rest a board from his heel tohis head. It was dead straight line. He wasgetting the maximum drive as he camedown the straight. It was this that helpedhim win the gold medal.

The final thing I'm alwayspressing onthe athletes - probably the most impor­tant of all - is the development of flexi­ble, powerful ankles. We don't want ourrunners to look like weight lifters; we don'twant our runners to look like gymnasts.They should look like ballet dancers. Bal­let dancers are able to spring and bouncearound because of their flexible powerfulankles. If we can make our runners like

this, then they'll have speed. Both MurrayHalberg and Lasse Viren had the samerunning action. It came from their ankles,allowing them to accelerate very,quickly.To train our ankles we can use our bodyweight for resistance, elevating it as highas possible with slow,forward momentum.You should aim to land on the ball of each

alternate foot. Being on a hill allows us toextend our ankles through the entirety oftheir movement, up and down. This inturn extends muscles and sinews in the

front and back of the legs and strengthensall the muscles around the tendons, elim­

inating the possibility of tendonitis. I'venever had an athlete suffer Achilles tendon

or hamstring problems. Training on hillsdevelops a balance of resistance across sev­eral muscle groups and therefore reducesthe chance of strain.

Prepare yourself to do a lot of hilltraining. When I run a marathon condi­tioning session we go out jogging as a sup­plementary workout and during that sec­ondary jogging we will do a little hilltraining. We won't do an excessiveamount, just enough to activate the mus­cles in the legs.

Once the conditioning has beenachieved, we usually do four weeks of con­centrated hill training, with sessions run­ning three days a week at least. We'll doanything from 15 minutes to an hour on

Continued onpage 38

Continued from page 18

the hills. We'll go into it gently to mini­mize risk of injury for those who go intothe activity cold.

We determine how long we will stayon a hill by setting a fixed amount of time,not by monitoring the number of ascentsathletes make. In this time period, we dowhat we feel our legs will allow us to.Although each exercise is important, theindividual athlete will concentrate on the

exercise that is most likely to be of benefitto him. This is usually the area in whichhe feels weakest.

Following a climb we'll jog around,allowing our legs to recover sufficientlybefore descending. When descending,stride out fast and in a relaxed fashion. In

striding down the hill, because your leadleg is hitting the ground later than it nor­mally would on the flat, it means you'vegot to pull your trail leg through faster.This helps you to gain leg speed.

In 1965, I taught the East Germansto do a lot of leg-speed running on a gen­tle downhill slope and they continue to useit as a method to develop their sprinterseven today.

"Spring" DrillsDuring the anaerobic phase, for about fourweeks we concentrate on trying to bringin technique running. There are lots ofsprint drills people can do but I've foundit best to concentrate on four basic things:developing fast leg action in the thighs;trying to overcome muscular viscosity; try­ing to get the arms coming straightthrough and trying to get power and drive.These can be done in what I call "spring"drills. These are like hill bounding, onlydone on flat ground. When built up togradually, stride-ours help develop legaction and posture.4 I recommend doingthis once or twice a week until the tech­

nique is perfected.On the track, we'll do each of these

four exercises twice over a 100 meter dis­

tance (or 50m for high knee exercises).We'll then try to combine them. It's impor­tant that athletes focus on their posture andknee lift. When they get 50 meters fromthe straight of the track, I encourage themto increase the pace, before jogging 250

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meters at a more relaxed tempo once theyhit the bend again. These repetitions arebest repeated sixor ten times. Once you getathletes running with good technique,always try to get them to do one session aweek of around ten reps to ensure they stayin the habit.

If we can improve the technique ofour athletes it means that they will be ableto hold their early speed much more easi­ly, economically conserving their energy.They will run with more power, more driveand the correct mechanics, allowing themto develop a strong sprint finish. A lot ofathletes do a huge amount oflong runningbut are unable to capitalize on their goodcondition because they simply don't havethe technique. I make all my runners com­pete in sprint races at a club level. Distancerunners hate sprinting because they thinkthey'll look like fools but if you want to befast, you've got to do it!

I've taken between three and six min­

utes off marathon runners' times by work­ing on their speed.5 Speed development isimportant to marathon runners as well astrack runners. Everyweek, 52 weeks a year,runners should be doing conditioning,working on technique, and generallyworking on their speed.

How to set-up a trainingschedule1. Count back in weeks from the first

important race date.2. Allow a week to ten days for 'Fresh­

en-up' (depending on the event).3. Allow six weeks (including freshen­

up), or four to five weeks forCoordination raining.

4. Allow four weeks for Anaerobic

Development.5. Allow four to six weeks for Hill

Resistance Training. Use the remain­ing time - hopefully 10-12 weeks ­for Marathon conditioning.

6. Marathon Conditioning Period:1. Conditioning should start solely

with aerobic running.2. Then include a day of easy fartlek

and strong five- and ten thousandmeter runs.

7. Hill Resistance Period (4 to 6 weeks):

Hill training two or three days a

week.

One day: a long aerobic run.Other days: easy aerobic runningor leg-speed exercises.

8. Track Training Period (10 weeks):a. First 4 weeks: Anaerobic Develop­

ment Training:- Anaerobic training (repetitions,

fartlek ete.) two or three daysweeklyOne day a week: a long aerobicrun.

Other days: sprint training oreasy runnmg.

b. Last 4.5 - 5 weeks: Coordination

Training: Sharpeners, developmentraces (under- and over-distance),fast relaxed runs.

e. Freshen-up: 1 week to 10 days.9. Racing season begins. AT&F

'Many young athletes Ot high school runners tend to con­tinue hard training even during the racing period, not tak­

ing into consideration that racing is a hard form of anaero­

bic exercise. To continue to train hard while racing hard canbe fatal.

2Lydiard would often say, "you should not eat a cake halfcooked." Everything is important -aerobic development,anaerobic development, conditioning, speed. You cannot test

YOuttrue racing form until you develop all these. These rep­etitions are a workout to develop anaerobic capacity. They

will make you run faster, building up lactate tolerance, butthe nature of these workouts, accumulating lactic acid, will

invariably tense up your running action. To teach your body

a correct running action, speed routines should be performedin a relaxed state.

3Hill training is a form of resistance exercise and can be sub­

stituted with weights or plyometric exercises in the gym, such

as jumping over boxes.'iThis involves not just running faster. There is a specific exer­

cise to teach you to bring your knees high, carry your foothigh and bring your forward foot out front. Lydiard termedit "Stride-out" or "Striding". As it involves a lor of body co­ordination, Lydiard recommends practicing the movement

while walking through ir, then skipping through it beforeyou actually run through it. This is not a resistance work and

should not be performed with any resistance (i.e. headwind).You need to be able to run fast and in a relaxed state. Run­

ning into the wind invariably tightens you up and negatesthe very purpose of technique work. Along with downhillstriding, running with the wind also helps ro develop leg­speed.'Lydiard rook over the training of Terry Manners of NewZealand for the 1974 Commonwealth Games marathon.

Manners was known as a mega_mileage runner but Lydiard

cut back his training volume and worked on his speed withdrills and shorter races. He cut his marathon PR by 3 min­utes from 2:15 ro 2:12, with Manners going on to win thebronze medallion at the Garnes. It should be noted here thar

Lydiard is nor talking about speed developed by anaerobicrepetitions. "Pure sprinting speed" can be developed by tech­nique drills and/or hill exercises advocated by Lydiard in var­ious forms.

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3 a . Glohal Merit 2008 • American Track & Field