A New Running Theory 

Workout Principles for Long and Middle Distance Runners

1. The big problem is overtraining, not motivation or technical details.

Many running records are falling after reduced racing last year, 2020, enabling runners to rest more and not cram training and running into schedules, or just simply endure the more exhausting racing. While this experience draws attention to over-training / racing as a problem, I see little sign of revising basic assumptions about how to avoid over-training / racing. These points address basic assumptions about running theory for a more complete theory of running.

2. The Stress to Rest Ratio is the Foundation, above all other principles.

Physiology Adaptation Principle for all Exercise from Body Building to Marathon.

Benefits are accrued immediately after the workout through phases of recovery and then growth to overcompensate for exercise stress.  
Rest is the number of rest days between workouts: 1-4 rest days or more rest days between workouts.
The length of rest should be determined by what you can measure as explained below, not driven by opinions, feelings, compulsions, addictions, and bro science.
Myth: there is no mystical “peaking” at the end of the running season to benefit from previous workouts cumulatively.
Train like you are peaking or resting for a race.   

3. Rest day means doing nothing.

Rest is defined as not just not using the muscles, but letting the organs repair the muscles by digesting and using food and sunlight.
Therefore, doing workouts with other muscles or muscle fibers is not really rest because it is directing digestion toward repairing the immediate stress rather than growing from the previous workout.
I talked to track athletes at Michigan State University who after  graduating and were running on their own just ran when they felt like it which was every other day and they felt better and wish they had always done it that way.  
Walking barefoot in the sun and stretching are OK.
More on what to do on a rest day below.

4. Stress has 3 forms: Intensity, Volume, and Frequency.

Maximizing these ratios is key. Running adaptations involve increasing both intensity (speed) and volume (length of time), while lessening frequency to optimize recovery and growth from speed and long runs so that you can progress faster by doing less.
 
The most common problem is that by training for total miles in a short weekly cycle, the capacity to do speed work is compromised.  This is the religion of volume and frequency that compromises speed. To get faster you have to run faster.

5. Splits should cover the range of physiological adaptations sought for your goal.

For middle and longer distance racing, you want to be able to run longer and faster than the race, and practice race pace, to cover the range of adaptations.
I like a common 3 way split definition of long slow run, speed/interval work, and tempo or threshold run. Threshold work is usually a medium run at maximum aerobic capacity at the edge of anaerobic that increases anaerobic without going into it and paying the greater cost of oxygen deprivation.  
 
There are many kinds of workouts that are effective and I don’t have anything original to add. There are many ways to work out. My major concern is the recovery to stress ratio.
 
6. Aerobic base determines capability to do anaerobic, speed work, HIT.

This is progressive training to gradually increase the stress level from aerobic to anaerobic. Nothing new here for people in the sport, but not understood by casual fitness people reading pop science who think HIT, high intensity training is superior and therefore you don’t need to do long slow aerobic runs as if it is either, or.  Pro runners in the 1980’s tried to drop the long run in favor of HIT only and found that did not work.

7. Aerobic capacity is determined by the length of the long run in the cycle, not total miles.

The goal of total miles means that people are loading up miles on recovery days thinking that slow running is resting. This violates the first absolute principle of recovering after each workout before the next.
If your long run is 10-20 miles then the short 4 mile runs look like “junk miles.” Many people understand this now and Runner’s world magazine has popularized some excellent training schedules for more casual and middle aged runners that build training around a long weekly run with two short runs during the week.  
See if you feel better by cutting out the junk miles. Rest-up for the long run so you can do it without pain and feel stronger each time--this is measuring, using quality control metrics.

8. Floating Schedule

There should be no set schedule unless it has been determined by measurable proof of strengthening between workouts. There is a belief that you must run 3 days a week minimum for aerobic conditioning. This has never been proven. It violates the first principle of recovering between workouts. Roger Bannister took a week off before breaking the 4 minute mile the first time.

9. Myth: A training cycle should be fixed to 7 days.

Training cycles should be based on the split, like 3 different kinds of workouts combined with the number of days between workouts. So if a middle aged personal is training for a mile or 5K they might do 3 faster workouts for every long, slow aerobic run, 3 days apart. That’s a 12 day cycle.
Or there could be different rest intervals after different kinds of workouts or based on how tired one feels after that workout and how fast the feeling of a springy step returns.
Cycles should not be fixed, but determined by day by day control metrics for your physiological state.
Float and measure, not fix.

10. Measurement One: Progress at each workout.

Because adaptation occurs within days and only until the next workout, and increase in performance should be measurable in the next workout or race.
This was first understood in body building through the methods of Mike Mentzer’s, Heavy Duty.
Full recovery plus growth in strength is measurable in being able to increase at least one rep or weight for every exercise you do. Every. If one set does not increase for the same effort level then you are over-trained. Read that again.
 
In weight lifting intensity is the stress that serves objective of strength that equals muscle size: , Only one set of the exercise is necessary to trigger growth: doing 6-12 repetitions to “failure,” which is defined as the last rep you can do smoothly with control.
 
Running is a bit more complicated to measure but it can be done.
If you are doing 6-12 x 440  intervals on the track, you can do more or faster intervals at the same effort level as measured by pulse rate at the end of the interval. Or measure lactic acid levels in the blood. There may be other ways to measure this that I don’t know about. It’s the scientific logic that matters here.
 
On the long run the same pulse rate going a little longer or a little faster is a way to measure progress….combined with a subjective feeling of not overdoing it.
 
You can get creative and you may sometimes be subjective, but that’s harder and you may deceive yourself and rationalize training when you should be resting.

11. Measurement Two:  Evidence of recovery plus growth before you work-out again. 

 It’s better to know for sure you have maximized growth adaptation before you train and again and realize you over-trained because you didn’t meet your numbers. Then you have to rest even longer.
First you have to conceptualize the process you are trying to measure.
Let’s say on the first night after the work out you recover 60%.
The next day you don’t run. That night you complete recovery and achieve 20% of the possible growth toward strength, speed, or endurance.
If you work out the next day you will see measurable gains. But is better best?
What if you rest a second day and the third night you complete 80% of growth?
By taking 2 days off you get 5x the benefits in 3 days compared to 2 days.
That’s hypothetical but helps you get the idea of what to look for.
 
Now how to measure recovery plus growth.
 
I interpret soreness as recovery. Growth begins when soreness stops, but most people think they are ready to work out when soreness is gone.
Sometimes I say if you are sore 3 days, allow growth for 3 days before working out. I don’t know if it is that even. Pay attention to whether your legs are feeling stronger each day and when that plateaus.
 
 I don’t know of what to measure in blood tests but there may be some.
 
Morning pulse or taken the same time each day under same conditions and stress levels. A lower pulse is better and goes down with endurance conditioning over time. An elevated pulse can represent still in recovery. I would not expect pulse to become lower with each growth period because pulse can only go so low. But return to normal may help measure the growth phase.
 
Subjectively, you can try to feel your legs like when you go for a walk to assess the “spring” in your step. I’m not sure how well that’s going to work for most people. Most will probably rationalize working out again because they feel recovered and are not used to the extra growth feeling. You lose little by waiting and extra day to be sure, and lose a lot by interrupting growth or even recovery.

12. The High Volume and Frequency Religion: Jakob Ingebrigtsen

The young Norwegian sensation Jakob Ingebrigtsen is a good example of typical training theory.
He’s a star middle distance runner, 1500, 3000, that’s mile and  two mile, around those distances.
He works out twice a day 7 days a week.
His split is 3 interval days, a long day, 3 easier days consisting of two shorter runs, and two weight workouts.
He succeeds by controlling overtraining in a funny way.
But taking high volume and frequency for granted, he can only control intensity of the speed workouts.
Intervals on the track are often at slower than race pace because he measures his lactate levels determine the pace. This is actually more like tempo work, anaerobic threshold work.
This is a brilliant use of a measurement technique but in a narrow way. It is science reduced to a narrow technique of measurement without asking the right questions about what to measure based on root cause analysis as part of a complete theory.   
 
As Mike Mentzer said, you can to high volume or intensity but not both (acknowledging that some people get big with high volume body building workouts.)
 
This reminds me of the 1970’a world record holder John Walker who did primarily long slow distance, LSD. That was his way of controlling overtraining within the fixed constraint of high frequency and volume everyone imposed. It was not necessarily the optimum stress ratios of intensity, frequency and volume, which has not been experimented with enough.
 
To put Jakob in context, most of his family has not fared so well in his coach’s system. His coach is his father. The two oldest boys quit and another older brother got injured and required surgery, although he returned to running.
 
His father admits he cannot effectively coach his daughter because his style is not suited to female feelings. Females feel and complain more, as they should in the face of such a brutal mentally driven and robotically implemented program. The problem is not lack of toughness, it is lack of logic, since everyone appears to be highly motivated already. They need to focus more on bodily feedback in a sensitive matter and conduct root cause analysis of problems. The hyper masculine mindset is always doing more and more, but restraint and rest reflect greater wisdom.

13. But all the world class runners are doing it this way.

There are few comparisons with different systems of training because people rarely do anything different. They are all using the same flawed theories that ensure that only the most genetically talented survive. Maybe eventually some constantly injured famous runner will get frustrated enough to surrender their old ways of thinking and succeed with something new and get the world’s attention.

14. Doing the Unthinkable of Less is More

Going pro as a runner as a full time job usually means running twice a day 7 days a week or maybe with one day off.
They cannot imagine one workout a day and a rest day of nothing.
That would be at minimum of an 8 day cycle on a 4 way split: 3 speed to 1 long run, running every other day at most. That’s for runners in their 20s. Older takes longer.
If that feels like it is not enough, they can increase the intensity or volume of workouts, which is the basic idea: increase quality by decreasing quantity. As quality increases, quantity should be reduced: an extra rest day is well worth it to maximize return on investment.  
They cannot imagine a floating cycle driven by day to day physiological metrics, not a mental plan forced on the body like a religion rather than a scientific experiment.

15. What To Do on a Day Off?

Nutrition
Experiment with nutrition for faster recovery and growth.
Learn about the benefits of organ meats, raw dairy, seafood replacing some starches with fruit.
Organ meats have way more nutrients and strengthen your corresponding organs that are the engines of digestion that repair your muscles, using muscle meat nutrients as well.
 
Sun is a source of energy or physics of nutrition, way beyond vitamin D because it electrifies liquids in the body for blood flow.  Sunbathing and walking in the sun have benefits you can feel.
 
Cold Conditioning. Cold baths speed recovery. Study cold thermogensis.
 
Alignment for Running Form
 
Almost everyone is wearing the wrong shoes as is transparent using simple logic in the face of all the examples of people relieving injures by switching to “barefoot” and zero-drop, wide toe box shoes like Altras.
I also teach people to align their hips and posture by walking properly.
This is supported by spinal stretches of the chest, shoulders and neck, along with cranial expansion.
This is very relaxing and help align the body, this helps people get through rest days by feeling some improvement and substitute for the workout high.
 

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