by Robh » Fri Nov 07, 2008 9:01 am
The text below was posted by Jack Sasseville yesterday in a reply to my thread on the FaCT forum :-
I have been a reader of this forum for many years and have read with greater interest over the past 6 months. I have followed Juerg's work with FACT for the past 10 years and have used his ideas to help me to train my skiers.
I am a former National Cross Country Ski Team Coach for Canada and have coached 4 Olympic teams. I have been coaching for over 30 years at all levels and I continue to coach at the club level in Ontario.
When I began to coach in the 1970's my biggest influence in training was Arthur Lydiard and the other coaches and athletes who were also influenced by him like Tom Osler and Rob Dawes. Lydiard coached some of the greatest runners in the late 1960's and 1970's and spawned a whole generation of runners who did Long Slow Distance (LSD).
Lydiard believed in periodization and that too much high intensity interval training was bad at a time when interval training was king. He felt that all endurance runners would be better off doing most of their training at a level of 70-100% of maximum steady state. He found max steady state by asking his runners to run for 30 minutes as fast as they could on a flat out and back course. If the time for the second 15 minutes was the same as the first then this was max steady state, if it was slower then the runner went too fast, if faster then they went too slow (sounds a lot like Coggin's test doesn't it).
He wanted his runners to run at this 70-100% of max steady state exclusively up to 12 weeks before their peak race or racing season and to do no interval training during this time. At the start of the period they were to slowly build up to their max mileage (the magic number was 100 miles a week) and then once this was reached they were to start running faster, but never over 100% of max steady state. They were also to have a long run per week and to vary the amount each day.
This is where it went off the rails. Many runners took this to be the way to train all the time and LSD training was born.
However, Lydiard did not believe that this was all that you were supposed to do for training. The next period was 6 weeks of "hill training" done 3 x per week. The hills were 3-7 minutes long. There was still one long run a week and several shorter ones, all below max steady state. After 6 weeks on the hills the runners then moved to the track for 6 weeks. Twice a week they did shorter 200-400 meter intervals with one hill workout, a long workout and several shorter steady state workouts.
I see the same thing happening with Robh in the UK as I have seen with those people who followed Lydiard. They take one part of the program and suppose that this is all there is to the program.
Steady State training, or LBP - 20 training will only train one part of the system the slow twitch fibers. In order to be the best that you can be, however, you must also train the fast twitch fibers. Lydiard knew this 40 years ago.
I have always coached using the "Goldilocks" theory - that there are three ways to do things - too much, too little and just right! What each of us must do is to find out what is just right for us - just right for training, for nutrition, for recovery, for intensity, for volume, for speed, for strength, for life. This is why there can be no cook books, because just right is different for each of us. And to make it even more fun, just right changes all the time.
In all of the hundreds of training programs that I have done over the years there has not been one that has been followed without changes. Training programs are just "best guesses" based on the experience of coach and athlete supported by testing. What works for one person will not work for another.
What Juerg is promoting with FACT is not too dissimilar than what Lydiard told us 40 years ago. Train long enough for structural changes, do it individually, test to see how it is working, train some more, test, and repeat. Train one part of the system, test then train another part and test again.
It is ok to go out and "hammer" on group rides as long as it is not too much for you. It is the same thing with LBP-20 training - it is good, but too much will not get you to your best.
It really all depends on what your goals are for training. If you are riding or skiing for fun and a hammerhead ride with your friends is fun then do it.
If however, you are looking to maximize your potential then this will have to fit into your overall training plan. Too much and you will have to compromise somewhere else.
I will continue to read this forum as I feel that it is the most informative place for leading edge exercise physiology. It is where I learned that lactate is my friend not my enemy. Keep up the great work Juerg.
). Also, if I were prepared to dress up in a skin suit, put on a silly helmet, spend x k's on a TT bike, we'd see how big that barely 20 second gap would have been then ay... 
