I. Deconstructing the physiology of speed
II. The problem with LSD
III. The necessity of speed work
IV. The focus of an endurance program at different ability levels
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III. The necessity of speed work
If you read the dragondoor sprinting article in the first section, you know that mass specific force (MSF) is improved with strength but to translate this to sprinting the muscles need to be trained to apply this force within the very short ground contact times. Application of this force can be done in various ways. The two most common are sprinting itself and plyometrics.
This is why to improve running times, athletes of all distances often have (1) strength training coupled with plyometrics, (2) speed work to improve maximal speed.
- Improving maximal speed translates to better endurance running because of the same exact principle of how increased strength translates to be increased endurance lifting weights or bodyweight.
- In other words, high maximum speed gained through strength allows the body to operate a longer stride length. With endurance specific training, this longer stride length can be maintained much longer leading to faster times.
In case you are skeptical of the above analysis, here is one study which shows that increased strength allows the user to operate a longer stride length over a longer period than no strength work. Recognize that these are experienced runners, so a periodized strength program is necessarily for them to make the best improvements as opposed to the non-periodized strength and no strength programs. Of course, the non-periodized strength also showed improvement over the no strength program because some strength work is better than none for not-so-strong endurance athletes.
You can find many more studies like this in PubMed.
This is why high intensity exercise, especially interval work aimed at increasing maximal speed, helps improve longer runs especially quickly in the novice or intermediate athlete.
Thus, we have our answer for why.
- We want to improve our strength to translate it to maximal speed. This increases our stride length, and if we can sustain it with muscular and cardiovascular endurance then we can run faster times.
Strength and speed work should be an integral part of an athletes program from novice to elite.
Hey great article but I do have a question.
You say that LSD is useless except active recovery but now in cross country we are doing almost all tempo, interval, or race pace runs. How beneficial would a 4-6 mile tempo run be?
Also, we do some speed work such as 3x 30 second sprint, 4x 800m sprint, 3x 1000m tempo, finally followed by 10 hill sprint. How helpful is this speed workout?
1. What’s your distance? 5k?
Tempo runs usually are shorter than your distance work since you’re working up near/at/a bit over lactate threshold to build up capacity there. So if you’re working tempo, you’d probably want to do about 1-2.5 miles (5k is ~3.1 miles) of tempo work. It should feel uncomfortable to maintain the pace you’re running at, but you can maintain it for a fairly decent amount of your actual race length.
2. Speed work is generally best separated into separate days (so the muscles can heal and physiologically adapt to that type of training). That conglomeration of work is just everything at once which as you may know strength and endurance (or in this case, speed and endurance) aren’t gained optimally at the same time.
The off season in any sport should be spent working more strength/power/speed work while in season you should be starting to work longer distances and conditioning to prepare for your race.
Since you’re in season now you’re probably better off with the tempo/interval/race pace as the majority of your work, and select few days as speed work + strength power. These should be separated from each other into sessions and not done at the same time.
You are correct, we do run a 5k race. It does get rather uncomfortable later in the run. I should probably increase the speed of my tempo pace if I can do it for 4-6 miles then. Season ends in 2-3 weeks so I’ll be doing winter running at school. Right now we’re going to start tapering down. I don’t know what winter is composed of but will also be lifting.
I probably wasn’t clear enough about the speed work we do. It is separated into days. We may do 1 or 2 speed workouts per week but mainly tempo+ runs. Friday’s we do a pre-meet LSD run.
About the lifting, what are the best lifts in your opinion to help me out? I have a 0-hour class at school that we rotate days.
Day 1: hang-cleans, front squat, hang-snatches, supplementals
Day 2: supplementals, DL, overhead squat, power complex
Day 3: Squats, Bench, Incline
Day 4: Metabolic Workout
Right now I have a max squat of ~1.21x body weight with 155 but can probably do more. I haven’t done much benching but can do 100+. Hang-cleans I have a max of about 100. DL is a little over body weight at 135.
The link in the first section is a good template for how to structure your weightlifting sessions, plus a good read in itself.
http://www.dragondoor.com/cgi-bin/articles.pl?rm=mode3&articleid=269
Check your squat form, and especially your deadlift form. Your deadlift should be over your squat. How deep is you squat? are the top of your thighs parallel to the ground?
check crossfit.com for some tips on out of season workouts for strength
(I run crosscountry)
Hi Steven,
Great article and thanks for sharing it! Question for you regarding speedy long distance runners, the elites. These guys are running 5 minute miles in the middle of marathon and are booking it! However, I hear “stories” that these runners can’t jump more than a few inches off the ground. This doesn’t seem to make sense…they probably can smoke me on my best 400 M (60 seconds) but can’t out jump me? What do you think their max back squats are?
I can’t quite figure out the paradox here…i realize their running economy and gas tank must be tremendous. But it still takes a fair amount of strength to run at that speed. What do you think ? Thanks!
Xi Xia
That’s one of those fitness myths that somehow got started. I’m sure many of the elite endurance guys can jump well, although not as well as the power athletes. Since they exercise they can probably out leap many most sedentary people though.
Hey steve, good read. But I would like some more insight into actual “endurance athletes”. More or less in the >90min. range. I would agree in the periodization of linear blocks in off season working strength, then power/power endurance, endurance.And I am a complete believer of strebgth/interval and speed work etc. But I’m under the impression that you believe a large majority of elite athletes are “wasting” their time with LSD. Obviously the definition of elite can be skewed, but I think even more, the term LSD can be misunderstood. An elite marathon runner who is say running a 2:15/ 26.2mile race would put them in the 5min mile pace, to most people this would be considered an “elite” time. So to take this particular athlete as an example, what would be too slow of a pace for training and what would be too much distance? Cycling would be an interesting example as well seeing that the bigger of the races are multi-day and each day would consist of 4-6 hrs of work. But then that work gets divided into sprints, climbs, attacks etc. While actual time spent in the pack for most of the race is spent WAY below threshold, so most cyclist train for this by just “being” in the saddle for hours on end. How would you modify the general cyclists regiment? All of this is in theory of course I appreciate the examples given, this is obviously a compelling argument that has been founded on both sides and it most likely won’t end here. Again thanks for the article
Suffice to say you need everything. You can’t do without the strength/power work, you can’t do without speed work, you can’t do without intervals, and you certainly can’t do without the longer rides either.
Starting out as a beginner/lower intermediate (which is what this one was geared towards) is much more beneficial to build a quick adapting base from power/strength, speed work, HIIT, and then modify it for that use. That’s where I’m coming from. From there you maintain with power/strength, speed work, HIIT as the volume of long distance work rises.
As far as getting up in terms of aerobic engine you definitely need a lot of the longer runs. Those that are at that level generally have coaches telling them what to do, so I don’t need to write an article geared towards that. However, I have considered revising this article stating more as such that you do need longer stuff more explicitly as your level rises. I know I said it a couple times, but the tone of the article kind of blocks it out as you may have noticed.
Take a look at Lyle’s stuff (recently had a good series) and then get back to me (or him) if you have further Q’s:
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/category/training/endurance-training
Thanks for clarifying, the link is an amazing read. I guess I’m figuring things backwards than usual coming from a strength/ power-endurance sport into endurance, my base is my weakness so finding information on expanding on something as simple as aerobic output becomes tricky. Thanks again for the reply and the link.
Love the article. I have been a LSD runner for many years with no formal training, but some natural talent and a love for running. In the past year, my interest has peaked on how to get faster. I thought I was to run more. But I started Cross-Fitting and doing more high intensity workouts, coupled with running. I have backed off of my long weekend run, doing more speed work and strength training. My “fear” is that I will lose my cardio-capacity, if my workouts are all short and high-intensity. Sorry, to be repetitive, but do I NEED to keep my long weekend run? Many Crossfitters say “no” but these are mostly runners that have no desire to ever to a marathon or half marathon.
Yes, you need both especially for very long runs like marathons.
Thanks for this article. I would love to see it adapted for cycling – specifically xc mountain bike racing which is generally 1-3 hours of racing.
I have always “base” training because it is boring to me. When I ride – I ride hard and when I need rest – I rest. This year however I am attempting to be more structured by measuring FTP and doing 20 minute intervals @ 90-95% http://ftp…later in the season I will start doing shorter intervals at a greater intensity.
Thanks again