Are double threshold sessions a day the reason for the Renaissance of western runners?

There's going to be two things that keep it from catching on quickly:

1. The sample size is still very small. Granted, that family has seen more success in running than any other, it's still a small group with similar backgrounds that; A) may not translate as well to others with different (worse) genetics and, B) might not get popular enough across the board to pressure many people into trying it. At the Pro level I can see it becoming more ubiquitous faster than at the college level for instance

2. Coaches are arrogant and rarely take notes from other programs that are more successful. It's incredible how many coaches would rather lose with their special system than win with someone else's. A lot of the time change only comes with revolutionary coaches or ones who are newer to the profession that haven't iced down their own identity. Sadly, most of us will never change how we coach after a certain point in our career.

I coach at the college level and have thought about it, but I don't have many athletes at the level that I think they can handle it. Maybe in the summer when we have less to worry about I'll experiment with it, but for now I think double workout days are going to be reserved for a very high echelon of programs that are willing to try new things to get ahead.

For a decent coach then your system is not about one workout, it's a whole inter-related set of workouts and runs. So adopting a new idea may require a rethink of the whole system.

That said, if you're really good coach, workouts and runs are simply a set of tools for doing different jobs. So once you understand what that 'double-threshold' session achieves; it may be easy to slot it in!

You're right, for most of us it can pretty much fall right in our normal tempo/LT day. If a team normally has a double that day then there's even less to think about. I'd be interested to see how teams that do this balance out the transition from their normal LT session to a split one. Are they backing off of the first session and hoping that the two smaller sessions have a similar level of stress/overload or are they keeping their main session and doing very small second sessions early on to get used to it? is it worth starting with a regular double that day to establish the routine before making the double a workout? etc.?

I know Gags used to use a double workout day on Wednesday with his group. Usually a tempo in the morning and 6x200m fast in the evening. Obviously a very different split, but still worth the comparison if anyone has familiarity with it.

NAU does this frequently.

Things like 5x1 mile in the AM, and then 8x1k in the PM

I'm not sure that "double threshold sessions" are really the secret to the Ingebrigtsen dynasty's success. I think having good genetics and training to be fine-tuned machines from a very young age are. It's not just about what weekly mileage and special workouts one does, it's the entire body of work one does over a lifetime, and Jakob and many east africans have just started earlier and put way more work in than your average western runner. Maybe the way westerners develop runners over time has to change, not just the specific workouts.

This is a very insightful statement. Coaches, and most people in general, simply stop learning new techniques past a certain point. And eventually, the sport or whatever it is passes them by.

That goes along with my first point. The Ingenbritsen's are undoubtedly phenomenal. Their genetics and young start to training makes it hard to apply their outcomes to the merely talented. It may be a huge part of what differentiates them from other hyper-elite runners, it may just be something that works because most things would work on them.

For the comment about NAU, that's a bigger sample size, but still a little challenging when their recruits are so high level. If they've been doing it for a long time then I'm impressed with its results guys like Day and Lomong where crazy talented, but still took incredible steps forward in their time at NAU.

At elite level, even very small gains in training matters big. Double thresholds seems to be one, but also short intervals below LT seems to be another small (or big?) training gain.

But most important for other runners is to know that african runners can be beaten by westerns runners ... That information alone is worth alot.

Many Post collegiate NAU runners have stated in interviews that Mike Smith had them do double threshold during their time there. Albeit they are also very elite runners and we don't know when NAU started doing this. I think Renato has coached using similar sessions as well, although less frequently in a cycle. One could argue that workouts after/before non peaking races, which many pro runners do, is a similar concept.

I don't think its as new a thing as people are making it out to be or as rare. That being said I do think being able to handle a high workload is pretty necessary for it to be helpful. Also the Ingebritzens to my knowledge incorporate it far more often than most other groups, even at the pro level.

This has always been true and has more to do with the right talent, culture, and motivation than anything else. Name one western country where distance running is as popular as it is in East Africa or even honestly popular in general.

Japan is the only country that comes close in terms of dedication to the sport and it shows if you look at half/full marathon results compared to the population. They consistently have a deep pool of talented marathoners.

Turns out the biggest secret is having a motivated populace, who woulda guessed.

I don't think so. I believe the Norwegian model is a sustainable way of training, but there are other ways not including double thresholds that work too. I think one thing is the belief that western runners actually are competitive against the africans. We thougth we were not able due to genetics, but this has been debunked.

I'd agree many NAU athletes in recent years are basically as close to pro without being pro as it gets. I think it takes a pretty high level to make double threshold work. It'd also be more interesting to see how often they did it and what part of the season they worked it in. I think in the past it has been done in terms of rare key workouts by other coaches, but to do it consistently I think is a different thing entirely.

Also its hard to say, without pretty good scientific backing, whether its flat out talent just doing what talent does.

Obviously in general doubles have been a method used to increase mileage and continue to recover with a higher workload. Not sure I've met anyone doing 100+ mile weeks on singles, though I'm sure there is someone out there. I'm guessing this is the same concept with threshold work, basically still being able to recover with a very high workload is easier if you break it up.

In the vein of double threshold (which I think is the superior approach) is simply putting in a huge volume of quality running ranging from MP to CV pace. Most Western runners weren't doing this sort of thing until pretty recently. This is what Bowerman does with great results.

The question is whether the gap is closing or not. I am not sure, in long distance running surely not. In addition, the depth of East-African runners is amazing. JI is probably a fluctuation.

Anyway I am rooting for JI (Heia Noreg)

I really wonder what other sessions you can do double with. I'm thinking of an am. sprint pm. sprint session or am. tempo pm. mile pace

might make a thread on this eventually, but only threads that bash molly seidel get good votes on them. maybe if I make a purposely annoying thread name-but the goal would be genuinely useful information. Maybe we could look at how sprinters to do doubles to find out how to OPTIMIZE mid/long distance training.

People this in thread are vastly overestimating the number of elite athletes in America that are doing double threshold sessions. NAU does them. There is a whole roster of athletes at NAU but they only have three or four guys at nationals. So the double thresholds aren’t necessarily the answer. If double thresholds were having such a big training effect you would likely see more NAU guys running very fast.

Aside from NAU and a handful of pros that train in flagstaff how many athletes are really doing double threshold days? Not many. Are other college teams doing this? Very few, if any, at the top level.

Yeah its the concepts and not the specifics that matter as much

-Large volume of easy mileage

-Large volume of threshold

-Timely hard workouts

- Strength work to prevent injuries and improve gait

- Long term development mindset

This different specifics to how you accomplish these concepts. Double thresholds is just one way to get large volume of threshold

Renato had some double sessions for his "special blocks" that I've seen for his marathoners. They were pretty grueling looking, but I won't claim to know how to coach the marathon so that might just be what the event demands. His training is probably harder to translate to the Ingenbritsen's just because of event differences and how they look at running as a whole. Renato has said a few times that eventually you won't gain much from mileage increasing and need to make it faster pace to keep drawing fitness from it. Very different from the slow miles we see from a lot of the other groups mentioned.

Gags does that split just reversed. I'm torn on if I like that combination of speed and tempo in different sessions.

Putting speed first makes sense to keep the quality and possibly learn to tempo with fatiguing muscle fibers similar to how Lydiard describes 2-hour long runs building "speed" because it fatigues so many other fibers that we need to call on the ones rarely used just to make it through. I haven't seen data backing this up, but I'm certainly not as successful as the Kiwi.

Tempo then speed has similar effects for learning to run fast while tired, but I'd be a little concerned with the CNS fatigue making the second session (I think they usually do 6x200m fast) more stressful without getting the speeds that we want. That group was solid especially in their early days so they might have found a good balance with those particular athletes.