Training: Keep it simple

In today’s sporting world, sportsmen and women are always looking for that extra edge and a more efficient way of training.

Sports science has evolved and we now understand the body in a way we never could previously. It allows us to utilise areas that were not previously given much attention – strength and conditioning, nutrition, altitude camps, physiology, drills, ergogenic aids like beta alanine and countless amounts of vitamins and minerals to keep the body healthy during hard training periods.

With all of these added dimensions to our training, is it logical to think we should be running significantly quicker than we were 30 years ago?

Before I continue, this is not going to be one of those articles that has a go at standards of British endurance running today. I think it’s in a good place, being led by superstars like Mo Farah and Laura Muir.

What I’m questioning is the effectiveness of all of these new elements of training and how much of a role they have to play in determining the success in endurance athletes. I wonder whether we overcomplicate simple training principles by throwing in all the new science. For example, a physiologist giving you four different training zones for running and then sub-zones within those zones makes it a concept difficult to grasp. It used to be: easy running, steady running and hard running. You gauged it by how you felt on the day. Not, it seems, any more.

On the other hand, are athletes like Farah great examples of what modern training methods can produce? Potentially it’s riskier to have a heavier training load, but when it goes right you can see a new age of super-athletes.

Why aren’t we running any quicker?

I suppose the bottom line question is: with access to all of this new information, new technology and new science, why aren’t we running any quicker? Why haven’t we moved from the 1:41/3:29 bests for 800m/1500m to 1:39/3:25? Surely with all these extra training methods we should have managed this easily. Could it be that we have simply reached the limit of what the human body can achieve?

Given that we aren’t running significantly faster and we don’t have the depth of accomplishments and times that we used to have, should we be questioning the benefits and effectiveness of these new training methods? Does science simply give athletes more to stress about, potentially taking away the quality from their running, creating more injury risks? In short, are we trying to complicate a previously simple way of making endurance runners great athletes?

The Eighties approach

Seb Coe, Steve Cram, Steve Ovett and Peter Elliott boast PBs of around 3:29-30 and 1:41-42 – times that right now would still put them well in the mix for a medal at a major championships. Yet, Mo Farah aside, in the last 19 years the quickest time by a Briton has been by Mike East, who ran 3:32 – three …

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