Craig Mottram an Australian runner recently ran a 12:55 over 5000m and in the process made a very strong challenge to Geb throughout the race. This has amazed many Australians as for the last decade distance athletes & coaches in Australia have been criticized as not working hard enough or training the right way etc.

The funny thing is that the way Craig trained under his Australian coach Nic Bideau is nothing earth shatteringly different in fact his training seems to be more of an echo of "tried & true" with a smattering of new science. Ironically it is also the direct opposite of our ex-National Coach Said Aouita's theories.

Craig's program is Lydiard like with high volumes of near 200km a week for much of the year. But it is not periodized in the extreme fashion of a Lydiard program. It has lots of volume at controlled intensities 70% of Vo2max for easy runs determined by Treadmill testing, long threshold runs, 10km or so of reps in a track session at 5-10km race speeds & long runs of about 2hrs. Ofcourse in comp season it has faster smaller efforts. The main thing is high manageable volumes, targetted races and a good amount at Anaerobic Threshold. Craig has built the base over a few years to make the breakthrough to a performance level usually only the level of the African greats. 

The Aouita program had almost no base of steady running and focused on intensity of long range speed endurance reps to build improvements in the athletes. His argument was against short fast reps and also against volume of steady running - this meant athletes were focused on high intensity training in a narrow window of adaptation and trying to maintain that adaptations improvement for a long period of time.

This is where these systems of training are very different. I believe Mottrams training is a system of a high manageable volume of training that causes slow adaptations to mitochondria, capillarisation and the mechanisms supporting Anaerobic Threshold. But it stays away from the more intense stress needed to maximally develop the lactic anaerobic system for long periods of time. This means the athlete is fresh and able to have their body adapt readily at the right time without going stale at an unpredictable time.  This was the major weakness of the Aouita program ie. rapid initial improvement and then followed at some point by unpredictable staleness with poor season peak control. Also I believe the runs of 50min & over are needed for optimal development of capillarisation.

I dont believe any athlete will last very long on a year round high intensity program. There are countless MD athletes who have ended their careers early due to repeated bouts of illness evidence of immune systems that have packed up shop due to frequent high levels of stress. The stress of year round lactic anaerobic training seems to be much more problematic than high volumes of aerobic work. At 41 years old Steve Monneghetti just placed in Sydney's City to Surf road race running not much over 41min for 14km. This is after years of running well over 200km a week.

Sure athletes need to have the ability biomechanically to cope with volume but if they can then the gentler higher volume way is probably the best way to go for higher performance and a longer career.

My squad this year is building a base more of the Mottram way and will leave the training for their anaerobic system for the pre-comp phase. The program is looking very Lydiard like so will be followed by a period of hills and transition to more speed work and then some serious hard track sessions over 9 weeks to get them ready for the main track season. How can a program that has not only been proven to develop countless champions and as well as that athletes who in many cases that have lasted for a decade be left behind.

regards

Steve Bennett
OZTRACK Athletics Training Information
www.oztrack.com