When Arthur Lydiard published his first running book, he was reluctant to post any training plans in them. Word has it that he worried about runners reading the plans without understanding the underlying principles and would go out and either 1) get hurt or 2) under perform. I have heard many coaches say “Arthur Lydiard…
We all want to know the secret to becoming champions so in this article we’ll have a closer look at the long run employed by the runners of famous New Zealand coach Arthur Lydiard. Every Sunday, Arthur and “his boys” would start from the front of his house to complete the hilly 22 mile course…
There are many runners out there now who are in the process of transitioning to a more natural and more minimalist running style such as that seen in earlier generations of runners (from the 50s-70s), who practically ran in plim-soles, or the running style of barefoot populations. Download the “Fun transition training programme into natural…
What would Arthur Lydiard, the maker of champions, have thought of all these fads coming out? Naturalmovement, barefoot, natural movement drills? Surely, a master coach who turned New Zealand into the “Kenya of its day”, a serious practitioner of his craft, would have no time for such ideas when there was “serious” athletics training to…
I decided to write this article because I often encounter this question of whether Lydiard training is not outmoded given all the scientific discoveries in the last five decades especially within the field of exercise physiology, the discipline that primarily informs us about how different types of exercise affect the body. This article is not…
There is much discussion on forums around the world about whether the recent success of “Italian wizard” Renato Canova means the enigmatic coach has come upon a superior conditioning method for athletes, marathoners in particular, than Arthur Lydiard whose training principles have formed the basis or inspiration of the training of the vast majority of running…
Thursday evening I completed my first “medium-long” mid-week run in almost six months: a 19.7 km run run at the best aerobic pace I could muster on the day without really pushing the effort. I knew afterwards that after my long period of ankle troubles, the body is beginning to function properly again. If there…
The 6th July 1917 is one of the most important dates in athletics, although it would not become apparent until many years after. On this day, a small tough boy called Arthur Leslie Lydiard was born into a house builder’s home in Mt Eden, Auckland, in New Zealand. When Arthur Lydiard died on 11th December…
(authors: Garth Gilmour and Arthur Lydiard) Perhaps the fact that I have consumed several other Lydiard books and articles cloud my view, but I found “Running with Lydiard” the clearest, most precise and focused of the Lydiard books. As always, you simply lean back and enjoy the real-life examples and brusque prose of the old…
