If any coach has been more misinterpreted than Lydiard, I’d be surprised. – Graeme Woodward, Coaching Coordinator of the Fell Runners Association
Simply taking a Lydiard training programme and reading through his books often does not give you the full understanding of the principles behind his method to make the right decisions during your training. This is especially true if you do not lean on the advice of an experienced Lydiard Coach.
The Lydiard Foundation have summarised the five underlying principles of the training system:
- Maximise your aerobic capacity
- Develop your internal feedback systems (“learn to run by feel”)
- Balance workouts with recovery
- Sequentially develop your energy systems and other physical adaptations
- Apply correct timing
Every users of a Lydiard training programme benefits from familiarising themselves with the five principles. A detailed explanation of each of the five principles written by the Lydiard Foundation is available here.
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René
Director and coach at Borg Coaching Services
Rene Borg is the head coach of Glendalough AC and a passionate runner competing over all distances and terrains.
Latest posts by René (see all)
- Up & Down (Hill workout) - July 13, 2020
- Alternations - June 25, 2020
- Educated Runner – podcast - April 24, 2020
- Mistaking the icing for the cake - October 24, 2019
- Are numbers evil? (should runners quantify their training?) - January 23, 2018
[…] The principle we coach by is that you should almost try to get ‘the most out of the least’ – to paraphrase a coach whose name I have forgotten ‘it’s pretty stupid to run sub-3 hours for the marathon on 100 km if you could have done it on 60 km’. Why? Because the more mileage, the higher the risk of injury and burn-out and more needs more. Once your body has adapted to a certain level of stimulus, you need to find a way to make that even more to progress further. You want to keep volume in reserve for a long career of steady development. My guess is that a lot of runners who underperform and believe they undertrained were actually overtrained. […]