Brief Thoughts: Are hard workouts counterproductive?

Since my mission to write a set of comprehensive articles detailing the most common running injuries (the “Injury Series” here on RunningWritings) has morphed into a colossal undertaking, I’ve decided to break things up a bit with a new occasional, hopefully weekly series entitled “Brief Thoughts,” which I intend to be shorter, less-scientific musings on training and racing.  Today will be the first installment in that series.

Several world-class runners looking rather relaxed at the 2008 Olympics.  Photo: zimbio.com

One thing that’s been on my mind recently is how often, if ever, an experienced runner should do hard workouts.  This topic crossed my mind while reading this excellent thread on LetsRun, in which several sub-4 milers commented on how their workouts were going when they felt “ready” to break four minutes.

Sub-four miler “usedabe” writes:

There are a few different types of workouts that indicate the type of fitness needed for going under 4:00.

The ability to comfortably run 5-8 miles (true tempo effort) averaging under 5:00 pace is a great indicator of aerobic fitness. Can be one tempo run or long tempo intervals with short rest (like 3x3200 w/2:00 rest).

Something like 20x200 averaging 29.0 - 29.5ish with 200m rest (:50 - :55s) will show you've got good speed endurance.

Being able to go mid/low 50's for a 400m shows you've got the basic speed.

When asked about the “classic” 10x400m at mile pace w/ 60sec rest workout, he writes:

Never did it [10x400m] myself (and I don't think I could have done it if I tried), plenty of people claim it's a good indicator though. Personally, I don't think it's a good idea to run 'indicating' workouts since they tend to amount to a race effort when you could have just run a workout and gotten better - not just tested your fitness. Work on different areas of your overall fitness (aerobic, speed) and race like a madman.

Which is what got me thinking: if super-fit sub-four milers don’t need so many “hard” workouts, are they any good for anybody else? To me, “hard” denotes anything that approaches a race effort.  While some workouts, like 10x400m at mile pace with a minute recovery, are easily delineated as hard, others are not so clear.  The difficulty of an eight mile “tempo run,” for example, is entirely dependent on the effort at which it’s run.  And even the pace is not as informative as you might think—there’s a difference between pace and effort.  It’s very possible to run the right pace but the wrong effort.  I realize this is a controversial proposition, and sounds somewhat surprising coming from Mr. Science here.  But bear with me for a little while and I’ll promise not to tread too deeply into “zen of running” territory.  

Matters of economy

Distance running is essentially a matter of economy: how efficiently you can maintain a given pace.  While acknowledging the importance of metabolics (aerobic fitness, lactate tolerance, and the like), let’s put that aside for a second.  If two runners have equal oxygen delivery systems (heart, lungs, blood vessels) but differ in performance, the gap is best explained by differences in muscle recruitment, the second “half” of efficiency.  There are efficient and inefficient ways to run—if you don’t believe me, try bounding your way to a seven-minute mile! Now, bounding is an extreme example of an inefficient stride that consumes a large amount of energy per unit distance traveled, but you get the idea.  If you focus in training on covering ground in the most efficient way possible, your brain is going to pick up on that, and it will eventually transition into more efficient muscle recruitment at all paces. 

But I don’t think efficient running is entirely synonymous with any particular pace, as threshold training advocates might claim, so much as it is a state of mind, or perhaps an attitude.  For the same reasons a basketball player has a harder time hitting free-throws when the opposing team’s fans are jeering, a distance runner has a hard time maintaining an efficient stride when he (or she) has an aggressive mindset.  Picture running the same pace—say, six-minute miles—in two situations: 1) on a trail in a blissful forest and 2) on a busy highway in New Jersey.  For several reasons, the latter situation would feel as though it took a lot more effort to maintain the same pace than the former, even if the temperature, wind, and so on were all the same.  Physiologically speaking, the only way that can be is if the stressful environment contributed to poor efficiency! And that’s the crux of my argument: practicing running HARD, with an aggressive attitude (as opposed to fast with a relaxed attitude) reinforces an inefficient running style, which is undesirable in the grand scheme of training.  I don’t just mean that running aggressively uses more of some ethereal “mental energy,” I mean running hard and aggressively requires more real physical energy to maintain a given pace.  And the only way to become more efficient is to practice doing it.

Look at it another way: Most athletic high school boys can run 400m in less than 60 seconds, but only a handful have managed to string four in a row together.  Again, putting metabolics aside for a moment, the problem of running a four minute mile or a ten minute two-mile or an eighteen-minute 5k is not one of speed; it’s one of energetics—how do you “build” a runner capable of sustaining high speeds with good efficiency? To me, the answer is simple: practice running efficiently! This has to happen both at race-relevant speeds and at metabolically sustainable speeds too.  A 9:00 3k runner can’t efficiently sustain 3min kilometers for very long—if he hopes to become a 15:00 5k runner, he needs to practice two things: first, efficiently running 3:00/km pace, and second, running efficiently for long, continuous blocks of time.  To do this, he’d likely do short repeats with moderate recovery at the requisite pace, as well as continuous “tempo runs” or long repeats with short recovery at a fast-but-relaxed pace. 

Notice how neither of these conditions mentioned running hard.  Arthur Lydiard once said something along the lines of “the winner of the race is the one who runs the fastest, not the hardest.”  I’m fairly convinced that once you’ve reached a certain point, you are going to get diminishing returns from learning to run HARDER.  Learning to run hard is important, since younger runners need to get acquainted with the limits of their bodies, but once you’ve learned how to push yourself very hard (as virtually everyone has after a few years of competitive running), it can become a hindrance as much as a strength.  Being able to give an extremely hard effort on command can impede your ability to improve because it becomes very easy to run yourself into the ground.  And, again, just because you ran HARD doesn’t mean it was the right effort for the day.  Even though a 4:40 miler might hammer out ten 400s in 67 seconds with a minute recovery, it’s not bringing him any closer to a 4:30 mile from an efficiency standpoint because he isn’t practicing running that pace efficiently.  He’d probably do better to run those same 400s in 70 seconds (or do shorter repeats at 67-sec pace so the effort wouldn’t have to be so HARD).

Matters of metabolism 

Granted, we’ve set aside metabolics so far. Efficiency is only part of the whole picture.  And it’s a physiological reality that runners competing in middle distance races (as well as the steeple) have to endure high levels of lactate and acidity in their muscles during the final stages of their races.  So it’s unrealistic to expect a middle distance runner to be able to run well exclusively on short, quick repeats and relaxed moderate-intensity repeats and tempo runs.  Some amount of lengthy, tiring, high-speed repeats is needed to prepare for the race.  But even these workouts need not be the knee-grabbing, vomit-inducing variety.  As a long distance runner, I found that many of my best races came after I’d already done a handful of races and one or perhaps two workouts that I hammered—the rest being run at moderate intensities, always holding back a bit.  Races, of course, “count” as hard workouts, and are probably the most “race specific” you can get.  

Conclusion

So, in sum, I’ve come to believe that hard workouts (again, defined as a race-level effort which would leave you grabbing your knees and gasping for air), while useful early on in a runner’s career, are of low or moderate importance in the experienced runner’s workout diet.  A 3k, 5k, or 10k runner probably only needs 1-2 races and 1-2 “hard” workouts before he or she is ready to run a top-flight race.  A middle distance runner may need a few more.  The bulk of training should be run at a relaxed effort, focusing on running fast without running hard, since this is the key to developing efficient movement at ALL speeds.  Efficiency is built both by practicing efficient running at race pace in shorter repeats and by practicing long, continuous runs and repeats and fast-but-not-hard efforts.    Finally, let me reiterate that relaxed does not mean slow, and that pace is not synonymous with effort! 

I realize that this is something of a controversial position, and some very prominent coaches are big proponents of very tough workouts.  Dathan Ritzenhein, for example, was rumored to unofficially break the American 10-milerecord during a tempo run in the fall of 2009.  But I’ll leave you with two quotes.  The first comes from my former college coach and the second from the world-famous Renato Canova:

“Speed comes from relaxation, not aggressiveness.  Lactic Acid is the result of aggressiveness, which is in direct conflict with Speed Development.” 

“The secret is to make in your mind possible what was not possible before.  The secret is to make easy what was difficult, instead to make difficult what really is easy.”

So, are hard workouts overrated? What do you think?