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Training Science Podcast
The Norwegian Method Applied: From Threshold Training to Muscular Status, with Dr Marius Bakken and Prof Paul Laursen
00:58:19
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- [00:01]
A
This week on the Train of Science podcast, I'm joined by two time Olympian and author of the Norwegian Method Applied, Dr. Marius Bakken. In the podcast we go through the crux of the book's content and specifically we anchor ourselves around Marius's hallmark variable of importance in the muscle, its tone, elasticity and stiffness and why it's so important to optimize for these in your training. Marius book really got me thinking about this concept and how I go about my own programming and I've never really seen things laid out as clearly as this before. So if you're into endurance programming yourself, you will not want to miss getting your hands on a copy to grasp these concepts and hopefully we at least give you a taste of it in the podcast here. Just another wonderful conversation with a pioneering expert in the training science space. So without further ado, I now bring you Dr. Marius Backin. I'm here with Marius Backin. Marius, welcome to the podcast.
- [00:52]
B
Thank you.
- [00:53]
A
Great to, great to have you on here. And I've just, I have to say Marius, the last two weeks has just been so enlightening for me, reading through your latest book here, the Norwegian Method Applied. And I truly mean that because I've learned things that I've learned to think about training in a different way, a similar way, but a different way on a couple of different items and we're going to go into a lot of those. But yeah, I guess I just want to thank you for putting that out there. I think having been in high performance sport for a while, while there's a lot of, you know, a lot, a lot of just, just coaches that are a little bit secretive and you're far from that at this point. You're just, this is the way, this was your discovery over, you know, 20 years or, or more, 30 years of, of, of self experimentation and I think you've taken kind of almost a different pathway. Not, you know, not necessarily an academic one, but a very, a clinical and applied. And this is how, this is what I learned as I went along and I just, I just loved it. So congratulations on the work.
- [02:04]
B
Thank you.
- [02:05]
A
Good. Where do you think we should start with that? Maybe I think a lot of listeners will have heard of you and a lot of people that turn into the training Science podcast, they would probably know about you, especially from the endurance space, but maybe just a brief background and update for your history.
- [02:27]
B
Yeah, I used to be a 5000 meter runner. I competed back around year 2000, ran in two Olympics and had a ninth place in the world Championships as the best result with like a 1306, 5K. And this was at the time where African runners were dominating the field. Like in the final of the 2005 World Championship. It was me and an Australian guy and 13 guys that were from Africa. So it was just a different time. After my career I went on to study medicine and I'm a doctor now. I work as a GP in Norway. And you know, the book is about Norwegian, Norwegian method, which is the framework I started to build and experiment with from the mid-1990s and upwards. Trying to put together like a puzzle and find a type of training that would let me compete with the African runners. Because at the time it felt impossible.
- [03:33]
A
Yeah, I love that you call it a puzzle. So you might be familiar with Martin Bashite and I's book, the Science and Application of High Intensity Interval Training. You'll just notice that the two puzzle pieces there on the side.
- [03:46]
B
That's a good one.
- [03:47]
A
Yeah, because that's what we feel, we feel like it's a puzzle as well.
- [03:52]
B
Right.
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A
And that, that started with you and
- [03:54]
B
that's what makes it so interesting, you know, and if you're curious and you like to look at the different pieces, just such an interesting journey that you can be in if you're within sports and especially something as measurable as running.
- [04:09]
A
So take us back, take us back to the beginning. When did you. And a lot of this you outline nicely in your book. But where did you start to get curious about the puzzle? And you were quite a young runner first, right?
- [04:24]
B
Yeah, I mean, I was an 800 meter runner. I started running when I was 12 or 12, 13 years old. And I had a coach then. He just lived 200 meters away from me. He was seventh at the Olympics in 72. You had the last. Who won Prefontaine was number four and he was number seven. And he just lived in my neighborhood and he took care of me from a young age. But, you know, I was doing soccer, I was playing, you know, other sports also. Then I went on to York High School in the US at the time it was, you know, one of the dominating high schools in the whole country for cross country, especially with Joel Newton as a coach at that school. I got to know Peter Ko, the father of Sebastian Coe, and he would go on to coach me. And at that year at York high school in 95, I did my first double threshold training, which is, you know, one big part of the Norwegian method. I got that, that training structure first from Peter Co back that winter and then you know, I would just continue to try and, you know, use my curiosity to find different elements of training that, you know, could work, could not work. And it was just like a long, long journey of experimentation from that, from there on. And then in 98, 99, I started to doing more long distances. And, you know, I would go more and more into threshold training and intensity control and lactic measurements to try and control it the best possible way.
- [05:58]
A
That's awesome. So let's maybe start there because it is foundational and fundamental. Is this, this golden zone you call it. And it's. Yeah, it is, it is the double threshold method. And it's, you know, you've, you've kind of. One of the, one of the graphics that I often think about, you referenced John, John Little, I think Martin Gabala's lab and whatnot, where we've spoken about it on the podcast before. We've got these two different signals, the calcium signaling from long distance training, and then you've got the ABMPK training and both target the, the PGC1 Alpha. Right. And I often think, well, that's how, that's, you know, that's why Sealer's polarized method kind of works, right? Cause you can hit sort of both. But you made me think about this a different way. It's like you're getting almost a double amplification potentially if you hit the golden zone. If you're hitting almost kind of, you know, sub threshold and, you know, listeners of the podcast will know about, you know, the first, first ventilatory or lactate threshold and the second ventilatory or lactate threshold, you're hitting somewhere sort of in there, but you're not viol. The heavy stress above that too much at least there's probably enough time and a place, but, but in general, that's why potentially the double threshold method could be, could be maximal because you're amplifying the signal and not necessarily, you know, really destroying the individual from the autonomic balance standpoint because it's not overly, overly stressful in that day. Is that right?
- [07:35]
B
Yeah, that's right. And, but not just autonomic, I would say, you know, I talk a lot about the muscular system in the book, and that's for a reason. I would say that's the main reason why it works so well. And is this a difficult thing to spend that much time in a book about? Because it's a, it's an area that it's, you know, you have the science there, but it's fragmented and it's mostly clinical work within medicine. It's not that much into sports. The whole reason why I would kind of understand double threshold was because of muscle tone and muscle stress and the post prone muscle tone increase you would get the day after a training load and not the same day. So I would just start to block training and I would find that threshold training was one of the best ways to do that blocking the same day. So it was first an adjustment in terms of intensity and then trying to see how can I repeat this type of intensity as frequent as possible. And that was the way in, into heavy double threshold training.
- [08:43]
A
Yeah, I love it.
- [08:44]
B
And you know, when I was training back in 2000, now it's quite a big focus on intensity control and lactic measurements. And back at that time it was almost like talking about muscular state and muscle tone. Now it was just kind of foreign. And people would remark that this wasn't anything scientific. You could not rely on it. So it sort of feels like the same thing going on, which is, you know, I like that way of being a discussion and you know, bringing up elements that may be correct, maybe not.
- [09:18]
A
Well, this is where you've really got me thinking because in our hit science framework we just. Martin and I recently did a podcast on this. We talk a little bit about that neuromuscular variable and the Myosine product and is. Is something that's potentially giving us insight into that, into something called low frequency fatigue. And. And it's almost seems very similar, there's or potentially relationships here between this muscle tone or tension, muscle tension variable that you discuss so nicely in, in your Norwegian Method applied book. And maybe just start back. I really want to know, like, tell us a little about the story about, you know, talking to your, to your. You're in medical school and whatnot and you've got this hypothesis and whatnot. And when did you start to get insight into that because you came up with it yourself?
- [10:15]
B
I know I didn't come up with it myself. It was a physiotherapist in Norway. He had been doing some work on the Norwegian skaters. Johan Ulakos, who won the Olympics in 94 at Lillehammer. He won three goals. And he was working with the skaters back then. So he was the guy that led me into that kind of a path. And then I would take that, like I said, I'm just very curious. So I would discuss with him and he would start to work on my legs and I can feel the difference. And then I would start to register the same type of Variations that he would had experience with from the skaters. And then I would go more and more into it and at the end of my career I would adjust the training almost exclusively on how my muscles were feeling and responding, I would say. And it's an interesting area, like we emailed a little bit about, you know, you have to look at different elements of training, I think with different kind of connections and different kind of, you know, like interceptions, I would say, and muscle tone. If your muscles are off, you're overtrained. And anybody that's overtrained know that no other training will really help, you know. So in some way we know that the muscular system needs to be balanced. But I also think that it has, you know, fundamental value in terms of, you know, day to day performance in training.
- [11:58]
A
Yeah, of course. You know, I think it's, it's easier probably for us as older athletes to remember this in high, in hindsight, but it's harder, a lot harder when you're sort of starting out to really know about this. Right. And you're kind of blind to it and you, you push through even though you might have heavy, heavy legs, a lack of pop factor or whatever it kind of might be. Right. Those are exactly, those are really the signals that you came, you know, I guess you had that convers conversation with the physiotherapist and then.
- [12:32]
B
Yeah.
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A
Now you were making sense of it as well whilst you were kind of going and training.
- [12:36]
B
Exactly.
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A
And you did again, as a physician, you were, you, you know, you were good at palpating muscles and feeling this tone across a variety of different, different humans in different sports. Right.
- [12:50]
B
So tell us what you felt.
- [12:52]
A
What's the difference? Like what are we talking about when we talk about muscle tone?
- [12:55]
B
Yeah, if we, you know, we could do the theoretical and the practical. Let's do the practical first. The muscle tone will in general be like the fullness or the firmness you will feel if you take a grip around the muscle. The elasticity will be the recoil. If you move it, for example, the rectus femoris, if you move this sideways and you get the recoil back, that's the elasticity and then the stiffness, that's how much force you have to use to push it sideways. That's a general way of looking at it. Then we have to, then we can look into what are the different elements that determine this and how should those three elements be balanced to get the best possible performance. And that's also different for different type of sports. For example, Carsten Warhol on the 400 meter hurdler, he has high tone and high elasticity. I've never felt that in a long distance runner that will perform well over time. So that's an ability within his muscular system. And the 400 meter hurdles is much more explosive than long distances. But in general, one of my big surprises has been that so many recreational runners are, I would say, overtrained in a muscular factor, even though the load is really not that high. So something is going on, I think in terms of the response to high intensity training compared to threshold training, for example. So that's an interesting thing to look at.
- [14:28]
A
It is could their general life stress be a confounder as well, potentially for the overall muscle tone or. Not necessarily.
- [14:36]
B
Not really. Not really. Not really how they train. Yeah, it's how to train. I mean, you can manipulate it a little bit with for example, warm baths and massage in the easy days, but in general it's about training load and training intensity. And this is running. I mean, I'm talking from a runner standpoint. You know, I have no experience or expertise on any other endurance sports. So this is running with the mechanical load you have from running itself.
- [15:04]
A
Yeah, but I mean, as a triathlon coach, we know that, you know, this is the, this is always, you know, nine times out of ten, it's the run that always seems to confound and cause the problems. Right. So running itself, I'm happy that you're a running expert in this one because it's, yeah, it's, it's always the one that causes problems. So it seems that the.
- [15:26]
B
Yeah, I mean, and if you, if you ask any runner or athlete that's running, if we can feel any variation on the day to day form that cannot be explained. I mean, we all know that's the case. The big question is, what is going on? What can change so rapidly? You know, that not that many things in the body has the ability to do that kind of rapid change. So it's just an interesting thing to throw into the whole way of thinking about training. I think.
- [16:00]
A
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- [18:49]
B
That's right. And then it will, you know, if you go with high tone for a long Time, you, your elasticity will go down in general and you know, it's just like an accumulated negative spiral and it's difficult to control. And I think one of the reasons why threshold training is something that, you know, works long time for many runners, it's just because you get control over the recovery period. It's easier to control. I think that's one of the key elements.
- [19:17]
A
Yeah, yeah. Intensity control is the hallmark of the so called Norwegian methods. Absolutely. So it's like. So when you. Let's go there. So when you're trying to control your intensity, what are some of the, you know, what are the things you're trying to do? Just to be clear for the listener.
- [19:34]
B
No, it's in general to be staying sub threshold. You know, my threshold was 3.0 millimoles per liter, so I, I would stay between 2 and 3 and it would vary from day to day. If I had several green signals, like my hre was high, I had a low resting heart rate and those things. And what I call the stair test, how bouncy I would feel up the stairs in the morning. I would sometimes push harder and be riding at 3.0. So I would adjust it a little bit. But in general you had this zone. And one of the reasons, I think why it's like tone is because it's indirect. I mean, we're not working with direct measurements in any way here. So it's just like a safety margin. I would say that you're keeping within that area just because you would like repeatability and not like the full possible load in that session. You want to repeat it and repeat it with double threshold and blocking the training.
- [20:36]
A
Nice.
- [20:37]
B
That's like the system behind it, I would say.
- [20:40]
A
Yeah. Nice. So you've described a metabolic internal load marker on your lactate. Fantastic. We've got that signal maximized. Now how do you go and find this next, you know, let's call it a neuromuscular variable, the tone aspect. Now how did you monitor that? I know that there is a device, a myotone meter or something like that.
- [21:07]
B
I mean we used it. I did my master's thesis in medical school on muscle tone and we did like a pilot study where we did before and after massage control with EMG over time time and then we would use the Meatleton. So I know the device. It's, I would say it's one of the best we have. It's much better to be able to palpate, but it's the hard thing. You cannot, you know, do an objective Study on it. That's the big thing recently, you know, you have the shared wave elastography that's been used in some recent studies and it's not exactly measuring muscle tone, but it measures muscle stiffness. And I would say it's likely more accurate in terms of muscular load. So it will not be that distinct, but it will say something about muscular load. And I think in the future that's what we will be using to look at the different type of trainings and the load afterwards. But I would use palpation to kind of know where I was and I would use that to structure the whole typical weekend in like a Norwegian method for runners.
- [22:16]
A
Yeah. So, I mean, the palpation is certainly more practical if a, if an individual could develop the skills that you did. Right.
- [22:24]
B
Yeah.
- [22:25]
A
So what would you, what would you recommend then for the, the listening runner or triathlete that, that wants to, you know, start to tinker and is it just squeezing their muscles every once in a while and, and, and really listening for the feedback?
- [22:42]
B
Yeah. I mean, you can at least start with feeling how it is on the stairs every day, you know, how your quads feel. And then you can start with just taking that firm grip around the muscle and trying to feel how elastic or full or firm it is. And after a while you will start to notice these differences. In the beginning, you will feel nothing, but it's not that difficult. And like I've talked about before, you know, I feel bad about focusing on this, but I think at the same time it's important and it's not well communicated. And at the third, then the third point there is it can lead to injuries and demotivation because, you know, the result is heavy legs and higher injury risk. So that's why I repeat this, this aspect, you know.
- [23:31]
A
Yeah, well, I mean, I'm sure, yeah, it's your world. So, yeah, I'm sure you feel like you're repeating it, but this was all brand new to me. Right. So it's. I think it's. Or not it wasn't as emphasized as much I, as I've heard in the past. And it's, to me it's, it's quite, quite novel and really cool. And when you think about it then, you know, and you start to think about periodizing a week, you start to get. You keep things really simple, which I love. And it ultimately kind of goes. It's like a, it's like a Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday in terms of your harder days and then the, your, you know, your Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday are just kind of like your, your easier, lower tone days, right, where you're, you're, you're trying to bring tone down because on those harder days you're, you're bringing tone up. So it's this nice cyclical thing through the week where you're always.
- [24:32]
B
Yeah. And that's a way of doing it, doing it a safe way. You know, it's a safe mechanism by doing it that way. You know, there are some athletes that are using this, this type of structure and are able to do work with strength work and sprints and plyometrics on the easy days. So it's possible. And I talk in the book about it. I think some people miss it, but I talk about the dynamic component. I mean you have this structure like sitting there and then you start experiment. And some runners will handle doing it like that, but not all. And it's risky, that's the thing. But you have some world class athletes that are doing it that way. They're able to, to also do some work on the easy days. But it just, you know, it's tougher, you know, to do it that way.
- [25:22]
A
Yeah, yeah.
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B
And I would say it's riskier that. I mean if you look on the, the level of a runner, if you are a recreational runner, it's more risky than a high level runner because the elasticity and tone will usually be more off if you're just using or running four or five times a week.
- [25:38]
A
And I, I found it very interesting. I mean you talk about, we talk a lot on the podcast about the, the different phenotypes and the, you know, your twitchy athletes, ver diesel engines and you know, certainly, you know, I should ask you the question like does, does that impact on likely how you're going to respond on those alternate days? Does it change the method up at all in terms of whether you've got a, you know, those. An 8,800meter kind of athlete versus a 5k kind of athlete.
- [26:10]
B
Yeah, I mean obviously and, and 800meter actually athlete will need many more elements than just threshold trading. Of course an interesting way of looking at it is this though it can go both ways because in one way you would think they can handle doing strength work and sprint work better because they're more naturally built for that. But at the same time the response on the muscular system is great. So you will have, you know, and that leads to a higher muscle tone and potentially longer recovery time, not shorter for some athletes. So you have to kind of think about it. So you know, if I had to coach like a fast twitch athlete that needed to be more better at endurance sports. Maybe I would start with twice a week with anything higher intensity than easy running just to make sure that the recovery time is sufficient between the sessions.
- [27:11]
A
Yeah, I agree that that is, that does seem to be the hallmark of the twitchy athlete is that you've got to emphasize the recovery aspect. Really. Yeah, if you're beating, you can't beat a dead horse is. Is the English kind of saying. Right, like, exactly. But the, in contrast the diesel engine, you know, there's, and I sense that was, you were a little bit more of the, the aerobic phenotype, the diesel and you could handle quite a, quite a decent amount of load and a lot of running.
- [27:42]
B
Yeah, exactly.
- [27:44]
A
So you coach as well. So I guess do you, how do you, is it coach's eye and communication that you're distinguishing what you have in front of you when you start with an athlete?
- [27:55]
B
No, I mean I, I don't coach individual athletes at all. You know, it's too busy with my medical practice and three kids and training five to six times a week myself, so I have no, no time for it. So, so this is just, you know, but training a lot. You know, I'm in touch with coaches and that's an interesting, like it's, it's a, it's a nice way of being in the sport because you can communicate freely and I'm still curious and interested in you know, what's going on and you know, the recent science and I try to, you know, just be open minded. I think, I think I always will be open minded, you know, and if I'm wrong on something and somebody, you know, has a better solution, I'm totally fine with it. You know, that's the way things move forward work.
- [28:38]
A
I like it. Well, you know, you, in, in our email exchange you were talking about your, your feelings around the, the key, the key, the things of importance ultimately. And you know you, you, you mentioned Tim Noakes and, and, and Laura running and his central governor. Right. And, and you liked his, his, his out of the box thinking for, for that.
- [29:00]
B
Yeah.
- [29:01]
A
But you, you take on, you in your own philosophy and thinking about, you believe it's the muscles that are the key factor in terms of how they perform. And if there's a governor that you need to pay attention to, it may
- [29:18]
B
be them, it may be both or likely both. That's the point. The point is that I talk in my email to you, I talk about the sequence of things. If your muscular system are balanced, you will be able to run much faster if also the central governor is letting go. And that's what I saw myself in terms of how high my heart rate could be compared to max heart rate. For example, when I was running my fastest, I would measure all the time. I had five and a half thousand like dick acid tests and I would measure everything. I had an HRV monitor in 2001, so I was early on with a lot of things. So I wouldn't say it's one over the other. I think both are important. But I think that the most missing thing is the muscular system and that's a problem because it's important. Like I'm a recreational runner, but I still, I can run, you know, fairly fast on my sessions and I can see the variation when I optimize my muscles. You know, it's, I go from being okay to being, you know, where I would like to be. And it's 20, 30 seconds per kilometers in running pace difference. So this is a big thing and I think in the future maybe if we were able to measure it more accurately without doing palpations, it would be easier to kind of say, okay, this load does this compared to this. Because at the moment we're more looking at the isolated load and not long term balance, I would say. And that's a big challenge. I think it's so cool.
- [31:01]
A
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- [33:02]
B
Yeah, and it may be a connection there. You know, I talk about, you know, muscle tone, like resting muscle tone. That's a concept or it's a, it's really about the viscoelastic properties in the muscle and we know which likely factors are involved there. You know, we have the small cross bridges that are there at rest. You have the titin molecule, you have the intra and extracellular water content and you have all these different things that are involved in resting muscle tone. Where you are at rest, you have no nervous system down, it's just restricted. And from my experience, that resting state will determine how fresh you will feel on a session. So likely. And maybe what happens when the body feels that you have this response when you start doing the running, it's a green light and therefore you will get help from the central governor if you try to connect these things together. You know, I would email Tim Noakes back like early 2000. He probably don't remember it, but I just could not do it just to try and explore some of this things, you know. So he's, he's done some great work and you know, he's been thinking about outside the box his whole career. So I like that.
- [34:21]
A
Well, Tim and I were chatting and he, he does remember your conversations and your emails. So. Yeah. And he has a question back to you actually. In fact, and, and it was because of your history and experience in Kenya and all the lactate testing that you did, he wondered is it true that the Kenyans have lower lactate levels generally in resting overall compared To Europeans.
- [34:50]
B
You mean on resting or in exercise?
- [34:54]
A
I think he meant in exercise.
- [34:55]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's what we found down there when we were doing the training in the big groups. You know, I would compare it to Norway and runners there, you know, doing the same kind of training each week. Not at the same level, but at least the same type of load. And it was, you know, much lower during the harder session when we were infield, you know, and measuring it.
- [35:17]
A
Yeah.
- [35:18]
B
And, you know, those values we found down there at that time compared to Norway, just way different than the Norway. Now these days in Norway, you know, most of the runners are doing the same thing. You know, they're in that. That zone.
- [35:31]
A
Yeah. So why do you think. Why do you think just it's inherently lower throughout the African runners or the Kenyan runners?
- [35:41]
B
I think different things. One aspect is altitude. If you are used to altitude, it's likely a little bit easier to feel when you tipping over the anaerobic threshold, that area, I would think so. That's one element. The other element is that in general, you know, that there's a cultural thing, I think, about not pushing that hard. In general, you know, we talk about, oh, they're working so hard. I didn't see that down there. I see they were working a little bit less intense. It's more like an easy way of going. So likely cultural element also. And then, of course, you have all the metabolic things that you know more about than I do, but, you know, likely it's a combination of several things going on.
- [36:28]
A
When I was reading in your book about your time in Kenya, one of your observations that you made was how. I forgot what you called it, but it was. It was basically, it was. You were talking about the load that is outside of your training load and how low that was in the canyons. In other words, they. They sat on their duff for a lot of the days. And. And I also. And I remember reading about that also in Tour de France cyclists, a successful Tour de France cyclists who did sort of a similar form format, which I found is interesting. So if you're an elite athlete, being mindful of that training load that's outside of your primary sport. Is that true? And. And did you take that to heart? If it is, and apply it?
- [37:14]
B
I mean, I was doing, you know, all the other things on the side with the medical school and everything, so I just couldn't rest that much. But, you know, if you look on other animals, you know, it's. They usually go full out and they rest completely And I think that's, you know, it's going into the same type of mechanisms that you do and mobilization and in the rest. And from a muscular standpoint, you know, if you're standing a day, you run a concert or something like that and you try to run afterwards, I mean, you know that it's going to be heavy. This isn't rocket science and we know this. I mean, if you just think about it and it's about again, elasticity and muscle tone. It's those elements that are happening when you're doing something static. So likely the last like three to five days before, like a max performance, the best thing is just to completely rest and do the small jogs and those things and, you know, as little as possible static work.
- [38:14]
A
So I found that very interesting. And then the other part I found interesting reading through your book as well, was that your discussion around strength training and we've, you know, we've often talked on the training Science podcast about the importance of strength training and the science that backs up adding strength training in for your endurance performance. It's many, many of an expert has come on and talked about that. Yeah, but you know, you were, yeah, you were saying that that is not something that was, you found, was, was used perhaps by the, the Kenyan runners that you're running with or yourself. Yeah, yeah. So is that, is that true?
- [38:54]
B
Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's true and it's. I did a lot of experimenting with it. You know, I didn't, you know, made that maybe that clear in the book. You know, I worked with the coach Okashn Warholm, Laife Oleur Alnace is likely one of the best coaches out there. It's very, very, very good. And we try to sort this thing out with strength training and weight training and spin training and I did heavy weights, I did, you know, all the different kinds of variations in, in running movement and you know, trying to make things work. And it was difficult simply because what it did to muscle tone. So you will gain something, but you will risk something else. And this is again, in terms of running, you have the movement going at a repeated, you know, a movement repeated over time in running with the load and you're doing it with a high tone from the strength training. It's difficult. So I'm not saying it's impossible. And like I said, you know, some of the best runners in the world are doing this combined with running, the framework I talk about. So it's possible. I'm just saying it's risky and it's something that you should do year round, if you're doing it. And likely it's best to try and experiment placing it after the hardest sessions so that you get easier running on the easy days before anything else. So it's just like it's a trade. You get something, but you also will lose something or risk something. And this is difficult to, you know, that's the thing. Also, you cannot study this in depth. If you look on the Norwegian method, it's a long term progression where you do the gradual increase in load before the peak of the season. And it's just, I cannot see any way you can actually do a proper study on it as a whole, unfortunately.
- [40:44]
A
Yeah, but I love Marius, how you brought it back to muscle tone again in your philosophy. This is number one, that ultimately in your pyramid of the things that are important and you've just told us that, you know, you have a very strong rationale for why this doesn't make sense. It's very difficult to slot in the puzzle piece of the strength training because we know that that raises muscle tone all of a sudden. Right. And if we're trying and you know, typically practitioners such as myself, I would think, oh, easily, you know, on our easy day we're going to, you know, we've got, got, it's easy, easy running and those sorts of things. So we'll easily add strength training on that day. Right. Because it's a perfect spot for it. But now you've just raised your muscle tone by doing that and now you haven't actually recovered that muscle tone for your quality day tomorrow or the next day or whatever it's going to be.
- [41:39]
B
Exactly. And also the elasticity, it's better to talk about muscular state because the tone is one element of it, elasticity is another one. So you have to kind of look at it. It's probably better to look at your muscular and that involves stiffness, elasticity and tone. And that's the main thing. And that's the reason why I'm cautious about strength training. Not because it's not effective. The question is, is the load too much in terms of what you gain? That's the big question. If you're trying to maximize a training week, is that the maximum you can get out of what you doing to the muscles on that day and the effect the next day? So that's like the, that's the big question question there.
- [42:22]
A
Yeah, totally.
- [42:22]
B
And I don't have the answer for it, but at least from a risk perspective, I think it's wise to try to build a load without doing too much of it in the beginning.
- [42:34]
A
Yeah, I mean, these are not classic sports science terms that we use a lot, at least not that I come across. Tone, elasticity and stiffness, yes, they're in there time to time, but not in, not really how you've outlined them in your, in your book, in my opinion. So why don't we, why don't we just go there, just so we're clear? Clear. How do these three key variables around, I'll call it your neuromuscular variable, how do they relate to one another and how do they move? Do they move in sync directly or. Not necessarily. They are independent.
- [43:08]
B
Not necessarily. You can have, like I said with Varhol, he has a high tone and high elasticity, but usually if you go with a high tone for a long time, it will usually make a difference in terms of elasticity also. So that's the, you know, so they, they kind of work together. And also stiffness, you know, the resistance to deforming to a force that will also be influenced by a high tone. And like I said, you know, these are not things that are not known. We know it and it's been studied and it's, you know, it's defined. The big, big question is how much valve value is it in terms of performance and training and recovery? That's the big question. That's the big issue.
- [43:57]
A
Well, I think it's beyond an if in your mind, from what I can tell, because you've had a lifetime of experimenting with it. Right. But we probably need more data.
- [44:08]
B
Yeah, exactly, we need more data. And I mean, I could be wrong. I am certain I'm not wrong, but I could be wrong still. My problem is that I, I can, you know, I measured so much and I can feel it. And I monitor this for, you know, now, 30 years almost.
- [44:25]
A
Yeah.
- [44:27]
B
And that's the difficult thing. When you cannot prove anything and you know it. Then I have to say I may be wrong and I'll be happy, you know, to go with that, but I cannot see it from what I feel and what I measure.
- [44:41]
A
Yeah. So say you've got your, your tone has risen. What are some, you know, and you've done a hard training session. Um, you've had your quality day. What are some, other than just plain rest? What are some other ways of potentially moving tone in the right direction to prepare yourself for the next hit?
- [45:00]
B
Yeah, I mean, first of all, plane rest is not the best way. It's activity, but easy activity, you know, easy running. One thing you can do and experiment with is what to do after a hard session. Some will benefit from doing some strides or some 45, 15, like, you know, in and outs after the session. That that helps, you know, bring the tone a little bit down early on and then sometimes a little bit longer cool down. You know, I like longer cooldowns than warm ups. And then, you know, you have the passive things like massage down the warm baths. But the most important thing is easy running. Yeah, that's the most effective.
- [45:42]
A
That's great. So, yeah, you'd rather do something than nothing.
- [45:46]
B
Oh, for sure, for sure. And that's also the, you know, one of the reasons why runners sometimes perform the weekend after they were supposed to be in peak shape. That's because they've been resting too much the week of the race. And that's a problem in terms of especially the elasticity. You need some movement, otherwise it'll go down. So that's the cause for that. So what you can do then is you can keep the frequency going, but you reduce the load on each session so you have the same number of sessions. You just decrease how much you're actually doing on each of them. You will get the effect of being balanced in terms of tone and elasticity and predictability because it's predictable for the body. You know, what the structure is. But you will have the extra punch in the competition.
- [46:33]
A
Awesome. What about walking? Does that have any sort of a place in the Norwegian method?
- [46:43]
B
I wouldn't say so. You can do it, but I cannot see that it has any major effect. Like in terms of tone, I don't know really. But standing at least isn't a good thing. Doing too much of it.
- [46:59]
A
It almost seems to me, Maris, that we need to get a better practical handle on the variable itself. Tone, elasticity and stiffness. And almost like how we have heart rate, lactate and of course we're going to get continuous lactate monitors. Eventually we're going to have better handles on both of those. But it almost seems like we are also going to need a, you know, this neuromuscular kind of internal, you know, marker and.
- [47:33]
B
Yeah, and I think, I think that will be like the share wave elastography where you do the ultrasound and you measure, you know, the rate it'll go through the tissue. And like I said, you know, the Nike lab up in Oregon, they've been doing some studies before and after marathons to look on passive stiffness and that's likely the best way to study like muscular state. Then they will say, okay, we don't go too much into elasticity and tone and stiffness. It's, it's, it's too difficult with these three things going on. We just look on passive, the stiffness. And I think that's enough to know enough or know a lot more about this particular element in training.
- [48:26]
A
That was an incredible study that you forwarded me through from the Nike lab. Can you just describe the general gist of what they measured and what they found in that area?
- [48:38]
B
Yeah, I mean, they used that type of ultrasound where they would look at how fast it would travel through the tissue and then they could measure the stiffness and they would look. A couple, a couple of things they would find out was that the stiffness of the better runners, it was much less than the slower runners before and after. And also how stiff the muscles were after made a big difference in terms of recovery. And it seems like simple things, but this is what we're looking for. We're looking at can we measure something from the muscular system in terms of recovery and performance? Performance, you know, that. So that study showed the correlation between performance and the muscular state before. And also, you know, the change and the recovery time. It's simple, but, you know, it's straight, you know, in that area I'm talking about there.
- [49:34]
A
Yeah, amazing. So, Maris, what. What sort of advice would you give to the, you know, the recreational runner? What are they, what do they likely. What do they need to consider in their overall plan? What is the classic recreational runner doing potentially wrong?
- [49:55]
B
I mean, I would say it's three things. Usually it's running too hard on the easy days, you know, most should be below 70% of heart rate for running. I think, to be on the safe side. This is in general, you know, I'm not talking about all the exceptions that are out there, but in general. And then I would advise to have just one time a week with anything harder about the threshold and maybe two threshold days where we do sub threshold. And then I would look into being as accurate as you can in terms of intensity control on the threshold sessions. And this is a safe way, I would say, to normalize the muscular system. And once you have things going and things are working, then you can start experimenting. So you start on a safe spot and then you start to move out upwards. And like I said, I'm surprised in terms of load, how little you can do wrong. And it changes that much. For example, with my running now, if I do things a little bit harder than I should for three or four of my sessions each week, I will Go straight into a state where I feel heavy, it doesn't work well. So it's just like it's this thing that it takes so little to go over. And you need to be aware of that. I think even if they're a recreational runner, because it leads to injuries for them if they do it for too long.
- [51:22]
A
What about in terms of peak load or peak running distance? Where do you, is that an individual target? Is there a general, you know, hard and set rule that an elite runner needs to get to, or is it just quite variable in your experience? And, you know, what did you, what did you discover?
- [51:46]
B
I mean, if you look on the, on the top level, you know, in general, you will see from 150 to 220 kilometer per week for like a 5 or 10k runner. So it's likely somewhere in between there. You know, a big question is, of course, does that change with age? And that's also, you know, it's difficult, but likely training should change with age in terms of, you know, what you gain from that load usually, or probably it's running economy, of course. And also I think a big thing is the muscle tone and the decrease you get. But maybe with age, you know, you should maybe reduce the volume, maybe you should increase it. It's difficult to know, but that's something that, that likely would have some benefit to look at.
- [52:35]
A
Yeah, I just thought of something that maybe I didn't make clear enough around because, remember, we were talking about what are the key things that, you know, the hierarchy of needs in terms of importance of exercise physiology. Right. We talked about, I mean, you know, we talked about Tim Noakes, central governor, we talked about your muscle tone, elasticity and stiffness, muscle quality. But you know, we didn't even mention like VO2 max. And it's also ultimately like VO2 max. Maybe it's something. But you don't get the VO2 max value ultimately if you're central governor and your muscles won't engage in the whole process.
- [53:11]
B
That's the point. That's the whole point. That's the thing. And that's what, you know, you look at. I sort of picture this, you know, how you have the mind up there and then you have the muscles down there and then you have this area in between that everybody's talking about and what you're, you know, saying there, that's the main point there. And then you can, you know, you can even go further and you can say, okay, if I am really well balanced in terms of like the general load on the Central governor and also very well balanced in terms of muscle tone. How much specific of the rest do I need? You know, that's a big question out there.
- [53:47]
A
Yeah.
- [53:47]
B
So the problem again is it's difficult, you know, it's difficult to measure the central governor, it's difficult to measure the muscular system accurately, but therefore doesn't mean that it, it isn't very, very important.
- [54:01]
A
Absolutely. And that's what the podcast is all about. That's what science should be all about, is continuing to test hypotheses and we don't, you know, and question everything. Right. Like that's.
- [54:12]
B
Yeah, yeah. And I also think that the percentage of how important the different elements are changes according to each other. So that's also an interesting thing. So if you're optimizing one element, that could lead to another element be more important because otherwise it wouldn't work that well. So it's just like this dynamic between, like we talk in the mail, in emails, back and forth about nutrition. You have the VO2, you have the muscles, you have the mind, you have all these factors. And I think the equation, it will change according to how optimized each one of them are. And that makes this more complex, but also more faster, I think.
- [54:54]
A
Yeah, for sure, for sure. And again, that's the theme of the podcast is it's always the context is everything. The context is over any of the content and the philosophies. So context changes everything. You've just described it there. Marius, we're getting close to the hour here. Is there any big rocks that we haven't described yet that you wanted to put out here on the podcast while you've got cut the air?
- [55:20]
B
No, I think it's good to have this type of discussions where we have an open mind and kind of look at things and likely things will move forward that way.
- [55:32]
A
Yeah, that's what it's all about. And where can people get your book, the Norwegian Method Applied?
- [55:39]
B
Oh, it's on Amazon. It's on all the big Amazons in the UK and in the US So that's where it is.
- [55:48]
A
Fantastic. And tell the one thing you didn't mention was your 100 day marathon project. Tell us about that.
- [55:54]
B
Oh, yeah, that was in 2006. I retired. I considered doing a comeback, doing the marathon. So of course I would talk to Canova, I would talk to Italian coaches, I would talk to the, you know, the top canon marathon runners, and I would start thinking about the structure for that. Medical school, you know, took most of my time, so I couldn't do that route instead. I developed a program for recreational runners, 2, 45 and upwards for the marathon. And that's the 100 day marathon plan. It's been sitting here since 2009. It's just a way of structuring training through phases, you know, after the marathon. A little bit more aggressive than the Norwegian method. More variation in pace and much more into prioritization. But it's just one of my, you know, my small babies. It's been there for a long time and, you know, I Now probably over 5,000 runners have gone through it. So it's just one of my side projects, I would say.
- [56:52]
A
Amazing. Amazing. So, yeah, you seem like you're the type of person that has a lot of projects going on and is there anything big in the pipeline now? I know you felt like Martin and I when we finally got our book off to the publisher and out in the wild. It's a big relief and I know you were expressing the same to me, so congratulations on that. But there's always a project that's in the future. So you got anything that you want to reveal here or you just keep it?
- [57:20]
B
For sure. Wife and kids, you know, that's the thing now. I mean, they deserve it. You know, I've been. I've been writing and thinking and, you know, bringing back old memories and notes and everything for quite some time now. You know, the book first came out in Norwegian and it's been selling really well here. And then the English version is more in depth, so I had to write two different versions, versions of it. So now it's back to my normal life again, I would say.
- [57:47]
A
Marius, it's just been an absolute joy to have you on and again, thank you so much for enlightening me and hopefully there's some listeners that we've also enlightened as well. We'll include the show notes for the Norwegian method applied. You can see it on. You can get it on Amazon and we'll include all the links to all the key references that we spoke about here today. And yeah, Marius, on behalf of Martin and myself and the teams at Hitscience and Athletica, congratulations on the incredible work and we'll look forward to a round two in the future.
- [58:18]
B
Thank you so much.