80/20 Running: Run Stronger and Race Faster by Training Slower

by Matt Fitzgerald

In his famous Sports Illustrated article from 1962, Arthur Lydiard argued that distance runners do not need to increase their maximum speed. He was right about that. But it turns out that runners can’t increase their maximum speed if they train for increased aerobic capacity. Sacrificing VO2max for raw speed would be a giant mistake for any distance runner, because boosting aerobic capacity through optimal training offers two benefits that matter much more to this type of athlete: 1) it increases the speed that runners can sustain over longer distances; and 2) it increases how far runners can go at submaximal speeds. It is no accident that in the Salzburg study, the training program that induced the largest increase in aerobic capacity (polarized) also yielded the greatest improvements in time to exhaustion and in the highest speed attained in an incremental exercise test.