Matt Fitzgerald's new publication

Good one, stone cold, I've just finished reading it and am on my second pass through it with my yellow highlighter. Very useful book -- and have started playing around with some of his ideas.

What I like about it
Based on Noakes'work on the "central governor" theory of running, which has developed nicely over the last few years -- and which I think makes a lot of sense. Fitzgerald gives a really useful update and fuller explanation of where Noakes is currently at with it. They are now really getting to grips with the mechanics of HOW the brain is able to shut down physical effort, and what are the cues it picks up on.

This has enable him to come up with some really practical ways to train yourself --er, your brain, at least -- NOY to shut you down prematurely but let you get your 10k PR first :)

Also Matt F has a good section on gait and form; he gave what to me is a new insight about how important it is to have the neuromuscular training AND the strength to maintain form when you start to tire. He has some good stuff to say about running shoes and their contribution to injury.

I've started experimenting with his "proprioceptive cues" -- stuff you visualise and repeat to yourself while running to encourage good form. These are a lot of fun. The one I LOVE is, when you are out running on the road or trail, to imagine you are running on a treadmill and the road/trail is spinning towards you. Try it! It can get really weird!!

What I DON'T like about it.
The schedules look well-crafted and make for a generous amount of pages for your bucks, but to my mind they are too short: I don't like his ideas of mixing in semi-speed work, like fartlek, and cross-training, in what is supposed to be a base-building period.

I thought I would like the fact that everything is based on pace and that he apparently has programs that you can download for use with a Garmin. It sounds like a neat idea and he's got some useful Jack Daniels+ tables to work out paces for various aspects of training. At first glance it does make sense to base workouts on specific paces rather than heart rate, but actually the pace method has similar drawbacks. For one, I train permanently at altitude, and almost everywhere I run has hills at some point, so not only are some of the paces probably too high, but maintaining a steady pace can be impossible.

Final thing that I REALLY didn't like. There are no stories of athletes he has trained successfully using this system. No quotes from athletes. No success stories. No testimonials... you get the picture. He doesn't link to any websites or a blog, where this stuff can be discussed, which in this day and age, is a bit backwards. And, apart from due credit being given to Prof Noakes and a nod to Jack Daniel, this is another of those books where the author gives the impression this is all his own work. There are no acknowledgements to people who have gone before -- such as Lydiard, Romanov of Pose Method, and so on.

I found that so off-putting at first that I nearly didn't persevere with the book, but I am glad that i did. Maybe we should offer Matt a new forum here?

Thanks stone cold. I'm eager to find out what you make of it.

* Brain Training for Runners, by Matt Fitzgerald (foreword by Tim Noakes, author of The Lore of Running), just published by NAL (New American Library), paperback, 564 pages, $15.00.

* A bout of Googling failed to turn up a book-specific website, but Matt F is the editor of the Powering Muscles website here.

Thanks, Simon , for a prompt and detailed reply .
I have only read thru the first 4 chapters . I have used Daniels pace charts for over 10 yrs and I like the way M. Fitzgerald is taking them to the next step as it were .
I notice the paces themselves are very close to Daniels .

If we accept his theory that you the human body is to complicated to train one system at a time ie lactic threshold then why do you have an issue with doing speed during the base period ?
As to his basing things on pace if you do your race or TT that you are basing your TPL
on under the same conditions that you train ie high altitude your paces should work fine .
At this point I am starting to get excited about trying this method .
I did try the proprioceptive cue pulling the road but did not get much from it I will keep trying on future runs .
I am trying to get a few of my running buddies to get this book and get some feedback but nothing yet .
I agree with you on his taking more than his share of the credit and was surprised to see no bibliography . Also he does not mention who heads up the studies he does include . Heat accumulation (pg 55) for example mentions 10 cyclists and two TT but no mention of who does these studies . I'm thinking Tim noakes because this is done in Cape Town , South Africa but shouldn't this be included ?
In any case I will comment further when I have finished the book .
thanks again for your input

Good idea about the pace thing, Stone cold. I'll see how that goes. I think when I started looking at that section I used a mixture of sea level and altitude times, so I've probably mixed up my speeds.

My issue with doing speed during base is part personal experience, part theory and part just being an old codger about it.

First, when you do hard speed work or other full-on sessions of the type he proposes -- such as hill reps starting in the FIRST week of the 5k program -- it can wreck you (me) for days.

So everyone else knows what we are talking about -- in MF's program, by week 3 you are supposed to be doing 8 x 30 seconds up hill at "relaxed sprint" pace. Similarly, in what he calls fartlek on that third week you are doing six miles at "base" pace to include 8 x 30 seconds @ one-mile pace. For 10k things are even fiercer, with 400m reps on the track by week 5, and so on.

I guess my objection is that I don't want to be doing that type of quality work when I am focusing on "base running", which is about aerobic development. ("One thing at a time" -- that's the old codger bit.)

Seriously, I don't want to be so tired from a hill or "fartlek" session that it interferes with me being able to do the long runs at moderate pace that are the base-building staple. My priority in a base period is to put sustained pressure on my circulatory system for long periods of time (ie runs of 60-90 minutes or longer). If I spend a couple of months developing my strength and endurance that way, laying down massive motorways for blood and oxygen to circulate in my working muscles, then when I do hit the hills and track for "sprint" reps, then I know I am going to get the ultimate bang for my buck. If I do them in an relatively "unconditioned" state, then I'm doing them much slower than I could after a proper build-up.

Theoretically, you can develop the two non-aerobic pathways in a matter of weeks: Lydiard, for example, says six weeks. I think MF has gone the "do it all at the same time" route simply to save time, because, as I said, his programs are short.

My view is that while the body IS complicated, in the sense that it's impossible to totally isolate energy systems (or anything else for that matter) so to some extent you are always training everything, all the time, in every run...actually it is NOT that complicated when it comes to training it for running. You need aerobic development, anaerobic development and "pure" sprint speed development.

I'd like to see some "case histories" of MF's method to see what actual results are.