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Brad Culp is the author of The Norwegian Method, which explores the training methods and cultural philosophy behind the Norwegian style of endurance training—an approach that has produced world-class athletes like Kristian Blummenfelt, Gustav Iden, and Jakob Ingebrigtsen.
In this conversation, we dive into the thinking behind double threshold interval training, explore Jakob’s high-intensity hill workouts, examine the role of low-intensity sessions in the Norwegian system, and much more…
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Episode breakdown:
0:00 Introduction
0:30 What is the Norwegian Method
2:00 Who are the Norwegian superstar athletes
4:25 Bergen - The Home of the Norwegian Method
7:00 Kristian Blummenfelt
10:20 How many hours do elite athletes train?
12:50 Norwegian method for running
15:50 What is threshold training?
20:28 Jakob Ingebrigtsen's Hill Workout
23:20 Double Threshold Training
26:50 Zone 1 and Zone 2 Training
29:50 How to get started training like this?
33:40 What do Norwegian's think of the Norwegian method?
35:30 Frontier of the Norwegian method -- heat training
36:40 Training your gut for high carbs
38:00 Increased fueling during training 40:40 Brad's current research
Check out Brad's book The Norwegian Method. It’s an excellent read!
Transcript
John (00:03)
Okay, Brad Culp, welcome to the show.
Brad Culp (00:06)
Thank you so much. It's an honor to be with you, John.
John (00:14)
Well, I'm excited to have you. So Brad, you've written the book, The Norwegian Method, and it's been one of my absolute favorite books of the past 12 months. And one of the things I loved about it is number one, I learned a lot more about the Norwegian style of training. But the other thing that I really enjoyed was the storytelling throughout. You captured not only the methods, but how the Norwegian method came to be. So I'm hoping to cover both those things in the podcast today.
But let's start with a question that's on everybody's mind. What is the Norwegian method? What makes this style of training so unique?
Brad Culp (00:58)
It's a relatively high-volume and low-intensity style of training with intensities ideally controlled by lactate. And in the purest form of the Norwegian method, there's typically a double-threshold training element, which is the other element outside of lactate that has sort of gotten the most buzz.
And those are sort of the nuts and bolts that people know, but the approach that I tried to take was a more holistic view of how Norway's really developing young athletes throughout their career, starting at a very young age, and sort of what's biopsychosocial elements that are unique to Norway have helped foster what I call this golden generation of Norwegian endurance.
So yeah, I think that there's a lot more that goes into it than just doing as much volume, as many hours as possible. There's a lifestyle and a way of bringing up athletes that I think is important. And that's, you mentioned the storytelling in the book, and I really tried to highlight sort of that lifestyle and those social elements with some of those stories.
So yeah, it's a very holistic approach to building very strong endurance athletes who ideally will have very long careers and stay relatively healthy.
John (02:25)
Yeah. so Norway is a relatively small country and yet they've turned out this tremendous amount of successful Norwegian endurance athletes. I'm hoping maybe you could explain a little bit more about those successes.
What are some of the key standouts from Norway that really exemplify this Norwegian method?
Brad Culp (02:31)
Yeah, there are three current athletes that I really highlighted in the book and then went back and throughout history and found some Norwegian athletes who had sort of fostered, again, I deem this golden generation. That's currently Jakob Ingebrigtsen is the one that people are going to be most familiar with, the great Norwegian middle distance runner, Kristian Blummenfelt, the Norwegian triathlon champion, and then his partner in crime and training partner and best friend Gustaf Eden, also a triathlon and Ironman world champion.
And I think that the three of them, it was sort of this perfect confluence of all of them hitting this peak right at the same time. Kristian was winning the Olympic triathlon and then Ironman, Gustav reset the record books in Kona, the biggest race in all of triathlon. And at the same time, Jakob is...
unquestionably the greatest 5,000 meter runner on earth and at the same time chasing these huge goals of breaking the 1500 and the mile world record. So I think that those three just being so much in the limelight really pushed this idea of the Norwegian method to the forefront and sparked the idea for the book really. so I really, as I was writing and researching, I was really focused on those three.
and had some opportunity to interview and work with Kristian a bit in the past, which gave me some great inroads into how this method of training really evolved and how he sort of saw it. And yeah, just dug back in history and was able to get in touch with some amazing athletes like Ingrid Christiansen, who was sort of the godmother and the start, the first great Norwegian endurance athlete.
And all the way through Marius Bakken, who was really the one who formulated and I like to say crystallized this method into something concrete. then, yeah, just how that just sort of evolved and continues to evolve with the athletes and coaches who are pushing it today.
John (04:51)
Yeah, amazing. Amazing. I do think one of the most enjoyable parts of this book was the sense of discovery. You really trace this whole story and captured a lot of that journey towards the modern day Norwegian method. But maybe let's start at the end. So you said that one of the athletes you interacted with was Kristian Blummenfelt. And I believe you traveled to Bergen as part of the explorations for this book. And so the Bergen athletes, this would be Kristian and Gustav, they're famous for saying that not only are they from Norway,
but they are part of the Bergen method. ⁓ So I'm curious, what makes Bergen in particular so special and what was it like visiting that area and seeing the Norwegian method in action?
Brad Culp (05:31)
Yeah, Bergen's sort of like the bastard stepchild of Scandinavia. It's very ⁓ culturally and personality wise, it's very different from Oslo, from Stockholm, ⁓ from Copenhagen. They're very, very proud people, a little more boisterous than typical Norwegians. ⁓ And like you said, they like to say they're from Bergen first and Norway second. ⁓ And I did highlight, I believe in the intro of the book, ⁓ that
The flag for Bergen and the flag for Norway, they fly at the same height, which is very unique. Sort of like the Texas flag in the US is similar. people in the US know what, to be a Texan, there's just this sort of bravado behind it. And Bergen certainly has that. And it's it's become the epicenter of the triathlon and maybe also the swimming ⁓ portion of the Norwegian method.
It's where the nicest pool and one of the nicest training centers in all of Norway is based. It's where the triathlon team is based. ⁓ And that was really a function of ⁓ the triathlon program being built around Kristian and Arild Tveiten, who was the first coach and the one who really found and brought up Kristian. ⁓ Kristian was from Norway. He was a 14-year-old who won ⁓ Beat All the Adults in his first triathlon.
⁓ And that obviously really caught the eye of ⁓ these coaches at this ⁓ elite ⁓ training academy. yeah, so Bergen sort of built this triathlon program around a 16 year old Kristian Blummenfelt and ⁓ eight or nine years later, guess only eight years later, he's in the Olympics ⁓ competing at a high level and ⁓ you
12 years after that, he's Olympic champion. ⁓ So it's pretty neat what they were able to build in Bergen and ⁓ Olympiattoppen is the Norwegian, is the high performance arm of the Norwegian Olympic Committee. And they were able to sort of ⁓ use all the skills and all the resources that they had in Oslo and in other places that had brought up great cross-country skiers and runners.
and rowers, especially throughout the years, just sort of ⁓ build a triathlon program around that rather rapidly and with a lot of success. ⁓ yeah, I think that was really what caught my attention initially was how quickly Norway went from not having a triathlon federation to winning the Olympic gold medal. ⁓ And what I really wanted to dig at, especially while I was in Bergen, is how that all happened and ⁓ how they built that so quickly.
John (08:17)
Yeah, I think again, the successes are remarkable. ⁓ So let's let's dive a little bit more into Kristian's story. ⁓ So you mentioned that he was exceptionally talented as a young athlete, but maybe paint a picture of just how good he was. So what made the young Kristian stand out?
Brad Culp (08:35)
⁓ He was a very strong swimmer as a kid and swimming was ⁓ his life as young kid which I really connected with because I was just similar. grew up swimming was everything and up through my teenage years ⁓ and like me he was probably his biggest limiter was his height. ⁓ He's ⁓ I'm 5'7". He's maybe an inch taller and in the pool ⁓ if you're height limited reach limited.
You will be speed limited as you get to the highest ⁓ levels of competition ⁓ You don't see a lot of sub six-foot guys standing on the Olympic podium ⁓ He ⁓ he had always sort of he'd run a little bit hadn't really biked much ⁓ and one of the neighboring towns to Bergen ⁓ Was had announced that they're having the first triathlon ⁓ ever in that in all of Western, Norway. There had never been a triathlon so I think about 400 people total signed up ⁓ and
Kristian was encouraged by a swim coach who had also seen him run, like maybe this would be a good outlet, let's kind of see what he can do. Yeah, he just completely dusted everyone, ⁓ including some older men who had come over from Oslo who had been doing triathlon for a while. ⁓ And this is a 14 year old who had never done the sport and never really ridden a bike very much and was just racing on a borrowed bike. ⁓ So right away, ⁓ one of the ⁓ managers, one of the heads of this, ⁓
school in Bergen, ⁓ it's an elite training academy, elite training high school, ⁓ noticed that and ⁓ sort of was spurred the idea of, know, if we have this athlete, let's have a program around him and let's see if we can launch this kid, ⁓ you know, to the Olympics. And that was, that's the decree for all of these high-performance schools in Norway is they want to build Olympic champions, world champions.
⁓ You know, that's the goal. So that was very much the goal with Kristian. ⁓ And how can we build a program around him? How can we bring in other kids? A year later, Gustav was one of the athletes who was brought in. ⁓ He wasn't able to join Kristian the first year because they thought his swimming was so bad that he would never be able to catch up. And that was certainly true for a couple of years. ⁓ But ⁓ yeah, they put a call out to basically all of Norway saying if you want to be an elite triathlete and have a chance at the Olympics, come to Bergen and come to this tryout. ⁓
I believe that yielded somewhere around 14 or 15 kids. And out of those 14 or 15 kids, ⁓ like I said, a decade later, all three of them are competing at the Olympics and all three of them were in the top 10 and one of them won. So just a phenomenal ⁓ development curve. yeah, I think in Kristian's case, was perfect timing. He was phenomenally fit from years and years of very, very high-end swimming.
⁓ and wanting to reach an Olympic level in swimming and realizing he couldn't there. ⁓ And then he was able to really just apply that aerobic base that he had very well into cycling and into running and had coaches who were essentially holding him back. He's obviously an incredibly ambitious and incredibly driven and incredibly ⁓ gifted athlete who can do an insane volume of training.
And a lot of athletes at that level, the biggest thing that they need is control. And that's really the core of the Norwegian method and something that he learned starting at 16 was how to control those sessions so that he can keep building at the way that he wants to and keep his arc going up and up and up for the last, it's been almost 18 years now that he's been competing at a high level.
John (12:13)
Yeah.
It's amazing. It's amazing. Yeah. So I think you mentioned two very important components there. Number one, you mentioned volume and you mentioned how his training is very high volume. And then you also mentioned the intensity control. ⁓ So maybe could you just elaborate on both of those two concepts? So just how much volume is an athlete like Kristian Blumenfeld doing on a weekly basis?
Brad Culp (12:37)
⁓ It can be the the biggest weeks you're talking upwards of 35 hours of training ⁓ and that's On the biggest weeks. It'll be heavily heavily skewed towards a cycling volume where of course you can ⁓ do a lot more with a lot less risk ⁓ But yeah, I'm the like, know an easy week might be 25 and for you know I know when I first got into triathlon and into endurance ⁓ You know that 25 hours was sort of the highest end that you would see
a lot of the top end endurance athletes doing. yeah, it's, you know, between 25 and 35 hours a week is not uncommon, you know, during those peak build phases. And yeah, it's obviously a ton of swim, a ton of bike, and still a lot of run volume, but that obviously has to be a bit more controlled. That's typically where the injury risk is most pronounced. And yeah, I think that
Part of ⁓ the trick of the Norwegian method is learning that control and learning how to control your own body so that you can achieve that peak volume. ⁓ that was, ⁓ going back to Marius Bakken, who I call the godfather of the Norwegian method, that was always his goal of he knew, I continue to improve when I'm running 180K a week, which is ⁓ still an incredibly high amount of volume. And back in the late 90s, it was an absurdly high amount of volume.
⁓ And in order to achieve that, he really, really had to dial back the intensity and control himself. And he probably learned that a little late in his career. And I think he would be the first to tell you that that prevented him from really seeing his true peak. Although he got very, for someone who looks rather unathletic, he achieved a 1304 5K, ⁓ which is phenomenal. ⁓ yeah, just the teaching athletes that intensity control so that they
⁓ their volume can continue to increase and ⁓ their body can continue to make those adaptations over the long haul that ultimately achieve true peak performance ⁓ is key. for the sake of, in the case of Kristian and then Gustav, ⁓ learning that intensity control at around 16 years old, ⁓ I think was so crucial to their continued success for the next 10 years.
John (15:01)
Yeah, fantastic. Fantastic. Yeah, I think it's just amazing to just dwell on the fact of 35 hours, know, over, what's that, five hours a day spent endurance training. So it's just incredible what kind of volume they've been able to work up to. And we will return to that story of Marius Bakken as well. I think that was one of the more interesting stories for me personally that you covered in the book. I found that story fascinating. ⁓ Let's briefly look at the running side as well. So you mentioned Jakob Ingebrigtsen. ⁓
what would be his total volume on a weekly basis? And how does the Norwegian method differ when you're looking at a pure running sport versus the triathletes that we've been talking about so far?
Brad Culp (15:41)
Yeah, it's ⁓ Jakob's training of course is, is quite different from the triathletes. where it's, it's similar is, one that, using lactate to control the, ⁓ the high intensity sessions and, ⁓ and to really track all the sessions. ⁓
And ⁓ two, they're both doing typically two days of double threshold per week. ⁓ a double threshold for a runner is obviously very different than the triathletes are never running twice on the same day. It's extraordinarily rare. Whereas Jakub, it's very common for him to be doing 12 or even 13 runs in a given week. So that means twice a day is typically the norm.
So in terms of ⁓ total sessions, they're probably somewhat similar. We're around 12 to 13 total sessions a week, and that's typically around two a day. But yeah, Yakup, total hours are probably of actual time spent ⁓ pounding pavement or doing training are probably close to half of the triathletes. He is training for one sport, and that one sport you are limited in terms of how much he can do.
⁓ He's not quite the high-value, you know, like 180K like Marius was doing. I think around 120K is typically more common ⁓ for a week for Jakob. But yeah, he's got some, what I really like about his training, ⁓ one, he posts almost all his workouts on Strava, so it's very easy to follow. ⁓ Two, it's very formulaic and he's very much, ⁓ with the exception of when there's a race, kind of skewing the schedule.
He's very much doing the same things week to week. if he goes to an altitude camp or a training camp, there might be a slight change. But he's really just sort of building. It's all about consistency and it's kind of what I like to say is like slowly turning up the volume and turning up the intensity as he moves throughout the season. Unfortunately, he's injured right now. His Achilles keeps flaring up, which has been a bummer.
But yeah, I think that he, in terms of total volume, he's obviously doing a little bit less. He's doing quite a bit more running volume. ⁓ And ⁓ yeah, I think that the, I love seeing his idea of a double threshold workout, what that entails. ⁓ Some of them are quite frightening. ⁓ He has ⁓ a, if you're not familiar with his favorite hill workout, that's another really good one to follow and to check out.
That is sometimes done in addition to another threshold workout on that day ⁓ But ⁓ yeah, it's so yeah certain similarities in terms of frequency ⁓ and super high-value but ⁓ obviously there's ⁓ Probably a bit more caution that Yaka passed the throw-in ⁓ You know given that every session there's quite a bit of cost and in quite a bit of ⁓ pounding ⁓ and you know doesn't have a day off of running or you know, really ⁓
I wouldn't use the word recovery day because the triathletes would hate that term. There's not a recovery swim or recovery ride, but there are easier sessions where you're not really beating yourself up.
John (19:01)
Amazing, amazing. Okay, let's dive a little bit more into that idea of threshold training then. And one of the great things about this book, there's this one page cheat sheet that you provide. And it basically provides an overview of all these different training zones and all the different terminology. So people might be familiar with this five zone training model. A lot of researchers use a three zone training model. There's also terms such as an easy run or a tempo run or a threshold run.
And one of the great things in Brad's book is that he has this single chart that collapses it on one page and makes it super easy to translate. ⁓ But let's kind of dive into threshold training and that threshold intensity zone, because that is one of the key parts of this training method. So what defines threshold in particular? What is that training zone?
Brad Culp (19:52)
I think the best way to define it is the highest intensity that an athlete can hold for roughly an hour, ⁓ give or take. ⁓ so some people would, ⁓ it depends on your sport, some people that might be their 40K ride, some people might be a 5K swim, it might be a 15K run. ⁓ It's roughly the highest intensity that you can hold ⁓ for an hour at your given task.
⁓ And the reason it's gotten so much attention with regards to the Norwegian method is that's sort of the element that, especially Marius, you when he was crystallizing and formulating this method, that's what he was really focusing on is not dipping over that threshold intensity, ⁓ which ⁓ for him, he found to be right at around three millimoles of lactate per liter of blood. And we can get more into some of the specifics of lactate and, what those numbers mean. ⁓
But I think one of the issues with the Norwegian method when people were first talking about it was Marius had become so attached to this three millimole number. For the longest time, people considered threshold to be closer to four millimoles. ⁓ And people would just put this blanket number on it of like four millimoles as threshold, three as threshold. Where in reality, anyone who's tested lactate, you know that it varies wildly between people. ⁓
depending on time of year, depending on what kind of shape you're in, there's just a huge variance in that number. ⁓ So for some people, ⁓ threshold ⁓ intensity might be somewhere very different in terms of where their lactate is concerned. But for most people, you're talking roughly ⁓ that intensity that they can hold for, say, an hour run. ⁓ And what Marius found is that the most time that he could spend training,
basically right at maybe just under maybe just over that threshold intensity, the more volume that he could pack in there, ⁓ the better training adaptations he had over the long term. ⁓ And that was really sort of the genesis of the Norwegian method was spend ⁓ your ⁓ intensity should be controlled so that it doesn't dip too far over here. Depending on the specifics of your event, you might need to be doing much higher training than that. One thing that's important to remember with all this ⁓
focus on threshold and millimoles is Marius was training very specifically for the 5,000 meters on the track and ⁓ that's something that the truest sense of the Norwegian method it might be perfectly applicable for that and maybe that's why Jakob has had so much success in that one event and has been so untouchable at it is that training in this manner and spending so much time at that intensity right at below above your quote-unquote threshold ⁓ could be perfect for that.
12 and a half, 13 and a half minute events. Maybe as the event gets a little shorter, say the 15 hundred, it's not so perfectly tuned to that intensity and that's where there's people have been critical of Jakob's approach and that maybe he's not doing enough of that super high end, call it zone five, call it VO2 max training. Like you said, that chart.
in my book. Thank you Daniel Moore of Fluid Athletics who is the creator who sort of layered all that together. It's a lovely chart that sort of makes sense of these really sort of, ⁓ I don't know, nuanced terms that we all just throw around. ⁓ But yeah, it's, ⁓ yeah, so threshold, it can mean different things to different people. I think that ⁓ one thing that's important to remember is
When I started hearing the term threshold and double threshold and the Norwegians are doing this double threshold, it sounded like it's this insanely hard, threshold's got to be hard, it's got to be redlining. In reality, ⁓ when we're talking about threshold, what we should be talking about is something much more controlled. Like I said, that one hour intensity in something that's repeatable day to day is what's important to remember. Double threshold may sound intimidating, but in reality, it's something that's supposed to be super controlled. ⁓
you know, certainly not all out.
John (24:05)
Yeah, super interesting. Yeah, I think ⁓ one of the key pieces there is the very scientific nature to all of this. So the reason that Marius targeted that zone in particular was because it appeared to be most effective for his times personally. So I think that kind of first principles exploration is also one of the very interesting parts about this method in particular. ⁓ so I want to take the bait.
So you mentioned Jakobs Hill workouts and that we should look them up if we haven't already. Maybe you could just describe a little bit about that as well. What are Jakobs Hill interval workout?
Brad Culp (24:45)
Yeah, I love this workout. If anyone's not familiar with it hasn't tried it, it is very hard, harder than a threshold workout for sure. ⁓ Especially if you're new to it or I live in Illinois, which isn't very hilly. So I have to go out and seek hills and I'm not very great at that style of training. ⁓ in the, so, Jakob's perfect hill that he has by his home in Oslo, it's roughly 200 meters long. ⁓ And he's doing ⁓ two sets of 10 repeats up it. so 20 repeats total. ⁓
After 10, he'll take a break and jog a little bit and maybe do some light stretching. That's just really to kind of ⁓ break it up and make it more manageable. ⁓ But so it ends up being 4,000 meters of uphill ⁓ high intensity running. And he says that he does the workout at roughly 87 % of his max effort. it's important to remember that that's max effort, not max speed, because you're going uphill, your speed is going to be greatly reduced. So ⁓
you know, you're not going to be going 87 % of say your 5k pace. But, but so essentially, you know, right around nine out of 10 RPE is what he's doing that at. And the idea is to hold the same intensity, same RPE throughout all 20. So you don't want to be going as hard as you can on the first and being completely shattered to bits on the last one. That first and last repeat should be roughly, you know, the same pace, the same speed. And yeah, it's, it's,
It's one of those workouts that for Jakob, he says it covers a lot of bases. It's a strength builder, it's an endurance builder, it's a speed builder. ⁓ And he really feels like it touches on all those things, all that stimulus. And has said time and time again that he really believes that that's one of his most important workouts every week and one that he really focuses on and wants to hit and knows that it's really key to his progression. ⁓
But yeah, if you don't, I unfortunately don't have a perfect 200 meter, I should have said two, he's looking at like four to 5 % grade. So we're not talking about a super steep hill. This is a hill that you can really, you're running, you don't want to be slogging up it. But yeah, somewhere between that four to 6 % is ideal. You don't want to go more shallow or more steep than that. Yeah, I have a hill that's roughly 5 % and maybe 100 meters. So I have to do what I can with that.
Yeah, your hill is not going to be perfect and it doesn't need to be. You're not Jakob Ingebrigtsen. But yeah, I think that it's a ⁓ great, maybe just over threshold workout, high intensity workout that's become ⁓ my go-to hill workout. ⁓ And I've done it every week now for over a year and have certainly ⁓ found some good progression along with adopting other elements of the style of training. But it's an awesome workout.
I cannot recommend it enough.
John (27:39)
Okay, yeah, sounds good. Okay, so that one's just above threshold intensity. Let's do a little bit more of a dive into threshold, because I know this is a topic that a lot of people really care about. So two of the other features of threshold training. So it seems like a lot of the Norwegians split their thresholds into intervals. So I was wondering if you could explain why that's important, and then also explain this idea of the double threshold. Why is it also split in different parts of the day?
Brad Culp (28:05)
Yeah, the idea between both of those is maximizing stimulus and that's ⁓ sort of the goal of the double threshold training. ⁓ There may be some magic in hitting that intensity twice in one day where you're sort of ⁓ supercharging your capillary system and really ⁓ boosting your blood. ⁓ Maybe there's a little bit there, but the real juice in the double threshold training is that it's a way to just pack more.
stimulus at threshold into a given session or day. And the only way to really do that is with interval training. ⁓ can just, one, you can test if you're controlling with lactate, you're able to test ⁓ after each interval. And two, just that little bit of recovery makes it so much more repeatable and you're able to ultimately do spend a lot more time in that threshold zone than if you just tried to say, let's do a 20 minute run at your threshold pace.
If you break it up into 400, 800 meter repeats, say, you know, 8 to 15 of those, depending on what you're doing, you're ultimately going to spend a lot more time in that sweet spot at that threshold. And then if you, a great way to look at double threshold training and why it works so well for so many people, especially athletes who are performing at a high level and already doing a ton of volume, is, you know, if you're able to
⁓ say you have an hour workout and you want to spend maybe 30 minutes of that at threshold and you set up an ⁓ interval workout on the treadmill, say, where you're warming up, you're doing 400 meter repeats, ⁓ let's say you're doing 12 of them, and then you're cooling down. Maybe you've got about your 30 minutes at threshold in there and that's great, that's a ⁓ great day of work. ⁓ But say you can break that up into two 40 minute runs.
And now all of a sudden you're able to get 20 to 25 minutes at that threshold intensity doing rough, can mix up the intervals. Maybe you're doing four 800 meter repeats in the morning. You're doing 400 in the afternoon. A lot of athletes tend like to do a typically higher intensity. If you're going to do double threshold, you want to the higher intensity one in the afternoon, not the morning. And so.
say you get another 25 minutes at that threshold intensity in your afternoon one, well now you have 50 minutes that you spent that day at your threshold intensity instead of 30. ⁓ And you've done, you you're doing two 40-minute workouts as opposed to one hour-long one. You've only added maybe 20 minutes of total time. But the important stimulus and the time at threshold is such a, is so much more. And it may see, it's not.
If you just do that one day or a couple of weeks, it really doesn't make a difference. But when you layer that week after week, month after month, and season after season, it becomes a lot ⁓ more volume and a lot more volume at a very important intensity. And I think that's really where the magic of the double threshold is. It's just the way to pack the most amount of threshold training into a single day. if you do two of those threshold sessions in one day, ⁓
you know, then you can have not necessarily recovery day the next day, but you can space out your next threshold session a lot more if you block them together like that. ⁓ The way I like to say, if you want to have four hard sessions per week and you're only training one time a day, well then you're going to have four hard days, three easy days, and that's the way a lot of runners train. ⁓ And that's perfect for a lot of, you know, most average runners. That's a great way to train.
But as you start getting up into the higher volumes and higher levels of performance, and you need that higher volume, blocking some of those intense sessions together makes for a more volume and better recovery on the days where you're not doing them.
John (32:01)
Okay, okay. So one of the other defining features of this method. So this threshold work is paired with high volume overall, and the rest of the volume seems to be done at a relatively low intensity. ⁓ So just how easy is the rest of the training and what percentage of the overall training volume is at this easier intensity?
Brad Culp (32:15)
Very low.
Yeah, it depends on the specifics of the event that an athlete is training for. But especially as Kristian and Gustav say are training for a lot longer events for Ironman. You know, they'll spend a lot of time ⁓ riding in Zone 1, lower end of Zone 2. And ⁓ with the understanding that there's Zone 1 would probably be really hard work for most people. It's, ⁓ you know, they're still moving, but ⁓ for them it's relatively easy. ⁓ And there was a
cool longitudinal study that I cited in the book and it was great because it came out like right as we were finishing up edits and we were able to kind of pull it in at the last minute. But Dr. Steven Seiler who I reference ⁓ many times throughout the book, ⁓ he ⁓ contacted dozens of endurance coaches throughout Norway and just asked them for all their training logs and fed that into a computer ⁓ as long as it took him.
and just wanted to see where they were spending all their time. And he was blown away with how much the triathletes, swimmers and rowers were spending at zone one as opposed to zone two, which kind of gets all the attention is that sort of the zone two is this magic training. They're doing so much volume and really they're so well adapted that really upwards of 30 % of their training might be in zone one. Another 30 % or more might be in zone two.
⁓ And then we're talking the rest in that threshold or, know, they spend, a lot of people like to say that it's so controlled that, you know, the Norwegian method, you don't spend any time into these higher zones. And that's of course not true at all. If Jakob is training for a sprint at the end of the 1500, he's going to spend a lot of times in the absolute highest zones and same as Christian training for a sprint in Olympic triathlon.
So, and something Dr. Seiler likes to say all the time is that it's important to train all the intensities all the time. And that is something that most Norwegians are doing. It's just those intense sessions are very, controlled. So, yeah, I think that, yeah, that all sort of, don't know, I've been sort of getting away from your original question. But yeah, it's definitely a bit more varied than I think people like to label it as.
There's this view that Norwegians are just doing old as zone two and then a little bit at threshold or called zone three, whatever you want to call it. ⁓ And really it's, they're spending a lot of time in zone one and lower reaches of zone two and sort of all over the map. It's just the intensity has to be controlled for it because if it's not, the volume can't be there and it can't continue to grow and the athletes can't continue to develop.
John (35:11)
Yeah, yeah. Now it's, ⁓
again, it's amazing this research and that kind of compilation that researchers such as Stephen have done. ⁓ Let's talk about the recreational athlete. So there are a lot of people listening who maybe want to make use of some of this information in their own training. ⁓ So how can the recreational athletes start training in a more Norwegian style manner? And this is something that's even worth doing.
Brad Culp (35:13)
Yeah, that's a great question. think that, um, and a question I sort of took upon myself when I started researching and writing this, um, you know, I was, uh, I feel like I'm the perfect athlete to apply some of these, uh, this training. I come from a swim background and I've really been working with running for the last 20 or more years and sort of learning, uh, how to do it in a smart fashion. Uh, and I think for too long, I was really probably training like a swimmer and like a lot of
runners train is that you want to go out and have a good hard run and feel good about it. ⁓ and then maybe take a day off and go do a little harder, a little longer the next day. And, and, ⁓ was sort of on that repeat mode for many, many years. and, ⁓ yeah, it's just recently that, ⁓ as I, there's been such a focus, ⁓ on volume, both with regards to the Norwegian method and just endurance training in general. ⁓ how can I actually, you know, up my volume for the longest time? I just assumed that.
you know, coming from a swimming background, I was never going to be running much more than 30 miles a week because if I did, I would get hurt. You know, I just wasn't, I didn't grow up running. I'm just like somebody who didn't grow up swimming, probably isn't going to be swimming, I don't know, 40K a week at any point. And I sort of accepted that. But the more I sort of humbled my runs and my approach to runs and realize, and took the approach of, of all right.
This is either a volume session where I'm my sole focus is a low intensity and control and adding as much volume to the week as I can. You know, or it's a speed strength session, hill session, and in that case, ⁓ you know, keeping the intensity specific to those sessions. What I found is that on my the days of those volume sessions, I really have to be very humble.
and ⁓ slow to a point that, you know, but I would call it Kenyon shuffle almost and really, you know, it's more of a jog than a run. you know, when I was ⁓ first starting training like this, that might've been like a 930 per mile pace, very, very slow for, but let's see if I could do a couple of runs at maybe an hour and a half or two hours each week at that pace and.
Ultimately go from running 30 miles a week to 40 and then 40 miles a week to 50 which is about where I'm at now ⁓ and seeing ⁓ Yeah, just the the progression of What that's taken is is a lot a lot of slow running to get there ⁓ and Yeah, I think a lot of people have a hard time running slow ⁓ and I will caution that there's a difference between running slow and running sloppy ⁓ one of the key ⁓
know, Norwegians or Kenyans or anyone who's doing very, very high-volume training, they're always running with excellent form and ⁓ not only is the intensity controlled, but the form is controlled. And I think that's important and something that might be missed when people ⁓ think, okay, the Norwegian method means that I need to be running super easy, you know, as much as possible. And, ⁓ well, that's sort of true. also, ⁓ form is important and purpose with each session is important.
And I think that that's something that often gets lost in the mix. But yeah, would say, you know, learn whether you want to use heart rate or most people will not want to use lactate. It's very invasive and some people, know, average runners get really turned on by it and might enjoy that extra scientific element and learning about their body. But of course you can apply your training zones other ways. You can use heart rate that's been working great for the last 40 years. It's not broken.
You know anyone can stick with it, ⁓ but really learning, you know what your zone one and zone two are and It'll probably be really humbling at first to go out for a 90 minute run at you know the lower end zone two But if you can stick with that for a long time and repeat that over months and months and months ⁓ and add volume there I think that ultimately you're gonna see a lot more speed and a lot more fitness at the higher
John (39:51)
Yeah. So many great takeaways there. So many great takeaways. Okay. Let's, let's look at it a little broader question here. So you would have known a lot about the Norwegian method prior to writing this book. You would have covered these athletes for years prior. But I'm curious as you dove into this method, as you traveled to Bergen and you looked into this even further, what were some of the biggest surprises? What were the things that maybe changed your opinion about the Norwegian method?
Brad Culp (40:20)
⁓ Yeah, ⁓ that's a good question. ⁓ I think that, ⁓ yeah, just how dynamic it is and how, one of the big surprises was that when you say the terms, a lot of Norwegians, they kind of laugh at you. ⁓ And especially the older guard of Norwegians. ⁓ know, when I'd mentioned, I finally got in touch with Ingrid and when I'd mentioned the term ⁓ Norwegian method, she sort of laughed and she's like, that's not a real thing.
She's like, if anything, we were borrowing from Sweden, ⁓ which is true. You know, lot of the, ⁓ there's a lot of cross pollination in training science between those two countries. And obviously Sweden also has a storied history in a lot of different sports. ⁓ But yeah, just sort of the, ⁓ the way that the Norwegian method is viewed in Norway was sort of most surprising. ⁓ You know, whether it's Ingrid just sort of dismissing it. ⁓
Arl who is sort of the, know, I view as one of the great creators and inventors and ⁓ curators of the Norwegian method. He really didn't know about the term until I started bothering him about it and being like, hey, I'm writing this book. ⁓ And he also had the same sort of thought that it's kind of ridiculous. It's just, you know, slightly our view of training. ⁓ But yeah, and Dr. Seiler, he refers to what ⁓
you know, what everyone's doing now is the Norwegian method 2.0 with 1.0 being more what Marius was doing. And maybe even before that with what the rowers were doing in the seventies and eighties. ⁓ yeah, it surprised me that ⁓ just that the within Norway, within the Norwegian sport science culture, the term is viewed as sort of just like cute and funny. ⁓ And they certainly don't take it as seriously. ⁓
probably as many do outside of Norway. So that was definitely a bit surprising.
John (42:18)
Fascinating, fascinating. And what is the current frontier of the Norwegian method? So one of the interesting things here is that it continues to evolve. So you've talked about a 1.0, a 2.0. What is currently defining the frontier of the Norwegian method?
Brad Culp (42:33)
Yeah, I think that ⁓ if there's one place where there ⁓ is a right about in the book, they were sort of on the forefront, the edge of altitude training for the longest time. And now they're applying a lot of that same initiative to heat training and heat science. And it's especially being driven by the triathletes who compete in ⁓ more extreme elements than say a Yakup who's competing on a track for a shorter period of time. ⁓ But I think that ⁓
As I read a bit about in the book, heat is probably where altitude was 20 or 30 years ago and is just sort of catching up. ⁓ And they're kind of ingramingled too, is ⁓ where a lot of the science is pointing, is that ⁓ in order to maybe sustain a lot of the benefits of an altitude camp, ⁓ there can be ⁓ sort of layers of heat training that are applied during or after that can help ⁓ maintain or even further some of those benefits.
⁓ So I think that there's a lot of great scientists and athletes in Norway pushing the envelope there on heat science. And then as well as nutrition and ⁓ high carb is kind of a big focus for a lot of people. And that's certainly not Norway specific. I think that ⁓ that's kind of ⁓ garnered a lot of attention ⁓ within cycling and triathlon and running and ⁓ especially ultra running.
⁓ is really gut training, high carb training, and how to really, really ⁓ train your gut to perform best on race day. And I do think just from seeing Christian train and knowing how he's eaten and performed, I do feel like that's always been one of his biggest benefits is that he has always been fueling a lot higher, a lot harder, and really training his gut, maybe without even knowing that that's what he was doing.
⁓ But ⁓ yeah, so think that the two ⁓ gut training, high carb gut training and ⁓ heat training are really two areas where ⁓ what Olaf would call low hanging fruit ⁓ that we can still learn a lot from and maybe make these big leaps. Whereas in other areas of training, there probably aren't any big leaps left. We know enough about altitude. We know enough about ⁓ lactate where ⁓ there's probably not a huge leap to be made.
But think heat and fueling, there's still a lot that we have to learn.
John (45:05)
Yeah, I think both of those are very interesting areas. I think on the fueling side, it's interesting both how there's more fueling during races, but there also seems to be a lot more fueling day to day during training. So I'm curious if you've looked at the caloric expenditure on a day to day basis or weekly basis for these athletes. Is this something that's been trending up over time? Are athletes simply able to do more work than they've been able to do previously?
Brad Culp (45:33)
I think that a lot of ⁓ what I'm seeing in this, you know, maybe a bit anecdotal and just the, from talking to the athletes that I talked to, but yeah, there is, ⁓ especially in running and maybe cycling as well, that those sports might have been under fueling for a while, it would seem. ⁓ And there's this sort of obsession for the longest time with power to weight ratio that ⁓ maybe got a lot of athletes. ⁓
under fueling, ⁓ especially in training, which ultimately is affecting the race performance. you know, training fasted was all the focus throughout the early 2000s, you ⁓ know, throughout the 2010s, people were focusing on fueling fasted and, you know, achieving a better power to weight ratio and not necessarily. ⁓
where we are now, I think there's more focus on fueling ⁓ and using that fuel for performance. And I see it in younger runners who are eating much differently now than the runners that I grew up with who were so focused on being skinny and I think ultimately led to more injuries and more under fueling and less performance. ⁓ Yeah, I think that... ⁓
I like to say this is, ⁓ and this is just me being a swimmer. And I say it to my running friends all the time. I was just like, runners have finally figured out that they have to feel like swimmers. cause we were eating like swimmers have been feeling just fine for decades. you know, swim all morning, then you just eat everything you can swim all afternoon. Like swimmers really, really have been known for, for fueling a lot and doing really, really high volume training of being able to do four or five hours a day. And for the longest time, it was just accepted that, swimmers can.
do that high volume because there's no gravity, there's no pounding. And of course, that's very true. No runner could be doing four or five hours a day without getting hurt. But I think that lot of runners, specifically runners for the longest time, ⁓ were probably not able to achieve the volume ⁓ and the performance that they could have been because they were so under fueled and burning so many calories and not replenishing enough ⁓ and just had... ⁓
A lot of runners maybe had just a weird relationship with food, that food equals calories equals weight. ⁓ And I don't see that as much with the kids these days, with the young athletes these days, as they're viewing. ⁓ It's almost like a competition of like, let's see if I can get 200 grams of carbs in an hour in training. ⁓ really just a different relationship with fuel, I think is trending in the right direction and I think is responsible for a lot of the better performances we're seeing.
John (48:19)
Yeah, okay, okay, fascinating. Yeah, so you've got nutrition, you've got heat that are really at the frontier of the methods right now. Is there anything else that's personally captivating your attention at this point, Brad? What is kind of captivating your research at the moment?
Brad Culp (48:35)
Honestly, two things are really, yeah, I'd like to get started on the second book pretty soon here. And yeah, I think that one of the hardest things is really trying to find a focus. And it'll probably be a focus in one of those two areas. I'm really, really interested in what's going on with fueling right now and what some of the best athletes have really unlocked and what they're learning about their own bodies and about fueling.
⁓ And I think that, you know, I'm fascinated by heat as well as cold training. I just think that there's a broader interest in fueling and sort of the new science of fuel. ⁓ So yeah, most of my research, most of my reading, yeah, everything that I'm focused on right now is really on that fueling aspect ⁓ and seeing where that goes.
John (49:26)
Amazing. Well, Brad, this book was a truly enjoyable read. You have a true gift for storytelling, but not just for storytelling, it's also elucidating the key principles behind a complex subject. So I would definitely recommend this for anybody who's interested in endurance training and getting better at these sports. But Brad, thank you so much for being a part of the talk today.
Brad Culp (49:34)
Thank you.
Yeah, thank you, John. This was a lot of fun. Appreciate it.
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