Livingstone - Healthy Intelligent Training: The Proven Principles of Arthur Lydiard

Healthy Intelligent Training

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Keith Livingstone Healthy Intelligent Training

Maidenhead: Meyer & Meyer Sport (UK) Ltd., 2009

ISBN: 978-1-84126-900-9

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without the written permission of the publisher.

2009 by Meyer & Meyer Sport (UK) Ltd.

2nd, extended Edition 2010

3rd Edition 2012

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ISBN: 978-1-84126-900-9

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This book started as a Powerpoint presentation and 20-page summary sheet for local coaches in Victoria, in late 2005. As athletes and coaches asked more and more questions it became evident that more was needed, and so the book idea was born.

There are many people to thank, and I hope I miss no one. Firstly, my thanks go to my beautiful wife Joanne and her patient parents Graeme and Junette Phillips for all their support. This book could not have been done without them. My mother Valerie McCabe has encouraged me all along and taken great interest in the books progress. Dr. John Hinwood and Dennis Jones have been a great support during a challenging year while the book came to fruition. Gavin and Allison Richards at MBE Bendigo helped us print the initial drafts for proofreading.

My brother Colin, who has been a tower of strength during the last year, contributed the superb cartoons for this book. Colin was an accomplished runner who has coached local athlete Tim Davies from 17th in Wales to 5th in the world mountain running championships, as well as to 3 victories in the annual race on Mt. Snowdon. Colins gifted wife Diana Mills took some of the photos in the book. Next, Id like to thank Barry Magee, Lorraine Moller, Nobby Hashizume, Vern Walker and Rod and John Dixon for their input, as well as Arch Jelley, Chris Pilone, Nic Bideau, Robbie Johnston, and the flying professor, Roger Robinson.

Vern Walker corrected my historical and typographical mistakes with an eagle eye and teaming up with Barry Magee, provided an enormous amount of information about training directly under Arthur Lydiard. I grilled Barry and Vern about every possible detail I could think of, and they responded admirably.

Gary Moller and Gavin Harris provided detailed information for the early drafts, and long-time Auckland middle-distance coach Don MacFarquhar, who also trained under Lydiard, gave me some in-depth background about Peter Snells training.

In Australia, I was greatly encouraged by Australias Mr Running, Trevor Vincent, known to everyone as TV. Pat Clohessy, who ran with the Lydiard squad in Europe in 1961, gave me insight into how he so successfully applied the Lydiard principles with his runners over many years. His phrase freedom running should become enshrined in running literature.

Thanks to my great friend and coaching colleague, John Meagher, and all the boys in the H.I.T. SQUAD who allow us to coach them. We hope you have a lot of fun and friendship as you achieve your potential.

Thanks also go to Dr. Ron Brinkert, exercise physiologist and coach, who introduced John and me to the benefits of VO2 max training over 20 years ago.

Thanks to Geelong coach Neil MacDonald for your wonderful photos and detailed information, and thanks to Melbourne coach Kevin Prendergast for allowing me to use some of your material.

From the USA, I was greatly encouraged by the upbeat Dr. David E. Martin, exercise physiologist, who insisted I submit this manuscript to Meyer and Meyer and go for gold. Coach Greg McMillan was also very encouraging and gave me useful input for the flow of the book. Dr. Jack Daniels generously allowed me to draw on his concepts early on, and Pete Pfitzinger was very encouraging. These last two running authors, along with Dr. Tim Noakes, I regard as among the best in the business. Thanks to Meyer and Meyer for taking this book on, too!

Finally, Id like to thank Garth Gilmour, Arthur Lydiards long-time friend and confidant, who authored many of the early classics that inspired me and thousands of others to get out and run. Without all Garths early work with Arthur, thered be nothing published to draw on.

Keith Livingstone

As one of Arthur Lydiards original boys, it is indeed a privilege and an honor to be associated with Keith Livingstones H.I.T book. The Master Coachs world-changing principles of training are still applied with great success in the modern era by the greatest athletes in the world. Now this book explains why these principles have always worked so well, as we are taken through the science of each phase in a very easy-to-understand manner.

I had 12 years of direct coaching under The Master, and trained and raced with fellow Lydiard Olympians Halberg, Snell, Baillie, Puckett, and Julian, to name just a few. We were each transformed by Arthurs revolutionary new training methods into world-class athletes. It was indeed a thrilling and exciting time to run.

Murray Halberg and I were the first two athletes to do the full track schedule that Arthur had spent years developing and which proved so successful for the next 30 years. Male and female Kiwi runners shocked the world time after time with amazing performances from the middle distances to the marathon. The athletics world could not understand how so many world champion athletes could come from a country with less than 3 million people. Eventually the principles were used all over the world.

In the mid 1960s I myself began coaching the Lydiard way with immediate success. In the years that followed, I coached a young man named Keith Livingstone and perhaps from that association has come this book. Before he died, Arthur Lydiard had left me with his personal approval as the one man who fully embraced and understood his coaching principles. Over recent years I have often been asked when I was going to write a book to explain more about Lydiards training methods that could either enlarge or simplify the system by presenting it in a new way to the modern-day coaches and athletes of the world.

Well, lo and behold, Keith Livingstone has done a superb job and in my mind, a much better one than I could have done, with extra information to help coaches and athletes to fill in some of the cracks and to give us more understanding of how and why this brilliant system works. H.I.T. does exactly that! Coaches around the world would have to be very foolish if they do not read and use this book to the maximum.

In my opinion, Lydiard holds all the Keys to running success. H.I.T. shares many of the KEYS that have been lost, forgotten or misunderstood. I totally recommend Dr Keith Livingstones book to anyone who is looking for the complete training system to complement what Lydiard has left us.

Barry Magee

1960 Olympic Marathon Bronze Medalist

1961 World Cup 10,000m champion