Arthur Lydiard was really a very influential distance running coach from New Zealand and his legacy has had important influence on the training of runners ever since. Lydiard has been recognized in making running or jogging popular during the later 60's and early 1970's. A few have even proposed that Lydiard possibly invented jogging. Lydiard trained quite a few Olympic medallists from New Zealand in the 1960s (Peter Snell, Murray Halberg and Barry Magee) together an important influence by way of various other mentors on other noteworthy NZ runners such as John Walker who became the first person to run more than 100 sub-4 minute miles and also run a mile quicker than 3 minutes and 50 second. Lydiard was born 6 July 1917 and died on 11 December 2004 at the age of 87. Arthur Lydiard has had been given a number of accolades in his own NZ and in Finland in which his mentoring had been responsible for an increase of Finnish distance running in the early 70s. The publication, Runners World called Lydiard as their coach of the century in their millennium issue. As an athlete himself, he competed in the marathon at the 1950 British Empire Games, finishing thirteenth with a time of 2hr 54m. Lydiard's impact on athletics continues to be immeasurable and way further than his own results as an athlete himself.
Lydiard's view of Arthur Lydiard’s training was to advocate breaking up the year into different running periods or stages. The foundation or background phase was the stamina period which was comprised of at the very least 10 weeks of maximum miles that the athlete can perform so that you can increase their aerobic base or background. This is how his recognized 100 miles each week originated from since he regarded this to be the ideal. Lydiard advocated for your longer runs might be close to 20 miles. These kinds of distances were run at a speed which was just below the anaerobic threshold and could be maintained as a steady aerobic pace. The target would be to build the biggest endurance foundation feasible for the subsequent periods. The subsequent phase is the hill training period which usually mostly consist of uphill bouncing or springing workouts to improve strength in the legs which was usually carried out 3 times weekly. Some endurance aerobic running is still completed in this stage which would last for approximately 4 or so weeks. The following four or so week period had been referred to as the sharpening or speed period where some anaerobic interval and speed work training is carried out so the runner are able to run faster. After that four week period, the hard running is backed off and the focus will then be on staying sharp and healthy for racing.
Many think about it improbable that any coach is ever going to have more impact on the training programs of endurance runners than him. The blueprint which he introduced revolutionized middle and long distance coaching with regards to the volume of work Lydiard considered an athlete should be engaging in. The running plans consisted of lots of hard work. Most training methods utilized by runners today could trace their beginnings back to that which was advocated by Arthur Lydiard.