Mo Farah Training: 3 Things Mo Does That You Probably Don’t
- Practise fast finishes (inevitable in championship races)
Weeks 11-17 in Mo Farah’s 20 week training cycles are the most intense.
During this time in the training block, Mo Farah introduces very fast repetitions at the end of long interval or tempo workouts, that give most people a headache just thinking about.
Quote from coach Alberto Salazar:
“During practise, Rupp and Farah finished their interval workouts with maximum effort repetitions. Two examples include a 51 second 400m and an 11.0 100m with a 2 step running start.”
An example of what Farah might do in an interval workout between weeks 11-17 (beginning to prepare to peak):
6 x 1mile starting in 4:20, ending in 4:10 (2min jog recovery)
600m in 1:24
400m in 51
100m in 11.0
(All with jog 1 lap recovery)
Another example of a workout even quicker (overall):
1600m in 3:55
1200m in 2:57
1000m in 2:27
800m in 1:57
600m in 1:20
400m in 50.4
200m in 25.0
(Jog 1 lap recovery)
The above workout was completed by Mo Farah just a few weeks before he won the 5000m/10000m double at the World Championships in 2015.
- Lift heavy weights, often (Twice Per Week)
“Going back thirty years ago there was an old philosophy about strength training for distance runners. It was this idea of lightweights and lots of reps. And I really don’t believe in that. When you do something like that, at some point there’s no stimulus or further growth. At some point if you’re just doing lots of reps and light weights, you’re going to maintain where you are at but you’re not going grow.” – Alberto Salazar (Mo Farah’s coach)
With the Nike Oregon Project, it is typical to see Mo Farah or Galen Rupp working their ATP-PC systems by doing Olympic lifts. Olympic lifting is fundamentally the practice of standing up straight against the weight of a heavy barbell. For runners, Olympic lifting trains the body to maintain upright form against the fatigue and forces of racing. When your aerobic capacity and strength endurance (Anaerobic Glycolytic system) can no longer hold your form, the strength developed from high weight / low repetition activities like Olympic lifting keeps it all together.
What’s more, coach Salazar has tailored the exercises specific to running by modifying the Olympic Lifts to mimic running form. This gives the athletes the added benefit of specificity. He explains, “This is as important as anything we do in our training. It isn’t just, ‘Well let’s just go hit the weight room and do a few exercises.’ This is a very sort of synchronized and specific training program that they are on.”
Take for example the 2012 10,000m Olympic final. The difference between Mo Farah’s first place and Galen Rupp’s second, was 0.9 seconds. Over those 25 laps, 0.9 second seconds is equal to 0.055% of Farah’s race. If he ran 0.056% slower, he could have lost the Olympic title. Better biomechanics may have made this difference. This is why having excellent biomechanics matters so much and Salazar knows it. “I believe this [strength training] has a very direct correlation to speed development, and endurance, and strength,” says Salazar. He elaborates, “this is how you create runners that have great biomechanics, and are able to hold those great biomechanics throughout the whole 10,000 meter race, and be able to sprint at the end.” Powerful strength training but not just with weights.
“We never want to just stop lifting altogether, it’s important that you continue to do that, even leading up to a meet.” – Galen Rupp
- Water treadmill running for more mileage
I know, this isn’t so easy for everyone to do. Water treadmill’s aren’t exactly cheap or easily accessible.
“I’ll do 120-130 miles a week on the legs (often includes 20-30 on a regular treadmill) and another 20-30 miles on the water treadmill”
You can see Mo and the Nike Oregon Project using the water treadmill in a short clip here.
Running on the water treadmill is a no brainer. Not only does it add another 3-4 hours of aerobic activity to the lungs, it improves recovery (flushes lactic acid).
“It’s the safest way to add extra mileage into the program with basically no risk of getting injured.”
