Renato Canova’s “Special Block” Explained
Renato Canova is an Italian distance running coach of considerable fame. Under his guidance, his athletes in accumulation have achieved over 50 Olympic and World Championship medals, over 50 World Marathon Major podium positions and has been involved in over a dozen world records, all in the sport of mid-long distance running.
Canova coaches/advises world-class athletes from 800m through to the Marathon.
The premise of Renato’s training is to extend an athlete’s ability to last a given pace, otherwise put, extend the length of time an athlete can run at the specific goal race pace until you reach the full race distance. Thus every event is matter of extension.
To do so, you have to increase the volume of the specific training stress as you approach competition. You thus progress your focus from General -> Special -> Specific training throughout a season.
One of the most unique characteristics of Renato Canova’s training philosophy is his use of “Special Blocks” unseen in any other distance running training philosophy.
For the best development, Canova believes that athletes must increase the “modulation” or day- to-day variation in distance and intensity, introducing greater stresses with proportionally greater recovery. To this end, every 3-4 weeks during the special and specific periods, he includes what he calls a “special block” (during the special period) or a “specific block” (during the specific period). These “blocks” are days on which the athlete does two workouts, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.
Runners must take special care to arrive at a special block well-rested and to recover well afterwards. A special block can focus solely on endurance, solely on speed, or can mix both. Canova gives the following examples of each.
For a marathon runner:
Endurance: Morning: 10km at 90% of Marathon Pace (MP) + 20km at MP
Afternoon: 10km at 90% of Marathon Pace (MP) + 20km at MP
(Sometimes, Canova will instruct his marathon runners to drink only water and eat only vegetables between these two workouts, in order force the body to utilise fat as an efficient resource.)
Mix: Morning: 10km at 90% of MP + 10km at 102% of MP
Afternoon: 10km at 90% of MP + 12x 1000m at 105% of MP, 1:30 recovery
For an 800m runner:
Morning: 30min easy run + 10x600m at 87-90% of 800m Race Pace (RP), 2min recovery
Afternoon: 30min easy run + 4x400m at 105% of RP, 6-8min recovery
A specific block, as the name suggests, incorporates a significant amount of work at race-pace. However, a “specific block” need not be confined to only repeats at goal race pace. Canova provides us with the following “specific block” workout done by Saif Saaeed Shaheen (Stephen Cherono) in 2006:
Morning: 4x1600m, 4:30 recovery: 3:56, 3:59, 3:58, 3:58
Afternoon: 2 sets of 5x300m, 1min between repeats and 2:30 between sets avg. 38.3 for first set of 5, then 39.0, 37.3. 37.2, 37.3, 37.0.
Four 1600m repeats with roughly 1:1 recovery is a fairly common 5k pace workout and Shaheen averaged slightly faster than what ought to be his 5k pace (12:48), so this is definitely “specific training.” But the afternoon session is all at 800m pace or faster. Though this specific block devotes a large amount of time to training at goal race pace (assuming Shaheen was training as a 5k specialist), the afternoon session consists of an injection of speed, resembling more a special-phase workout than a specific workout. Even into the specific period, new workouts do not replace the old ones, but are again added to the mix of workouts.
With the exception of marathon runners, Canova suggests that most “block” type workouts involve working a different pace range in the morning and afternoon to stimulate the body in different ways. The marathoners likely employ the same workouts both sessions because the marathon is an event of extreme extension—that is, increasing speed, while important, takes a back seat to extension.
[An excerpt from Something New In Training, The Methods Of Renato Canova by Josh Davis.]
To learn more about Renato Canova’s training philosophy (in detail), read Training for a Sub 2:05 Marathon
Other popular articles about Renato Canova’s Training Philosophy:
Renato Canova – Marathon Training (Mileage)
Renato Canova’s “Special Period” Example Training Sessions
