Coach Craggs
What you can learn from Mihály Iglói, the best coach you’ve never heard of
MIHÁLY IGLÓI is possibly one of the most influential coaches you have never heard of. During his coaching career, the Hungarian’s athletes set 49 world records. He was the coach of world record-equalling 1500m runner László Tábori, Olympic 5000m gold medallist Bob Schul and 1500m, 3000m, 5000m and 10,000m world record holder Sándor Iharos.
His impact on distance running has been profound, but, while his legacy is assured, he is not as well known to Western runners as the likes of Bill Bowerman, which can be partly attributed to the political and social climate in which he lived.
Born in Budapest in 1908, Iglói competed in the 1500m at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. At the end of the Second World War, he spent five years in a Soviet concentration camp in Siberia, but went on to coach the Hungarian Army club Honvéd Budapest, where he soon became successful, coaching Iharos to a 3000m world record.
The 1956 Olympics took place just weeks after the crushing of the Hungarian Revolution by the Soviets. The turmoil is widely thought to have played a key role in Iglói’s star athletes Tábori and István Rózsavölgyi underperforming at the Games (Iharos missed out through injury).
The Hungarian helped to revolutionise interval training
After the Games, Iglói defected to the US, where he coached at the Los Angeles Track Club and worked with world record holders Schul and Jim Beatty. Iglói moved to Greece in 1970 and returned to Hungary after the fall of Communism. He died in 1998.
• Iglói’s core principles
All kinds of intervals: Iglói’s training consisted almost exclusively of interval sessions. For many runners, interval training triggers thoughts of burning lungs. Swimmers, however, have a much more nuanced approach to intervals; in the pool, even easy sessions are broken up into intervals and this is one way to understand Iglói’s training. His approach typically used higher volumes of short intervals. For example, a high number of 100m reps at 800m race pace with 50m recoveries, or 20-40 x 400m efforts broken up into sets – eg 5x400m, done four times – and at a range of varied paces. The key thing to understand is that these are generally not run at a hard, ‘anaerobic’ intensity. Instead, they are run at 5K, 10K or even half-marathon effort, with short recoveries. As a result of this balance of short repetitions, managed efforts and recovery times, Iglói ensured runners still developed their aerobic system
while regularly running closer to their race paces. The method aims to avoid the staleness and plateaus associated with high volumes of easy and steady running.
‘Style-based’ training: Iglói encouraged his runners to mix higher cadence, shorter stride-length efforts (‘short swing’) with longer stride-length, lower cadence efforts (‘long swing’). This recognised the role changing running technique plays in engaging different muscle-fibre types.
Effort-based training:
Iglói focused on four effort levels – ‘easy’, ‘fresh’, ‘good’ and ‘hard’. Each repetition in an interval session was assigned to one of these. This allowed athletes to progress naturally, respond to how they felt on a given day and trust in the feedback they were getting from their body.
Mix it up: The intensity and length of intervals in an Iglói session often varied greatly. This meant a session had easier, harder and more moderate sections. For example, one session might look like 8x200m ‘fresh’ + 4x400m at ‘fresh’, ‘good’, ‘good’, ‘hard’ + 10x150m ‘fresh’ + 4x400m at ‘fresh’, ‘good’, ‘good’, ‘hard’. Some of the intervals might focus on ‘short swing’, some on ‘long swing’. This way, Iglói was able to work different energy systems within one session and better reflect the demands of races, which are rarely paced evenly throughout. There is also evidence that he felt a variety of paces and running styles made his athletes less prone to overuse injuries.
• Make Iglói work for you
Evolve training gradually:
Making an overnight shift from a mix of easy and steady continuous running to an interval-based programme risks injury, so adapt gradually if you want to work towards an Iglói approach. Retain easy and steady running in your plan and start with just one or two interval sessions a week. Give yourself two to three months to build up the number of interval sessions and reduce your volumes of easy and steady running.
Be disciplined: Many runners treat interval sessions as a chance to run as hard as they can for the session in long repetitions. This often leads to sessions being too intense and, as a result, runners breaking down. Iglói’s method requires the self-discipline to stick to your paces and recover properly.
Avoid staleness: You might already be including interval sessions and wondering how you can develop. Igloi’s approach means including a greater range of distances and paces across reps within one session. Add shorter and longer repetitions and mix harder paces with more moderate efforts. This will stress your body differently and keep your training interesting.
Stay fresh: The goal should be to do more running at closer to your race paces while still being able to recover well. As you increase the number of interval sessions, you will probably need to balance this with a reduction in the volume of easy and steady running and/or more rest days.
Get reactive: The aim is to avoid the heavy-legged feeling some runners experience after years of easy and steady running. Look to add several 80-100m faster strides after your training sessions or short hills of eight to 12 seconds. These can improve running economy and help you become a more dynamic runner.
IGLÓI’S METHOD REQUIRES THE DISCIPLINE TO
STICK TO YOUR PACES