Can the Norwegian Training Method Help You Run More and Faster—While Recovering Better?

While searching for a plan to train for her first full marathon—the New York City Marathon in November—Funmilayo (“Funmi”) Oludaiye fell down a Reddit “rabbit hole” about the Norwegian Method.“I really just resonated with the approach,” she says, adding that there’s a whole Reddit community dedicated to sharing experiences and tips. She also purchased a book on the topic, by Marius Bakken, MD, a two-time Olympic distance runner and author of The Norwegian Method Applied.Oludaiye, who has run a few half marathons and, in recent years, has focused on triathlons, has used other plans such as the Hanson Method in the past.Now that she’s going back to running—and doubling the distance of her longest road race so far—she was intrigued by a few of the principles of the Norwegian Method, including the reliance on sub-threshold training.This philosophy purports to be less taxing on the body, and may even help you run faster on race day. Here’s what to know about it.What Is the Norwegian Method? In short, the idea is to do as much volume at sub-threshold pace (done at 80 to 87 percent of max heart rate) as possible without working so hard that you break your body down, upping the risk for injury and burnout, according to Bakken, who is now a physician in Norway.A former elite runner himself, Bakken first started employing this method in the late 1990s. “Splitting the work into two sub-threshold sessions on the same day, morning and evening, dropped recovery from days to hours and let me roughly double the threshold volume I could repeat,” he says.Since he started employing the method himself, Bakken competed in two Olympics as well as two World Championship finals, and set Norwegian records at 2,000, 3,000, and 5,000 meters.The approach relies primarily on high-volume sub-threshold training and easy runs (at up to 70 percent max heart rate) with limited high-intensity work (at most once a week). You run sub-threshold training at an intensity in which you could only say about five words; easy runs mean you could hold a full conversation.Oludaiye says that as an injury-prone runner, this idea appealed to her. “I was really drawn to being able to see improvements in your running and your fitness and be able to hit your goals without really pushing your body to the limit,” she says.Unlike other methods, weekly mileage is an output and highly individual, not a target you set in advance. Instead, you focus on adding each of these workouts throughout your week:2 sub-threshold days (doubles)1 long run1 optional type X-session (see below)3 easy runs below 70 percent of max heart rate“Doubles means two threshold sessions on the same day, morning and evening,” Bakken says. So, on each of the two threshold days you run twice, for example:6 x 6 minutes in the morning 25 x 1 minute in the eveningYou do both right below threshold.The days in between are easy runs plus one specific X-session, which can be distance-specific (for example, marathon-pace runs rather than sub-threshold or faster for shorter distances).Bakken, who did his master's thesis in medical school on muscle tone, says this comes down to less overall load on the muscular system. “What happens with more intense training is that you get a recovery window that is unpredictable,” Bakken says, adding that it can take anywhere from one to three days to recover. “With this method, you will get a much more predictable recovery window and more days with more springy legs,” he says. “You'll feel better and you just start building and building and building.”This is true for elites and recreational runners alike, he says. “They stay injury-free and they get faster results,” he says, adding that they also report feeling better and fresher during runs, which he attributes to less breakdown of the muscular system and faster muscle healing.Variety is also replaced with consistent, repeatable workouts. “You go for precision and long-term durability,” Bakken says.How Is the Norwegian Singles Method Different? The “singles” approach, developed by James Copeland, who wrote the book Norwegian Singles Method, is a slightly tamer version of the traditional Norwegian Method that is also endorsed by Bakken.There are three single sub-threshold sessions across the week, plus easy runs. “There's not always a second daily session, but there’s also no weekly or every-other-week X-session,” Bakken says. “The only thing that lifts you above sub-threshold is a test run or race roughly every four to six weeks.”Still, both plans are meant to be a long-term, balanced approach to training with more predictable recovery windows, because the muscular response to threshold work is consistent, so you always know where you stand.“It's basically like the same type of training, it’s just a simplification of it that makes it easier to use,” Bakken says of the singles approach.“Muscle soreness and elevated muscle tone peak the day after a hard session, not during it. That is why the rhythm is hard day, fully protected easy day below 70 percent of max heart rate, then the next hard day,” Bakken adds. “After a near-maximal interval session, recovery can vary from two days to a week. After a threshold day, you know what tomorrow looks like. That control is what makes continuity possible, and continuity is where the progress is.”Oludaiye plans to use this version for her New York City Marathon training.Adapting the Approach for the MarathonBakken was an elite runner himself and the method has been popularized by fellow pro middle-distance runner Jakob Ingebrigtsen. But he says it can definitely be applied to the full marathon distance with a few marathon-specific adaptations.“Controlled threshold work lets a marathoner pile up specific volume at low muscular cost and recover predictably, so the build stays unbroken across the preparation weeks in full,” Bakken says of why endurance runners may want to consider it.Marathoners can use the same framework, which means you do sub-threshold training for most of the harder sessions and you run easy on the easy runs, he says. Then, about eight weeks before the marathon, you extend and sharpen the long run. “That built-in specificity is why the pure long run never needs to go past 3 to 3.5 hours,” he says.There are two ways Bakken does this:Progressive long runs culminating in hitting threshold pace​Combination runs of 1 to 2 hours at easy pace followed by 10 to 15 shorter repetitions around threshold pace, which teaches the legs to hold form when fatigued, improving durability​HERE’S HOW TO FIND THRESHOLD PACEWhat to Consider Before Trying Either Approach Integrating threshold training is something that Greg Laraia, a running coach at Motiv in New York City, does regularly for his clients. Still, his main concern with this approach overall is that runners may not actually run at their sub-threshold (or easy) paces. “Most of the time we want to go faster than that,” he says.Running too fast/hard is actually the most common mistake Bakken sees runners making. “Threshold training at an intensity that is not threshold is worse than [overdoing] conventional training [like easy runs] because you will just go constantly a little bit too hard and push a little bit too much and you’re doing it with more load in total,” he says.But not respecting the easy days is also a mistake. “You need to go below 70 percent [max HR] on the easy days,” Bakken says, which can be surprisingly challenging for runners. “It's a nice day outside and they run a little bit hard at the end of the runs and then you get into problems,” he says.In short, Bakken says that following this approach takes discipline because while it’s effective, it’s not very intuitive. “The more intuitive thing is to just run faster and obviously that's the challenge and that's the beauty of it,” Bakken says.Laraia also flags that while paces may be overall a little slower, volume is higher, meaning that even with the singles approach, this might require more overall time commitment to training.“Most people I don’t think have time to put in double runs, let alone a strength training session on top of the run,” he says. “If you look at just the singles alone, again, it comes down to a little bit more time because the paces or efforts are a little bit lower, so realistically the volume ends up being a little bit higher.”