Yevstratov's school of running

I came across a gem, the book by Alexander Polunin entitled “Vyacheslav Yevstratov’s School of Running. As it follow from the name, the book is the summary of training methods and philosophies of an outstanding Soviet athletics coach, Vyacheslav Yevstratov, whose experience spans for fifty years, and who coached some outstanding runners during his time. His ideas are indeed unconventional and seem to contradict the mainstream methods.

GS is predominantly an endurance sport, and I think it is safe to say that training methodologies of other cyclical activities, such as running, may be extrapolated to lifting kettlebells, to a degree of course. In this post I want to present a brief summary of Evstratov’s method. I believe it will be self-explanatory whyit could be interesting to gireviks.

According to Yevstratov, before the Second World War there was no actual training methodology in running and every runner trained intuitively, trying various approaches. First “revolutionary” athlkete was Emil Zatopek, who proved the efficiency of intermittent running methods in practice while abandoning long slow runs and walks. The proof of the efficiency was Zatopek’s Olympic achievements and his sport longevity: he was an active athlete for 16 years.

Looking retrospectively Yevstratov believes that Zatopek’s method had two major drawbacks. First, the lack of specificity for long distance training, as his running intervals were 200-400 m long, while rest intervals were filled by very slow jogging, 200 m in 60 seconds. Second, lack of variations, as intermittent running was the only method Zatopek used.

At the end of 50-s and the beginning of 60-s long distance running began to be dominated by Soviet athletes. Yevstratov believes that the coach who should be given most of the credit for this fact was Nikiforov, who:

• Increased the intensity by considerably increasing the speed of running during intervals


• Increased the length of intervals and reduced rest intervals


• Introduced variability, both by rotating training methods and changing the conditions of running: outdoors, indoors etc.


• Introduced altitude training


• Modified fartlek by eliminating walking from it and by using faster runs during rest


• Increased the role of control runs which previously were used only during competition period. Nikiforov started doing competition distance runs every month and during some periods even every week.


• Introduced means for developing running speed, such as repetitive 100-150 m sprints


• Introduced methods modeling competitive conditions: “prikidki”, control runs, peaking competitions

The principles above are the backbone of Yevstratov’s training methodology. According to him modern runners combine the best methods from various schools.

• British: crosscountry comps during winter


• New Zealand : marathon training and road running


• Australian: running on the sand


• Swedish: fartlek


• Soviet: intensity and focus during interval and repetitive training in middle and long distances


• Portuguese: long distance running at racing speed during the year


• Spanish: using competition method throughout the year

According to Yevstratov there are several determinants of success in running:

• Well developed of special endurance


• Strong mental endurance


• Well developed speed-strength qualities


• Effective technique


• Ability to adjust the tactics

All these qualities are interlaced. Without mental toughness it is impossible to withstand long and intensive training sessions. Tactical skill is impossible without technical perfection. Low endurance limits the speed. And so on.

There is no mention of general endurance among the determinants of running success, the quality that was considered the most important for middle distance runners. Why? Because this quality should be developed to a certain acceptable, sufficient level. When training running elite endurance needs to be maintained at that level, and training efforts developed at specific endurance and other qualities.

Books written by Russian coaches, especially those involved in training high level elite are somewhat different from Western works, mainly by the absence of the cookbook format. Evstratov’s approach to every athlete is highly individual.

It is impossible, of course, to summarize the whole book. For those interested and being prepared to deal with the Google Translator I recommend to download it from http://wholesport.ru/

If methods of athletics are applicable to GS the all of the above is relevant for our sport. What can be extrapolated from the summary above?

Variability of training. This has been mentioned on this blog a few times. Girevik needs specific endurance, speed, power, technique, and it makes sense to use appropriate methods to develop these qualities. Long sets, short sets, various KB weights, varying tempo, all of it is useful.

Something new for me to consider would be more frequent use of control sets, akin to more emphasis on control runs in athletics. This is has always been advocated by AKC and apparently has been working well for many. My only objection is the exclusive use of this method at exclusion of everything else.

In any case, as Alexander Balaganov wrote on IGx, training methods in GS are at their early stages of development, and they are often intuitive and empirical rather than scientific. The more methods and their combinations are tried, the more experience will be accumulated, and more conclusions will be possible to draw.

Good training until then.