Introducing the Hard-Easy System

Introducing the Hard-Easy System

Coach Bill Bowerman at the University of Oregon in 1959 I’ve written three books on the Hard-Easy System. Each was like a doctoral thesis of my understanding of the system at the time: How to Read Your Body (1986), Running by Feeling (1996), and 5K and 10K Training...
Exertion Builds Ability

Exertion Builds Ability

The Hard-Easy System is the most effective system for training endurance athletes. Of course, no system can describe the training process completely because systems reflect a collection of ideas, rather than the training reality. In the final analysis, the efficacy of...
Optimizing Workout Effort

Optimizing Workout Effort

The Hard-Easy System (HES) is especially useful in addressing how to exert optimal workout efforts. The solution is the Holy Grail of endurance training. When I began writing How to Read Your Body in 1985, I knew that a workout was essentially effort and energy. Thus,...
Establish New Ability-Building Workouts

Establish New Ability-Building Workouts

In my opinion, the most difficult training problem occurs whenever one attempts to establish a new workout regimen. It’s a process of progressive adaptation that terminates a set of workouts that no longer build ability while substituting a new set which will build...
Maximum Sustainable Race Exertion

Maximum Sustainable Race Exertion

What do you think the following Hard-Easy System truism means? The way you train will be the way you race. Sparing you the hunches others have offered; it refers to the harmonious way disciplined athletes handle training and racing effort. You exert an effort whenever...