Book Review: 80/20 Running

I picked up Matt Fitzgerald's 80/20 Running because my wife had begun to delve into Fitzgerald's nutrition books.  The 80/20 running philosophy has been quoted by a number of coaches I know and has appeared in many places now in the literature. Over the course of my career, I have dabbled in several different methods and am never one to dismiss or support something without giving it a shot.  I began to read the book with an open mind as I typically try to do with all advice books. 

This book is really no different than the plethora of already available running training books such as Hal Higdon, the Hansons, Jeff Galloway, and others who have developed "magic formulas" to help runners get better (or more precisely, faster).  Fitzgerald sets out from the beginning to prove to readers that the 80/20 method is the optimal method for improvement.  Period.  Science shows it and Fitzgerald will lead you to the promised land.  Where have I heard this before?  In very short summary, 80/20 Running proposes to do 80% of training volume at low intensity and 20% at high intensity.  By doing a large volume of running at low intensity, this helps the body better develop aerobic capacity and reduces injury often seen in high intensity heavy training regimens.   This is a very watered down summary, but you get the overall premise. 

Let me start by saying that I am not against any particular method of training.  I have read enough training books by enough well-known people in the sports of running and triathlon to realize that these books are no better than the financial planning books that litter the local Barnes and Noble.  Each person has the correct formula and if you just follow them blindly you will reach your goal (BQ, Kona, debt free, million dollars, etc).  We can all realize by now that most of these assertions are simply made to help persuade you to buy more books or to subscribe to a method.  Let me be clear: not everyone loses weight by following the same diet.  If it were as easy as picking up a financial book and following the words, everyone would be a millionaire.  A one-size-fits-all approach has never been shown to work in any areas. 

I will also state up front here that I am an epidemiologist by trade.  That means I spend my days (and nights and sometimes weekends) studying patterns of disease, spread of disease, and factors (medical, physical, environmental, and sociological) that play into disease.  This said, I spend a lot of time evaluating data and searching into scientific studies.  It is very much what I do.  So whenever an author without a scientific background proclaims to use science to prove anything, I become pretty skeptical.  In reality it is more difficult that most people think to actually make generalizations from scientific literature.  Even very well-studied scientists have a hard time making true connections that stand up to repeated tests. 

I will give Mr. Fitzgerald credit up front.  He has done a lot of work to research this and the available science behind it.  Many methods do not attempt to explain anything behind their method and simply explain things using anecdotal evidence (Hey, look I did it so you must be able to do it too).  In 80/20, the literature that is available from different reputable sources in physiology and exercise science is cited and explained in mostly layman terms.  The work includes a wide range of studies covering endurance sports, from more psychological studies to neuro-physiological lab experiments in controlled environments.  I do like when an author takes the time to actually read the science and it seems here that Mr. Fitzgerald has done the work.  

My main issue is with the proclamations of proof or assertions based on studies that suffer from significant scientific bias and are perhaps not as able to be generalized as the author leads on.  Many of the studies cited in the book come from convenience samples of the researcher's team members or clients.  It is true that the field of exercise science in general tends to use convenience samples in much of the literature as it is a small and relatively new field.  The number of true runners has only grown in recent times.  However, with the explosion of recreational runners,  there is now an ample pool of subjects that numbers in the millions and probably tens of millions across the globe.  Since the majority of these plans are developed for the recreational athlete, there is no shortage of population.  Studies of ten or twenty athletes, really need to be cited with caution on how those findings would be generalized to a larger pool of athletes.  

A second scientific issue lies around confounding.  Confounding is a phenomenon in statistics where an underlying factor contributes to the conclusion and skews results.  One of the most common confounders in medical studies is age.  Children and senior citizens have much different characteristics and if age is not factored into studies when looking at things such as diabetes, heart disease, and other ailments researchers can reach the wrong conclusions.   In much of the scientific studies presented in 80/20 Running, there is little control for confounding variables.  It is true the authors of the studies may mention confounders in their articles but unless you look up and read the articles, you would not find a mention of the potential bias.  Many of the case-control studies where subjects were split into groups and given different training regimens really did not control for factors such as age, lifestyle (employment type), nutrition (which can be a huge confounder), body type, or other medical conditions.  

This is not to say that 80/20 Running does not work.  In fact, I think that this method could certainly be a viable training platform and there are similarities between it and many of the common training philosophies.  I am simply saying that the jury is still out as to whether it is the optimal plan for all people to run.  Fitzgerald does put a section in the book where he states that this method isn't transferable to other sports such as baseball or football but he does assert that this is the optimal plan for running and endurance sports (such as triathlon or cycling).  If you do decide to try this method, look at it from an individual perspective.  I have many friends who use the Hanson method or Jeff Galloway's interval training and have done quite well.   I have also used this 80/20 philosophy for my latest training cycle of triathlon (about 6 months).  I have been pretty reliable to the philosophy.  I have found it less successful than my previous training regimens.  Again, I am an N of 1 and not generalizable but I urge the same caution and research when choosing a plan with this plan as with any other philosophy out there.  I am continuing with the method for a full marathon training block this summer-fall and hopefully will be able to report even more detailed on the method at the end of the year.  Happy Reading!

3/5 stars