400m S-L questions

Do you have the GPP download? That should help

The GPP and SPP are not clearly demarkated, rather, they blend together smoothly to create the least physical disruption and training stiffness. The hills in this case blend from a GPP but there’s no reason you couldn’y go with 700s etc if you adjust the GPP backwards to match up (this will probably mean shortening the GPP)

blending is definatly what i’m doing. right now the thursday workout is 2x400+400 with 1 min rest btwn reps and 15 minutes btwn sets, or splits 800s, whatever you want to call them. i avoid running the straight 800 since i am more of a 2/4 guy. i did this last year and it worked out well with a smooth transition into the 2x600 (using your other L-S program).

Right now i am doing short hills on tuesday and long hills (KitKat’s workout from LT thread) on Saturday. i plan on going into 700s for the first week or two of spp and then going into the 600s. although last year i did the 2x600s for like 7 weeks in a row with improvemnet each week, went from 1:36 to 1:29, so i would not be hesistant in doing that again as well and not even doing 700s, 600 is the farthest i like to go.

Approx. how many weeks of GPP would be done prior to the particular SPP provided in this thread? (Either or both programs-S to L and/or L to S.)

At a higher level as this is (50.22 female at end of program) the GPP was a bit short- more because of a very late start to the program but normally it might be a 5wk GPP.

Charlie, so would it be wise to go into the L-S after completing S-L indoors for a 400m runner?

Hi Charlie

If the 400 s-to-l has just one spp of 12 weeks and the gpp is 5 weeks and assuming that training commences at the beginning of October then competition would begin around end of January in time for the indoor season. Does that mean we should repeat the spp for the outdoor season?

I am not Charlie, of course, but in my opinion it wouldn’t be wise. You could switch from season to season, if needed.

You can be very creative and productive with S-L SpecEnd emphasis from indoors to outdoors. Particularly if the training year extends into summer comp. Of course much would depend on maturation of the athlete and technical compliance with the event, IMO.

The SPP and '04 Vancouver downloads provide some good insights and criteria for such direction.

How about focusing on accelerations and max velocity in SPP1 and then doing 400m s-to-l for SPP2?

you have great flexibility to do what works but I don’t think you would want to move too far from where you left off. The next GPP would be very short- little more than recovery, so, depending on the lenght of the previous competition period, you able to move back in to the next SPP close to where you left off.
Since progress will have been made in SPP 1, you would make the weekly shifts more gradual the next time through.
thoughts??

The S-to-L already does much of that but if you have an athlete where there is a great deal to develope there, that could be done. The issue then would be ending indoor comp early enough to allow time for the full GPP1 shown.

Charlie

Are you then saying that it is possible to do the 400 s-to-l template as SPP1 which builds up to 300 and split 400 runs, and then going l-to-s in SPP2 starting from 2x300 and 2x600 downwards (as in the l-to-s Vancouver template) for the 200/100 type? I had toyed with this in my mind for my athlete as it would allow him to start the l-to-s with far higher quality. My only concern was the lack of time to develop the max velocity speed component.

I don’t see why you’d need a 400 template for a 100/200 athlete. Why not use the templates created for those events? If this is a first time into the longer territory for a 100/200 sprinter, it might indeed take too long to recover from the additional load and bring speed up fully.

Thanks

I’ll stick to what I had intended which is split runs leading into the 300’s and 600’s. I was just wondering whether it was possible to hit the 300’s and 600’s with a greater level of readiness and how that might have impacted on overall performance by season’s end.

Going back to the original thread. It does appear from the 400 s-to-l template that the components are pretty much in place for the athlete by the time the 12 weeks are up (and as was borne out by the 50.22 performance of the athlete). Where does the coach/athlete go from here in SPP2? Over and under distance work (e.g one session- 300’s another session- 500’s)? What about speed retention? The last 5 weeks saw the dropping of the 60’s and f-e-f runs. Does the athlete try to mix these in again even though the SE is intensifying further?

If the coach feels that the athlete is still in need of some speed work, what are the possible pitfalls in adding a max velocity day to the final 5 weeks of a set-up like the s-to-l 400m template (which reduces to two SE days and one strength endurance day due to the intensification of the special endurance)? If I separated the SE days from Monday and Thursday to Monday and Friday and put in 2x2 flying 20’s on a Wednesday could this work?

I would go with speed on the monday (when fresher) and speed endurance on wednesday and friday.

Thanks PhilG

So in principle you are saying that adding the extra speed day is not a problem.

Including speed is rarely a bad idea, particularly if you have identified a specific need. The speed endurance will not tax the cns the same as the speed would so you should be okay with the wed/fri combination. Just make sure the recovery occurs over the weekend to allow freshness by monday so the speed session is effective.