400m S-L questions

ESTI · July 19, 2009, 1:37pm

Depending on your weather and your season length, this could be the workouts for the year. Following the first set or S-L adnd L-S, I would follow it close for about 6 weeks, then let the meets take up the rest of the workouts for the season with good results. I’m in cold weather state

John · July 19, 2009, 2:23pm

Gateshead 31Aug09

Yes, 300s or 320s are good indicators of your place on the way to a 400 season BUT if this is a young beginner, 200s early might be a better indicator because they’d prob only have the capacity to do a few 300s before the 400 and the target is moving so rapidly that early 300s would be too far away from what they’d be capabl;e of later.
the most blatent example of my coaching career was Charmaine Crooks who showed good 200m potential but ran only 59.5 (HS junior) in the 400 in early May. By July the same year, she ran 53.11 and won the National Seniors, almost entirely off 200s in competition and SE, the high school competition season with 3 or 4 400s, and just a few 300s shortly before her final taper. You could never have predicted that from a 300m test done indoors in Jan/Feb.

what sort of / distance SE were you doing?

Charlie_Francis · July 19, 2009, 2:36pm

Mostly 120s and 150s

gofast · July 19, 2009, 5:40pm

I understand that the strength endurance work on all these programs is running A’s but can you seriously tell me you have tried to doing these for 150m?? I mean that would take minutes and be extremely difficult even for the most well conditioned athlete…and if there are 2x150m in one session, are we just talking running high knees or are we talking the running A drill?? (one leg being lifted whilst the other stays straight, so we need to do one each leg to keep it balanced), so if we are doing 2x150m of running A’s in the session we are actually doing 4 reps over 150m…!!!

system · July 19, 2009, 5:45pm

Running As basically are high knees.

gofast · July 19, 2009, 5:48pm

Well I pretty much think it is impossible to do any high knee action for 150m. The best I have ever seen any athlete do is about 60m with me walking beside them and that was a mission.

Charlie_Francis · July 19, 2009, 6:29pm

That’s what you’re doing it for- to make sure it is possible!
We did it many times- and farther. This is tough stuff, but, hell, you’re preparing for the 400m and you better be fit. There is no point continuing the drill with poor form, so if you are deteriorating, stop and recover before trying again. Otherwise you’re just kidding yourself.

100m001 · July 19, 2009, 10:28pm

Thank you Charlie/Rubert.

100m001 · July 19, 2009, 10:45pm

Yes, they sure do. I know a girl who ran for a well known University in Texas. The coach made the girls team run so many 600s through the whole year it was sick.

As I was told from this girl the head coach does not believe in pure speed work and only uses SE2 type workouts as there meat and potatoes. As a matter or fact her old HS coach got into a small argument with the coach at the university because he said the university would see better performance if this girl would do some speed work but it never happened.

Anyhow, I remember being on the phone with this girl and she would be crying because practice was so hard but she had to put herself through it because she was on scholarship. She ran about a 53-55 sec 400.

I have been under a coach like this myself but not as bad as her. Anyhow, I’m now on Charlies program and ONE of the MANY things that is awesome about his design is that you feel fresh every time you step on the track for a workout and you WANT to give it your all instead of arming yourself up just to get through practice; there is a difference.

John · July 20, 2009, 5:02am

Did you ever do / consider using running A’s for the back up on split runs? Example week 11 of S-L instead of 200+200 doing 200 @ above race pace then 25 seconds running A’s?

Would this have merit?

PhilG · July 20, 2009, 8:08am

On the graphs does the distances in the beige coloured section refer to running A’s ?

John · July 20, 2009, 1:31pm

yes it does

speedster12 · July 20, 2009, 2:59pm

in the ‘power speed’ section there are 2 foot hops. Is the goal of these for quickiness, height, distance…?

Charlie_Francis · July 20, 2009, 4:57pm

This concept was used by Gerrard Mach often in the GPP- ie 2 or 3 x [80m bound followed by 200m run followed by 50m running As]

Charlie_Francis · July 20, 2009, 5:07pm

It’s for quickness of the foot contact but that will result in reasonable height as well. You need to concentrate only on a sharp foot contact as air time needs to be completed before the next ‘pop’. If you rush the air time, you’ll spend too much time on the ground.

100m001 · July 20, 2009, 6:22pm

How can you do that? If a program is laid out with 12 weeks of workouts then it’s 12 weeks of workouts which cant be stretched unless you get hurt…

Charlie_Francis · July 20, 2009, 6:39pm

You have a GPP as well and a comp period which could stretch out for 6 to 8 weeks possibly. If your season ends in May, work backwards and see where that takes you.
If you start Nov1st and have an 8 week GPP, that would be pretty much it for the year. Entirely depends on your set up. You need to think this through for your own purposes.

faivala · July 20, 2009, 8:40pm

Please apologize me, but the circled area is the “beige” part?

F.e. the actual workout for the very first monday looks like this?

[i]
4X10
4X20
4X20 blocks
4x60 (20E/20F/20E)

4X60
2.5’ rest
[/i]

For some sessions the volume seems huge, for example:

4X30
4X30 blocks
4x60 (7’ rest)
4x60 (20E/20F/20E)

Should these be run all out?

Thanks.

100m001 · July 20, 2009, 9:01pm

I see. Thanks.

AthleticsCoach · July 20, 2009, 9:05pm

I have done this session for the past 5-6 years and it is very effective. The only caveat is that the athlete needs to have developed competent bounding technique.