36 years is not wrong!
"A guy who holds the WR in every track event contested could still never be an elite soccer player if he didn’t have the technical ability "
and a football(soccer) player with all the technical skill could never become an elite player without the correct training!!!
The shorter the off-season, as a rule, the more you should concentrate on the left of the F/T curve. First because the transferrance between speed and endurance is a one-way street. Improved top speed lowers the relative intensity of the given tasks within the game itself, but increased end has no transferrance to greater speed. Additionally, the time required for the advancement of a given componant becomes shorter as you move to the left in training- and, importantly, the losses after cessation are greater as well.
Charlie, you’re making alot of assumptions here to justify your point that are simply not valid. For starters nearly all work (Including speed work) was done in flats, that will bump the time up, the start was a reaction to a beep so you can take away the .5, and all runs were from a standing start (except speed makers).
Also building your hypothesis around 200m reps, when it is overtly their tempo session will not give an accurate reflection of intensities for the overall programme. For an athlete such as MJ with a best run of 37.18 over 350m (taken from his WR) 80% of this is around 46.5 seconds - yet much of his work over this distance is faster than this in the 42s to 45s mark - or 89-82% (This is also not taking in to account the fact he’s doing them in flats or that they are done within an even split structure). So no, MJ’s great ability did not push an overwhelming number of his runs into a lower percentile area. Also Couts didn’t do too badly off this programme, and he was anything but a speed based athlete - nor was Greg Haughton, and he didn’t do too badly …
Baylor has had a number of injuries, however compared with what goes on in the NCAA system, with it’s tough competition schedules I wouldn’t say it was extraordinary.
You also neglect the fact that although MJ entered Baylor as a 21.3 pb relatively untrained athlete, he DEVELOPED his incredible speed under this particular programme.
Perhaps a problem also occurs when you have the expectation that a low intensity day always follows a high intensity day, if mid intensities are included in the programme, then a greater variety of combinations are possible.
Also I’ve been wondering, you are quick to point out the difference that surface, footware, contitions etc can make on the percentages, but how about the effect of recovery duration and the way a rep is run? When trying to develop lactate capacity with intermediate speeds, you don’t treat each rep with the same individuality as you would in special endurance - instead you stack them, using incomplete recovery (although I’m personally having difficulty with this at the moment) to draw the reps together as a workout on the whole.
Yes and I fully give you credit for this. However it relied heavily on your control over the programme and your educating your athletes on what to look for. Over here, there are now a bunch of athletes wallowing in injuries of a similar training system because they are treating various high/low concepts as gospel. My point was not to belittle your programme, but to point out that it has alot to do with the individual who is managing it.
Not surprised at all. What I am surprised at is the total dismissal of other training concepts as dangerous and ineffective when they have proved their worth with great performances.
Having seen this sesion performed, I could debate that this does not fall into the catagory of speed as you define it, however this does not change the main thrust of my post: That HSI use a great deal of mid range speeds, even the beginning 34second 300’s you use as an example are in this catagory.
Hang on - what do you catagoraize as “inapropriate”, any work that is considered inappropriate is by definition not suitable for the given purposes, it’s a tautology.
Recently I’ve been doing a reasonable amount of mid intensity work, yet during this period my speed has actually improved. And when I look back at times when I’ve been successful over the years, I’ve mainly been doing this type of work. Doing alot of speed volume on the other hand knocks the crap out of me and causes me to bulk up.
I don’t know enough about the Omega Wave to comment on it, and haven’t heard anything specific regarding the Vancouver talk.
High intensity as a workout or as individual reps? Like I said earlier many intensive tempo workouts are designed to stack one rep on the ones before it to get the desired effect. The overall work out is extremely intense effort wise, even if the reps are not intense when expressed as a percentage of best time. This is why I believe them to have a similar function.
Sorry if I’ve got you confused, but the standard definition on this site (Not my definition) of Special endurance are intensities of 95% of best performance or greater, tempo as defined by this site is 75% or bellow. Anything between tends to be referred to as intermediate or intensive tempo.
The fact is that split runs are performed in the same intensity bracket as intermediate training. You made the claim earlier that HSI’s 3x4x100 in 11.6 were infact split reps - the INTENSITY as expressed as a percentage of best is smack bang in the middle of the intermediate zone as defined on here. Sure each rep is stacked on the others - but this is also the case with intensive tempo.
Dude, work it out mathematically. Most of the work out’s i mentioned fall between 80% and 90% for their best times.
1:
I don’t know how to set up the boxes the way you did so I numbered your points:
1: As MJ once ran a set of 10x200s in flats in 20.8 to 21.0, I don’t think it presents a major impediment to times, but, you’re right it will push the work into intermediate (albeit low/med if you want to split hairs) .
2: High intensity must take into consideration the best possible performance of that element at that particular time, not all-time best.
3: MJ developed his speed through the system there but had the capacity to start with.
4: If mid or high are surrounded by low, there’s less problem, but, often the mid you describe is high when you consider breaks etc.
5: Yes, short breaks move the intensity of the whole work unit up (the series of split-runs for example) regardless of the rep times for the individual pieces. 3 x 100m in 11 with 45sec break is high intensity though the 100s by themselves might be intermediate. So for a high intensity session you might have 3 x (3x100 45sec rec) with 7 to 20min between the 3 sets, depending on the time of year etc.
6: All concepts have to be reviewed in context but I suspect much of what you are suggesting is intermediate, I would consider as high, but, from a distance and without your program, it’s hard to tell.
7: Again, a 34 sec 300 early in the season after 720m of speed work is high relative to capacity at that point in training.
8: Some speed sessions might be carried out in the med zone for recovery reasons etc, but any work that causes permanent or even temporary damage is surely inappropriate.
9: Again, the speed that is best for improvement is best for you, but how do we classify it? Surely no program that thrashes the athlete is acceptable no matter what the type.
10: See no 5.
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Well, the 75% mark is not set in stone; as Charlie told you in a previous post that he uses 75% as the cut off point to make sure the workout is low intensity. I don’t believe its wrong to say that Intermediate is usually between 80-90%. -with anything above 90% being high intensity. Fair enough?
I’m glad you remembered and brought that up…
Actually the workout was either 2x4x100m or 3x3x100m (not 3x4x100m). Furthermore the times averaged 11sec as opposed to 11.6, with the slowest rep being 11.5 and the fastest 10.8.
Here’s why it’s more of a special endurance… 1) Look at the volume…Intensive tempo’s TOTAL volume PER SESSION is usually 1000M to 1800M, while SE tend to be around 300-1000m per session. 2) Split runs like this is usually counted by adding the reps in each set 4x100@11 sec equals 44s 400m -give or take a sec! I would consider that high intensity… Also, I’ve noticed that intensive tempo tend to have more reps with LESS to no sets (for example: 10x100m@ 11.5). Although I can see why you would think the both workouts I mentioned would be intensive tempo!
I partially answered that in the above sentence.
Don’t get me wrong Dazed I am NOT saying that these guys don’t do intermediate runs. All I am saying is look closer, watch the numbers, the rec., and the athlete’s PB and you will find that a lot of what you look at as being intermediate is either low or high!
You beat me to the punch line on that one… Nice to know I’m on the right track. Good stuff…
That’s a great point. Whatever he was capable of on that day is the bench mark for measuring percent effort, and thus determining whether a run is intermediate or not.
Mikeh, you’re right, that is a good point! Season best changes! Therefore percentages changes!
Why then use 19.32 as a basis for estimating percentages of MJ’s runs? During preperation training phases MJ would not have been in 19.32 shape ‘on that day’ (and probably quite a bit from it), thus pushing his training efforts further into the intermediate speed training zone (80-95%).
Good point!
The percentages are assuming that MJ is at least close to 19.32 shape. MJ tended to be in good shape throughout the season. For example, in 2000, he ran a 19.71 as early in the season as March! Nevertheless, I would agree that MJ did SOME intermediate work. Just not as much as you think…
i seriously believe there is no right or wrong in this, so many different athletes made it their way ith their coaches and prove it worked by running sub 10s and 9.9s, wat i think makes a world class coach is understand what his athlete needs, some speeds are developed through speed work, and for others intensive tempo developed their speed well. personally my best drop off in times compared to speed was throgh extensive tempo, when i did it progressiveley for 6months, last year when i did speed work and lifts my times dropped but by such a little amount, so there really is no rule to this…
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Just as a means to put things in perspective when he’s at the highest levels. all we can really get is a series of snapshots of the individual and we can try to put context around it to try to understand what the demands really are. Of course, during early and heavy training, he’d be well over that time
Charlie,
Are there notes or proceedings from the seminar in Vancouver?
swimcoach
Your ability to generate energy from glycolysis is very important. Even in the 60m sprint, recent research suggests that glycolysis is responsibe for 60-75% depending on the efficiency of the runner and their mastery of the acceleration( the better the acc less dependance on lactate/lactic). As you move up in distance the 100m requires approx 70-75% +/- from gycolysis, the slower the athlete the greater the aerobic contribution, but phosphate utilisation is about the same, its how efficiently you are able to utilise the phosphate that counts. Now when you reach 200m, the velocity reached between 120m-165m approx is equivalent to the speed reached between the 60m-100m phase of the shorter sprint. The ability to reach top speed and maintain is a function of stiffness aka elastic strength the greater the energy output from glycolysis the greater the level of plyometric strength. You CAN NOT reach top speed without utilising glycolysis. The speed reached between the 150m to 200m is a function of the glycolytic contribution to the sprint outcome. In other words the fastest athletes are able to produce more lactic hence are faster. But this is a definite link for the 200m and not for the 100m although gycolysis is still very very important for the 60 and 100m sprints. In the 400m, the greater the Lactate levels in the blood the faster the speed. This is true right up to the 800m.
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martn76,
Do you care to express a view on the practical implications for training? Do you endorse mixing the acceleration with strong “lactate tolerance” sets in the same track training session? thanks kk
I would try to seperate the two because even though the posphate and glycolytic systems are interdependent and the ATP+phosphate fraction is replenished by glycolysis when H+ are released , you get better adaptation by training the two systems seperately. Although doing a small amount of acc work prior to lactacid runs would be ok. For developing athletes it would seem that new research would intimate an emphasis on a larger share of lactacid capacity training and as performance stabilises, switch to more speed/alactic capacity alactic power.
If reactive strength is a function of glycolysis and we know that this particular quality is important for top speed then it could well explain why some top level 100m sprinters are able to run fast from doing B type training such as Asafa Powel and Carl Lewis, and Frank Fredericks. I remember reading an article where Obadele Thompson attributed his success to overdistance work. It also explains why some elites can still run fast doing submax lactacid runs because of the exponential drop rise in the energy provided by the lactacid process. The body still adapts and improves power and capacity.
Without your background in science, experience over time using one or the other method - specifically only with regards combining or separating acceleration and “lactic tolerance” work - puts me in full agreement with you.
I’m not clear on what you term “B type work”?
But I’m thinking that every sprinter brings to the track some special quality or component needed to produce great speed.
Perhaps what some coaches add to the mix is the missing ingredient in the right amount, by intuition, experience or by the time-honoured process of trial and error.
In Powell’s case his MaxV is visibly phenomenal. I suspect that is a gift of nature. While he would want to continue developing and fine-tuning that with appropriate elements of short-fast training building through to 70m or 80m, he would also need to nurture all the other performance threads. How to best do that is what we occupy so much of our time considering.
Top coaches lead science without a doubt and experience can never be disregarded. B type refers to emphasis on lactacid work. A type refering to alactacid.
The A and B reference sounds like the Petrovski approach with Borzov.
Then, if it’s Petrowsky, A refers to lactic and B alactic.