When changing from 3 to 2 high intensity days per week (in a programme modelled after Charlie’s GPP and SPP templates), would you increase the volume per session to minimise the total volume reduction?
I used to do about 300, 400 and 500m per acceleration, speed and SE session respectively, in a weekly programme including three sprint sessions and two tempo sessions per week. I’m now planning to do 2 sprint sessions (one starts plus speed, the other starts plus SE), 2 tempo sessions and one session of body weight circuits during GPP or jumps, throws and plyos during SPP.
Why are you changing, because you have less time to train, or because the load with three sessions was too high? The reason matters becaue if you’re trying to reduce the load, you need to reduce the load and not worry about volume so much.
First of all, unless the athlete is getting some major therapy it’s very hard to train more then 5days per week. In gpp I would use three hi days but only half the volume on the graphs, most athletes respond better to higher freq training in gpp. In spp I would use two hi days while using half the volume on the speed days and full SE volume minus some start work.
BTW I would use all the MB drills that are listed on the graph in gpp!!
Agree with the 5 days/wk issue, and in fact people I see at the track (professionals) have PT available MWF although mostly training 4 days a week (MTTF).
But if someone is doing HI 3X/wk plus tempo 2-3X/wk and the load is too great (don’t know if that’s the case here), what do you cut–HI or tempo, or both?
There are a couple of reasons. Time is certainly and issue, as I now have two young children. Also, I’m not getting any younger (just turned 30) and thus need to be more careful about injury prevention. By the time I start sprinting again (early to mid next year) I would have had a two-year break from running (I’m currently competing in powerlifting), which would be another reason for taking it easy. I don’t want to reduce the volume too much though, as the only reason for getting back into sprinting is my desire to push my PB into sub 11 territory. I ran 11.01 in Australia in 2006, after which I moved to the UK where, due to less favourable climate and the lack of an indoor facility, I was unable to improve on that time. In mid-2008, I thus changed to powerlifting where I’m more competitive and not dependent on the weather. Athletics is my first love though, and I thus want to start sprinting again when I return to Australia next year.
With that long of a break, I think you need to pay particular attention to the GPP download at least for the conditioning and explosiveness part (and I definitely agree win tamfb on the mb workouts here). You probably need a longer GPP than you had when you were sprinting regularly, so don’t rush things.
When you get back, most people find that they can handle considerably more volume in a session with 2 workouts/week compared to 3. I remember when somebody (I think Topcat) made the comment that you can kill yourself in training with only 2 workouts a week. This applies more to SE/SE1 type workouts than pure speed. Just because you follow with more recovery doesn’t mean that in a single workout you can go from 4X30 flys or 4X60 accels to six of them without slowing down, and you want to keep the speed session short of that (and, no, this is not a recommendation for autoreg, which I do not and would not do).
Thanks for the input. If I understand correctly you would thus both suggest to keep the speed volume similar (300-400/session), but increase the volume of SE. Correct? Should I go for about 600m of SE per session then (e.g. 4x150 instead of 3x or 3x200 instead of 2x)?
I agree on the conditioning bit. The powerlifting background should allow me to reduce the volume of lifting to something closer to a maintenance load and focus more on conditioning and explosiveness during GPP.
i still have to find the stimulus area to get faster, 2 HI a week of speek work with volumes around 300-450m does not cause any adaptation. My body seems to respond to very hard intense training 3 HI, and then break and after sometime it will respond in a big way. The trick is surviving the hard intense training without injury.
GPP
Monday: hills(max 200m) + alternate between ub & lb* lifting
Tuesday: tempo 1500 + med ball + abs circuit
Wednesday: hills(max 200m) + alternate between ub & lb* lifting
Thursday: tempo 1500 + med ball + abs circuit
Friday: hills(max 200m) + alternate between ub & lb* lifting
Saturday: Therapy
*= If speed is done less than 72h after lb weight, only do a speed/power oriented session
Not sure doing accel right away into GPP would be a good idea If someone have been off for too long (greater than 2 months). Maybe skips followed by light 20m accel or simply starting hills with sub maximal output would be a better idea in my opinion and from there increasing the intensity from week to week.
SPP
Monday: Bounding 3x20m & med ball throw (less than 30), SE 3x200m, UB lifting
Tuesday: Tempo 800m or less, abs circuit
Wednesday: Tempo 1500m or less
Thursday: Accel 4x30m, 3x60m, Bounding and/or Power Skips 3x20m, LB lifting
Friday: Tempo 1500m or less, abs circuit
Saturday: Therapy**
**I am questioning the effect of doing a very intense i-e top speed & accel right away the first training after deep soft tissues therapy. Each of them is a shock If the athletes have trouble spots and you need to come back with a progressive training intensity.