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21

15 January

Tempo 2x3 150m. 1x2 150m. and 1x2 100m. last set, 45 secs between 150’s, and 30 secs between 100’s, 3 mins and a half rest approx.
70 abs

Weights
Bench press 3x3 70kg
Lat pulldowns 3x5 55kg
Biceps curls 3x5 32kg
Dips 3x8
Standing shoulder press 3x5 30kg

16 January
decided to rest, was still fried from Wednesday

17 January
Barely did 2x20m. flying, 30m. accel zone and stopped.
70 abs
Gym was closed and I couldn’t do weights

18 January
Rest
Still fried from Wednesday

19 January
It rained so I went indoors and did the accel dev. session
4x30m. (three 3 point, one falling)
1x50m. (from lying down position)
Felt GREAT. I did an extended warm up with longer strides, some A’s, etc. After finishing I did an extended cool down too, first strides then progressive jog till getting to a walk pace. After the gym I did a very good stretch session. This confirmed my suspicions from last week, I was cutting corners in the warm up and stretching and in particular not stretching my hamstrings well, that’s why I was sore for 5 days. I’m also lucky I didn’t injure my hamstrings, in particular since I’m not yet well adapted to speed work at 100% after so many months not doing any speed. Next week I’m looking to change the accel dev. session, probably to something like 4x20m. 2x30m. 1x50m. I like that, as I need a lot of technical work, in particular the first 10 meters as I stumble or lose balance a bit in the first few steps a lot.
Weights : Unloading week this week.
Hang clean 2x3 55kg
Deep squat 2x3 105kg
Front squat 2x3 95kg
Abs 70

22

1x6 100m.
2x5 100m.
30secs between 100’s, 3mins active recovery (abs) between sets
average time around 17-17.5, times ranging from 16.6-18.2. Felt good and like I got a good aerobic workout.
120 abs total

Weights
Bench press 2x3 70kg
Pullups tricep grip 3x6
Pullups bicep grip 3x6

I’m beginning to seriously think about dropping specific upper body exercises in favor of structural stuff like pullups, dips, etc. I’ll experiment with it this week. Except bench press, I want to keep it around for when I need it for a CNS stimulus, so I’ll try to not to any structural stuff that fundamentally works the chest muscles.

23

3xflying 20’s (30m. accel zone)
1x50m.
Abs 90

Had to go to the indoor track as it was raining.

Then, weights :
Hang clean 2x3 55kg
Deep squat 2x3 107.5kg
Front squat 2x3 96kg

Another quite good speed session, felt great, but in particular what’s beginning to make a MAJOR difference is my new warmup and cooldown. I can’t believe I was missing out on such a fundamental part of training. Unfortunately the training group I was with before decouraged and laughed at people doing “extensive warmups” (which I now see is a normal warmup, but since they did so little it seemed like a lot). Up to now I had been doing the warmup of my old group : 2 lap jog (which they’d do at almost walking pace), static stretching, 2 high knee, 2 buttkicks, 4 short strides and that was it! This week for gawd know what reason I made up an extensive warmup out of nowhere on Monday, including A’s, B’s and other drills, 2 long strides, then progressions. Then today I decreased the amount of static stretching and included some dynamic stretching. The difference has been outright immediate and very noticeable, I now see I had not warmed up properly in ages, or really I had never warmed up properly to prepare my body for sprinting. Tonight I was looking in old threads and see that the routine I came up with out of nowhere is quite similar to what most people are doing here, I guess logic took me to something that worked. After sprinting I’ve introduced a few strides and then jogging progressively slower till it turns to a walk. I’ve been feeling great this week, and have been feeling as if the quality of the workouts is increasing each day as I tweak my new warmup routine and warm up better. I think one can also conclude that a lack of proper warmup has probably been a major factor in my ongoing tight/painful psoas problem, so I’m confident I’ve taken another important step towards eradicating the problem. I’ve also restudied the psoas stretches and tweaked my stretching routine. I can’t wait to see what results I have in 3 weeks (hopefully pain free at last!!!). Now I’m absolutely sure I’ve gotten to the bottom of this matter and have found the right solutions. Let’s see what happens.

24

Jan 22
Yesterday I did a very good tempo session, I felt like I got a very good workout. Very, very consistent, all the times were 24.8-25 except a 24.6 and 25.5

2x4 150m.
2x150m. 1x100m.
45secs between reps, 3 or so (active recovey with abs) between sets
100 abs total

Weights :
Bench press 2x3 70kg
Pullups biceps 2x6
Pullups triceps 2x6

The upper body weights are worrying me, I feel like I’m hitting a wall in bench press, 70kg seems awfully heavy for some reason, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to reach even 80kg by the end of this max strength phase, which was the goal and previous PB. I need to study what’s going on, maybe I simply lost strength PB when I restarted my program and lifting 4 weeks ago was around 70 or mid 70’s at best down from 80, so in that case I should be happy since I would have gained strength in that case.

Jan 23
I did a transition work for SE2 today to get ready for full 300’s. I did three weeks of split runs (2x200-100), so I decided the best way to raise intensity would take the intermediate distance at a moderate pace. So :

250 32.2
14
250 33.3
14
250 33.0

I actually was planning on 10-12 mins rest between them but I took too long to get off my a-- and doing some accels both times. I felt like I wasn’t pushing it much at that pace, but felt weird. Unstable, not in ideal form, etc. I think it had mostly to do with the fact I had to do both my speed sessions in the hard indoor track this week, so hitting the soft cinder track in my club for these felt weird. What was very positive is that I felt great when doing accels warming up, virtually no pain in my psoas, every day I feel it less. I don’t want to talk to soon, but I really, really, really hope I’m finally turning the corner there and I’ll be completely pain free in a few weeks time continuing my current stretching routine. The next three weeks (the last three of this max strength phase and last 3 of my SPP), I’ll finally begin to do 300’s all out, I’ve never done any before so I’m excited to see how the workout is, how I end up, what times I’ll do, and what improvements it brings. I’m aiming to start with 2x300 next week and hopefully do 3x300 the last week. I’m beginning to feel like my form is coming back, I hadn’t felt good on the track in a very long time, I’m feeling much faster, very strong, smooth and technically very well too (in particular the tempo work is giving me the opportunity to work on my arm mechanics a ton, which has been a constant week spot technically, whereas in my previous program everything would have been around 90% now and there it’s very difficult to significantly modify anything technically).

90 abs

Weights :
Hang snatch 2x3 40kg
Jump squats 2x5 40kg

I did a very light weights session to make sure I complete the unloading week with a proper unloading. I hadn’t done snatches in months, I felt beyond sloppy technically, so I had to keep the weight light to not get hurt.

25

Decided to take the day off track work, as I’m noticing a significant improvement with the tight/painful psoas problem. I’m hoping this two day break will speed recovery even more and permit my first quality speed session on the cinder track in memory, as up to now I’ve only been able to do good work indoors and good long work on the cinder, but doing speed. The slipping/unstability in the dirt kills my psoas and causes a lot of pain and tightness. But judging from the accels I did on Friday, if I’m even better on Monday I might actually be able to have a good session with little pain, AT LAST.

Only thing I did today was a circuit workout and a good stretching session afterwards.

2x3 (6 pullups, 12 pushups, 20 situps) with 4 mins between sets

Hell of a workout, felt like an awesome workout. I’ll definitely be including this one a week from now on, replacing a conventional upper body weights day. I absolutely loved this, it’s really my type of stuff. :slight_smile: :slight_smile: :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

Complete rest tomorrow (except for a stretching session and additional psoas stretches 2 or 3 times throughout the day).

26

I FINALLY was able to get my copy of CFTS. I’m already up to half way through the training principles chapter and am throroughly enjoying the read. Tons of great to the point information, some I didn’t know, some reinforcing things I need to work on. In particular I had never thought or payed much attention to the fact that core strength and flexilibity has such a MAJOR role in sprinting (although I had been slowly coming to this conclusion through the last few months with my psoas injury). My case demonstrates that so clearly, I’m a case of trying to develop sprint position and power capabilities without having a stable core to work with. I gained so much strength but have never been able to apply it effectively because my core is not ready to transfer the power and keep proper position. I’ll keep progressively adding more and more core work as I can and/or feel I’m ready to. I’ve got so much work to do. My legs strength level is probably an year ahead my core strength level because I did no core work during this entire first year I trained. It needs time and hard work to catch up, so I have to be patient. I don’t have access to any medicine balls for the moment, but I will in 3 weeks, when the coaching staff is back from vacations, I’ll begin core work with that then. I also have an even clearer idea of the role of the CNS and regeneration in sprinting, I hadn’t thought the quality of workout could be affected so much by proper regeneration. I’ll be seeing what I can improve. But first I’m going to wait till I finish the whole read before jumping into any changes. Probably won’t take more then another day or two though at the speed I’m munching this book, excellent stuff!! :slight_smile: :smiley: :cool:

Since I made a post in the journal I’ll include physical related activity for the day, I only did a very good stretching session, that’s all. Can’t wait to see if I can do a good, pain free speed session tomorrow.

27

Halleluyah! My first speed session on a real track in 5 months or something like that. I know it will sound stupid, but I’m proud of this. After all the pain and problems and hard work I went through, training pain free and being able to complete a real speed workout well is all an accomplishment. Only after I finished I could feel a little bit of discomfort, but very little, and it didn’t limit me or bother at all during the track work, so it seems I’m finally doing the right stretching, and of course the consistency is paying off. I timed the 60’s and the times weren’t stellar, but I won’t let that worry me at all. These 60’s seemed like the longest 60’s I’ve done in 2 years, when I was barely beginning to sprint after an year injured. I felt similarly rusted and out of form and weird running at full effort for 60m. What I can’t really understand is why I’m feeling so weird, as I’ve been feeling very good doing short accels and long work. I guess, this is like any work, the system hasn’t been worked in so long for this specific skill I felt totally rusty and weird.

2xflying 20’s (20m. accel zone) about 3 mins rest in between, I’m not timing and won’t be timing any flying work or short accels, I think it’s too unaccurate.
60 7.2
4
60 7.5
4
60 7.3

I felt so sloppy and the 60’s felt like they were 100 meters long. I suppose in a few weeks I’ll adapt. I couldn’t put in two consecutive properly executed 20m. segments in any of the 60’s. So considering that, I think that 7.2-7.3 was damn good. Once I put everything together I’ll vastly improve on that, so I won’t get worried right now. I felt like I couldn’t get into sprint position in any of them at any point, the only constant was I felt like I accelerated well in all of them but then felt like the last 20m. I was losing form completely, sitting down, etc. in every single one (lack of speed endurance?, or lack of core strength to maintain position?).

Then in the gym :
Hang cleans 3x3 57kg
Deep squat 3x3 112kg
Front squat 3x3 97kg

Back extensions 3x8
Abs front 60, side 20

I increased back extension volume a bit as I think it’s my weakest link and need to work harder. Reintroduced side situps. But I’m still worried I don’t have enough quality core work to make the improvements in core strength I’m looking for, and unfortunately I won’t have access to a medicine ball for three more weeks. I don’t know what the hell it was, but I felt very powerful in the cleans. I had been stuggling with 55kg last week, but today the weight was flying up and I felt like I had an extremely strong grip on the bar. But then I felt fried (probably result of the track session and high quality cleans) and out of gas by when I reached front squat and decided to drop a few kilos down there. Deep squat at 112 was heavier then I thought, I wasn’t close to failure but was closer then I’d thought I’d be. I think I’ll struggle above 120kg so I’ll have to be careful when moving up these last weeks of the max strength phase. On the other hand, my estimate 5 weeks ago, with no testing and some time without doing weights work was that my 3 RM was around 120kg, and it seems the estimate and thus the progression I plotted out has been perfect. From my experience last year 120kg is where I began to notice a major difference in the track, so once I end this max strength phase there, I’ll stay in maintenance at this level, which I consider the minimum satisfactory level, till my next GPP (in June). So what can I say, this is another goal that will be accomplished, now if I can keep stringing on some quality track sessions, in particular speed/max v which appears to be my weakest link on the track at the moment because of the lack of work there, I’m sure I’ll be on my way to my goals.

28

How’s your rest factor aln??? that’s always really important, to the point that as I was finishing up classes at uni in december I ran a 7.43 sec 60 (on a tartan track) and today I got timed running a 6.94 60meters (on an ash track) both from 3 point starts, all I can say that has made the difference is tha I finished my classes at the end of december and slept more hours (more constant 8 hour nights) during january probably giving my body the extra recovery it needed.

29

My rest is a disaster, has always been. I rarely sleep more then 3 or 4 hours straight. If I do sleep 8 or 9 hours it’s getting up one or two times in the middle of the night to eat or something. I think my main meterstick is the stress level, right now I’m training relaxed, so I guess that’s good. I know how it is when you are training through a hectic schedule and have nothing left on the track. Sounds like you’re making good progress, if you ran 6.9 without tapering yet when you taper you should be faster.

30

I had my best tempo session as of yet today. Did 3x6x100m. with 30secs and 4mins (active recovery - abs - between sets).
Total of 110 normal abs + 24 obliques.

Felt like I got an excellent workout with those sets of 6.

Weights :
Bench press 3x3 72kg
Pullups 4x6
Dips 3x8

Felt weak doing bench press again, it’s a very weird feeling. I’m not getting stuck at any point in the lift, but the velocity with which I’m moving the bar up is dismal. Not sure what to do, whether to drop the weight a bit and move the bar quicker or keep up at these weights.

The bad news is my psoas isn’t recovering too well after the hits of the last two days, I hope it’s good enough to do the accel work tomorrow. The thing that’s hitting it is definitely the weights, the squats, but I can’t do anything about that. There are barely two more weeks left in this max strength phase and then I’ll get into maintenance and there it will have appropriate rest again, but I’m not going to cut my max strength phase here and not reach the goals I’m looking for.

31

Not a stellar day yesterday. Barely did :
5x20m.
Concentrated a lot on technique and getting the arms involved, but I didn’t have any spark or power. Felt tired (little sleep), hamstrings tight and sore (not recovered) and the damn psoas bothering a bit, so given the dismal quality of the accels I decided to cut the work short. I know begin to clearly see why Charlie is so big on regeneration in speed trap, one can’t have a quality session if one isn’t recovered. I went and talked with the club’s medical staff to see about massage yesterday, I see I definitely need it and it will greatly increase the quality of the work I’m able to do. I thought I would be able to use some extra CNS energy in the weights room after cutting the workout short, indeed I felt considerably stronger then on Monday. I’m also breaking through in technique in the cleans, I’ve sort of found the right path for the bar, there is a path where it becomes so much easier to move the bar.

Weights :
Hang clean 3x3 57.5kg
Deep squat 3x3 115kg
Front squat 3x3 100kg
70 normal abs/16 obliques
3x8 back extensions

After the weights came the worst or best part of the day depending on how you look at it. I did 70 abs and then went on to do oblique abs, I quickly found out I had been making a MAJOR screw up. Oblique abs kill my psoas, that’s why since I restarted doing them this week it’s regressed a bit. At least now I know to stay away. Monday and yesterday I didn’t really notice because I did abs between track and weight work so then I thought the weights were what killed me, but yesterday I did them at the end. I was perfect after doing normal abs, then after doing barely 16 obliques I started to feel the pain/inflammation building and immediately stopped.

32

Had a hell of a tempo session yesterday. 3x4 150m. with 45secs and 4mins (active recovery), all were in 24-25, first set all below 24.5. Felt like a very, very effective workout. Total of 140 abs, and 30 in a row for the first time. I’m rapidly improving with the abs, I hope I’m finally beginning to build the prerequisite core strength I’ve been lacking. A very positive sign is that my first set has been the best in the last two workouts, this indicates that my warmup is finally being effective, not like before that I’d always start out cold and have bad first reps or first sets.

Then weights :
Bench press 3x3 72kg
Lat pulldowns 3x5 55kg
Dips 3x8
Pullups 2x6 1x8

Felt a bit better in the bench press today. Psoas is feeling better again after not doing any oblique abs, fortunately I identified that problem early.

I’m very excited about the 300’s today, I want to see what I’m capable of mustering right now. I’m aiming for both below 40 secs at least, hopefully under 39. But who knows, I’m not sure what can happen. Maybe once I’m moving I do 37, but I’m not expecting that on the first time I do this.

33

Things didn’t go exactly as expected but at least I trained. The weather turned terrible and it started to pour just as I started my warmup jog. I decided to go on with my warmup and do the 300’s however I could because rain is also announced tomorrow. I did a truncated warmup and did :

300 39.8
22
300 42.4

Nothing to be mad about the poor times, there was nothing I could do, at least I was able to do the work. The first one was done in the cinder track, it had been raining for over 20 minutes but since it hadn’t rained in ages the track had soaked it all up, but the track was heavier then hell and I had no legs left the last 100m. in the first rep. By the second rep the whole track was flooded so I had to do it in the grass in the infield. This presented even more logistical problems, the grass is very uneven and rough, and the worse thing is that in the curve it’s banked outwards (towards lane one instead of into the infield), so I was already stuggling to advance the first 100m. and I had to slow down in the curve or I would have run into the flooded track. Then the last 100m. in this rep were terrible, I was sitting, my a-- was on the floor and I couldn’t do anything about, there was no way to get into proper running form because the surface felt so heavy. After this I thought I’d be able to have an exceptional weights session because of the unspent CNS energy, but quickly found out all the standing, warming up and running in the rain had cooled my body temp considerably and I felt cold all the time. Nevertheless I increased the hang cleans a couple of kilos as the improvements in technique which have occurred this week will enable me to finish this max strength phase at weights above what I expected (next week I’ll jump to 65 kilos and see what happens, making it to 3x3 @ 70kg the last week would be absolutely awesome).

Weights :
Hang clean 3x3 60kg
Deep squat 1x3 110kg 1x3 112kg 1x3 115kg
Jump squats 3x5 50kg

I made a little progression between reps in the deep squat because I felt like I couldn’t warm up well, but the last set I felt good though. I then decided to switch front squat to jump squats just in case, I definitely don’t want to risk leg injury at this moment.

34

I did another beauty of a circuit today. I’m really enjoying these circuits. Today I did :
1x3 (6 pullups, 12 pushups, 20 situps) 1x3 (8 pullups, 15 pushups, 25 situps)

Next week I’ll try to do both sets with the numbers of the second set.

Did 4 mins rest between sets.

Hell of a workout.

Psoas is feeling good again, I think that on Monday I’ll have a great speed session, really looking forward to it.

35

Had an excellent day overall. The only problem was the crummy weather again. I had to train through constant rain again, which made the cinder track very soggy. I did :

3xflying 20’s with 40m. slow buildup
2x60m. (7.3, 7.4)

I almost did a third 60m. but decided to save it for next week, the conditions weren’t good and I also felt a minor twinge in my left quad in the last rep so I called it a day.

I felt great on the track though. Despite freezing in the rain for most of the workout the extended warmup I did worked great and I felt warm and activated on all the reps. In particular by the 60’s I felt great. I felt very rigid in the hip joint and psoas on the flying 20’s, but no pain, which I think is great compared to how I was before. I felt rigid but for the first time I felt some degree of mobility, which is great compared to how I was before, where my hip would just lock up completely and begin to hurt. It seems I’m finally really getting out of this, slowly, but constantly. In the 60’s I felt great, I actually felt smooth and mobile. It was a great feeling. I hadn’t run freely like this in so long I couldn’t believe it. It didn’t transfer into great times though, in the first 60 I cut my acceleration. Then in the second one I tried to go out at too low an angle and almost fell the first 10m., I still did 7.4 which could have been at least 7.2 with no fall. So these technical mess ups combined with the poor weather conditions and track would indicate if I build from this next week we could see a very good speed session.

Weights :
Hang clean 3x3 62kg
Deep squat 1x3 115kg 1x3 117kg 1x3 120kg
Front squat 2x3 100kg

The weights workout was as positive as the track work. I saw that I’m in shape to do 3x3 with over 120kg. My 1RM is evidently in the 140-150 range. Thus I concluded the goals for this max strength phase have been reached. I’m again close to my maximum strength levels from last year. There is no point in continuing with the max strength phase and I’m switching to maintenance and focusing on completing my recovery from the psoas problem and increasing the quality of the track work. I cut a set off front squat yesterday and will go with 2x3 front squat twice this week and the next. Deep squat will also be cut to 2x3, but I’ll keep it at three times a week this week and the next. For hang cleans I’ll reduce volumes and switch the sets to 3x2, I think that will permit much higher quality then sets of 3 for the next two weeks. Then in 2 weeks, when the max strength phase should have been over I’ll go into official maintenance (will review and determine what sets and reps I’ll do from that point on at that moment).

Adding another note from the day, my arm drive and arm mechanics were also significantly improved. I think I’m finally fixing that problem too.

36

Had another excellent tempo session. Did :
4x5 100m. with active recovery (7 pushups one end 20 situps the other) between reps and 3 mins between sets.
Felt great, did them all between 16 and 17. I think I’m adapting a lot now, each time it seems so much easier although I’ve been constantly increasing the volume. I reached 2000m. volume today, this will be the top volume. I’m going to keep it constant from here to the end of the competitive phase.

In the gym I also had a good session :
Bench press 3x3 75kg
Pullups 3x8
Dips 3x8

I made a little mistake though, since there were two guys bogging down the lat pulldowns machine I went to do pullups first, I had no idea they were hitting my lats so much. I then went after the pullups to do the lat pulldows and I couldn’t even pull down the warmup weight with less then 50% the target weight lol. Felt pretty strong in the bench for a change. I thought that might happen, after doing 42 pushups in the tempo recoveries I figured that I’d either be 1) very activated and feel great in the bench or 2) dead and unable to lift more then 60kg. I’m glad I experimented with this, now I know this works very well combined.

Tomorrow I will probably be taking the day off, I have an exam tomorrow and another one Thursday morning, since the one tomorrow morning is easy I’ll pull and all nighter tonight and prepare both thoroughly like that I can rest well tomorrow night and then have a good day and track session Thursday.

37

I did the upper body weight circuit yesterday. Since I switched my CNS intensity days to Thursday and Saturday I would have otherwise missed the circuit. Doing it right after an upper body weights day wasn’t ideal, but no way I was missing my circuit for the week :smiley: . I felt fried in the pushups, my pecs were energy zapped.

Did 2x3 (8 pullups, 12 pushups, 25 abs) 4 mins between sets

Gawd. I love these circuits. I’m feeling great for today, let’s see how it goes in the accels.

38

I think you’re due for a shift to tne maintenance phase as you’re unlikely to keep going up in all areas without one. Also, reduce your accels pace to a very relaxed, sub-max speed for up to 10 days. This will allow things to come together and for your nervous system to super-compensate. Also, don’t forget that exams are competing for your CNS energy as well!

39

Thanks for the tips, I like the plan for the accels, sounds good and logical, I’ll try that the next two sessions. Today I couldn’t do anything, I went to my club and it was closed due to the “International sports employee” day, I guess that’s only reconized in this country though, never heard about it anywhere else! So I’ve had to push my CNS intensive day back yet another day. I’ll do the accels tomorrow with your suggestions and then my SE2 on Sunday and from next week on do CNS work on Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday, which from Feb. 17 will be the days I’ll be working with the coach who will oversee my technical progress and advise on technique.

40

I did an easy accel session today. 95% or so.

6x20m.
2x30m.

I had planned to do 4x30m. but was feeling a bit out of gas by the 2nd 30, despite not even doing the accels at 100%, so called it a day.

Weights :
Hang clean 2x65kg 1x65kg 2x60kg
Deep squat 1x3 115kg 1x3 120kg 1x3 125kg
Front squat 2x3 100kg

3x8 back extensions
150 abs

Felt VERY sloppy doing the hang cleans, I hadn’t done them in front of a mirror in a long time, I think I experienced a bout of “paralysis by analysis” there, I was concentrating so much on applying the technical breakthroughs of last week I was taking very long to get into position, etc. Then in the deep squats, I started so low because I felt weak in the warmup set @ 95kg. What was very weird was that then at 115kg I felt great, then at 120 also felt great, and at 125 I felt great too. Not sure what happened in that set at 95kg. I’m in great shape strengthwise. I felt extremely strong, certainly capable of pushing of doing a set of 3 at 130 or maybe even 135. I’ll go into maintenance and try to keep my strength level in the 120-130 area till the next max strength phase. By the end of the year I think I can reach 3x3 at 140-150kg, now there I’d really be entering high level terrain (more then 2x bw).