American Track and Field Article: Clyde Hart on the 400

Track & Field 400m
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In an article entitled Train Slower to Race Faster in the most recent issue of American Track and Field, Clyde Hart suggests that 400 meter runners benefit greatly from “changing a small number of fast 150s, 200s or 300s into more repetitions at a slower pace with less rest…”

Hart says: "For example, three 200s in 23 seconds, you’ve got to take 5-10 minutes rest. But you can do six of them if you run them in 26 seconds, and you can take 90 seconds rest. Now what you’ve got from that is you’ve got twice the amount of running in and you cut the rest down, which is tremendous for conditioning. People say, “Yeah, but you gave up the speed.’ But we found that as you get stronger,your speed is enhanced.”

Hart says he developed this approach as a way to keep an oft-injured collegian Michael Johnson healthy for an entire season.

The article in its entirety is very interesting. I’m interested in reaction to the article/concept, especially as it applies to high school athletes.

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Can you get this article online? Does anyone have a copy?

Thanks,

TC

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It sounds like the article was meant to throw off Hart’s competition and not for his own athletes.

Regarding MJ doing these workouts, Hart is just describing a tempo workout for MJ. A regular athlete doing these workouts would not benefit the same way Michael did.

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Hi Herb,

I agree with you. It puzzled me when I read that sort of session in Michael’s book - and when he advocated that same session (6x200 in 26with around90sec rec).

The top women 400 runners I’ve worked with used to chew up that exact session, averaging 1:40 between reps.

It’s specific to the come-home pace for a 400m in around 50.0sec, which you wouldn’t think would do much for Michael’s needs, even to cater to his last 20 metres of a 400m at the rate he travels.

But PJ wrote somewhere (prob on the “lactate threshold” thread), that this session was just a stepping stone on a pathway to something faster.

One thing is that Michael was so quick and his form so tense (through the back) that you could see maybe that doing too much specific work might hurt him (in the torn fibre sense) so perhaps he was just a freaky talent who just needed to develop his vascular network (for flush and feed reasons) and his natural explosiveness would see him become the winner he undoubtedly was.

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Honestly, how accurate do you think the “pages” of MJ’s log in his autobiography are?

Very, very brief…did anyone see him do these sessions? Were they on gym days?..had he already trained that day?..was he running with anyone?..would he publically print training logs for the whole world to see…?

Just curious you know…

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When one understands that you can’t and shouldn’t run fast all the time (especially for the 400m) Clyde Hart philosophy makes sense…

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And when you understand particular athletes’ background, it makes even more sense.
Consistency is of paramount importance!

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I saw them done in 98 and in 2000. They are very accurate representations of what he does.

People are reading too much nonesense into things in this thread, and need to think as to what the purpose of the work out might be before they leap to conclusions regarding it’s usefulness or presence in the programme …

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“oft injured” collegian MJ;
I wonder what the injuries were and how they dealt with them.

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According to his book, MJ had lots of hamstring injuries.

Why would a 20s runner go for 23s in the 200m? … But rather 26s for volume and <21s for special endurance?

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KK, what are your thoughts on training at speeds lower than race pace, specifically concerning training for the quarter-mile. I remember reading an interview with Cathy Freeman where she said she never trained at slower speeds than she raced…I can see the benefit behind lower speed, lower recovery work in terms of lactic tolerance, however I’m unsure whether or not this low-velocity tolerance has any rollover to higher velocity tolerance?

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People seem to misunderstand and resist the concept of spreading of the training demands and stimuli, always thinking in terms of concentrating them somehow,even at the very top levels.
I’m beginning to think it has something to do with these days need to achieve success in ever shortening time frames.

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…Exactly my point. Curious as to the purpose of these workouta, and the time frame he did them. ie. What part of his training cycle he was in (GPP, SPP, comp phase etc)…

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I think variation in all forms of training is important. Having said that, I was probably too introspective to worry much about what others were doing since it was always difficult if not impossible to get the whole picture of their program.

Therefore it seemed to make more sense to me and the athletes who worked with me to concentrate on our own ideas, or for them to leave me and work with another coach [A suggestion I made to my best 400 runners at various times because - as a hobby coach working a fulltime job elsewhere - I never felt I could provide a coaching service commensurate with what their talent deserved and needed.

Anyway, what I would say is that Mr Hart is a master of his own program, like John Smith is a master of his own, Charlie a master of his own etc etc.

Unless you are part of the training squad for at least an entire year, day-in, day-out it is very hard often to understand how individual sets and sessions fit into the big picture.

I still stand by what I posted earlier in this thread though, but perhaps that’s just for the reasons I’ve mentioned now: I don’t know the ins and outs of Michael’s and Jeremy’s successful program(s).

I would say that John Carlos’s remark (in the news section) a few weeks ago that the 400m is a new event - ie, no longer like a middle distance event - does not appear to be quite true if the higher volume and shorter recoveries advocated by Mr Hart are indicative. This approach is certainly more akin to 800m type training and that aspect is at least consistent with my own experience coaching the 400m.

The other thing always worth considering is whether Michael would have run 400m faster if he had run those 6x200 in 22sec-23sec rather than in 26sec. The 26sec reps may have done more for his 200 - as tempo - than for his 400m.

MJ ran 200m (in 19.32sec) almost a second faster than most of the other sub-44sec 400m men in history, yet he ran only a half-second faster than Lee Evans (43.8sec) ran in 1968 over 400m.

I would be interested to know what anybody thinks, but especially what PJ thinks about that last point, based on a study of statistics if nothing else.
kk :slight_smile:

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KK,

It would seem to me that MJ had a slightly greater natural talent (relatively speaking) at 200m speed than 400m compared to other 400 runners.

I believe his 100m PB was 10.01, I heard him say on TV that whilst this was a very good time he did not consider himself explosive enough to be absolutely world class at 100m.

Given his speed over 200m was superior to any other 400m runner, and I suspect the same probably applied from his 100m time, his strength as a 400m runner was his sheer speed. Therefore he gained the greatest training benefit from developing his endurance in the context of 400m fitness. Perhaps the 200m tempo type sessions provided him with this.

I guess the other side of the coin would be, say, Juantorena, perhaps would have benefited most by working on speed to improve his 400m time - he had the endurance from 800 background.

I would be interested to know Wariner`s 200m times.
Does anyone here know them ?
Perhaps Clyde Harts approach is most suited to taking natural sprinters with good 200m times and building their endurance.

I have noticed a similar thing at the other end of the spectrum where I run and coach (middle aged distance runners). Take someone relatively new to road running (but basically fit)and see how fast they are over 800m/1500m. The quicker they are the more likely they are to turn into a good 10K or 10M runner. ie it is easier to build on endurance to natural (genetic) speed than to build speed onto an endurance capability.

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Kitkat, not sure if that’s what you ask for, but that’s the 200m PBs for all the 44.00 (or faster) runners:

Michael JOHNSON
19.32 (1996), 43.18 (1999), IR 4.54 (and 100m PB 10.09 in 1994)

Harry Butch REYNOLDS
20.46 (1987), 43.29 (1988), IR 2.37

Quincy WATTS
20.50 (1987 age 17), 43.50 (1992), IR 2.50

Danny EVERETT
20.08 (1990), 43.81 (1992), IR 3.65

Lee EVANS
20.4h (1969), 43.86 (1968), IR 2.58

Steve LEWIS
20.58 (1992), 43.87 (1988), IR 2.71

Larry JAMES
Will search later, 43.97 (1968), IR

Jeremy WARINER
20.59 (2004), 44.00 (2004), IR 2.82

Reynolds and Watts seem to have underachieve at 200m, but they were never in a posittion to go under 20sec anyway. Evans probably could have done 20.40 FAT at Mexico high altitude? The IR number is the Resistance index, the difference between the 400m time and the double of 200m time. It’s evident that the fastest you are at 200m, the harder it will be to maintain that speed and use it for long distances.
Now, looking at MJ’s 400m, i think he never opened the first 200m in a sub21sec during his career, so it reduced a lot his chances to run a sub 43sec at 400m. 21sec was easy for him having run 19.32, 19.66, 19.71, etc…
Look at how little risks he took during his 7 fastest ever 400m races:
43.18 = 21.22 + 21.96 Sevilla WCh’99
43.39 = 21.26 + 22.13 Göteborg WCh’99
43.44 = 21.27 + 22.17 Atlanta OT’96
43.49 = 21.22 + 22.27 Atlanta OG’96
43.65 = 21.65 + 22.00 Stuttgart WCh’93
43.66 = 21.46 + 22.20 Sacramento NC’95
43.66 = 21.9 + 21.8 Lausanne’96 (fastest ever negative split)
More than training issue, i think MJ’s limitation was on his first 200m tactic. In Athens, Wariner’s split was something like 21.3-21.4, which is in MJ’s range, but Wariner is a full second slower than MJ was…

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So basically, to run even splits you need to run the first 200m at around 91%?

Any info on the splits for REYNOLD’s 43.29?

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For 200-400m high level sprinters, yes.

Reynolds half way intermediate time was 21.43, second half 21.86. You may say not much difference with MJ, but MJ used to run the 3rd 100m very hard as opposed to Reynolds who saved energy for last straigth.

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Actually Herb this is what Coach Hart believes in and uses. Alot of US coaches mimic his methods with positive results, though generally this is with male athletes only.

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When KK says that Coach hart is the master of his own program, he is more spot on than any of you can imagine.

In the US Division 1 university system there 12.5 scholarships available for males. Generally Baylor assigns 6 and sometimes as many as 8 of these for the 400/400h. That’s all he cares about, and the team as a whole hasn’t been good in years.

While I wouldn’t use it, the Baylor program works for many not only for him, but for others as well. Andrew Rock’s program for example is very similar if even more Int. Tempo based.

Related to 200m speed, Wariner ran 20.46w as an 18 year old. That’s plenty fast and they are working on getting him down into the 20.0 range. I expect that he will get better in upcoming years.

Yes Reynolds ran the last 100m very fast. He was a beast of a man, much larger (tall and heavily muscled) than any of the contempory 400m save for maybe Mitch Potter.

-AC