Is there any advantage to Powell running 400’s apparently as part of his preparation for the outdoor season? I can’t think of any reason to do this.
The speeds attained in 400 races as well as the different energy system development would seem to have no possible positive impact on his 100m performances. I know it’s hard to argue against the kind of season he had last year but what’s behind the reasoning for doing this? He does not even run many 200m outdoors so why 400m indoors?
Could be used as a means to develop strength.
By strength you mean endurance, correct?
No, strength as in weight-room strength. See it as, depletion push-ups fot the legs. If form is held, it builds specific strength in the hip extensors…you can feel the pump 
his coach made him do the 400 last year. I would have thought it may of helped him more specifically this year as he said he was going for the 100/200 double at worlds. you would then think that 400m work/race would help with coping with the rounds of 200m?
How about… he needs to run some domestic meets to keep his sponsors happy and promote the sport but doesn’t want to run something “fast” that early in the season? They are training Long to Short so a 400m is a pretty safe (but tiring) bet?
Particually when you look at the Long to short graphs CF has for the 100m ( 600m working down towards doing 350’s!!) He has some brutal workouts in L-S. A 400m at that time of his program fits in nicely by CF’s own graphs!!
I have heard a lot of athletes and coaches use this term but when I think of strength my image of it is very different than a guy finishing a 400.
It seems that distance runners and their coaches use strength for that definition almost exclusively-probably because they do little actual strength work and their events don’t have a huge need for it.
I’d like to have CF weigh in on this topic of using 400’s to prep.for a season of mostly 100’s and some 200’s.
How bad would it be to throw in some 400m races for a 60m sprinter (training s->l) during the indoor period? For non-elites, I don’t see it really causing the many problems and maybe having benefits, but I could be wrong and somebody can shed some light on this (ie tc, pj, charlie?).
Not knowing all the details of what he does nor what he can handle but it seems as though a short to long would play much more to his strengths. Again I say this not knowing how his body/cns handles high int. work.
That I could agree with. I don’t think it would be optimal(just my opinion) but coming from a s to l I could see that working out.
He’s gone L-to-S all along and there’s no reason to switch the method that has been so successful, only perhaps the total volume, which may well have been done.
As TC points out, it could appease local sponsors to make an early domestic appearance but it’s a bit hard to imagine who his local sponsors might be, as he is now global in reach (and price).
Do you see any problems, even with a l to s program, developmentally(on an optimal sense) with racing at 400m? Even with such a program(l to s), based upon your experience, would he be better off racing at another distance?
While of course I cannot prove my point if you look at who his sponsors are MVP needs to also establish itself as a “good thing” for Jamacia as a whole. For example see the National Commercial Bank of Jamacia.
If it fits with the relative distances of Special Endurance, it’s ok as long as it isn’t too competitive a field for him.
I had to ask as there’s another site where some guy is claiming that racing at 400m is going to provide Powell with great speed endurance(not special endurance)for the 100. He uses Dennis Mitchell as “proof” that this works.
It was explained to him the difference between special and speed endurance but he went on and on about how great the 400 is for developing 100m performance/speed endurance.
I’ve pointed this out many times before that Endurance is absolutely specific to the speed at which it is carried out. That’s why Marlies Gohr could always run by Marita Koch at the END of the 100m, not the beginning (when Koch was WR holder at 50m)
Yes, It was pointed out, the specificity requirement of that kind of work(that the work had to be carried out at the same speed of the target race) but one guy insists that “it’s all speed endurance work”. This is why, he keeps pointing out, the 400 is so useful to finishing a 100 strongly.
The other point made is that it will help a guy handle the rounds better. That does not seem logical to me. How does running a race of significant overdistance positively affect performances in rounds of much shorter races?
Bumping up.
This has been covered before but really the only way I believe you can handle rounds is if you are running submax to start with. Which means you had better already be the best. Also good therapy and a high level of conditioning help.
As for the 400m helping the 100m that really is crap. Nothing in the 400m is specific to the 100m (rate of acceleration, rhythm, levels of lactic acid, limb positions etc). How do you expect it to really help other than through the general conditioning that occurs (which you could simply get from tempo and low level abs, med ball).
I’ve seen it time and time again. When I get atheltes come to me who have been doing very long speed endurance (250m plus) and they are pure power guys/girls i drop them down to 80-120m reps and they always improve thier 100m time. It’s not rocket science these guys just can’t hold form after 180m unless we drop the pace down to a jog. As CF is always saying you need to attempt to spend as much time as possible at the speeds you want to be at in the race. How can you compete against an athlete doing 60,000m of speed work a year when you are doing perhaps 6,000.