Jean-Denis Coquard from L’Equipe (edition of 8 April) witnessed Monday 6 april workout:
“Préposé au chronométrage, Patrick Dawson, l’un des entraîneurs oeuvrant avec Mills, sourit. Son Usain, il le soupèse aujourd’hui à 75 %. Le garçon vient d’avaler six 180 m sans starts. Huit minutes entre chaque effort. Il ne s’agit pas de forcer, seulement d’aligner les 20’’5. Un tempo modéré pour un garçon resté trois heures en interviews dans lamatinée. Sérieux et placé, Bolt enquille : 19’’6, 20’’6, 20’’5, 19’’9, 20’’3, 20’’1. Le lendemain il montera en gamme. Le programme prévoit deux fois l’enchaînement 300 m (35’’), 180 (entre 18’’ et 19’’) et 150 (16’’), avec huit et douze minutes de récupération. Résistancevitesse.”
Rough translation:
Usain had 3 hours interview on Monday morning. Then he had this workout in pm : 6x180m without starting blocks in 20"5 with 8min rest, which is described as moderate tempo. Mills estimates that Bolt’s level that day before the workout was 75%, and Patrick Dawson was the timer : 19’’6, 20’’6, 20’’5, 19’’9, 20’’3, 20’’1.
On Tuesday, the workout is planned to be 2 sets of 300m, 180m, 150m with 8 and 12min rest. Pace is 35", 18-19" and 16". This is described as Speed Resistance.
Next competition is a 100m race is 2 May in Kingston. He ran 9.76 there last year.
Since we believe (and Franno believes) that Bolt is doing short to long, I’m wondering where the shorter part is. What we’re seeing here might be interpreted as the more SE intensive portion at the start of a s-l phase
Thanks PJ, you’ve done it again :). I like this kind of work and it’s always interesting to see the target times and intervals between reps/sets.
Was that 12mins rest between sets on the Tuesday session?
Coach seems to be using the 300m as a depletion run, then asking 18-19sec for 180 on the backup rep is putting up the demands considerably. It’s the sort of concept I like to use for 400m development. But I would probably invite the athlete to use a three step roll up for the 180 which would make the target time easier to achieve and take stress off the athlete by not asking him to burst away from a stationary position at the start of the backup run.
The 150 in 16 is icing on the cake, not as severe as 180 in 18-ish, but still requires a high degree of concentration, effort and control - but still dangerous to go for speeds like that in a state of some fatigue when starting from a stationary position. For safety’s sake I’d be rolling those starts on all the backups.
Interesting but I’d like to see this contrasted with last years workouts at the same time.
I feel the workouts would not be very extreme for Bolt at his level. What do you think of the breaks? Would you use those breaks or would you keep the breaks at the same duration between all runs- ie 12m and 12m, instead of 8m and 12m??
Lots of overdistance work!!
From what the journalist understood an told me, Bolt was able to do more reps last year, so it is more about volume capacity rather than intensity, due to the late comeback to training. In January, Mills was worried? And they are apparently questionning the possibility to double in Berlin.
Before his first 400m a month ago, his last workout was some sub max reps of 120-150m, somethign like 3 or 4 can’t remember.
I thought this would almost be beneficial. I remember Charlie stating that you can increase volume to a certain point and when the intensity gets at a certain point you would have to lower the volume. And with Bolt already starting at a higher velocity point then everyone else. The late start is not such a huge deal? Can anyone comment on this?
I’m not sure exactly when he started back. I would think he wouldn’t need to hit the volume he hit last year and i wonder about the relative prep method as he started out ready in the 100 and later went to the 200.
?
Certainly Not for his 200m.
Overdistance, or sumbmax…or programming a race performance??
If you go back to Usain last year, he ran four 100m races before his first 200 on 6/12, and he already had the WR in the 100m before he ran his first 200m. During his 100m-only competitions he said that his prep for 200 hadn’t started yet–not surprising if he was doing short to long–so if he’s following the same plan, what you see is not 200m prep.
But if you went to HSI workouts the last week in March (3 weeks before Mt Sac) you would have seen some interesting parallels. During this period people only go to max once a week and John Smith tries to get top people running a 300 in 34-35 (or faster) 3 weeks before comp starts, and there are workouts like 300-200-100 (or 400-300-200 or 400-200 for people with 200m emphasis). The rest intervals used are 8-10 minutes.
After these types of workouts (300-200-100 for me and only one set), your next workout is affected by the depletion overload, but AFTER you’ve given yourself the opportunity to digest the depletion effect (that’s the second workout after 300-200-100 for me)…you fly on the track.
The performance times for the workout and the timing of this in the 3rd week before Usain’s first 100m of the season in Kingston are eerily familiar. I’m guessing that at Bolt’s level, he needs the extra volume to get the same stimulus.
I’m very curious about not this workout, but what the NEXT TWO workouts are.
I’m also curious as to whether they may have done this 3 weeks before Usain’s performance in Beijing.
BTW, confirmations for Mt. Sac have just come out, and Dwain Chambers is entered in the 100m and 200m.
Are these workouts done in spikes? What would a typical race week look like for the 100/200 athletes?
Very interesting post- and this type of stimulus concept was used by Carl Lewis as well although I’m not exactly sure of the timing- but most likely the same.
Within the athlete’s capacity, an overload can come from either direction- a volume shift as you describe here or an intensity shift requiring more time- as I used, usually with a 10 day time frame.
The workouts in this area that John Smith uses came straight from Tellez. But where Carl was clearly going long-short with the breakdowns starting with 600’s, JS starts with 200’s and 300’s as tempo in the fall and they progressively get faster–from what KK posted, it appears Franno is also following this type of path.
The 2 sets for Bolt are what I find rather interesting. If this was just submax to maintain fitness while not going to max often, I would think one set would be enough. But if this is stimulus, then at Bolt’s level more volume is probably required.
Of course Mills might be showing us what he wants to show us, and not what we want to know.
In spikes and 3 point starts.
LKH,
When you did this 300/200/100 workout, what part of the season were you in? I have some notes from a seminar where Leroy Burrell was a presenter. In the notes the work out that you did was listed in the “ultra competive” part of the season. This session was usually done on Mondays. The Tuesday workout would be starts. Then wednesday would have been 90/80/70/60m.
Did you actually see any of the “bounce back” on the next two workouts?
spp2…
This is done during SPP2 for HSI. The real speed development work has already been done in SPP1 with a bunch of 60s and work on starts. Pace for 200’s and particularly 300s is gradually built up from tempo pace in the fall to much faster paces through the end of SPP2, BUT max speed is only done once a week in SPP2 and there is a lot of submax (300’s and 150’s). The 400-300-200 or 300-200-100 are done mostly once a week during SPP2, but the last week before a 2 week cutdown is an overload, so the 300-200-100 and such can be seen as either submax or part of the overload to set up supercompensation for comp. I don’t know that John Smith would describe this as the “ultra-competitive” part of the season (we mostly haven’t even raced outdoors at this time), but it is what immediately preceeds outdoor comp.
I, however, coming from a s-l long setup as in the SPP download, see the same 300-200-100 as really a GPP (or initial SPP)-type workout. I started this year with 2x200 (same parameters as Charlie gave for Ben) in the early weeks of a 12 week prep cycle in place of one of the 3X4X60 that Charlie has written down. So, when I go to SPP2, 300-200-100 is simply a progression from 2X200 in short to long. Likewise, intensification later in SPP2 with workouts like 3X100+2X50 is simply a progression from 6X60 (with recoveries as Charlie has) during SPP1.
When training by myself I use this particular microcycle:
Mon: 4X60 (maximum recovery per CF)
Tue: 300-200-100 (rests 10 min)
Wed: off
Thu: weights
Fri: off/tempo, or do the Sat workout here if recovered
Sat: 2X3X80 (rests 7 min/15min per CF)
The 2X3X80 will be affected by the depletion effect from Mon, but given enough recovery time (4-6 days of no more than submax) the NEXT workout can be a PB-level performance.
The double workout is something that Verkhoshansky has to provide “maximum protein synthesis” as he put it, and John Smith also has this. This is a method of intensification for the 300-200-100, and Mills may be using 2 sets to get the same effect.
Here’s the doc… Im sure its probably been passed around a more than a cheap whore.
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dcxcdxk9_7g7b6fv
I’ve experimented with that and hit some huge PRs in the 80m doing this but it was just by instinct or dumb luck (prob the later!!!).
my week was something like
mon
sub max 150s (6 0r 8 reps)
tues
6x200 30sec
wed
easy/hurdle walkovers
thurs
serial reps over 80m
fri off
sat
speed 30m starts and FEF and EFE runs…
I tried to keep it going but I got a very bad allegiesthat spring and I was unable to train for weeks after that it all went to shit…It took me months to shake off my allergies…
Anyway a few questions:
With the 60s, did u build up to that point like in the SPP download?
are the longer runs fast special endurance runs or sub max int. tempo type runs?
How fast are the times for the 300-200-100 workouts? Any guidelines?