I have a lot of athletes out for track that really just want to be better football players. I also want this, but I want them to be competitors in track. Can I train both? What do you think about this work out?
600 m jog
Dynamic stretching (lunging, knee hug, etc)
Ballistic stretching (leg swings, etc)
Form running
Buildups
5 X 20 m with walk back recovery
2 X 40 m with walk back recovery
5 minute break followed by:
2 X 200 m at 90-95 percent with 3 minute rest in between.
Cool down jog
Static Stretch
Go Home
It seems like this type of workout goes against the grain as it hits the speed / acceleration and speed endurance areas (correct me if I’m wrong) in the same day? What is wrong with this type of training for 100-800 meter runners? The speed endurance portion could be tailored more specifically to the individual, 100-400 or 400-800 type of runner. These types of days would most likely come on Monday and Friday, with Wednesday being some kind of repeats (4 400s, etc), with tempo running or longer runs for the distance type people on the Tues and Thurs.
Please pick this apart and set me straight.
A lot of people will do their accel work then add in an SE rep at the end of the workout. Why 400m repeats? Why have 800m guys if these are supposed to be foodball players? Where is the work in the weightroom? I don’t see any problem with using what you would use with a 100m sprinter for a high school football guys with possibly a little more weightlifting.
Thanks for the reply. 400 repeats would probably be the longest we would go due to motivation / burnout - the kids don’t like it.
We are a very small high school - about 45 kids per grade. Almost all of the 30-35 kids that will come out for track are 3 or 4 sport athletes whose first priorities are football, bball, and baseball. They are out for track just to be better athletes (and because I say so). Unfortunately, there are only 12 100 and 200 (combined) athletes that can run in meets because we can only enter 2 in each individual event and one relay team. If you want to have a good track team, the 400s and 800s are huge.
Anyway, I hope you can see why I need a lot of them to go longer, which nobody really wants to do.
I’m glad you asked about the weights. We have a confusing, but fairly good weight program for a high school. My FBers lift year round with a template that resembles Defranco’s WS4SB. About 60-70% of them lift during weight lifting class (PE) anywhere from 3-4 times a week. Right now it is set up for them to do a ME upper type lift, a ME lower type lift, a RE upper type lift and a dynamic lower type lift. The lifts and sets / reps are varies a little bit every 2 weeks or so. I can go into more detail if necessary.
The kids that can’t get into weights PE lift in the morning at 7 am. If they are in season, they lift two times (ME lower and ME or RE upper - they don’t do the DE lower). If they are out of season, they lift 3 times per week. They do the same lifts. I am thinking about allowing them to lift lower one time per week after a speed workout, and encouraging them to either do the lower workout at 7 am that day, or after the track workout to make sure they are recovered.
What do you think? Thanks again for your time and help.
I guess you’re going to have to go away from what is optimal if you want success as a team on the track. What you may want to consider is simply increasing the fitness levels of the guys quite a bit (more than needed for the 100m/200m), like high volumes of extensive tempo (3000m x 3 a week) along with medball and core circuits (hundreds of medball throws with little rest) as a way to still keep a focus on the developments of speed and strength, but still have some alright 400m/800m guys. You could keep you weights m/w/f and have sprint workouts on M/F and on W have a special endurance session (a few quality reps @ a longer distance, like 300m for example and maybe 3 reps with full recovery). For the guys you want to be more 400m/800m, you could put very tough conditioning (though extensive in the form of extensive tempo and medball circuits) on T/Th.
If you have ANYBODY who is a distance runner, they’re probably a better bet @ the high school level in the 800m unless you have a truly stud 400m sprint guy.
OK. That’s kind of what I was thinking. We will jack up the tempo volume in between speed days. How can I be sure I’m not overtraining them with the high volumes? Any rules I need to follow?
We only have 2 med balls so the med ball circuits are going to be tough. When would you put them in the week if we could do them?
I have gone through this dilemma every year. Nobody really cares if our track progam isn’t good, and I could just train them all to be sprinters I suppose, but that doesn’t seem entirely right and it’s not fun to run in meets if we aren’t prepared the best I know how.
The past 3 years we have had an outstanding run of sprinters. The bad part if that was that our best runnners / examples didn’t want to run anything over 100 m. I worry that if I try to train a kid for distances from 10 m to 400 or even 800 m, I might as well not train him for either. If I do this, am I actually doing anything for the kids?
Thanks for your help Davan. Anyone else with suggestions, feel free.
As long as you build up the volume gradually and the intensity is kept extensive (keep it @ 75% and below with it lower to start with probably and increasing from there if needed).
Medball circuits could go on tempo days or possibly even after your SE day as a form of strength endurance.
Are you doing anything for the kids? Well, it is definitely not optimal, but I am sure it would be better than a lot of the other schools are doing–not that it is a good justification either way. I would still try to find at least one distance runner or two to try to run the 8.