Charlie has stated that if you must split your track and weight room workouts, that you should allow at least 4 hours between training sessions. What if this is not an option? If an athlete is forced to travel to another site for strength training, but can only do so within a short time frame, what will the phsysiological consequences be and how will they likely manifest themselves? Is this a situation in which the training will just not be ideal, or would this constitute a major fault in the training program?
During the offseason, every Saturday I separate speed and weights by four hours and the other two speed sessions of the week if I am doing weights I start them about 20 minutes after the speed session. I really don’t think it makes that much of a difference as far as weights lifted. I recently followed the Smolov squat cycle (http://www.charliefrancis.com/board/philboard_read.asp?id=1500). I was able to do the full one even though I am not using steroids, and I did the first two weeks right after my speed session (I guess maybe I’m a mixed bag fibre type guy:(). On the third weeks I gave myself four hours break in between the speed session and felt that I probably would not have been able to do the workouts if I had not given myself this time. So, I maybe couldn’t have added the extra ten pounds if I had followed my speed session with the weights. But, that really doesn’t matter too much, because if you’re going that heavy for yourself you’re going to have to reduce speed volume a lot, which you’re probably not going to want to do during most of the year. I’m really rambling, sorry, but I think it doesn’t make too much of a difference.
brian,
Look at it this way: what are your options? If you can only get your weight work in right after your track work, then is it better to do the weight work or not? (I hope the answer to this is clear!)
I generally do my weight work as soon after my sprinting as possible. And I seem to recall seeing some info from Charlie that he often did the same with his athletes. In general I don’t think it is a big deal either way. If you do it right after, then you have maximal time between speed sessions. If you wait a number of hours, then you have a better opportunity to recover between the two training modalities.
The implications of doing one versus the other are that you may need to lower the weight volume if they are done close, but your speed sessions should be fine. If you space out the track and weights, you will need to make sure that you have enough recovery time between the end of the weights and the beginning of the next track session.
xlr8
I forgot to mention this in my first post. It might seem like, why lift afterwards if lifts can be done less intensely and the thinking behind Charlie’s principles are focus on quality and not quantity? I think the answer to this is that lifts only have to be above 80% to present a high intensity stimulus, while running has to be 95% or above. I think even on the most intense of speed days for the vast majority of people on this site 80% of maximum lifting capacities would still be in tact.
Pete
In lifting, the criteria is 80% of max lift by weight for high int stimulation. That’s why only lifts above this weight are counted in establishing workloads. Of course, the lifting required at a lower level to warm-up for the high int lifts may compromise the amt of high int lifting that can be done. This is one reason to look at the benefits of using the warm-up you already have from sprinting for the lifts.
Thanks Charlie. I was saying that since 80% is a high intensity stimulus its OK that you can’t go 100% after a track session, you can still get a high intensity stimulus. That’s a good point about the warmup.
I have split weights up everyway you can think. After speedwork was ok (but my maxes werent) after tempo was ok also depending on how hard the tempo was and how sore I was from the speedwork. I have taken 4 hours splits which have played too my favor and four hour splits that have not meaning I was better lifting right away. Its a tough balance Im still trying to figure out the best way to handle all the compenents.
dr.sprint