ACOOPER - I like the point you brought up there about matching weights and track work to use the same energy systems, but my only question would be, how do you periodize such a program?
Also, is this you definition of each type of rep scheme you mentioned?:
Low reps - 1-4
Low-Mod - 4-8
Mod-High - 8-12
As for periodisation i would organise work on a supply for demand system. So i would work from a base plan of say short-to-long and use this merely as a guide for the direction of development. The goal of the season would be to start from accl’s and max speed and move through the yr turning the focus towards increasing speed endurance and special endurance. But at any point through out the season i would split what would be 3 sessions in a 7 day (1 week) microcyle into focus and supplementry with the balance between the No. of focus sessions and No. of supplementry per week depenent on how much supplementry work was required at a given time. Gym sessions would be placed on the days on which the type of session is targeting what is a weakness for you.
I’ll try to clarify this with a couple of examples:
Lets say an 400m athlete is in pre-competition phase of the season. The focus of this time of the season has been decided as special endurance and strength development is in the special endurance anergy bracket. Supplementry work is max speed. the MWF week would look like:
Mon- Special end. (3 x 300m) - Gym - 3x8 reps w/60s recovery
Wed- Max Speed. (4 x flyin 20m, 4 x 60m bends) - No demand no Gym
Fri- Special end. (5 x 200m) - Gym - 4x6 reps w/60s recovery
This time the 400m athlete is in the same phase but is lacking power and speed, the week would be organised to correct the balance as:
Mon - Max Speed. - Gym - 4x2 reps w/3min rec.
Wed - Special end. - (3 x 300m) - No Gym
Fri - Max Speed. - Gym - 3x3 reps w/3min rec.
Finally consider a 400m athlete who has more than sufficient speed but is lacking endurance.
Mon- Special end. (4 x 40m 2 x 300m) (the 40s are to maintain speed and act as power work)
Fri- Special end. (5 x 200m) - Gym - 4x8 reps w/60s recovery
I hope these examples make sense, it’s a bit hard to right down exactly what i’m thinking. And they are only very loose examples so don’t over analyse them.
So in conclusion you would have focus sessions in line with the development area you are in, in your periodised yr, the supplementry work is to build any weaknesses and the balance is addressed acordingly depending on how weak you are in a given area, and gym work is used either on focus days if your training balnce is inline with your periodisation or on supplementry work if you are some what off target. In areas that you’re strong then no gym work is needed and the focus is on quality sessions.
We know we should be working at approx 90-95% of max. But with sessions like:
3 x 12 off 45secs, what intensity level are we looking at? I mean is there any specific protocols for this kind of work to allow it be applied universally?
Thanks for such an in-depth response Alan. I appreciate it.
athlete - I would think, since you ARE doing 12 reps, that you would be doing basically a 12RM which would be in the 70-80% 1RM range. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong.
I can’t answer across the board. It depends on the current musculature and body-type, no of training years, response to weights, nature of program (short to long or long to short), time available in the training block and the current emphasis within that block.
As a rule, due to the special endurance qualities in sprinting, the “pyramid” of lifts tends to be wider at the base than you’d find with weightlifters, for example.
Does anyone want to throw out some examples by training year from start to top?
For the 400m athlete that is lacking power and speed, how much recovery would you give them in between the 300s? 10-15 min? 15-20 min.? Less than 10 min? What would you normally give them?
DaGovernor, Remember these are only simple examples, anyway the recovery would be anything up to 25mins depending how long is needed to recover. I tyr to achive full recovery between runs because i want each run to be stand alone and run at max, rather than accumulating fatigue throughout the succesive runs.
Yeah I understand they are only examples. I was just asking to get a better understanding of what you say.
I have another question. . . . .
How do you know when to take the focus off of developing power and speed specifically? I mean, if you decide to emphasize this method of training to work on speed and power, when do you know that you have succeeded? Even further I mean, improvement of time I would assume is not enough. So what specific signs do you look for to determine when you’ve done enough, or is this worked on for the rest of the season?
You need to know what qualities you need to run your ideal race and bascically work on bringing them into line when you need them. I can’t throw any figures at you, coss i don’t know them, but you need to look at you performances in the key areas across the board, so you would need to have an idea of you max speed (timed flyin 20), special endurance (time runs over 100,200,300m) and lactate tolerance (timed runs something like 5x200 on 2min rec. or 2x500m) and use the results to hi-light any weakness that need bringing into line.
You could try this link: http://www.brianmac.demon.co.uk/con400.htm I don’t know how accurate/useful it is as i havn’t used it, these ideas of mine are just that at the moment- ideas, so feel free to develop them as you can.
Unfortunatly i’m on holiday for 3wks now so i won’t be able to add any more input till then, hopefully you guys can develop them untill then.
I am currently trying this method with some sprinters who came out for track not too long ago. SO FAR, I’d say it’s not working for the simple fact that in all of their races 200m, 400m, the 100m splits are all slower than the previous one. Maybe this is how it’s initially supposed to work, but I’m now skeptical of training this way.
To what degree will the lactate occur with the 8 x 200 session? This seems to be on the high end of ext. tempo (74-79% range) so I’m guessing not a lot.
Also, with the 3 x 200 @ 95%+ session, is 45 min. rest really necessary? Won’t you achieve the same results with anywhere from 15-25 min. rest?
I don’t know about the 4 x 300 @ 90% with 10 min. rest session being lactate tolerance. That workout is more quality than tolerance. You may achieve some burn, but not enough to consider it lactate tolerance.
As far as the 3 x 200 with 90 seconds then 200 with 10 min. rest, I’m sure you’d achieve lactate with that workout.
Why would you NOT want to have anything left after the last rep? Why not adjust the recovery enough so you can get accumulate a high level of lactate, but at the same time be able to hit your goal times?
“When you do the 3-3 x 120-150 workout, how much rest are you getting between sets/reps? At what intensity is this session?”
15 minutes.
“I don’t know about the 4 x 300 @ 90% with 10 min. rest session being lactate tolerance. That workout is more quality than tolerance. You may achieve some burn, but not enough to consider it lactate tolerance.”
No way!!! It sounds like it but no. We are 35 point 300 meter runners. In that particular workout we ran 37,37,42,43!!!After that second rep your legs are in complete burn like you just finished the 400 in a meet and that burn last almost right up until the next rep hence the 42!! Then the last rep is pretty much we have not a single thing left and we are jogging… Hence the 43! This workout is not quality after the first 2 reps it is lactate tolerance. Try it yourself or with your athletes.
