Designing training schedule for myself and my friend

Expert Discussion Advanced Sprint Training
1

Indoor season is about to end, and we are looking up to outdoor with inspiration. For both of us this is the second year of outdoor and the first year of indoor. Our coaches are all long distance runner and dont know much about sprinting, so they will allow us to design and do our own sprint workouts in outdoor. However i dont know exactly what i’d doing so i am here asking for help from more experienced people.

first of all, our stats:

Me: age 18 My friend/teammate - age 17
height - 6’0 height - 6’2
weight - 175 weight - 165
max bench - 300 max bench - 205
max squat - around 350 max squat - around 350(like me)
max cleans - 260 max cleans - 2
100m - 11.89 FAT last year outdoor 200 - 25 flat FAT(last year)
200m - 25 flat FAT last year oudoor 400 - 53.6 FAT this year indoor
long jump - 20’2.5 - this year indoor triple jump - 42’6.5 this year
55m - 6.85 - this year indoor 300 - 39.18 FAT
300 - 40.34 FAT (very bad, i know)

As you can see i am pretty strong but i lack speed endurance. My friend has much more endurance but his top speed and acceleration arent too good.

this year I am focusing on 100, 200 and LJ. My friend is doing 200, 400 and TJ

I was thinking about doing the same pure speed workouts but different speed endurance sessions ( for ex. i would start off with 2X3X300 at 80% effort and gradually move down to 2x300 at 95+% before competition. As for my friend, i’d thought he would start off with 3x500 at 80% and first move down to 400’s and then 300’s at higher percentage effort before the competition.) Does that seem like the right idea?

Also, what about tempo sessions - should they be the same for both of us, or should mine be shorter?

Will 1 day of plyometrics be enough per week?

And after the competition starts, what should our workouts look like? Training begins in ealy March, the first meet in on April 15th, and peaking should occur around mid May.

Here is a weekly outline of workouts before the competiton:

Day1 - starts, speed, lower body weights
day2 - Tempo
day3 - speed endurance
day4 - Tempo, upper body weights
day5 - starts, speed, plyos, lower body weights
day6 - jog, long jump / triple jump technique, upper body weights

well this is my story. I’d appreciate all suggestions and opinions. Thanks.

2

Keep all your workouts above 95% or below 65%. The in between stuff is unfruitful. Instead of moving down in Volume, start high in intesity, and move up in Volume as you grow accustomed. Start with 1 x 300m @ 95%. Then, increase volume and maintain intensity.

Keep your weights to speed days only, and use Tempo days as strictly recovery days. Keep out of the weight room on these days (unless you are doing abs).

Day1 - starts, speed, Upper Body Weights (best to do more general lifts to target more/larger areas).
day2 - Tempo
day3 - special endurance, lower body weights
day4 - Tempo
day5 - starts, speed endurance, long jump / triple jump technique (at high intesity and include as overall daily volume), Upper Body Weights
day6 - Tempo
day7-chill and relax.

3

Good advice from Herb. <clap> <clap>

You appear to be strong for your speed, so I like how he has you splitting your lifts and doing only one lower body workout per week. Focus on high quality running so that you learn to apply that strength to the track.

4

Thanks for replies. What about the in-competition training? I’m guessing speed edurance would be cut down to 1 session per week, and the actual competitoin would be counted as another SE workout.

Also, on day 5, Herb pointed out that speed endurance and jumping technique should be done together. Would jumping go first before the running?

And also, for my friend, should he start out with 1x500 and then move up? His endurance seems to be pretty good already. Should we do the same tempo sessions? Could someone please give me an example of a good recovery tempo workout?

5

I have found that most sprinters can not tolerate that workload. Try timing your sprints if on fri you are not running faster than you did on monday than you are really not making much progress. You want to be fully regenerated for each training session.

6

CLJACKSON04,

There is no real workload prescribed, mostly just workout type and frequency. As far as timing from one day to another, it is good for general monitoring, but you can’t really compare a speed endurance day with a pure speed day. Even comparing Monday to Monday is not the best way to monitor your athletes. There are too many variables like weather, stress, wind, how the athlete has been eating, sleeping, etc.

Chris T. in his Black Book makes the comment that strength improvement is not linear, as in you won’t improve every time you do bench or squats (even on a proper program). It is the same with speed.

7

Timing, However Is The Best Way To Determine If Your Getting Faster On A Weekly Basis. Although There Are Many Varibles, These Varibles Are Ever-present, Thus A Constant, Which Allows You To Relie On Your Athletes Times. I Remember On The Old Forum You Kept A Journal, Did You Find You Could Do Three Weekly Workouts. I Find That 3 Workouts Is Too Much. What Happens When A 300lb Bench Presser Begin To Try To Bench As Frequently As Possible While Not Completely Recovered? In 6 Weeks Hes Lost Strength, The Same Applys To This Situtation.

8

RE 3 Workouts per week:
Take a look at the Forum reveiw page 131 where Charlie outlines two different weekly schedules. One with 3 High intesity days, and one with 2. My athletes do both depending on how they are feeling. For my more developed atheltes, who do only track, 3 is manageable.

RE Timing:
I time almost everything. My point was that you cannot expect weekly improvements with timing because of the aforementioned variables. Timing works, but over longer periods of time. Week to week is not enough time to notice any improvement, if there was any to begin with. I know for a fact that my athletes will not run personal bests every week.