RB34
August 14, 2009, 11:41pm
6
Well at the NCAA level 2-3 weeks is the norm between indoor and outdoor and this is the reason why so many coaches prefer to follow a l-s or intensive tempo scheme. I agree with using the gpp for accel development, spp for top speed development but I also think it would be useful to include some longer sprint work in the program. Competing in a couple indoor 200’s would also help the athlete transition to outdoors.
Definitely
I’ve seen so much wasted talent due to poor coaching and facilities its amazing.
Best example I’ve seen to date: One of my competitors had been doing collegiate track for 4 years. His school had a pretty much non existent track program, but he managed to have a coach, but lacked a proper facility to train in during the winter. I believe they resorted to training at a rink. His 60m times hovered around 7.3-7.2s.
In his last year of eligibility, he moved out west for graduate studies. He was able to train at a proper facility with the exact same coach sending him workouts. He hit 6.8s that season. I was amazed when I saw this. At the championships I asked him: “What the hell dude!” haha. He said, “All I did was train on a track consistently”. I’m still shocked to this day by his progress.
I’ve also heard of groups of athletes training in school gyms during the winter.
With that being said, top notch facilities are definitely not prerequisites for progression, but if you only have 30m, its going to seriously limit potential.
The two week gap between indoors and outdoors would be tough, especially from a championship situation, when you need to qualify for regionals,ect… quickly. I think the less ideal the situation the more creative thinking is needed. When switching from indoors to outdoors so quickly, it is probably important to use the competition as training, I think this is the heart of the issue in this thread. My guess would be that volumes during these competition weeks would need to be higher than typical competition weeks. So include the competitions as training days, and build what you need (endurance or possibly even speed), while competing. I would expect competition times to vary way more than usual, tapering for the important meets would be vital to success.
The longer the competition period the better in this situation because it allows you to sustain a higher volume for longer before tapering down for major competitions. Remember you need progressive intensification to improve, and competitions only offer a limited intensification. Thats why we train beyond those volumes and taper down.
But ideally, these things should be in place before competition. Then all you’ve got to worry about is the bang of that gun and that new pb you’re going to set.