I’m trying to plan for my outdoor season right now, after having a fairly disappointing indoor season. Last year I was holding steady at 186.5 lbs, while this year I’ve been walking around at 196 to 200 lbs.
Last year I ran 8.04 indoors, this year only 7.98, which I was not happy with. My minimum goal was to run 7.85, and I did not meet it.
My training age is 3, and I’m 36 years old, so I am a masters sprinter.
Should I go with a 5 or 6 week GPP for the outdoor season, or is that a bit too long? I need to get some general fitness back, and lose some weight.
I am looking toward peaking for meets in the latter part of July (18th to 30th). Any comments would be greatly appreciated!
Your GPP needs to be long enough for you to be in shape enough to handle the first week of your SPP. That’s its function. You may not need more than a 2-3 week GPP after indoors if you have not lost a lot of fitness but it could be longer for a Long to Short programme where more fitness is needed to handle the initial (long) speed endurance work.
He needs to reduce his weight but tempo is ian all season componant. If you put in 8 weeks of GPP now, that leaves 4 weeks of SPP before comp starts with a peak a few weeks after that.
I agree, I was over exaggerating with the 8 weeks. My thinking was with his current sprint level even 8 weeks of gpp would probably improve his performance because I’m sure general fitness is lacking. Some how I seem to sprint well off of GPP type work (hills, ext tempo, and CSW).
Thanks everyone for the responses. I am down in Texas, and have been taking advantage of the warm weather to do the week 1 GPP workouts from The GPP download.
The first two workouts I did were as follows:
Workout 1: Tempo / leg workout
hack squats 3x10x180lbs(+machine)
leg press 3x10x270(+machine)
bike tempo workout
1 set of medball circuit (on fundamentals download- this is tough!)
Workout 2: Speed / upper body workout
warmup 1
warmup 2
3x2x various lunges for 15m with 20m easy accel
2x 10m x2 foot hops
2x 10m x1 foot hops
2x 10m xhops with twist
explosive medball / accels
10x overhead backwards
10x squat throw +10m accel
10x single hop +10m accel
10x double hop +10m accel
hills
8x 30m hill runs with 45 seconds to 1 min rest
ab circuit (GPP download), jog, stretch
Weights: Upper body circuit
bench press
pulldowns
iso machine seated dips
seated rows
bicep hammer curl
dumbbell military press
Do these workouts look ok for week 1 GPP?
Is the consensus somewhere around a 4 week GPP before transitioning to SPP with flat speed and spikes?
Thanks for reading over my post, but I put the time and effort in to explain what I was doing in detail, so it would be helpful if someone could give me a little bit more feedback than “nope.”
What is the problem?
the workouts?
the length of the gpp at 3 to 4 weeks?
I agree that my general fitness is lacking, but I would not like to stay away from specific work for 8 weeks just working on general fitness. I can just up my general fitness component on tempo days while continuing to run my speed days.
I only use two high intensity days anyway, so there is plenty of space for general work throughout the GPP and early SPP, does this sound reasonable?
I had an appointment with Waldemar about a week ago, and he gave me a once over saying I am OK overall, I just need to add more lower back strength and lose fat.
He also stated I was extremely tight in the calf muscles and hamstrings, and was probably not progressing partially due to not receiving regular massage until recently.
Hopefully with massage, cleaning up my diet, and increasing the general component (I wasn’t doing nearly enough before), I will be in better shape come outdoors.
Since you follow Charlie’s methods, you should never be too far away from some specific work, not even during GPP II. I think it was suggested above you keep the general fitness components throughout anyway and you progress the track work etc in the weeks provided to you, if you work from your sought peak backwards -see what you are left with and act accordingly. I don’t think anyone can/should tell you with certainty that 3 or 5 or whatever weeks will be appropriate for you. What you describe in your last post though is a great starting point! Good luck!
I think the outdoor season will really show me the importance of general fitness. I have not been doing nearly enough general fitness work, and by increasing the general component, I have already noticed things just get easier when running.
Charlie told me last year when I had a telephone consult that general fitness is the hardest thing to get his athletes to do, and the most important component to keep in. I’m starting to finally understand what he was talking about.
Your point about not straying too far from track work is well taken. I was thinking of just condensing the GPP more or less, and transitioning from hills to more flat work within 3 to 4 weeks.
I was thinking keep up the explosive medball and hills for a couple weeks, then slowly add in some flat stuff in a couple of weeks, starting with 20’s and maybe a few 30’s while still transitioning from the longer hills.
