I wonder how much general fitness one needs to maximize potential on sprint performance.
Does anyone have general “standard” of where they think an athlete need to be general fitness wise?
I know that sprint is more about acceleration, speed, speed endurance and special endurance (these are specific qualities); however there are general qualities (like general fitness, strength, and power) that are required in training, usually developed during GPP and maintained during SPP. Some athletes depend on these qualities more than others, but we all know that these works are necessary to at least some degree. Otherewise Coach Francis and other great coaches would not include those in the training.
For general cardio, what would you expect? 5 minute mile? 12 minute two mile? or high VO2 max based on international beep test? or just ability to run 100~200m tempo repetitions with appropriate speed that can be sustained?
For something like core strength, would it be like 60 situps a minute or 100 situps in two? or something like 10 minute plank?
Do you think tempos are sufficient in developing general fitness, or do you think other fitness-developing techniques like long-slow distance is required?
Look at the first few minutes of the Edmonton Lecture, where Charlie talks about how you can run faster for the first 2 or 3 sprints of a workout and that those sprints can be run faster if you can have a longer break between the sprints, and then Charlie said “but you have to hold your warmup.” I think I’ve learned that the ability to hold longer breaks between sprints is related to conditioning level (and training age, of course), so the benefit of doing tempo volumes is something you don’t see when you’re doing it–you see the benefit in the next phase(s) when it lets you go faster in workouts. I see benefit from ~2K of tempo twice a week in GPP, similar to the Jamaican programs, going ET => IT => SE1 late in the phase.
We always talk science in track, which is cool, don’t mistaken that here. But there are other aspects with science, like attitude. One is, that sprinters dislike doing distance runs. They despise it. I think its better to do tempo with shorter breaks, and distances of 100-200 per rep. That’s my experience. You’re more likely to convince them to do something like ikh said, as opposed to going on a 2 mile run.
From the science side, I doubt that distance running for conditioning --even at VO2max rate–develops the ability to produce ATP at a high enough rate to be able to sustain that ATP fast enough for sprinting. There’s a youtube showing Mo Farah in the UK Superstars “sprinting” a blazing 12.98. Then see Bolt and Powell in Jamaica in late January running 45-46 point (and Gay running sub-45 once): That’s why sprinters don’t do distance running maybe since Bud Winter in the 1960’s, because tempo works better as Charlie said many times. On this site, you can find:
(1)Charlie mentioned Ben doing 7X300 tempo (I don’t think recovery was mentioned)
(2)If you look at the s-l example program in the Vancouver and Edmonton handouts, speed is M-W-F, and presumably ET is T-Th
(3)Steve Francis describing MVP doing tempo (IT) like 6X300 or 4X450
(4)PJ mentioning Bolt doing repeats of 350-450 in winter.
I personally don’t have a grass track like they have in Jamaica, so I do 3X5X130+ as track diagonals on grass, with the recovery being walking across the width of the track. Just do it. I don’t think the type of tempo program matters that much.
Whether to continue this after you start SE/SE1 in the following phases I think is more of a discussion issue.
Interesting I have coached a couple of athletes who liked to go for a 20-30 minute run at least once a week. I would say at least half of them had better seasons when they did these runs. Since most of the ET work is recovery, I found if they did it truly at an easy pace it provided greater mental recovery then tempo did…
CF always said work the area that gives the greatest improvement first, that is more likely to be the general fitness then acceleration improvement.
That being said, I reckon if someone can do 20 x 100, in sets of five in 18 seconds (30 sec rest/reps, 1-2 min rest/sets) you are pretty fit
So you’re saying there’s an indirect effect of enhancing speed by being able to train at a higher level for more portion of a training session by being able to take longer breaks and run faster in the later sets. Do you see any direct effect of having better conditioning and how would you determine that one’s fitness level is enough? by being good at tempo??
Oh don’t get me wrong; I HATE distance running. I hate anything done for a long time with no break. However, I’ll still do it if it can be used to improve my speed. Do you think tempos are no less effective in 1-3 mile runs?
So you’re saying long slow distance like 1-3 miles at vo2 max rate doesn’t really help for speed, but it’s certainly helpful to use longer tempos? 300m or 450 tempos are MUCH longer than any tempo reps I’ve ever heard of. The best example of tempo I know is the Big Circuit I see from GPP video, where the reps are all 100s and 200s. So you think doing longer tempos up to maybe 400 or so is good for speed? I would think the distance runners only running sub 13 is due to poor mechanics (sprinting wise that is) and lack of explosiveness due to not training specifically for speed.
I was wondering if those slow long runs can provide not only better recovery, but also general conditioning than tempo. Maybe based on your athletes’ example, there are those who respond well to long slow runs. I was thinking that I may be too unfit to even sprint decently due to the fact my 1 mile and 2 mile times are sub standard (upper 6 minutes and upper 14 minutes). As I stated above, specificity in sprints and 2 mile run are different, but these times are horrible. It’s like 16 second (which would be below average, which I read for non-trained people the average is 15s) 100m dash type of performance, as average ACTIVE and HEALTHY young males can usually run around 14mins20s-30s 2 miles without actually training for running.
I was shocked with how horrible I am with 1 and 2 miles, as I’ve trained hard with tempos before (although for a short period of time) and got to a point where I can run 4x4x100 tempo (my most common tempo session, as I suck at 200m reps) at around 18 seconds with 30 sec bw reps and 1-1.5 min bw sets.
No I think my athletes who responded to the longer runs was more due to the mental recovery, or the ability to use the run as a brain dumping session.
I have only ever had one athlete attempt the big circuit in the long format, that is 300-500-600-500-300, and we did it twice and pulled the plug as it was just too tough for him. He runs 10 minutes for 3km.
I think tempo with med balls or body weight is the way to go.
To provide some perspective, albeit from a different sport with a significant aerobic demand, when I coached the National 15’s/7’s (Rugby) in Portugal, my backs quite easily completed up to 3000m total of tempo per session (split between 100, 200, and 300m reps) at a 15-17sec per 100m pace (hand timed). Keep in mind I had wingers that weighed +100kg.
After each rep they would immediately perform 10-20 pushups or 20-50 abdominal reps, then walk 20-60sec (depending on the length of the rep) and run another one.
[b]You would NEVER catch Charlie telling anyone to do a 2 mile run ever.
Too bad if sprinters don’t like tempo. Ben did it. Angie did it. They all did it. Tempo can be anything providing it models something like big circuit , small circuit , the bike workout, the pool sets .[/b]
Those are amazing times for tempo but this sport is so demanding in so many ways there is no way you would want your players being anything less than super fit. You are talking about the pushup / sit up circuits we did extensively. 10 pushups / 20 sit-ups but no walking.
You are absolutely right Lkh. You have learned this through your experience. I’ve spoken a great deal on here about readiness of training by routine performance of regeneration and repeating tempo however you can get it done. People complain about not having the ability to do tempo on the grass. Innovate and make sure it gets done because it’s the ticket to fitness (in part)but no one likes it. It’s boring. It’s time consuming . It’s not exciting. Use the pool or bike or both to bump up your ability to do the tempo. It’s a trick that really works but then you also have to watch it because it takes time for the feet and shins and everything in the lower extremities to adapt.
That’s amazing fitness that you’re athletes had. Would you say that such training helps speed or would you say it’s something that was more of specific needs for rugby players due to the nature of the sport as Coach Coon says?
So you don’t really have numerical standards as to where people need to be fitness wise? Would you depend more on the artistic judgement of experienced coach to make that determination, rather than saying something like high school boys need to be at 16 second pace for the big circuit, girls at 17?
Do you have standards regarding pushups and situps? I can do over 80 pushups and 90 situps in 2 minutes, but seems so weak compared to people who can do 70 situps in a minute and do reps of over 100 pushup for depletion pushups.
With regards to your recipe analogy, I feel like I’ve done a lot to learn the science aspects of training, but I just don’t seem to have the art to make that science fully applicable to real-life training. It’s something I think I will need a lot of time in order to overcome with experience. I feel I know a lot of scientific principles, but I don’t know how to put it altogether based on gut senses (like making decision on how to distribute volume over days of week, and how quickly one can progress, etc).