Ok, let me explain so far. This year I was chosen as the coordinator for track and field (athletics) for my faculty and originally we had a tight budget to “hire” a coach, however the faculty dean decided to not give us any money, and I ended up being the track teams coach as well. I was hoping you guys could help me because I’m gonna have to set up a training regime for sprinters, middle distance runners, jumpers and throwers (not the throwers cos they train by themselves as in they already have a coach as do I) but how can I compatibilize a GPP with training being only one day a week on saturday mornings. The idea is to have these guys in as good condition as I can get them by october (which is when the national dental faculty meet is, all other inter faculty meets are obligatory for them, but not as important to them.).
Is it possible to have all these people (15 in total) that do different events training together??? and how would I then go onto specializing them for their respective events.
Should I run some diagnostic races to see where they are at?? and see what they want to do??
Please help, as I feel as though I’m in over my head here.
You can have one group on the track/field but each sub group doing different workouts easily. You need to make a plan for them and have them workout on their own during the week with saturday being the main workout.
For starters get a sample program for distance and mid distance to at least have a template to work from. For all sprinting you won’t have any problem. Since you’re working with a group with no base, 100-400m. sprinters can all work together on base work, they all equally need it. Then I would separate distance and mid-distance. Distance will probably have to go out by themselves for their ultralong runs, mid-distance runners will need a speed component (speed for them is 200). For weights (if you do any) you can throw them all together to do general/simple work, ie your standard lame program with leg extensions, leg curls, bench press, arm curls, etc.
As to the specific workouts, to be blunt, I think that you might as well do nothing if you plan to do 1x a week. With 1x a week you can barely work on getting these subjects in some type of shape TO TRAIN (an extensive tempo session for the sprint subjects, long jogs/runs for long distance, etc). If you want to get these subjects in shape TO COMPETE they’ll need another session where you do specific work (speed for sprinters, endurance for longer distances, etc). If you definitely cannot possibly get them to train another day a week you’ll have to combine specific and general the same day, but quality of each component will suffer dramatically (because you’ll have to do 1/2 or less the volume of a normal session of each component).
I think that the main thing you need to do is read as much as you can. Coe’s book and Vigil’s books for mid-distance and distance respectively are great for learning how to set up those athletes. Those books also have good ideas for diagostics as well. As for their weights, i don’t see why they can’t do squats for reps,lots of ab work and plyos (although in a different manner).
For the sprinters, i think you know what books to find
I agree completely with both of you. Ideally I could have them in my power an extra day a week, but to be honest, at the competition these kids are gonna be competing in, the competitors aren’t really well prepared, so if I do the GPP and SPP combined they should be in better condition than their competitors who most… don’t train at all, and anyway… I have until october to kick their asses into shape.
So far on sat. I did some jogging, some drills and some short ascentions, this sat. I’m thinking of having them do some “tempo” with some weight component or plyos.
I thought you didn’t have much time. If you have till October it’s a completely different story. That’s over 20 weeks time, so you can work on general fitness exclusively for at least half of that time and then begin to do specific work (they’ll progress quickly with speed work since their current level is very poor). Start off by creating a plan like you would for yourself. It will be very simple as you barely have a session to plan out a week, and just 20something sessions to plan out in total. The progression should be simple and linear to plan. This also solves your problem for distance runners temporarily, you can just send them for long runs for now while you research exactly what type of specific work they need to do to get into competitive shape.
exactly, I was thinking of getting this guy running the 400 in about a minute flat and then work from there. If he can run the 400 in a minute flat, then I’ts just a matter of putting 5 of them together. The thing that complicates me a bit, is handling the women, because usually (no offense to the fairer sex) are not very good friends with discomfort. And training produces that, be it soreness or lactic acid buildup, etc…
I guess I’ll have to do some psych motivation with them.
I do however really want to push the massage concept with them and get them to start massaging each other (it shouldn’t take that much out of them) and help their recovery and regeneration.
