I’m new to this forum but read a lot great things on this site, including CFTS. I do coach sprints and train as an athlete for 400m event. Sorry for my writing b/c English is not my first language.
Many want to know what time a sprinter ran and what is his PB. For sure it’s very important but I think people don’t talk much about improvement years after years and consistency of the results. Not just great PB makes an athlete great, but consistency of high results and sprinting near PB as well. There are so many examples when great results come for one or two seasons at a pretty young age and improvement stops, results might be even not near PB. For sure there many things come to play and training program is one of them.
I give one real example but is not bad one.A sprinter starts to train for sprints seriously at the age of 17 and first season starts with 11.xx. Makes improvement year after year until 26 when he runs 10.18sec. Later his results got worse each year. I don’t think it’s a bad example b/c many peak much earlier and don’t run near their PB’s. However, his coach mentioned that maybe he needed to reduce the intensity for the next macrocycle and maybe he could run very near PB even later on. Thoughts? His program is more short to long and they compete indoors. The highest intensity was exactly prio his 10.18 season. This sprinter was coached by great coach from Sweden and knew Charlie, uses Charlie’s ideas as well.
I know it’s very general question, but do you think that there comes a time when a sprinter might need to reduce intensity for longer period like one macrocycle after years of high intensity training if he wants to be more consistent later on?
When you are talking about reducing intensity, what exactly do you mean?
There is also the option of reducing the total volume of work in lieu of intensity, if the natural intensity increase (due to the athlete improving) starts to become a CNS issue, as Charlie mentioned many times.
T-Slow, I mean reducing total volume of high intensity work after years of using more short to long program and competing indoors as well. Do we have examples when a high level sprinter starts training seriously before 20ies, uses more short to long approach, prepares for indoors as well, peaks at let’s say 25-26 years of age and runs very near PB later on? It might be hard to get such examples b/c injuries, other issues come into play wich don’t allow prepare as planed for indoors and outdoor year after year. I’m not sure but maybe some elite sprinters might show more consistent results years after years who don’t focus much on indoor season and some don’t compete indoors at all. Their GPP is longer, volume of high intensity isn’t at the beginning very high. I think Asafa Powell would be one of such sprinters. For sure he is very talented but show pretty consistent results for solid number of years. I’m not arguing wich approach is better, but maybe a sprinter who uses short to long and prepares seriously for indoors every year, might need to reduce volume of high intensity work for longer if injury doesn’t stop. When this time comes if at all for sure hard to say, it’s an individual matter. How do you think?