Indoor Season Help

system · February 4, 2010, 4:34pm

Hey Charlie and all,

I tried e-mailing Angela, but I know everyone in your family is extremely busy right now. If you or anyone else on the board has any time, advice would be appreciated:

I started out my indoor season on Dec. 19 running a PR in the 55m (6.34). The race was quite poor ‘technically’ from tightening up (I believe this is from a lack of racing as it was my first race in 2 years because of injuries and I was in an extremely fast race with a pro sprinter next to me), so under the circumstances the time was surprising and gave an indication of much better times ahead with more racing and unloading.

Since then, I have slowly gotten slower in all aspects of the races (despite my training sessions seemingly going well). I believe it is from a combination of overracing and overtraining through the meets (I was told to do all training runs including the flies maximally by a well respected coach and then worry about unloading later in February). I’ve heard many conflicting opinions from very smart people, so I’m at a loss of what to do now or if it is worth running again this soon. I don’t know whether to scrap the rest of indoors and prepare for outdoors or to taper into a meet on Feb 13. Here has been my training since then:

system · February 4, 2010, 4:40pm

Olys = Powerclean from floor unless noted.
PS = Powersnatch
FoamR = Foam Rolling

twhite03 · February 4, 2010, 8:21pm

Looking forward to Charlie’s response.

python023 · February 4, 2010, 8:35pm

6.88-6.90 60m is worth about 6.4-6.43 55m, I believe. So it seems as though you’ve hit PB levels again, but it is surprising that you have not surpassed them since the 6.43 was your opener. Do you think your muscle tone was too low after a week of nothing but therapy and warm-ups (W5)? Perhaps supercompensation is in the works and will manifest itself come Feb 13?

twhite03 · February 4, 2010, 8:42pm

The opener was 6.34 and from the footage I saw it looked like he had <6.25 in the bag without a stumble in the final.

Stikki · February 4, 2010, 8:46pm

What did you do the prior two months before the first race? What are the weightlifts in regards to percent of max?

system · February 4, 2010, 9:05pm

The training I had for the two months prior was like this:

Monday:
3-4x30m
4-5x Fast/Easy/Fast OR Flying 20m
Weights:
Powercleans 8-12x2 paired with single leg hops (8 reps each leg) onto the platform (~3-4" amplitude) between sets
Side Lunges (BW or very low load) 3x8+8

Wednesday
3-4x20m
3x3x55m (R: 5-7mins / 10-12mins; most workouts stopped after 6 reps because of hitting training PRs each workout)
Weights:
Bench Press 3x4-6
Lat PD or Weighted Chins 2-4x4-6

Friday
10-12x20m
8-10x2 Powersnatch paired with single leg hops (8 reps each leg) onto the platform (~3-4" amplitude) between sets
Unilateral RDL (light) 3x8+8

Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday all tend to be low intensity workouts of some form (non-running). Warm-up + GS or BB circuits or Pool workouts or something like that. Once every couple of weeks I’d also do an easy upper body workout on Saturday.

I got therapy (60-90mins of massage) during this period on Sundays and Wednesdays. Sometimes I’d have a third massage session. Basically identical to the current situation.

system · February 4, 2010, 9:18pm

Weights overall are fairly low intensity. Weights volume now is lower than it was then and intensities basically the same. Strength levels right now are still good–static lifts (like bench) are nearly the same with substantially less work. I benched 355 in early November or late October (forget the exact day) and started taking upper body work very easy after that. I haven’t gone hard on lower body work at all recently and use volume as my main stimulus for lower body versus peaking % of 1RM.

The main issue I see is this:
In SPP I had 2 very hard training days a week (sprinting wise) and 1 other day that was a bit more medium, but still high intensity. My fastest training run during this period is equivalent to ~.4 slower (electronic timing AND video times to confirm this) than my OPENER and is still slower than any run (including prelims) I had this season. I’m just not able to get up the same way for practice as I am for meets.

Now, looking over the past 5-6 weeks or so, I have meets every weekend, which are way higher intensity than any sprint workout I had during SPP, 1 workout that is ~ equal to my hardest SPP workouts, and then a premeet which is roughly equal to my Friday sessions during SPP. Total volume ends up being nearly the same, but intensities much higher and no time off. I took every 4th week VERY easy during this period (as in, weights -20% vol and 10% intensity; 2 sprint days with one of them being just 90% runs). I haven’t taken any week THAT easy since the meet.

Football28 · February 4, 2010, 9:37pm

If I may I will you use your term “overreached”, I think you are slightly overreached more so from going all out Mon-Fri then expecting great things on Sat. Your training look solid and if you take it easy for 10-14 days I could see you going big later this month.

Training concerns:

1: I would add at least one track tempo session, your setup is great for bobsled etc but I feel a sprinter needs at least one ext tempo session.

2: I would like to see more lower body work squats 2x6x70% or Rev lunges etc.

person · February 4, 2010, 9:57pm

looking forward to specific discussions about this real case study. The art of not fatiguing, getting flat, or stale (too many races) is a hard one.

It would be nice to see what charlie would do to rectify this.

Football28 · February 5, 2010, 1:15am

Hey FOG what were you expecting/hoping to run this season?

Looking back I think you have had a pretty successful season esp where you are coming from. Since you haven’t raced in 2yrs maybe you had a little extra adrenaline for the Dec meet, looking at your times you been avg 6.40-.3 not that far off from that 6.34.

Either way 6.34 or 6.40 nice Pr’s this season!!

system · February 5, 2010, 1:26am

About to go to bed here:

As you’ve, Football, have seen (I think), the race was pretty ugly and I barely unloaded for it (hardest workout of the year was 7 days before the race). 3 different coaches who don’t know each other personally, but have coached 10.0-10.1 athletes said that 6.65-6.70 60m, with tapering and running a clean race is within reason and one I spoke to a few days ago actually got angry with me about what I did training wise (wish he said something with that tone earlier).

Always happy to PR, but I expected better out of myself and the training times from Nov/Dec pointed to that as well. I’m talking to the big man next week and he’ll be the ultimate authority.

Football28 · February 5, 2010, 1:39am

Great, the indoor season isn’t over, unload for 10-14 days finish the indoor season strong with 1-2 meets.

Football28 · February 12, 2010, 9:18pm

How are things going?