How did you approach the situation where injury effectivcely stopped progression of your plan thru the three stages of Acceleration,Max Velocity,and Speed end for the 100/200m
For example if the Accelleration phase was finished and in a maintence situation say midway thru the Max Vel phase and injury struck and required 4 to 6 weeks to get back to normal function-- did you pick up from where you were in the MV phase and push the S/E phase forward 4 to 6 weeks and complete the MV phase ?
Also what about loss of performance in the Accelleration dept, how did you refit this back into the original plan?
What was done during the injury period? Were you kept in shape somehow? What was the injury? You can’t start right where you stopped–you don’t have the same prep you had then. What are the key dates and competitions? Work backwards from the key dates and see what necessary elements need to be completed in the time you have. Some of the more experienced members can probably expand on this, maybe with some stories/examples?
As soon as they get injured you have to change your plan. You have to decide what they can and can’t do and look for ways to keep as much conditioning as possible with what they are able to do. If they can still bench press/overhead press hit the weights room. How about the pool? How about EMS? Vibration training? etc etc…
Now once you are back on track you need to assess what you still have and what you level you are at. The goldern rule in any training programme is progression. If you have lost a lot of your conditioning then you can’t handle much volume initally. If you have lost your ability to accelerate to top speed (over 50-60m) then you can’t really jump straight in with SE because there is no speed to learn to maintain. So assess decide where the athlete is and start the progression from that point not the point you left off because frankly you arn’t ready and athletes who arn’t prepared get injured.
Of course if you have gotten extremely strong during the time off from track work you may actually be better at some things… so you need to assess and readjust the programme to what the athlete can safely handle and work from there. As already pointed out work backwards from the key dates and decide what is achievable. If you only have 2 weeks left then maybe you shouldn’t be racing and use those extra weeks to prepare for the next training phase.
Thanks Davan and TC0710 for your response to my post .
You have reinforced in my mind the approach to this kind of situation at any time thruought the year, be it pre comp or during comp.
It reinforces the short to long approach of Charlies methods and in particular the fact that each component — accel speed s/e must be in place to achieve and maintain the next step, even if it is deep into the comp period.
I guess the main thing is to avoid is the tendency to want to stick to the timelines of the seasons plan when injury,sickness,etc compromise it and remember the “golden rule” that maximum performance rests on the three major components being in place?