You guys are going crazy with all this contrast training.
Wouldn’t you if you’d dropped .55 from one race to the next??
For some odd reason I did this workout 36 hours before a meet!
Ran a pb in the 100 heats while easing up then pbed by 2 tenths in the finals all out to the line with 0 wind.
200m time… 2.5 tenths pb.
No injuries at all.
You guys are crazy! Congrats on all the PB’s but I can’t imagine doing that workout, let alone doing it numerous times! I get nervous doing full speed 60’s or flying sprints!
I wouldn’t be doing anything like that because its too risky this late into the season. I have too much to lose if I get injured doing gimmick type of training method.
Thanks, but why get nervous doing the full 60s/flying sprints? Those are my staple workouts from december to… august 
High speeds, could lead to injuries. Same reason why Stephen Fran prefer not to do 60’s…
Yes thats true, but how else do you really improve your speed then 
I don’t have any problems with 60’s or flys but races are the best way to improve speed.
How many people run close to race speed in practice even when going all out?
I know an elite 60m sprinter (6.5mid PB) who has a training best of 6.8mid FAT. Most runs are obviously well slower than that, so I don’t see what the hang up is on doing a good amount of submaximal work to improve speed. Hell, if you look at the Bolt workouts posted and what SF has said, the majority of their “speed work” is in the 90-95% area of their personal best and quite relaxed. That on top of a lot of hard acceleration work, good fitness, and some racing… plenty.
Ya thats definitely true. But for less than elite/younger sprinters (such as myself :D) with pbs of 11.0, going maximal most the time seems to be the better way to go.
You missed much of the point. Often going “all out” in practice means running, at best, marginally faster than if you do more relaxed and a bit slower runs. You could do those with better, more efficient technique and handle more volume and likely have a better training effect than “going all out” all the time and doing some of these crazy contrast things.
I wonder if anybody here has actually seen some of those LSU workouts because I have the logs and there is barely any of it in there and definitely not used how it is written here.
What results have you obtained in your competitions? Have you found any modifications that have improved the contrast effect?
At 10.8+ I don’t think this is very risky to be honest… and I’d rather take the risk, cos 11.0 ain’t gonna get me anywhere… I’m in a DAMN hurry to improve… becuase I havn’t got the comfort of running 10.00 or jumping 8m… I can’t hit 12m/s down any slope… if I did it’d be time to stop…
Asafa, Bolt… these guys are 9.6-7! How does that apply to us mortals?
And I’ve used this only twice this season… and my previous experience with improvements from overspeed warrant my use of it… if it makes me run quicker then why the hell would I care if it’s deemed ‘gimmicky’…
I used this with my athlete this year and he has improved .2 we intend to go again this weekend.
I don’t care how fast you are it’s risky!! I ran 10.68 and have 4 weeks reminding to my season and there’s no way in hell I would take that gamble. Even at 10.8 you will probably be running 10.4 with the over speed and I’m sure your body isn’t ready for those speeds.
Guess I am old school like Charlie, I save the gimmicks for suckers and try my best to destroy them when we meet; that’s if they survive there own training.
Well at least Charlie acknowledges that the methods used by Shaver warrant investigation… Even CF uses the ‘overspeed’ effect… with wind or fly’s. And I believe CF warrants finding tail-wind and altitude conditions… the CNS stress of a windy, altitude 100m race dwarfs that of constrast in my opinion.
Good job I was a sucker then… 'cos I don’t think I would have dropped .55 or qualified for nationals otherwise, off a months training.
And after years of overspeed with NO injuries I think that’s prove that my body CAN handle it.
Until the day my times and distances are close to earning me money I’m not planning on being conservative.
That’s to dismissive of information provided showing a system of training works! My athlete was about the same level as your self 1 week after our session took a tenth off 2 weeks after dropped another tenth! Incidentlt I think you under estimate the human body I hacr seen people towed to speeds much faster then 10.4 and they previously hadn’t broke 11 needless to say they subsequently have
OK. Let’s move this out a bit further.
What if you reach the point where vertical stim above current max has reached its (assumed at least) limit?
Would that then be the point at which you stretch things with-wise?
We know Glen Mills has used 2 x (300, 180, 150) vs his normal 1 set as stimulus for Bolt.
1:What is the impact of this? We know that intensity changes provide an exponential change in stimulus while volume change is linear, so we know that a very small change in intensity can make things happen while the volume change must be significant.
2: The volume theory has been around for many years. Do you think most people who have used this approach in the past went there before they reached a level where they needed to and could have done better with an ‘over-speed’ stimulus?
3: What is the injury risk of both approaches? I personally had less injuries relative to most groups with the peaking stimulus methods I used.
4: Is Bolt now at a level where he has no other option? Is Gay as well?
5: Both these athletes are ‘doublers’. Even if the over-speed approach could be used for maxV, it would seem less likely to shift performance in the 200 relative to the volume approach. Would some kind of combination of the two be desirable or even possible?
A combination would require a two day stimulus into the final taper with day one height and day two vol. Would these be more effective if back to back or separated by a tempo day as normal? (I would think that the first option is doable and possibly more desirable.)
hmmm a volume stimulas the day after a O/S contrast, this would stimulate from all ends within the same training block.
Charlie how would the vert stim not effect the 200 seeing as maxV could play a part in speed reserve