how does this training program look? My friend wrote it for me and he is pretty damn fast and well-coached at 19 years old. (46.5s 400m, 21.2 200m, 10.8 100m)
Mon – Speed/Power
This day is mainly to develop the explosive stride you need to start. It consists of short sprints, maybe resistance, and then weights.
Speed prep – accelerate evenly over 60m from standing start. (x3) SPIKES
Speed – go from a crouching position… knees bent, back flat… head down arms extending to the ground, just hanging down. Do 2x(20,30,60) as hard as you can from the start. SPIKES
Resistance – can be a variety of things… pulling a tire behind u for 40mx5, 5 hills fast as u can go with situps between reps etc. SHOES/SPIKES
Weights – do cleans, or any explosive lifts first. Then whatever u normally lift is okay. ALWAYS do an Olympic lift however. Also, always do abs LOTS, until they burn, a good core is essential to running. Throw in lower back stuff as well, ie back raises etc.
Tues – Speed endurance
Focus is on longer speed, which you will need, but not in the sense of a 400 runner. Longest distance should be 200m.
Warmup, jog, stretch, dynamic, continuous etc
Speed prep – easy accels… like above gradual accel SPIKES
Sp.end. 1x80m, 1x120, 1x200. these are maximum effort runs, think about staying relaxed and taking long strides, but while still moving fast as possible, not your legs, ur body. NO SHORT STRIDES. SPIKES
Tempo – 5x200 fast, but not full effort… 26-28 seconds/200, with 60 seconds recovery. SHOES
SITUPS
Wed – recovery
w/u
circuit – pick 4-5 exercises and do 3 sets of the 4 exercise. They can be hurdlehop and sprint, standing long jump, overhead shot throw (squat and throw a shot backwards over ur head), med ball situps, squat jumps, and something to do with flex.
Tempo – 10x100 on the grass very slow… just recovery work.
SITUPS
Thurs – speed/tempo
w/u
speed prep – 50s ez accel
speed - 2x (20/30/50) spikes – fast off the mark
speed - 3x80 spikes – working on turnover, long strides
tempo – 2x(300+200+100) easy pace, 46s/26s/13s + means walk 50 then jog 50
LIFT AND ABS
Fri – OFF
Sat. – Hard Day
w/u incl 20 min run
speed prep – ez accels 50-60 x3
spec end. 2x120, 1x250 these are full speed, and require a full recovery ie 8 mins /rep
On Monday, drop the resisted runs and consider replacing the Olympic lift with some squat or deadlift variation, especially if you’re lacking in strength, on at least some days.
Switch Wednesday and Tuesday. On the new Wednesday drop the 5200 intensive tempo. On the new Tuesday do less intense circuit exercises, medball situps are good and maybe keep the overhead shot throw, although you might just want to do it with a medicine ball. If you haven’t been doing tempo you might want to start lower than 10100, but if you’re doing it on grass and are not lazy eventually work up to around 2000 meters. This should be at 65-75%.
Do the tempo and the warmup you have in the Thursday workout on Thursday, nothing else.
On Friday, do the other part of the Thursday workout. Consider dropping the volume a little, if you’re lifting after and haven’t been doing sprint work that much.
On Saturday do a tempo workout.
Take Sunday off.
Take at least a minute of recovery for every ten meters of speed work you do. The more the better (without getting ridiculous).
Then again, I’m not even close to running a 10.8, so maybe I shouldn’t be the one giving the advice.
well he says this is pretty much the workout he did to drop his 100 time from 12.01 3 years ago to 10.8 now and his 400 time from 58s 3 years ago to 46.5 now…i appreciate your input and will take it into consideration…any advice from the great Charlie Francis or any of the other supercoaches who post on this site?
what do u mean by the details Charlie? Do you mean you want to see what times he ran in his training? I know he kept a training log and i could get that from him, except he is in a big NCAA school far away now, i wont say which to protect his identity and mine (i am actually his brother). But, i could get it next time i see him, i will probably be visiting him in the summer and hopefully training with him too. Maybe the very short recovery times for his tempo work are what improved his speed end. so much, only 60s one day, and another day only walk 50m/jog 50m…I know he is an extremely good cardiovascular condition right now because he also ran a 1:20 indoor 600m this year. And his school is planning on having him run an indoor 800 as well…
i already know his weightlifting strength if ur curious, becuz i worked out with him this christmas, he cleans 250 max, squats 390 max and benches 240 max and he is 6’1, 170lbs. He usually does 5x5 workouts (5 sets, 5 reps) for most of the compound exercises (bench, squat) and i think he does usually 5 reps per set of clean, sometimes 3 and very rarely sets of 1.