What are you goals?? If it’s speed then I don’t understand all the lifting in the 90-95% zone.
The 85-95% lifts were 4 years ago, now the speed/quality of sprints/running training are emphasized while emphasizing also different techniques…being limited during the winter months I choose a ‘glycolytic multi-directional cross training activity’, in ice hockey to maintain the body chemistry/biochemical actions and processes occuring during the cold northern aboriginal/canadian/russian climate.
Add to this the fact I’m currently a part time ‘roofing contractor’/‘stay at home dad’ and primal movement pattern smoothness and endurance, as well as a ‘max physical strength buffer’ becomes important.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQOdNdorwAg
At the moment regarding work, the deadlift and backsquat are both important staples for a buffer strength, to maintain ability to effortlessly lift work equipment(ladder, shingle bundle packs, air compressor).
Well, you are talking about tightness, you just don’t realize it. Injuries don’t just suddenly appear (with the exception of falls, or if playing contact sports)
Also - not a horrible example - You’re just looking for excuses to not do tempo.
You find or the athletes find the bike tempo easy? YOu can make that work out as easy or effective or as hard as you wish.
I Had a therapist once tell me the same thing about doing too much bike… don’t do it because this and that… He didnt know anything about training.
I get why people from their own areas say certain things… I thought a lot about what he said and even stopped doing the bike momentarily… but the reality is sometimes its the only way to get tempo in. The thing I love about the bike is it’s so attainable and repeatable and if you get the rpm’s up to 140 and 150 this is not easy or someone is doing something really wrong.
Bold makes the point of having and performing lots of therapy and I think this is where the disconnect comes for people. It’s okay if your athlete says I can do bike due to hip flexor issues so then give them something else? I am not in that setting so I can’t give you a good comment. My advice? SOLVE THE PROBLEM but don’t no I would not skip tempo. You could limiit running tempo I suppose to one day where you really get quality and go to a field that is useful? Then I would do med ball circuit stuff on another day and maybe pool.
Running 200’s in 36 seconds for some is not going to be fast enough and I guess you have to ask the athletes to be the judge of what they think of the surface or make the plan as the coach and it’s not up for debate.
How slow do you really want to go? Well if is low intensity it can do the job. Maybe not all the time but we used to do bumkicks down 100 meters and shake back with exercises in between… or do shaking down and tripling back and then excercises in between and my entire session was like that… and that was tempo. If had done a speed session the day before and I was not able move too well or too quickly you start where you start and see how it goes… I rememeber many times when tempo never happened but there was always something continues with very very little break and lots of sweating. Trust me… YOu can go slow and keep very controlled breaks and do what is needed.
Great.
My thoughts -
1: Run on the crappy fields but decrease volume an/or intensity. This is ok for certain periods, I hate snail pace tempo - don’t see much benefit having 10.5 guys running 36-40sec 200’s.
2: 1 heavy tempo day on the track ex(10x200 walk 200) and one lighter tempo day on the crappy fields ex(2x6x100).
3: 1 heavy tempo day on the track ex(10x200 walk 200) and one bike tempo ex(2 sets of 10 reps 45sec on/15sec off rpm 120+)
4: 1 mod tempo day on track ex(6-8x150 upper tempo intensity) and one mod grass tempo session.
Track tempo doesn’t hurt much esp if there’s only 4 running sessions per week (M/Th speed and Tue/Fri tempo)
I feel there’s a cut off point to how slow I want my athletes running. If we are having issues from the previous session and can’t run at a decent tempo speed then I’ll probably move on to med circuits, weight circuits, general strength circuits, bike/treadmill, cont movement drills etc before watching 40sec 200’s. Now if I was training my granny/general pop I wouldn’t mind having her run at a snail pace.
Heart rate monitors also plays a role in our tempo sessions.
*I think Charlie made a comment on the 10day taper dvd about snail pace tempo?
Back to my futbol match - let’s go Mexico!!!
My thoughts -
1: Run on the crappy fields but decrease volume an/or intensity. This is ok for certain periods, I hate snail pace tempo - don’t see much benefit having 10.5 guys running 36-40sec 200’s.
I understand how you feel about snail paced tempo. I was never thrilled to run at a snail pace or feel like a granny athlete. By the time I started training seriously with Charlie I was already 25 years old. ( due to some silly scandal that sucked up a few extra years of our life). The truth is the rules still apply regarding tempo. Constant judgments of what your atheletes need will change. Here is the thing… WHen I first met Charlie, Chuck or Coach Charlie Francis I remember warming up with Angie and Ben and also doing tempo with them… THat was the summer of 1988… " yeah … this is amazing " …I thought…i was jogging faster then both of them in the warmup ( I later learned I was forcing my warm up ) and then I felt like I was kicking their asses in tempo… ( It was not too long after that I began to understand the pace I needed to go for tempo and how varied the pace each of them needed ( female vs male for one example). There were times I was running tempo faster than Angie but it meant nothing.= at that time she needed something very different than what my needs were at that time.
2: 1 heavy tempo day on the track ex(10x200 walk 200) and one lighter tempo day on the crappy fields ex(2x6x100).
Is it time to prgress your 10.5 second 100 meter men to a shorter rest interval of 100 meters? At their best and over time this 200 meter interval rest for 10 x 200 meters in not needed. Even my " granny athletes" I have trained have been at times capable of this shorter rest interval. ( thanks for the analogy RB;)
Not sure I fully understand your post. Are you saying option 2 while decreasing the rest time for the 100m tempo runs and over time taking out the 10x200 session?
I have always been a fan of Charlie big circuit an/or one tougher tempo session (10x200 or 6x300) each week esp for outdoor prep.
3: 1 heavy tempo day on the track ex(10x200 walk 200) and one bike tempo ex(2 sets of 10 reps 45sec on/15sec off rpm 120+)
Once you are on the track doing 200 meters it’s a different ball game entirely as the temptation will be for your athletes to go faster as it feels better ( smoother and easier) and is easier to run differently or faster. Running through grass or on grass or on dirt is harder and builds in more resistence naturally. As coach you need to keep a closer eye to keep track and make sure everyone is relaxed and not overdoing the runs and again this is when the rest interval of 50 percent less will help mitigate your surface change. After all , the purpose of the tempo need not be SO FAST but to prepare the athletes for speed.
[b]3: … one bike tempo ex(2 sets of 10 reps 45sec on/15sec off rpm 120+)
120 rpm is okay.
Again , if you have athletes that are of the 10.5 quality or anyone fit athlete it’s possible to progress them to get a great benefits from this tempo " type" of work … However, you need to push the limits and not stick with 120rpm. It will take you 6 to 8 weeks to get that rpm up to a consistent 140 150 and even 160 rpm for 2 sets of 45 seconds on / 15 seconds off and or use varied exercises in between. It’s important that no or very little resistence is used. I know lots of you out there think no resistence is for babies but suck it up and try it and let me know because I think you are full of shit if you come back and say otherwise. ( no offence intended 
You are 100% correct it is easier to run faster tempo on the track. From what I have notice after speed/power days the athletes are usually tight from the speed and strength training with this tightness and dislike for tempo we never have issues with going too fast on tempo days. I also let the day before and day after dictate the speed and volume on our tempo days. I will say during the unload week or week after a unload you need to be careful with the track tempo.
What I am saying is if and when you do 10 x 200 meters I think it’s time to work on cutting the rest from 200 meters to 100 meters.
There is something messed up on this v bulletin so bare with me as I have spent several hours dealing with this and am just going to reply . If you are reading this thread and following it you will understand what I am saying. thank you.
Guys,
It’s okay to disagree.
How about each of us here work on some professional rules regarding comments and opinions and how we disbute others claims.
This does not mean we want some flowery garbage going on all of the time but let’s try to do better in what we are doing and support each other and ask open and curious minded questions.
I think each of us will get futher in life and enjoy our lives more and this type of philosophy is generally healthier and more productive to our bottom line results.
anyone have any thoughts about work other than just running on the fields? I’ve definitely had workouts where throwing, running drills or plyos were done on grass (whether by design or by necessity) and always felt like most were useless because the responsiveness of the track was just not there
I remember when playing baseball that it seemed advantageous to shuffle and push versus relax, which may be the result of short speed bursts and sharp turns, but it also seemed like if you ever tried to “float” or lengthen your stride to the detriment of your stride rate that the softer dirt just ate up all your power. I’m okay with running on grass, but sprinting on it seems to favor different mechanics. I liked slow tempo on recovery days, but any training I spent at over 70% on grass I generally look back at as a waste (granted, I wasn’t very fast to begin with so it may have had to do with difficulty in producing enough power)
Angela, I assume by shake mean jog back?
What did the scenario look like?
Bumkick 100m
Pushups
Jog back 100
Repeat
???
Did you do volumes the same as the planned extensive tempo volume or more?
Re: slow runs… I think some people worry about slow extensive tempo and its affect on technique too much. I believe extensive tempo definitely supports additional speed training volume. But there is a diminishing returns crossover point.
Re: tempo options. Your options all look evenly distributed with regard to impact and training effect on the body. I have also done the following in addition to the options you outline:
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1000m on grass, 1000m on track
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1000m on crappy grass, slower then 1000m equivalent on bike
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1000m on track, 1000m equivalent on bike
I know I have recovered much better and have better training and performance results by running tempo slower than in the past but for more volume and less rest between repeats. I can’t do over 2000m 2x per week plus 1000m 2x per week for 6000m total without problems, however.
I was fortunate enough to observe a few sessions this summer when Ange was helping an injured athlete get back to health before an important competition. One of the things that struck me most was how deliberate everything was. The warmup developed at a very comfortable pace- nothing was rushed at all.
In addition, constant real-time modifications were being made on an exercise-by-exercise basis. The athlete was not asked to do anything that he could not do- she did not take her eyes off him for even a minute. It made me rethink the entire warmup for my athletes, as I just wasn’t paying enough attention to them in comparison. Video of real-time sessions like this would be really helpful I think, as I was shocked by how much I learned just from observing a few sessions.
In addition- with my athlete who has been taking HRV readings for the past year and a half, we noticed that tempo sessions like 10x100 simply had no effect on HRV, whereas sessions similar to the Big Circuit had an obvious positive effect on overall recovery. Of course, just because 10x100 doesn’t have a measurable effect, perhaps the circulatory action is enough to ready the athlete for the next session without adding any undue fatigue (especially close to competition), but I don’t know if it’s enough on a regular basis. I will pull the data we have and list it in the athlete’s journal shortly so we can compare the HRV effects of different tempo sessions for those that are interested.