as you say, this approach of track one day, weights the next and tempo the following, is used a lot in the UK; not sure why, perhaps a “culture” thing, but when i first found it here, i was really surprised; tried it, but no-no!
but again you are right in saying that if facilities, time, etc are not there, you have to do your best!
wondering about those full time ones that use such an approach; surely they could have better recovery by alternating days/focus…
anyway…
Hi,
I’ve always followed CF’s pattern: Run/Weights x 3. The weights (or some pushups, situps, pilates exercises) to follow the running session on the same day.
If time is too restrictive, I would skip weights rather than the running. But I would wrap up the running sessions with some kind of exercise circuit or some sets of same.
There’s no secrets. You just fit in what you can and maybe add some hills or hill hops (double foot for safety) to add some strength to the legs if as an alternative to weights or as a supplement/bridge to the gym routine.
kk
shall i take this then as track+tempo x3, even if weights as such have to be eliminated, or almost? as a compromise, perhaps…
would these be before (my preference), or after the session? or it depends on other factors (e.g., event)?
thanks!
I would do classic plyo work - where you are really trying for the fastest ground contact - on the flat BEFORE a running session.
The Hops Uphill are what they are: quite a test of strength, sort of like jump squats (unloaded).
But you know the sort of training you do is only limited by imagination or an understanding of what may be appropriate work to achieve the athlete’s training objectives.
kk
BEFORE the running workout? I’m guessing you mean before a tempo workout. Wouldn’t that compromise the quality of the running workout or did I miss something…
Just wondering…
It’s pretty explosive work, so if I would ask an athlete to do plyos at all, I prefer they do it before the running. I may only ask for 2 x 5 contacts, not for distance - just for brief contact-time.
And the running would follow. It may not be 100m sprinting. Some days I schedule time-target endurance runs the day after a rest-day.
So a session could look like: 2 x 5 speed bound plus 2x2xins-and-outs. Then 6x200m in 23sec off 2min jog around recoveries.
I was a long jumper myself, of little talent and with equally inadequate coaching support. But over the last 25 years of coaching I have become less inclined to do jumps, bounds, hops etc.
The athlete too easily loses the neutral pelvic position and even more often fails to apply an active contact, which can lead to lower-leg, foot or even lower back soreness.
It’s just my experience. Others rave about plyos and maybe for 100m sprinters that’s the way to go. But I mostly coach 400m sprinters and anything I can do to minimise the risk of injury I feel duty bound to do. The key to progress is staying in one piece.
kk 
KK,
IYO what warrants the use of plyos’? What determines the volume and where do you see it’s use in the 400m program…if at all?
Lastly, 2 X 5 speed bounds doesn’t seem like much stimulation?
Thanks and thats all I want to ask regarding plyos as the 400m discussion is fantastic and I wish not to move away from that!
Thanks
What is the goal of such a session 
?
Thanks
Plyos are an interesting subject. I belive there has been mixed opinions of its importance.
If I remember correctly David W counts pure sprinttraining as plyos.
MJ didn´t to seem to do any, and the British 400m runner Mark Richardson stayed away from it, due to the injury risk. (He used tyre-runs insted, 30m´s)
Then there are runners who always put in their programs.
Don´t know if it would differ between short and longsprinters, because in the end of the day it is all sprintraces.
I belive that plyos should be done if the runner is out of injuryrisk otherwise, stay away, there are more ways…
thanks! you made my day… 
and for the other part as well, which can’t appear above (i.e., track/weigths combo)
it’s better seen as stimulation more, rather than strengthening; and for more effective CNS stimulation, i would prefer the numbers to be low and before a session for the sprints that follow; i think, Charlie suggests something along these lines…
but of course, plyos being such a high risk drill, it should be used with caution, i believe; better under- vs. over-loading…
Hi RandyG,
Everything we do is a case of personal preference.
I don’t have any doubt that plyos are great for some 400m sprinters in some circumstances.
At the moment my mail is (world 400m hurdles champion) Jana Pittman is doing a whole bunch of plyo-type training, followed the next day by timed efforts from 1min to 3mins (about 1km).
So, incidentally, it appears she is working along a concurrent training model.
Although at the moment she could probably run a powerful 100m and she won an 800m in Melbourne in 2:04, she may struggle to break 24sec for 200 or 53sec for 400m.
That is because, while the speed is there for the first 100m and the strength is there for the final 100m, the speed-endurance for the middle 200m of her (400m) race has not been covered yet by her training.
So there will come a phase in pre-comp when she will work on the middle part of her 400m and when the full package is there she will be tough to beat over one lap.
Anyway the issue being that she uses loads of plyos to build power.
But she is a hurdler afterall and is presumably well conditioned to leaping about the place, so speed-bounds or whatever else she does is quite complementary.
I have used speed-bounds with certain 400m runners at certain times of the year if I felt they needed to apply force a bit more explosively or a bit more effectively, so I would slow their contact down a bit by using bounding rather than sprinting.
I frequently use 2x100m of high skips (alternative leg, triple extension, taking off in a rhythm of every third stride - always on grass).
But this is part of the pre-competition and in-competition warm-up, so it is on the athlete’s program at least twice a week and sometimes four days a week.
Therefore you don’t need to do a tonne of it to get an effect. You can get the effect with less reps - and less danger - over a longer time frame provided you are consistently working that pathway.
kk
Well put, thanks…Which plyos to do and when in the season to do them always comes up on board at some point or another, but no one ever dicusses why they do or do not use them .
Thanks again
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Finals
1 Robson, Renee VIC 24.76 -2.4
2 Pittman, Jana VIS :eek: 25.08 -2.4
3 Cope, Ebony WAIS 25.31 -2.4
4 Moore, Erin SA 25.37 -2.4
5 Hodge, Leanne SA 26.07 -2.4
Well on kitkat! so when she starts working on the ‘middle portion of the race’ does she maintain the 800m endurance still or is it pure focussing on the speed endurance part when pre competition is on. thnks
I don’t know what her plans are, but I wouldn’t think 800m strength in itself would be of any great help to her once she is racing on the circuit over 400H.
She would probably take in some easy runs, to keep the weight down and help flush lactic.
But the component of anaerobic - as compared to aerobic - fitness required to race 400H is so dominant in the overall scheme that I would think she would spend most of her time on the track or in the pool doing some pretty time-specific anaerobic-lactic sprint work.
kk
When using bodyweight excersises insted or complementry, where do one cross the line to strengthendurance?
Allan Wells training has been up in some previous threads, and I don´t know if he and his wife Margo, was refering to plyos, but they stated that elastic strength, was the main recruitment for sprinters.
I read it like they talked about his curcuits of pushups, chinnies etc… but the numbers of what he did, I would count as strenghtendurance rather than elastic strength, due the muscles must end up fatiguted. Don´t remember exact sets, reps and recoverys though…
And how does one translate number of chins, to 10 pushups, chins are more intensive than pushups if compering reps. (My own experience though. :rolleyes: )
Just thought the subject was interesting, due some short and many longsprinters use them, haven´t really used it myself in some years.
Somewhere earlier on this thread I offered a view on strength sets/reps/intensity.
I suppose the cross-over from “intensity” to “endurance” would vary with the individual according to load and the athlete’s capacity to lift based on previous training preparation and natural ability.
But if you want something more authoritative I would go to the thread on “whole organism” or some such heading in the Strength Training category.
I think the idea should be to work at speed or that the effort be in the 95% or higher range in a set of say three repetitions.
I would suggest anything done for much more than three reps is probably starting to cross over towards strength endurance.
Just out of interest, I was discussing weightlifting for basketball training with Victor Saneyev last weekend and he advocated doing chinups & pushups, but not to do more than three reps per set. He said anything more than that “slows the muscles down”.
You’d have to listen to a guy with that kind of experience.
kk
3 reps of pushups? I could do that…
Obviously Saneyev’s talking about many sets of three reps to the set, with sufficient time in between to be able to perform each rep/each set very quickly.
That’s just his opinion, but a guy like that doesn’t say much so you have to think a bit about what he said. Don’t dismiss him just because his ideas are a bit outside the box. That’s probably part of what made him so great.