Ok, here is a program I made, with some help, for the SPP phase. This phase follows after completing the GPP phase. It would continue all the way until the end of the season. I PM’d this to KK, and he told me to post it here.
This schedule is for 400m/200m. So, how would you all improve this schedule?:
Monday: Accel out to 40mx5-7, then 1x300m; Weights
Tuesday: tempo; Abs
Wednesday: SE.
4 x 150
3 x 200m
2-3 x 300m
Rest will consist of walking back to where I began. For 300m, I will find an equal distance to walk; adequate distance. The walk will be between 3-4minutes.
Weights.
Thursday: Tempo; abs
Friday: Max Velocity low volume.
3-5x30m flys. 3 min break between. start 5 sets, decrease over time.
Weights
Saturday: Tempo
I would plan to follow a long to short plan. How should I do that with Wednesday; long to short? Also, what about rest periods and voume on Wednesday? Anything that you see that can be improvement, please comment.
Can you be a lilttle more specific on pace and rest times for Wednesdays session?
It seems like a whole lotta volume unless it is intensive tempo. If it is intensive tempo I feel that the reps mentioned are distances that are all over the place. Perhaps a 150-200-300-300-200-100 type ladder for intensive tempo However that is just an idea.
I am toying arond with different methods this season for all my sprinters including myself and I am including intensive tempo through the first 8 weeks of training possibly a bit for the first 12 weeks. After 8 weeks which concludes GPP AND SPP1 I start SPP2. In this block I will be starting split runs. This will later branch off or switch to special endurance. The thing I am doing different this yr. as I said is including Int tempo much longer and a slower progession to split runs which I will be including much longer than before as well. The past 2 years when I rushed to drop split runs and progressed to special endurance me and my athletes I feel peaked to soon and were beat up when it counted.
Also not sure if it has been posted but perhaps you can post what you have done in GPP so we can get a look into what you have done up to this point.
OOOOO…LOL. I see.
Anyhow…I would like to see the previous weeks work. As I said I have been waiting longer this year for special endurance and been sticking with the split runs for much longer.
I know you’re planning to compete at 200m + 400m, but (as Quick inferred) your training background - especially your most recent 12 wks of training base (GPP) - informs what you can tolerate in the Special Preparation Phase (SPP).
I think that almost any training will help, depending on how well you achieve it.
By that I mean, although there appears to be only one session in any way specific to endurance over 400m - on Wednesday - if you tough it out, that session may be enough to get you somewhere.
For example: If you ran 2x 300m at high speed with a shortish recovery, that would give you a huge dose of lacticacid.
Or you could do 3x300 a bit slower.
Come back with some target times Comancho9.
Also please list you 100, 200, 300 and 400 PBs.
What you can run for 1x300 is obviously going to have a big impact on how quick you dare run 2x300 or 3x300m - and will have a huge bearing on your recovery times.
So much depends on your rep times: 3x300 off 60sec in just under 50sec is tough; 3x300 off 60sec in 39-41 is tougher. My best guy ran 3x3x300 off 100m jog recs (jog/walk 1 lap, then two laps) all in 39 to 42 - in GPP.
But he would run 2x 300 (rarely) in SPP in sub 35 (say, 33 and 34) with 15mins recovery.
Mostly he’d do 2x300 + 150 or 2x200+200.
The program you’ve listed would only address the requirements of the last 80m of a 400m if somewhere in the long sets you were duplicating the specificity of the 400 experience.
It’s only my opinion, but if you wanted to run 50-flat for 400m, maybe you can consider a race model of 24/26sec which proposes the idea that your 3x200 Wednesday set could be 3x200 in sub-26 off say 2-5mins recoveries.
Also I’m not a fan of doing max velocity sprints at the end of a hard week. I’d be putting them in on a Sunday and Wednesday, with Rest Days on the Saturday and Tuesday. Then you can do your 400-specific work addressing the last 80m on Mondays and Thursdays. Tempo Fridays. I like your weights PM on Mon, Wed, Fri.
I’d like to know what you’re doing for weights. Even though they supplement the more important track work, I’m wouldn’t place lower body weights after the track work on Wednesday.
kk
what % of their 200 PB should an athlete attempt to cover the first 200 in?
Yes, watch Wednesday for legs weights. Maybe do cleans only. But if you’ve had many years of weights, then you can tolerate just about anything. Again, without your training background, it’s hard to be prescriptive (although we’ll be presumptious enough to have a go).
mustang: Not sure about the maths, but I’ve always worked successfully around 1.0sec to 0.8sec as a “cushion” between current form 200m and the split pace for the first 200m in transit to 400m race. The girls can manage 1sec reserve time, but the real tough males can go closer to the edge but not less than 0.8sec. I’m talking about 400m runners stepping up from the sprints. I have very little experience working with those super endurance beasts like Mike Palmtag who are dropping down from 800m, although I think the formula holds true in any case.
kk
Could the feeling of being beat up be a consequence of inadequate regeneration and recovery technique as oppose to implementing Special Endurance too soon?
That is a possibilty. But I also noticed my fitness level went down a bit as it got later in the season and I have a feeling it was partially because of the lack of a “base” and too fast of progressions into special endurance and such. I find it hard to maintain that quality and keep my fitness up for that long a time.
400m: Freshman year, ran under a good coach, no injury, and ran a 56.01. Next, 53.xx (Occurred sophomore year); this was with a hip flexor injury, little training/bad training, and crap coach (one I wont be seeing again, ditched him by going unnattached). The hip flexor killed my junior year, but got it fixed for this season by going to a chiropractor. He said part/major part of it was due to a twisted and bent back. Also, crap coach didn’t do stretching for more than 10 seconds, and was hell working around the jerk.
Also, I am certain I could have hit a 50.xx my sophomore year. Didn’t do it either sophomore nor junior because of that injury. I believe this season, though, I can go 50sec or better this summer.
200m: I wasn’t allowed to run 200m for absolutly no reason. Was fastest, but the coach was a football coach, and was more interested in team (relays). Screwed me over. But, I did get to run it once my freshman year, when I ran the 56.01 time, and hit a 25.xx. Believe I could have hit a 23 sec my sophomore or junior year, even with the injury.
I have good hopes, and am not putting limits on either events on what I can accomplish in these two events. I have minimum aims though. Also, this year I’m a senior in high school.
Also not sure if it has been posted but perhaps you can post what you have done in GPP so we can get a look into what you have done up to this point.
I followed a plan similar to the one from the GPP video.
It was laid out like this:
Mon: Hills (beginning); speed training (later)
Plyos, Med ball, weights
Tues: Tempo; abs, hurdle work
Wed: Ditto Mon
Tues: Ditto Tues
Fri: Ditto Mon
Sat: Tempo
That is the simplified version so you all can get an overview. It isn’t perfect in telling what I did, but you get an overview. Hills were with a tire, because there are no hills around.
I’d like to know what you’re doing for weights. Even though they supplement the more important track work, I’m wouldn’t place lower body weights after the track work on Wednesday.
Weights are mostly free weights, with supplements (dips and push press).
I’ve been doing weight training since freshman year (played football then), and weights are not a problem for me (Mon, Wed, Fri).
Monday: Accel out to 40mx5-7, then 1x300m; Weights
Tuesday: Tempo; abs
Wednesday: Max Velocity low volume.
3-5x30m flys. 3 min break between. start 5 sets, decrease over time.
Weights.
Thursday: Tempo; abs
Friday: SE
3x200 (aim for sub 26; 3-5 minutes rest between)
or
2-3x300m (3-5 minutes rest)
Weights
Saturday: Tempo, abs
The program you’ve listed would only address the requirements of the last 80m of a 400m if somewhere in the long sets you were duplicating the specificity of the 400 experience.
How could I fix this to address all of the 400m? Wouldn’t the tempo deal with endurance, and SE deal with duplicating race times? Also, should I take out the acceleration day and replace it with a SE day, or leave it?
Also, how should I make this work under the long to short scheme (reps and rests)?
Comancho, many of the answers to your issues are discussed earlier in this thread. Check Page-17 and then read from when sprint coach joins the party on P22 onwards. There are a few sample sessions, weeks and cycles from P22> .
Much earlier in the thread there is discussion of the philosophy behind concurrent 400m training theory and program design. It’s just more homework, but it would help you to absorb it.
There is also discussion within the program theory ideas about “cycling” through a week of “speed” followed by a week of “endurance” - that would resolve your current dilemma.
Go back and read the early stuff, the philosophy (my own thoughts start on P7). Program theory will enable you to design a modular structure into which you can site your favourite sessions, and which will give you much better control over the direction of your training and the timing of your peak.
If I was you I would seriously consider going to a two-week cycle. Wk 1 could be as you originally proposed and that would address your 100m and 200m needs; Wk 2 could focus on work such as your Wednesday sets and then at least one more day concentrating on something like 2x300+150 or 300m+4x60 or 2x200+200 or 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 300, 60, 50, 40, 30, 20 (off walkback recoveries) which would help address the second half of your 400m race.
I will look it up in the coaching logbook when I get home. I think he ran 44.3 and went through 200 in 21.5, something around there. But as I wrote elsewhere in this thread, he ran a hand-timed walkup 200 in 19.8sec. 10 days or so before the Olympic heats.
Because he was such a chronic injury case before we teamed up, I never let him race 200m off the blocks before his 400m at any tournament and never in a one-off club or GP competition.
The risk to his 400m career due to injury in a secondary event (100, 200) was too great. Discretion being the better part of valour, I concentrated on making improvements where I thought the margin was larger - at the endurance end of the race, rather than at the sharp end (ie, 100m, 200m).
I do know that when he ran 44.7 or whatever in the mid80s he never ran 200m better than 20.8sec electronic within a fortnight of that 400m form. I’m assuming it was a rhythm thing.
Of course Michael Johnson carried his 200m rhythm into the 400, but then he had a unique action in some respects and maybe that facilitated his success at both distances.
\kk
Sounds like you may need to focus mostly on staying healthy. If you spread things out as kk suggests, you may want to place the weights on the days that you train accel or max vel. This also implies that you’ll devote less time and energy to weights in the second week with an added endurance-oriented track session.
Mon, Wed, Fri.
who are dropping down from 800m, although I think the formula holds true in any case.