Interesting. I had a rather heated debate in your country with a former East German Sport Scientist (SS for short), who was working there, about this whole topic and it created a stir with your best 400m guy at the time.
SS was adamant about lactic tolerance and was prescribing workouts to generate the effect, without regard to the conditions required for high quality Special End- as outlined to me by his own countryman, Horst Hilla (the father of the EG sprint program). When I pointed this out, he claimed that I didn’t know anything about Hilla’s methods, even though he did admit that he’d never met Hilla himself!
This guy didn’t let the fact that he was from Rowing and had no background in sprinting whatsoever stand in the way of his opinion, and my objections were met with a shift by him from English to German, in which language he explained away my qualification to speak on the subject by telling the group that there will always be lucky coaches who get athletes like Ben and Flo Jo who will succeed no matter what!
Well, in my usual diplomatic manner, I suggested an act he could perform on himself and the horse he rode in on.
First Question: What must be done to improve???
First Answer: Move the Special Endurance bar ever higher!
Second Question: What else must be done?
Second Answer: There isn’t anything else!
That said, you must create the overall conditions in the training plan that will allow SE to continue to advance.
Now, where were we?
I’m not trying to be a wise guy. I want to know what you’re trying to accomplish and why it can’t be accomplished by the SE itself. In other words, in a way that will tell you directly that what you’re doing is advancing the cause, not setting it back.
Tempo is a supporting means for SE, first and formost, and, if you view it that way, you should be able to come a satisfactory conclusion on the pace required.
“Both extensive and intensive, although in a highly trained athlete there will really be litte distinction”
Can you expand on this statement Dazed, I’m not sure what you mean. Are you saying that because the athlete is in such good shape, they can recover very quickly from intensive tempo, and therefore it serves the same purpose as extensive tempo?
You hit the nail on the head. As a long sprinter adapts to the extensive tempo and improves their aerobic capacity they will have to decrease the recovery and/or increase the intensity in order to maintain steady improvement. A personal example is a tempo workout I have called “Goal Posts”. Likewise as the athlete adapts to extensice and intensive tempo combined, intensive tempo will become easier and more aerobic in nature and easier to recover between.
Essentially a set of goal posts is 10x100m on a soccerfield where you run from one goal post at one end of the field to the corresponding one at the other end, recovery is walking accross to the other goal post before running back to the end of the field where you started. Like so (sorry i had to expose you to my artistic side )
___
____|__|___
| ^ V |
| ^ V |
| ^ V |
| ^ V |
| ^ V |
| ^___V |
|___|___|__|
This is done in trainers (not flats) and you usually get around 30 seconds recovery by the time you get back to start running. Start is walk onto the line and go.
Depending on what the goal is for the session we do between 1 and 3 sets with 5 min rest between sets. (1 is really just a loossener in the week of a comp, 2 sets is still a reasonable work out but has great recovery benefits, 3 sets are a tough aerobic workout that make you feel as though the life has been sucked from your legs)
When I started this in the GPP I began doing this workouts the times were between 13 seconds and 13.7 seconds for 3 sets, the next session averaged just under 13 seconds, and gradually progressed to the first 2 sets being under 12 seconds and the 3rd set being under 11.5 using the same recovery and feeling exactly the same as the first time i did this session - no burn to speak of, just a really empty feeling in your legs like they’ve been suffocated.
This has made other intensive tempo sessions extremely aerobic in nature and the recovery has had to be dropped significantly and times are well ahead of where I expected them to be…
Esentially It’s about starting conservatively and allowing your body to dictate progression. Too many people start by biting off more than they can chew then wonder why they’re not going anywhere.
Thanks Dazed. So essentially that workout is 310100m w/30s between reps and 5 minutes between sets, right? And also, what’s the difference between trainers and flats? What you say about progressing quickly with a great aerobic base is true. A workout I’ve been doing lately is 6*200m w/4 minutes rest, in one month I’ve knocked a second off the average time for that workout. At some point I plan to cut the rest interval down, gradually, to about 3 minutes or so. I’m excited to think of where I’ll be in July if I continue progressing with this type of work.
Been doing this work out in different forms on and off since I was 11. I do it once a week. I’ll be moving down to two sets shortly.
At the moment I’m also doing more traditional tempo, such as 10x200m off 90sec rest, hills 2 days a week over 200m (Day 1 of hills), 150m and 80m (Day 2 of hills), over distance such as 2x600m in 1:24 w/ 8min r/r (I’m moving down to 1:21, this week tho) Endurance work at 350m, and weights 3 days a week. I can send you my diary if you’re curious.
so if elite sprinters were to do tempo, it really would be intensive cause id bet they would be running atlest low 11s. and this is why when u see any weekly scheudule of their training they have either one tempo session in the week (mo greene during gpp) or none at all.
charlie what about ben, did he maintain tempo sessions three times a week or does it reach the time when ur recovery is so good that tempo serves no purpose no more?
Mo Green etc are not training to run 400’s etc and may not have the same aerobic capacity as a quater miler, but they do do sessions such as 12x100m in 11 seconds off limited recovery at some points of the season. I remember John Smith saying he had Mo do his GPP with his quarter milers in 98/99 'cause Mo couldn’t handle the shorter recoveries later in the season - apparently it was quite messy and involved alot of vomit.
There are a lot of scientists getting so “scientific” until they loose any common sense. The way you describe the guy (SS) I can’t help imagine himself looking and acting like Dr. Strangelove. LOL
(BTW.: what year did you meet Mr. SS?)
But seriously - there were heated discussions between GDR trainers as well. I remember two trainers almost having a fight over having their 400m athletes doing (intensive) over-distance runs (like 500, 600m) or not.
Generally doing some sort of extensive tempo leading to intensive tempo lactic work leading to special endurance (gradually from GPP to COMP PH) seems still to be the most used method in Europe, (Central and Eastern) afaik.
Thats why you might get some remarkable 400m (sometimes even 200m)results in Europe (like in Poland), but never short sprint.
In the end they always put it on genetics or other causes…
Personally I prefer a short to long method doing I4 and I1 only (as you describe in CFTS), but I’m far from being anything like elite level - so probably on my level it would not matter.
But especially for Masters athletes I think it’s far better to do tempo and real speed work, only.
Sometimes sprinting beginners seem to improve a lot doing intensive tempo, hard lactic work, but it’s hard to tell what really causes the improvement, because at the beginning you improve anyway.
I think a good indicator of the quality of a trainers method is to check how often his athletes are injuried. And as I said we have some trainers over here who had all their 400m sprinters getting injuried seriously more than one time (all stress fractions or hamstring injuries).
I don’t see why tempo needs to be in the middle zone at all, unless it is a short term transition into SE. You can shorten the breaks and/or lengthen the runs to stay away from conflicting work. this becomes more important as your Speed/Spec End quality goes up year after year.
As for Mo Greene, from reports from witnesses who were there, workouts in the SPP included sessions like 3 x (60, 80, 100), finishing up with one 300. All the runs were high quality, though relaxed, with the 300s starting off in the 33s and moving to the 31s later in the season. I don’t see what role 12 x 100 in 11 with limited recovery would play in that, although the total vol is similar. Perhaps the definition of limited recovery is needed.
I remember looking at Ato/HSI workout for the 2000 season and they did things like very fast 6x 60m, then a 300, 200m. For tempo, they did 8 x 200m@ 28av. I have yet to see the 12 x 100 in 11sec workout. However, they have done 2 x 4 x100m@11sec av. with 45s rest in between reps, 5min in between sets as a speed endurance workout.
A world class French sprinter trained in HSI in 2001 and she reported that on Mondays, she did very hard cessions like 4 x 60m at 90-92% + 400+300+200 at 95% with 10m rest. I can understand that it transform steadily during the SPP in the 3 x (60, 80, 100) + 300 which Charlie describes. Knowing that they started with 5 x 300 at 70%, we have the Ato’s so-called “pyramid”, a pyramid with no base will fall.
This is pretty similar with which was done in former Eastern block, and the Austrian program AUT-71 showed us is nearly the same as employed in former GDR for sprinters/hurdlers. They used Intensity 1 (100-95%), Int. 2 (90-94%), Int. 3 (80-89%), and low Int. (60-80%). These categories were of course measured with lactate levels. Bulgarian hurdlers (Donkova, Zagorcheva) had a similar pyramid and both schools started Intensity 1 after indoor competitions. The results tend to contradict AUT-71 feeling about no good short sprinters in Europe with the method “extensive tempo leading to intensive tempo lactic work leading to special endurance”, as the Bulgarian hurdlers ran 12.21 and 12.25, and were able to run 150m in the low 16sec, but were nothing special at 300m, let alone 400m. As i see it, extensive tempo was just the base for speed and special endurance, and didn’t make they slow-long type sprinters. Same startegy in GDR, but they never used over distance for speed endurance (like you said no 500 or 600 for GDR 400m runners).
I would like to know if it’s possible to combined these 2 methods for a top level sprinter: short to long for speed/accel (Charlie’s method), and long to short (actually slow to fast) for speed endurance ?
the work from HSI that you list is again SE. In the new E-material to come out shortly, you’ll be able to see the progressions of Long to Short and Short to Long. I think some of the questions about the endurance approach will be answered.
Quote:
Originally Posted by scarface
You’re right Charlie…
I remember looking at Ato/HSI workout for the 2000 season and they did things like very fast 6x 60m, then a 300, 200m. For tempo, they did 8 x 200m@ 28av. I have yet to see the 12 x 100 in 11sec workout. However, they have done 2 x 4 x100m@11sec av. with 45s rest in between reps, 5min in between sets as a speed endurance workout.
sorry to ask this, but i’m a bit confused; is indeed your SE speed endurance, as scarface describes above, or is your SE special endurance? i’m asking this because of the 45sec rest between runs… i thought that you may employ such short rest periods for special end, but longer ones for speed end… unless things change at that level, i.e., they can handle such short rec for speed endurance workouts…
thanks!
the combination of the two “worlds” you describe and wondering about would be a very interesting topic covered by the new material indeed and many of us, i suppose, are thinking and looking forward to
i’m just curious to see suggestions of how the two can come together, because it’s hard enough to manage one approach, let alone both of them simultaneously… there should be a mid point, a real peak-vol period perhaps, that will need a lot of attention to avoid possible problems, don’t you think?
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