Do you use a particular product or make it yourself? Any suggestions for dosages?
Question about a certain workout.
I did a 4x300m, unfortunetly my legs were dead after the second (literally was having problems standing up), but this is my first week of training, and also didn’t get much sleep last night.
But for a 4x300m, with an aim time of 45-47 seconds, should I wear spikes or not? I hit the times the two times without spikes on (I wasn’t able to complete four).
Also, what is the general rule for training with spikes? When should and shouldn’t you train with them?
what was your recovery between reps? Perhaps you took them out too fast if you were using shorter recovery… ?
5 minutes, that is what it called for. I know what it had to do with, the day before was pretty hard, and this is the first week, but I it will be cool next week.
But, should I be using spikes for this?
Also, for times, an athlete aiming for 46 seconds, they should be hitting 42. The equvilant, mathmatically, is 45-47sec for the time I’m going for. The time lowers, just to let you know. I feel good about it, just hard day before with lack of sleep had something to do with it.
The workout isn’t a problem for me, just should I use spikes?
I have found arginine tablets/capsules. Normally an athlete is supposed to drink 1 tablet 3 x daily. If one uses this as TC recommended - will it be 1 when the warm up starts and one after the long run - about 20 - 30 minutes before a race? Or more per day?
Another question - where there are 3 rounds: Would you recommend taking this before every round?
Further in the training schedule - only on hard days?
Thanks!
Try them in practice first and use the longer intervals between SE runs to see how it would work for a meet with rounds.
Usually, you need around 25min before the event or SE rep but the more nervous the athlete, the slower the uptake so you need a bit more time. Experience will be the guide.
sc, did you decide to give your man another 400? If so, howd he go?
In spite of ALL the recommendations - we have decided NOT to go for the last 400m. I doubted A LOT - whether it was the right decision or not. At the end, it seems that the benefit was on our side. Apart from the “nasty” wind in the home straight, most of the good athletes had the same idea to “skip” the meet. The winning time in the 400m - 47 something. It could have been a disaster for my athlete’s self-confidence!
My idea was - to prepare for the 3 rounds AND for all the pressure the coming weekend … my athlete cannot run with tired legs.
Furthermore, we have chosen to concentrate on the 10 day tapering. With his past 2 races, he needed this.
We have had a WONDERFUL week of training/tapering. ALL the sessions were QUALITY. I am satisfied with the outcome.
He had a rest day today. Tomorrow the last proper training session. In your 10 day “tapering” Kitkat, 5 days before the race (our Monday), you have had:
5: This is your last chance to blow out the cobwebs, hit maybe two reps with full recovery from a rolling start and working at 99 per cent, so as not to generate much lactic acid. So if you’re running 400m (or 300m HUrdles) you may do a couple of 200m runs (or maybe first six intermediate hurdles) . Maybe one is fast tempo, the other (45mins later?) might be very quick but while consciously avoiding tension in shoulder, neck etc.
Do you still agree with this? 2 x 200? The rest of the week - Tuesday and Wednesday rest days, Thursday WU, long build up, RM, Warm down, Friday heat and SF, Saturday final and relays.
Thanks!
Because of the really bad start of competition (sun 29th jan)we did only 2 trainig sessions this week.
theusday(mon-wed rest= doing nothing)
2x3x200 2’- +/-8’(until HF was 120)
went in 27~27.3. cold weather felt really bad.
Thursday was a:
300 10’ 300+150.
This was HARD.
times 37,4-39,4!! last 150 not timed, but afterwards i allmost couldn’t walk.
But i was happy with the 37 I mean it was freezing that night. then 2 days rest. and getting nervous.
Today i ran a 48.89. 1.41s faster than last week. I could not believe my eyes. :eek:
So to all Great Thanks for your tips and guidelines. A you said KK just go out for that 300… and see what happens.
With some quality work to do I hope to run some faster in a few weeks.
Life is good 
Hi sprint coach, thanks for the update.
The session referred to above is what I did with the taper I used with the best guy I worked with. With the best female, because she tended to tended to drop her knees and reach out in a low, clawing action, I did something like short ladder up 20, 30, 40, 50, 150, jog to complete lap of the oval and back into 60, 50, 40, 30, 20. None of it lactic, but because she had a “more is always better” mentality, I sort of deceived her by giving her lots of things to accomplish. Yet none induced lactic acid to any significant degree. It was more a mental thing for her, but it worked fine - and the short attack put her into a better technical position.
kk
Wow… That is a phenomenal improvement. What did you go out at for 300m? The other day (Friday) I did a 320m in 40.1, going through the 300 mark at 37.2… Im looking to get down to 35.x before season is over; that will put me in good position for sub 50 at least…
what was your rest betwen the 300 and 150?
How many meets have you ran this season and what have your times been? Indoors or outdoors?
the race was etween 300-150 a 30 run out and a20m walk.r
it was the 3th race and 2nd meet, and these meetings are indoors, training is outdoors(cold and wet or icy). today only work and maybe some abs 
What about taking it away from the track? Probably not the best for sprinters, but might be good for a change, and maybe for other sports. For 3 weeks, right before I went to Banff, Alberta to snowboard last year, I did a phase of lactic acid style squats. My max was 315, and my partner’s was 295, both ATG. We took 245, and did doubles, right after one another. Kept going, competition style, so that once your partner racked the bar, you had 45sec to complete your double, and rack the bar, or you lost. We did this once a week on Friday’s (ME lower was Monday). The bar stayed at 245 for the 3 weeks, but our numbers jumped, and it really seemed to help for when I was flying down the slopes.
Just throwin’ it out there.
Hey guys. Im looking for a basic program outline that will help me get in shape to run close to 48 for close to 400 meters. Basically scenario is, I started running after a two year lay off and I need to run close to 49 seconds to get back to a division school as a walk on by the end of summer. So I have been training for 2 weeks now doing mostly 600 break downs,4x300 and 10x300 for 30 seconds with 3 minutes rest.
Im training myself and I really want to accomplished this goal. So if anyone knowledgable could share there ideas or perhaps help me with pacing my phases, I would really appreciate it.
Thank you.Have you read through this thread … if not, you should. I’m sure you’ll find the answers you are looking for.
Lol.Everyone says that…but you do realize how long the thread is…maybe someone could give me a page lol.It would be helpful…
Hello T84
The basic day-by-day outline for the 6-wk block of the General Preparation Phase (GPP) of the program I put together to suit the 400m sprinters I have coached is on Page 22 of this thread. I usually repeated the GPP 6wk block (or cycle) to make up a 12-wk phase which I felt really bedded down the training indices to the stage where we could get through a season of competition without running out of gas. Then at the end of the domestic season, we would go back and do one cyclew of the 6wk GPP, although the values (ie, times, mechanics, recovery periods etc) were invariably superior to those recorded in the initial cycle(s) of the GPP done those several months earlier.
On Page 23 there is the basic outline, day by day, of the four-week Transition phase which I used before permitting anyone to enter competition.
When I PM’d in reply to you yesterday, you mentioned something about needing to get ready to run 49sec or under in 40 days (? I think), but that suggests that either you are an extremely talented 400m sprinter (returning after two years off the track) or perhaps you underestimate the task you have set yourself.
That is not to discourage you, but to make you aware that to go 49 and sub may require a huge commitment from you which will include looking after your body (rehab, regen - eg, massage, chiropractic to restore structural balance) and many of the other subtleties which have been discussed on the course of this thread.
If you are going to go for broke after that 49, then you will not have time to go through the general prep process I have described. You’ll need to cut to the chase, training at the split times appropriate to a 48-49sec 400 and hope you survive without an extensive or perhaps even specific base.
Somewhere earlier on the thread, Pierrejean has published a graph or split times which are extremely accurate predictors of 400m final time. This would be a useful guide to you I suspect.
best wishes
OK, PJ’S GRAPH (One of them) is on Page 15 of this thread, but I have cut-and-pasted it below for your convenience 
. . . .
""In order to target sub 50sec, a 35.x time at 300m trial is required.
If we take the example of women, from my own analysis, a 50.0 performance at 400m requires 24.0 split at 200m, with a 300m split of 36.3, from a 200m personal best of 22.8.
Concerning men, the splits are a little bit different, and according to Czech model split times, we have for men (all times are electric rounded):
11.9 - 22.9 - 34.8 - 48.0 (11.9 + 11.0 + 11.9 + 13.2)
12.1 - 23.3 - 35.4 - 49.0 (12.1 + 11.2 + 12.1 + 13.6)
12.3 - 23.6 - 36.0 - 50.0 (12.3 + 11.3 + 12.4 + 14.0)
12.5 - 24.0 - 36.6 - 51.0 (12.5 + 11.5 + 12.6 + 14.4)
Now, if we look at the control table for men’s 400m (Letzelter, FRG, 1976), we have sub and overdistance personal bests (hand times) :
400m - 48.0 / 49.0
100m - 10.8 / 11.0
200m - 21.9 / 22.3
300m - 34.5 / 35.1
500m - 64.4 / 65.8
Your friend has obviously a sprinter type who needs to go slowly for first 200m, if he goes out in 23.0 (hand time), he targets a sub49 time, which is not possible right now. A time not faster that 23.5 (ht) can be advised, considering that he is a 22.1ht sprinter and doesn’t have specific 400m endurance in place. At age 16 it’s also a little too soon to work by the way.
The wrong advise could be “if you’re a sprinter, you should pass at mid point faster than the others”. This doesn’t take in account the resistance/specific training factor. If Marion Jones, Gwen Torrence and Grace Jackson, all sub22 female runners training for 100/200, had gone faster than 23.5 at mid-point, i’m pretty sure they would have never run sub 50sec… They need a pretty high speed reserve in order to finish in a decent way.
Hope this helps, and tell your friend that at 16yo, don’t break your neck at 400m! “”
. . . .
T84, the thing about what has been recommended reading is that everything written here is contextual. You would really benefit from reading the discussion from which the GPP and PJ’s graph etc have been extracted.
Just one catchphrase to guide you: “It’s not how hard you train. It’s How you train, Hard.”
Basically what im looking to do is to do general prep for 40 days. My first 400 m will be april the 8th. I want to shoot for 48-49 on may 26. In between then I will run 200’s and possibly some 100’s. I will begin my General prep phase on monday and try to get in the best shape as possible.I understand exactly what I am going to put myself through. So to understand this correctly…
- I should train for a 300 meters of 35 seconds.
Seeing as though I have always been a crappy finisher,this will be a bit of an advantage to me…
2.So seeing that I will be base training all the way through april 8th,how would I modify the training program,or should I continue to extent it?
Is there anything else anyone else would like to add?All is appreciate it
. Thanks KITKAT and all who have replied and will.