I wondered if it was that and asked if that was what they meant but was told it was swimming underwater. Also talked about using a kickboard and flippers for workouts.
The coach who took her to the world title runs the biggest swim school business in Australia. He, Phil King, told me some years ago he thought the extra swimming pool work was the edge his girls had over the opposition. His wife is Debbie Flintoff-King who won a last-stride gold in 400H at Seoul Olympics.
Do you have any details? I’ll see if I can get some from here as the person I was talking to was expecting to get some specific workout info.
Just a load of general activity, aerobic mostly. A variety. Some was isolation, like swimming 50m pool without kicking. Or swimming 50m pool without using shoulders (holding kickboard). Or swimming on one side, like a lifesaver, then swimming back using mainly one arm on the other side. Going backwards holding a floatation device (boards, mostly) to your chest and using only legs to propel. Some sets of upright running holding the side of the pool with one hand while describing large cycles of leg movement with the leg closest to the inside of the pool, then switch (heavily engages the glutes and they’re bitching after a few minutes of that resistance against the water). Some of the kicking was done with flippers. Some of the technical stroke laps were done with a hand-held device like a small palm paddle. They did it for about 45mins or longer. I Can’t recall whether they did it after running sessions or gym sessions. Probably after track sessions.
Don’t ask reps or sets cos can’t recall ever asking about that.
Would this be classified as a high intensity or low intensity training modality? 
Thanks KK. When my I raise the CNS stress levels in training I find that going to pool on one of the days mid week is more beneficial than ExT in terms of having them ready for the next high intensity session. The problem is that my pool training inventory is way to limited.
Another problem is that I’ve had athletes who didn’t know how to swim, but were afraid to tell me. You want to see high stress levels… :eek:
We have also used low key pool sessions immediately after high cns stress track sessions.
Finish with the track WO, do a brief cool down and hop right into the pool for 20 minutes of easy/slow water running
I was told that the water pressing against the body actually helps push the lactic acid away from the lower limbs faster than normal recovery.
I’m not sure if this is true or not, but the kids seem to think it helps.
A.C. We have also had some problems with non swimmers so most of the kids now wear agua joggers. This allows them to actually run in the deep end of the pool. They get used to it pretty quick once they realize they won’t sink
The first time in the pool could have been submitted to America’s Funniest Home Videos and would have won. The problem is that she didn’t tell me that she couldn’t swim. The other women really had to restrain their laughter.
The other factor is that alot of track athletes have absolutely no buoyancy, so we need to take that into account when planning these sessions.
I’ve used the pool as a way finish to a session and as a stand alone. I think that it works best by itself, but combined with ab/back work, as long as the coach is willing to plan what the athletes are going to do and orchestrate it precisely. This is a very different (foreign) environment for track athletes, and they won’t ad lib the way that they would on the track.
We started using pool - timed reps/sets in deep water - to keep fit while overcoming injury. But the top female thought she was taxed so much harder in a general lactic sense doing pool sprints than anything we could generate on the track that she insisted doing one session per week for the rest of the preparation. Which we mostly did - and this was winter in an outdoor pool. :eek:
The pool running messes up your track running rhythm pretty badly, but we found that by the end of the first session back on the track, rhythm was restored just fine.
The athletes really notice that its time to get out of the pool as competitions gets close. I’m pretty sure that the good ones feel that it puts something out of wack.
Interesting that your woman felt so taxed by a pool session. I don’t think that I’m adept enough at pushing them in the pool I think that a few of my athletes view the pool as a bit of a waste of time.
I’m lucky to have access to an indoor pool, and they keep it very cool as it’s used primarily for lap swim.
KitKat a.o.,
I got some questions about planning races into the schedual.
There is GPP, transition and taper.
I’ve found this about races in the GPP:
“If you are having meets all season, you’d probably want to do about 2 speed sessions for training plus the meet (total 3 speed/high intensity sessions per week). You’d probably want to do tempo work on the other days and be sure to include at least 1 day of rest per week.”
About the transition phase : " IT’S NOT important to race during the 4-wk transition period. IT IS important to keep to the pattern of Rest and Train. "
So am i comprehending things right if i say that an athlete:
-can race during the GPP, although the GPP is heavy, so the athlete must know that he won’t run PB’s in GPP; the races in GPP are just to ‘get the feeling right’ and psychological purposes ?
-better won’t compete during the transition phase (injury risk)
-THE one most important race in an athletes year should be ran after the taper period.
It’s just something i want to be SURE about, that’s the reason why i ask this…
Thx in advance,
A.C. One way you can get give your athletes a more taxing session is to tie one end of a bungi cord to the back of the athletes aqua jogger and tie the other end to a part of the pool. Maybe a diving board or ladder. You can then have them run intervals. The Bunji provides extra resistance, and really gets the heart rate up.
We use this more with injured athletes or people needing extra work. Sometimes if the weather is really bad out we can also use this as a substitute for the track.
YES, that’s pretty much correct. But again I would say that nothing is ever set in stone. There will be variations which suit particular individuals. But for the program which I used for the athletes I coached for the 400m, the things you highlight have certainly been true.
The thing about any program, I believe, is that you can start using what is written down as a basic template. THEN you start to coach.
You coach the person and then the athlete. And you accommodate the program to suit both the person and athlete.
This is because everyone is an individual. Everyone has specific variations in their abilities and in their life situation. So we must work to assist, not conflict with the athlete.
There is no such thing as a perfect program, perfect coach, perfect preparation.
There will always be adjustments you must make along the journey. BUt that’s not a problem. It’s a situation. And it’s totally normal.
So what I’m trying to say here is that we shouldn’t get too hung up on reps/sets/recoveries/cycles/loads etc.
The main thing is that the person/athlete is happy, and s/he will be if the training is in balance with the rest of his/her lifestyle and the performance elements of sprinting are moving in the right direction on a reasonable timeline.
THE FOLLOWING OBSERVATION CAME OUT OF A DISCUSSION ELSEWHERE ON TIM BENJAMIN’S 45.2 A WEEK OR TWO AFTER LEAVING HIS COACH, COLIN JACKSON (THE FORMER 110M HURDLES WORLD RECORDHOLDER)…
You know it could just be a case of Colin feeding Tim too much high intensity work and insufficient rhythm/tempo for Tim’s liking? Too much high intensity stuff will kill you just as surely as too much volume. From what I remember of watching Linford and Colin train during the Nineties, the longer reps did appear to be pretty intense. Like even Colin was hitting his (occasional) 300s in 32.
It’s also possible the density of Colin’s sessions, the way the reps stack up and the way the sessions back into each other, may have been too difficult for Tim. Just because Tim is a 400m runner doesn’t necssarily mean he can tolerate extreme or serial intensity of sessions any better than the next guy. In fact a pure speed/power creature like an elite 110m hurdler would probably handle that stuff much better than a 400 animal. The 400 types have the capacity to handle a lot of work at sub-max, not necessarily though a lot at super high intensity.
My belief exactly. You don’t just drop pretty much a second in 2 weeks for any other reason. I’m pretty sure the volume of tempo to SE in a 400m program has to be at least 4:1 if you are going to be doing runs in the 32s arena.
That all makes sense,but does anyone really know the ins and out’s of T.B. program under Jackson?
high foot carry
How do those splits and times compare to race pace / times?
For the bolded portion do you mean for a 450m rep? 
FOR 400M FOLK, THIS HAS SOME INTERESTING MATERIAL. kk
Olympic champion believes he can topple one of sport’s greatest world records, reports Michael Phillips
Tuesday August 21, 2007
The Guardian
Jeremy Wariner last night raised expectations he might produce something special at the world championships in Osaka by revealing that he is running faster in training than Michael Johnson was in the days before he broke the 400 metres world record in 1999.
Wariner, 22, is coached in Texas by Clyde Hart, the man who guided Johnson to 14 Olympic and world titles and two individual world records.
The last of those astonishing records came in Seville eight years ago when he stunned the world championships with a run of 43.18sec.
But now, in the days leading up to the 11th holding of the competition in Japan, Wariner is ready to go even quicker.
On the night Johnson stormed his way into 400m history Wariner was a 15-year-old fan of American football, not even aware of what was happening in Spain.
“I knew nothing about track and field until 2000 when I was at college,” he said. “It was only last year when I saw Michael’s race in Seville after he gave me a tape of it. I watched it and I was speechless.”
This time next week Wariner will begin his attempt to break that record - and he declared last night that “there is no telling what I will be able to do at the world championships”.
Hart recently brought out the training diary which Johnson used in the week before his amazing performance in Seville. And while Johnson clocked practice times in the region of 41sec for 350m, Wariner has been timed at 40.09 and 41.60.
He said: "It is easily the fastest I have ever been in practice. Coach Hart has been trying to compare what I’m doing to what Michael did before he broke the record. At first my times were not as fast but he has been cutting my rest periods down.
“He has been using the same training schedules for 42 years but he brought out the work-outs which Michael did leading up to Seville and my times are quicker now. I cannot think about Michael when I run. I just have to think that I can do it. It will be fantastic to break the world record because of all the hard work I have been putting my body through. But if I do not do it this time, hopefully I have a good few years left in the sport to try again.”
Wariner, the current world and Olympic champion, has been spectacular this season, and he has the advantage of not only knowing the Osaka track but having run superbly on it in May in a meeting to launch the countdown to the world championships. Then he ran 44.02, an eye-catching time for so early in the season, before at the start of this month looking supreme as he ran a personal best of 43.50 to win in Stockholm, making him the equal third fastest 400m runner in history.
Wariner said: “It is hard to explain what the surface is like in Osaka because it is not like tracks in Europe. It has hardness and it has bounce and it is good for every event. When I ran my 44.02, my training was not even ready for those sorts of times. But I knew when I competed in Stockholm that I would be quick. I had a feeling that something crazy was about to happen.”
The Stockholm race provided Wariner with more than a comparison to the way Johnson would run. “My coach said I am right up there with him in the last 100 metres,” said Wariner. “But my first 200 in Stockholm was faster than when Michael broke the world record. Now I need to work on the section between 200 and 300 because Michael was quicker than me on that.”
Wariner has only run in five 400m races this year, using the 200m event to increase his speed, and it has worked. Consulting the training plan that Johnson worked on before Seville, Wariner has cut down his recovery times from 10 minutes to nine between 450m runs and from 1min 45sec to 1min 30sec for 200m repetitions.
“That 15 seconds can make a difference,” said Wariner. “The least rest I have shows that I have been able to build up the endurance if I’m able to run quick times. I told Michael about my 350’s and he said, ‘What!’ Back in 2004 I was just a college kid running. Now I am on a different level and if I want to go faster I have to work even harder.”
It is an ominous warning to the rest of the world’s 400m men. When Johnson ran, everybody else just competed for the minor medals. Despite his quiet, far from boisterous tone, Wariner gives every indication that he will take the aura he is creating for himself to a new level in Japan.
“My workouts are getting even better,” he said. “I am stronger, I am quicker and there’s even more dedication. [From] the way I ran in Stockholm, and how easy it felt, I know I can go even faster, especially on the Osaka track. I will not be beaten unless I do not run my race.”
As a follow up here is an interview with him for Runner’s World:
A Brief Chat With Jeremy Wariner
Reported By Peter Gambaccini
Jeremy Wariner, 23, the 2004 Olympic gold medalist and 2005 World Champion in the 400-meter run, will race the first round of the 400 at the World Championships in Osaka, Japan a week from today (Tuesday). The other American entrants in the 400 are LaShawn Merritt, Angelo Taylor, and Lionel Larry. Wariner, who is coached by Clyde Hart and counseled by 400 (and 200) world recordholder Michael Johnson, set his personal 400 best of 43.50 in Stockholm on August 7; he’s now #3 on the event’s all-time list. Wariner also won a gold in the 4x400 relay at the Athens Olympics and another relay gold at the 2005 World Championships in Helsinki. He was part of a U.S. record indoor 4x400 relay (3:01.96) in 2006. A native Texan and a former wide receiver in high school football, Wariner won the 2004 NCAA indoor and outdoor 400-meter titles and the indoor and outdoor 4x400 relays for Baylor University. Wariner spoke by teleconference on Monday.
How’s your preparation going for Osaka? Are you where you wanted to be?
Jeremy Wariner: Actually, it’s going real well right now. I’m actually ahead of where I thought I would be at at this moment. Coach Hart has pulled out some of Michael’s workouts from seven days before he broke a world record in 1999 and compared my workouts to his. We’re basically doing the same workouts, but some of my times, the average time, has been faster, but some have been exactly the same. According to Coach Hart, we’re on pace training wise to go for the record if we go for it…. My body feels real well right now. After tomorrow, I get two days off because of traveling and then the important thing is I get over there a few days before my first round, so I’ll be adjusted real well, and I’m looking forward to getting ready to go.
Do you always train basically as Michael trained? Or has Coach Hart been pushing you more, so that’s why your workouts are reflecting Michael’s?
JW: The workouts we do, we’ve always done the same workouts every day, every year. Coach Hart has never changed the workouts … When I first got into the Baylor system, my times weren’t as good, the reps (repetitions) weren’t as good, but as the years go on, I’m trying to get to that level where we’re cutting my rest down a little bit (and ) we’ve been speeding my times up. This year, I’ve been running my workouts a lot better than I ever have. So he (Hart) was trying to compare mine to what Michael did when he broke the world record (Johnson‘s 43.18), just to see where I would be at. And before I left over for London and Stockholm, we did one workout where he told me Michael ran two 350s; he ran a 42.5 and a 41 on his second one. And I had run two 42s. I was right there with him. And then this week I ran a 40-point and a 41 (with five minutes rest in-between), so I’m ahead of where he was on the 350s that day.
You’ve said you’ll wait and see about going for the world record (in Osaka), but you’re not saying you definitely will. What would make it ideal conditions to go after it?
JW: I’m not going to go after it. If the record comes, it comes. That’s not the thing I’m going for. I’m going for the victory. And with the victory, hopefully maybe I’ll have the record at the same time. I’m just going to go out there and run my race like I always have. Like I say, if it comes, it comes. If not, I’ve got a whole long career in front of me. It’s just one race. I’ve got so many races ahead of me where I can try and go for it. So I’m going to just run, and hopefully, it’ll happen, but if not, I’ve got next year and the year after that to go for it.
You’ve run a lot of 200s but haven’t broken 20 seconds yet. It’s perhaps improved your speed. But is it just that you’re gifted with speed endurance (for the 400), but when dropping down to the 200, you’re just not as advanced at this point in your career as some of your colleagues?
JW: No. Coach Hart would always say, the faster my 200 meters, the better my quarter (400) is going to be, and that is the main reason why we’ve been running a lot of 200s last year and this year. But at the same time, he said you don’t have to be sub-20 200-meter runner to run a good 400.… You have to have a lot more than just the speed. I have the talent of being able to have the strength at the end and the speed at the beginning but also the speed endurance to help. You throw all those in at once, it helps a lot. The faster my 200 is, it helps me be able to comfortable through the first 200 of the quarter. It’s a long process and Coach Hart has basically broken it down for me; it’s hard to explain. But there are so many things that I still have to work on.
What exactly has led to this kind of breakthrough to topping Michael Johnson’s times in the workouts?
JW: Earlier in the season, my quarter, I was running all strength, because every workout I did, I was doing a lot of strength. My speed wasn’t there yet, like it was last year at the beginning of the season. So the 200 this year had been trying to get me back to where I was speedwise. I had built up a lot of strength this year, more than I did last year…. The workouts, Coach Hart just brought out of nowhere. I didn’t even ask him about them. He just wanted to show me the things that Michael was doing seven days prior to the World Championships in ‘99. We were basically doing almost the exact same thing Michael was at the time, timewise and restwise…. We were right there with it. There’s a chance (of the record), if the conditions are right. He says you’re going to run faster no matter what. It’s a competition, and you know that. And of course, the track (in Osaka) is a lot faster and you’ve run on it before, so if everything’s falling into place, there’s a chance you can go get it. My workouts have been getting better. I’m stronger, I’m quicker. My speed endurance is there. And the dedication; this year, I know it’s a big year. I’m trying to defend my World title. At the same time, I know I can get the world record, especially with the way I ran in Stockholm.
Why wait until this Wednesday to leave for Osaka? Isn’t most of the team already over there.
JW: There’s no reason for me to be over there that early. I don’t run till next Tuesday. We wanted to stay here and get good training in before we actually go out there. That’s really the main reason, to get my training in at home, rest up, and then get out there when I really need to go out there.
Do you think, if you run the race that you’re capable of, that anyone can beat you. Certainly, the U.S. runners are predominant in this event, but realistically, what chance do they have to beat you?
JW: Well, if I run my race like I have been, like I did in Stockholm, and like I have in the past year, they’re not going to beat me. If I slip up, then yes, they’ll beat me. But the way I ran in Stockholm, coming off of that race, knowing the confidence I have right now, knowing how easy that 43.5 felt, I can go faster. I know I can, especially on Osaka’s track. I’m not going to get beat unless I don’t run my race…. If I run like that at Worlds, there’s no telling what’s going to happen.
Did the 43.50 at Stockholm surprise you at all?
JW: Not really. Going into the meet, I had talked with my manager, Deon Minor, and I had told him before the race that I had a feeling something crazy was about to happen in the race. I could feel it - the way I warmed up and everything, how my body felt - I knew I was about to run something good. I didn’t know exactly what time it would been. I knew it was going to be in the 43s, but I didn’t know it was going to be 43.5, so that kind of surprised me.
At what point were you able to almost casually talk about Michael’s records and feel comfortable with it? For a long time, that most have seemed almost unattainable. At what time did it start to seem realistic for you?
JW: A little bit last year, when I ran more than one 43 in the season. Once you do that, they start getting a little bit easier. Your body knows what it feels like to go through that. So last year, after I ran in Paris and Rome, I was like "well, there’s a chance I can go for it, but I didn’t know when it was going to happen …. But this year, the way I’ve been training, and the way I’ve been running my meets, I kind of feel there’s a chance it could happen this year, especially after Stockholm. I now really think it can, easily (considering) how fast Osaka’s track was when I ran on it back in May. Each year, I could say, has been getting a little more easy to talk about it.
A lot of people are talking about an American sweep of the 400 in Osaka as if it’s a foregone inclusion. Are you expecting an American sweep of the medals in this event?
JW: Yeah, I think so. I’m thinking we can Lashawn (Merritt) has been running consistent times in the low 44s. Angelo (Taylor) has run a lot of consistent 44s. I know Merritt is real hungry right now to try and beat me. We’re all going to go out there and hopefully run our own races. There’s a big chance that we can do it. You see the times being run this year and (Lionel) Larry ran 44.2 at London.
Do you see any chance of a world record in the 4x400 in Osaka?
JW: Definitely. I actually talked to Darold (Williamson, his training mate and former Baylor teammate) about it a few times and Coach Hart and we’ve all agreed if we run the right order, I think the world record can be broken easily. We have so much talent and so much depth in the 4x400. We could throw anybody on there and win. But if we throw the four right people on there, we can get the world record.
Can you remember where you were when Michael broke the world record in the 400 in 1999? Did you watch it live? Did you remember seeing?
JW: I didn’t know nothing about track and field then. I didn’t start running; 2000 was my first year running track. I didn’t see it until last year when Michael gave me a tape. I didn’t have a reaction. I was speechless, just the way his last hundred was in that race was amazing. And Coach Hart says I’m right there with him for my last hundred. My last 200 was faster than him (Johnson) when he ran the world record, but going from the 200 to the 300 is where his was faster right now.