from 16 Dec
100m @ 10.91 +0.3
200m @ 21.72 + 1.6
1500! Woo!
Hello Everyone!!
I just finished my last cycle for pre season lifting and now it is
time for me to taper down kind of because in three weeks it will be
time for me to start competing. I am very please with where I am at
and I think that this is the strongest I’ve been over all.
Now I have the task of putting together an inseason program in which
I find difficult because of peaking purposes…Thank God for this board…
So I wanted to get the input on in season training from you guys.
I start competing January 25th.
My first peak needs to be the weekend of Feb. 29-Mar. 1. It is our
indoor conference meet,so I figure I need to taper before that. I
will be running the 600meters that meet.
Between March 1st and March 27th I don’t have a meet, so I would like
to do some good liftinng in between that time to get my strength
levels back up and then begin to taper off for outdoor.
My first outdoor meet is March 28th.
The main outdoor conference meet is May 3-4 and I know I have to
taper for that…
So that is the outline of my season.
I would just like to have a basic outline of how many days a week I
should lift, how many lifts and when to stop lifting.
I was thinking maybe a lighter session once a week would be good or it
could be my last workout before the meet that week and maybe two
heavy lifting sessions early in the week. Just an idea.
Something else to think about,our running workouts are close to
threshold so I know fatigue will be an issue, and I should be care to
monitor how I feel and how much work Im getting in. All this supplements my running.
I appreciate all the info.
The usual ‘nightmare’ for any coach and athlete - hamstring injuries! I experienced it AGAIN this afternoon.
I have a 20 year old athlete in my group, doing the 400m. He hasn’t got a lot of speed, but requested after the previous season to go on a long to short programme. (He could not take part at the Nationals last year, due to hamstring issues.)
His training was good up to now. During December, he had 2 weeks of ‘active rest’, while he was on holiday … no track nearby. He is back in training for 10 days now, had only 2 WT sessions last week, the rest track work (and functional strength).
Today - with a speed session in the rain - he stumbled AFTER he completed the first 60m, and fell down. At first I thought it was because of the wet track, but he complained about a ‘snap’ feeling which forced him to have an abrupt stop.
His warm-up was good, he did a LOT of ‘run throughs’, and completed 2 x 20m and 2 x 40m before that. He had NO problems with stiffness and/or pain in the back, etc. After a while, he could walk and drive his car … after the injury happened.
WHAT IS THE PROBLEM? Programme related? It was not really cold, but wet. In the future, do I have to change the workout to something ‘slower’ in these circumstances? (The problem is - we get a LOT of rain nowadays!) Would it be possible to run sub 46 (our goal) without doing ANY speed work?
PLEASE HELP!! I’m DOWN!!
I know the feeling, my friend. My top scholastic sprinter/hurdler went down Friday. A year ago my top short sprinter went down with a type 2 biceps femoris tear. I can attribute the problem in both cases to infrequent quality of work and incomplete performance preparation. However that may not have been the situation with you.
Though the placement of speed is important in all sprinters program, when, where and how much with regard to individual ability and optimal readiness continues to be a learning process - at least in my case it is.
In my case, I’ve initiated the treatment that will get my athlete back up and running better than before (which was very successful last year). Oddly enough, with the exception of certain free weight resistance work, the alactic and SE work increased from that last year with my former athlete.
Once proper recovery has been completed you might be surprised how your athlete is able to respond with certain training!
Hi S-C,
Cheer up, worse things 'appen at sea …always look on the bright side of … OK, it’s serious. Of course. I’m not sure I can help you, more than to say most of my thoughts on avoiding injury are already posted earlier on this thread.
Sometimes, despite the best plans and the most rigorous preparation aimed at insulating athletes from injury, these problems will still happen. One thing I’m sure of, having corresponded with you for a couple of years now, is that this accident did not happen due to any negligence on your part.
Sometimes a sprinter’s pelvis will rotate or there will be a slight twist of a lumbar vertebra which could happen when they get into or out of a car, or from sleeping on a sagging mattress. How can you check them before every quick rep? Not possible. They must become more aware of their own body’s limitations and they must not keep problems to themselves. We cannot work with dead heroes. They must understand there is a huge difference between the pain of injury (please speak up!) and the pain of training (please shut up! 
).
Don’t take it all upon your own shoulders. We lose too many great coaches like that and you’re one we dare not lose. 
seizureI had these problems with my son who I trained and after many years of looking for answers got to see a really good chiropracter who pointed out the problem as a"seized sacroiallac joint’.
When he adjusted the s/i joint and corrected the rotation of the pelvis averything was fine.
The problem however would continue if we didn’t recognize when and if the joint “locked up” again and cause hammy problems again.
The chiro,[good bloke that he was]showed me how to check for the problem by the correct checking of leg lengths as an indicator of s/I seizure and pelvic rotation.
As I had a portable massage table I took it to every training session and did a check after warm-up and b4 the speed sessions particularly,and after the warm down massage.
We found that if the leg check was ok there were rarely any probs,but if he was “out” he would be restricted and limited to easy work.
The chiro offered to show me how to do the required adjustment as the situation recurred fairly frequently[It seemed to me that accelleration and block work stresses were the prime instigators] but I was not game to do adjustments as I felt it was to risky.
Over time we found that if tightness or “phantom hammy pulls” occured as a consequence of not checking b4 training that invariably the s/i and pelvic probs were evident and rarely an issue if they were not
HAVING GONE TO THE TROUBLE OF FINDING THE OLD TRAINING LOGS AND LOCATING SOME SESSIONS RELEVANT TO THE QUESTION, BELOW, POSED BY “SPEEDMAN” I THOUGHT THE SUBJECT MATTER MAY WARRANT BEING POSTED ON THIS THREAD, GIVEN IT IS THE DE FACTO QUARTER-MILERS’ FACT FILE:)
:
[i]Originally Posted by speedman
KK,
What would you describe as (1) a fairly typical “high-level aerobic threshhold capacity” workout AND (2) a fairly typical “power-endurance” workout? Also what relative contribution do you think these requirements make to 400m performance?
For example are you saying that for a 400m runner with a very good maximum velocity level (20m Fly time) but poor “endurance” it would usually be more a lack of relative strength/power endurance in the core running muscles that makes them appear to fatigue faster rather than a highly developed CV/aerobic system? [/i]
Speedman, I’ve got my kids at home playing all manner of electronic games and TVs in a background din… can’t concentrate on your question right now.
I would just say maybe take a look at the lactic threshold thread for some descriptive sessions.
aerobic threshold would include sessions such as what my adult group did, such as 6x200 off sub-2min jog recoveries; 9x300 off 100m jog rec (I broke that into 3x3x300 to raise quality of the reps a bit more); and 12x150.
So for instance, here is a high level threshold for the woman Olympic 400 finalist:
17.62 (2min 30sec), 17.60 (2min 30sec), 17.31, (10min b/sets) - 17.04 (3min), 16.86 (5min), 17.14.
(So, she struggled with speed and needed more recovery time, which I provided when we pushed things along at the upper end). It’s threshold work but still with a high level of aerobics involved IMO.)
On Sept 2, 1988 she ran a solo set of 5x200 off 1min 40sec average recoveries:
24.37, 25.58, 25.58 (same), 26.18, 26.43.
The target for her was always 26sec reps, but she did well after messing up the opener with low 24
On 1 Aug 88 my top guy ran this set in Cologne.
6x200 with 200m jog recoveries (av 1min 40sec):
22.18, 23.4, 23.64, 23.01, 22.96, 23.03.
My diary note was that he “was holding back, concentrating on good posture”.
On May 11, 1988 in the rain (synthetic track), he ran 3x4x150 which was one of our stock GPP aerobic threshold sets. On this occasion there was an average 1min 45sec between reps and 7min between the sets.
17.5, 17.55, 17.55, 17.4
16.98, 16.73, 16.42, 16.98
16.02, 16.14, 16.26, 16.92
So from the above set, especially, you see see the interplay between endurance, rhythm and a touch of speed. The recoveries between Sets ensure that the speed (and form) does not degrade to the point of being irrelevant to his racing needs.
On 8-12-91 he did this 3x300 session (on synthetic; jog 100m between reps; jog a lap b/tw sets). This is toward the end of the GPP phase, so he was in good shape already:
42.0, 42.66, 41.91
43.17, 42.68, 43.34
42.12, 43.70, 42.40
This was fairly typical of the quality achieved during the second half of GPP. But by no means was this his best. I remember one smartarse training partner trying to impose himself on my guy, so he dropped in a tempo 37 on the 9th 300. The other guy never returned and was shortly out of the sport. He had a poor attitude to companion training, so I guess he ran out of people to workout with.
Here is the top woman on 6-4-89 (her target was to get all reps sub-50-seconds):
43.9, 48.3, 52
46.2, 49.5, 49.9
47.5, 51.8, 48.7
But those good sessions won’t really help the athlete get up to speed in the first 300m of a 400m race to reach an Olympic final (so we are talking about a high level race).
For me, a power endurance session would typically be a long hill sprint, preferably as long as the race lasts and up an angle of 8-degrees or a bit steeper. So that might be a 360m-long hill, then jog slowly down, turn and sprint to the top again. So that would be 3x2xhill.
But later in the season you can play with the variables, eg 1xLong Hill, jog back to halfway (or all the way) and then ? (maybe 2 or 4 or 6 reps) x 1/2-Hill or 1/4-Hill. We did the occasional session like that up to three weeks before the Olympics.
I don’t want to spoil Kitkat’s interesting info with ‘moans’ about an injury … !!
A quick update: My athlete suffers from a ‘partial tear’ in his hamstring. Will find out today what the verdict is - the MAIN question: for how long will he be out of action?
Thank you for ALL the messages of encouragement.
With respect S_C, perhaps the “main question” afterall is: Why did this happen and how can we avoid a recurrence". As I said, with my greatest respect for you and your knowledge. kk
sprint_coach:
I’ve had a very similar thing happen with a male athlete. He’d warmed-up very well, run a leg o the 4x100r, taken 2 long jumps and on the third time down the runway, BAM his hamstring went @10 strides into his approach (not even close to the board). It was at a very low key competition, so he wasn’t pressing at all, just working rhythm and technique. For this athlete a lot of bodywork had proven helpful, both in treating past injuries and preventing new ones. I think that as we got into competition he found himself unable to keep up his treatment as our therapist was an hour plus drive away.
As to being able to train a long sprinter without speed, I think that it’s done more often than we would like to think. There was no real speed training in the Jim Bush/UCLA plan for example.
From my standpoint I had female 400m hurdler who had chronically bad hamstrings from numerous past injuries. She had been an age-group star (400m in 55.8FAT at age 14), but gained weight and was allowed to compete while far too chubby. For her, getting her running mechanics right was the start point (once her body composition was addressed). She had outstanding kinesthetic awareness, so this was easy. We never did too many reps (4x50m tops) and done only when I knew she was very warmed-up, but not yet fatigued. In place of pure sprint work I had her do fairly large volumes of jumps (ie: plyo’s). She did this Monday (short jumps), Wednesday (long jumps), and Friday (short). Saturday morning was either a hill day or a sprinters fartlek, or just a fast distance run. The caveat is that she really should have been an 800 runner (good X-C results, ran 2:20 at age 12), so she would really hall ass on a 30min run. Tuesday and Thursday were ExT in varying loads. Weights were M-W-F with W being upper body only.
The net result was she ran 57.7 FAT (down from 58.9FAT the previous year) for the 400h’s and split 52.6 on the 4x4r with numerous 53’s. If she could have held together I’m pretty sure she could have run low to mid 24’s in the 200m, but had I pushed her about as far as I could and I think that we were on the edge as it was.
Anyway, sorry for the really crummy break. Hopefully your guy is a fast healer.
My athlete suffers from a ‘partial tear’ in his hamstring. Will find out today what the verdict is - the MAIN question: for how long will he be out of action?
Partial tear is a 2nd degree tear, he could be out of action from 2 to 7 days, out of the track from 1 to 6 weeks, away from high intensity track work from 3 to 8 weeks. It very much dependes on the first therapeutic approach as well as the therapist knowledge.
I agree with you.
Conversely, if your athlete is extremely fast and well coordinated to begin with, you can probably get away to a large extent with doing stress-recovery tempo work and come up trumps over 400m. Many pathways to the top.
Sprint-Coach, in discussing your dilemma with Charlie he reminds you to increase upper-body work with your athlete during his recovery from the hamstring injury. In this way, high intensity can be maintained to affect the whole body (ie, both legs, injured or otherwise via the neural pathways).
To a question posed on another thread about whether any other male had run the above-mentioned 6x200 set quite so impressively, I dug out an old interview with Lee Evans and thought to duplicate it in this 400m training thread where it may be most relevant… kk
Probably Lee Evans. We borrowed the session from him, having read of it in a fantastic interview by Alastair Aitken conducted with Evans in the Athletics Arena magazine wrap-up issue from the 1968 Olympics. Evans said the runs between the reps got so that they were almost as fast as the reps themselves. I think he was joking, but we took that session onboard because our great respect for Evans and his achievements.
I have a mint condition issue still today:
Evans talks about doing a lot of over-distance training and progressive weights during the winter.
“I ran plenty of 600 yards indoors and 800 metres indoors and outdoors. The one-lap dash runner needs a lot of strength, and you can nly get this by doing weight training during the winter and lots of over-distance running on the track” - Evans is quoted as saying to Aitken, a lovely fellow whom I first met in London in 1983/4.
“In the few months before the Olympic Games my week’s training would work out something like this:
Monday - 3x550 yards in about 67.0 seconds passing by the quarter mile mark in around 52.0 seconds.
Tuesday - 6 x 220 yards in about 23.0 seconds with a 220 yards jog between each one. I always jog the intervals between items but in Mexico or at other altitude training I walked, only because the recovery rate is so slow at high altitude.
Wednesday - 4 x 330 yards at a good pace, usually about 36.0 seconds, but I don’t always manage to get them timed.
Thursday - Usually about 6 x 150 yards for speed with a long recovery jog.
Friday - Usually if I have a race on Saturday I rest, if not then I go for a long easy jog.”
He says in this interview that he had run 45.2 for 400 metres while attending Salinas City College, which I deduce was during 1966.
“I took the national title and was unbeaten in all my races; The next year I went to San Jose State University and made the acquaintance of my old friend Tommie Smith,” he adds.
“(In the Olympic Final) I was in lane six with Freeman and James in the two inside lanes … I ran the first bend very hard, relaxed and lengthened my stride down the back straight then ran hard into the next bend and kicked for a good finish down the home straight”.
[The more things change, the more they remain the same. Evans’ race strategy is how most still run the 400 to this day]
He won the 68 Olympic final in a WR 43.8 and backed up with a 43.5 split in the winning 4x4 relay (2:56.1, but what a team: Vince Matthews, Ron Freeman, Larry James and Lee Evans - all legends).
Evans weighed just 70kg and stood 181cm (5ft 11 -1/2in) tall.
Many thanks for yet another indepth response Those were some incredible workouts by your athletes!
Just another question: would you have used many other methods (e.g. drills over longer distances, endurance bounding, jumps circuits etc.) to develop power endurance in your athletes or were hills the main staple?
Hi Speedman,
Look, those sets were among the best they ran. I know they all had a few better sets, but not by far. I just couldn’t find them in the numerous little books I’ve kept. Ther other thing is that I used to write down all the splits for the top people and give them the paper to transcribe into their own training log. So a lot of the sessions I have no record of. Then the top guy had his training diary stolen (he says :rolleyes: but he probably left it at the track one day) and I’m not going to telephone them and ask them to scour their logs just because something comes up on Charlie’s forum.
But it’s important to recognise that those sets came several cycles of training into the preparation, so by the time we see them they are the product of bullet-proof 400m runners (at least the work which enabled them to reach Olympic finals, although not win medals 
).
It’s also important to know there were plenty of sessions where recoveries took longer, reps were slower, or unfinished. But no session is particularly more important than any other and all are pavement stones on the path to building a better athlete.
Power-endurance included a so-called power circuit which contained a bunch of very simple plyometric exercises such as knees to chest jumps on the spot, bounding, skipping mixed in with sprints and jogs on a grid. It’s described earlier in this thread but quite some pages back. The circuit took from 6 to 9 minutes depending on fitness levels and they did it twice in the same session. But that session only appeared twice (so 4 reps) in a six-week cycle of GPP.
Gym work ended with a boxing pad set of 10 x 30sec and recovery ratio 1:1, so that was upperbody power-endurance of a sort.
I didn’t like doing a big bunch of plyometrics. I used them during the warm-up a couple of days a week, but after a while I settled most on high skips done over about 60m to 80m. I felt they mimicked the sprint action somewhat more closely, developed a vertical component which I felt might have been useful in sprinting, and the skipping was also less likely to contribute to injuries, particularly in the lower back. We never did the skipping for speed, always relaxed, in a rhythm and for height (strong use of arms, a bit like a high-jump take-off).
During the speed-power cycle of about 2-&-1/2 weeks duration, we also did a combination session once per week.
That session went something like: 2xSkip 80m (on infield), 2xDrag tyre 60m (on track) and 2x100m sprint buildup from rolling start. This set was done 4 to 6 times in the same session. I liked this session very much and so did the athletes - maybe because it was all short distance, walkback recovery - so different to most of what they routinely did, especially during the so-called strength and endurance cycle (also of 2-1/2wks duration).
But again, it’s all in the backpages of this lactate thread (if you’ve got a spare month or two to go back over them).
There was quite a bit of discussion earlier in this thread about issues starting 400m too young. Was that mainly to do with the intensive training required? 
I ask as my daughter has just turned 14 (end of Nov) and until now has concentrated on 800 & 1500m running very few 400m (no more than 2 per season and 1 so far this one since October).
Her SB’s are
400m 62.84 (broke her PB from March by nearly 2.5 seconds)
800m 2.29.95
1500m 5.16.7
Most people (including me) believe 400m will be her best event but I have always said we will wait another couple of years till she is 16. The issue is that she simply doesn’t do enough volume of work to be really competitive at 1500m and I am reluctant to increase it much more than at present.
A normal week she does a CF Long tempo session, a 20 or 30 minute run and a race. Each alternate week we will change the tempo or long run session for a speed session ( 4 x accel to 30m, 2-3 ins & outs, and 1 or 2 SE reps of 200, 150m or 120).
Now my main question. The key events are coming up and I wondered if instead of doing 1500 / 800 she should do 800/400 and not change her training (either way her training isn’t going to change a whole lot). So in essence the season becomes L-S. I know that would please her but that isn’t the sole determinant by any means. She has a good chance of winning over 400m but will probably finish 2nd or 3rd over 800m & 1500m. Winning is VERY important to her self confidence.
It would mean she would run another 5 x 400 this season.
At such a young age I would let her do the event that gives her the most enjoyment. All other considerations should be secondary.
She is still to young to be focusing on one or two events. Let her compete in whatever she feels like.
Plenty of time as she gets older to narrow things down.