Why does a 13 year old need to focus on the 400m?
I can remember a discussion about the 400m for a young athlete - I think on ‘My training journal’ … John’s … ‘It’s all about me’. Try to find it - very useful info.
As a coach, I would NEVER focus on the 400m for a 13 year old athlete. Rather let him/her do short sprints - you’ll do him/her a BIG favour. 400m training is TOO hard, TOO early for an athlete of that age. Even if you put lower volumes of training on the prog.
Be PATIENT!!! I would prefer a SENIOR champion to a 13 year old champion, who is over trained and quit track and field at a young age.
Interesting wise - the above mentioned training session … do you expect from the athlete to do the 6 x 150m at full speed?
Please let the kid develop speed and good mechanics for a few more years, take the sprinter up through the gears. Do the hardest thing a coach can be challenged by - develop speed.
Endurance can come later.
Fitness can come from tempo, little bodyweight and light medball circuits etc
[ NOW, IN THE INTERESTS OF KEEPING THIS 400M TYPE THREAD UP TO DATE, I’VE INCLUDED SOME OF AN INTERVIEW ON THE IAAF SITE WITH JEREMY WARINER IN WHICH HE TALKS A BIT ABOUT HIS PROGRAM AND ABOUT HIS APPROACH TO THE RACE. kk ]
Wednesday, 13 February 2008 Wariner to “buckle down and do serious” with Sydney 200m his Olympic season opener
http://www.iaaf.org/news/kind=100/newsid=43355.html
Jeremy Wariner - 43.45 in Osaka (Getty Images)
Sydney, Australia - World champion Jeremy Wariner said he expects to open his Olympic 400m title defence with a 44-second run at the Melbourne Grand Prix, but will prime his season with a 200m race at the Sydney Grand Prix this Saturday, 16 February.
“I’m hoping to open with my 200m in the mid-20s, maybe even lower and hopefully in the 400m break 45, open up with a nice 44. The last few seasons I’ve opened up with a 44 so hopefully I can continue,” Wariner said on his arrival in Sydney today.
“I’ve done a lot more hard training this year than I’ve done before. Of course this being an Olympic year we’re going to buckle down and do serious…my start can get better so we’ll see on Saturday how it goes in the 200. I’m working on my speedwork, I’m a little stronger than last year and I’m working on my finish.”
Coaching change “not serious”
Wariner shrugged off suggestions that his much-publicised split with long-time Baylor coach Clyde Hart might adversely affect him and was something of a risk, especially in an all-important Olympic year.
“The change hasn’t been serious. It’s just a new coach for me,” he said, referring to Mike Ford, the man who actually recruited him from high school to attend Baylor and has worked for eight years under the venerated Hart.
"I’m still doing the same workouts, so nothing’s changed. I’ve got a workout partner now. The last few years I’ve trained by myself. Having a training partner like Darold Williamson (a 400 finalist at the 2005 Helsinki World Championships) who is on the same level as me is going to benefit me.
“When coach Hart couldn’t make it, coach Mike Ford was there for me at the Olympics. He knows exactly what I’ve done.”
Speed work
Wariner said that while he continues progressively to work every aspect of his race, he believes improving his 200m speed is paramount to his prospects of improving his 400m to World record level.
“Now that we’re training more for the 200 to help my 400, my 200 is getting faster,” said Wariner, who ran a wind-aided 20.41 before arriving at Baylor and has since lowered his best to 20.18.
“For me it is the key to progressing in the 400m,” Wariner explained. "The way my running style is, I think it’s the key. I’m more of a speed runner than a strength runner so I need the speed a little bit, at the same time as I build the strength.”
"It’s a lot of hard work at practice, a lot of over-distance that we do. I try to work harder than what I’m supposed to.”
"My coach wants me to come through in a certain time in practice and I try to come through ahead of it. I try to hold onto the same pace for the rest of the workout just so I can build my strength up.”
"That’s a big part of why I’m strong in my race and why I’m fast in my race.”
“I always try to over-achieve in my training to break the world record and be the greatest 400m runner of all time.”
Onward to 2016
There must be something to that because at only 24, Wariner already has two World titles and an Olympic gold medal at 400. He talked today about competing through to the 2016 Olympics which he hoped would give him a chance to compete before a home crowd.
Before then though he hopes and even expects to have broken another mentor, Michael Johnson’s World 400 record of 43.18. These days Johnson acts as Wariner’s track agent, while another former 400m star, Deon Minor, is his manager.
“I could definitely break 43 seconds. That’s my goal: to be the first one to run 42 seconds,” Wariner declared.
“I’m not going to rush things and try and force everything in one year. I’m going to gradually build up, each year to work on the same things to get better in each part of my race.”
He was less certain about just to race model that historic sub-43 because of his experiences splitting both fast and moderate 200m times in transit, yet emerging with nearly the same end time at 400m.
“Honestly no. One race I ran 20.8 through the 200 and I ran 43.45 at World champs (in Osaka 2007). At Stockholm I was like 21.1 and ran 43.5. I have a range,” he understated.
“If I go slower through the first 200 I know my next 200 is going to be faster of course. A lot depends on the track, the conditions and the field I have.”
While Commonwealth Games champion John Steffensen has advised Athletics Australia he will not compete in Sydney or Melbourne - two of the three meets along with the Australian championships (February 28 - March 2) which are compulsory under the Olympic selection criteria - Wariner said he would respect whomever he runs against.
“Honestly, whenever I run a race it doesn’t matter who I’m running against,” Wariner stressed.
“It could be high school kids, it could be the best in the world. I’m always going to run the same race. Every person in the race, I treat them as the same athlete - there’s always a chance they could beat me. Just because they’re not the top five in the world I’m not going to slack off and not run my race.”
Offering a rare insight into some of his training, Wariner was quick to reply to the question of which session is his toughest.
[b]“The workout I hate the most? My over-distance, of course,” he said with a wide smile. "Anything over 400. We gradually build down throughout the season, so we’ll start off doing 1000m. We’ll do two of those.”
"And then work our way down so that by the time we’re about two months away from the US trials we’ll be down running 450s and run 450s for the rest of the year. We do no more than two (450s).”
"We do 10mins recovery between the 1000s. All our over-distance always has the same rest. We pretty much work on a steady tempo.”
"Coach wants us to come through the 400 at a certain pace and from there on try to keep up that same pace or try to pick it up if you can.”
“The pace varies, depending on the weather, what time of season it is, if you’ve got a meet coming up. It all depends. One day we might do a 600 coming through in about 60 for the quarter, one day we might do 58 for the quarter.”[/b]
Thanks KK. Staying on topic Kerron Clement also gives some insight into his training with Bobby Kersee on the IAAF website:
Kerron Clement mixes in with LA celebrities – IAAF Online Diaries
http://www.iaaf.org/news/kind=102/newsid=43348.html
Kerron Clement of USA celebrates his gold medal in the 400m Hurdles Final (Getty Images)
13 February 2008 - “Hello everyone! Well another month has passed since I moved out here to the west coast.
“I love L.A. I love being here - it’s very much a fun city. I like the people. There’s a lot to do although I am focused on my task and I try not to let the big city distract me.
“You have Hollywood and the stars. I have been to a celebrity basketball game and it’s been a lot of fun. I saw all the ‘A’ list celebrities you can name there playing basketball. I really can’t tell you the location because it was a kind of a private event. Sorry about that!
“There’s a lot of places to go shopping and there’s a big club scene, stuff like that. In Houston you don’t get that and, of course, in Gainesville, where I went to university, you don’t have that because it’s a college town.
“I like to get out to relax and get away from track and field on the weekend, just relaxing with friends stuff like that.
“Practice has been intense - intense in quotation marks! It’s been very hard. You really have to stay focused because sometimes your body tells you you can’t go further. But I have been focused on my task because I know what I came out here to do and that is to be the best. Bobby Kersee has given me the training and I am very very fit. I feel I am in the best shape of my life.
“I am not running indoors. I haven’t made my outdoor schedule so I can’t tell you where I will be running yet. I have to sit down with my agent and talk with Bobby to see what meets fit my training schedule.
“It is normal for me to run indoors but I don’t have to race indoors to see where I am as far as my fitness level. My training speaks for itself. I prefer not to run indoors this year because my focus is on the 400m Hurdles and of course you don’t have the 400m Hurdles indoors.
“Bobby told us we don’t have to race every weekend because we have competition at practice. Shawn Crawford, Brandon Johnson and me, we all push each other. When competitive season comes I will be very excited I love competition.
“Right now we are doing a lot of over distance training and sprinting combined. Normally like in Florida we would have days where we focused on sprinting and then have our distance days but here we do a combination. Basically we do a lot of mileage.
“It is draining on the body but I had my mom here with me from Florida helping me giving me proper nourishment everyday. She was here for two or three weeks. It was great to have home cooked meals, Caribbean food, curried chicken things like that. I don’t cook myself although I do cook pancakes on the weekends.
“I have been going to bed on time, 10 o’clock, 11 o’clock because I know the next day is going to be very hard. The only days we have off are Wednesdays and Saturdays and on those days I am the happiest!
“We have been pushing ourselves for the past two weeks and right now we are at the point where the workouts are getting easier because we had put in so much mileage the previous week. So it’s getting easier and easier and we’re fit.
“More next month!”
Kerron
Thanks, good pickup.
So from this we learn a couple of things:
Kersee is currently (if not also previously) working on a three daystraining, one day rest, two days training, one day rest. (where have I seen that sequence before;)
and he is mixing work within the same session (possibly) or at least on the same day. So he may do overdistance, then some buildups at 400m race rhythm (front end or back end of the race? Back end would be much slower of course).
Thanks for the information . This is my view as well but,
Next year 2009 u/15 he can compete in the 300m hurdles and to prepare him for lactic acid pressure as he is doing only distance up to 200m this year, mostly 100m sprints in competitions and to prepare him for the 300m hurdles i was thinking of the 32150m at a pace say 2sec slower than his best over the 150 m this is about at a 90% race pace
Any other ideas will be appreciated
The two IAAF articles once again shows the emphasis some of the most successful American coaches place on overdistance work.
It seemingly goes against the philosophy of specific race pace running yet these coaches (Hart, Kersee, John Smith also) have probably had some of the greatest success. There’s no doubt they have had some super talents but these guys are no fools and must have a good reason (or do they:confused: ) for prescribing such work.
It also mentions sprinting work. But does not saw what/how much. Some very short & hi intensity sprinting combined with over distance might give the best of both worlds.
Might. Might also hurry on injuries. Prefer to hear it from their own mouths rather than speculate too much.
KK,
If someone had fallen into"Dynamic Stereotype", how would you fix that? What can I do,if I really believe I am in “Dynamic Stereotype”?
Take a couple of days off your legs
Then change the emphasis of your running
You need to change the rhythm of your running. That can be done, most typically, by using shorter reps and doing them at much higher velocity.
Then after a week or two, you can go back to you longer, slower reps if you want but don’t do them forever at the same cadence. Mix it up a big more.
How short? About 50-150?
The distance isn’t the issue so much as the intensity. Change the intensity. And that usually means dropping in distance. Just shake things up.
The other option often used is to do something like slow-fast-slow; or fast-slow-fast - maybe no further than 50m segments. So you can go 150 for one of those runs.
But when I wrote of shortening things up, I was talking about staying within an acceleration distance, so that would be no further than 60m and no shorter than 20m - mostly done from a rolling start as a safety precaution.
Ok…this might not be the right place for this post but anyway I will post it anyway. I feel connected to this board in someway because since I returned to running, this forum has been a big help.
After not running for 3 years, coming back this past year and running 49.73 was a great victory. Although my pb is 48, I feel good about the fact I was somewhat close to that. And even better I found out the 400 hurdles was the event for me. So I set out a goal of running 48.99 in the 400 and 51.80 in the 400 hurdles.
But things have not gonna the way I thought they would. I running slower than any point in my life and I have taken it very personal. I started training may 14th to run the 800 and 600 meters indoor and things have gotten worse. I lifted and ran so much, just looking back at my journals, I can’t believe I really have been training since may for this very season. So I have decided to do something I never thought I could do…
I am going to not run for a week… I think with all the work ive done, it is the best thing for me, and It will really help get my feet back under me because Ive done a lot of work before then. I will still continue to lift, but I am not going to run at all for 6 days at all. Is this is a bad Idea? I still have hopes for reaching my season goals, and I think this will refresh me. Lift in the morning, get off my feet the rest of the day and enjoy the week, then go back to training after a week.
I think you are correct on both counts: this is not the place for this kind of post (better to start a training log, or at least post this under that category of threads) and yes, also, you should never feel flat. You should build rest periods into your training like just about every other athlete.
You train to improve and you improve through training, but you don’t improve while actually training; you improve while resting.
Hi KK, on the 3 x 4 x 150m are the recoveries jog, walk or static?
Thanks
So today my athlete performed the split 400 session 1min between 200’s instead of 2 though. ( both from 3pt) Target race time for this season is 48.5.
This is the race model for the athlete,
6.78, 12.4, 18.01, 23.7, 29.44, 35.4, 41.61, 48.5
note he very much runs a 400m off endurance abilities, with a 200m pr 22.68 from last season, expected performance this year would be 22.3/4.
So todays times were 23.7 (1min) 24.1, what do these splits suggest to you? Is it expected for the splits to have been that even when doin split 4’s? or does he have the capability to go out much quicker whilst maintaining a strong come home 200m i.e 23.3.
( there was a headwind along the backstraight which would have probably added to how even the splits were.)
Any thoughts? Thanks. Owen.
The version I found brought best results for the athletes I worked with was:
sprint 150, diagonal jog back to the start,
sprint 150, diagonal walk back to the start,
sprint 150, diagonal jog back to the start,
sprint 150;
take a slow lap walk but rest all up no more than 10minutes.
Then repeat for sets 2 and 3. (The comulative effect becomes evident in even the fittest during Set # 3).
Can you put some times to those 150s?