what is the Track & Field course?
On Monday I would do the 300’s first.
Why do Upper and Lower splits?
#1-Track and field course: University technical aspect, consist of about 2.5h of practice. Example for the next two weeks It will be hurdle when mechanically we work on technical aspects. I would qualify these days as mid/high neural stress days.
#2-Doing the 300’s first: interesting idea, I would like to know you reasoning behind this…
#3-I split upper/lower simply because I have always add better results that way and because my strength is not lagging behind my speed. They are not very long workout, just to continue some work. I increase strength by doing only 2-3 sets a week. My weakness is clearly my reactivity/technique/SE etc…all on the track Issues.
Maybe my spikes are a big contribution to my problems…On the last week I had wear NIKE ZOOM SHIFT FLY stiff plates, maybe too hard on my Achilles.
So I bought ASICS HYPER SPRINT I will maybe try them tomorrow to see how It feels.
btw Flat feet require control shoes. Flat feet are more prone to overpronation. Control shoes are also better for heavier runners. These shoes have better support that offer a better stability and limit non-wanted overpronation. (I have seen that in another forum, sorry to hijack there is tons of knowledge here 
Does It mean that stiff plate are better for overpronator or support and stiff plate is an entire different thing???
Dear Adonail,
I advocate only a weekly structure which follows a pattern of two days of training, one day’s rest, three days’ training, one more day’s rest:
Day 1: REST
Day 2: Intensity (eg: blocks, accel, time trial, or any super-severe session which cannot be achieved without fresh legs)
Day 3: Lower-Intensity (eg: temp, race backup such as 200m at 400m race-pace, 2min recov, then 200m at max effort; 5x200m at 400m comehome pace off 2min recov; 300 at tempo, 30sec rest, smash 150m max effort etc)
Day 4: REST and repeat cycle. The third day of training may be a rhythm day or race modelling day with Weights (possibly upperbody only)
kitkat1
Thank you for your answer, your system is a lot more clear to me now!
Question about the hill workout 2 x 2 x 360 in GPP?
I am training high high school guys and girls with goals of 50 seconds (guys) and 60 seconds (girls). The guys and girls have done the first set and the guys have completed the first 360 in the second set…they will complete the whole workout next time.
My guys are running stong @ 60 seconds - they are in better shape then the girls. The girls are running the first set in 75 seconds and it is much more difficult for the girls…we have not attempted the second set.
Do you recommend that I shorten the distance for the girls or do I not rush them and progress them much slower?
I hope this is clear…thanks for any help!
I agree that was a very good explanation of how you set your days up. It looks somewhat similar to what I have been working with.
So would the whole week look like this
1.Rest
2.High Intensity
3.Lower Intensity
4.Rest
5. Higher Intensity
6.Lower Intensity
7.Rhythm or Race Model
one question though, in my experience 5x200m at comehome pace with 2 minute recovery is not a lower intensity workout as I have a hard time finishing it. Does lower just mean in relation to day 2? Also where would weights fall, day 1 and 5?
Yes, modify by all means: The concept has ever only been to get the athlete to sprint for longer than they are required to do in the race they are planning to run. That is, if I am coaching a guy who can go around 45sec for 400m, I will work him for at least that long on the hills. So I have found a hill angle that doesn’t “damage” the racing mechanics, is firm but not hard under foot (grass or dirt not concrete or bitumen) and we open GPP with runs that average in the low to mid 50-sec range. The measurement of the hill worked out at around 360 metres.
There is explanation in more depth on the aspect in the “lactate threshold” thread
Anyway, suffice to say if you are targetting 60sec, you probably don’t really need them to be running hard for much more than 60sec - somewhere from 62 to 65 is good, and as they become fitter and less fearful you will see that time drop under 60sec, just as my 45sec guy’s times dropped from 52sec down to around 46-48sec as he developed the capacity to attack the hill.
That is exactly how the week looks during GPP and pre-comp phases.
During the comp period, I might sacrifice Friday’s (Day 7) race modelling just so as to be fresh enough to avoid injury in low-key meets.
Later for the more significant meets, the race modelling will be a staple the day before every race. Then the day before the Race Modelling Day will become a Rest day… and all other sessions are shuffled down the order.
On the 5x200m - that’s a bitch of a session and we always did it on the day after a Rest Day.
When you are setting up training sessions for your athletes you need to keep in mind that Most if not all of your women are slower than the men. Consequently no matter what the workout the women are always going to be running for a longer period of time.
For one rep of a WO this may not seem like much, but start adding up all the extra seconds a woman will run over the duration of the individual wo, then factor in the whole week of wo’s,then the month etc. and you will see that the women are running considerably longer than the men .
This takes a toll. Especiallly when we take into account the 40 sec window of running before we start experiencing the lactic acid that many coaches talk about. C Hart talks about this in some of his clinics.
Right Jerry, eg; he has the men do 3x 350m, 5 min. recovery, while the women might do 3x 300, shorter distance but approximately the same duration, sometimes, he’ll have the women do 2x 300, then finish off with a 350, he figures they have the rest of the day to recover,
I agree. BUt there is perhaps a case for variation of your idea based on the type and needs of the individual female.
In general, my plans have always been to work to the athlete’s strengths while also trying to minimise their weaknesses. Afterall, the strengths are what brings them any success.
I let my best female run the entire 360m hill because her background in the sport was that she came from middle distance racing and cross-country racing as a junior/sub-jnr.
While we always worked at least twice a week on trying to improve her top speed and her acceleration etc, the gains there were not as great as they were from the endurance-end of her 400m preparation.
Her last 100m segmental time in her best 400m of 50.2 was a pretty decent 13.25.
Yet her lifetime best wind-legal 100m off the blocks was something in the 11.6 (el) area.
Some would debate that the longer endurance runs (up the hill for the most part) retarded our attempts to improve her 100m speed, but I think you had to know the athlete and observe the training responses to the shorter high-velocity training.
Suffice to say there was greater productivity over the years from the training she did to develop the last 100m rather than the first 100m of her 400m.
That’s not to say we didn’t continue to persue the short speed improvements throughout her time with me, but it just didn’t really happen for her/us. We got her to run consistently under 12sec but that was like pulling teeth.
In the end she ran 22.8 (el) for 200m so that indicates the speed work helped. She only ever broke 23 that one time, a few weeks before she reached her OG final.
But she really never developed great explosive qualities even though she could squat bum-to-bench 2-1/4 x bodyweight, did her share of plyos and medball and overhead shot throws etc.
KK. I think your last post makes alot of sense. I currently have a few 400/800 women who hit 400 prs last year. Yet they train with alot more volume and do much more aerobic capacity work than my sprint based 400 people.
I wasn’t saying that women should lessen the volume in their training sessions. I just think it needs to be taken into consideration.
… as distinct from the rest 
for newer readers that are becoming kitkat fans I tried to sum up his posts in a sort of readable way.
Since 3 year i have tried to implement the strategies in my own training. It resulted in my best 3 years ever. every sub 11 in 100 and a low 51 in the 400 hurdles.
The link can be found below.
http://www.charliefrancis.com/community/showthread.php?p=118382
Kitkat-
In this thread you have extensively outlined the GPP phase, the 4 week transition phase which begins the competition season, as well as the taper.
Is there a phase that in between the transition phase and the taper? If so, what does this training consist of?
Thanks for your time and expertise.
THANKYOU for doing that, and I’m very happy to read things are still working well :o kk
I tried to create a hard and fast program to run automatically through the competition period, but gave up after the first day because there were too many variables - mainly related to how the athlete was feeling.
As you get into the comp phase, there was a little more emphasis on improving recovery between sets and shortening the times of the reps (although not the recoveries between the reps).
Comp results very much determined the short-term program. I rarely worked more than two weeks ahead and was happy to make changes along the way even over such a short phase.
So every 10 days or so, the athlete and I would have a planning session and we would argue about the time-line, how the rhythm was coming together (or not!), how the speed was improving (or not), how the endurance was improving (or not). We put more work into the weak areas, but we were careful not to ignore the other threads of performance.
In general, everything we did was a copy or an extrapolation of the sessions in the GPP and Transition phases. We may do a rep or a set less and go for faster times on the reps we did do. We maintained where possible three weights sessions, but rarely less than two sessions per week and on the rest day we tried to include a gymnastics class (which was almost a substitute or at least a supplement to the weights session).
I tried not to allow the peak to come too soon, and did not want the athletes to become too precious and fine-tuned so included the occasional hill session as long as I dared.
But often those hill sessions would be something like 2 to 3 sets of 1long + 3 to 6 short backup hills. The backup hill might be around 80m long, with the Long hill remaining 360m (or however long it took to run more than 50sec for a top female, or more than 45 sec for a top male).
But we always stuck to the two days “on”, one day “off”, three days “on” one day “off” micro-cycle (weekly cycle) where feasible.
For the sake of incorporating a competition (usually on a Saturday), I would try to drop the leg weights on a Friday (but keep torso and upperbody weights, and boxing padwork, going).
Mostly the weekly pattern of train-to-rest was a case of manipulating around the competition - protecting the speed day (race day) so no one was in danger of injury due to excessive fatigue or tightness (so no leg weights for most athletes the day before).
I hope that helps a little bit, but honestly I found it difficult to be prescriptive. KK
Thanks for the help.
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Key in this photo is that the inside arm swing continues to be “active” on the bend and the hand reaches shoulder height. There is no bending at the waist, so therefore there continues to be a direct line of force through the torso and legs into the ground. There appears to be close to full extension of hip, knee and ankle joints in the supporting leg. There appears to be no twisting of the torso on the bend, with shoulders squared up.