Hi guys, I have a question about the 12-week long to short program that Charlie made a graph for 2 decades ago. The two speed endurance days shown make sense (starting with 300s one day, and 600s on the other day, and working down in intensity). And I assume you would fit some tempo workouts around those on either side, too. However, if you are in a position to train every day, wouldn’t you want to do a third speed workout in each training week? And if so, what would you do on that third speed day? Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.
When you say speed days , do you mean max speed work or acceleration work ?
Hello Jake,
Why don’t you post the graphs you are referring to?
Tempo is important as it facilitates circulation and active recovery and yes, in it’s many forms he used, we have used a lot of tempo when speed work was not on the daily schedule.
Elite athletes tend to train every day or 5 to 6 days a week. That’s not to say each day is the same or a grind or the same each day of the year. Time of year training varies a great deal as I am sure you know .
How often speed is performed depends on the individual but also the method of training. Initially Charlie did all the therapy with each of his athletes for a good part of his and their career as athletes. He ran the group as a business as he was the primary finance person in the beginning. More speed is not always better. QUALITY work is what gets a result.
I recently read a facebook post from a well known coach assuring readers that they could do speed work 6 days a week. Doing speed work vs making substantial and or consistent improvements in your speed over time for a long lived career is what elite sprinters are interested in.
Just because you are able to do something, does that mean you should? ( and does that make it ideal and or effective?)
Let’s quickly review what the speed components are.
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Speed = 7 seconds or less/ 95 to 100% best effort with full recovery ( ~ 1 min per 10 meters of speed work
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Speed endurance = 7 to 15 seconds
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Specific endurance = 15 seconds or above up to about 600m/ 100, 200m runners would not run 600m/ only 400m sprinters would do this volume, distance
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Special endurance = it has incomplete recovery ~ 150’s for 100 and 200m sprinters // 400m and 800m can do 200m repeats
nice to see you back and nice to see you and hope you are well Sharmer
Another answer relates to how I was trained.
I mostly did speed 3 x a week and had a lot of therapy but Charlie felt I needed more therapy as I had a large leg length discrepancy which created issues for the body to recover.
Often I started with short speed indoors, pre comp and during comp and or leading into comp. We even tried to do some kind of shorter speed or explosive work outside with med balls in the fall when track work was not happening post comp season in Toronto Canada. What you do or decide to do on speed days has to do with many factors.