I am his athlete. I think athletes have the right to expect performance improvements at the right times. I’m not completely worried at this point because I do believe that my performance will bounce, but only given the right circumstances. My performance will be the ultimate judge of my coach. I havent given up on him yet. I also treat this thread as a journal of sorts and I write down all my thoughts, whatever they may be. So that I can go back at times and review my thoughts and how I was feeling during certain periods. That gives me the right.
Anyway, we have planned a series of lowered intensity workouts around some higher intensity ones.
So a little bit of work today, got a meet on saturday so nothing more than some activation stuff.
warm up
4 easy accels
6xblock starts
We tested the vertical on the jump mat and I set a new personal best of 37.5. My previous bests in Sept and Oct were always around 36 high. So this might be a good sing of my CNS bouncing back finally. We’ll see for sure at this meet.
Definately some sinking in the set position. you seem slightly bunched up…your initial step and hand motion looks great…now this is serious nitpicking and I am not a biomechanist, but from my observartion your first 3 steps are very solid and your body angle rises ever so slightly but starting at the 4th step it looks like you drop your angle further instead of keeping the gradual rise in the drive phase…
thats a great website by the way I like all of the tools for the videos
Thanks for the comments. In this particular start I did stumble on the 4th step or so. Unfortunately this was the only start I did that day that was filmed.
I tend to sink a lot when in the starting blocks. I’m not entirely sure what is causing it. I think my position in the set position needs to be tweaked a little. Might have something to do with my block spacings too. Any suggestions? I have a short torso, so this might be causing some weird hip to shoulder height issues.
At the meet on the 18th of Dec. I ended up running a 7.12s. It was a funny meet, a very quick one. They only had heats and in my race the guy next to me ended up false starting really badly, but they didnt have a 2nd gunner, nor did the main gunner call us back. Threw me off a little bit, but nonetheless, I had a decent start.
I was feeling very fried so I took a week off for the holidays.
Mon Dec. 27th
6x60m FEF, taking them failry easy
4x vertical jumps on the jump mat, 37"
3x5 squats
From now on, we’re going to take a slightly different approach to recovery. We’re going with the 72hrs between sprint workouts, instead of the 48hrs. I think this is a little better to make sure the fatigue doesnt accumulate, and that I’m fresh for each workout.
Big stimulation day. I think me and my coach have found the right mix of stim and recovery. Things are coming back to where they once were quite quickly.
3xflying 25m
Down to 2.44s on the third rep and missed the 2nd which was feeling faster. The trend has been over the past 2 1/2 months:
2.40s
2.44s
2.49s
2.53s
2.47s
2.44s+
So a positive
flying 50m: 5.03s
7x15m heads up blocks
My brain wasnt in the right place, false started on one, and wasnt my usual self on the reaction. Think the fatigue from running was getting to me.
5x5 bounds
personal best of about 17.8m, with a 5 step approach in shoes.
2x10 squats
3x10 bench press
I’m still keeping things very general with the weights to avoid excessive CNS fatigue but to keep the strength stimulus. I can finally say with confidence that things are headed in the right direction. The stimulation is well timed with rest. Theres a meet this saturday, and we have opted for a wednesday session and then race saturday as a weekly setup. I’ve used this before and liked the 72hrs pre meet the best.
They felt good physically. Had a pretty good finish. Looking back at the tapes my acceleration was very rushed. Was upright right away, and my steps were short and I had some incomplete extension. So for next meet I’m going to focus more on a relaxed acceleration and trying to get that full extension during a competition. Physically I’m there, its just technically I need to get my acceleration to match what I’m capable of during practice.
Tues Jan 18th
4xblocks- felt great, had great arm action and really focused on extension
Fri Jan 21st
Did an activation session for the meet the next day.
Practice warm up
2x20m blocks
1x80% 60m stride
Sat Jan 22nd
This competition was a little meet to test out this new local facility. They only had straight finals for the 60m, so I already knew i was going to be disappointed not to run a final.
7.03s
By far one of the fastest “heats” I’ve ever run. I had made some technical changes with my acceleration phase. Noticing primarily that my steps were tiny and I was rushing things. I focused on relaxing, and driving with the arms more to create that larger stride and faster acceleration. Just last week I had run a 7.16s in heats and I’m not in any real better shape. I think I still have a bit to improve on the start too, especially off the initial split.
Given the fact that 2nd place ran 7.43s (I historically run slow when no one is pushing me) and that I always run faster in finals, I think its safe to say I had a good chance at breaking 7. Anyway, big meet this friday coming up. There will be a ton of people there that are faster than me, and I’ll hopefully get the chance to run twice.
Since I only ran 1 60m I went to the gym after and lifted.
Tues Jan 25th
I ended up catching a bad chest cold and felt so weak I could barely do anything on this day. Bad timing on the cold
Fri Jan 28th
Despite the cold I raced anyway
7.06 heats
7.03s finals
I felt fairly good technically and was quite consistent. I need to rest up a little over the next few days and then get a good week of slightly harder training before the next little competition block comes. Things are looking good for me technically. Now if i can get healthy and drop a sub 7 I’ll be happy.
Interesting last month of training and progressions.
You seem to group workouts like:
Day A: Accel work
Day B: max speed
instead of incorporating both??
Curious as to your reason. I have always done both, i.e. accel and max speed (day A), accel and SE (day B).
I also agree that in many cases 72 hours is better to recovery. I’m almost in favor of this type of weekly format:
Mon: Hi, full body weights
Tue Lo, massage following
wed off
Thur Hi, full body weight
Fri lo, massage following if no weekend workouts
Sat lo, upper weights, massage at end
sun off
This is a great point and something I have wondered before. My coach groups the accels together on a single day. I think he feels as though the volume of accelerations necessary to progress deserves a day of its own. Although, when i’ve programmed things myself I’ve included accels on the same day as speed work, in order to squeeze in more speed and less accels.
The main thing that I found, and maybe I have a low work capacity, is that if I do accels first, it takes away from the quality of my speed work. So in the past i’ve actually placed the accels after speed. But in general I would prefer to have accels and speed on the same time as a way to do more speed within the week.
I’ve been separating accel and maxV/SE work as well with good results. I took a general rule used by pfaff and modified it for 2 HI days plus meets for comp period.
Pfaffs template was 3 HI days: 1 with accel focus, one maxV, one SE in no particular order. I condensed it by mixing maxV and SE work and have taken .07 off my 55 PR, .27 off my 200 PR:
mon: flies/2-3 SE runs 150-300
tues: general strength remedial work
weds: accels/lower
thurs: upper
fri: premeet neural work and block checks
Sat: compete 55-200
Sunday: Off