HaHa, you already know the problems that most athletes have following a pure S2L without a good coach on site.
There are some common problems and mistakes that people seem to make when trying to do pure S-L and some of those I’ve made myself (including but not limited to poor fitness, limited running volume in upright positions and suboptimal technique). I was just curious to hear your take on where people go wrong to see how it compared with my views and if maybe you had thought of or noticed things that I missed.
No problem, I wasn’t trying to be an ass. I’ll post my thoughts when I get home.
below avg fitness and suboptimal technique are problems I definitely have.
Problems I have with the S2L program: Before I get started I would like everyone to know that I am not bashing the S2L program because the past few years it has worked well for myself and other athletes that I know.
1: Unless you are getting very good therapy, you will get injured at some point. My thinking behind this is from the long periods of speed/high intensity elements – it takes a toll on the body over time.
2: As a lower level sprinter I think it’s important to get more upright running into the program. Most lower level athletes who follow pure S2L program are great 30m sprinters but suck the last 30m of the 100 or can’t run decent 200’s.
3: Lack of fitness, unless you live in warm weather it’s impossible to perform the necessary amount of tempo work to develop proper general fitness. I like treadmill and bike workouts but nothing beats running!!!
4: I think if you are working with lower level or NCAA sprinters it’s very difficult to prepare them for a college season on a pure S2L program. Even if you look at NCAA programs who follow something similar to a S2L there’s still plenty of longer work into the program from day 1.
5: If you don’t have a coach like Charlie Francis on site, I think your results will suffer big time. When doing speed change and finishing drills it’s important to have a good coach on site, otherwise I think the athlete could be wasting time (technical aspects) and probably should be using Int tempo/CSW.
6: Going back to the general fitness theme, I think most lower level sprinters would benefit more by following a L2S or MVP style of training there first 3-4 years then going towards S2L later in there post collegiate careers.
7: Last let’s not over think this, look at most of the success sprinters at the NCAA level (D1-NAIA) are they doing S2L?? NO… We all want to copy the elite athletes maybe we should take a page from successful D3 or NAIA programs – they are the smart one’s because they are doing more with a lot less (talent, funding, facilities etc).
Just named a few, I probably have 3-5 more to add to the list.
You going L2S there RB?
CF would call it S2L, but it’s more L2S.
Good post and good points.
Do you think the relatively higher intensity of most S-L programs is a greater injury risk than the higher volumes that often accompany L-S programs or those programs that include more longer runs?
One confound for #7 however is coaching which most members here, and elsewhere, who have failed to see great success using S-L plans dont have. I can also see a team environment, which is present in the d3 programs, NAIA programs, MVP group, etc. having a significant impact on the effectiveness of programs that include more longer work (increasing motivation and so forth to get through hard workouts or longer runs).
Do you think more fitness/SE capacity/etc from the long running has an effect on the capacity to handle (in terms of recovery and performance in the races) a higher meet volume (# of meets and # of races per meet)? I get the impression that a lot of schools will run people in a ton of events. Maybe this is a way to get more high intensity SE than would otherwise be accomplished by S-L where you might get more high quality SE in training over the course of the year but less in meets (where the speeds will be higher).
Syrus- sorry to jack your log. We can move this if you like.
1: I think for athletes at our level who start training late Aug or early Sept - with all the short sprints in spikes, speed change drills, 60’s, heavy weights etc takes it toll on the body. We are talking about 18 weeks of fall prep follow by indoor and outdoor season, this is a long time of doing tons of high intensity work and even with decent therapy you will have some type of injury. I think if the L2S program is setup correctly and not doing dumb shit like 16x200 twice a week etc the athlete will stay healthy, even if there’s periods of higher volume, I still like the odds of the L2S athlete staying healthy. Don’t worry about the “so call” lack of speed work because if the strength program is good and there’s sled-hills-starts and plenty of races the athlete will be fine. Remember at the NCAA level there are many races to get high quality speed work in.
2: Yes I do agree that training groups helps with motivation etc, but if you have hard working athletes and the coach assign times to the workouts most likely the athlete will hit those times. For example, in the early weeks of training those 200-300’s workouts were tough but I knew I had to hit the times. Once again it comes down to having a decent training setup, if you are having a 11.0 sprinter doing 10x300 in 46 with 4mins you may be asking for trouble even with a training group vs having him do 4x300 47 with 6-7mins rest manageable with or without a group.
3: I may be wrong but I do think the longer sprinters 200-300m does play a role in allowing the athlete to handle more in terms of race volume etc. Maybe it’s better to get the high intensity work from the meets anyways, because like FOG mention before how fast are you really sprinting in workouts anyways? The lower intensity or sub-max workouts would allow you to work on other elements of your race plan (relaxation which is lacking from most lower level sprinters etc). I also think by going easier in workouts you are lessening your chances of injuries, if you gonna get injured at least let it be on race day.
putting injury aside, wouldnt lots of high int. work over the year be more productive when trying to get faster in general.
What is pure Sto L?Who said you should always go 100% in training?I see more injuries in programs full of intermediate speeds…again, running 4x300 in 47 for a sub 11 sprinter can hardly be considered enough to classify long to short…relaxation can be cured as well or better curing speed work.
Dont mean to break up the discussion but today:
8x20m blocks contrasted with isorobic resistance
4x flying 40m (from 40m)
15x Over head shot toss (huge pb again of 16.80m)
These are coming along almost linearly, its really weird, just the other week I was breaking 15, and now im out almost at 17.
8x5 Hurdle hops @ 24"
3x4 Hang snatch
3x5 Squat
Great workout, not getting nearly as wiped as I was when I first started 3 weeks ago. I actually feel as though I couldve done more volume, whereas 3 weeks ago I was dragging my ass in the weight room. Time for a down week then back at it and on to better things.
Unload week
4x20m blocks
3xflying 40m from 40m build up
15x Overhead shot throws (16.25m, no toe board pb)
4x5 barrier hops
Couple sets of cleans
2x185, 3x235, 1x245, 3x235
With the cleans I’m just getting used to getting under the bar and how working on my mechanics with that amount of weight on the bar.
3x20m accels
1x250m
Decided to reward myself with a 180m run after the 250m since I’ve been sticking to them so well lately.
Got my friend to hand time me. 20.2s for 180m. I’m quite happy with that at this point in my preparation. It was about 8 Celsius outside and I was running into a pretty significant head wind (so much so that my eyes teared up on the straight). Given all those circumstances and the previous 250m run I would say thats looking pretty good for my 200m.
4x10 squats @ 265lbs
4x12 weighted hip thrusts
2x10 bench press @225lbs
2x8 pull ups
Freezing cold day out there, so I kept it easy. It was a low volume session anyway but I didnt try to force anything.
5x20m blocks
3xflying 40m from 40m
15x overhead shot back throw
4x5 reactive hops
2x4 snatch
2x5 squat @ 345
The cold made it tough to stay warm and firing. So I pushed the weights in the weight room, going for a pb of 30 lbs on the squat for 5 reps.
When is your first meet? Are you gonna have any rust with such a long layoff? 
First meet will be in May most likely. Big time rust when I get back into it. It’ll take me a few good races to get back into it.
Most likely those races will be some 200m hand timed races. Kinda of sucks but its either run some 200m hand time at local twillight meets or nothing so I figure I’d get the exposure. Plus i’d like to run a decent 200 time so the more the better
week 1 of phase 2
6x20m blocks
4x100m double fly (30 build up, 20m fly, 30 easy, 20m fly) – Very tough
4x5 over head back toss with 8kg medball (16.2m throw)
6x5 hurdle hops @ 33" now ( I said before I was doing 24" but it turns out the lowest hurdle setting is 30")
2x2 cleans @ 225, 6x1 cleans @ 245
This is probably one of the toughest CNS workouts I’ve ever had. Going to take full advantage of the next recovery days.
What’s the point of double fly’s?? Speed endurance??
yeah, I’ve done these in the past and I’ve found them very useful. Ideally I would time both 20m segments and the goal is to minimize the time differential.
I’m just experimenting with them right now. I’m not sure if its something I’ll keep and do on a regular basis.