I just did an accel dev. session today, and it suddenly struck me I was doing something stupid. I’m so used to always doing the shortest work first (ie on mixed accel dev. + max v. or accels dev. + speed days everyone always seems to do the accels before max v. or speed). I’m currently doing acc. dev. in the early part of my preseason, and am now transitioning to longer accels, so I’m doing a mix of 20’s and 30’s before doing only 30’s. In this case should the longer work be done before the shorter work? The answer I reasoned to myself is yes, because you need to be fresh to put maximum quality into the longer distance, in particular if you’re not used to it yet. Unfortunately I noticed this midworkout today, so during the 30’s at the end, I felt like I was hitting a wall after 20m. … so conclusion, should I stick the long accels before the shorter ones from now on?
So thinking along that line, why do we all do accels before speed work? I see most people do for example 20 or 30’s before their main speed work, even during precomp or comp where the focus should be on the speed work and just maintaing acceleration capabilities? Are these people doing things wrong, or is there a reason that outweighs the possible CNS fatigue that would come from doing the accels and draw away from utilizing maximum energy on what matters? I can think of using the accels as a way of activating yourself, but isn’t that the role of the warmup, this waste of energy shouldn’t be needed. I can understand block work before, because during comp it might be more important or equally important as speed to do blocks work (and you might be working on form which won’t be possible to work on effectively at the end of speed because of fatigue), but again, why plain accels before speed?
I think it’s a thing of personal preference, some people don’t feel activated enough without them. What does everyone think then, are accels a must or optional?
