Are you buried beneath 10 metres of snow up there in Serbia? Fabulous job of compiling and interpreting the research and more…you must be the most patient and busiest man in sports. Great job there Mladen…
The more I hear about Boyle, the more I’m convinced he knows little about training speed. Perfect example of what I stated earlier. Do your research before claiming to be an authority or expert. Otherwise you are just misinforming people. Often these types of people will claim that “Team sports athletes should not train like track athletes.” Having trained athletes at elite levels in both track and teams sports, I know this is bullshit and a cover for “I don’t know how to train sprinters, so I’ll tell everyone that sprint training is useless for non-track athletes.”
Pioneer is much closer to the mark. Early in a speed development phase, you would be running sub-maximal sprints over short distances with shorter intervals (i.e. easy walk back). This allows you to get more reps in and work on postural issues during the start and initial acceleration. However, even for this type of work, 18 seconds would be ridiculous. As you approach maximum effort (90-95% of best time and above), you will use 1 minute per 10 meters of travel as an absolute minimum. If working with elite athletes (i.e. 100m sprinters running 10.5 or better), these recovery durations would be moved well beyond that duration. 30 meter sprints (standing, falling start) may require 4-5 minutes. Block starts even more. Other considerations may be temperature during the runs. If it’s really hot, you may take longer, as there is less concern of the athletes cooling down. In cooler environments, you may shorten recovery times (at the expense of lower intensities on the runs) to prevent the athlete from cooling down too much between reps.
Charlie was big on providing whatever recovery was necessary to keep the athletes running fast. 18 seconds will not do that - ever. If it takes 5 minutes between 30 meter runs, then you must take the full 5 minutes.
Naaaah, I am just unemployed currently (if we excuse couple of personal training clients), thus I have time to read, interpret and compile. Thank you kitkat for kind words.
Great advice NuberTwo. As always.
I was doing internship at MBSC in Woburn, MA this summer and speed work was more in line with RSA. To be honest, Boyle program is better than 90% of programs here in Serbia, but even with that I must notice that some of his solutions are chosen to be in line with the context and goals of MBSC and that is money making. During summer 400+ athletes passed through the gym in groups starting every 15mins. So to provide service to all those athletes certain compromises needed to me made. That includes speed work (short rest, very small volume, 4-6 sprints of 15m) and conditioning (is it money wiser to spend 30mins developing aerobic capacity or do 10min intervals?).
I remember being look weird when I did 20min hill sprints with the soccer players and giving them 2min rest between sprints.
The problem was that one discussed by Charlie of High-Low. Keep the high high and low low. Lower level athletes tend to meet at the medium: they slack at speed work not giving their best, and they race at tempo, thus everything gets the effect of medium intensity work, which is B.S.
Deeply agreed. Recovery is what is truly under-rated in soccer,and everywhere else.
Everybody seems to focus only on the stimulus,and the nature,modalities,and nuances of such,while completely ignoring what is happening as soon as the stimulus (bout of exercise,whole training session,or match/sport event for the purposes of this discussion) ceases.
Stimulus (single event) over response (continuous state) perspective is at the base of all misinformation out there.
Exactly. No long term plan and frequent changes of the coaches.
Maybe I used wrong term – not speed but Alactic Power/Capacity (maybe even speed a little bit). You can combine technique work with speed work at some time periods.
Here is the drill we used
Two athletes are lying on the ground and coach with the ball between them. Coach pushes the ball forward toward the small gates(20-30m in distance). Athletes start to run and after certain distance need to ‘shoulder tackle’ to fight for the ball which is moving in between them. Only one athlete is allowed to go through the gate. After that he may play 1v1 with the goal keeper. The drill lasts 4-6secs and it is very high intensity. Does is develop speed? Probably acceleration (not Vmax for sure ;)). Do we do only this and no ‘speed work’. No, we combine the two.
Extreme flexibility in planning is a must in pro-soccer,but that does not preclude per se quality of training. It may even enhance it.
Soccer (as all sports) implies by definition the concurrent expression of multiple combined abilities and traits,way too frequently compromised in its quality by addressing them in…combinations.
Yes, in my book 3x30m with 4-5 min breaks will always be better than 10x30m with 1 min breaks.
In the first example you get 3 repetitions that contribute to a positive speed adaptation, as indicated by Pakewi. In example 2 you get 1 good speed rep (assuming the athletes are not holding back on rep 1, knowing that 9 more are coming) plus a mish-mash of special endurance work with bad technique and greater risk of muscle strain.
Unfortunately, working in the private sector does not give you the luxury of “time”. When I coached 100m sprinters, a running workout could take 2.5 hours or more. Most of this time was to allow for a gradual progression in warm-up, therapeutic interventions and, most of all, recovery between runs. And, when we performed block starts, I found very quickly that more time was required for recovery to ensure the athletes could repeat the quality of their runs. This is why Charlie used standing starts for all runs other than specific block work. The amount of energy expended from a deep position would dilute the quality of longer runs (i.e. 60m and above).
What it adds up to is that in order to optimize speed gains, you must give the recovery time identified by Pioneer and Pakewi. This point is not debatable. The “private sector gurus” will give their excuses and rationalizations for their programs, but they cannot burn the candle at both ends. In the final analysis, their programs become glorified calorie burning sessions.
Duxx,
I agree with your first point.
I don’t think that the exercise you propose is a good choice and I explain why, having done that many times and more.
Speed = relaxation and if you put the fighting in it, relaxation (if it is not in the ahtlete, and it is not most of the time) is the last thing you find.
More on that. A big problem in non-track athlete is poor technique, usually related to low (specific) strength levels. I began filming athletes and I noticed a common trend, very weak glutes and thus inefficient acceleration (pelvis up not the side pushing or hip internally rotated). If we don’t fix those issues in isolation (and that mean, in this context, without the ball) we are greatly limiting the exploitation of the athlete’s potential.
So, technique, specific strenght and relaxation must be tackled in isolation, even in team settings (the more exposure you can have, the better).
Lastly, every time we did that drill, I kinda felt that an injury was close. Not the worst drill in the wrold, far from it, but it must be put in the right context.
We started a project with pro soccer players on their way to re-join the team after an injury a couple of years ago. It implied the use of very short training workouts (16-20 minutes total allocated time) with the aim of getting them ready to work with the rest of the team and be back on the field in the shortest time possible after rehab. Workouts were assigned daily,sometimes as doubles,most of the time as singles,and were done every day with no day off until the first full time match were successfully played. Of the total 16-20 minutes the only factor we kept purposefully constant by design was the total time allocated for recovery (15-out of 16 to 20- minutes).
Players were monitored and functionally evaluated in a number of areas,ranging from pure task performance to general physiological indicators. The results were so encouraging in all areas (display of performance capabilities,general and specific fitness to mention a few) that we decided to export the very same training format to athletes outside the team,and of different sport specializations, and eventually to private PT clients and even patients from all endeavours. All with rather consistent extremely positive results over time.
No. I was saying that without fixing technical and strength (specific) issues you are not exploiting athlete’s potential, and it was related to the exercise proposed by duxx and the develpment of speed.
For sure it is a common trend I have seen, sometimes it is enough to watch people with the eyes, directly or in front of the TV. You just start noticing trends.
But what you said does not represent my thoughts. It could be like: Pakewi said that without ARP or isoextremes etc. it is not possible to break world records. I am sure it is not representative of your thought, but correct me if I am wrong.
Depending on the athlete’s talent level (obviously better with advanced skill levels), the drill could be useful as more of a transitional drill from general sprint work to more specific skill sets and game settings.
I have experimented with the speed change drills and as a transition drill, performing a type of sideline run where players sprint after a ball passed from a teammate.
I feel there is a place in training for it, depending on the specific situation of the athlete/team.
This brings up a topic of general sprint/speed work and the specific game work. At what point, if any, is there a transition between the two? I prefer to stick with general training means and leave the specifics for practices with the coaches and trainers.
(if we excuse couple of personal training clients), thus I have time to read, interpret and compile. Thank you kitkat for kind words.