No, I haven’t used that when deadlifting. For the forseeable future I will just be squatting, box squatting, and O lifting though. If grip starts impairing O lifts at all I will definitely make sure I get some chalk.
Thanks a lot for the tip!
Definitions of terms (“page 2”)
Intensive tempo are workouts in between above 75% (usually well above) but below 95% with short rest periods so that the intensity stays in that area. Its usually used as preparation for special endurance and speed endurance, but not to build endurance specific to events.
Extensive tempo (people usually specify int. tempo, but refer to ext. tempo as both tempo and ext. tempo). Workouts at 75% effort or below (possibly up to 80%) used mainly as a contrast and means of restoration from high intensity work. Rest periods are short enough to make it somewhat challenging but still make it recovery and distances of runs vary up to 600m and possibly up to 1000m with total session volume going up to about 2200m; 3000m for 400 runners.
Special endurance 1, 2, and speed endurance (the SEs). Many people will tell you special endurance 1 is from 150-300m and special endurance 2 is from 300-600m, while some go by time. These can obviously be specific training elements for 200/400m but also general training components. Speed endurance refer to runs from six seconds up to 150m, which is after top speed has ended. All of these are performed with complete recovery from the last rep.
Acceleration development is work on distances up to before a runner reaches top speed. MaxV work is work on when he does reach top speed, either through overspeed methods of prolonged acceleration before top speed, technical work on max speed mechanics from shorter accelerations, sprint-float sprints where an athlete accelerates hard for 20 meters or so and then uses the momentum for a period of time to reach a higher speed and concentrates on holding. It can of course also be developed by using short speed which refers to usual acceleration and top speed combo runs.
Nutrition
Macronutrient ratios
The macronutrients are carbs/proteins/fats. Many sprint coaches and successful sprinters (in the 400m or under brackets) advocate a “Zone” styled 40% carbs-30% proteins-30% fat diet. Obviously no diet is suitable for all sprinters, but many have seen success with this approach when keeping the vast majority of carbs as fruits and vegetables with at least half these serving being vegetables and the other half being low glymecic/insulin index fruits eaten at meals. A small amount can come from grains that do not cause a large insulin rise such as basmati rice (preferably Texmati over white basmati rice) and steel cut oatmeal (McCanns is great). These grains contain phyates which block mineral absorption but the losses can be usually made up through supplementation as long as moderation is shown. But the vast majority of carbs by weight should come from fruits/vegetable.
After an intense workout an insulin spike is beneficial to refurnish the body with glycogen and drive a fast acting protein (whey) into the body. This can be another source of carbs. Many drinks have come onto the market with this idea in mind. Reliable drinks include GO! Recovery drink, SNAC Proglycosyn, and Biotest Surge. The latter two cause more dramatic insulin rises which over time, even if used only after intense workouts could conceivably cause a problematic increase in insulin resistance, a condition detrimental to general health as well as performance.
This is also a source of protein, the next macronutrient that will be discussed. Most 400m or under runners seem to see success using protein as around 30% of macronutrient intake, so it may be wise for individuals to start with this level and then experiment. Protein should probably not rise too greatly above this point since excess protein (which is very easy to get when using one of the protein powders on the market, which is why for sprinters, especially those not trying to gain weight, the vast majority of protein should come from whole foods) without sufficient fat intake can lead to a host of health problems. Soy protein should be avoided by all athletes, and probably by all people because it can not only lead to a decrease in testosterone but also to many health problems. Most protein should come from animals, fish, dairy products (not milk or sweetened yogurt), and eggs.
Fats are extremely important for a sprinter, especially when taking in a large amount of protein. Animal fat from pasture-fed (as opposed to grain fed) animals is very healthy, but when the animals are grain-fed (especially fed soybeans) this produces a negative effect on the fat and when animals are loaded up with hormones and fed non-organic feed (as is the case with animals in most grocery stores; be careful, if it doesn’t say organic it definitely isn’t) the results are very negative. Most athletes should probably try to consume lean meat and eat coconut oil, olive oil, avocados, nuts, and fish to increase percentage of fat in the diet. Although 92% saturated coconut oil is possibly the healthiest oil on earth, containing superb nutritive, antimicrobial, and antioxidant properties. It can help keep athletes healthy during hard training periods. For more information about the well-documented health benefits of coconut oil see The Healing Miracles of Coconut Oil by Bruce Fife, http://www.coconut-info.com, or http://www.lauric.org. Monounsaturated fats have well documented health benefits, but excess consumption could lead to deposition of adipose tissue (fat) the enemy of athletes. In an ideal diet polyunsaturated fats should probably not equal more than 4% of calories. However extra polyunsaturates in the form of omega 3s may be needed to balance out the omega 6:3 ratios that most Americans struggle with. The ratios should probably be between 1:1 to 1:4 (4 being omega 6) for optimal health. Polyunsaturated fats can lead to trans fats which are potent oxidants (the opposite of antioxidants) and can lead to extreme endangerment of health and performance when heated or even exposed to light (depending on the degree of polyunsaturation). Fats should probably not dip below 30%. Depending on carbohydrate consumption and individual response to fats the percentage can fluctuate. The number can go as high as needed to make up for a lower percentage of carbohydrates.
Micro waving-Sprinters and people in general should not microwave their food, two well-controlled studies have been done showing deleterious effects to people’s health caused by microwaved food.
Planning and Periodization
The 4 phases: GPP, SPP, Pre-comp, Comp (followed by recovery)
GPP:General Physical Preparation. The following applies to 100/200 runners. 400 runners have different demands. The idea behind the GPP is to work the muscles very hard and come out with an increased level of general fitness (it should be dramatically increased for young athletes, especially those in their first four training years) but give the Central Nervous System a rest. This is accomplished with cardiovascular work. Athletes should strive to be able to complete 2000m of tempo training in different fashions with ease. Examples include:
600, 500, 400, 300, 200, 100 with one minute in between
4500 with one minute in between
down to
210*100 with 30 seconds in between reps and a walk back in between sets.
General strength exercises can be done in between reps and this technique is especially usueful during this phase. General strength exercises usually refer to exercises that are not too strenuous in low reps but very muscularly strenuous in high reps (i.e. pushups, lunges, chinups depending on strength, or calisthenics and medball exercises, especially those involving the core (low intensity core work is incredibly important for a sprinter, when strong slow-twich muscle fibres are not in place in the core everything else falls apart; during all other phases it is best to keep specific core exercises in the medium to low intensity bracket so as not to tax or prevent CNS recovery, but during the GPP slightly more intense core exercises can be done).
Circuits can also be done in place of/after tempo and should probably be done a couple days a week during the GPP phase. Circuits can be composed of general strength exercises or can involve light weights and high reps in the weightroom. An example of a field circuit called Waterloo and one called Baatan used by Dan Pfaff is included here (source: http://www.drtrack.com/CoachingEducation/SpecificStrength.shtml)
:
G.S. (WATERLOO) G.S. (BAATAN)
Prisoner Squats Single Leg Squat
V-sits Toe Touchers
Pushups Pushups
Back Hypers w/twist Back Hypers
Rocket Jumps Yogis-Hamstring Dev.
Leg Toss Side-ups
Rocky’s Lunge Good Mornings
Wrestler’s Bridge Rocky’s
Cossack Extension Lunge Walk
Crunch
Decline Pushups
(Single leg reverse leg lift)
Acceleration development can be included after about two or three weeks as long as it is done on grass and if done with elite athletes is kept submaximal. An example of a microcycle (week) during GPP in a section lasting for maybe three weeks or so for a very young athlete could look something like:
M-tempo
T-circuits
W-tempo
Th-more intense weightroom circuit
F-tempo
S-depletion BW exercises circuit
Su-rest
Coaches can slice it anyway they like though since only the Thursday and Saturday is somewhat intense and it is unlikely injury/overtraining could occur in a situation like this unless the athlete is not closely monitored or is very out of shape coming in; in the case of the latter more rest days should probably be used.
From here the athlete could go on to include something like:
M-tempo
T-acceleration development
W-circuits involving upper body depletion exercises
Th-light circuits
F-lower body depletion exercises
S-tempo
Su-off
Or however the coach wants to slice it based on the needs of the individual athlete and how he/she is recovering and intensity is kept in mind. This could last about 5 weeks or so if the above scenario is used.
These are just meant to provide very general examples, the main idea is that general fitness is the most important thing for any athlete and the most important thing to work on for young athletes as it will allow more high/low intensity work to be done and more efficiently recovered from which will provide either higher training stimuli or further recovery/work capacity building. The high intensity exercise such as weights/speed cause training effect, special endurance/split runs/intensive tempo build training effect as well as work capacity but to a lower extent, and low intensity work helps recovery and builds work capacity. This is where coaching becomes a juggling act since all these qualities are needed but only so many “training dollars” (athlete energy) is available.
For elite athletes the GPP should only last about 4 weeks in most cases since it is assumed that they will have a high level of general fitness.
SPP (Specific prep phase):
For all athletes general fitness should be maintained as best as possible in SPP and for young athletes it should be built, so circuits should can be very useful in this phase and tempo is of course still used. Depletion leg work should probably be dropped as it creates profound muscle damage that cannot work in a three intense days a week setting. One of the main goals in this section of the SPP is to try to work out structural deficiencies in an athletes body by building cross-section which can be done with exercises that use less of the body’s total motor units (motor units fire muscles) than very large compound exercises).
The first order of business in SPP when following the Charlie Francis system is the accumulation phase, a high volume weight room phase utilizing many exercises. Speed is done before this but kept lower than usual to allow energy for the weight room. A typical microcycle in the accumulation phase may look like:
M-short speed and weights following (i.e. Squats, 310, Rows 310, Bench Press 310, reverse hyper 310, tricep extensions 310)
T-fairly challenging circuit training & depletion upper body work
W-extensive tempo
Th-fairly challenging circuit training
F-OFF
S-short speed and weights following (i.e. Squats, 310, Rows 310, Bench Press 310, reverse hyper 310, tricep extensions 310)
Su-circuit training or extensive tempo or a combination of the two with calisthenics in between tempo reps
Then the next week the reps might be decreased.
Short to Long-The philosophy
The Short to Long philosophy is a simple concept. Instead of using the popular long-to-short program of building up extensive endurance and work capacity by doing high rep longer distance sprinting sprinters develop a base in the GPP while doing some short speed work and then progress up to the distance of their chosen event from the short speed.
This style has become extensively used in large part due to sprint coach Charlie Francis who has been also very well known for his “vertical integration” concept. Tradition Western/linear periodization works on one theme during each phase of training to the exclusion of other biomotor qualities. So during GPP an athlete may run mileage and long hills, in SPP build to shorter distances, in pre-comp move down to race distance, and then in comp try to “peak” and achieve a maximum performance at the race distance. Recently a direct contrast to this has evolved with “conjugate” training, which seeks to work all biomotor qualities at all times. Vertical integration is a form of conjugate training that emphasizes a particular biomotor quality, such as strength, power (more for athletes in sports where the speed involved is lower than in sprinting), or speed while the other qualities are maintained.
Assistance training:
One of the most popular forms of assistance training for sprinting and the one used most extensively by followers of the Charlie Francis philosophy is weight training. Other weight lifting phases are outlined in the SPP section of the “periodization” section but the following specifically deals with “max strength” weight lifting.
Schemes for Max Strength Weightlifting:
The subject of what to do in the weight room when an athlete wants to begin training the nervous system (which happens when a weight is moved at a fast speed, or usually when more weight than is used in the accumulation phase is used) at different training ages is extremely debatable and many different schemes can work. The main thing to keep in mind is that, though strength is very helpful, the main reason strength work is being performed is to provide variation in a training program that’s main objective is sprinting. When sprinting is performed for a certain period of time and improvements are being made after a while plateaus begin to set in. This is when strength training becomes useful. When looking at it strictly from this perspective it appears that the best possible approach in the weight room is minimalistic and only great enough to produce variation for continued adaptation to training, since all weight room training is taking away energy from sprinting. The end goal is to only take away enough volume and intensity from the sprinting as is necessary to continue adaptation.
It should be noted at this point that it is not necessary to involve the nervous system to cause a stimulus that will cause variation. At the beginning of a sprinter’s career the main goal is structural adaptation by inducing functional hypertrophy, or muscle that could later be used to contribute to sprinting ability. Thus, in the early stages of a sprinter’s career most coaches choose to structure what look like extended accumulation phases, many times in circuits to try to induce work capacity in a cardiovascular setting. As noted above it is not necessary to involve the nervous system to provide a counter to sprint training to induce adaptation so many coaches continue this training past the point where the sprinter is free of structural deficiencies. Some move onto nervous system training and only address what should now be minor structural deficiencies in the next accumulation phase. Some continue higher rep work/circuit type work for an most/an entire sprinter’s career. Which option is chosen depends on the needs of the individual and also what he/she will encounter in the program. Sprinters performing intensive tempo and special endurance for most of the year might benefit most from the latter while those using a short to long approach might benefit from one of the former methods. Finally when a very high level of strength, hopefully coinciding with speed, has been reached it may be necessary to drop back the weight and try to raise the rep number, possibly into the 6-10 area so that speed can be continued to intensify.
When/if a sprinter decides to try involve the nervous system to improve limit strength the set/rep schemes are only limited by his/her imagination. Usually the schemes move down from higher reps (within the confines of 5 reps which is pretty much the generally accepted rep scheme to involve the nervous sytem if proper weight/speed is used and the athlete is of a fairly advanced training age) to lower reps within a cycle. So a 3-1-3 setup could looks like
X sets by 5 reps
X sets by 4 reps
X sets by 3 reps
Unloading week with one set of 3 reps at a slightly lower weight
X sets by 2 reps
X sets by 1 rep
X sets/1 set by 1 rep (trying to utilize the increased strength that has been gained over the cycle).
One could also do the first three at 3,2,1 and then repeat or do the first 5, 4, 3 and then repeat. A more advanced athlete looking for slighter nervous system stimulation at the beginning or a beginner looking for greater hypertrophy could consider something like:
55
45
54
unload
53
35
34
Conversely, many feel that pyramiding in this fashion is not an optimal training method. They espouse increasing the intensity throughout a cycle while keeping the set/rep schemes. For instance:
55 @ 75% 1 RM
55@ 80% 1 RM
5*5@ 85% 1 RM
Others take this a step further. They advocate this style of schemes based on “absolute intensity”, which means the scheme is based on the repetition maximum for the repetition number used, i.e.:
55 @ 85% 5RM
55 @ 90% 5RM
5*5 @ 95% 5RM
Test
Other forms of Assistance Training:
Other forms of assistance training for sprinters include jump training, special endurance, and intensive tempo. The reason that all these fall into the category of assistance training and therefore general training components is that the ground contacts are too long to be specific to sprinting. Special endurance and intensive tempo are obviously more specific than jumps training.
Some of the things that special endurance and intensive tempo can accomplish are increased work capacity at higher and lower intensities, functional hypertrophy (though for sprinter’s wishing to achieve the more mesomorphic body type, examples of which can be seen in Ben Johnson or Maurice Green, as opposed to the ectomorphic body type, exemplified best by Carl Lewis, weight training may be the best thing to use for most of the hypertrophy; in general ectomorphs tend to do better in training programs using intensive tempo/special endurance as the main assistance training), achievement of specific strength, and development of the ability to buffer lactic acid, and increased efficiency due to muscle adaptation by spending greater amounts of meters in something very close to high speed sprint form. Some of the negatives of intensive tempo if not properly planned can include muscle fiber conversion from “fast-twitch to slow-twitch”, the fact that it is too fast to be useful for muscular and central nervous system regeneration, and neural adaptations to slower speed. It is possible to set up a program that nearly eliminates these side effects, but how to do so is beyond the knowledge of this writer.
Pre-Comp: This phase usually follows a max strength/power phase that ends GPP. The idea is to cut back on the assistance training to allow for intensification through volume and intensity of speed work. The # of meets needed to precede the taper and peak is determined in large part by the length of the event. For 55m it is something like 4 to 5 meets, for 100m 5 to 6, and for 200m 6 to 7. Then comp is entered.
Comp consists of one or two “peaks” which are preceded by a “tapers”, a short periods of dramatically reduced volume. The length of the taper depends on the athlete. Usually one or two peaks are induced each season and thus the comp phase may last one or two weeks.
An example of a taper for an athlete running 10.5 might be:
Day 7:Speed day, as intense as possible.
Day 6:Extensive tempo
Day 5:Low volume but high intensity weights session
Day 4:Light circuit
Day 3:Heavy bench press session (does not cause great fatigue to muscles used in sprinting but provides central nervous system stimulus)
Day 2:OFF of small warmup
Day 1:Meet
The length of the taper and the work done depends on the ability of the athlete to stress his nervous and muscular system, which is determined by his ability in the work he is performing.
