Please critique my plan

Expert Discussion Advanced Sprint Training
1

OK, here it is! After much reading and work I think I’m about done. Still might be missing a detail here or there but it’s close to 100% done. Hopefully I haven’t made any major mistakes in my planning.

My plan :

Macrocycle 1
GPP: 4 weeks Nov 17 to Dec 13
SPP: 7 weeks Dec 15 to Jan 31
Precomp phase: 4 weeks Feb 2 to Feb 27
Competitive phase : 7 weeks Feb 28 to Apr 18

Since the GPP has already ended I won’t put details about that.

SPP
General details :
Tempo will increase from 1700 to 2300m. per day by end of SPP
Speed will start at 1000 and increase to 1400 per week by end of SPP
Week : Weights work : Track work
Week 1 : Accumulate : 1000 (Dec 15
Week 2 : Max strength : 1100 to
Week 3 : Max strength : 1200 Jan 3)
Week 4 : Unloading : 1400 (Jan 5 to Jan 10)
Week 5 : Max strength : 1400 (Jan 12
Week 6 : Max strength : 1400 to
Week 7 : Max strength : 1400 Jan 31)

General speed work/CNS intensive day outline:
Day 1 : split runs (200 and 100) x 2 week 1 then move to x 3 week 3, x4 week 4, then move on to SE2 3x300 or 300, 250, 200, 150
Day 2 : flying 20’s, ins and outs last 3 weeks
Day 3 : 4x30 (varying starts), 4x60 (varying starts), 30’s will be increased in volume to x8 and replaced with weighted sled for the last 4 weeks
I still need to adjust the volumes here to meet the laid out framework.

Weights :
The base 3RM’s I’ll work off/assume are the following (no need to test because I won’t be doing a real 3RM this macrocycle for safety – don’t want to reinjure myself):
For deep squat I’ll be assuming a 3RM of 120kg, although I know after a couple of weeks I’ll be ready for 150-160 (my previous max), I’ll go seeing as I go along, if I feel strong and confident enough I’ll lift the 3RM value.
For front squat 3RM 105kg
Hang clean 3RM 60kg
So at these percentages I’ll do deep squat/f. squat/h. clean :
Week 1: 80% 95/85/47.5
Week 2: 85% 100/90/50
Week 3: 90% 107.5/95/52.5
Week 4: 90% (drop volume by 25%) 107.5/95/52.5
Week 5: 95% 115/100/55
Week 6: 100% 120/105/60
Week 7: 105% 125/110/65
Reps framework:
Week 1 : 5x5
Week 2 : 6x3
Week 2 : 4,3,2,2,2
Week 4 : 3x3

Precomp
Tempo stays at 2300 per day
Speed increases to 1700 on maintenance period
Week 1 : Unloading : 1600 (Feb 2 to Feb 7)
Week 2 : Maintenance : 1700 (Feb 9
Week 3 : Maintenance : 1700 to
Week 4 : Maintenance : 1700 Feb 27)

General speed work/CNS intensive day outline:
Day 1 : SE1 4x150 or 200, 180, 150, 120
Day 2 : Max speed/accel 4x30 blocks, 3x30 flying, 2x60m. or 3x60m.
Day 3 : SE2 3x200

Weights : Maintenance

Comp phase
General speed work/CNS intensive day outline:
Week 1 : Maintenance/race : 1600 (Feb 28
Week 2 : Maintenance/race : 1500 to
Week 3 : Maintenance/race : 1400
Week 4 : Maintenance/race : 1300
Week 5 : Maintenance/race : 1200
Week 6 : Maintenance/race : 1100
Week 7 : Maintenance/race : 900 April 18)
Only 900 meters in week 7 because I’ll have 3 major meets in 7 days and those will account as all my speed work (300m. per meet from a 100 and 200).

Peaks for macrocycle 1 : International tourneys April 10-11 (Mar del Plata, 1st stage South American GP), 14 (Rosario 2nd stage S. A. GP) and 18 (Montevideo 3rd stage S. A. GP).

Macrocycle 2
Recovery/reaccumulation phase : 2 weeks 19 April to 1 May
Precomp phase : 2 weeks 3 May to 14 May
Competitive phase : 3 weeks 15 May to 6 June

Peaks : Sub 23 Nationals May 15-16, Nationals June 5-6

Notes : The rest of my weights routine I’ll fill in at discretion each day and then maybe after a few weeks I’ll standardize it. Didn’t write any standard tempo session in yet, I’ll test and see what I feel most comfortable with these next few weeks. What is giving me a serious doubt is whether I’ll be in maintenance for too long before my competition, should I add another 3 week max strength cycle in the precomp period instead of going into maintenance there (my whole volume progression would change to the below)?

This would be the plan with another max strength cycle in weights, instead of maintenance in the precomp phase :
Precomp
Tempo stays at 2300 per day
Speed increases to 1500
Week 1 : Unloading : 1500 (Feb 2 to Feb 7)
Week 2 : Max strength : 1500 (Feb 9
Week 3 : Max strength : 1500 to
Week 4 : Max strength : 1500 Feb 27)

Comp phase
Week 1 : Maintenance/race : 1600 (Feb 28
Week 2 : Maintenance/race : 1500 to
Week 3 : Maintenance/race : 1400
Week 4 : Maintenance/race : 1300
Week 5 : Maintenance/race : 1200
Week 6 : Maintenance/race : 1100
Week 7 : Maintenance/race : 900 April 18)

Input/thoughts anyone?

2

  1. I would put SE between acc and max V days. Why increase volume? I’d focus on just getting intensity and quality runs rather than the volume have a goal number of runs and go until you feel quality starts to fail. Also dont just take out unweighted acc., you could do the first couple acc. weighted, then finish the session unweighted.

  2. For weights it looks fine, but I’d cut back on the volume a little because after high intensity sprint work your energy is limited. I think for the main movements 3 reps or lower would be appropriate. Look at David W’s article on repetition number for this.

3

Thanks for the reply. Sorry if that is not clear, I’ll still have the 60’s after the weighted sled. Going to look into the reps issue for weights, I thought they were already low enough. Re: the volumes, I want to have something written as a guide, the first few weeks as you said, I’ll see how I feel and go from there to see what volumes I do, but I don’t think I’ll have problem with volumes once I’ve adapted, the program I came from already had beastly sprint volumes, so I hope these volumes will be a walk in the park and permit me high quality speed sessions.

4

Thanks for pointing me towards that article, I now have a much better understanding of the principles behind the low rep and set numbers in the lifting routines I see here, something I was totally unused to seeing in my previous program. I see if I had jumped in with these volumes I would have fried myself, I’ll go to 5x3 the first week and move down to 3x3 for the main exercises. What I’m confused with is how to warm up without wasting energy/CNS fatigue. What type of warmup sets is everyone doing?

5

I just had a midnight snack and thought over all the stuff I’ve seen today on the rep range and general principles of lifting you guys use (advocated by David W). Now I think I clearly understand the concept and see it makes perfect sense.

The rep range does not need to be varied, all that matters is the intensity and tonnage/training time, by varying the intensity and recovery time one can vary all relevant aspects to the lifting. Through the regulation of what I’d like to call interset (rest, intensity - weight you decide to put on the bar) and intraset (speed at which you do the movements in each rep, eccentrics, isometrics) factors you can achieve anything you want if managed properly. Shifting rep ranges and in particular within workouts (pyramids) is useless and stupid as it makes calculating loads and intensities more inexact, as well as decreases the quality of the relevant sets. For a particular exersice the only reason to shift rep numbers is because of boredom and should only be done from one workout to the next not within a workout. Are all these points I’ve made correct? The sure sound correct at least and make perfect sense :smiley: