Hi guys im new to this so please bear with me. Im a 400m hurdler 51.94 secs 2007 and have in the past few years come around to quality over quantity. I am a founding member of a group of athletes that coach themselves with all athletes acheiveing pbs in 2007 and obviously hoping to improve on this in 2008. Charlie’s methods and theory have been used throughout the past year to good effect.
This winter I have attempted to try something that I read in a book “soviet techniques and training methods” I’m sorry I can’t find the book for the authors, which involves splitting training up into blocks that all have different emphasies. eg block 1 strength, 2 speed, 3 speed endurance.
So I am trying a strength training phase at the moment consisting of 3 weeks hard and 1 week rest times 2. The 3 weeks hard are
MON - 5X5XAPPROX 80% TO START BENCH AND SQUAT. supplementary exercises of pull up and dips approx 3x10 reps each. The weight or reps are increased each session if possible.
TUES - CIRCUIT TRAINING. 4 circuits of 3 exercies. Each circuit is performed 4 times with move to next exercise recovery. The circuits follow a upper, core, lower pattern. The repititions are incresed each session by 1 on each exercise.
WED - REST
THURS - REST
FRI - AS MONDAY more reps or weight
SAT - AS TUESDAY 1 more rep on each.
3 weeks worth then stretching and some strides 3 times in rest week nothing else.
Next 3 weeks consists of the same as above but with 3x3 reps bench and squat and 5 sets of the circuits.
At the start of this strength block my bench was 125kg and squat 155kg butt to floor. At the end of the 3 weeks I reached 107.5x5x4sets not 5 sets 105x5 for 5sets and 130x5x5 squat.
After the rest week the first session on the legs was very bad on the Monday but the Friday session was bench 3x112.5, 3x115,3x117.5 and pb 127.5 easy. Squat was 3x130, 3x140 and 2x150 lost balance on last rep. At the end of the first week and already 1 pb and definately capable of another in the squat. Hope to reach 135kg bench and 170kg squat will keep you posted on that. My thoughts are that it is almost impossible to increase strength in the gym significantly whilst improving other factors on the track like speed endurance which must be addressed in the off season. It is more benefitial to take time off increase strength significantly and then maintain it whilst improving other aspects of performance.
What I was wondering was what you guys think of this and weather this could be or should be done every year and could i hope for similar results.