You’re right. Way too big a drop. I would never recommend someone actually follow such a progression. I was just trying to illustrate the concept.
If people have trouble handling more than two speed workouts a week, you could take the general high intensity work like med ball and plyos and do them on Wed. in their own workout, and keep sprinting on Monday and Friday. That way the work is spread out more evenly throughout the week. Just a thought.
The samples posted by Flash and myself are just for illustration purposes, after the specific question was asked.
I work off generally 12 plus week, and I think Charlie discussed a couple of scenarios in relation to Ben in the SPP video with difference in length of SPP.
Another thing to keep in mind when planning out a progression is that you’re never going to follow it exactly as written. No one does all the work they plan. You will miss workouts due to weather or other factors. Workloads will have to be reduced to accommodate recovery and work capacity on some days. At times it might seem like the training from one workout to the next is somewhat random rather than the smooth progression written in the charts. However, when you step back and look at the average over several weeks, you should see a definite qualitative and quantitative trend in the training (kind of like the stock market).
This is why you have to be conservative in planning your workloads. If you consistently overestimate the amount of work you’ll realistically be able to do and as a result you’re constantly throwing out your planned workouts then you effectively have no plan and are flying blind. As a practical matter, you do have to make it up as you go along to accommodate the needs of the moment, but you have to do so with a mind to move things in a particular direction as the weeks go by.
Flash, your posts in this thread are golden. You definitely have nailed Charlie’s “guiding principles” as I understand them. It’s always nice to re-read such a logical approach to training.
The only additional recommendation I’d make is to make sure you don’t feel married to what you have on paper for that day. Planning in a conservative fashion, as Flash alluded to, is a great way to go, but I’d still advise you to think of “the plan” as a maximum. It’s ok if you have to do less for a given session. More times than not, little tweaks that I’ve gotten in the past have been a function of me feeling like I HAD to finish the last set to hit my desired volume of speed work. Remember: it’s not the number of meters that matters–rather, it’s the meters per second that you attain. As my swimming buddy told me, avoid garbage yardage (especially when injury is possible).
Edit: I realized that I basically said the exact same thing as Flash’s last post. Oh well. Health is extremely important!
I agree. Treat the planned work as the maximum you are allowed that day. Do less if necessary, never do more. My philosophy is to stop while you still have a rep or two left in reserve and move to the next component. Always leave gas in the tank. You can think of the planned progression as a gradual increase in your allowed maximum (in either volume and/or intensity).
If you find that you are consistently falling short of your allowed maximum, say over a two or three week period, then it’s best to revise your planned progression downward going forward. If you find that you are consistently doing the allowed maximum with ease, then revise your planned progression slightly upward. However, if you’re making consistent progress despite the work seeming easy, I’d say leave well enough alone. I think the assumption that increasing the workload will allow you to progress even faster is a dangerous assumption.
This is a quote from Charlie that appeared in an article written by Joseph Horrigan in the June 1990 issue of Ironman:
“If there is any degradation or deterioration in training, stop. If there is any doubt about one more rep or run, don’t do it. If you are trying to learn with reps, you won’t get it later if you haven’t already. Leave it and come back to it. For example, if I hear Ben’s feet hit heavier on the track, that’s enough. Top athletes need to be controlled from over motivation. Don’t listen to just anybody. If you are left in doubt, don’t do it. The idea is to apply correct and appropriate training at the right time.”
Another quote from Charlie from the “loading and unloading microcycles” thread
"Whatever system is employed, the greatest injury risk is during the late stages of an intensification schedule when regeneration has been insufficient. If you sence this situation approaching, stop the intensification right away and move to the recovery segment. That said, there will be aspects of the intensification period when slightly sub-max work will be employed. Especially in the early part of a new phase, improvement may well be shown even when operating at sub max. "
Good point. Sub-max is still high intensity. Don’t underestimate it.
To use the forest and trees metaphor, you have to keep track of where you are in the forest and the direction you need to go, but you’re never going to move in a straight line. You have to walk around the trees in your path. If you don’t, you stop moving forward. The tree that’s in front of you at any moment is going to win. Accommodate it and get back on the path as best you can.
Flash your comments are spot on.
I have been following Charlie progression for few years with good results. From my observation the progression on the special end days can be done over 5m, start with eg. 15m+m, 20m+m, 25m+m etc…. It works great for us, especially with younger athletes. My thought on it is that for youngster there is a massive jump of velocity between 20- and 30m also 30 and 40, for some youngsters 40m is a max velocity phase therefore I have used last year 5m progression to smoother up the whole transition with very, very good results.
Also from my observation re: speed limit you have to make sure when athlete is reaching marker eg. 20m that during transition is not accelerating past 20m mark. I have been caught my first year on that problem. They were accelerating 20m and maintaining the rest of the distance, what was actually happening during transition, they were actually going faster around 25/30m, so they were bit trashed after workout.
Anyway the discipline of execution is extremely important.