Re: How is my 400/200 training. Advice.

Expert Discussion Planning and Periodization
21

I did get CFTS off this site, and did read it. I thought it mostly applied to 100m though. I can see I might have been mistaken. Ok, I’ll try another schedule for Feb. Well not pick a certain week, just a general overview. Then when we get that right, I’ll ask you how I shoudl raise, lower intensity, etc. over the season.

Lets try this based on MOn, Wed Fri, speed; Tues, Thurs, Sat low intensity.

Mon: 100m speed work. Long rest

Tues: 200 tempo

Wed: shorter than 100m speed work.

Thurs: 150m tempo work.
Weights
Fri: 300m SE training.

Sat: 300m tempo work.
Weights

Now, this may look similar to what I just post. It basically is. Tell me what you see needs changing. What day, and what should it be changed with? I think that follows the MON, WED, FRI, thing. I could be wrong. We can get into more details later, once I get the general thing settled.

22

Do the weights on you high intensity days. Can you be a little more specific about the high intensity sessions?

What I saying is suppose you have a meet on a Wed and a Sat one week. Then the Wed meet would become your special endurance and you will only need 1 more workout which you should do either short speed work (accel/max v or speed endurance) the other meet on sat would again act as special endurance/speed endurance.

23

I’ll try to be a little more specific.

Mon: 100x2-3 with 15min break

Tues: 200m tempo

Wed: 60mx3-4 with 15min break

Thurs: 150m tempo

Fri: 300x2-3 with 15-20min break

Sat: 300m tempo

Weights I guess would best to be on Mon and Fri during, Feb, but I don’t know so much about that with meets on Wed. And that meet on Sat is only going to probably happen once this whole season. All others are meets on Wed. Now Lets just try to get this general thing correct. Does that look ok so far? We can talk about increasing/decreasing reps with speed and tempo after this is straightened out.

24

You could do some more volume wednesday and have some 30s and 40’s to help some more with accel. Also, for tempo, you can get 2000-3000m if you want to. This will help you tons. Do you have acceleration in place? Why are you starting with so much special endurance and speed endurance if it is not yet in place?

25

Do you have acceleration in place? Why are you starting with so much special endurance and speed endurance if it is not yet in place?

Ok, please tell me what you believe I should do for that. I could do that before this starts, in January, and push this back a week, or two. Explain what I should do for that, I will do that in January some.

I will be doing distance running for getting ready till around near end of January. Could just push everything a little forward to fit it into the whole schedule.

And, here is an example of Febuary schedule, based on your information:

Mon: 100x2-3 with 15 minute break
Weights

Tues: 200x6, increase it to eight and 10 mid season, drop it back down to six end of season. Breaks vary 2-4min.

Wed: 60x3 in beginning 60x4 toards end. Break 15 min.
Also do 40x2 with 10min break.

Thurs: 150x6, increase it to eight and 10, same thing as Tues.

Fri: 300x2, increase to 3 by mid-season. 15min break.
Weights
Sat: 300m tempo, same rep thing as Tues and Thurs.

Again, if you could explain what I should do for acceleration first that would be great. And also, if the general schedule looks good now.

26

Ahh. Okay look, the 400m is a SPRINT not something you need to be doing distance running for. If I were you, I would consider doing a short sprint program, like in CFTS, with some longer special endurance, more low intensity work (high volumes of tempo), and doing some 400m races in addition to 100m and 200m races to increase your speed. If you look at your stats, you lack the speed to truely make an impression on the 400m. Charlie and others have said it time and time again that speed reserve is SOO important for the 400m, especially with younger sprinters. It doesn’t matter how much endurance you have if you are still running a 25 second 200m.

27

I really don’t think I’m still running 25 sec. That was freshman year. I ran a 26 sec on a training sesson with my old school sophmore year, and that was no spikes, hardly any training before that, and part of one of the tempos. I’m way below 25 sec by now. I just can’t give an official time right now. Please, I really am trying to understand what your trying to say. I really don’t see where my plan comes in conflict with Speed Mon, Wed, Fri, and temp Tues, Thurs, Sat. Too high on the tempos? Too much inficious on the tempos? I really see no conflict with what you said, and that schedule.

If you believe I should make the tempos less important, fine tell me what I should do with those. Just keep them at x6 the whole season, fine, at about 80-85% of a PR. Just explain to me where my plan goes against what your saying. I really appriciate the help your giving, I just need a little explaination of how what your saying applies to this schedule.

28

No, I have said plenty that extensive tempo is important and should have a high volume to increase fitness. What I do think is that you lack enough speed to have to worry about the amount of speed and special endurance you have. The problem I see is this, you are starting off with straight 100’s and 300’s without any shorter speed training as a prerequisite (sp). How can you work on speed endurance if your top end speed isn’t in place? How can you work on top end speed if acceleration is not in place?

Look at CFTS and how it is periodized.
Accel–>MaxV–>Short Speed

and there are various ways you can work on endurance to begin, but one way that is popular is:
Hills–>Split Reps–>SE (depending on what event you are running, you will start with different SE’s and progress)

29

Also your short sprint work doesnt need 15 mins between reps and your volume is too low. Good rule of thumb is rest 1 min for every 10 meters sprinted up to 20 mins. So for a 300 you can rest 20 mins instead of 30 mins.
Also add more volume to your short speed days. 3x 20 30 40 may be a good start. Rest 2 mins after 20 3 misn after 30 and 4 mins after 40. That was just an example. Obviously this would vary and change throughout the yr.

30

Then I could the last week of January, to mid-Febuary, work on accerlation and speed. Then the second half of February onward, I use this schedule, which I’ve edited again based on the advice.

Here is what I will try last week of January-mid-Feb

Mon: 3x30, 60. 3 minute break between 30s, 6 min break between 60s.

Tues:

Wed: 3x30, 40, 60. same break for 30s and 60s. 4 min break for 40s.

Thurs:

Fri: 100x3. 10 minute break in between 100s.

Now that might help establish the speed work, and acceleration. The problem is I don’t know what I should do inbetween Mon, Wed, Fri. Should I do tempo still?

Here would be the schedule basically from Second half Feb-May.

Mon: 100x3. 10 minute break in between. Maybe increase volume as season goes along.

Tues: 200x6, increase it to eight and 10 mid season, drop it back down to six end of season. Breaks vary 2-4min.

Wed: 3x30, 40, 60. 3 minute break between 30s, four between 40s, 6 min break between 60s.

Thurs: 150x6, increase it to eight and 10, same thing as Tues.

Fri: 300x2 beginning of season. Increase to x3 by end of season. Break is, 20min.

Sat: 300m tempo, same rep thing as Tues and Thurs.

Now how does those two different schedules look? Maybe change Fri and Wed around in the second schedule, sinec Fri and saturday seem repetitive. Its the general schedule, nothing specific on weeks.

31

YES! Please go read some of the responses. You can and should have high volumes of extensive tempo (you can probably get up to 3,000m each session). Most of your results as a 55second 400m runner will come from fitness improvements along with some maximal speed increases.

Look at some of the training journals and READ CFTS, your plan isn’t bad but you’re training short speed for what, a month?

32

Change the Spe end 100’s to 150’s or longer.
Extensive tempo should start off around 1000 meters volume and increase to Just under 3000 meters as davan said. However 3000 is a bit high for me personally. I like to increase from 1000 to 1200 to 1600 to 2000 to 2200 and after precomp I drop back down to 1600-1000 meters per session. Be creative with your extensive tempo session. There are zillions of combinations!!! I will list a few that I use.

1000 meters
10x100 on a 1 min cycle (ex. 17 sec 100 rest 43 seconds)

1200 meters
2x6x100 rest 30 seconds between reps and 2 min between sets
6x200 rest 1 minute between reps

1600 meters
2x8x100 rest 30 seconds between reps and 2 min between sets
8x200 6x200 rest 1 minute between reps
10x150 rest 45 seconds between reps

100-100-100
200-100-200
200-100-200
100-100-100
Walk 50 meters between reps and 100 between sets

2200 meters
CFTS TEMPO
100-100-100
100-100-200-100
100-100-200-200
100-200-100-100
100-100-100
Walk 50 meters between reps and 100 between sets

Again those are just examples. Be creative and keep changing it so it doesnt get boring.

33

Look at some of the training journals and READ CFTS, your plan isn’t bad but you’re training short speed for what, a month?

Well, yes, unless you have a better idea. Should I do the first one for a month 1/2 before I change over to that second program? When should I change over? Please Reliese the time frame I’m under. Last week of Jan til about beginning to mid May. That about four months. A month or a month and a half I think would be the farthest I should go. If I go for a month, that would mean I would stop that right when meets start, the last week of Feb. Meets start the first week of March, and are on Wednsday.

That would also change my second program of mine, taking out wednsdays for meets. I guess in that case I would transfer Wednsdays training to Friday, and erase what in Friday now. That eliminates the overdoing on the 300m thing. Any disagreements in that Davan?

Q, thanks for the advice on the tempo, I’ll try that out. That looks like what I needed for it. But when you say change 100m to 150m or longer, do you mean in the first program, second program, or both? I’d probably do 150m, which ever you think I should switch.

34

I understand your time frame. Again, increases in speed along with improved fitness through extensive tempo will take care of most of what you need. here is what you can do:

Monday: Accel out to 40m
200-300m of total volume
Tuesday: Tempo / Bodyweight circuits
Wednesday: Max velocity
Thursday: Tempo
Friday: Split rep special endurance 2-3 x (4x60m 1 minute between reps, 7-9 minutes between sets).
Saturday: Tempo

Each week I would decrease the total volume of the split reps and increase recovery. I would do the same with max velocity. After 4-5 weeks, I would start to make it like this:
Monday: Accel out to 40m
Tuesday: tempo
Wednesday: Special Endurance
Some ideas for this:
4 x 150
3 x 200m
2-3 x 300m
2 x [250m, 40m, 40m, 40m with walk to starting like for recovery between reps and full recovery between sets]. <-- Kitkat recommended these before. I have done them and liked them a lot. I would try it 2-3 times at least.
Thursday: Tempo
Friday: Max V low volume
Saturday: Speed endurance:
I would use reps between 80-120 for this.

This may look odd because of speed 2 days in a row, but the speed endurance intensity will be relatively low because of the speed it is run at and still provide a day of recovery before the next speed day. On top of that, you are not running fast enough to generate significant CNS stress.

This plan will work in season as well (adjusting volume throughout of course) by simply changing out wednesday with the meet. Over time, you want to decrease speed volume and increase rest slowly.

Also, you may not want 3000m total, but that is generally the upper limit. You can still do more work this day in the form of core work and bodyweight circuits, provided the intensity is low.

35

Davan great advice.

In addition to what has been said you may even want to combine fridays max velocity with monday accel. Espcially if you have a meet on Sat.
So if there was a meet on sat. the week could look like this.

Monday: Accel out to 30m + Flying 30’s with a 20 meter runup
Tuesday: tempo
Wednesday: MEET :Special Endurance
Thursday: Tempo
Friday: Premeet (starts ect)
Saturday: Compete

If this setup was to go on week after week during the season (if you had 2 meet per week). Each week you may want to alternate and on Monday instead of doing accel. and max velocity. You can do a low volume to acceleration and then go right to speed endurance reps 80-120 meters as davan suggested or maybe even neuromuscular speed endurance which would be a workout such as 3x3x50 with 1 min between reps and 5 between sets or 3x3x80 with 1:30 between reps and 5 between sets.

36

Can one of you define Max Velocity for me? Search it, couldn’t find much applying to this. And examples of what max velocity things should be used in the program? Doesn’t need to be long. Once I get that I’ll post a program based on what you all gave me, to make sure there wasn’t any misunderstanding. Then you can see if there is anymore final things needed.

37

Do a search on flying sprints and how to incorporate them into your program. Ins-and-outs as well (although I would focus more on flying sprints to begin). That should give you plenty of info on this.

38

Comanch09-
You seem pretty pressed by this time frame, and you also want to get some quality results with the proper preparation. Considering your background of only training special endurance for the prior two seasons, you may want to consider the following:

-Focus on the 200 this year and run 4x400 for the team without specifically training for the 400.

I think you need to put the pieces of your training together in a sequential order, and without having done any short speed work you just don’t have time to work up to the necessary level of 400m specific speedwork to reach your potential at 400 this season. Save it for your senior year if that is truly your favorite event.

Spend this year building up to your 200 potential in a short to long (distance) fashion, and next season you can move up to special endurance quicker with this year’s experience to reach the point that you are holding pace at your 400m potential speed. Right now your PB’s are probably 12.0 and 25.0. Why spend time learning to extend that pace out when you could improve those paces to say 11.5 and 23.0 by the end of this season and then extend those paces out to a better 400 time next year?

In short, develop your acceleration, develop you top speed, develop your speed endurance, then develop your special endurance using the suggestions from CFTS. You’ll run out of time this season before those special endurance runs become greater than 200-250, but next season you’ll progress quicker though the short speed phases (and you’ll start before January, right?) and get them out to 300-350 where you can start doing 400m-specific power workouts.

I’m not saying don’t use vertical integration, just that positive things won’t happen until short speed is developed.

39

Yes, as I and the others have said, don´t rush, work on your speed, the 400m ARE a sprintrace, not a middledistantrace.
You are 16 and as I said before it´s easyer to add your endurance anytime than it´s to speed.
And although you´re not focusing on shortsprint, don´t be afraid to do 60-100m in competition. Use it for quality speedwork.
The faster you are, the less you have to struggle and still have a good speed in the 400m race.
But of course you should work on endurance, tempo and SE!/SE2, but always have your techniuqe in mind, don´t let go to waste during theese seassions.

Just my thoughts, good luck…

40

First, I really don’t want to ditch the 400m this season. Yes, training might not be perfect in some peoples eyes, but I rather do a good training program now, than a perfect one later. Thanks for the advice, but, as of right now, I really don’t wish to ditch it this season. I’ll make sure training is in place better next season.

Davan, I looked up flying sprints, and pretty much understand them now. You build up to full speed over around 30m, and then sprint out around full speed for the selected distance. I’m going to post my schedule in another post to make it fit together better.