why is that, u dont like tempos. i just find it real hard to get up and tempos, my tempo days are always lazy.
Well eh, I think its just my perception of tempo, tempo can be the 70% and below watered down crap which can be used to recover, but that concept really doesnt get me too pumped to go out and do volumes of 1000-3000m, when I can get a similiar benefit from sitting in a sauna or doing contrast bath or massage which IMO are a lot more relaxing then going out and running at shyt pace, hell if its only below 70% why not just walk it???
Also I am big into lifting so I would rather just do light circuit training instead of tempo, maybe get a tiny bit more hypertrophy in there, or if your still feeling fresh why not do explosive light weights?
Then there is the 70-90% shyt that we are doing I mean 14 sec for 1 rep would be a little over 80% for me let alone 20 reps. Now this is fine, I have nothing against this type of work, I would probably cut down the volume slightly, but it does allow you to tolerate more work in the long run, and I have seen people use a bunch of shyt in this range and no speed work and still run in the lower 10’s which I would be more than happy with.
However my main event right now is the 55m, so at this time I dont think this is the most logic setup especially since there is no pure speed work right now even tho it is only gpp. We are not using any jumps, short sprints (except reaction drills), or max strength work so it is kinda defeating the whole purpose of the 55m
On the other hand in my grand scheme of things, and something that me and mortac have debated, well more me explaining and him telling me it is a shyt idea, is that a sprinter needs to wave his yearly loads such that you start with a big base, intensify, then build back up the workload decreasing intensity and lower rest, and then reintensify in yearly progressions so that the athlete can increase ability to handle workload as well as perform at a high level, so this gives me a good place to get sort of a test run on this idea, since otherwise I would not do this kinda work.
nice post and good points. my goal right is i would like to have 2 tempo days in this 7 week gpp phase then come spp go to one tempo and maybe one treadmill day. bc my main goal right now is the 60m. u could probably get a similar benefit with sauna etc but would about the work capacity
Do you really need alot of work capacity for the 55m? I met a triple jumper at a meet a few weeks ago. He jumped 51’ something on garbage runway with giant holes and pieces of rollout runway patching them. When I asked what he did for training, he held up 1 finger. “once a week man. just get out and do some striders and light drills”. This guys PB back in the day was like 54’ something but he’s almost 40 now. Work capacity didn’t seem to be a big need for him (I would say 55m and triple jump are similar in regards to energy system needs).
Another random note, I love slight incline treadmill tempos. Always had good results from them. Tempo is great as long as it does not interfere with your high intensity work.
Pope let us know how your video analysis session goes and how you plan to mimic Obikwelu and run 6.60 60m.
so r u on the same level that guy is on? if so that may work for you. i dont care what event you are training for work capacity is a must - you want to be able to train and work capacity will allow you to handle vol (the more work capacity you have the more vol u should be able to handle). one thing i learned from curtis frye south carloina head track coach is all of his athletes can TRAIN - once they leave him bc they all have work capacity. you talk to any coach who has train curtis frye athletes and they all say the same damn they train hard and can handle huge vol.
also why are you using one guy you spoke to as an example, this guy could been gifted - who knows. i could see if you used a guy who run 11.5 in the 100m then 2 yrs later hes running 10.6-10.7. i would try and pick people who has similar talent as you and use them as example bc it make lil more sense. i dont know about you but i would rather be fast an in shape, instead of being some guy who can a couple 55m and calling it the day.
Yea I got a guy who ran 11.5 2 years ago and runs 10.73e now. He didn’t get there by work capacity. Also the 51’ triple jumper. I would love to see how he would jump after training 6 days per week (instead of 1) with an emphasis on work capacity.
What’s the point of popequique doing several dozen drills, stair running and volume hypertrophy lifting at 65%? He has to take like 30 steps for his event. Why focus so much on capacity when you have 5 months left in your career?
I have talked to Curtis Frye… Every track team in the country has work capacity… and in the majority of cases, that’s ALL they have.
That being said, I agree that work capacity is important (to a certain degree) however it should not interfere with high intensity work (which it does in pope’s and many other cases).
so ok, i have high work capacity and have ran 10.5’s, so that goes to tell you that everyone is diff, look at lacrosse i bet u those guys have work capacity and the ability to train and not just do 3x30 and 2x60 and call it the workout. 
the point here is i dont care what u do wheather it be tempo, bb circuits, jump circuit, med ball circuit aka cf med ball dvd you need to do something for recovery and work capacity. 
good luck to all.
Haha, i looked down at the last post and scrolled up and wondered if this was even my thread, but good stuff, i will get to it on my next post.
Friday Week 4
1:10 Video
Watched video about the drills we do just to show proper form.
1:30 Track Workout
Long Warm Up
Stairs - 7 reps elevator ride rest
Look back at 2 fridays ago if you dont know what the stairs are.
2:30 Weightroom
Push Press 4x5 - 120, 130, 135, 140
Lateral Squat 3x10 - 80, 85, 90
paired w/
Machine Row 3x10 - 120, 130, 140
Single Leg Romanian Deadlift 3x10 - bodyweight
paired w/
Arm Raises Front, Side, Bent 3x10 - 5, 5, 5
Bicep Curl 3x10 - 30, 30, 35
paired w/
Tricep Pulldown - 120, 140, 140
Notes - the video really opened a lot of peoples eyes including my own regarding proper form, of course everyone looks decent, I mean I have done most of the drills for 5 years now, but there is still a huge difference between how I do them and perfert form and you can really see where some of the benefit is definately being left out by not using perfect form.
The stairs were hell after about 4 I was dead, I am definately not in this type of shape my legs felt like lead when I was done and I couldnt walk.
The lifting went fine once my legs got a bit of rest.
In terms of the side discussion, both of you bring up interesting points.
- Everyone is different.
This cannot be stressed enough, cookie cutter workouts dont work, templates dont work, you have to understand what each athlete needs. If two athletes come into college both running 11.0e 9 out of 10 or maybe even 10 out of 10 times they will do the same workout. Perhaps one needs speed work, one needs more endurance or technical work or max strength work, I dont know of a coach that fully takes this into account.
- You need work capacity and you need high intensity work.
The best way to combine these two right now is a combination of athlete need and guess work by coaches, I dont really think that anyone has a perfect understanding of the interaction. In highschool and first 2 years of college I had high work capacity but did nothing in terms of speed work so I ran 12. Junior and senior year I ran 3x30m most days and called it quits and dropped down to 11.29, but after one race or 3 exercises in the weightroom I’m tapped, yes its high intensity it will take a lot out of you, but if your tired after the same type of workout and dont take into account work capacity sooner or later your going to plataeu and have no where to go. Hell I can say i dropped almost a second in my 100 by doing next to nothing, but thats not getting me anywhere now because I dont have the capacity to better my workouts and I’m stuck.
- How to optimize anyones workout is a mystery.
Individuals react differently to different inputs, so the best a coach can do is ges or give a rough estimate of what should work. If any coach says he plans workouts perfectly its shyt. Hell even in low volume programs an athlete does like what 135 reps in the weightroom, 1000m on the track and hell the higher volume programs can be 3-5 times the volume at least. The interaction between the sets and reps and sprints and if you do plyos is amazing, thats without including external factors the athletes diet, sleep, stress for the day, is a coach factoring that in. Its impossible, impossible to make a set schedule. So everyone on here saying everything has a time and a place thats because thats the best some can say is yes maybe one day that would work for an athelete, hell maybe one day drinking to reduce overall stress will have a time and a place, maybe taking the athlete out for steak so he eats well has a time and place, there are athletes that run low 10’s and do nothing but work over 150m’s there are athletes that do the same by doing all work in the 60m range, its all a mystery keep your mind open and do the best you can to gauge the individual not your preconceptions about training.
- Tempo is needed.
But when and where and at what intensity. At least when training by myself it is hard to get motivated to go run at 60% thats why I choose restoration over work capacity. However work capacity is definately needed, but does 60% get it done or is the 80% range better suited for increasing work capacity. 60% yes for restoration, but for capacity is 60% really the goal. Should work capacity be trained seperately such as during gpp, or more in a yearly scheme, or simultaniously? How much does work capacity improve the ability to withstand fatigue? Will increased capacity still lead to an increase in injury or a decrease in performace?
The last part was more of a ramble and if you actually get through all of this well then congraduations, they are just my thoughts.
i hear ya, i hate doing tempo and all the slow stuff but if it make me better then hey im all for it.
Monday Week 5
10am Track
Long Warm Up
4x20m stomach and go
4x20m back and go
4x20m falling start and go
4x20m squat and go
Rest - walk back/3min
7x X-outs
Rest - walk across field.
11:15 Weight Room
Hang Clean Technique 4x5 - 110, 120, 130, 140
Front Squat 3x10 - 130, 140, 135
paired w/
Lat Pulldown 10, 8, 8 - 110, 120, 140
Split Squat 10, 8, 8 - 85, 90, 95
paired w/
Dumbell Row 10, 8, 8 - 35, 40, 45
One Leg Balance on Aerio - 35sec, 40sec
paired w/
Band Hip Flexor - 8x5sec, 8x5sec
Notes - lit it up again on the reaction drills, feels like my foot strikes are getting a lot better, the weights were pretty easy, thats about all I got, weight program changes Wednesday should be interesting.
sorry for the side post… but what would happen if you stayed within the 60% range but kep t the rests short enough to make the workut challenign (and thus help work capacity) would this still be seen as a recovery workout?
Omyss, are you speaking about my recent workouts or tempo in general?
I dont know how closely you follow my thread but the last 5 weeks of workouts have been my school’s workouts not mine own so I have no control over it.
If you are asking in terms of my own opinion, I would think short rest at 60% effort would be a very poor choice for a workout. The first aspect is the 60% effort, which really isnt going to help work capacity much in my opinion. Then you are lowering the rest which will not allow you proper recovery from the day leaving you worse off then the beginning of the day.
I would favor something more in the area of 75-90% effort with shorter rest for increasing work capacity and doing it on one of the hard work days.
The point is to beat the shyt outta your body in a manner similiar to your sport, yes you can argue you need 95% or above but I dont think that really helps the work capacity I think taking a little off of it allows you to increase your volume a great bit helping with work capacity.
60% w/limited rest on an off day is just asking for punishment, no good recovery days, and not that great a benefit in terms of work capacity.
You need there to be underlying goals both short term and long term in a sprinting plan, not every days workout needs to meet the end goals, but together the combination of workouts should, you have to ask yourself what a workout brings to the table for you, do whats optimal for you for the day or the weekly plan or yearly plan, if you throw something in and dont know why then dont.
Tuesday Week 5
1:30 Track
Short Warm-up
4x15sec High knees against fence
4x40m Single leg A skips
4x40m Butt Kicks
4x20m C Skips
Hurdle Complex (the same as the hurdle drills I have outlined previously)
Abs - not sure how many it was like 12min continuous contrast from one exercise to the next, pretty hard stuff.
Notes - just another day in the park tomorrow starts the next phase in lifting, so we shall see what it looks like.
hey was is the max vol of tempo u can handle in one session?
Haha umm define handle and at what intensity?
our tempo tomorrow i think is going to around 3000m @ 70%
While doing low volume work it was only around 1000-1500m at 60%
Now I could probably handle around 4000m
I believe we end up going up to 4000m sometime during the season.
I would say I will probably be able to handle around 5000m by then, probably would never hit this level in training but wouldnt be too detrimental.
handle = able to get the benefits of the tempo session which should be recovery with some work capacity. Damn thats a lot of tempo.
Ut - well as used for primarily a recovery method I would say around 2000-2500 would be the ideal range. What we are doing is primarily focused on increasing work capacity and still being able to recover from it so thats why 3000+ is allowable.
Wednesday Week 5
10am Track
Long Warm Up
3x5x200m
1.5min/3min rest
Intensity - 32-34sec per 200
11:30 Weightroom
Squat Jump w/Vertimax - 4x5
Bench Press 3x8 - 155, 160, 160
Deadlift 3x8 - 135, 185, 205
Alt Arm Shoulder Press 3x8 - 30, 35, 35
paired w/
Butt Raises w/Physio Ball - 7, 8, 9
Reverse Hyper 2x10 - bodyweight
paired w/
Partner Squat Hold - 20sec, 25sec
Notes - the track work was pretty tiring then having to go right to weights is a killer. I feel like a pussy barely being able to bench 8x160 with my arms out, when I can bench 310 with my arms in. Also I refused to continue to do the vertimax so next time I am allowed to do weighted box jumps. And thats about all I got.
damn dude u have to be in pretty good shape from doing all those tempos runs 3x5x200. i couldnt even think about during that and the hill workouts i am during.
one thing i notice is i get more benefit from longer tempo runs 200-300 bc no matter how fast i run i still get a good workout, with the 100’s if u dog them u get nothing. hope that make sense-