I was reading old forum reviews and seminars/products of Charlie and had a couple questions that you could perhaps clear up for me…
1) 1st on one of the seminars he talked about speed endurance progression and seen the 8x60m workout, now was this supposed to be done full out 60m or (30m + 30m maintain)? Also what was the recovery like in this workout?
2) In the indoor progressions he talks about 3x4x60m to 3x3x60m to 2x4x60m to 4x60m. If I have those progressions right, I understand it was short recovery between runs, 2min, and 6-8min between sets? Also was this done as 20m + 40m maintain and gradually work way out as weeks progressed? Also was this done just once a week or twice?
I hope you can answer these questions and that they make sense! thanks
What seminar was he talking about with this particular progression?
If you split a run into 30 + 30 , it’s usually to gain something you feel you might not be able to get from doing a high quality 60 meters. But 30 + 30 can be much more intense because you are accelerating 2 x instead of just once. So you have to be more careful. Charlie liked me doing 30 + 30 sometimes to get speed endurance done because SE was not my strength. He was always looking for ways for me to make gains while still keeping things reasonable and safe.
April 12th of 1995 I was a seasoned athlete competing internationally.
My warm up was one hour including all drills
4 x60 meter very easy strides to prepare for speed.
The body of the workout was about to begin.
The workout was 4 sets of ( 4 x 60 meters)
I did each run of 60 meters and walked back and basically ran again = rest would have been 2 to 3 1/2 min as I walked back.
I’ve noted 7 to 10 mintues between sets of 4 x 60 meters/
I took more rest as the sets went on.
rest between 60’s was monitored at less than 4 minutes
It’s likely that you would do 8 x 60 meters as I have done above but I was looking to find an example for myself and have not yet found that. What I can tell you is that indoors we stayed OFF the oval almost 100 percent of the time. Charlie hated curves for what it did to the body . His thought were WHYuse the oval if and when you don’t need to.
2 minutes between runs would be tight . As you can see above , it’s more about running smoothly and walking back without rushing and making sure the quality is excellent. And 6 to 8 minutes might work initially but watch it. The eye of the coach will or should dictate that needs to happen. If you are training alone you have to be more careful with rest and see how you feel and monitor times for rest carefully. I don’t think I would ever be doing a workout like this more than one in a week but i was a hurdler. I’d have to see the context of what he was saying to know for sure.
Here is what Esti has said to via email and I would like to share it for others that likely are wondering the same thing. Thank you Esti for a well organized answer that is very helpful.
Ange gave one example of a short to long approach speed endurance. For my high school runners, I might do 40m or 50m depending on their ability. I know of a Olympic level runner who did 50m for much of his work ran 9.85.
Doing the repetitive runs is very taxing. Charlie liked to keep volume at a constant for a while and increase the intensity at that volume. To do that, he would use acceleration limits. In the early weeks, you might only run hard for 20m and then maintain form and speed fro the remainder of the run (instead of trying to continually getting faster past 20m). In a week or 2, you might run 30m and maintain, eventually working to 60m, or less for lower level sprinters.
Without knowing the background of you(or the athletes you coach??) A possible progression might be this after a solid general preparation phase:
week 1: 2 sets of 4 x 40( or 50 or 60m) 20m accel limit
Week 2 2 sets of 4 x 40 30 m accel limit
Week 3 2 sets of 3 x 40 30 m accel limit
Week 4 2 sets of 3 x 40m 20 m accel limit
week 5 2 sets of 3 x 40m 40 m accel limit
This year, before my plantar fascitis took over I have been doing speed sessions similar.
Week 1-3 was 2x6x50 walk back, week 4-6 2x5x60 walk back, week 7-10 2x4x70 and i had planned to keep progressing like this until I got to 2x200.
I did the 50s and most of the 60s on grass. I like the workouts cause I have to chance to work race patterns
I think you are trying to figure out what some of the patterns are for yourself and that you are looking for the guidelines of what the rest periods are?
Are you coaching ? or are you an athlete?
If you don’t already have , I think you might find the Vancouver download useful. It has an entire explanation with graphs that expand on your questions.
I dont have the vancouver download. I am an athlete/coach, just looking for guidelines on the rest periods and acceleration distance in these. Esti covered it very well, thanks. My one concern is that this is alot of volume and I know Charlie was a big advocate of 95 or higher work and than 75% or lower work… Wouldnt this type of workout, be more of intensive tempo range-90%?
Sorry for all the questions just trying to clear this up
I think some of your questions regarding recovery might be able to be clarified by looking at Gary Winklers speed chart. While I think some of volume total are a little low, I have found his rest intervals to be right in line with what Charlie speaks about and what Angela has written. In the link I have provided the speed chart is on page two on the bottom right hand side.