Whatever it is he does, Bolt seems to get his 200m time down quite low in a very short period of time (clearly after top speed is in place) but appears only to need a period of 3-4 weeks of concentrated 200m work to bring his times down to what we have witnessed in the past couple of years. For example in 2008 he ran 19.76 (-0.4) at Crystal Palace on 26th July and ran it quite hard (it was only 0.01 outside of his personal best). Clearly his 200m speed endurance was not in place as he had already run 9.72. By 20th August he runs 19.30 (-0.9). This year was hard to tell as many of his runs were in terrible weather conditions. However it does appear that he does a triple periodized year with a very short SPP3 late season.
Couldn’t you say the same about his 100m? 9.72 all out with Gay in his race and then 9.69 easing down–huge difference really. He runs a lot fewer 200s outside of major comps and doesn’t necessarily do it in the best conditions. See Lausanne this year.
How you can derive the idea he does a triple periodization when he doesn’t even have 2 clearly different comp periods is quite baffling.
Yeah your probably right. Would be interesting to know how he gets his 200m times down so well in the last few weeks before a major meet particularly when he runs the final clearly tired.
Makes sence.
He comes out of Spp3, full training, still under load and runs a few meets at great speed. As he freshens up from his comp phase and gets some more races in, then does his 10day taper, BOOM, Big Pb’s.
Spp2 Leads him into some early season races, 100’s
Spp 1 leads him into some 400’s etc
Until we hear from his coach, its only a guess??
You would have to see a graph of his race schedule for the last 12months to give you a more clearer idea
Until I see a schedule of his competitions or hear from someone who knows, it is a little guess work. I can only assume that he does (at least ) two SPP’s one before his early season meets in February/March to May and another in the lead up to the Jamaican championships at the end of June/Beginning of July. He then ‘does something’ in his training/competition schedule (as boldwarrior suggests) in the last 3-4 weeks to get his 200 time down possibly an SPP3. Only those who know will know for sure. 2009 is difficult to assess because of his injury and the fact he charges so much money that he may not get the races when he would like, so an examination of his 2008 schedule should give us a clue.
One further question is that I did not know in the s-to-l that once speed is in place that it dosen’t take long to get the 200m SE in place (or is this a misperception based purely on guessing what Glen Mills might be giving Bolt).
lol where in the hell are people getting this triple periodization idea? Perhaps I have completely misinterpreted what Charlie has said in his seminars and the SPP video and the other materials, but I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how he is doing anything that could be construed as a triple periodized season. He gets faster over the course of the season… and he trains through some races… yes, as does nearly everyone.
His triple periodization occurs during championships. SPP2 and SPP3 are measured in hours. The quicker your SPP is, the quicker you will run.
peak1- 100m
peak2- 200m
peak3- 4x100m
Charlie has graphs that clearly show that he follow’s a triple periodisation plan…that’s where we are getting the idea of a triple periodisation plan…
Just a follow up on Dwayne Chambers. I talked to him today at training about the reason for the under par performance way back before his age world record. He told me that, they did some “Crazy stuff” in season with Selwyn his first coach . He described doing sessions such as 3x300 flat out or trying to run flat out with 2-3 mins recovery if thats possible. If he didn’t finish, then it didn’t matter as long as he pushed himself. 4x400 with 3-4 mins recovery was also used. There wasn’t any speed work as we know it. It was pure fitness training… I didn’t get a chance to quiz him more about the GPP and previous work done before they did the sessions mentioned above. He is very approachable and all the years that I’ve seen him or talked to him he’s been very welcoming. I mentioned the forum so maybe he’s already on here or may join. Of course he didn’t let on to whether he was a member…hopefully he is, if not let’s hope that he will.
Supposedly fogolson has the graphs and dvd’s?? He either needs to re-watch them over and over, and take many notes,
or
Stop trying to argue for arguments sake
If you Bite at him, he just keeps going with a very Nasty tongue.
I have triple periodization graphs but not related to Bolt. I do believe that, when push comes to shove, Bolt is following a S-to-L approach (albeit with plenty of tough tempo sessions, though I think they are still extensive- for him and prob only him due to his max speed) He competes first over 100m and then moves to 200m.
I still don’t understand why everyone thinks Bolt follows a S-L program…
Hmm… the best improvement Bolt got over this past season was in his first 30m (intraseason, not overall)… so is he really doing S-L? Race after race after race he had bad starts and was in line with far lesser athletes to 20-30m and then he moved to the front of the pack when WCs came along…
Martn, nowhere in any of the products Charlie sells does he show a triple periodized schedule. The schedules he does have of triple periodization don’t look a thing like what Bolt is doing. Most of these guys don’t have any serious competitions until at least May and aren’t doing much tapering at all. Except for Gay in '07/'08, they don’t even have to run their nationals hard.
Show me how any of the dates of Bolt line-up with a triple periodized schedule, he doesn’t even have two clear peaks. Just because you have different training phases doesn’t mean you have a triple periodized schedule. Maybe you should re-watch the materials yourself.
In 2008, that seems definitely true, but what about 2009? Arguably, before WCs, his 200m performance was by far the best. Not even considering that it was his worst conditions weather wise, the time was the fastest relative to the 100s he ran.
[QUOTE=fogelson;225917]Hmm… the best improvement Bolt got over this past season was in his first 30m (intraseason, not overall)… so is he really doing S-L? Race after race after race he had bad starts and was in line with far lesser athletes to 20-30m and then he moved to the front of the pack when WCs came along…
Sorry my post added no value to the discussion. so I deleted it.
Training and competition are different. No one can argue that Ben did S-to-l yet in the beginning of indoors in 1987 and 1988 he had to translate power into an effective start. In his first race in 87 he was left in the blocks and same in 88 (even though his first two races were wrs over 50y, he had to come from well behind.)
Bolt does considerable heavy sled work early on like Asafa and if you note on my graphs (you WILL find Ben’s triple periodized plan from 1987 in several of my products), you will see that my definition of planning direction is based solely on the consideration of high intensity elements within any program.
Ben also did 7 x 300 in 45 with 100m break, which is not easy but again is not high intensity.
Bolt doing 38 in a 300 folowed by 180, 150, regardless of how tough the combo is, will still fall under the catagory of low intensity work for him IMO.
Bolt opens up with a 400m in ,for him, a pedestrian time- look at the film for confirmation.
Ben could have opened with a 400 as well (he even did once and won the Ontario junior 400 indoor looking over his shoulder the whole way only because he showed up late for the 50m! He was never late again!) but that didn’t change the training approach overall.
How much the fact that he resumed training as late as Christmas and that he had a car accident in April affected the periodisation for 2009?
So Charlie what clues would you expect to see in the progression of performance capabilities throughout the competitive year (assuming that athletes did do indoors) that would distinguish the double-periodized (DP) trained athlete from the triple periodized (TP) one competing in the 100 and 200?
Also is it simply that the DP athlete has two distinct competition periods (indoors and a relatively long outdoors which incorporates some of the early competitions in with the SPP2 and it is merely the ‘freshening-up’ factor that gives the impression that an extra training block may have occurred) whereas the TP athlete has three (indoors, early outdoor season and peak outdoor period) as outlined in your material?
In triple periodization plans the difference is usually the dates of the biggest meet. If it’s late as in late Aug, there is often a down period as far as comps go to get ready for the final series into the Champs. That’s the third cycle, even though it can be very short indeed.
The other two are pretty clear. In an unusual set-up- like the LA 84 Olympics being earlier, it’s most likely to see a double periodized plan.
I would think it wouldn’t change that much. His previous year went pretty much without a hitch but much of the big improvement was already done. 2009 marked a matching and slight move past what had already been done. The difference in the 100 was less than appears because there was no shut down and the wind was more favourable. Similar for the 200, though I think more could have been seen in that event if he was more fresh, partially due to additional physical maturity.