I have spoken to other athletes that have came from a tempo based program and most of them say when they switch to a short to long program they felt fast early on sept-dec but plateau when the season started, I know there are many factors that could have played in this but do you guys have any ideas on why this may have happen?
Overtraining maybe? Nto enough rest?
maybe or too much intensity too early.
Yea
Kinda like Russian squat cycle deal…huge gains and then you’ll plateau if you don’t deload before another phase.
Not necessarily too early but more not backing off enough to let the body adapt when it needs to. We get almost linear improvement throughout the year so long as injury doesn’t cause a problem.
My sense is that the real issue is at the opposite end of the spectrum: Remember what CF said about the right side of the curve. Charlie’s system is supposed to be vertically integrated, and if you look at Charlie’s L-S graphs, you see a LOT of overdistance work being performed, and if you look at the performance graphs in CFTS, most of the 60m performance really does come quickly, and from there, comes a lot of longer work to get the ultimate result.
What I’ve learned is that the critical item is to get in the necessary mix of work (including SE and special endurance) early enough so you get in the enough of ALL of the right kind of work to get the ultimate result. If you delay the SE stuff too long, you may think you have hit a plateau, when in fact you simply didn’t give the system enough time to work fully.
no need to do SE work before or during indoor season esp if you live in cold climate.
Split runs are a form of SE even over 60m.
im talking bout trad speed end like 80-150
If facilities permit, there IS a reason to go to longer SE during at least the competition part of indoors, and that is that, as Charlie has said, split runs have a higher CNS load. So, during phase 1, I go:
4X4X60 (SPP1) => 3X3X80 (precomp, rest 7/15) => 3X100 (comp, rest = 15 min)
The bigger issue is how you scale up after indoors. Last year, Charlie mentioned taking a week off after indoors, then scaling the SE 60 split runs up to 2X3X80 (longer rest because these are alactic) for a few weeks, then to 100’s for a couple of weeks, then finally to 120’s. For those of us not quite good enough to be racing in Europe in August, the problem here is that we need to be at/near top form in June, and this approach doesn’t get us to the 120’s until early May, and you don’t get “there” in time, and by the time you do “get there” you may be out of races. And this. I think, is where the “speed plateau” comes from.
So this year, after switching to pure alactic stuff during late indoors, I scale up to 120’s and flying 30’s during GPP2 (2 weeks). Then, following John Smith, comes a whole bunch of special endurance, with workouts like 300-200-100, 3-4 X 150, as well as some long speed (60’s and 80’s), which goes until about mid-April. Following this, a few weeks of long alactic stuff (60-120) gets you close to peak form in time of the championships in June.
Given that the HSI guys are racing for money in May-June (and maybe in Aussie land before then), it’s easy to see why JS does what he does (and why guys like Shawn Crawford seem to be doing something similiar).
why would you go over 80 for a guy who only run 60m indoors?
to break through plateaus. why does gay & felix run 400s in training to train for the 200 & 100? why can’t you run 120s and 240s to train for the 60? lacour & locatelli.
I have spoken to other athletes that have came from a tempo based program and most of them say when they switch to a short to long program they felt fast early on sept-dec but plateau when the season started, I know there are many factors that could have played in this but do you guys have any ideas on why this may have happen?
Because they do not keep up a high enough work capacity at the beginning and effectively slowly peak indoor and do not have the capacity for the 100 later or the capacity to properly train for the 100 later for that matter.
why would you go over 80 for a guy who only run 60m indoors?
Because the 60 isnt an outdoor event, need more than a couple of weeks to build up a good 100.
Allyson really doesn’t apply here because Bobby Kersee is a pure L-S coach, but I do know that she goes OVER 400 in early season.
!20 & 240, is it to break through plateaus, or to prepare for the outdoor season coming later and make sure that the plateau isn’t there to begin with? Also see Vittori’s stuff from the Italian Sprint Training thread with speed-SE-off-speed-SE-off.
One thing I see in my own logs following the Vancouver thing with 4X4X60 SE and 4X60 speed sessions each week, is that I run my fastest times during the SE session, which I believe is due to the CNS load that hasn’t been recovered from by the time of the 4X60. So like Charlie says, I want to get away from the split runs during comp, and I do this by going to 80’s and then 100’s.
Doing 80’s during indoors also has a MaxV effect (if you have the facility).
boom what you said is where i am in now,i feel im rusing speed endurance from holding it out to long.
Do you start these longer intervals after indoor racing? Is there any work done before these as preperation? Thanks!
I agree with this. I think that if you can it’s worth balancing out the very high intensity of flat out 60m sprints with some volume work at slightly lower intensity hence 80-120 runs. You can do these as one run or you can do repeat 60s at slightly lower intensity with a rolling start and little rest if your track is only 60m in length.
For me, through SPP1, the preparation is essentially as Charlie has it in the Vancouver DVD. The workouts during SPP1 are 4X4X60 and 4X60. I have tempo at 1500m, normally 7X200, which starts at about 35 sec and gets faster as I go through the phase. I have my first indoor race in mid-January, and after this, things start to move in the John Smith direction (i.e., a LOT of special endurance during outdoor prep).
During precomp (after mid-January), I move the SE workout up to 3X3X80. This is now alactic, with rests of 7-8 min/15 min, which comes from what Charlie said to do at the start of phase 2. Then during the main indoor comp, I move the SE up to 90-100meters (15 minutes), and no more split runs at all to minimize the CNS load. The whole emphasis is to go lactic (the 60, split-runs) to some alactic, to fully alactic (the 90-100 straight SE).
After indoor comp, there is a week off per Charlie, then I have a 2 week GPP with squats 2X a week, and the track workouts are special endurance 4X150 (moved up from 90-100) and 4X30 flying.
My main SPP2 microcycle (this is an 8-day cycle) is this:
Sun 2X30 + 3X60 (rest 15 min)
Mon 300+200+100 (rest 8-10 min per JS)
Tue tempo
Wed weights
Thu off
Fri 2X30 + 4X80 (rest 15 min)
Sat weights
Sun off
BTW, the back-back workouts come from a paper on Prof. Verkhoshansky’s site, where he claims that the back-back workouts maximize protein synthesis. This is HARD, but it works very well if you follow up with enough rest as the professor says. John Smith also sometimes uses a microcycle like this which goes Hard-Hard-very easy-easy-medium (2 days off). See:
“Topical Problems of The Modern Theory and Methodology of Sports Training,” in english, on www.verkhoshansky.com.
Also keep in mind that I train in California where you have to get on an airplane to even see an indoor track. If I was training in Toronto, I would have to make some changes unless I had an oversize track like they have in Seattle.
1: so gpp and spp1 is all cf stuff then after your first indoor meet you switch over the john smith stuff?
2: does the weights change?
3: not sure what level athlete you are working with but dont you think 4x4x60 or 3x3x80 is alot for a lower level athlete (college)? Most people who follow cf stuff usually cut the volume in half.
4: i think these rest times are too much since you are trying to stay in a certain zone esp for lower level athletes they would work for someone like ben >>>7-8 min/15 min
do you follow something similar to the workouts below not sure how accurate they are:
Early Season (January - March)
Monday:
- Warm up and Drills
- 3 (3 x 60)
- 300 / 200 or 2 x 250 or 3 x 200
Tuesday:
- Warm up
- Starts
- Relays
Wednesday:
- Warm up
- 3 x 300 or 3 x 250 or 5 x 150 or 3 (3x80)
Thursday:
- Warm up
- Starts
- Relays
Friday:
Rest if competing or
4 x 4 x 40 Meters W/ 90 second R/R (5 minutes between sets)
Mid to Late Season (April - May)
Monday:
- Warm up
- 80, 60 (5 minutes R/R) 80, 60 (5 minutes R/R) 80, 60
Tuesday:
Starts and Relays
Wednesday:
4 (4 x 100 meters) or 3 (3 x 60)
Thursday:
Starts and Relays
Friday:
rest