I’m writing to ask whether anyone has had experience training for sprints and LJ with only two high intensity sessions per week. I’m a 36 year-old Masters athlete hoping to do LJ at this year’s World Masters Championships. I haven’t competed in the LJ since 2008, but want to take it up again because, based on past performances, I should be a lot more competitive in the LJ.
I don’t think I can do more than two HI sessions per week, due to being too injury prone. A HI session every three days may also be an option.
I may only run the 60m and 100m this season (leaving out the 200m), as this will not require me to do as much SE training. I was thinking of the following split:
Day 1: speed and speed endurance (i.e. speed change drills, flying sprints and sprints out to 120m max) + lower body weights
Day 2: rest
Day 3: tempo or pool tempo + upper body weights
Day 4: acceleration (30m or shorter) and plyos/LJ + lower body weights
Day 5: rest
Day 6: tempo + upper body weights (maybe also something explosive like box jumps
Day 7: rest or pool tempo
The other option would be to do a HI session every three days, i.e.:
Day 1: acceleration and speed + lower body weights
Day 2: rest
Day 3: tempo or pool tempo + upper body weights
Day 4: acceleration and SE + lower body weights
Day 5: rest
Day 6: tempo or pool tempo + upper body weights
Day 7: plyos and LJ + lower body weights
Day 8: rest
Day 9: tempo or pool tempo + upper body weights
Any thoughts on these two setups? The second one gives me more time to work on my speed, but not sure if it’s enough LJ work.
Robin, before I give my 2 cents, when you’re noting LJ work, what does that mean to you? Technical work, runway work, short approaches, full approaches…? Just trying to determine what kind of intensity/impact you’re attributing to it.
Day 1: Maxium Speed & Long Jump/Weights
Day 2: Rest
Day 3 : Tempo and general strength circuit
Day 4: Rest
Day 5: Acceration & speed endurance/ plyometrics/ Weights
Day 6: Pool Tempo or Bike Tempo
Day 7: Rest
There is more recovery in the above sample. Remember, it is the accumulation of healthy training over an extended period that leads to results. Thoughts?
Pinky, by LJ work I mean all of the above, but progressing from short approach pop ups to short approach jumps and then gradually increasing the length of the approach. An experienced LJ coach has recommended that I stick to pop ups until I fix a technical issue (I need to stay more upright at take off rather than leaning back). Runway work would probably be part of it too and some bounding (on grass).
Speedster, I prefer combining the LJ with acceleration work, so my hamstrings are not fatigued by the time I move on to the LJ. In the past ten years I’ve tried getting back into the LJ three times and it always ended with a pulled hamstring in my take off leg. This probably had a number of reasons which I’m now addressing: Weak lower hamstrings, not having taken enough time to accustom the body to jumping (going from no jumping to full approach in only one month), take off technique and shoes.
Robin, within the LJ work, I usually fit short run jumps and technical work into the general days in GP, and then as the runs become longer they migrate to HI days, so your first example with Day 7 being a technical day as opposed to a CF-style tempo day - build volume through short runs where you can’t build real speed. I could also see swapping days 4 and 7 as the season progresses to allow for more recovery but that’s a long term thing.
My red flag would be the number of hamstring injuries, but I’m sure that’s already your’s as well…what kind of cue are you using when you hit/come off the board?
Robin, what I suggest you give thought to are strategies of further consolidating the high intensity stressors shared between what is needed for sprint development and what is needed for LJ development- most notably the acceleration component
If the predominance, for now, of your LJ training is pop ups then these need not count for much more notable load factor than an extension of power speed.
You should do well to tolerate two of these high intensity days a week:
Warm up I
Warm Up II
Pop Ups
Speed Work (minus the acceleration volume you integrate into the approach run on the pop ups) one of these days max V emphasis and the other speed endurance emphasis
Explosive Jumps
Lower Weights
Then, as you have listed, hit your upper weights on any of the other low intensity/tempo/off days.
Additionally, if your primary issue on the LJ is your spinal/pelvic orientation off the board then there are plenty of drills that you can perform extensively on the low intensity days to gain repetitive exposure to optimal pelvic position off the board.
Then, as you get into SPP and you begin to perform short approach jumps and full run ups you’ll simply migrate a greater volume of your acceleration sprint volume into the LJ work leaving you only with block starts, max V, and speed endurance for the speed work.
You’ll probably do well to precede each of these high intensity days with some sort of tempo (run, bike, pool…) the day before in order that you have some tone going into the high intensity sessions.
I coached a 100m/LJ athlete years ago who PB’d 10.47FAT and 25’10.75" (fouled +27 at a meet at Sac State) and we followed a similar strategy to what I’ve outlined here for you.
Thanks for your input. My technical issue is that I aim too much for height at takeoff. I go down too much on the penultimate and then hit the board in a position where I’m leaning back, which causes too much breaking and thus loss of speed. I have jumped as far off 10 strides in training as I have in competition off 16, so I’m not able to convert the extra speed into distance, probably because of excessive breaking/blocking at takeoff. I think that’s also causing the hamstring strains in the takeoff leg. I’m thus now focusing on minimizing the penultimate and running off the board rather than fighting for height. I’ve also replaced my long jump spikes that have a negative heel with middle distance spikes that have a neutral heel. With a history of achilles tendinopathy and hamstring strains I don’t want to put extra stress on these structures by putting them into a stretched position at takeoff. I compared the two types of shoes last year and found no difference in distance off a short approach. From what I can see on pictures and videos, Carl Lewis seems to have jumped with neutral heeled shows for most of his career.
What kind of drills would you recommend on LI days and what do you mean by explosive jumps? Would this include plyometrics or just things like SLJ, box jumps, etc.?
I’m nervous performing pop ups before speed work, because I fear this may expose my hamstrings to stress they are not accustomed to, which could then lead to injuries during the subsequent sprint training. Do you think performing the pop ups after the speed training would make a difference?
Optimal to resolve excessive negative vertical hip displacement during the penultimate would be to begin by integrating extensive single leg, RRLL/LLRR, and alternate leg hops on the low intensity days. These initiate the sequence of enhancing stiffness in the associated tissues. Once efficiency/coordination/stiffness begin to come along at the extensive intensity you switch them to the high intensity day and begin to ramp the intensity of both your vertical and horizontal hip displacement.
I suggested the pop ups prior to speed because you can similarly reduce the intensity of your vertical/horizontal displacement on the popups and turn them into just another power speed drill. Use this lower intensity version to expand out on the volume of optimized hip displacement on the penultimate.
In this way, the combination of the, initially, extensive single leg, RRLL/LLRR, alternate leg and power speed intensity popups will result in the cumulative adaptation of optimized hip displacement/pelvic position during the penultimate and take-off.
Surely, you could perform these type of popups after the sprint work as well.
As for explosive jumps, I would suggest a sequence of single leg jumps (up only for a few weeks, then landings for a few weeks, then depth jumps)
Ensure that the entire aggregate of training elements progresses holistically and intelligently- working backwards from your planned competition calendar.
Thanks. Regarding patience/build it slowly, Indeed, yet curious how this “101” fact of motor/skill development is lost on myriad of coaches around the globe.
Update on my progress: I tried incorporating extensive (low intensity) bounding into my tempo days, but found that my achilles tendons were unable to cope with that. The pain came back and I had to take two weeks off running to rehab them to a point where I could run pain free again. For about one month I have now been using the following setup:
Mon: bench and pull ups
Tue: Sprints (mainly accelerations), deadlifts and hamstring curls
Wed: pool tempo, abdominal work, one-legged squats, glute bridges and side bridges
Thu: same as Mon
Fri: Sprints (mainly top speed) and long jump pop-ups, deadlifts and hamstring curls
Sat: same as Wed
Sun: off
I work in three-week cycles, where the volume of sprints increases from around 200-250m per session in week one to 300m in week 2 and 350-400m in week 3. The pool tempo volume also increases in a similar manner.
I’m interested to see whether this approach, with all tempo work being done in the pool, will allow me to get to the sort of level I know I’m capable of. If it does, it should be a lot easier to avoid further overuse injuries in the future. I will have my first competition since Feb 2015 on Sat, which should give me an indication as to where I’m heading.
On a different note: I had a look at the Jonathan Edward’s 1995 SPP and comp phase training that lead him to his world records. It was interesting to note how little specific work he actually did. Before his first comp he triple jumped about once every two weeks and sprinted once every week in training. During comp phase he competed most weekends and did one sprint session in between. His sprint sessions were usually around 250-400m in total and hardly anything was longer than 60m, His triple jump sessions consisted of around 5 or 6 short approach jumps. The vast majority of his training actually consisted of low volume high intensity olympic lifting sessions, which he did about 2.5 times per week on average. Once every 10 days or so he did some hurdle hops after his weights sessions. In the 2.5 weeks leading up to the world championships where he broke the world record he competed twice and did hardly anything in between. Basically everything he did was high intensity, low volume explosive work and most of that was done in the form of cleans and snatches. His best clean was 132.5kg, his best snatch was just around 100kg and his best bench just under 110kg, all at about 74kg body weight. Fascinating stuff.
Unfortunate that the strategy did not work for you; just the opposite in fact.
Given that your tolerance for the work more specific to the LJ appears to be low you are faced with the challenge of getting in quality work yet at a frequency low enough to recover from while not being faced with the structural stress of incurring high intensity work too infrequently.
You should be fine with pool tempo; however, the key is going to be the LJ preparation.
You certainly have the option of exploring specialized weight training in an effort to get as much as you can from that end of the curve.
In addition, you may do well to integrate a certain volume of ankle pops, pogo jumps (double and single leg), and the like in the pool as part of your tempo in order to build up your achilles. Then gradually shift these to dry land and evolve towards the extensive to intensive hops, but this time on the primary days so you still have days worth of recovery in between.
Keep the volume low when you do the dry land work and the quality high. Each phase preparing you for the next until you’re in form and ready for full approach jumps with time to prep for competitions.
His program (Edwards)was designed in this way cause he had problem with MTSS (medial tibial stress syndrome) therefore all jumping was very limited, on top of that was working with coach who had a throwing background.
They did lift using different progressions/pyramids eg. 3/4x10, 4x5, 3x3 etc…
His pbs where little bit better it was 150 clean, 110 snatch but from the hang position.
Re sprints he did quite a lot of block starts up to 40m.
Thanks James. I don’t think I would benefit much from trying to optimise my weight training. I’ve competed internationally in powerlifting, so I doubt I’m going to get much stronger or derive much benefit from trying to.
I have done a lot of bounding on my takeoff leg over the last few months, as I had plantar fasciities on my other foot, and one-legged plyos was what I used to compensate for not having been able to use that foot much. The takeoff leg should thus be well conditioned for LJ training.
I’ve also done a lot of eccentric hamstring curls to strengthen the biceps femoris musculotendinous junction where I’ve had all my long jump induced hamstring injuries. It was interesting to note that despite having done a lot of deadlifting, I was rather weak on hamstring curls and the hamstring tendons were quite sensitive (got sore easily) in the beginning. After a few months of doing them, I’ve now gotten a lot stronger on the hamstring curls. I’ve thus come to the conclusion that hamstring curls are necessary to strengthen and protect your distal hamstring muscles and tendons, as movements such as deadlifts where the hamstrings are used as hip extensors and not knee flexors are insufficient to strengthen the distal hamstrings. I use slow eccentric and fast concentric motions when doing hamstring curls.
Wermouth, the paper about JE’s training program I looked at listed his PBs as per my post. If he did, indeed, improve them to the numbers you gave this must have happened in later seasons. Most of the SPP and comp phase training was 3 reps per set or less, but the paper did state that higher reps were used earlier in the year. He also did body-weight circuits in GPP and occasionally in SPP.
My assignment is to coach jumpers in our program. In my view it’s really important to be good at accelerating over 30-50m if you are going to be a long jumper. We spend a lot of our sprint days on the straightaway working in that range. Running On the track or runway, either. If they run races, I have to throw in 1 or 2 longer runs of 60m up to 120m if they are going to run 4x1, or dash… and if they compete at 200 we can run up to 250m once at the end of the running session. I’ve found much better results with doing just 1 longer run, with quality, than running a lot of repeat 150s or 200s at sub standard speeds and form. I don’t think that’s too far off the theme of this website’s philosophy - running at circa 95 percent or higher to agitate speed gain.
long jump is a sprint, and i’d say the success in the event in 70 percent about acceleration. The other aspects of it are portions. ie the other 30 percent being landing, take off , penutlimate etc… You can make a lot of mistakes jumping but if you’re fast you can manage to P.R.
If i can suggest. If your’e willing to test this view. I try to tell my jumpers to aim for a flat footed contact on the last two steps, and nothing else. I think theres a reflex in the hip and knee joints that causes a subtle lowering,yielding, when you hit flat footed. Automatically. It causes just enough lowering with most kids i work with. I’d say this is 95 percent of the time. There are always exceptions.
The other issue is if you mistakenly want to jump far on half approaches, you’d want to lower a little more on the second to last (penult) because the speed is lower and you need a steeper launch to go further.
However that’s not the real jump. The take off should be more shallow. 21 to 25 degrees. or sometimes lower (Carl Lewis is the fast end of the scale and he used a 15-18 degree angle at times)…
The real event is much more velocity. So we teach the athletes that they can jump further on part approach, but ON PURPOSE we do not want to. So,we use the mechanics conducive for speed even on slower approaches from 8 to 12 steps, so that when its 16 - 20 steps they are used to the correct depth. The mechanics of a far short approach jump are opposite or in conflict with what has to happen going more meters per second. So we don’t care about half approach maximum distances, we accept the half approach COULD be farther, but we avoid that to train for what would be better for speed. Then when they back up and go fast, it goes further.
We do a lot of full approach on the track with a takeoff and hit the ground running because they wont go too high on the track. sometimes we do this on the runway , off board into pit too…
Doing a slight pop off at the end of the full approach fills the gaps of skill connection to it, where the half approach doesnt.
You want to feel like you’re almost going to fall on your face when you come across the board. I have one kid who’s gone from 6.60m to 7.26m this year and he says he doesn’t even think to jump anymore. he just accelerates on flat footed contacts thru the last 2 stride,and try to run to the other side of the sand out the back. I think that’s how it has to be.
Hopefully this photo comes out, but note how far past his foot his cent of gravity moves, with his leg behind, because he’s at a very low take off angle. This is key to going further on full approach than being great at short runs.
Robin I wasn’t referring to conventional weight training. Specialized means of force production that may serve to compensate for your low tolerance for specific LJ work (at least at present time).
The technical issue you describe as having on the board, leaning back/foot too far forward of bottom dead center, is precisely what causes greater deflective forces to be incurred by the distal hamstrings- similar to a sprinter whose hips drop/sit and makes GCT farther in front.
Thus, it is technical/specialized work that you need most yet must determine how to accomplish it and sufficiently recover. This is why my suggestion is to begin with what I mentioned, in addition to any other specific movements, in the pool. Following the progression of pool then extensive dry land on grass, increasing intensity on grass, then finally on the runway.
Thank you Bmarcho and James for your helpful feedback. I agree that the bad habits/technique probably stem from always having tried to jump as far as possible off short approaches in training. Probably best to stop measuring the distance of short approaches and just aim for good technique instead.
