I am just looking down the road. It can be hard to progress an athlete who’s 22 if they pulled out all the fancy training stimulus when they were 16.
What if it increases their capacity to improve? It’ll improve his ability to run fast in a 16yo frame, so will that improve the scope of what he could do in a 22yo frame?
I think the issue is more that the overspeed downhill (at 5-6% grade as has been posted here recently) places rather extreme impact stresses, and at 16 the body is still developing and maybe not ready to handle the higher stress loads.
It does appear that resisted or overspeed by itself does not seem to have much of a performance improvement (that was posted recently too and there other papers to that effect), so it may indeed be that the overspeed IS needed to get the gains that have been mentioned. I’m going to do this stuff for a couple of workouts with a high school sprinter, but he’ll be 18, not 16 at the time, which is a big difference.
Maybe you can run on the flat with the wind and not go to the full overspeed downhill?
do you mean that resisted/overspeed individually in a workout alone, with nothing else, are not effective for performance improvements?
and what are the best distances to use for this workout, 30m for resisted? and 60m for flat + wind sprints?
edit: just a random thought I had, what do you do when your downhill sprint is in the direction of a headwind? are you still reaching higher top speeds if the winds not that strong?
Some of what you’re asking about with overspeed or resisted training (alone, not in conjunction) can be found here from the Tudor Bompa thread:
http://www.charliefrancis.com/community/showpost.php?p=218039&postcount=127
And there are some similar results from the Athletics Canada page about Soviet research. I’m not saying they don’t work at all, but they don’t seem to work nearly as well as the uphill/downhill contrast method.
What I’ve seen written about the contrast method is that the uphill/downhill portions are in the 20-40m range with 30m for flys being used by just about everybody, but the runnig in the flat tends to be longer, from 60m or 60m flys to 100m for me.
Not sure I really buy that. Surely the everyday jumping activities of kids have higher impact stresses, like jumping out of trees and off of swings! Not to mention school long and triple jump and then there is basketball and dunking. Most American kids seem to spend all their time doing lay-ups and trying to touch the rim. I think all of these activities have higher impact loads than sprinting a slight gradient on grass… even runnning on a hard track in sprint spikes.
im looking at arranging a 2 week taper also not for me though, were planning contrast on wed this week
whats the best amount of resistance to be using for this?
I personally run uphill only slightly steeper than the downhill portion… that way mechanics are closer to flat sprinting… If you’re using a sled keep it light. PJ got some great potentiation from light sleds so I believe, think it was around 5k but not sure.
Is Joel competing at the weekend?
Yeah bal league but won’t be pushing
If I weigh 150, how light exactly should i keep it? 10-15 pounds?
With the race at the weekend and with what Lkh has just said in the Tudor Bompa thread I don’t think contrast on Wednesday is needed. As Charlie said in the same thread, Joels PB is already ‘overspeed’ to a degree. The BAL will be enough stimulus.
Should think that’d be ok… get someone to time you running it flat then weighted. There should be less than 10% difference.
Now do you guys think at my age/level/speed, ill get injured racing 3 days after contrasting :o
Its a load issue if this is new to you it wouldn’t be best thing but depends on the method and level of resistance and contrast used! Maybe a light resistance with flying twentys no pull overspead
Ok, but going from resisted to flying 20s, wouldnt it differ a bit because acceleration mechanics and etc. are different than Max.V running?
Any kind or resistance will alter mechanics, using a light load will offer little change but some potentiation, load being something like 5k 3 days out wouldn’t really want to be doing too much though
No my question wasnt about mechanics. Im meaning to say if you do a resisted acceleration sprint (up to 30m) , then switch to a flying sprint which is max velocity, or a 60m sprint. Wont the contrast “effect” only be good for acceleration only WITHOUT the resistance, and not have an effect on top speed contrasting.
EDIT: I dont have a sled/tire, so I wanna use a dumbbell or plate + belt/rope, any thing i can do to keep it on the ground without it lifting up? since its only 10-15 pounds. 
the way we work with our contrast and i think as stated previously contrast training with resistance and overspeed is that it effects the top speed more then acc.
The resistance activates fibre full stop regardless of the following activity is the way i see it and have found