by april we had already completed nearly 50 speed sessions working 30-60m intensities.
[video=youtube_share;hZdoyuj16UI]http://youtu.be/hZdoyuj16UI[/video]
This is the fastest I’ve ever felt. Strength training is helping a lot.
You look leaner too. Is this my imagination?
Nice work man. What kind of shoes are you wearing in that acceleration in concrete?
They are Nike Free TR 2. I use them for lifting. It has a very hard and for a lack of a better word, inflexible sole. It creates a very stable platform I can do my squats and cleans on. Normally I would not use it for speed work because the shoe is not that flexible and it’s very hard, not springy.
Possibly. Probably has something to do with my diet. Have not been eating much lately but I should. I believe I should add a few lbs of muscle on right now, which will just burn away later as the season goes. Core strength is what I would call the linchpin of my training. Last season, coach believed that my prominent lateral rotation might be because of my lack of core strength. He cued it by holding the breath as hard as you can as I went over the hurdle. Doing thus would activate the val salva maneuvre and would do great things for staying straight, applying more force with no rotation. It will also help with my starts because I have a very high tendency to pop out from the blocks.
Also having a lot of focus on upper body strength. When I do my continuous tempo work I noticed that I could go faster and do so with less effort because with each stride, my arms and shoulders were able to generate more force.
I did notice quite a bit of drop from my quadricep size. They were overdeveloped last season because of previous bad training. This meant longer ground contact times and not being able to sweep the ground at the max velocity mark in flat sprints. I am absolutely positive a big portion of my time will be carved away with less focus on quadricep training, and more on training the hamstrings (more so as hip extensors, which cleans are great for).
Nice clip.
Keep your head down and totally relax before the command of " Start " goes. You see how you are preparing yourself for getting up? Your job is to stay completely relaxed and your face should be touching the ground or cement or track. THe starter also needs to wait and coach that command as well and not say " start " until you are relaxed.
ANd notice how you popped your head up as well once you were up and running?
Let it happen a little bit and try to work on the feeling of more relaxation.
There are few option in terms of combining components of the training for hurdles, everything depends where you are in your cycle and what’s important at the given moment.
Option 1 might be
Monday: Hurdles speed (2x2h+ 2x4h+ 1x5h)+ Speed 4-6x flying 20s or Special end.
Tuesday: Tempo, hurdles mobility, core strength, circuits (moderate volume and intensity)
Wednesday: Hurdles speed end (4x2h+ 4-5x 8h) or Hurdles special end (4x2h+ 4x 12h)
Thursday: off or tempo or pool (recovery)
Friday: Speed end 4-6x 120-150m
Saturday: Hurdles rhythms (1 between, trial and lead leg+ middle 4-5x10h+ hurdles mobility
Sunday: off
Great stuff. Helped give me a better understanding of how to juggle the units.
Can someone explain succinctly the differences between long to short and short to long? Is it just change in the high intensity element? I know climate affects how it would be decided. I am going for s-l but never could totally grasp the difference in benefits between both?
Would a three peak micro cycle that turns into a two peak be considered a s-l or l-s?
Also how would I do speed endurance in a sub zero degree climate? I can manage speed training and speed hurdles indoor with flats. But speed endurance is more challenging. Brent McFarlane talks about challenging the lactate system using ‘stacking’. This would be shorter distances 40m around 30s rest in between reps and 1-2" between sets. Obviously the race model is different, but I think it’s the best way to train the particular system in absence of a 100+ hallway and getting on a track.
Lastly, what are the possible repercussions of training in sub zero temperature? If I was dressed warmly, would it be possible? Otherwise, all my training in SPP would be in weight room, and hallways at school.
My understanding is that:
Short to Long begins with a focus on over-distance, so starting with lower intensity aerobic, and some special endurance, then as the season progresses the intensity builds while the training distances decreases toward speed endrance and maxV.
Long to Short begins with a focus on short speed, and as the season progresses the training distances increase towards maxV, speed endurance, and special endurance.
Your periodization plan can be made independently of deciding L->S or S->L. Speed endurance is hard in below zero. We have snow all winter so we do S->L.
Training in <0 is fine if it’s kept general, and low intensity. Don’t work on hurdle technique, start technique, maxV, …
GL.
except the opposite of that…
agree!
The high hurdles require good posture and even better rhythm therefore those two things should be trained through the whole year.
I know quite several high hurdles sprinters with PBs for 100m around 10.6-10.9 but they have managed master their technique and rhythm and were able to run 13.3- 13.6 for 110m hurdles.
Don’t get me wrong speed is important having said that more important thing in my opinion is, what are you doing with the speed which is available to you at the given moment. Leaving hurdles technique and rhythm for who knows how long is crazy idea. There are too many things to train for hurdles: take off, foot recovery, landing, clearance, arm action, posture, rhythm etc… therefore you need to train all those things right from the beginning. As you are getting faster and no matter from which end you are doing your program (it can be even from both ends) adaptation to the speed while you are hurdling has to go hand in hand with flat speed development. Otherwise you find yourself trapped with all the speed available to you but with limited access to it while hurdling.
As to speed end in sub zero with extra clothes, not sure about that
if temperature is around -2 no wind in dry climate I think is doable, of course there is a catch, the extra clothes will compromise your mobility consequently your technique.
As to 30s turnabout, I don’t understand the purpose neither concept of it, Malcolm Arnold coach of Colin Jackson has them in his program 3x4x50 or 2x4x60 my guess is, those ‘turnabouts’ got special endurance quality just like Charlies special end days with the differences, recovery time and technique of execution.
Charlie explains S-L and L-S in the Vancouver (which will be re-released soon). I think it is also discussed in Edmonton as well, but I have not seen it in a while and will need to re-watch to confirm this.
Sample sessions from each:
Short to Long:
SPP: Week 2: SE day
Blocks and standing starts (distances from 10-30m)
3x(4x60) accel limit of 20 m
Week 8
blocks/standing starts 10-30m
2x(3x60) 40 m accel limit
Week 1 Speed:
blocks/standing starts 10-30m
sets of Speed change drills (easy fast easy), also Fast easy Fast in later weeks
Week 8: Block/standing 10-30m
2x2x60 full recovery between, 50m accel limit
Accel limits are how long you you accelerate to before maintaining speed the rest of the way. This ensures intensification throughout the cycle while volumes are relatively the same.
Long to short:
Week 1 SE 1 accels 10-30m (mostly standing) 2x300 (5-7 min rest)
Week 8 accels, blocks up to 10-30m, fast tanding 40-60m sprints, 2x200 with 30 min rest
SE 2: week 1 short accels, 2x600 (10-12 min rest)
week 8: short accels/blocks, 40-60m, 2x400 (30-40 min rest)
As a person get faster, running 200+ indoors can be quite risky. If you are in wrmer climate, you are likely in better training environments, but in cold weather areas, indoor surfaces aren’t 400m typically.
These are examples, not specific rules to the concept. None of my sprinters can do 2x600. I might start with 2x400 and work down throughout the weeks.
As it goes for hurdles, especially a developing hurdler, you have to get faster. With poor weather, a short to long approach would work well. I used it very successfully last winter and he went from no-name to national champion. We rarely did more than 4 hurdles indoors and never were spacing and heights regulation. We modeled race splits each touchdown (1.00) and adjusted hurdles accordingly. I used 1 hurdle as a 10m sprint, 2 hurdles were 20m sprint equivalents etc. Depending on how races went throughout the indoors, we adjusted the SE work and the hurdle work.
And we trained on an 80m marble floor hallway 12m wide in training flats twice a week, and then did the basement tempo workouts 3 days a week. He opened the season at I believe 8.12 and ended running 7.72 at indoor nationals to win. I had other hurdlers improve from 9.40 down to 8.92, so even the less talented hurdler did well.
How fast you hurdler was running 60mH season before, also what did he run outdoors for 110 and 100m before the the indoor season when he run 7.72 and after.
Jr year: 8.55 FAT, 14.41 FAT
Sr Yr: 7.72 FAT, 14.39 FAT into a -4.0 wind (also ran 13.6 hand time which would have been good for 14.0 or 13.9). He also locked his SI doing a 4x100 in late april and limited his training. Unfortunately, we never got to see how things progressed because of his back, but his 13.6 was by himself in a low key meet.
Oh well, this is how the things goes sometimes.
Are you getting him ready for the next season? Hope he’s recovering well.
Out of curiosity, how your outdoor meso-cycles are looking like? (talking here about march, april)
He’s now at Syracuse University.
I posted our training throughout the winter and through to June in a training journal “110mH state title”
http://www.charliefrancis.com/community/showthread.php?22413-110mH-State-Title-Quest
[video=youtube_share;ZfBG0CT71H8]http://youtu.be/ZfBG0CT71H8[/video]
Quick update as of January 8th, 2014.
Lots of rain lately so training sucks. Also very cold. Geography teacher stated that the coldest time in my city will come in 4-5 weeks, not looking forward to that.
Hurdling technique. Lots of improvement. Much less lateral rotation now. It is because of my trail arm being able to reach back and come forward. However, it still crosses my body which still takes away from going straight… Trail leg - really trying to pull it over the hurdle, but it always looks weird. It feels good, this means I’ve learned the technique wrong. Going to do more walkovers, marching drills to improve. Only thinking about trail arm and leg for the last sessions, not putting too much thought into lead leg and lead arm. My lead arm reaches too far in front of the body. Lead leg is always changing. One thing I’m going to focus on, as previously mentioned in the thread, is keeping it straight. It is always facing diagonally, weakening the stretch reflex. I read in the past on Dayron Robles’ technique; Steve McGill mentions that Robles does not really snap his lead leg down like the other powerhouses, his superb hurdler clearance is because of pulling his trail leg over like a madman. People warming up with him on the track are able to hear the sound, indication of the power he pulls it through with.
I am moving in the hurdles with my foot. It measures to 10". First hurdle is race distance. 2nd is moved in by 1 “foot”, 3 moved in by 2… so on. Hurdles are at 36 inches. I think I’m doing a better job of running between the hurdles. This means keeping my arms straight and really punching them, making my feet move faster. During the final of provincial championships, I told myself to go faster. That was actually incorrect, because I was increasing my stride length. Stride length is determined, you can not change stride length in a race, only frequency. Running faster between the hurdlers aggressively will allow me to run technically better races. That is all for now. Not too many questions - I am quite aware what I have to work on. Hopefully the next update will come after I’ve improved my hurdling technique even more. Cheers and as always, thanks for the contribution and help 
Nice job! Your spacing listed I used rarely. Typically most training runs we’re done between 8-9 yards( 9 on track, 8 in hallway). I would use yours may be one session a week as it is similar to racing. Since you 3 step, increasing step frequency is crucial.
For technique, watch this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-WW8oa4hm0 It’s great video I ask my hurdlers to watch weekly.
Keep working hard and posting! Your timing over the hurdle looks better from that view.