Hi guys, I run high school indoor track, which means my racing schedule gets pretty clogged during the season (sometimes 3 races a week). I am panning on doing a little speed work the days before meets, and using races as my main speed work (until i near the bigger meets for which ill try to peak). ill lift legs after or the day after meets and will do core and upper on the other days.
my facilities are somewhat limited, so this is where my question is:
-on lighter racing weeks i plan to use plyos and every once in a while, an intensive tempo workout. any major problems with this idea?
-my fitness level is pretty good, and i no that i can use medball throws and pretty much any other low intensity exercises to keep this up, but as far as recovery from races, what type of workouts should i be doing on days in between workouts? I have access to jump ropes ergs, medballs, ellypticals, treadmills, bikes and a track. i would try to use a pool, but i dont have access to one. as far as using tempo as a recovery aid, what do you guys recommend using? i rmeember reading it should be on a low impact surface, ruling out the indoor track, and that it should activate the muscles that are stressed while sprinting (glutes, hammys) which rules out treadmill, jump ropes, and probably the erg. after spending the whole fall running tempo on grass, will switching to tempo on a bike or ellyptical be that bad? and what type of setup should i be using on these things? i assume about the same amount of work that i did while running, but im not sure
You have to experiement but you probably only need to do 1 speed type session during the week which could simply be a few starts and some weights. I’ve done stuff before like:
Sat/Sun - Race 100, 200, 4x100m, 4x400m
Mon: OFF
Tues: Upper body weights + some lower going by feel and/or a bike workout (either Speed/Speed Endurance focus or more tempo focus)
Wed: Extensive Tempo & General Strength
Thurs: Starts and possibly upper body weights
Fri: OFF
Sat/Sun Race again
What you do during the week depends on how you feel and how you want the loading to be. Depending on how you respond you can do anything from purely general strength through to bike speed work or eliptical trainer type workouts. I think it comes down to you experimenting and seeing what you like and generally you will drop out the high intensity stuff the close you get to your season’s peak.
thanks for the response! when u fit in extensive tempo, was it for the fitness aspect (because i assume you didnt have access to grass, so some of its recovery aspect would be shot because its no longer low impact? and did you do any plyos? and as far as the bike work outs go, how long would u ride it? like i no people do from 1000m to about 4000m of tempo in a season, but i have no idea how to structure a bike workout, could u post an example of that?