Enlightening Charlie…there is quite a few discussion all over the site and over the years about stimuli per se and their nature,a lot less about the communication network which spreads the stimulus around. I feel that this may well be a forgotten or less discussed topic,but equally important to have the whole picture and let the results flow safely in…
Congratulation M.E.M. Duxx!
Thanks!
I am really glad and honored that you guys here appreciate my scholar and still in “theoretical frame” posts… I will try to support and build my opinions with more practical work which is my major goal at this time!
I promise I will keep learning by reading and by practicing even more, and I promise I will keep my opinions and new stuff posted and discussed!
I hope that members of CF.com have learned an %0,1 of what I have learned from them. My knowledge made a giant leap since joining this forum. The best forum ever! Thanks guys, you are the greates 
I would love to quote my teacher prof. Koprivica for the end:
“We are more similar in what we don’t know than we are different in what we know”
Your sincerely 
Mladen Jovanovic
i am amazed at the amount of people in Queensland in australia that 1. dont do tempo and 2. think your a raving lunatic for doing it and 3. wonder why your training for a marathon by doing say 10x200m at a easy 30s pace…
Then i was talking just then to my old training partner who has moved to Melbourne, victora, and he is saying the same thing over there!! It seems tempo so far hardly has any form over here in Australia, Maybe only just the two of us???
make that 3. im in melb.
and also other athletes try and tell me what im doing is stupid.
Ok. I brought out my training journal and I thought of sharing this with all of you guys. I’m sure this will be explained to me here. I wish!!!
I had an injury in December 2002… It was some tear in the inner thigh. Whatever it was. I started doing a lot of weight training and plyometrics and by the end of the month my knee was done. I had a BIG problem with my knee that never showed up in MRI or X-ray!!! I went to a lot of doctors and everyone said something that never helpped. I had to stay home till the first of July 2003.
The first few days were jogging and some tempo. And a few easy flys.
Then 12/7/2003 I started a program. A program with Absolutly no tempo at all . Nothing but two things. Overspeed… And Special endurance. It sounds stupid I know. But wait and listen.
I start the week with a SE session and the next day is a Overspeed session 6 x 50m. Then SE. session and so on. No plyometrics, No gym. Only a day of rest a week. I don’t know how I thought about this. Actually it wasn’t me that thought about it. It was a friend of mine. His thought was basic. He said. If Tempo makes you get better. And intensive makes you more better and SE. Makes you much more better. Lets just stick to the best option and keep repeating. I listened cause I had nothing to loose. My p.B. last year was 10.80FAT. And by now I can say that I can hardly think of 11.3 or something. My friend used to run 11.9 on a peak. So we started
2nd week it was all the same but overspeed sessions were 7 x 50m
3rd week everything the same but overspeed was 8 x 50m.
of course the SE sessions were things that are changing all the time and we never repeated a session twice. After the 3 weeks we were DEAD. Yes we were. On the recovery week I sat home. My friend started running away from training and I was happy cause that meant that I would stay home as well!! At the end of the recovery week I started feeling better and I called him to time my 150m. I did a new P.B. And went back home On week 5 I something like 95% sessions every other day. But they were relatively easy and me and my friend thought that we lost everything cause we missed a lot of sessions and our tests were at the end of week 5. Our tests were a Cairo meet for my friend under 20. And for me it was the trials to the arab championships. So What happened. My friend went to the cairo meet and came 4th over all with an 11.00!!! breaking about a second off his time…!!! The next day I won the trials!!! In new p.B. of 10.65 FAT!! I went to the arab champs a couple of weeks later and ran 10.57 FAT and came 7th in the final…
Till today I can’t explain why and how this happened. Its not only me. It happened to me and my friend. Both of us. I can post the exact training that happened… That was all before I started using the CF system. I was inspired by my coach who I’m sure is reading this right now… She helped me drop from 11.35FAT and 22.92 FAT to a 10.88 FAT and 21.56 FAT in just over 2 months at the start of 2002 after I traveled to her in South Africa. but that particular last program that I’m talking about was a bit different. It was a new idea from me and my friend. I can’t remember exactly these days but I know that she always supported me in whatever I chose to do but she always gave me the comments to correct some stuff.
This time We just worked and skipped the tempo, weight training, plyometrics, abs and back everything. We just did the runs and went home. I know my coach was going to kill me for such a program but I was sure she would’ve supported me with my choice whatever it was because the relation is horizontal and that is something I respect in her so much.
After learning the CF system ( which my coach intreduced me to ) I started to change a very little bit in my training. Because it wasn’t very different from my coach’s beliefs.
Ok. I believe in Tempo. I do. But how can someone skip it like that and get such a big boost in P.Bs!? How?
Here is the real question…
If I was to substitue half of my sessions of S.E. and overspeed by tempo sessions would I have done the same. I really want an answer to this bit… I don’t think a lot of people can say yes here. But how. And why?? I do tempo nowadays. consistent. But I always wanted to clear the doubt. This doubt that was built up after that wierd program and its results.
Flying duck, good questions. This is similar to the questions brought up in the Craig Pickering thread…about how some schools do a ton of speed, SE, and intensive tempo bordering on SE and do great. Look at Krasnalafleur…she basically trains until she’s nearly crippled then takes it easy, then later PRs by 1 second in the 400.
Is there some great divide in training effect where sprinters at the highest level benefit best from speed & tempo but sub-elite or intermediate sprinters benefit best from higher relative loads of speed / SE?
With tempo???
no tempo but extra speed sessions???
I have seen some of the top guys here doing what appear to be tempo sessions on grass when I have been at the track. Certainly they appear to be working on speed all year but not as per CF GPP, last week they were doing block starts to varying distances. That may be due to some of them heading overseas but I doubt if all are.
Quite often a decrease in volume leads to an increase in intensity. This can be done intentionally, or you can hurt your foot and taper that way (not recommended). This does not mean that the short w/o of sprints only is all you need. For example, I’m peaking quite nicely for a max BP (300 lbs.) by cutting out most other work. If I tried to continue this to 400, I’d be overtrained and the imbalances would guarantee bad things. But it can work for a while to reach a peak. I’m guessing this is what happened w/ Flying Duck.
Flying Duck, hi,
It is possible that the program on which you had PB success gave you two qualities: special-speed-endurance, and also after the week of enforced rest, you attained a very good super-compensation effect.
BUt that sort of training must limit your capacity to attain the highest velocity values because your system cannot fully recover between speed development sessions.
So you get to a certain performance level based mainly on tough conditioning, but this has it’s limitations. It is short-term gain. But the long term future may be in doubt (especially if injury intervenes).
flying duck, CF training is an approach to be done over the cource of a yr or more. If you have been out of training for awhile, then just about anything will improve you, for a little while. Eventually you will get to a level where improvment stops. That is where CF training is good. You should not feel like you are buring out like you did, even though you improved after a wk or two, how many times during the yr do you think you could keep that up? Mentally you just would stop doing it cause it just hurts too much…??
CF trianing you tend to stay pretty fresh yr round, therefore going to training wont be a problem, you wont be mentally exhausted.
Were these sessions assisted in some manner to acheive a higher maximum level velocity?
I used a towing device that I made by my self. Its was nice simple and easy… It cost me about 55 Egyptian pounds… ( about 10 US dollars ) I used to take a shot of the last 20m segment of each 50m run. And when I went home I used to time them. I used to reach 0.90 from 30-40. I and sometimes go down to a 0.88 between 40-50. I was always careful to stay there. And thats why I always timed my runs to know if that is enough towing or should I tell my partner to pull more on the next session. I never wanted to exceed this limit cause I was afraid of the dangers.
I kept doing overspeed till the end of 2003 and I injured my back badly by the start of 2004. I just recovered from my back problems a couple of weeks ago!!! I then believed ( the hard way ) in what charlie says about overspeed. I still have the device in the car trunk but I have never used it ever since…
Well. After coming back from Arab champs. I took a couple of weeks for rest and I restarted training. This time I used the CF system. Along with Overspeed. I thought overspeed was the reason behind the great improvments. But then I hurt mu back and its been down for 2 and half years. Well… To get an idea of what overspeed did to me… I just ran 11.19 in the last nationals.
So here comes the next part… The COMPLETE opposite. After what happened with my back, you can guess what I started doing… Tempo Tempo Tempo. along with weight training, and plyometrics. I had a very bad back condition that was only stopping me when I reach a high speed. I started off with tempo along and then I go on and add 300s, 250s and when I come down to 150 my back starts getting worse. So I rest start again and so on and so on and so on. Its been like that since Injury. I did tons of tempo… twice a day and sometimes I combine it with the plyos and weight training on the hard days ( my back never hurt with weights whether upper or lower and no mattar how heavy. Same with plyos)
My weights went up, plyo distances and times went up. Tempo volume and times… WELL They improve and when my back hurts and I rest for a couple of weeks. I feel like I’m starting from the beginning. Low volume bad times. And then they come up and so on. Then I used to go to a meet and run… Then rest for another couple of weeks for my back ( I know all of this is stupid but We don’t have good doctors here, No one ever knew what was wrong with my back!! ) SO… Here’s what happened.
2004 best was a 10.90FAT
2005 best was a 10.84FAT
2006 so far its 11.19FAT
SO what I want to say is that Tempo on its own ( track wise ) along with weights and plyos didn’t help me much. They were not even enough to maitain what a month of training ( without tempo ) achieved.
You said something very interesting here kitkat and that is where I want to stop. Conditioning… Yes. This is the word. Charlie says that you should first worry about the seconds you can improve at the end of your race curve before putting so much stress on the tenths at the beginning. Right. HOW do we condition!! Kitkat. You told me the tough conditioning. So what a did was a tough conditioning program. What I see is that tempo is NOT conditioning. Pltometrics, weights, I don’t know. They didn’t do much. I’ve always been so confused about conditioning. Is it the tempo that does this. And if not ( as I can see with my self ) what should be done to kick these seconds at the end of the speed curve. IF its tempo then how. I believe Intensive Tempo could be good conditioning. But Charlie believes that it is a draw back more of a push to the front. I loved Intensive Tempo by the way… Now I’ve stopped doing it!! So how should I condition?!
what kind of back injury did you suffer?also…the 2003 schedule was interesting in its specificity…maybe, without the injury, you could have palyed a bit around it, eliminating overspeed, adding some weights, a low int day etc…
all that tempo… wow, perhaps you should try running a 800 or a 1500? All that tempo everyday and twice per day untill you get sore then stop for wks.
I would expect even slower times if that is all you are doing. Those are pretty good times considering you cant do any form of speed work without injury. If its only top speed killing you, consider moving up a few events, 1500m may be more suited to you if you can handle tons of tempo and love doing intensive tempo. If you cant run top speed without snapping in half, why hurt yourself? The 1500m is a very popular event.
Flying Duck,
By now I’m sure you must have visited a good sports medical doctor about your back “injury”. What was the diagnosis? You must get that correct.
Then almost any local physiotherapist can help with remedial treatment and specific strengthening.
If the back problem only manifests during/after high velocity sprinting, maybe it is biomechanical. Again, see a sports medical specialist. It’s worth the money to get the correct answer.
Perhaps even a pilates expert can give you some help to control the back problem.
As for changing events, you would be just taking your problem with you anyway. Best to get that correct diagnosis and move from a position of knowledge.
As for conditioning, I know a lot of good sprinters who use tempo (sub-75% intensity) and I know a lot who don’t. You need to chart your own course.
Don’t get hung up on semantics and definitions.
What you did once worked very well for you. Go back to what worked, eliminate what caused you trouble and perhaps in that empty space you may introduce more classical tempo or just a full rest day (during which you can schedule massage, or jet-spa water therapy, or chiropractic adjustment etc).
As regards Conditioning, I stand by what I said originally in this thread. But I would say, as CF has always maintained, “speed is specific to itself” which is also part of the general principle that “fitness is specific to the activity you are doing”.
So the intensive stress-recovery sprinting you did before your breakthrough season was obviously an important element in getting you “specifically fit” to race rounds over 100m.
The biggest question in my mind was after you did Max speed on Day 1, then Speed Endurance on Day 2, how can you return to Max Speed on Day 3 when you are already torn down from the previous SE session (on Day 2).
It would have been more prudent to help recovery and reduce risk of injury to do either Tempo on Day 3 or do some sort of Rest (active or otherwise).
Then you can return to the micro-cycle of Speed Day 1, Endurance Day 2 etc etc etc. Just my opinion.
If your back hurts every time you go over a certain speed, the first thing you need to do is solve the back issue before you can worry about what type of training to do.
The back problem has been solved on its own. Don’t ask me how… I went to someone very expensive. They told me he was the best to treat sports injuries. What he did with me was send me to one of the people that work in his gym. A physical Education student that has JUST graduated. And then he told him to instruct me through some exercises and a specific plan. Then The KID as I call him, never listened to the doctor. And he left me on the bick and went chatted with others and left me to do some exercises and when I finish I search for him everywhere and I can’t find him. And so on. Until the day came when my back started hurting from the other side as well. And so I quit…I Quit and never paid him a penny. I had a left side problem and he made it left and right!!! This is the best you can get here.
so I sat home for 5 weeks. NOTHING at all. And my back was ok. All of the treatment was tempo like stuff. Gym was tempo type. Swiming, bike, treadmill, stepper and so on… all was tempo type. Then the result was… a balance. I have to admit that he did a good job. He balanced me out. Instead of one half hurting… Its now two halfs hurting. COOL…
Anyway. After all the tempo type training that I did I didn’t keep any of my fitness at all. I jog for a while and I’m all stiff all over, specially my legs and calfs… and I can’t take a step longer after 10 minutes.!!! So what did the tempo do.After I took the 5 weeks of rest and came back… I could only jog for 10 minutes and same stiffness and same everything. SO does that mean that REST = TEMPO!? There was a difference though. When I took complete rest for 5 weeks continuous, my back problem was resolved… SO REST cured my back. TEMPO messed my other half…
To say the truth… I really don’t understand tempo that much… But what I’m sure of is that the rest cured my back… I went into a meet and did 11.21, followed by 11.19 in the final and there was absolutly nothing with my back even though I was putting 100% effort. So I started training again. But in my schedual I have tempo each other day! Why?? Because I think I should do tempo… Why? I don’t know. I believe in it, but I don’t understand it…
KitKAT
good sports medical doctor
local physiotherapist
remedial treatment and specific strengthening.
sports medical specialist
pilates
massage, or jet-spa water therapy, or chiropractic adjustment etc
We have doctors. But VERY VERY VERY poor doctors. You read a couple of articles on the shoulders for example from any site on the internet… Then you would probably know much better about the shoulder more than any doctor here. I AM serious. One of the doctors I went to told me that Ben johnson and carl lewis had to remove their knee patella to get more flexibale and get faster!!! Do you know that this is guy is one of the most famous doctors around!! This IS scary… More than Scary… So that is about doctors. Now about sports doctors… WE don’t have sports doctors because there is no such major in any university here. So Thats why any injuries that occur to any well Known athlete here ( mostly soccer players ). They take him to germany and he finished treatment and comes back.
So a good sports medical docotr. That is impossible here.
physiotherapists, We don’t have any of them here.
remedial treatment and specific strengthening is what I was supposed to be doing in the gym. And you see what the results were.
pilates… Man… If you count the number of people who understand the meaning of this word in the WHOLE 70 Million Egyptians… You would count them on the fingers of ONE of your hands. You won’t need to use all your fingers though!!!.
massage, or jet-spa water therapy, or chiropractic adjustment etc
We don’t have massage schools here!? People who do massage here just do it like that. And usually they hurt people. Some off them actually work down wards and apply the pressure and the flushhing all down wards and so people get badly damaged vaulves.!!! Chiropracttic. Is same as pilates… Count!!!
So it seems so obvious. Leave the country. YES this is the chance. So That is what I intended to do long time ago. I had my last chance of travelling a few years ago. I had the chance to go to Canada. I spoke to colin Inglis… Head coach at York university and we had some good agreements on my coming. I travelled. And went there and since I don’t have enough money to pay my fees, and pay for my staying there and eating and everything I went to my uncle’s place. He had a room for me in the basement. I aksed them for a map and the bus and underground map… They left me for a whole 2 weeks before they got me one. They made me feel that this was a BIG favor. ( Then I found out that people get these things for free at the main bus station!!! ) When I went to colin Inglis. He took me on a tour and showed me the indoor and outdoor track. I was so much impressed. I loved the place before doing anything. Sadly though, my uncle started feeling that I cost him too much. I guess its that cerial box that I used to finish in 3 days ( It was mostly all what I used to eat since he didn’t like me up most of the time. )… So I called my dad and asked him that I wanted to buy the cheapest used car available in canada. And I was gonna move out on my own. But then my dad couldn’t fund all that alone. And I had no chance to get a job so fast. My uncle never let me go out alone and then he asked me for money to let me stay!! He didn’t want me in his house. His son too. They never wanted me there. They didn’t even want me to stay in Canada. So I talked to my coach and she told me to get out of there as soon as possible. I tried some last chances. My school friends. Some of them moved to canda after school. I sent them emails. I wanted 1 week of help… I wanted anyone to help me for 1 and only one week. But no one did. So … I had to go home… Everyone is telling me these days that I shouldn’t have done this move. But No one lived these hard days through with me…
Anyway. That was my last chance to travel cause after that I had no permission to travel cause I had to finish some complicated papers to do with military service. No I am IN military service. Then After I finish this year of service I guess I will be too old to do anything. Thank god they leave me to train. So I have a whole year of full time training now… The conditions though… Can’t talk about them. Next time I travel I will go to my coach. Because I will never find someone better to take care of me more than her…
That all reminds me of me, do get anything done, you have to study it yourself, implement it yourself. I have slept in my car, stayed a night here and there at times. Traveled to a top class competition and then sleeped in the car. Arrr, the good ol days.
Poor flying duck,
what a horror. But you are still on a winner if you stick with the people who truly care about you. So your coach sounds like someone who you can have a partnership with and work something out. Good luck. Tough for you.