Improvement in performance is achieved by preparation system that includes training, recovering and competing. Having ‘asymmetrical’ emphasis on each component may not yield best results. Finding optimum balance, and managing their ratios at different times yields the best performance at the most important time.
You are just fresh. Also charlie’s volumes in his examples are for high level athletes. I’ve had athletes win national medals at national championships off of 300m of speed work each session and around 500-800m a week during competition phase but they are only running in the 10.3-10.6 and 11.3-11.5 range unlike ben who was on a completely other level.
I wonder how long the CNS actually takes to recover. The consensus is 48 hrs… but this is just a rough guess. It could take a week or 2 to fully regenerate, but most people will never know because they are so motivated to run hard week in and week out.
I agree that 90% of track athletes are in an overtrained state, because it is so intuitive to run at fast speeds all the time. Most of these athletes are so highly motivated and they could not psychologically live with themselves if they took 2 or 3 days off of training, let alone a week. The only time they would take a week off is from an injury, and then they come back and pb and wonder what happened???
I could have been in an overtrained state with my training, but then… I think almost every athlete would be too. 2 speed sessions/wk with low volume, high intensity weight lifting… is laughable by most other speed athletes. I would be in the weight room for a max of 30min after my speed sessions doing a few sets of 2 reps for squats and maybe 3set x 4reps bench. I notice that weights take forever to recover from. Its noticeable from a mobility perspective.
When I’m “training” now, 1 or 2 times/wk I notice that I have an extra reservoir of energy. Its like a permanently tapered state. You have so much time to recover from workouts that you don’t have to worry about what you did 2 days ago. You can output alot more on the track and not have to worry about crossing the line of overtraining. Your brain actually feels normal instead of constantly recovering from the ups and downs of training everyday.
Personally I’m much slower if I take 4-5 days off vs. if I trained…
Yea, I agree. I REALLY try and feel my body and although I don’t like to do it if I don’t feel like sprinting on a day that it is scheduled then I just turn it into a tempo day or take off all together.
The key for me is to say on top of Epsom salt baths, hot cold contrast baths and massage when I can afford it. I use to get a massage pretty regularly but now that I moved I lost all my good massage contacts. Where I live it’s pretty expensive to get a massage compared to what I use to pay.
Also, I don’t think athletes pay attention to their diet and supplement intake.
Don’t forget about total organism stress. If an athlete’s life away from the track/field is filled with stress it’s going to impact what is or can be done on the track/field. It seems there are many stressors in your life and you’ve found the volume you are able to handle.
Who also didn’t have jobs or school to worry about. Charlie really seemed to emphasize just how important it was get his athletes carded or getting the club sponsorship money so they didn’t have any other stresses holding them back on the track.
I remember the days when I’d “see how I felt” in the gym and go from there. Once I switched to an every 5th day cycle, every day was a good day in the weightroom. I’d always make progress, usually by increasing the weight and when I didn’t it was time to change.
That was in 1997 and that’s when I began to question the 48 hour rule and also the approach to strength training used by many track coaches. Trying to cover too many bases with the strength workouts and not allowing enough recovery time, particularly for the lower body.
For what it’s worth, I helped a 31 year old sprinter get back to within 98% of his PR for 55 meters in 4 months and this was after a 3 year layoff from the sport. I think it would have been 99% if not for a late night at the disco-early squat workout-inspired minor back strain. I’m convinced it was related to the above.
What is the current forum consensus on the dual-factor theory? What about the Three Factor Model?
72 hours - ATFCA course at Runaway Bay 200?.
I agree we guess because we don’t know.
Too many just don’t think for themselfs.
Cf said many many yrs ago, If you’re not improving in some area of your training each and every wk, you’re doing something wrong.
I start people on as little as possible, then work upwards, but only go upwards if improvement is still happening.
I generally try people out for a 2 H/Intensity split per wk. And try for 72Hr recovery.
so, Mon and Thurs type deal.
Some, due to work commitments, have to do Tue/Thurs - Such a long delay from Thur-Tue (5days) that you can see Less of an improvement than from the Tue-Thurs. These people would be better off with a Tue-Thurs-Sat split, but at times, that just can’t happen.
If you’re not recovering from 72hrs rest, and you’re starting at the low end of Volume etc in training, 80% of people will start RAPID improvement with NUTRITION.
I myself prefer a Mon-Wed-Fri split for Weights if i’m looking for improvement. I can hold 1 x session per week for Maintenance for about 8-10weeks.
Speed - Max speed and Acc = Max of 2 x wk, with SE the other. Need lots of therapy to keep Posture though.
Yet, i know of people (typically beginners) who really only need 1 x Hard session per wk for improvement.
You have to keep an open mind. For some individual athletes the optimal training volume/density is ‘ridiculously’ small.
But that’s easier said than done. If everybody else around you or who you compete against is doing more you start doubting yourself. You’re never 100% sure that your optimum load, which gives you the most improvement, isn’t higher (or smaller) than what you’re doing today, unless you try it out. So you need to experiment a little bit as a young athlete to find out what works for you.
I think all athletes benefit from and need training. That being said, the trend today is towards gross over training. So many guys put large volume loads on their athletes. Very few sports benefit from this type of training in my opinion. That being said, complete over training of the CNS is rare and usually only seen in extremely powerful and fast athletes. If you do hit that point, it can take months to get right, not weeks or days. I know guys who have trained so intensely they have gotten rhabdomyolysis. Kiss of death to an athlete. it all comes down to understanding what is proper stimulus. My philosophy is do enough to elicit a super compensation, but always at a recoverable level. The thing I see so often is trying to ride the razors edge and ending up trashing the athlete. It is much like the axiom in the financial world. " Pigs get fat and Hogs get slaughtered". Trying to get to greedy with the gains. Charlie once told me that you can not possibly move forward in all facets of your training at the same time. When pushing max strength, dial down speed or another variable. Athletes are created over years, not over night.
At times I think that speed work is done to a level that it becomes endurance and then some try to cram in a bit more, it is at this level that most injuries occur.
if I’ve time, I’ll try to post a 4 weeks body systems adaptation (CNS/ANS/Neurohormonal/Resp/Cardiac/Baroreflex/Recovery Capacity/Functional Reserve Level) of an elite soccer player during the off season preparation phase (2 workout/day)
In my opinion we can speak about a general adaptation phase or dynamics of a body system to a specific stimulus, but this is useful for an Accademic discussion. In my practical experience you can have:
a different response to the same stimulus for two different athletes;
and different response to the same stimulus for the same athlete during the season.
I’m not a big fan of too much test during the week or the day, I’m not for everyday monitoring, MilanLab experience go toward this way too.
For single athlete 1 day of tests for week (sometime 2) can be useful, for a team every 2 weeks. Then some test can be done much often of others.
PS: I’ve seen CNS fast recovery after only a good night of sleep…
Done 
http://www.armandovinci.com/grafici.pdf
I’ve posted these dates:
n°1 = 12-lug-10
n°2 = 19-lug-10
n°3 = 27-lug-10
n°4 = 12-ago-10
n°5 = 24-ago-10
please ask for any clarifications…
Jamirok,
thanks a lot for you graphs. A few questions:
- are we talking about Serie A?
- what was the proximate cause of the positive adaptation and higher receovery state of week 3? Was load decreased?
- Was the “peak” on purpose? What was the specific reason for having such a strong recovery in the middle of the off-season? International matches?
- Is Heart Rate Oscillation HRV? In case the answer of yes, why it decreased when recovery was highest? Is it not the other way around?
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Yes.
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It’s an hyperadaptation level, not so positive, too much work. No load decresead, but (argh!) incresead (intensity)!
You can see a fall in the body reserve and others parameter at the end. -
Recovery index is the natural capacity of the body to recover fast, you have a great functional reserve and a better recovery capacity.
One point, adaptation to load on 3rd week (generally good adaptation level is between 15-30 on the graph).
Sorry, I can’t speak about team games/programs. -
No, only a fluctuation of Heart Rate to rest, just an index.
In this scenario, you have a neurohormonal fluctuation probably because he has done too much workout.
At the and, a not so great CNS stress probably for psycologic reason (long time away from home).
Good ANS balance.
Normal lowering of functional reserve, resp and card indexes.
Normal fluctuation of recovery index.
This is a classic situation (can be better…for sure!), there are other Atheltes with bad physiological response or bad starting point.
I’ll try to post in this days.
Thanks Jarimok.
Was anything not discernible without using “machinery”?
without “machinery” you cannot have this infos.
Jamirok, this is very interesting. Have you found any particular recovery methods (massage, sauna etc) to significantly influence the data?
Thanks