Wrong thread
strides help me warm up faster. WHen I say strides, I dont mean a fast jog. Its more of a jog. I do various lunges in the dynamic mob .
THe foam rolling Ive always had in my mind what the science says about it not working. SO I never did it. But since I decided to start doing it a few months ago, I feel it helps me warm up. Getting the blood flowing. Maybe it does work, maybe it doesnt, but in my mind it does.
Also 3xlow intensity starts to get body angle correct.
I also do 50-100 strides to get stride/triple extension ok for 200/400 technique.
BTW I am almost 60 so guys in mid 30s are barely masters !!!
I’m sure you guys remember these old Dan Pfaff warmups posted on this site many years ago. They are very similar to what I do and they only take about 30mins vs 60mins. I don’t think lower level athletes need/have the time to spend 60mins warming up daily.
(set T) Jog or skip 400m; Static Flexibility Series; Sprint drills x1x40m(A & B);
Dynamic flexibility (series 1 & 2); Buildup Runs x 3-4.
(set U) Jog or skip 400m; Static Flexibility Series; Sprint drills x1x30m(A & B);
Dynamic flexibility (series 1); Buildup Runs x 2-4.
(set v) Jog or side shuffle 400m; Static Flexibility Series; Sprint drills 1x20m
(A); Dynamic flexibility (series1,2,3,); Build up runs x3-4
Are you racing this year?
Yeah, I will open the indoor season with a meet in December most likely (note: I’m turning 34 next month).
My day job was extremely busy the last few months, so my workouts were all over the place. I’ve final settled back into a groove the last two weeks. I’m just targeting 3 workouts per week for a cycle or two, which will look something like this:
Monday - Speed (2x20, 2x30, 3xEFE, 2xFEF); Plyos (accel bounds)
Thursday - Race Modeling (2x20, 2x30, 3x150); Plyos (skips for distance); Explosive Med Ball Throws
Saturday - Extensive Tempo on Grass (3x4x100)
With so much forced sitting inside due to work, I can’t bring myself to go to the gym right now. I just need to be outside after work. Therefore, I’m focusing on sprinting, while using plyos and medball throws in lieu of weights.
As I mentioned back in May, I am reintroducing tempo running this offseason. I’m approaching this very conservatively. With only three workouts per week, I never run on two consecutive days. Also, I have at least 72 hours between speed workouts. The forced “off time” due to work has allowed my body to heal from last season. I was feeling pretty beat up by the end of the season (achilles bothered me after my SB of 10.97). I’m feeling pretty darn good right now and expect to be competitive in 2018.
I couldn’t never do that, I run my best when my max strength levels are high. I ran one of my best indoor times when my inseason squat weight was at 405 for double’s which was about 70% of my 1rm and they were fast. Why are you training so little at such a young age?
Are you still in gpp?
The desire to do other things in life makes me have to find a balance. Along with training, my leisure time also goes to being a dad and drumming. While I love training, I also love hanging with my kid. If I work out after work, I don’t get a ton of time with him before he goes to bed (around 8:00). I aim to come straight home a couple days of the week. But along with that is the drumming. Once or twice per week I’ll be gone at night at a local restaurant / bar / jazz club. Not only does this cut into my free time in the evening and take me away from my family, but it leaves me pretty tired the next day. For example, I didn’t get to bed until almost 2am Saturday night.
But I have found that as long as I am hitting high-quality maxV work, good things happen. My best season-to-season gains came when I only trained 2-3 times per week throughout the majority of the offseason. The two key workouts were with a training partner, where we basically raced in practiced. It looked something like the following:
Monday
2x20 falling starts
2x30 falling starts
6x60 all-out sprints from a pushup start (these were the races)
Thursday
2x20 from ground
2x30 from ground
1x50
1x300 (another race)
Saturday (hit or miss)
2x4x200 on grass by myself
I did this scheme leading into my season at age 27. I hardly lifted throughout the offseason and found that my strength levels were the same when I finally got back into the gym in November. I opened with a PR in the first indoor meet (over a second improvement in the 400).
But along with what you said, keeping max strength work in the mix has also seemed to be a good thing. The main issues have come when I either 1) overtrained or 2) tried to get fancy with things. Charlie had a great quote that I’ll try to recite: Effective training is raw and intense. I fully believe that. Train fast. Bring it in practice. And in order to do that, you need to come in rested and in the right mindset. And after you train that way, you need to recover. Issues have occurred for me when I train just because it’s a scheduled training day, even if my mind isn’t right. It’s best to just go home on those days and come back when you’re focused and ready to crush.
You should post a journal - i would love to see what you do from day 1 to your first indoor meet.
You will never regret spending time with your child.
Hands down my favorite role has been motherhood. And I love to train as well but the rewards for me have not ever matched having a family.
Sounds like you successfully strike a nice balance of the important things in your life Actuary400m.
Thank you, Angela. Finding the balance has always been my goal. And I believe keeping a balance makes each element better. It’s kind of like vertical integration applied to life! All elements are present throughout the year; some just get more weight in different seasons (the summer has been drumming season for me).
Another reason I’ve reduced my training load pertains to the idea of cumulative stress. The stress of work hit an all time high in July. During that period, I decided to completely skip high-intensity work. Further loading my body when already in such stressful state would have probably fried my CNS. I’m certain that if I forced workouts in July, I’d be sitting here with some kind of injury right now. Instead, I feel extremely healthy. In fact, the reduction in stress at work has me feeling even better than before. Supercompensation?
I thought of some of your guidance during that stressful period. While I hardly worked out, I made sure to continue with contrast showers at night to “right” my system. I also made sure that my diet stayed on track. Instead of downing more coffee and junk food, I made sure to drink enough water throughout the day and use bananas for my snack.
Stress is stress.
Actuary400m, how’s your proximal hamstring feeling now? Do you get any discomfort when you do the exercise demonstrated at 0.25 of this video?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1LNDDqY0tM&t=24s
It feels great. And by that, I mean that I don’t feel anything anymore. I started a thread about that injury in the summer of 2016. That was around the 1.5 year point after onset. It was basically gone by last indoor season, but little reminders did pop up occasionally during that season. By outdoor of 2017, I didn’t notice anything. And now, my mind is completely recovered (I never think about those past issues).
The first year and a half was brutal. I made little progress during that time. It was only once I eliminated everything that irritated the area that I started to get better. I’ve outlined my approach in various spots on this site. In summary, I trained around the injury and in a general fashion. I didn’t do any specific exercises for the area. Rather, I just focused on getting stronger on the whole and training fast when I could.
Yeah ,I second that. If you had the time or inclination would be great if you could post a journal.
So you didn’t do any hamstring strengthening exercises at all during your rehab time? Are you doing any now? Also, how did you go about getting stronger without using/stressing your hamstrings given the fact that almost every lower body exercise involves them?
Correct. Everything I tried that was specific to strengthening the hamstring just seemed to make matters worse.
The only lifting I did was deadlift and bench, with very little volume. I’m not doing much more than that now, but I have tried some of my old exercises without any issue over the last half year or so (reverse leg press, hip extension machine, etc.). I’m also able to do all of my skips again. The last thing to become tolerable was rowing. That still irritated me in the spring, which I chalk up to creating tension while the hip is in flexion and the tendon is smashed against a hard seat.
I’m just rolling with a pretty simple set-up for the time being: speed work twice a week; tempo or general conditioning 1-2 times a week; and deadlift / bench for lifting when I make it to the gym. The key is the speed work. I truly believe you don’t need much else if that’s of a high enough quality.
Interesting. I would have thought that deadlifts would cause problems since they load the hamstrings while the hip is in flexion.
I’m 3 meets in at age 34. It’s been a pretty “meh” start this year, but I’m not stressing out about it. I hit some great training times in November. But then it seemed like everyone around me was getting sick. While I never had the the typical symptoms of flu and the like, I felt tired throughout December and my training times began to get slower and slower. I have been conservative with my training over the last month or two so as not to push when my body already felt down. I may start a journal on here finally to track this season. I actually hit a training PR in my 30-40m transition segment in November (10.1 m/s), so I am optimistic about what I can still do. I just need to feel whole again.
Thus far, my 60s have been 7.19, 7.27, 7.29, 7.29 and my 200s have been 23.45, 23.66, and 23.54. The last one was out of lane 1 on a 200m indoor track, so it’s actually been my best one of the season.
What kind of numbers are you putting up in the bench, deadlift or squat, 30m, and Slj?
I haven’t maxed on the lifts, but the best workouts as of late were triples of 190 on bench and triples of 355 on deadlift. I’m 6’0" tall and 167lb.
My best 30m blocks this year is 3.84 compared to an all-time best of 3.81. The catch is that I haven’t broken 3.91 in 1-2 months. I fell off. I should caveat that I time my 30s using a freelap where the first transmitter is 4ft from the start line and the second is 4ft past the 30m point. While I am timing 30m exactly, I have a slight bit of momentum when the clock starts (it starts about when my hips cross the starting line). I have timed them like this for years, so I have a lot of data to compare against. When PRing, I would consistently be in the mid-3.8s. I’ve been about 0.10 seconds slower in the last month. MaxV is down comparably.