I am a college sprinter, running at a D3 college in New England. I have purchased all of your training materials except GPP essentails. I began this indoor season doing the program outlined on page 43 of the CFTS. After two weeks I realized I was not recovering from my weekly microcycle at all. I have meets every Sat. and simply was not fully regenerated and ready to perform better. I then switched my program to include my Sat. races as a actual speed work out. And ran tues and thurs at 95% intensity, with tempo the other days. Two weeks ago I felt some tightness in my hamstring, and it has been tight ever since. Today while running a 200 m POP! My hamstring shit the bed. I will go see my schools A.T. on monday and scan the archives to determine what is the best way to recover, but my question is, Charlie, with outdoor beginning for me in 5 weeks what program structure would you advise, the one on page 43. of your book is for a sprinter who does not have weekly races, and is a professional sprinter who can tolerate 3 weekly spped sessions. You advise would be greatly appreciated thank you.
If you exactly copied any program that’s not specifically designed for YOU then that’s bad news. In particular if you took a pre-comp layout and just jumped into it. Your workout should be suited to the volumes and progression of volume you were training with, else for example if the volumes on page 43 are much higher then what you were doing so far, you’ll certainly get slower, have a hard time recovering and overall performance will decrease as you load the extra volume.
First of all, an example workout is just that- an example of one athlete’s runs for one week- not a prescription for everyone- and not for weeks on end.
You’re going to need rehab for at least ten days, after which you’ll need to organize a plan suited to your circumstances, based on sound training principles.
The questions to answer first include:
What age? What training age? Body type including height and weight? Personal bests each year to date?
Age:23, 2 nd year of CFST, 1st year of track, Body type, lean 9% BF, 6’1", 195lbs. Personal best: 6.86 55m. 24.04 after only 4 races. I realize now that the program was just an example, but I assumed that the principles were so fundemental to a sound training program, that i could just incorporate them into my program right away. What direction should I head in for the outdoor season.
The weekly layout could be pretty fundamental but volumes of work are totally individual. Additionally, training starts with general fitness and moves towards power (to the left) over time. in other words, you can gain whole seconds in the 200 (and by extention a large reduction in the decelleration section of the 100) while, initially you can gain only tenths in the first 30m. That said, you can still work on perfecting technique through reps over short distances. So, even with the same general layout, you can ensure that you are optimally fresh for the 200s (only 2 to start, with complete recovery) Once competition starts, you use the meets for special endurance and keep the runs in training slightly sub-max. (I think you started to do that but you were already in trouble with tight and poorly recovered muscles, due to a prolonged high intensity overload). During the injury recovery, intensity must be reduced to alow the CNS to recover.
[QUOTE=Charlie Francis]During the injury recovery, intensity must be reduced to alow the CNS to recover.[/QUOTE}
Could you expand upon this concept?
Didn’t Ben increase bench press workouts as a means of stimulating the CNS during periods of injury?
And, would all injuries be traced back to a fatigued CNS?
taking a stab at this;
bench pressing obviously doesn’t hit the CNS as much as sprinting, therefore a PB in the bench press wouldn’t tax the CNS severely, especially since there is a reduction in sprinting.
And, would all injuries be traced back to a fatigued CNS?
no
Charlie, if I include my actual competetion 100, 200m, as my special endurance, when would I do the other speed workouts? monday and wensday? would this lead to burn out?
Wens 4x30m 95%
2x60m cone drills 95%
2x60m 95%
Sat Race day 2x100m
1x4x100
1x200
1x4x200
Mon 4x30m 95%
2x60m 95%
I might leave out the cone drills on Wed (you’ve got 5 races on the weekend!)
Thanks for the info.