Some interesting points Flash and Herb, I remember seeing some of this before in charts at Ian and Charlie’s seminar. Maybe I was in the matrix or something. It reminds me of the organism strength thread where the envelope expands but the intensity is shifting as well.
Neo, was interested in your question about the nervous system taking 7 times longer to recover also… Tudor Bompa (as well as Charlie in speed trap) mentions this in one ohs books, with Bompa providing a pretty obscure reference from about 1935 to back it up. I tried to get a copy of the 1935 ref thru the university interloan system and they were unable to track it down. Personally I don’t put too much stock in the statement, if it were true it would have been shown in many other research projects by now…
Flash; why only 4 reps of 30yd sprints. That seems low. In football last season we ran 80 yds and back. Then 75 yds and back. Then 70 yds and back. And so on. We were split into 2 groups so we went everyother group and had about a minutes rest inbetween sets. We went all the way to 5yds. Then we ran snakes; jog up and down the lines of the football field.
We did that everyday and I was one in shape mo’fo’. Now I am out of shape, and I put that program there together.
Currently I am doing a Vertical Jump/Sprint training program. It garuntees .2-.4 increase of the 40yd dash and 8-14 in increase in vertical jump. I have seen a 7 in increase in vertical and I know i have seen a huge increase in my speed.
This program is Bodyweight. It is 3x a week. So would it be ok to do the above program 2x a week.
I know where you’re coming from Irish,
You need to be able to run fast first before you can repeat it.
if you can’t do it once - how can you repeat it?
Repetitive ‘sprints’ done incorrectly (without full recovery) or runs will not increase your speed.
That is why the guys are saying to drop the suicides.
Concentrate on running fast first.
Oh yeh - and no one should train with the same variables at constant every day.
Three Days of good quality training is better than 5 Days of training where maybe the first day is good but every day following is getting progressively worse …
Have you had a look at the Charlie Francis Training System eBook?
Or some of the other posts by people like Xlr8?
It would be a good idea to see the whole thing Mon - Sun and plan the whole week - because you seem like you’re keen - That’s cool - but overtraining could become an issue if you isn’t careful!
If you’re sure that the vert program is working for you for not just vert but also speed I’d say stick with it. If you put a speed workout in between its going to be too much.
You are supposed to do some sprinting at least one day a week with the program. I just wanted to do a little bit more sprinting so I could jump start my speed.
A lot of people dispise this program, it is called Air Alert 3. It works very well. You do odd weeks mon wed fir and even weeks tue wed thur.
I am currently on an even week.
Irish, I’m assuming you’re a teenager. I will make two recommendations.
First, spend the next two weekends reading as many threads in the archives as possible. Most of the best material is from April and May of last year. Recommend it to your friends too.
Second, buy the two seminar videos available on this web site. The videos are expensive ($99 for the set), but if you can swing the money or have your parents chip in, they are the best investment you can make in your athletic career and will save you a lot of wasted time, energy and money down the road. (We need to bug Derek Hansen to finish the 3rd and 4th tapes.)
Before you spend another dollar on Super Andro Power Anabolic Protein Blast or dumbass gimicks like speed ladders, parachutes or strength shoes, start saving for those videos. I’m not saying this to kiss Charlie’s butt. I would give anything to have had those videos and this forum when I was in high school. I literally would have saved thousands of dollars and ten years of ineffective training.
In general, if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. However, I feel compelled to break that rule here. With a few exceptions, when it comes to conditioning and speed development (especially speed development) most football coaches couldn’t rent a clue. Charlie knows how to develop fast football players. You’d be amazed to know how many NFL guys he’s worked with behind the scenes. And instead of telling you to do something because “I say so”, he provides very practical, logical reasons.
I’d start with a look at xlr8’s prepping for football combine thread. It’s a great place to start.
I really think that everyone here agrees that speed is most important. Start there. Use some tempo running for added conditioning. Don’t neglect agility work either. If you need more conditioning than the tempo provides you may be able to add some calisthenic GPP type stuff.
Remember you’ll never get fast if you always run slow. (speed is the foundation)
Irish,
I didn’t really provide you with an explanation of my recommendation. Speed improvement occurs within a much narrower intensity range than strength and endurance development. For example, improvements in maximal strength occur mostly within the 80-100% intensity range, and maybe even lower. By contrast, speed improvement really only occurs at intensities over 95% (that’s objective performance, not perceived effort). Anything below that intensity will cause fatigue and may improve endurance, but it won’t increase maximum speed, unless you’re a rank beginner. Unfortunately, most coaches’ “speed” workouts take place in the no man’s land intensity zone between 75% and 95%.
Therefore, proper speed workouts need to be at least 95% or faster of best performance. It doesn’t take much fatigue to drop you below the 95% mark, at which point you’re just making yourself tired, which is how most athletes and coaches judge their training. In order to maintain the necessary intensity levels, there must be complete recovery between runs. For 30m sprints I suggest at least 3-5 min. It’s not the muscles that need to recover, it’s the nervous system, which takes about 7 times longer to recover. The fatigue created by a speed workout at the requisite intensity levels will also require several days of recovery.
If you perform sprints without enough rest between runs or between workouts, those sprints will not be fast enough to improve your speed. What you will improve is your ability to repeat a lower speed. The reality is that the body’s ability to tolerate sprinting at the necessary intensity levels is VERY limited. Therefore, the number of sprints within a workout must be low, it takes very little at first. There must be complete recovery between runs within a given workout. And last but not least, there must be at least 48 hours recovery between workouts. Any training between sprint workouts must be below 75% of best performance in order to avoid additional nervous system fatigue that will interfere with recovery from the sprints. I would recommend more than 48 hours for most people, except for high level athletes who have developed their work capacity over several years of training at high intensities. Therefore, for most, this means about two speed workouts a week.
Charlie’s mantra is “Less is More”. Less volume (less fatigue) allows for more intensity, which produces more speed.
Nice post. Would you say however that lower level athletes could get away with less recovery than 48 hours due to their inability to perform at the higher output levels of the elite athlete? Running the 100m in 12 seconds is nothing compared to running it in 10 seconds. Or, do you think that it is relative to the tolerance level of each athlete…to the degree that a 12 sec 100m athlete taxes his untrained CNS the same as the 10 sec 100m sprinter just because of the fact that he is untrained?
