Workout setup question. Feedback Needed!

Expert Discussion Planning and Periodization
11

Everyone is missing the excessive tempo work, I think these guys should never go above 1500m. If you don’t have excess to therapy you are best to keep training to 4-5 days per week and all tempo work in the 600-1500m range.

I have mention this to Chris before, I think there overall training volume is too high esp for two athletes who have full time jobs etc.

The two setups I recommend for part time athletes:

Setup 1:
Mon/Thur: Speed/Weights
Tue/Fri: Tempo

OR

Setup 2: Each session would last about 90mins, I really like this one.

Mon/Thur Speed
Tue/Fri: Weights
Wed/Sat: Tempo

12

I believe you might be doing too much volume and too much intensity. Remember I asked on your log about the intensity of your hills? I found it to be a massive amount of sprinting.
Perhaps if you cut volume in half and raise the intensity to 95%, and do 8 x 40m hills could recover much quickly and still have an excellent training stimulus.

13

The alternating could keep you fresh… if you start to feel like you need another day of speed work You could just do a low vol tempo day with some mb throws 10x100m + mb throws/wieghted drills or even a mb circut. In other words some fitness w/a touch of cns work instead of a full on speed day…

so the week could look like:

day 1 speed
day 2 easy runs
day 3 power speed or ball work
day 4 easy runs
day 5 speed

or

day 1 speed
day 2 easy runs
day 3 power speed or ball work or easy starts
day 4 easy runs
day 5 off
day 6 spec. endurance

sorry its raining here i have nothing better to do :slight_smile:

14

As a masters age athlete (36), with a full time job that has me on my feet quite a bit, I’ve used a few of the variations listed in this thread with success.

The first variation listed was this:

Day 1: Speed, plyos, weights (Hi day)
Day 2: Tempo + other general fitness work (Low Day)
Day 3: Off
Day 4: Repeat Day 1

This worked well for me as long as I did not work too hard on the tempo day. I think I started at ~1000m and worked up to something like 1500m. If you start to feel a bit worn down, take an extra off day.

If you find yourself frequently needing extra off days, then try this:

Day 1: Speed, plyos, weights (Hi day)
Day 2: Tempo + other general fitness work (Low Day)
Day 3: Off
Day 4: Speed, plyos, weights (Hi day)
Day 5: Tempo + other general fitness work (Low Day)
Day 6: Off
Day 7: Off

With this plan, you can vary the volume on your tempo days. Make the volume of tempo on Day 2 lower and the volume on Day 5 higher. With the extra day off on Day 7, you’ll still start your training week fresh. I actually did some pretty hard tempo workouts on Day 5 of this setup (stuff like 10 x 200m with fairly short recoveries) and still felt fresh two days later.

I’m currently emphasizing weights and doing the following:

Day 1: Speed + Lower body weights
Day 2: Tempo + Upper body weights
Day 3: Off
Day 4: Speed + Lower body weights
Day 5: Tempo + Upper body weights
Day 6: Off
Day 7: Off

If you do this, you’ll want to cut the volume of tempo you are doing to accomodate the weight work done after.

Also, one other quick note. When doing the above, I used speed workouts similar to what was on the GPP DVD, but I have never even tried to do the full volume of speedwork. This may be because I am an older athlete, but I was never able to do more than maybe 1/2 or 2/3 of what was prescribed. I was always under the impression that those workouts were designed for a fairly high level athlete and should be adjusted to accomodate your own needs.

15

Thanks for the feedback guys. I know our tempo has been high with 2000m per session. Also they way we were doing it it started to feel like a job. So I think the extra day off will keep us fresh and the practices a lil more fun instead of a chore with a sore body. JMT We are doing the speed work from the gpp dvd. We have been able to complete it I just think we had built up a tolerance to complete them. They would sometime take us 5 hours to finish. Not something a working athlete should try. It caught up with us.

Pmoax19 the slow jogging kills me. I hate doing it. I was just doing it to build up some kind of stamina. I think I will split the tempo days up to 1000 each time.

16

10 minute run, no more no less. tempo and quantity to suit how you want to look.

ben, used to work at sydney olympic park NSW, concord railway to athletic centre 2 x per work x days worked, time 10 minutes both ways, no more no less. i have no idea how many days he had to walk to and from work to stop loosing too much bulk. used to work at the ais as a general hand, he now has a soccer academy at the central coast. when it started to happen he said this is bullshit, now he says it worked for him.

17

Hey guys, just wanted to thank you for starting this thread…as I am currently doing my student teaching assignment and experiencing similar issues.

Have you considered maybe doing the speed/med ball and weights as two separate sessions? As in an either or scenario. That may keep you a little bit fresher and more ready to put in “quality” on your high intensity days.

Best of luck to you guys and I’ll be following this thread to see what answers everyone comes up with.

18

Naw we can handle doing it all in one day we just couldnt recover enough from it by the time the next session came around. We will be starting the new schedule saturday. I have a feeling that we will be able to handle it much better now.

19

Keep us posted

20

I wonder if you did some of your tempo load in the pool or on the bike if it would help?

21

I do think that the tempo was affecting us. Im gonna see how this new plan goes. I think that the lighter workouts during the week after work will serve some good.

22

Really?? You must be all white fiber LOLOL… I find the wieghts do me in… It rained yesterday so I went a little harder on the squats b/c I did not run. I felt a little stiff this morning but boy did I feel like I could barely jog tonight. After I got to the end of the big tempo session I felt real good… It could have been the theivery corporation pumping in my mp3 player too :slight_smile:

23

WEll I hate tempo. Jogging is the worst for me. Plust my achilles kills me and all the other misc aches. I would rather run fast all da time.

24

I bet tempo is the one thing you really need…Im still coming back from were I was in my early 20’s (Im 38 now)but doing the extra tempo this spring I went from struggling to run 24.9 to running 23.9 and I felt like I could run faster too . I got to the point that I could just do the big circut with ease at a good pace. I def feel like the fitness from tempo helped my 200 and 100.

Oh and quickazhell put me on to Beta7 from Biotest. That helped my workouts feel like I could finish them with the same intensity from start to finish. I thought it was all in my head until I ran out of the Beta7 and I started to struggle with the tempo and my speed reps over 120. When I got my Beta7 everything went back to normal…

Have you tried a high quality Flaxseed oil? I was taking a table spoon in the morning on an empty stomach.

25

I hate tempo but i am able to finish. I have been doing alot of 300’s for tempo. When I do 100 or even 200’s it is a walk in the park. I take http://www.1fast400.com/?products_id=2555
Pretty good stuff.

26

HAHA someone just gave me bad rep points for this post and put “irrelavant crap” as the comment LOLOLOL

too funny…

27

lol wasnt me

28

I didnt think so… :slight_smile:

I do find that music (like thievery corporation) puts me in a trance when I do tempo. I hate tempo too this takes my mind off of it and it puts me in a nice rythm. I felt so good after the session that I jumped on the track and ran the last 100m hard… Im nice and loose today…

BTW good luck with the training. I had your same schedule last fall abut I had to commute 2hrs in morning and 3hrs at night (thanks to the traffic next to Yankee stadium) So I know what your going through. Make sure you get your sleep in too… I started gaining some serious wieght cuz of the lack of sleep and could not recover from the speed sessions.

29

music helps me out during tempo also. But the speed before was killing me. I should be good now

30

Hi Guys

Can anyone tell me whether they have had any success with the set up:
Day 1- Speed
Day 2- Weights
Day 3- Tempo
Day 4- Speed
Day 5- Weights
Day 6- Tempo
Day 7- Rest

I ask because although it does spread the load, it does increase the high intensity sessions to 4 instead of 3 and allows for you to possibly ‘put-out’ more than you should. For example in Charlie’s weights for speed download he discusses that although an athlete may have 5x5 scheduled for the weights after the track if they can only put out 2x5 then that is enough because that is all that is left in the pool. The extra recovery period between speed and weights may possibly have a more detrimental long term effect on recovery (i.e. one day to recover from two high intensity sessions in a row before being faced with two more, than in the more traditional set up of one hi then one low alternating). Possibly the only way around this to continue making progress is to have a 2-1 set-up of two hard weeks then one maintenance instead of the recommended 3-1. Or maybe I’m just over thinking the whole thing! :slight_smile: