Hey guys, just a fun, educational question to dig in at how you approach the competition phase of planning. A lot of information is in The Structure of Training for Speed, but I thought I’d pick at your brains to see how you plan this microcycle and what kind of success you’ve gotten doing it.
Here’s the situation:
Spp1 for x amount of weeks is through, and you’re into a series of weekend competitions. How do you like to plan your week? What if it’s multiple competitions?
I’ll give it a go:
Saturday Competition Sunday Passive rest + mobility exercises / hydrotherapy / manual therapy Monday Tempo recovery (big or small circuit) + General strength / hip mobility / therapy /mobility Tuesday Acceleration / Pure speed work up to 60m + med ball + weights / mobility Wednesday Tempo (usually small circuit) + general strength / hip mobility / therapy / mobility Thursday Block starts, accelerations to ~30 + recovery / therapy / mobility Friday Passive rest / required recovery modules
I threw in therapy almost every day just to work from an optimal situation (which most people admittedly never have!).
It all depends on the individual. How did he run in the last meet, what part needs attention, and how does he cope with short runs vs. longer runs in training. If the last race was just one 100m run and he’s a 200 runner you need to run more than 60m during the week. If the next race is just one 100m run you may consider sprinting the day before.
I would keep the training means very basic CF style: either sprint fast or run slow for recovery and lift occasionally for maintaining strength.
Coming off an unload week how would you guys handle a Sunday meet the following week - would you continue with three speed days or reduce to twice? Ex:
3 day speed: All work submax:
Mon: TV 180m Short speed endurnace
Tue: Tempo
Wed: TV 200m Flys
Thur: Rest
Fri: TV 150m Starts
Sat: Rest
Sun: Race
OR:
2 day speed:
Mon: Starts+Short speed endurance
Tue: Tempo
Wed: Rest
Thur: Starts+Flys
Fri: Bike tempo
Sat: Rest
Sun: Race
Personally I’d choose second approach and even Flys on Thursday wouldn’t be run at 100% if it’s an important Race. I simply noticed that I can’t handle frequent high intensity workouts. I better choose to do lower frequency of HI workouts but increase total volume of these workouts.
Let me pose a new question. Having just revisited inside the SPP and looked long and hard at the 400m S-L and the Edmonton/Vancouver S-L graphs, I’m wondering what kind of volumes you guys like to maintain following this SPP and in the competition phase. Let’s use the Canadian or NCAA indoor season for example. Starting November, you have about 12 weeks toward the competition season. Thereafter, from the second of third week of January, you compete regularly until whenever NCAA’s or whatever usually are in March. What kind of volumes do you like to see relative to the end of SPP1 while you’re in your competition phase (counting race distances toward weekly volumes, of course.)