Highschoolrunningcoach.com - Learn from Timo Mostert (American Fork), Doug Soles (Great Oak) +20 more fantastic HS coaches (Ad)

The HighSchoolRunningCoach membership is very useful. It's helpful & allowed me to evolve as a coach. There's a ton of information from the top HS coaches- specifically tailored to that demographic of HS distance runners. The coaches showcased are the top HS ones across the US...so you're getting insight to national powerhouses, not just local winners.The coaches give great insight to the training, culture, methods that they've used to maintain consistency and high level running. All the info is easy to process- audio podcast, transcripts, key workouts, & training plans. Whether you just started coaching or you've been coaching for 20+ years there are tons of takeaways.If you want your HS athletes to reach their genetic potential, purchasing a membership is a no brainer. It's an awesome value & will get you amped to start the fall xc season. The information will give you new ideas to implement, validate some of what you do, & get you to tweak some of your training.Having a membership is better than any clinic you will attend (and probably cheaper). Training books are great but this really streamlines the information for you as a HS coach. You owe it to your athletes!Plus if you're a runner/ running geek, it's awesome information on training that translates over to coaches and athletes.

This is probably my favorite resource as far as HS distance running training goes. Worth every penny! It affirms a lot of what we are doing at our school, but also helps me think of new ways to do things to inject a little more variety in our training. It isn't just training X's and O's either- there is a lot about how different programs organize their team training, building team culture, etc. While I enjoy the interviews and message boards on the site, I have to say that the book is my favorite. So much information in a readable format.

Would you be willing to write a paragraph or two for the site on summer training? Specifically - volume for each age, when (or if) you introduce strides and if you do any strength and mobility work. Lots of bad information out there saying do a ton of mileage.

My answer for serious males would be:

30-35 freshman

40-45 sophomore

50-55 Junior

55-65 Senior

Strides virtually every day in the summer. LMLS before each run and SAM after each run (video here).

But I'm not a HS coach, so obviously your answer is multiple times better than mine.

Adam Kedge - Albuquerque Academy:

I think your volume numbers are fairly accurate. Of course there are factors such as terrain, adjustment for altitude, amount of cross training, history of injury, and years as a runner.

I try to limit the strides to 1) days where there has been no change of pace within the run, i.e. Tempo or fartlek day, or 2) days where the run is not in a hilly area, i.e. Eldorado Canyon.

-Adam

I asked John O'Malley to provide an update on what his athletes have done in the past few years.

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We've had NXN representation five out of the last eight years either individually or as a team. In 2016, Dylan Jacobs was a double All-American in NXN and Footlocker. He was the Footlocker Midwest Champ and placed 11th at FL Nats. He also ran 4:07 for 1600 this spring. Our 4 x 800 has gone under 7:46 and top 4 in state for six straight years. We ran 7:45 this year(2nd in state) after breaking the Illinois state record last year and losing three of our legs. Our state meet has prelims. The slowest we have run since 2011 is 7:46.5 and we have 21 times under 7:50 since I started coaching there in 2003.

Both volume and SAM is prescribed based on athletic history with our athletes. We also don't track mileage, but follow a protocol of time. There is large variations for us, so I hate giving simplistic answers, yet I understand that they can be helpful guides for beginners or veterans who are looking at one aspect of training in isolation, but here are a few generalized concepts:

1. Everyone does SAM, beginning with body weight and perfecting movement and technique from the first week of training. It progressing to adding weight or difficulty to the tasks in the form of going from two to one leg for some drills, adding a med ball or kettle bell or resistance band when it fits the movement pattern. All of this begins with lower abdominal/glut activation. You've commented that hip mobility/weakness is one of, if not THE, most common issues. I'd wholeheartedly agree and we address that from day one.

Early on, we introduce the strength drills while fresh to perfect technique. We move that fairly quickly to "hard" days for recovery purposes and to maximize training stimulus.

2. Volume: we don't track miles, but roughly: FR-35-40 miles; SO-50-55 miles JR-50-60 miles SR-55-70 miles. I do believe sophomore year is for preparing and engaging in some "varsity" training. Junior year is for adaptation/response to "varsity" training to occur. The main issue I'd be concerned about in organizing a training protocol is arrangement of volume, not the week's total volume. I don't care about the weekly volume if I am not seeing adaptation/recovery/growth from training load.

3. We do speed development from week 1 to the final week. Explosive hills, 40-60 meter sprints, strides, fartleks. Strides are there from the first week. Also, extreme heat days are good for a warm up and a bunch of strides and a short cool down at any point in the summer.

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SAM -

http://bit.ly/2qUaZBk

Our volumes for boys would be similar, but with a bigger range. So much depends on the kid. Also, we have tons of good soft surfaces to run on but if I lived in the 'burbs with concrete everywhere, we would be running less mileage for sure. Generally, kids increase weekly mileage about 5-10 miles per year. We have a very big range here depending on past sports background, natural ability, etc). Some of our kids run 6 days a week, others run every day, and some take a day off every 2 weeks. Some of our higher mileage juniors and seniors will double a few times a week. Had a couple sophomores double during spring track this past season, but just 2 times a week and not all season.

25-40 for freshmen

35-55 for sophomores

45-65 for juniors

50-70 seniors

We incorporate either strides, hill reps, short fartlek pickups, or wickets several times a week during the summer. We start the first week. I mix it up for variety and progress the number of reps thru the summer. Also, in our dynamic warm up, we alternate an exercise with a short stride, for instance, 20 meters of skipping and then 20 meter stride. 20 meters Frankensteins followed by 20 meter stride, etc.

As part of our pre-run warm up we do the lunge matrix and other exercises focused on glutes and hips as well as posture. Also, Ebbett's drills and some barefoot running in our warm up.

As part of our post-run work we do some sort of short routine almost every day- either hurdle mobility drills, body weight general strength circuits, jump rope. Some of my kids are seriously lacking athleticism and coordination :-) and I try to help them develop in this area. We also have a weight routine 2-3 days a week but haven't started that yet as we are just in our second week of pre-season conditioning and are getting new kids used to our routines. Our weight routine includes some single leg work, but also things like landmine deadlifts, goblet squats, suitcase carries with heavy dumbbells. Some upper body work too with some pushing and pulling in various forms, mostly in combination with other movements (like lateral lunges with a dumbbell row and overhead press- hard to explain on paper). It doesn't take too long to get through, about 20-25 minutes. I see the weight room work as just building durability. I learned a very good lesson this past track season with my best freshman when we started tapering off of the weight room work the last few weeks of the season and this kid developed patellar tendonitis after being healthy the entire school year. He could not compete at New Balance nationals which was his goal all year.

Anyone know the sort of detail that it goes into for American Fork? I've been able to piece a decent bit together but that's really all I'd be interested in, seeing the full picture of a cross country season.

Where is the list of best HS coaches in the US located? I'm wondering how many of these 22 guys are in the Top-50.

Here you go:

http://bit.ly/2t9ONkw

The first coach listed is Greg Weich. He's coached five footlocker finalists and one footlocker champ.

Also, coaches like Dough Soles's and Timo Mostert's bio are a couple years old as they were featured in Season 1 which was 2014-15. We'll get the bio updated, but obviously both coaches are doing well at NXN. And Timo's boys broke the national 4x1,600m record this spring as well.

Let me know what your thoughts are on the document once you have a chance to take a look at it.

Mookie Blaylock wrote:

Wow. I have concluded that the coaches created their very own get rich quick scheme site to upload their pdfs and charts.

Wordpress or Wix? WELL DONE!

Common for all coaches on HSRC:

- The willingness to share training information to help other coaches improve.

- Trading impacting kid's lives for financial gain.

No one, including myself, has made any significant profit from this endevor. Everyone that is part of the site feels good about their contribution to the sport.

Maybe HS coaches don't come here any longer to become better coaches, but my guess is a few do. For them, this may turn out to be a useful thread.

Mookie Blaylock wrote:

Wow. I have concluded that the coaches created their very own get rich quick scheme site to upload their pdfs and charts.

Wordpress or Wix? WELL DONE!

I don't know about the others, but two of the high school coaches who contribute to High School Running Coach and have been brought up in this thread donate their entire coaching stipend to the programs they run.

I'd only pay 97 dollars if you'd give me FM's full year long training plan.

Jay Johnson wrote:

Here you go:

http://bit.ly/2t9ONkw

The first coach listed is Greg Weich. He's coached five footlocker finalists and one footlocker champ.

Not a lot of women on that coaching list. Sad for the sport

Why would anyone just copy someone else's training plan? Get educated, coaches, and learn to think for yourself!

The whole point of the site is to EDUCATE coaches. Not to pick a plan and copy it! Simply studying what other proven high school coaches have done and listening to their reasons why encourages me to examine what I am doing and why I do it. Maybe I'm unusual, but I don't think so. This was honestly the best coaching education money I have spent, and I am USATF level 1 certified, have purchased other resources from other coaching websites, attended many coaching clinics, read many books, networked with other coaches, and frequent coaching message boards, etc. All of those things are valuable, but this one is a huge amount of coaching education you can get through at your own speed, not dumped on you in a 2 day course. I suppose there are always going to be coaches looking for a quick fix, magic bullet "plan" to copy instead of thinking about their training, but I don't think they are the target group here.

The first words I saw on their home page were "Get the Key Workouts from 22 of the best coaches in the country". Enough said.

Oh, well, your loss. Are you one of those guys who is done learning anything new, because you already know it all? All the guys I know who contributed to the book and website (admittedly, I am only acquainted with a few of them) fall into the category of still learning and growing. And willing to share what they do. Any coach who is foolish enough to take Doug Sole's key workout or total season plan and apply it in cookie cutter fashion to their team of kids who didn't train all summer, who run 20 miles a week, etc. probably shouldn't buy the program. But for any coach looking to improve what they are doing, and THINK about it, it's a great resource.

"Key workouts" aren't magic bullets. They merely are workouts they feel help athletes perform well. Of course, they are within the overall training plan. Any coach who runs these workouts without background (or "magic bullets") probably wouldn't be paying any money for this resource anyway. My 2 cents.

Coach X wrote:

The first words I saw on their home page were "Get the Key Workouts from 22 of the best coaches in the country". Enough said.

You can pretty much get all this information for free if you scroll through milesplit or runner space videos long enough.