Team Coaches: When do you tell your athlete the details of the workout?

You run the risk of appearing lazy/not caring by revealing the workout on the day of the workout by not giving them advanced knowledge of it. Telling them the "goals of the week", energy system focuses for the week, etc. is different.

But I definitely see it from a lot of unhappy athletes; "Oh my coach doesn't know what they're doing, they pulled the workout out of their ass on the way to practice". Just doesn't come off as professional.

I go with a weekly plan that outlines the workout/races and energy system focuses but always leave room for adaptability (weather, illness, etc.)

I am somewhat on the same page as you. It’s not like a big mystery what the plan is. If they ask me early in the week which they often do about “Wednesday’s workout” for example I will tell them what we are going to try to accomplish.

I am also sensitive of their schedules. Sometimes I will tell them that it’s going to be a long day on a Friday or whatever and that might just be because we have an activity, pictures, handing uniforms out, etc.. Mid term week, we meet early, no team meeting, low volume, then they are out of there.

We are very thorough about explaining the science even if it is just prior to the workout on that day.

If I notice my athletes are tired from training some strange event like they all went to a concert together and got back at 3am (weird things like this happen often) then I bump the workout to the next day or change things completely. I discuss that with them also.

It sounds like we sort of do the same thing packaged differently.

I like all the responses here except for the one slinging mud on coaches who like to plan.

Fair fair. Just needed more context. Respect, otter.

You guys got me thinking about this a little more.

My senior captains have a really good education in to the science behind what we do… at least my version of it.

They pretty much can predict by Senior year what we are going to do. They often relay that information to the younger members of the team.

Honestly, my captains could coach the team very effectively.

Of course. I think communication with our athletes is extremely important. Most coaches here get that.

I would tell my athlete's how far I expect them to run on a long run, and I don't see how a track workout is any different.

I get what you are saying about effort, but if I were doing that I'd probably just run on a grass field or trail and run a fartlek like 1:2 hard:easy..

High school, we had 'hard' days, but we didn't know what we'd do until we were out there warming up and stretching. Deep into the season we had wiggle room, depending on meet schedules.

In college, same thing. Hard days, and again we'd learn when we gathered in the fieldhouse. We didn't even run together on the non-hard days, which I think is typical with most colleges?

It is hard to understand context in message board format.

The overall plan has been shared on a regular basis so they are not blind to it. I share the type of workout we are going to do, what energy systems we will aim to hit, etc. I just don't announce that we are going to do X times Y distance. I also mix every workout up enough trying to hit all energy systems within each workout as much as possible. I believe that telling them specifically what each rep for the entire workout ahead of time would leave some confused. A written copy would be okay but me verbally trying to share it would make little sense to most.

We do a lot of the work on grass & fields. I do want them on the track for some of this effort work just to get them used to the rhythm, in spikes some times, and just to get a feel for the oval. I don't want their calves so sore after their races that they can't train normally for a week.

Read up on how Igloi would run his workouts .

I have a decent working knowledge of Igloi's approach. Specifically, what are you referring to?

I had a coach who would tell us a few minutes before we started. He would roll into practice from work and rattle off a high intensity workout, he was a ‘junk mileage’ kind of guy.

this same guy also used to give us an extra rep at the end. For example we would do 3x1k all out, then at the end he said ‘do one more’. I guess this was his way of getting the most out of us. Of course after he pulled it once I was always skeptical in future workouts of what would really happen.

not disclosing the number of reps sounds like a good idea if you want your team to just run the prescribed pace and not go too hard early or late in the workout.

Send out weekly email with workouts generally. Recently though I had to come up with a workout that was going to be pretty hard as my female athlete hadn't raced in 4 months. Only told her on Thursday before Saturday session she ended up running 15:25 for 5k. What was the session? 1500m on grass 428 2 min rest 1k in 3:25 4min rest 1500m in 4:29 2 min rest 3:23 1k she was shattered. Next goal sub 32 10k on the road.

If i would be trained by a coach i would definitive prefer to get a weekly shedule before. Because i believe the brain is so powerful that it can make neurological adjustments before every workout. Unconsciously, the brain is better prepared. That can bring a higher performance and better adaptation.

The runners wouldn’t know the extent of the work until they were done. After a set he would then tell them the next set. I think much of his coaching was as much of an art as a science.

35 to 40 miles a week, baby! either jogging or racing workouts.

Interesting to read the thought process for different coaches. Like many others, my team knows a few weeks in advance which days will be the hard ones in a given week, and a week or so out I'll give them some hints on what we'll be working on (shorter speed intervals, longer tempo, hills, ladders, etc). I save the details for the day of the workout - brief overview before the warmup and then details on a large dry erase board for them to review after the warmup. (Side note - the dry erase board has saved me so many headaches of answering the same question repeatedly, and it's a good reference for them during a workout so they can focus on just that current rep).

My high school girls' team has a wide range of abilities and interest - some like to know everything way in advance, some freak out if they know what's coming. I just want them to know GENERALLY what we're doing in advance (and the WHY), and they know which days they need to come to practice focused, fueled, and hydrated because we have some hard work to do.

There's no one right answer on large teams - but I will say the Dry Erase board has been a godsend, especially for more complex workouts with varying distances/speeds. I highly recommend that!

One other add - I don't plan all the details more than a few weeks out because I've found we sometimes need to modify the workout based on fatigue, weather, etc. I keep a record of the workouts we do each season, and build from there. BUT - If they need a break, or can handle more, I like the flexibility of tweaking the workout a few days beforehand.

Im not a coach. In HS, my coach gave us a printout for a month in advance. Still have them 25 years later. As you know, no workout is set in stone.

I plan out every session prior to the start of every season. I meet with each of the runners and plan out their personal sessions 6 weeks in advance including races and every run. At that time I give them specific numbers of reps and specific paces. While they all do the same base session it is individualised based on their ability and experience. I understand the allure for athletes of leaving everything in the hands of the coaches and not knowing what you are doing until the start of a session but I do not think that builds resilience in athletes. I prefer to constantly educate the athlete on why they are doing each session a certain way. They are then more likely to buy in to the plan and execute it properly. During the season we do all sessions with a specific pacing goal. I think the most important goal of training is to learn pace judgement so that they have complete control in races. In the off season sessions are structured to have no pace focus. My athletes have different race goals so I change the sessions for each of them. I also will make them stop a session if they are not coping with it. Sometimes I give them a surprise extra rep. My individualised program is a spreadsheet which is also a diary where they have to record distance, times and how they felt. Every 6 weeks we review their diary so we can tweak the next 6 weeks based on how they have gone. We create the next 6 weeks together and I explain why we are making any changes. My perspective is that I am training up every athlete to be a future coach. This does not work for everyone but I enjoy this way of coaching more than the secret method.