Training for amateur 400m race

avpelli wrote:

It seems like i would have to run far less volume than i thought.

To recap:

- 2/3 times a week: short intervals ranging from 30m (starting out) to 60m (later on) , totalling 540m maximum

- 1/2 times a week in between interval sessions: tempo work 100-200m at 75% speed

- only if needed to break 60: lactate work (3x150) with 2 days rest after

Thank you for all the responses!

Yes. The 540m max is the absolute max amount of distance you should ever try sprinting in intervals in a single speed session. Usually you do this when you do a workout like 9 x60m or such.

Also once you've developed a solid speed base do workouts to extend your speed endurance such as 150m, 150m, 200m with 15-20min rest in between each interval. These are still speed days so be sure to alternate them with tempo days.

Make sure you have a timing system so you can time your intervals and keep track of your progress.

Don't listen to all these charlatans who are telling you to do a bunch of general aerobic high volume nonsense before working on speed. I know actual sprint coaches who coach MASTERS sprinters in their 40s who haven't sprinted for 10 years. Guess how they start them out? With short 10m intervals and technical drills NOT with a bunch of general aerobic fitness activities. You are not a 40 year old masters athlete. You are not overweight or in the need of losing weight. The later you get around to working on speed the longer it will take you to achieve your goal.

CF always said, a beginner can drop seconds with fitness, or tenths through speed...

Perspective wrote:

You guys are missing something.

A talented person moving to track from soccer is already fit, and training to run sub 50 is different from training to run sub 70.

The new out of shape guy will benefit from some GPP before launching into speed work.

Lots of armchair sprint coaches in this thread. If OP has any doubts as to what I'm saying I suggest he ask an actual sprint coach like Tyrone Edge how he should train to run a 400m and whether he should start by doing GPP. That will clear any doubts really quick.

Dude I can train yo to run the world record for 145.2 lbs Male with okay fitness.

Perspective wrote:

CF always said, a beginner can drop seconds with fitness, or tenths through speed...

OP weighs 145lbs and is 5ft11 tall. He is not fat and overweight. He does not need to lose weight. His problem is that he is just SLOW. He needs to become FAST not fit.

Could he make improvement by doing 5 x 300 or whatever other garbage you and some other poster suggested? Yeah he probably could but guess what:

1. Even if he makes huge improvements initially that improvement is going to plateau and then what is he going to do? He's going to have to work on his speed after he's already maxed his speed endurance. He would progress faster long term if he first worked on his speed and then worked on extending it with longer intervals.

2. Doing workouts like the ones you described is exhausting and very mentally taxing. If he starts doing stuff like this right off the bat and tries doing them for months on end he is not going to have much fun doing it and will likely mentally burnout on achieving his goal by the end of the year. Doing short speed intervals is more fun and will not make him winded. OP will have more fun trying to achieve his goal if he starts with improving his speed.

Also, CF's GPP consist of doing explosive power movements, plyos, hill sprints, etc. Not the kind of stuff you are advocating.

I didn't suggest any specifics for you to call garbage.

CF was a well known sprint coach who would start a beginner with GPP and then move to more speed work. CF GPP isn't long jogging, it is a sprint based program.

Ok, you are familiar with CF.

you must have confused me with another poster. I never suggested anything outside of CF methods.

Perspective wrote:

Ok, you are familiar with CF.

you must have confused me with another poster. I never suggested anything outside of CF methods.

yeah, my b. I was referring to what omygoodnes suggested.

Doing plyos, explosive med ball work, etc as GPP is fine but it could be pretty difficult for a random untrained person to learn how to use all of that efficiently and correctly. Doing short 10m intervals is simpler and also fine to do without doing any gpp beforehand. Ideally OP could incorporate hurdle hops into his training too (if he had access to hurdles) and bounding/jumping.

The good news is that almost anything will work for a while.

If you think about how slow 75 secs is, literally jogging, getting to say 67 which we might call running should be easy. To actually approach 60, then as you say, I think sub 27 200 speed is necessary.

Nailed it.

I'm in the same camp.

Speed work is base work for a sprinter.

If speed endurance is about maintaining max velocity or near to it as long as possible, what is the point in doing that until you can hit that top speed. You don't worry about how long a car can run at 155mph if it maxes out at 120.

If specific endurance is about maintaining a submaximal speed, well guess what, you need to get that maximal speed up in the first place.

For me the progression over the course of the year is 1) a mix of accel and max velocity work to begin with - check some easy extensive tempo stuff in there for general fitness, but that's not the most important bit - the equivalent of a distance runners easy morning shakeout; 2) keep going with accel and max velocity work, but add in some intensive tempo... tap into the lactic a bit; 3) Bring it all together - speed endurance and specific endurance work (often in the form of early season races) being the main areas for development, keeping on top of acceleration work to keep them race ready.

Loren Seagrave gives a really good lecture about the roots of some old training traditions in which he talks about the aerobic base work for sprinters - goes back to the old professional racing days when you were given a handicap based on early season races, but there was an "honest effort" rule so you had to try. Send a sprinter into the early season with heavy legs dulled by volume, then by the time the big money races come along unload all of that work and actually let them train fast - hey presto they have a nice big handicap and are suddenly running a lot quicker - pay day.

This.

I'd add a couple of caveats. If the OP is really tired and starts bonking workouts, replace one of them with another easy 30 minute run day or a rest day. He has plenty of time to reach his goal. If his form breaks down because he's too tired, the risk of injury goes up.

Do dynamic stretching drills as part of the warmup and before the striders... A skips, high knees, karaoke, scoops, leg swings, lunges. I might run 1/2 mile and do a drill, jog 30m, do another drill, and so on so for another 1/4 to 1/2 mile so my dynamic stretching is part of my mile warmup.

I'd also suggest that the OP avoid static stretching, especially static stretching with cold muscles. Some easy strides after the workout will help prevent soreness the next day.

Getting down to ~65 should be relatively easy. Getting to sub-60 from there will be a little harder, but doable.

Spr!ntC0ach wrote:

Loren Seagrave gives a really good lecture about the roots of some old training traditions in which he talks about the aerobic base work for sprinters - goes back to the old professional racing days when you were given a handicap based on early season races, but there was an "honest effort" rule so you had to try. Send a sprinter into the early season with heavy legs dulled by volume, then by the time the big money races come along unload all of that work and actually let them train fast - hey presto they have a nice big handicap and are suddenly running a lot quicker - pay day.

lol I didn't know this. If that is actually true then that's possibly the most retarded thing I've ever heard of in my entire life.

On the one hand sounds crazy, but remember that once training was considered cheating... We often still have the 5x 1m lines going back from the finish line, which are another legacy of the old pro days as they were used to judge distance between athletes and set handicaps for future races.

What is mad is to continue with the same methodologies once the reason for them has long since gone.

Spr!ntC0ach wrote:

On the one hand sounds crazy, but remember that once training was considered cheating... We often still have the 5x 1m lines going back from the finish line, which are another legacy of the old pro days as they were used to judge distance between athletes and set handicaps for future races.

What is mad is to continue with the same methodologies once the reason for them has long since gone.

One day people are going to look back at all these high school track coaches having their sprinters do 10 x200m workouts and think "wtf were these people smoking?"

Think you could approach the 800m in a similar fashion?

OK so i went to local track today to test 100m and 200m times

my warmup looked like this:

-1 mile at 160bpm pace

-some sprinting drills i saw on the internet (high knees, butt kicks, A and B skips (im struggling with the C ones))

Then ran 100m, tried to run as fast as i could without pulling something;

Had noone to time for me so i took a few small steps as i started my watch before going into full sprint and manually stopped it at the end of the 100m straight.

First 100m: 13.09

200m: 30.50

Second 100m: 13.56

One thing i noticed, the acceleration feels good and i feel in control, but about halfway the distance i feel my lower back arching and my feet trying to keep up. It feels like my legs are constantly behind me instead of under my body (what i feel when i run the first 30m). Is this normal?

I assume you did a "rolling start." That is, you took a few steps and then hit your stopwatch as you crossed the start line. Rolling starts help reduce injuries. No need to work on sprint starts until much, much later. If you can run 13.09 with no training, you should be able to break 60 for the 400m with a few months of 400m specific training.

You need to add leg swings, lunges, scoops, and side skips or karaoke to your warm up. You should also add some progressively faster short (40m) strides after a warmup jog of a few minutes and after your drills. I'd suggest 4 to 6 strides with only the last one being relatively hard.

It's common for the lower body to feel a bit "out of control" when you first start doing sprint work. Most of it will go away naturally as your body adapts. I noticed it all the time when I did base training with no speed and then returned to speed. (I now do some speed all year around so it doesn't happen anymore."

Do the more experienced 400m guys here think he should be doing core work? I think so and I do core myself, but I'd defer to the experts here on that.

I'll let more experienced 400m runners comment on what you should do next.