No training to dunk a basketball? Are you an idiot?
Playing ball is all the great jumpers need to strengthen their legs. A vertical jump requires fast-twitch muscles and bulking up slow-twitch ones won’t make a difference. You haven’t heard of the movie White Men Can’t Jump?
You can improve a little with training but, yeah, either you have ups or you don’t.
Top sprinters can produce more lactate/pyruvate per unit of time than distance runners can, but have less oxidative capabilities to get rid of said chemicals, hence their longer recoveries.
Top sprinters can produce more lactate/pyruvate per unit of time than distance runners can, but have less oxidative capabilities to get rid of said chemicals, hence their longer recoveries.
The explanation I have read is that training for max speed involves working the nervous system, and the nervous system takes a few minutes to settle down after any quick work. But really, the reason why anyone working on sprinting should take long recovery between sprints, is that coaches and athletes have found it to be the way that works the best.
No, but I went to a mostly white school and although I went to many games, I never saw a dunk, not even during warmups. I guess if you were the coach, the players would have become dunking fools.
So did I except many of us could dunk. Just hilarious to hear such a stupid opinion.
Yeah, and you and your teammates had the genetics to do so.
So many LRers believe someone can change their athletic skill type with specific training but it isn’t true. Flatt trained like a 400/800m runner while Sahlman trained for 1500/XC and their races were very competitive. If Sahlman worked on speed or Flatt ran more mileage, the results not have changed. Sahlman probably would even have lost a few seconds.
I've never done true speed development like flying 30-50m sprints all out, but adding fast strides daily made me a much better athlete. I had never broken 60 in HS until my junior year, but I ended up going from an (estimated) 58.x 400 PR with a 9:30 3200, to a 52.x runner with a 9:10. I thought I was a 100% slow twitch athlete but never had trained speed so my potential was much higher than I thought. But more importantly, I had a far better kick so I could win races in multiple ways - not just front running and hoping to drop people
It also makes you feel much more comfortable moving quickly - I went from straining to break 15 in a 100m stride at the end of a short easy run to being able to comfortably run in the low 13's range, and it makes running at 4 flat pace much, much easier
Would love to hear more about this. How many 100s would you do after daily runs? How much recovery between?
I've never done true speed development like flying 30-50m sprints all out, but adding fast strides daily made me a much better athlete. I had never broken 60 in HS until my junior year, but I ended up going from an (estimated) 58.x 400 PR with a 9:30 3200, to a 52.x runner with a 9:10. I thought I was a 100% slow twitch athlete but never had trained speed so my potential was much higher than I thought. But more importantly, I had a far better kick so I could win races in multiple ways - not just front running and hoping to drop people
It also makes you feel much more comfortable moving quickly - I went from straining to break 15 in a 100m stride at the end of a short easy run to being able to comfortably run in the low 13's range, and it makes running at 4 flat pace much, much easier
Right. 30-50m sprints took 6 seconds off of your 400m time. If you had run 9:30 with 58 speed, you would have approached 8:40 after improving to 52. Your story is ridiculous.
I focused on the 800 and 1600 then instead of the 3200 and ran only 5 miles more per week. I'm sure I could have gone faster in the 3200, especially since I clicked off 69-70s until a 60s last lap in my PR, had I prioritized it over other events that I enjoyed more.
I've never done true speed development like flying 30-50m sprints all out, but adding fast strides daily made me a much better athlete. I had never broken 60 in HS until my junior year, but I ended up going from an (estimated) 58.x 400 PR with a 9:30 3200, to a 52.x runner with a 9:10. I thought I was a 100% slow twitch athlete but never had trained speed so my potential was much higher than I thought. But more importantly, I had a far better kick so I could win races in multiple ways - not just front running and hoping to drop people
It also makes you feel much more comfortable moving quickly - I went from straining to break 15 in a 100m stride at the end of a short easy run to being able to comfortably run in the low 13's range, and it makes running at 4 flat pace much, much easier
Would love to hear more about this. How many 100s would you do after daily runs? How much recovery between?
It'd be something like 4-6x100m strides, flying and spiked up, averaging anywhere from 13.5 to 14.0 depending on how I was feeling. When I was running 13.5s at the end of a 7 mile run and feeling like I had a lot in reserve, especially with my tempos progressing in pace and/or volume, I knew I was in great shape
It'd be something like 4-6x100m strides, flying and spiked up, averaging anywhere from 13.5 to 14.0 depending on how I was feeling. When I was running 13.5s at the end of a 7 mile run and feeling like I had a lot in reserve, especially with my tempos progressing in pace and/or volume, I knew I was in great shape
What kind of recoveries did you have in between them?
Would love to hear more about this. How many 100s would you do after daily runs? How much recovery between?
It'd be something like 4-6x100m strides, flying and spiked up, averaging anywhere from 13.5 to 14.0 depending on how I was feeling. When I was running 13.5s at the end of a 7 mile run and feeling like I had a lot in reserve, especially with my tempos progressing in pace and/or volume, I knew I was in great shape
How do you know it wasn’t your tempos, hill training and intervals that were contributing to your sharpness?
So did I except many of us could dunk. Just hilarious to hear such a stupid opinion.
Yeah, and you and your teammates had the genetics to do so.
So many LRers believe someone can change their athletic skill type with specific training but it isn’t true. Flatt trained like a 400/800m runner while Sahlman trained for 1500/XC and their races were very competitive. If Sahlman worked on speed or Flatt ran more mileage, the results not have changed. Sahlman probably would even have lost a few seconds.
That is a straw man. The question would sahlman run faster if he did some 60m in addition to the endurance work or if Flatt would have been faster with more aerobic development. You would need to know their whole training to hazard a guess.
And as people have said a zillion times define speed development. Define it narrow enough and yeah no distance guy should do it. Expand it 10-15s sprints with 90s+ rest, basically everyone should.
A distance runner can do sprints until the cows come home and not improve his top-end speed. Strength does play a factor, but the guy with better leg speed is usually going to win.
Between himself and Dellinger, Salazar had tremendous coaching but he never improved his top-end speed. When the kicks started, he would be instantly gapped.
I always wonder how many people on this board who post on this type of thread have real experience with "speed training". At the core, speed is totally genetic, but can really be developed to get the most out of yourself.
Here's my take, as a guy who ran 50.1 (open), 1:54, 4:28, 16:19 in high school running 20-25 miles a week max... My coach trained me and mid-distance teammates using essentially the Clyde Hart system.
Speed training will make you way more efficient at running slower speeds (important for distance runners) just as strength training (weights) will make your legs stronger. If you are stronger and faster each step you take, you, in theory, don't need as much aerobic training to run the same speed. Add aerobic training, you are faster and have better endurance.
As a 17-18 year old at the beginning of an indoor track season I would run 52-53 splits in the first 4x400 of the year. After a meet or two, I was spitting 51's. By the end of the season I was in the 49's. Never ran any intervals longer than 300m's. Beginning of the season we did 200m's at 29-31 and were not smooth, end of the season was so easy to run 25-26's and not be phased. The first meet of the season is what I attributed to 'natural' ability and the end was '[practiced' or honed. That was the speed training. Early in college as I got stronger and slowly increased my mileage (this was hard for my body), I really needed to back off on the speed training because of injury and fatigue. It was frustrating because I wasn't as light and quick as I was, even as a high-schooler. Eventually, I could add more of the speed training to the mileage (albeit low by Letsrun standards) because my body could handle it better, and that's when I ran 1:51 and a 4:12 mile, on about 55-60 mpw. I also split low 49 in a relay
To me, speed comes pretty easily, but is easy to lose. It's like the bench press. You do it for a few months and you're super strong, you stop for a few months and that goes away, but it can come back.
Why wouldn't you work on your leg speed so you can outkick or cruise by people at the end of a race, especially if you are in equal aerobic shape?
Top sprinters can produce more lactate/pyruvate per unit of time than distance runners can, but have less oxidative capabilities to get rid of said chemicals, hence their longer recoveries.
The explanation I have read is that training for max speed involves working the nervous system, and the nervous system takes a few minutes to settle down after any quick work. But really, the reason why anyone working on sprinting should take long recovery between sprints, is that coaches and athletes have found it to be the way that works the best.
Not necessarily any quick work. I found this thread mentioning how one certain very fast runner would do sprints with relatively short recoveries:
Well here we go againthe discussion is does training anaerobic only destroys long distance talent(permanently).Or doesnt it really matter if you work on speed first and keep mileage rediculiously low and then go to super high...
The explanation I have read is that training for max speed involves working the nervous system, and the nervous system takes a few minutes to settle down after any quick work. But really, the reason why anyone working on sprinting should take long recovery between sprints, is that coaches and athletes have found it to be the way that works the best.
Not necessarily any quick work. I found this thread mentioning how one certain very fast runner would do sprints with relatively short recoveries:
This post is one of the best distance runner centric discussions on this topic I've ever seen. It's very similar to Jan Olbrecht's swimming focused explanation of anaerobic capacity and anaerobic power in "The Science of Winning."
I think it's important to separate the metabolic goal of improved anaerobic capacity and the neurological goal of improved max speed in training discussions. Both are (probably) good goals, but the different training needed for each can lead to confusion. Also, I noticed Canova suggested using them in a progression. Barring training time limitations, I wonder if they could both be performed most weeks during a base phase, or if this wouldn't make much sense.
mid d guys do some pure speed workouts - usually stuff like 200s
distance guys do hills, sometimes hill sprints. But other than for hill training, the speed development doesn't have a lot of place at 5000 and beyond. Its never raw speed that comes into play on the bell lap, its endurance. Running all out when your legs are tired is endurance, not speed. Now in the 12s for 5k it might be a little different. A close race in the 12s could be won by speed over the last lap.
The reason most distance runners don't do speed development is because it isn't part of the tradition of distance running training. Also speed development done wrong both burns you out and dramatically increases the chance of injury. Most coaches don't know how to program it and most athletes hate doing it. You basically have to switch your brain from a "love the grind" distance training perspective to "do the bare minimum" sprint training perspective.
The concepts of speed and speed reserve are well established in sprint training and spriting based sports like football, rugby, etc... For example, 100M sprinters use the concept to win races. If your top speed is Y m/s and you can win your heat with 98% of that speed and your competition needs to run 99% of their top speed, then you have a much higher chance to win the final because you stressed your body less in the heats.
Most distance runners do speed work wrong.
1. Any "sprint" over 60m-80m isn't really a sprint. A 80m sprint at full gas is incredibly taxing and even sprinters are very cautious about long sprints at full gas.
2. The time between reps needs to be long. Like at least 2-3 mins long and most distance runners go crazy waiting that long.
3. You need to start slow and have very little volume. Most distance runners would get crazy sore from just the warm up needed to do a top end speed workout. Most distance runners would get 95% of the benefit just from practicing sprint drills.
4. Start way easier than you think when doing top speed and leave at least three reps in reserve. Do about 60% of what you think is needed in any given session but try to do 2 sessions a week to build up those connective tissues and brain circuity.
Also, most distance runners aren't strong enough to really run fast
Playing ball is all the great jumpers need to strengthen their legs. A vertical jump requires fast-twitch muscles and bulking up slow-twitch ones won’t make a difference. You haven’t heard of the movie White Men Can’t Jump?
You can improve a little with training but, yeah, either you have ups or you don’t.
A sprint coach will tell you - I can make you faster, but I can't make you fast.
For anything over 800m I am not sure max speed workouts (sleds, 60s, fly 20s) are needed, but I would coach them. And to do top speed workouts, you need serious gym work, eg cleans for power, but also nordics to protect your hammys.
You can improve a little with training but, yeah, either you have ups or you don’t.
A sprint coach will tell you - I can make you faster, but I can't make you fast.
For anything over 800m I am not sure max speed workouts (sleds, 60s, fly 20s) are needed, but I would coach them. And to do top speed workouts, you need serious gym work, eg cleans for power, but also nordics to protect your hammys.
Nordics are pretty controversial. Vern Gambetya is very vocal about how he thinks nordics are one of the reasons for an increase in hamstring injuries.
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